Fame Adjacent

by Sarah Skilton

  I asked my Prevail! tour guide why our beds were top-of-the-line but the rest of the place was…less so, and she told me a key part of our treatment was to associate our bedrooms with sleep and nothing else. Supposedly, if we can learn to keep our screens out of that “sacred area,” we’ll feel much better rested on the outside.

  (Also, they’re waiting for more funding to spruce up the place.)

  Remember that Simpsons episode where they visit Grandpa in the old folks’ home and the sign says PLEASE DO NOT SPEAK OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD? That goes double for us. I feel like I’m on Reverse Rumspringa. The magazines are several years out of date. I almost read a Better Homes and Gardens with Mel on the cover from her “housewife, kids, and cooking” rebrand.

  I wear my wrist guards at night and that helps with my tendinitis and repetitive stress syndrome. Speaking of hands, mine are killing me writing this. I wasn’t sure I’d even remember how to write in cursive. Can you read this? Or does it look like the walls in A Beautiful Mind?

  How is Lainey? Are you getting her all packed and ready for Belgium? If you need suggestions for books on the plane, she’s been into the Descendants (kids of supervillains) lately. And don’t forget to pack her Ollie Owl and sticker book/checklist. She says she doesn’t care, but she’ll want it with her for when she sees certain monuments, etc.—she’ll be bummed if she can’t check them off.

  I crumpled up the sheet of paper and started over. This time I didn’t mention Lainey. It was none of my business. Not anymore.

  Besides, by the time the letter reached them, they’d be gone.

  4

  When she was four, Lainey went to half-day preschool three times a week. After her first fire drill, she returned flush with information.

  “If you are in a fire,” she advised me, “turn yourself into a turtle. Then you’ll be flat and can squeeze under the door. You have to check for smoke first, though.”

  “Turn myself into a turtle,” I repeated, with utmost seriousness. “Got it.”

  5

  Despite the cafeteria being filled to capacity, mealtimes were eerily quiet. No one seemed to remember how to talk to each other. The only sounds were plastic forks and knives tapping against each other in a futile attempt to cut the food. There were no smartphones to hide behind when the conversation lulled, and anyway, for a conversation to lull, it had to have been there to begin with.

  I didn’t have anywhere to sit yet so I trudged over to the meds window for my daily dose of D. Some of us were being simultaneously treated for obsessive-compulsive behavior, depression, or anxiety, but all of us received vitamin D because it was assumed—correctly—that we rarely ventured outside. I was also allotted one Dixie cup of Coke Classic to curb my caffeine withdrawal. Coffee was verboten, but chamomile tea was available as a sleep aid before bed.

  The window-swiping woman got up to bus her tray, so I commandeered her seat, noticing too late that it put me across from Mr. Pretend It’s Your Nightclub Act.

  He stood and held out his hand. “Thom Parker.”

  We shook. “Hi.”

  No one had stood for me at a table in years.

  I was at the earliest dinner shift, five p.m., so it was still light outside, and the sun filtering in through the windows gave me a better look at him than I’d gotten that morning at group. He looked like a CW actor’s mug shot, his face full of scruff because razors were only allowed under close supervision. His short, dirty-blond hair stood in ragged tufts because he regularly gripped pieces of it in his fingers and tugged. (Most of us had restless hands, now that we were mouse-less and click-less.)

  It would’ve taken a stylist in LA a few hours to achieve that look with mousse, but clearly it wasn’t something he’d planned; it was something that had happened to him. In fact, nothing about him seemed deliberate. He looked to me like the kind of guy who didn’t realize he had a big dick. He just went about his swingin’ dick day, dopey and oblivious, having assumed long ago that everyone else’s was the same size.

  It always bugged me in my auditioning days when women in screenplays were described that way: “Sasha, 22, has no idea how beautiful she is.” (God forbid she be aware.) But in real life I found it fascinating.

  “Great show today,” he said, stretching his arms behind his head. “Have you thought about taking it on the road?”

  Har. Har.

  “Um, thanks.”

  “I mean, your performance was manic, and your moonwalk needs a little work, but your singing’s decent. You captured each star’s essence in a short period of time.”

  Did I ask?

  He grinned. One of his top teeth pressed down on his lip like a little fang. His teeth had their own ideas about whether he was good looking. In Hollywood, they’d have shaved it down.

  “At the risk of sounding like a reality show contestant, I’m not here to make friends,” I replied, and picked up the pace of my eating. He wasn’t going to trap me there a second longer than necessary. Without screens, there was no reason to be awake. As soon as I finished eating, it was off to dreamland on my ten-thousand-thread-count, Posturepedic masterpiece.

  He slurped from his straw, loudly, undeterred. “How come you left out J. J. Randall?”

  I stabbed my lettuce leaves with my fork. “I think people got the gist of it by then.”

  He leaned back in his chair, tilting it precariously on its hind legs, the way he did at group. Not a care in all the world. It was annoying as hell.

  “You talked about everyone else, but not him. Why?”

  “A real connoisseur of ’nineties boy bands, are you?” I asked.

  “Oh, definitely. It’s extraordinary how they figured out you could rhyme the words girl and world like that. And how they notice things like the way someone walks and talks.”

  “Are you serious right now?”

  He rolled his eyes, which were a startling light blue. “I had to watch my kid sister every day after school back in Ohio and the only way to get her to come to the skate park with me was to bribe her with Total Request Live. Every day for six months my senior year of high school, the number-one video was…” He aggressively hummed the opening bars to OffBeat’s “Girl (of Mine).”

  Parenthetical song titles were big in the ’90s.

  “Yeah, well, I actually was J. J.’s ‘girl of mine’ so imagine how that earworm felt my senior year.”

  His jaw fell open. “You dated J. J. Randall?”

  “Not publicly, but I like to think that, in an alternate universe, the press nicknamed us ‘Jolly.’”

  He scanned my face, as though trying to recognize me, but it wasn’t going to work. “Why not publicly?” Then: “What’s your name again?”

  “Didn’t you hear?” I asked. “I’m nobody.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes. “I very much doubt that.”

  His words, and the certainty with which they were delivered, sent an unexpected spear of longing through my gut, until he added, “You’ve lost your marbles if you think crashing their high school reunion is going to make you feel better.”

  “I’m in internet rehab. How many marbles do you think I have? And it’s not a high school reunion.”

  “It might be on a red carpet but it’s still a high school reunion. Why torture yourself? I myself never…”

  I myself? Really?

  I took a calming breath and released it. I was at a distinct disadvantage; because of my impromptu musical introduction that morning, he knew far more about me than I did about him. “What brought you here, Thom?”

  He tilted his chair precariously up on its back legs again and crossed his arms. “Guess.”

  “Porn.”

  “Then I’d only need one wrist guard,” he pointed out.

  I walked right into that one.

  And now it’s time to walk out.

  Before I left, I nudged the front of his chair with my foot, covertly under the table so he wouldn’t see. Just enough to tip it off balance.

  His
eyes widened, and he leapt away before it crashed to the floor.

  “I’m okay,” he announced to the indifferent cafeteria.

  I smiled, not even a little sorry.

  Because I may have pegged him all wrong. It occurred to me he knew exactly how big his dick was.

  6

  Unfortunately, sleep had to wait.

  Lisa the head counselor stood outside my door with a clipboard. She wore glasses, a wide variety of bracelets, triple-hoop earrings, and a scoop-necked blouse.

  Lisa and her jangling circles asked, “How was dinner?” but didn’t wait for an answer. “I wanted to go over your IITP—Individualized Internet Treatment Plan—and see if you have questions about it.”

  She led the way to her office, settled into her desk chair, and motioned for me to take a seat on the couch. It was difficult to concentrate on her words, because every cell in my body hungered for the computer sitting on her desk.

  Screen. Screeeeeeen. If I could hop online really quick and check Reddit…

  “Holly, did you hear me?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I need to feel that you’re listening to me.”

  I forced my gaze away from temptation. “I am, I swear.”

  I’d already missed out on so much since I arrived. Literally millions of updates. How would I ever catch up? What if I never did?

  My iPhone was thousands of miles away in California, under lock and key at my sister’s house. By separating me from it, I’d been separated from my self. I was lost. Floating, untethered to reality. In some far recess of my mind I knew there used to be other realities—for me and everyone else—and that those realities shrank in importance around 1994, when email came into existence.

  Just in case, I reached in my back pockets, my fingers scrabbling.

  Oh God.

  There was nothing there.

  I leaned down, put my head between my knees, and breathed.

  In.

  Out.

  In.

  Out.

  Lisa perched beside me on the couch’s armrest and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Your phone’s not gone forever. Just a few weeks.”

  “Six,” I rasped, as though they were my last words before dying. “Six…weeks…”

  “Not six. Three.”

  My head snapped up like I was possessed by a demon. “What?”

  “I’ll explain. And I’m going to add a meditation session to your schedule tomorrow.” She made note of this in her pad. “As I mentioned, abstinence is not our goal. Our goal is to gradually reintroduce you to your screens so you can eventually enjoy them again in moderation, at fixed times, and under fixed circumstances. After an initial transition period of three weeks, which is generally regarded as the amount of time it takes to change a habit, you’ll be allowed fifteen minutes online, supervised, once per day. In the meantime, would you like a talisman?”

  I’d seen those around: squeeze balls and smooth stones, any type of small object to be kept in pockets and clung to until panic abated. One guy had crafted a cardboard rectangle the exact shape and size of an iPhone XS and decorated it with puffy stickers for the apps and buttons. It was begging to be ’Grammed and mocked, and made the rest of us irate that its batshit existence would never be documented. The tension it caused only ended when it was stolen and presumably ripped to pieces on the sly.

  WHO IS THE TALISMAN BANDIT???? the dry erase board in the hallway demanded for half a day, until a staff member erased it and rewrote the day’s activities.

  Lisa’s continued explanation interrupted my thoughts. “When you arrived, you signed a contract stating that in exchange for free treatment you would allow us to track your progress and keep a file of the results—names blacked out, of course—for our board members to use when requesting grants. It’s important that each patient fulfills the terms of the agreement. Any questions so far?”

  Three weeks without internet isn’t so bad. I can do that. The dizziness subsided. I slowly uncurled and sat back up. “And the whole thing is free?”

  “Yes. Because Prevail! is a new program, we’re continuing to update our research regarding which types of therapy are most effective for which patients. In the future, the treatment will not be free, but since you’re in the inaugural group of—”

  “Lab rats?”

  “We like to say ‘volunteer test subjects.’ You’ll also receive a per diem of ten dollars a day upon completion of the program.”

  “Is that more or less than I’d get for jury duty?” I was going for humor but she either didn’t get it or didn’t think it was funny. Likely the latter.

  “Okay, Holly, I’ll see you at ten tomorrow for our first counseling session.”

  “K. Good night, and thanks for your help.”

  That night I slept like a log stuffed with sleeping pills. I dreamed I was home in San Diego, and I was desperate to get online, but I couldn’t because I had no hands. When I opened my mouth to scream, the only sound that came out was the interlude rap from “Girl (of Mine).”

  7

  When Lainey was fourteen months old, she would only fall asleep for naps or bedtime if she had two binkies: one in her mouth, and one in her left hand. Her right hand was pinned to her side in a diagonal swaddle. The thin linen blanket had baby elephants on it. In the mornings, it was dry, but it would become wrinkled with drool as the day went on. She looked like a caterpillar in a cocoon. When she yawned, her mouth took up her entire face.

  I couldn’t simply lay her in the crib and leave the room. First, I had to put on a recording of a blow dryer noise, then wait for her eyelids to flutter closed, and then crab-walk backward out of the room, praying she wouldn’t see me, sense me, or wake up right as I reached the hallway.

  When her nap was over or morning came, she would yell something muffled and incoherent until I arrived, at which point she would say, clear and crisp as an instructor teaching a foreign language, “Other binkie.”

  At some point during her rest, she’d inevitably throw the mouth binkie over the side of her crib and shove the backup binkie into her mouth to replace it. Now that someone had arrived who could do something about it, she’d remove the mouth binkie long enough to repeat the urgent words: “Other binkie.”

  I’d search for it on the carpet, often finding it near the closet—she got good distance—wipe it off, and place it into her grasping fingers.

  If there’s a lesson in there somewhere, I think it’s this: Life is never about the binkie you have; it’s about the binkie you don’t. The one you threw, the one that’s gone, the one that’s out of reach.

  8

  I nearly didn’t make it to meditation. Although we’re allowed three missed classes in any category before we’re kicked out (and replaced with better-disciplined test subjects, presumably), I didn’t want to use any of my skips this early—better to keep them in reserve. As I wove down the hall trying to beat the clock, I was brought up short outside the gym.

  A lean male figure in butt-hugging red swim shorts climbed out of the exercise pool like Bond-movie Daniel Craig emerging from the ocean.

  The closest I came to clearing my mind during meditation five minutes later was to rewind his cameo at the pool and replay it behind my eyelids. His blond-ish hair dark and wet across his forehead, his broad shoulders straight and strong as he leaned down to scoop his towel off the chair.

  Okay, so Thom’s a verified Handsome. It wasn’t like it mattered. There would be no souvenirs from this “vacation.”

  9

  Reddit/AMA

  I’m the “missing” cast member from Diego and the Lion’s Den. I grew up with Kelly Hale, Brody Rutherford, Ethan Mallard, Melody Briar, Tara Osgood, and J. J. Randall. AMA.

  (self.AMA)

  submitted 34 days ago by HollyD

  5,073 comments

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  [–]Bleeeeeeeeet

  3 points 7 hours ago

  [Kiwifroot]: Are these really written by H
olly Danner? She was my favorite! Whatever happened to her?

  [MiZterPEE]: LOL holly danner wasnt anyones favorite

  [Kiwifroot]: Holly, a technical question if you don’t mind: Why was the boom always in the shot?

  [HollyD]: I wouldn’t say it was “always” in the shot, but our production values were certainly compromised due to the unpredictable nature of the cast. (The showbiz adage “Never work with children or animals” went double for us.)

  [SARGHoov]: Whoever chose the songs in the first season was high, right? Why were they so weird? (When was the show supposed to take place?? Some things were modern and some things were like super old)

  [HollyD]: If I may read between the lines, I believe what you’re wondering is, “Why didn’t we sing contemporary music, especially since we were supposed to be an aspiring band?” Here goes: After the crew, set designers, writers, choreographers, dance instructors, singing instructors, tutors, craft services, room and board, promotional materials, and rehearsal spaces were paid for, our PBS affiliate didn’t have enough money to secure the rights to modern pop music. Our only option was to use songs from the public domain, which is where “Little Brown Jug” came in. Other songs from the inaugural season were “I Don’t Want to Play in Your Yard,” “Bells of St. Mary’s,” “I Ain’t Got Nobody and Nobody Cares for Me,” “In the Good Old Summertime,” “Camptown Races,” and “Hard Times Come Again No More.” Mercifully, “Cabbage-Leaf Rag” was cut because of time constraints. In seasons two through four, we had a higher budget, which allowed us to cover such timeless ballads as “Jump” by Kriss Kross.

  [Kat1976]: Did the San Diego Zoo even give them permission to film there? It sort of seemed like they wanted no part of the show. And it was never referred to by name.