“What are you doing?” Thom said, amused.
Braden smiled devilishly and handed me his board. “Don’t kill yourself,” he said.
Neon tape was plastered across the surface of the top in two stripes, indicating foot position, perhaps? I had no idea and didn’t want to ask.
“I shall sit,” I declared primly, toting the board with me to the top of the quarter-pipe.
“Careful, we caked it,” Braden called after me.
I didn’t know what that meant, but I soon found out. The ledge was extremely slippery and my flats nearly flew skyward as I walked up, Braden’s board tucked under my arm. Iced it would be a better term, I thought.
Nothing was going to stop me, though. I sat on Braden’s death-wheels, knees squished up toward my chin, and gripped the sides of his board with my fingers. I slid down the quarter-pipe shouting “Wheeeee!” the whole time.
I reached the bottom, flushed and exhilarated, and pumped my fist in the air. Braden and Thom cackled at me.
“Dude. Just—no,” Braden said.
“Sweet moves, huh? Huh?” I ask, egging them on. “Top that.”
Once a clown, always a clown. If I had a chance to make someone laugh, even and especially at my own expense, by God I’d take it.
I handed the board back to Braden, unfazed by the stares and whispers that rose around me. In fact, I reveled in them.
“I’m so sorry she sledded on you,” Braden cooed to his board. “It will never happen again, I promise.”
Thom stood and shrugged out of his blazer.
“Let me show you how it’s done.”
12
I held my breath each time Thom’s borrowed board cracked against the pavement, but he stuck every landing.
Eventually I relaxed, and I realized how peaceful it was, watching him. Just like when I’d watched him swimming. When his body was in motion, sleek and unburdened, he was a different person. Set free from the difficulties and rewards of raising a possibly-on-the-spectrum child all by himself.
The Daily Denizen countdown clock in my head took on a new meaning. Instead of indicating how much time I had until the anniversary special, it told me how much time I had left with Thom. I wished I could reset it, give us more time. A month. A week. A day.
I was knocked out of my thoughts when Thom attempted something I later learned was called an invert. He’d twisted his body 180 degrees in the air, like a handstand, except supporting himself by only one hand, on the coping of a ramp. I wanted a photo to capture the moment. Then his arm buckled and he fell, skidding down the ramp without his board, which flew out sideways and followed his body at a reckless clip, gaining speed. He curled away from it, groaning as it sailed overhead and clattered to the ground far away.
Now I remembered why grown adult males shouldn’t skate. I raced over, dodging errant skaters, and crouched beside him. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” Thom mumbled, cradling his arm like a bird with a bent wing.
“I’m so sorry,” I cried. “I should’ve stopped you.”
“Why? Most fun I’ve had in months.”
“That’s the adrenaline talking. I shouldn’t have made you come here.”
“Are you kidding? I’m glad you did.” He reached for me with his good arm. “I haven’t done that in five years.”
Not since the mom left. Not since Sammy’s night terrors started.
He’d been trapped, all that time, under a mountain of obligations. Even good obligations could be exhausting, could take things from you that you might never get back. But today, for a little while, he flew.
“I needed this.” He gripped my hand, laughed through the pain. “Even if it fucking stings.”
We held hands and I knew better than to read into it. He was in pain, that was all. But my heart skipped all the same. His fingers were dry, smooth, and warm, and I wanted the moment to last.
“Besides,” Thom said quietly. “Old habits die hard.”
I smiled. “Riding with your brahs?”
“No. Showing off for a pretty girl.”
I swallowed. He looked at me with such adoration I almost couldn’t breathe. I told myself, again, it was the injury and he wasn’t thinking straight. After all, he’d thanked me for giving him swellbow.
Braden returned from the park office with an Ace bandage and a bottle of Tylenol. “We’re out of ice packs, but I can take you to CVS.”
“Do you know Tony Hawk?” one of the girls asked as we shuffled toward Braden’s car. I was relieved by its relative newness. By which I meant it was produced within the last twenty years. Even a college student (his bumper sticker read PENN STATE HARRISBURG) had a better car than us. Inside was another story; endless empty cans of Jolt soda and wrinkled comic books decorated the floors and seats.
“I’ve never personally met him but I’ve worked with his foundation,” Thom replied. He would’ve gotten trapped answering questions all day, and probably enjoyed it, if Braden and I hadn’t forced him inside the backseat, where he’d be able to rest his elbow on the armrest between seats. I joined him on the opposite side and Braden transformed into a tour guide and chauffeur as he drove us through town.
During a lull in the conversation, Braden turned on a local punk station, which gave me and Thom a chance to speak privately.
“How many skate parks have you built?” I asked.
“Twenty so far. About two per year.”
“And how many kids use them, do you think?”
“Several thousand each, I guess, over the years.”
“So you’ve changed the lives of twenty thousand kids for the better. Probably more, so we’ll say at least twenty thousand kids. Do you think a ‘piece of shit’ would be capable of that?”
He cleared his throat, but didn’t answer right away. When he did, his eyes looked moist, but that could also be from the physical pain. “Is that why you brought me here?”
“Nah,” I joked. “Mostly I wanted to see your sweet moves.”
We smiled at each other. Bopping his head to Bad Religion, Braden yanked the wheel and pulled into a CVS parking lot.
“You know what I miss about parenting?” I said, traversing the junk food aisle once we’d procured the necessary supplies for his arm. “The snacks.”
He got a dreamy look in his eye. “Puffs.”
“Kix.”
“Yes! Animal crackers.”
“Goldfish crackers.”
“Fruit roll-ups.”
“Jammy sammies.”
“Nilla Wafers, ohmygod.”
“I used to feed those to Lainey to make her smell good.”
It was nice being around someone who got all my parenting references.
Braden caught us shouting children’s foods at each other. “You guys, uh, hungry or something?”
“Holly. Holly!” Thom was practically jumping up and down. “Look what they have!”
And there they were, sent from heaven above: Original Flavor Tato Skins.
“Gimme.” I snatched them off the shelf. “Wait, can we afford these?”
Braden looked extremely confused.
“We’re a bit short on cash,” I admitted vaguely to him.
Thom did the calculations. “I think you deserve them. Go for it.”
Expenses for Thursday, April 23
(starting at $8.86)
Ice pack = $6.49
Tato Skins (Original Flavor) = $1.59
Total Remaining = $0.78
In line at the checkout, my eyes fell on a tabloid.
My castmates were on the cover because of course they were. It wasn’t a group photo but a slapdash collage of each person’s face cut-and-pasted from their archives. Cheapest cover ever.
“REUNION” screeched the headline. “Test your knowledge! Since 1998…Who’s got the highest net worth? Who was supposed to star in a spin-off? Who almost left showbiz FOREVER? Who joined a food cult? Who’s been to rehab?”
(Who hasn’t been? I thought. Includ
ing me.)
And my personal favorite, “WHO GAINED WEIGHT?”
I snorted. If we hadn’t gained weight since childhood, we’d be dead.
But beneath my eye-rolling, I allowed myself to fantasize about an alternative time line.
One where my face had been included on the cover, because maybe Fowl Play hadn’t dumped me and I’d gone on to headline my own sitcom. A time line in which seeing myself at convenience stores was a regular occurrence, in which I was recognized in public, with a team to dress me—never the same outfit twice—and a team to do my hair and makeup, even for a Starbucks run. Especially for a Starbucks run.
It could have been my life with or without Fowl Play; as the events from last night proved, being “J. J.’s girl” was enough of an “accomplishment” to put me in the public eye, to make me (in)famous all on its own.
With J. J.’s admission last night, that alternative time line had come back into play, running parallel to my real life. Electric currents of nauseous excitement shot through my belly. I’d be seeing him in less than thirty hours. He seemed interested in reconnecting, or at least reminding me what we’d had, willing to go on the record about our past, pull me into the spotlight with him. Why would he have done that if not as an invitation? All this could be yours, his actions seemed to say. All you have to do is step through the door.
* * *
“Where should I drop you guys?” Braden asked once we were settled back in his car.
That was an excellent question. We were officially broke.
No money for food.
No money for a place to stay tonight.
My vagabond adventure idea, to pull an all-nighter and see where the evening took us, was no longer feasible. Not only were we both sore from the long walk to the skate park, but Thom needed a comfortable place to rest tonight so his elbow could heal.
“Our car’s in the shop, let me call and see if it’s ready,” Thom replied. “If it’s fixed you could take us there.”
He called and had a brief conversation with Ben. Thom’s side of it consisting entirely of the word “Uh-huh.”
“Well?” I asked, after the seventh “uh-huh” concluded with Thom hanging up. My leg jiggled impatiently.
“His buddy the next town over does have the part…but he can’t go over there until tonight, after his shop closes.”
“No,” I lamented.
“He knows we’re in a time crunch so he’s willing to open early tomorrow.”
Thom and I fell silent.
If we picked up the car first thing, and the tank was full as Ben promised, we’d have all day to drive 250 miles and get to New York City by eight p.m., which was obviously doable, even if we got stuck in Friday-afternoon traffic. My spirits lifted, so much so I envisioned an answer to our most pressing problem.
“What’s the nicest hotel around here?” I asked Braden.
“I dunno, the Best Western?”
I bit my lip. “Maybe even nicer?”
“Um…Oh! The Hilton. That’s nice.”
“Perfect. Take us there, please.”
Thom leaned over to whisper in my ear, his stubble tickling my cheek. “What are you up to?”
If I tilted to the right, we’d be kissing. It would be so easy to tilt to the right, and I wanted to, but not in the backseat of a college student’s car.
“I might do some strange things in the next hour,” I whispered back, putting a few inches of distance between us. “But it’s all in service to the plan.”
Ten minutes later, our twenty-year-old chauffeur dropped us outside the entrance to the Hilton. We thanked him profusely, and he and Thom shook hands.
The lobby of the hotel was bright and clean and fresh looking, all midcentury-modern furniture, crystal-vase flower displays, and warm lighting.
“Sit tight while I get changed,” I instructed Thom.
In the ladies’ room I transformed myself into someone who might passably be a guest at the Hilton. This involved a flick of mascara, a swipe of lip gloss, ditching my ponytail, and changing into fresh, sexy-but-businesslike clothes. I’d brought the two aforementioned items of makeup, a pencil skirt, and silk top to Prevail! in case there was a graduation dinner at the end. (Years ago, Melody told me some facilities held a dry dance. I’d wanted to be prepared.)
“Hello.” Thom sat up straight when I returned.
I shook my hair out. “Hi.”
He swallowed. Opened his mouth to say something, and shut it again.
“Is this whole getup part of the plan?” he asked a moment later, gesturing at my outfit with his hands.
“Yes. I’m so glad you asked. We’re going to Remington Steele them. Operation Remington Steele is a go.”
“Pierce Brosnan, right? I think my mom watched it.”
“Everyone’s mom watched it. In the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-six, Remington Steele starred Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie, uh, Somebody in which Stephanie Somebody opens a PI company, but no one will take her seriously unless they think she has a male boss. So she makes one up.”
“Do I get to be your boss?” He rubbed his hands together devilishly.
“Nope. We’re going to pretend we both work for Melody Briar and get ourselves a free room.”
“I don’t follow.”
“That’s okay, I think I can handle this mission.”
“You think you can? Why would they give Melody’s employees a free room? They know she’s rich and can pay for them.”
“Please. Rich people get free things all the time. The moment you can afford anything on earth, no one asks you to. At the height of her Honeypot fame, Kelly took me and Renee to a nightclub opening in San Francisco, and we all got free MacBooks and a Frederick’s of Hollywood bra. I still use mine.”
“The MacBook or the bra?” His grin was mischievous. He wore it well.
“Both. I might even be wearing it right now,” I said teasingly.
“Should I get cleaned up, too?”
“That’s okay, you’ve got that whole rugged businessman look. Maybe hide the ice pack. Chill in the lobby or something. Oh. Phone, please.”
Understandably suspicious, he kept his phone to himself. “I’ll handle the tech.”
“Go to WireImages and search Melody Briar, premiere of The Fantasticks.”
“What am I looking for?”
“You’ll know it when you see it.”
Within twenty seconds he hit the jackpot. “Melody Briar and ‘publicist’? But it’s you.”
The photo he’d found was of Melody with her arm around me outside the Snapple Theater Center in NYC. The caption read “Melody Briar and publicist attend opening night of Tara Osgood’s The Fantasticks.”
Unlike my former friends, I didn’t have to change my look every six months to avoid getting dinged by the Style Don’ts—and in fact, oh my God, was I wearing the same skirt today that I’d worn in the photo? Yes, yes I was. I looked identical to the me of five years ago. Which honestly was unsettling.
“If the photo editors couldn’t crop me out, they had to identify me and usually they got it wrong. Some of my nicknames over the years have been ‘mystery woman,’ ‘anonymous woman,’ ‘former castmate,’ ‘original castmate,’ ‘unknown companion,’ ‘personal assistant,’ and my new all-time favorite, ‘…and publicist.’
It had irked me at the time, to be identified as someone who worked for her, but today it was all the inspiration I needed. “May I?”
“Godspeed.” He slipped me his phone. I changed the alarm tone to something jaunty and set the timer for one minute. I shook my hair out again and strutted to the front desk. You are Melody’s publicist, I asserted to myself. And…go.
“May I help you?” asked the stout older man stationed there, his green eyes peering at me from behind horn-rimmed glasses. I guessed he was in his fifties.
“Yes, hello, has my luggage arrived yet? From the airport? It got lost in transit but they said they’d send it over as soon as possib
le.”
“I haven’t seen any bags arrive—”
“Ugh, typical—”
“But let me check. Name?” he asked.
“I spoke with your manager a few days ago and she said she’d be happy to comp me a night’s stay as we make our decision about Melody’s accommodations.”
“Melody…?”
I peered around and lowered my voice. “Melody Briar. Were you the person I spoke to? No, pretty sure it was a woman. Anyway, I’m part of her advance team, in the publicity office.” I patted my pockets, dug through my purse. “My business cards are in my suitcase, sorry. Holly Danner. Shoot, that means the hotel contract’s in there, too—”
My phone “rang” and I hastily “answered” it.
“What?” I asked impatiently. “They won’t have the bags until tomorrow? Are you serious? Okay, fine…Yes, I’m checking in now—I’ll let you know—yes, you can tell her there are flowers in the lobby. Okay. Okay, I have to go.” I set my phone down and turned back to the clerk. “Sorry about that. Anyway, I have to personally—personally—check out each hotel and make sure it fits what she’s looking for prior to booking it. It’s for her upcoming stadium tour, shh.”
I don’t care who you are, what kind of music you listen to, or whether you personally loathe Melody and her brand of pop; if someone shows up at your place of business and suggests the imminent arrival of Melody Briar, even if it’s months from now, you’re going to damn sure want to nail that down.
In other words, the guy at the front desk had a choice. Go along with my comped room and, for the price of a single night’s stay, save his boss thousands of dollars in marketing money when Melody Briar showed up later and Instagrammed a selfie in her room, instantly rebranding the Harrisburg Hilton as sexy and fun to her millions of followers; or turn me down and risk losing Melody’s cachet to a competitor.
A female desk clerk nearby had been listening to us, her mouth ever-so-slightly open, watching to see what her colleague would do. Maybe I should’ve approached her instead.
I had hoped glasses guy would have acquiesced at this point—but maybe he was too far from Hollywood to understand how the game worked.
Fame Adjacent Page 16
