“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, Jake. Go ask Meredith.”
“Fine,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’ll have Meredith do it.” Jake then made like he was about to run off before I stopped him by placing my hand on his shoulder.
“Jake,” I said calmly. “Can we talk tomorrow morning?”
“About what?” he asked confusedly.
“Just… stuff,” I said. “Don’t worry about it now. But we need to talk tomorrow.” I could see a bit of fear in his eyes, like he knew what was coming. But he just nodded and offered me a wan smile.
“Okay,” he said. Then he was gone. I smiled to myself.
With that boost of confidence, I put one foot in front of the other and walked myself over toward where Kelsie stood. I was eager to speak with her. I needed her for further encouragement. I wanted to open up, I wanted to break free. The room was filled with all the people from the film shoot, talking loudly, already getting drunk, excited for their time in Champlain to be up. I didn’t blame them. This town was cheap for them to film in for a reason. I’m sure they were all eager to leave, just as I was.
Approaching Kelsie, I butted into the conversation and spoke up.
“Hey Kelsie,” I said. “Can I chat with you?”
There were two men that had been talking with her, both producers, and together they gave me a sort of incredulous look, like ‘who the hell does this chick think she is?’ I didn’t care what they thought of me, though. My mind was finally beginning to get some clarity and I was just going for it. I was really ready to start living for me.
“Sure!” said Kelsie with a grin. “Guys, I’ll catch up with you in a bit.” Pushing past the two men, Kelsie reached her hand out to me and I took it. Together we walked away from them toward another corner of the room, a place that looked a bit more secluded and quiet.
After we had gotten out of earshot, Kelsie spoke up.
“Thanks,” she said. “I was getting tired of talking to them. Honest to God, I’m sick of these producers trying to get in my pants.”
“Is that really what that’s all about?” I asked naively.
“Yeah,” she said. “Seriously. I mean, I’m not shy about being a lesbian, these people know it, but that doesn’t stop them. And yeah, they’re responsible for a lot of the money in these productions, and my paycheck, but I’m so sick of being held hostage by these creepy dudes. I mean, they’re all looking for their young trophy wife. It’s sickening.”
“I’m glad I saved you then,” I said with a smile, offering Kelsie’s hand a light squeeze.
“I could use a glass of champagne,” she said absently, craning her neck and looking off toward the drinks table. “It looks like all the bottles are empty.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think Jake is having some more picked up.”
“Well, whatever!” said Kelsie, almost instantly forgetting her thirst. “So what’s up?”
“Oh, um,” I said, fumbling a bit, searching for my words. “I was going to talk to you about this earlier, when you came back from the shoot,” I said. “But, you know, you were in kind of a frenetic mood.”
“Ha, yeah,” said Kelsie. “Sorry about that.”
“I’ve been thinking it over,” I went on. “About what we’ve been talking about. And I think that I do want to come out to LA with you… if you’ll still have me, of course. Like, if you were being real about all that.”
“Audra,” said Kelsie, sizing me up, a satisfied smirk on her lips as her head slowly nodded. “Look at you. What about all the indecision up here?” she asked, moving her hand around my head like she was outlining a storm cloud.
“This is intensely scary for me,” I said. “Don’t make fun.”
“Why’s it so scary?” she asked. “I mean, you hop on a plane, take a nap, you wake up and you’re in sunny California. It doesn’t even take 5 hours.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just, I don’t know, some fear. It’s like, I’ve been holding myself back for so long, fretting so much about not living up to my dreams for myself, it feels like I’m frozen… you know?”
“I know,” she said with an empathetic smile. “You’re gonna be just fine.”
“I worry about my father,” I said. “He relies on me to bring home some money.”
“He’ll figure it out,” said Kelsie. “You can’t sacrifice your own happiness in service of others. I mean, you can’t really help anybody unless you can first help yourself.”
“You sound like my mother,” I said. “And she’s pretty selfish.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a healthy dose of selfishness,” said Kelsie. “Would you rather that you… no, would you rather your mother was miserable?”
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the anxiety work itself around my head. “I don’t want to talk about this. If I talk about it anymore I’m going to back out or something. So can I stay on your couch or not?”
“Audra!” she said through a tickled laugh. “The couch thing was a joke.” Stepping forward, Kelsie slithered an arm around my waist. “You can stay in my bed with me.”
“Okay,” I said demurely, looking down with a half-embarrassed grin. I raised my hand and lightly caressed Kelsie’s bare arm.
“Look,” said Kelsie, her eyes darting around to make sure nobody could hear her. “I’ve got to stay at this thing a little while longer and chat with people, be friendly with the crew, all that, but I’ve got just a little bit of that weed left that I need to get rid before we head back to LA. Do you have any ideas where we could smoke it here at the hotel without getting caught?”
“The roof,” I said matter-of-factly. “I can get us up on the roof.”
“Perfect,” she said. “Let’s do that tonight and then you stay over again. I’m free tomorrow and I can help you with anything you need. How does that sound?”
“It sounds nice,” I admitted.
“Of course it does,” said Kelsie. She leaned in and planted a sweet kiss on my cheek. “Grab a bottle of champagne, too, when your boss or whoever brings them back,” she said. “We’ll get wild tonight.”
Although drinking and smoking wasn’t usually my thing, I knew I could stand to relax a little bit, quiet the anxiety, kill the inner critic. And I can admit that Kelsie’s invitation made me fiercely excited. There was just something so great in her acceptance of me. I felt like I could say anything to her and she wouldn’t get upset. That’s a rare find. It’s not often you find someone you feel that open with. I don’t think I’d ever felt that in any other human being I’d ever encountered.
I just smiled wide at Kelsie and gave her a quick nod. The two of us looked into one another’s eyes for a pregnant moment before Kelsie broke our gaze and turned away from me.
“I’ll be thinking about you,” she said coolly as she began to mosey off. My knees felt wobbly. I couldn’t believe that all of this was happening to me.
“Just climb up there,” I said, following Kelsie up the slightly rusty ladder that was hidden away in a locked closet on the top floor of the hotel. As Kelsie climbed, I turned my eyes upwards and caught a glimpse up her dress, spotting her bright white panties.
“Oh, I see the little hatch door,” she mused as she stepped up. I climbed up behind her, a bottle of champagne lodged under my arm with two paper cups inside one another fitted on top of the bottle. After a moment of me not responding to her, Kelsie turned her head and looked down at me. “Are you looking up my dress?”
“Yes,” I said, snickering up at her.
“No fair,” she said. “I knew I should have made you go up first.”
“If you want to look up my dress,” I said. “All you have to do is ask.”
“I’ll remember that offer,” said Kelsie with a grin. “Now how do I get this thing open?” She smacked her palm against the hatch door in the room a few times, coaxing out a clanking sound.
Soon the two of us were up on the roof of the Hotel Champlain. The night was
quiet but the air conditioning unit for the hotel made an incessant hum, sometimes firing up with a much louder noise as it did its job. There were two folding chairs out on the roof and Kelsie and I pulled them closer together and sat next to one another, looking out to the west.
“You can totally see Lake Michigan from here,” Kelsie mused, looking off as I popped the cork from the champagne bottle and filled our cups.
“Yep,” I said.
“And it’s so dark out,” she said. “Apart from the stars, there’s like no light at all. This place really is beautiful, Audra.”
“It’s beautiful,” I admitted. “But, you know, out here it’s kind of redneck. I don’t really fit in ultimately with a lot of these people. Actually, I should have been a redneck myself but I just came out of the womb different. Maybe my mother’s hippie sensibilities or whatever.”
“Thanks,” said Kelsie, accepting the paper cup as I handed it to her. “There’s something to be said for living in a redneck sort of town.”
“What’s that?” I countered. “Get out while you still can!”
“I’ve found the people here to be pretty nice,” said Kelsie with a shrug. “I don’t know.”
“But you don’t live here,” I said. “They are nice, but it’s just… suffocating. Especially being a lesbian, especially being more artistically inclined.”
“Okay, okay,” she smiled over at me. “I’m not going to fight you on it.”
“Why don’t you tell me about where you came from?” I said. “I don’t think we’ve even talked about that.”
“I think I told you I grew up in a commune, right?”
“Right.”
“Very hippie-dippy,” said Kelsie, taking a sip from her cup and looking out in the starry night sky. “Idyllic, really.”
“So kind of out there in the middle of nowhere like me?” I asked.
“Sorta,” she said. “I mean, it was close to San Francisco so it’s not like we were so far out. And that was really only the first 10 years or so of my life. After that, we moved to San Francisco proper and, well, the rest is kind of history…”
“And your parents?” I said softly. “What are they like?”
“My parents,” she repeated with a smile. “Artists,” Kelsie intoned with finality. “Kind of quirky and strange, but good people. And hard working.”
“That’s nice,” I mused, thinking of my own parents. My mother could have been an artist, or maybe she wanted to be an artist. But that desire was quite nebulous, I think, and I wouldn’t describe her as hard working.
“They supported me,” said Kelsie as she thought more about it. “I think a lot of parents, when confronted with a daughter who wants to be an actress, might try to persuade them against doing it because it’s such a long shot. But they were cool with it. I think that’s because they didn’t really even hit their strides as artists until their 40s. They sacrificed a lot of the usual creature comforts of life in service of their art. And ultimately, that paid off for them.”
“How so?”
“They’ve both been quite successful as artists, both of them painters,” she said. “Successful as in financially successful, notoriety in that world. It took them a while, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. Not everybody can be some savant who hits it big in their field at 21.”
“Or 27,” I said with a grin.
“Right,” Kelsie laughed. “But I think it’s much harder for older actresses to get the good paying gigs. Not impossible, but Hollywood likes to sell young sex.”
“You’re very self-aware,” I admitted. “And smart.” She laughed again.
“C’mon,” said Kelsie. “You’re making me blush.”
“Like I could make a famous actress blush,” I said.
“You still think that I’m some otherworldly person?” Kelsie asked with a smile. “You aren’t yet satisfied that I’m pretty much normal, just like you?”
“Well…”
“Well, nothing,” said Kelsie. “I’ve told you, Audra, I don’t quite fit in to my world either because I’m not super self-absorbed and all that. I’m lucky to have the parents I do and the life experiences I’ve had. It’s grounded me.” Kelsie reached over and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. Our hands stayed pressed, fingers knitted together.
“I’m sorry,” I said, looking down. “I’m just full of dumb assumptions.”
“No need to put yourself down,” she said, offering another hand squeeze.
Then there was silence. But it was comfortable silence. Nothing awkward. I think we both just enjoyed being in each other’s company. I knew that I for sure enjoyed being with Kelsie and she seemed happy to be with me. It confused me a little, it was perplexing that someone might like me as Kelsie did, but I was trying hard not to have thoughts like that because I knew how unproductive they were. I was a good person and I deserved this. I had to repeat that mantra sometimes. I am a good person and I do deserve this.
When I looked at Kelsie, when I looked at her face, full of joy and promise and life and success, I saw real possibility. Like, I could have that. I could have what she has. Different, of course, I couldn’t imagine being an actress, but she represented opportunity. She was an incarnation of accomplishment and how down to Earth she was just nailed it home. I was inspired by her.
The two of us sat there in continued silence, holding hands, sipping from our cups, gazing out into the star-filled night sky until I mustered the courage to speak up again.
“So it’s okay that I come with you?” I asked timidly. “Like, I’m not overstepping or anything like that.”
Kelsie looked at me again, her lips tenderly smiling, her eyes bright. She waited a beat before she spoke.
“I think coming with me will be the best thing you’ve ever done,” she said. “So don’t overthink it. We’re going to have a blast together.”
“Okay,” I said with a bit of trepidation, giving a single nod. It was scary. It was scary to leave everything I knew, even though that’s all I wanted to do, all I had thought about for the longest time. Now that it was upon me, though, like literally days away, it was a frightening proposition. I just had to trust life, trust whatever had brought Kelsie to me, trust Kelsie herself, that this would break me out of my shell and usher me into the world I’d always wanted for myself.
“Tomorrow the crew is going to be packing everything up and preparing it for the long haul back to California,” said Kelsie. “And the next day, we’re boarding the studio’s jet and flying back.”
“That’s it, huh?”
“That’s it,” said Kelsie. “And you’ll be on that jet with me.”
“Is it weird that I’ve never been on an airplane before?” I said shyly.”
“Very weird,” said Kelsie. “But I won’t hold it against you.” She offered me a wink.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” I said. “Anything this impetuous. I mean, I couldn’t even tell my boss this evening that I was leaving.”
“You’ll tell him tomorrow,” said Kelsie. “Consider yourself done with this job.”
“And my father,” I continued with sadness. “I don’t know how I’ll tell him.”
“You just will. You just have to do it.”
“I know this is right,” I said. “I know I’ve got to take this chance. I really like you, Kelsie. I mean, really,” I said, looking over at her with pleading seriousness in my eyes. My heart yearned for her. I was so totally in love. She was so beautiful and perfect and smart and accepting. Kelsie was everything I wanted to be and I wanted to learn from her.
“I like you,” Kelsie returned. “You’re so cute and innocent and true,” she said. “Audra, you’re like what I aspire to be.”
“What?” I said, now confused. Here I was harping on how much I wanted to be like Kelsie and she throws the same feelings right back at me.
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I’m spoiled by so much. I had this weird artsy upbringing, I lived in San Francisco, now I’m fa
mous and I basically get whatever I want. It makes me feel like I’m missing out on something so simple. Does that make sense?” she asked, raising her brow at me.
“I think so.”
“It’s just that… it’s like I’ve walked through some door that I can’t return through. And you’re living on that other side where things are much simpler, much easier. That’s what attracts me to you,” Kelsie admitted. “I’m hoping that maybe some of that rubs off on me.”
It was then that I really saw Kelsie for who she was. The facade I’d built up in my mind of who I assumed she was, this Hollywood big shot or whatever, this character that logically I knew she wasn’t but kept trying to convince myself she was, it all came crumbling down. Kelsie was real. She had hopes, she had fears, she was self-conscious of who she was. And it was so reassuring to me that we were drawn together for similar reasons. It was some sort of strange providence that had brought us together at a time when either of us needed the other most. This realization invigorated me, it turned a key, it changed me. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling as I thought about it all.
“I’ll try,” I said, still smiling. “I’ll try to rub off on you.”
Back down in Kelsie’s hotel room, with the lights low, the moonlight subtly shining in through the window covered only by an opaque curtain, the two of us completely naked together in Kelsie’s bed, she laying down and slightly turned to her side, me sitting up with one of her legs tossed over my thigh, our soft moist middles rubbed vigorously together, both of us happily writhing against each other. I was feeling impossibly aroused by this carnal activity. It was something I’d never done before but gave it a try at Kelsie’s insistence. But feeling how wonderful it made me feel, I was happy to have been open enough to Kelsie to agree to it.
Hotel Hollywood: A Lesbian Romance Page 11
