I Love the 80s

by Crane, Megan

  ‘What I mean is, you need to hurry up and get down there,’ Princess Diana Hair said in that same snotty tone, like Jenna was acting brain-dead on purpose, just to annoy her. ‘What are you waiting for? Like, an engraved invitation?’

  ‘Um, okay, thanks,’ Jenna muttered. She wasn’t sure where all the attitude was coming from, given that she and Princess Diana Hair had never laid eyes on each other before. Of course, Jenna was not a receptionist. Nor was she wearing her hair in homage to a long-dead princess. So maybe acting like a snotty bitch was par for the course with someone who was the former and was doing the latter.

  Jenna went over to the elevator and pressed the down button, surprised when the doors opened immediately. That almost never happened. When she stepped inside, she could see that Princess Diana Hair was still glaring after her. Very much as if Jenna had done something to wrong her, personally.

  Jenna frowned as the elevator began to move. Did she know Princess Diana Hair from somewhere? Or – and this made her stomach clench in horror – did she feel as if she’d gone on some week-long bender because she had? Jenna had certainly had a night or two that had disappeared into the black much sooner than they should have, but this felt entirely different. Jenna would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that she had never met that girl before, but the way she’d looked at Jenna suggested she would not say the same.

  And Jenna still didn’t know who Peter Hale was, or why he was in her office.

  3

  Down on the lower floor, Jenna made her way across the lobby and into the studio, moving at a fast clip until the general weirdness all around her started to make an impression.

  Everyone was dressed oddly. Ridiculously oddly, in fact.

  There was a woman in a cherry-red Eighties power suit marching down the hallway, her shoulder pads like wings. Where one could even find a power suit like that, cut to mimic long-gone divas of night-time television, Jenna could not imagine. Alexis Carrington Colby would have been proud. Then she noticed more Eighties extravagances, like the two men having a conversation in the corner, both in pastel suits with pastel T-shirts underneath, and loafers without socks. It was so Sonny Crockett, it hurt. Jenna slowed her pace without meaning to, as she found herself looking around at one far too realistic and strange outfit after another.

  It was one thing to throw out a little Eighties flair on the Eighties TV floor, Jenna thought, bewildered. A side ponytail here, a skinny tie there – that was the job. But it was something else entirely to rock vintage Miami Vice apparel on the Video TV studio level, where they filmed all the shows that were supposed to compete with MTV. It was like someone had announced a company-wide dress-up day, but had forgotten to tell Jenna.

  But then, Jenna was getting the feeling that there was a lot someone had forgotten to tell her today.

  ‘Jen, thank God!’ a nasal voice cried.

  Another person Jenna had never seen in her entire life ran up to her and grabbed her arm. He was a tiny little man, wearing an outfit that would not have looked out of place on Jon Cryer in Pretty in Pink. Right down to the skinny tie and high-tops. Jenna smiled automatically as confusion washed through her, as much because this person was talking to her in such a familiar manner as because of his bizarre work attire.

  ‘They’ve been complete assholes all morning,’ Elfin Jon Cryer said in a low voice, tugging Jenna along with him with a hand on her lower back, in complete defiance of all the sexual-harassment rules governing the touching of co-workers in the workplace. Jenna stiffened, but he just kept talking and propelling her along in front of him. ‘You’re the only one who can talk any sense into them. All I want is good television here, it’s not like I’m looking to scale the Berlin Wall, for Christ’s sake!’

  As the last time Jenna had heard someone reference the Berlin Wall in casual conversation was sometime in high school, she could only stare at him. She even forgot for a moment that he was still touching her.

  ‘Okay, fine,’ he said, as if Jenna had communicated something with that stare. ‘I get that they think their video image will be tarnished or something, but come on. Everyone wants to see them play a few songs live. They can play live, can’t they?’ That last part sounded particularly urgent.

  ‘I don’t have any idea how to answer that,’ Jenna said, very truthfully.

  Elfin Jon Cryer sighed heavily and then laughed very suddenly. Apparently, a victim of both mood swings and fashion. Or, possibly, narcotics.

  ‘Well,’ he said with another sigh as they approached the doors to the set, ‘this is on my head, which means it’s on yours. Let’s make sure it works out, okay, Jen?’

  Jenna opened her mouth to ask him to please not call her Jen, as she preferred Jenna (which, fortuitously, was also her name), to request that he remove his small elfin hand from her body, and also to ask him who, exactly, he was. But instead, as soon as the doors opened, the voices inside slammed into her like a wave. A very loud and angry wave.

  ‘See?’ Elfin Jon Cryer demanded. ‘All morning it’s been like this!’

  He leaned close, put his other hand on Jenna’s back – which she felt was an even greater intrusion into her personal space, hello – pushed her none too gently forward, and then let the heavy door slam behind her. The loud group of people arguing under the lights turned to look at her as she stumbled towards them, making Jenna feel she was the one under a spotlight instead of them.

  It was okay, though. Jenna had finally figured out that she was dreaming. Aimee had called her out for her ‘Eighties obsession’, and so she was dreaming some strange anxiety dream about people with some serious issues in that area, all set at work just to up the ante, and now that Jenna had realized it was a dream she could simply force herself to wake up.

  Wake up! she ordered herself.

  It did not have the desired effect.

  In the meantime, she continued walking towards the group on set.

  My subconscious is good, Jenna thought smugly. Because instead of the retro set Eighties TV used every day, this set was done up to look like that iconic one from back in the day, when Video TV and MTV had battled it out every night in the ratings and VJs had lived like gods. Jenna had clearly taken note of every detail, from the sunken couches to the wacky videos on the wall, to the faux-trashed look. She had even installed famously sulky VJ Harrison T. in the corner, he of the pouty lips and pouty hair, despite the fact that she had always personally preferred the more preppy and accessible Digby Jones. Her subconscious dream-mind certainly got points for effort and originality!

  ‘Nice of you to show up,’ Harrison sulked at Jenna as she approached. ‘The band refuses to play acoustic. They say you promised them they could lip-sync.’

  Jenna pasted a smile across her face. Perhaps Aimee had a point, if she was remembering the Eighties all the way down to that petulant little pout Harrison T. was wearing, an expression Jenna associated with music from Depeche Mode and the Cure. Jenna restrained herself, barely, from breaking into the chorus of ‘Blasphemous Rumours’.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said a crisp, upper-crust British voice. Jenna saw the speaker uncurl herself from her seat and draw herself up to an impressive height. ‘She’s some kind of worker bee. What can she possibly add to this travesty?’

  ‘She’s the one who takes care of the bookings,’ Harrison T. retorted. Which was news to Jenna. Apparently her subconscious had given her a promotion, too. Even more points. ‘She can tell you what it says in the band’s contract.’

  ‘This is bollocks,’ replied the woman.

  Who, Jenna realized, shocked, was Eugenia Wentworth.

  Jenna had to restrain herself from gaping. Eugenia was skinnier than she looked in photos, and much uglier, not that Jenna was at all biased. Jenna had originally hated Eugenia on principle, of course, because she got to be with Tommy, but there was no denying the fact that the camera found things to love about Eugenia’s oddly angled face and ferrety mouth that the naked eye failed to see. Or that Jenna’s nake
d eye failed to see.

  ‘Eugenia,’ Jenna said in greeting, as if they were acquainted. Because Jenna felt that in a sense they were, after twenty years of watching Eugenia climb to undeserved fame on the back of Tommy’s death. She might as well tap dance on his grave, the bitch. ‘How nice to see you.’

  Eugenia actually curled her lip, like she was some kind of rabid, upper-crust British dog.

  But Jenna had already forgotten her, because he was stepping around Eugenia, and frowning down into Jenna’s upturned face. Jenna stopped breathing. The lights, the voices – everything disappeared. There was only him.

  Those sea-green eyes, even narrowed in annoyance, made Jenna’s heart kick into high gear. His soft, gorgeous hair was dark around his face and curled over the headband he wore.

  It said something that he looked so beautiful even dressed in those ridiculous period clothes. That a headband failed to detract from the impact of his lean jaw or his delicious mouth.

  Tommy Seer was still the best-looking man Jenna had ever seen. She could feel herself melt as she stared at him.

  Okay, sure, she had variations on this dream all the time. So what?

  But this was the best dream yet. Jenna took a breath and realized that she could smell things – like Eugenia’s cloud of suffocating perfume, and the cigarette Harrison T. was smoking, right there on set.

  But mostly, she could gaze at Tommy Seer as if he really was standing there, his brow furrowed into that adorable frown. It was a dream, after all, and she didn’t need to worry about what Aimee thought while she was dreaming. She didn’t have to wonder if she really was hiding away from real life – she was too busy just dreaming. And in this dream, Tommy Seer seemed to have a kind of electricity that hummed around him, like he was that much more than the average guy. He was that compelling, even with that frown.

  The frown was an interesting touch, Jenna thought with a distant part of her mind, the part that wasn’t swooning over Tommy’s magnetic closeness. Usually her Tommy dreams concentrated more on the he took one look at her and realized he loved her angle. This was new. Not necessarily unpleasant or anything, but new.

  ‘Are you listening?’ he demanded.

  Funny, for some reason in her dream Jenna had given him an American accent. How weird. Everyone knew that Tommy Seer was British.

  ‘Uh, yes,’ Jenna said, playing along, because that meant she could keep gazing at him. She felt heat bloom across her cheeks. ‘I’m listening.’ And I love you.

  ‘We don’t want to play live,’ he said, his frown deepening as he regarded her steadily. ‘We never would have agreed to a live show. Not on Video TV. We’re just here to do the VJ thing.’

  Still an American accent.

  ‘Wow,’ Jenna said dreamily, without really meaning to speak. ‘It’s just so weird that you’re talking in an American accent.’

  Everyone in the room seemed to let out a collective sort of groan.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tommy said, his gaze going icy. ‘Weird.’

  ‘I told you to stay in character!’ Nick, supposedly the shy one, bellowed at top volume as he vibrated up and to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. ‘You arrogant prick!’

  Jenna had been so focused on Tommy that she’d neglected to pay attention to the rest of the band. Normally, this sort of dream cut them out altogether and spent delicious time on the gazing and Tommy’s immediate realization that Jenna and only Jenna could cure his lonely—

  ‘This is getting us nowhere,’ too-cool-for-school Sebastian said, except he didn’t sound cool at all. He sounded tense. Jittery. His knee was bouncing up and down and he was fingering his bright blond soul patch nervously. ‘We have to figure out what we’re going to do on the show.’

  Richie didn’t contribute to the discussion, as he was too busy idly playing with the back of Sebastian’s feathered mullet, an act that was quite evidently not in the least platonic. Not that Jenna had ever seen too many examples of any platonic running of fingers through hair, now that she thought about it. In her dream, for some reason, Sebastian and Richie, who’d given long interviews about their many women and their heterosexual whoring ways, were gay. Or, at any rate, together. Jenna didn’t know why she was surprised. After George Michael, it was really only to be expected. Men that good-looking never tended to be straight in real life, did they? It was just that she’d never heard a single whisper about Richie or Sebastian’s sexuality in all the years she’d been obsessed with the band. Why she’d chosen to out the two of them in her dream, she couldn’t say.

  It was like they were all strangers, these guys Jenna knew so many details about. They were all acting out of character – especially Tommy, who didn’t, as a rule, spend any time looking annoyed with her in her own dreams, like he was now. It was a little bit upsetting. This was less a comforting Wild Boys dream – the kind Jenna sank into at the drop of a hat and used to soothe herself – and more an alternate-universe Wild Boys dream where nothing was as it ought to be.

  Why on earth would she dream this?

  4

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ asked a rough voice from the door behind Jenna, taking the words right out of her mouth. Though she might not have chosen such a belligerent tone. ‘I take the wife and kids on a much-needed break on a goddamned beach in Jamaica and this is what happens while I’m gone?’

  When Jenna turned around, Duncan Paradis was standing there.

  The Duncan Paradis, music manager extraordinaire. He was famous for picking one or two acts every decade and managing them right into the stratosphere. At this point, all he had to do was announce a name for the musician to start raking in the fame, fortune, and full coverage in the tabloids. According to US Weekly, Jenna’s favourite source of celebrity gossip, Britney Spears had begged Duncan to spearhead her comeback following her divorce from K-Fed, and he’d refused because he was all about the new. Obviously. Because the acts that Duncan Paradis managed were always, always, untouchably huge stars who didn’t need to rehab their image.

  He’d discovered – some said created – the Wild Boys, had gone on to manage the grunge queen Lauren Neopolitan herself, had formed the boy band Real almost, it seemed, to prove to himself and the world that he could steal N’Sync’s and the Backstreet Boys’ thunder if he wanted to, and he was currently raking in the benefits of having discovered the crossover pop, country, and R&B sensation Fuchsia Kelly – his powerhouse answer to all the American Idol girls. He was a living legend.

  And now he was standing in front of Jenna minus the trademark shock of snow-white hair he’d started sporting in the early Nineties. This version of Duncan Paradis was slimmer, trimmer, and unquestionably younger. This version, in fact, was one Jenna had only seen in those colour-photo centrepieces they always stuck in the Unofficial Biographies.

  ‘Babe,’ Eugenia Wentworth purred. ‘At last.’

  Jenna watched in astonishment as Tommy Seer’s fiancée flitted from the stage to Duncan’s side. She towered over him, but that only made it seem more lascivious when she leaned down and kissed him. With evident delight, and visible tongue. Ew. Despite the fact she was supposedly engaged to the man standing right in front of her, and Duncan had moments before referenced his wife and kids.

  Was it really that hard for engaged people to remember who they were engaged to, Jenna wondered – not that she was taking it at all personally.

  The most shocking part of the whole thing was that Jenna was the only one who looked the slightest bit surprised by this development. Even Tommy, the nearest wronged party, looked bored.

  How someone who could have Tommy Seer would choose … anyone else, ever, was a mystery to Jenna. Much less a man who – while admittedly powerful – looked like Karl Lagerfeld’s less attractive brother. Jenna wondered if her subconscious had finally gone round the bend, because this dream was starting to creep her out.

  ‘Tommy’s being a complete wanker,’ Eugenia tattled, obviously enjoying herself. She rubbed herself against Duncan, who di
dn’t look thrilled with the attention – but didn’t push her away, either. ‘No one seems to be able to talk any sense into him. I told them they have to do the live show, babe, but no one will listen to me.’

  ‘No one will listen to you because you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tommy snapped from his place on the stage. He hadn’t moved, but Jenna was close enough to him that she could see he’d tensed up almost imperceptibly at the sight of Duncan. Or maybe it was the sight of his fiancée after all, as she practically licked Duncan’s face.

  ‘All I know is that we’re running out of rehearsal time,’ Harrison T. complained. He lit another cigarette and made a lazy smoke circle in the air. ‘We’ve already kicked out the entire crew, who are sitting on their asses somewhere, waiting to hear what happens next, and we have to start the live show in forty-five minutes. This argument has gone on for way too long.’

  This was the most Jenna had ever heard Harrison T. speak, given that he had spent the bulk of his on-air time looking pensive and/or troubled and saying things like, ‘What can anyone say about “Boys Don’t Cry” that’s not in the title?’ He had been emo long before there was a vocabulary word to describe it.

  ‘Why don’t you take ten minutes?’ Duncan asked him pleasantly. Harrison T. merely shrugged. Jenna wasn’t fooled by Duncan’s pleasant tone, which was maybe why his eyes turned to her, then flicked to Tommy. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Booking,’ Tommy said tersely. ‘Apparently.’ They both looked at Jenna. Not, she thought, nicely. She could feel it in her stomach, like an ache.

  ‘Yeah,’ Harrison T. said, as he drifted to his feet, sounding amused. ‘And more to the point, Ken Dollimore’s eyes and ears.’ He smirked. Or, possibly, that was his smile. Jenna had never seen it before. No one had, as far as she knew. One of the great mysteries of the Eighties, aside from the popularity of the Breakin’ movie franchise, was whether or not Harrison T. had teeth.