Fame Adjacent

by Sarah Skilton

  A warm, calming hand rested on the small of my back. Thom had returned, triumphant, the condom(s) presumably stowed away.

  “Everything cool?” he asked.

  “No, the prize was a gift card.” I slammed the offending plastic rectangle against his chest. My teeth were so clenched I feared they would shatter.

  “Can you cash it out?” Thom asked.

  “‘That’s what she said,’” the MC quipped. “But really, that’s actually what she said.”

  “Can you cash it out or not?” Thom snapped.

  “If the store’s open they might do it for you, but I don’t know for sure.”

  Becky Lynn looked up from her iPhone’s map. “There’s one near here, but it’s closing in fifteen.”

  Why wouldn’t this day end? All I wanted was a clean hotel and soft sheets and a firm mattress and Thom, Thom, Thom.

  After a brief confab with her cohorts, Becky Lynn said, “We have the limo till one a.m.”

  “To the limo,” Thom ordered in grim determination.

  18

  INT. LION’S DEN—DAY

  (KELLY, HOLLY, TARA, DIEGO (O.S.))

  The girls sit on the picnic table, legs dangling down. Each wears an outfit with fake “cheetah” print on it—tan with black polka dots—as they paint their nails and chat.

  TARA

  Fun fact: Cheetahs are the fastest animals in the world.

  KELLY

  On land, that is.

  TARA

  They can reach speeds up to 110 kilometers, or 70 miles, in just three seconds!

  HOLLY

  That’s as fast as a car.

  (beat)

  Or me, if someone’s got s’mores cooking.

  AUDIENCE LAUGHTER.

  DIEGO (O.S.)

  Hey girls! The s’mores are ready!

  HOLLY hops off the table and moves her arms and legs back and forth, running in place as if gaining speed (FX: smoke from her legs), then runs straight through the plywood set, leaving a Holly-size hole behind.

  TARA

  Bollocks.

  KELLY

  I hope she leaves some for us!

  * * *

  We made it to Lowe’s one minute before closing. The manager was undoubtedly perplexed by the group of intoxicated, happy women in semi-formal dresses who spilled out of the bus like a clown car, but he wasn’t quick enough to lock the doors. We made our descent and he allowed it, but all the cash registers were dark. Also, he locked the door behind us, which made me worry we’d entered a horror film scenario until I realized it was to keep out additional after-hours customers.

  We scattered like cockroaches.

  “Find the cheapest item possible,” I called out. “Whoever finds the cheapest thing wins.”

  “We may as well find something useful,” Thom argued. “Sammy could use a new flashlight.”

  “Are you really going shopping right now?”

  “Maybe. What are you going to do about it?” He pushed me up against a sample refrigerator and all the heat and dizziness from the bar returned to us full force.

  We kissed like mad until an irritated voice said, “Please find what you need in a timely manner and I’ll ring you up at customer service. The regular checkouts are locked.”

  We jumped apart and Thom apologized. “Sorry, man. We got this gift card, but what we need is the money.”

  “We’re not an ATM. The money can only be spent in-store.”

  “What if we buy something for twenty or thirty bucks?” he said reasonably. “Could you slip us the rest?”

  “The money can only be spent in-store.”

  “Find what we need, got it,” he agreed.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “No, this is ridiculous.”

  Thom beckoned me to a “private” aisle. “Let’s buy something and then immediately return it for cash.”

  “Whoever finds the most expensive thing wins,” I shouted to whomever was listening. Judging by the silence that greeted us, I’d guess no one.

  Two minutes later we approached the checkout with a mailbox ($97.85, including tax). After he rang it up and swiped the gift card, I announced, “Oops, wrong color, sorry, we need to return it but since you’re closing we’ll take cash, please, thanks so much.”

  The employee regarded us for a moment. I felt certain he would give in, if only to get rid of us.

  He swiped the card again and typed on his keyboard. “You’ll get store credit for next time.”

  “Oh come on!” I sensed a Cash-for-Clunkers-type hysteria approaching me on the horizon and I refused to give in to it. (Was that only today?)

  “We’re out of options,” Thom said through clenched teeth. “The car is about to leave, and we have no place to stay.”

  “I’m aware of our predicament.”

  “We need to accept that it’s time to buy camping gear.”

  “Oh my God.” I took a deep breath, tried to align my brain with the reality of our situation. “Okay. Okay.”

  I nodded rhythmically, over and over, as if each movement would further convince myself of the facts. Then I smacked my hands together. “Let’s do this.”

  “Where’s the camping gear?” Thom asked our robotic friend.

  19

  The Coleman Flatiron 3-Person Instant Dome Tent was not, in fact, instant.

  First we had to wait for the Lowe’s clerk to lock up and leave the vicinity, which seemed to take abnormally long. Then we had to carry our heavy gear, as well as our duffel bag and backpack, to the back of the shopping plaza property into the “corporate woods” (scattered trees and parking lots) where we hopefully wouldn’t be seen or heard by patrol cars or other passersby on the main road. Then we spent the better part of an hour setting up our sleeping space. By the time we finished, we agreed sex was no longer in the cards. Neither of us wanted a public indecency arrest to go along with our narrow escape earlier, and our accommodations weren’t the most comfortable. Still, we had a roof over our heads, and for one night, that was enough.

  We crawled inside the tent, unzipped our sleeping bag, and spread it out like a blanket. We hadn’t been able to afford two of them. He crawled to me and we lay next to each other, his arms wrapped around my waist, his face resting on my belly. I played with his hair, stroking my nails lightly through it.

  He swiveled his face so he could look up at me. “I’m sorry we’re not at the Hilton,” he said. “Or some other hotel.” Beat. “Or indoors.”

  I smiled back. “That’s okay. Rain check, this time tomorrow?” I gave him a chaste kiss so as not to set the fire blazing again.

  This time tomorrow we’d be at Thom’s house in upstate New York. This time tomorrow I’d be sharing his bed. The thought kept me warm and toasty.

  “Deal.” We kissed once more. Then we shook hands. Then he kissed my hands, the back and front and each knuckle and each fingertip.

  I cuddled closer so I could nestle my head under his chin. It was strangely peaceful out there. Silent except for the crickets, and the occasional rumble of car wheels in the distance. Most importantly, I was with Thom, and we’d confessed our feelings to each other, which made that tent the most perfect spot on earth right now.

  I’d never been a camper, but I could be a great one, if Thom were with me. I could do anything if Thom were with me.

  The tent was warm from the heat of our bodies by then, so we unzipped one of the “window” panels and breathed in the dark, cold air.

  Something I think is underrated in men: how soft their skin can be. I like a hard belly and tight abs as much as the next girl, but what gets my heart racing is when you’re coasting your hands over a guy’s chest—Thom had the perfect amount of chest hair, by the way—and you encounter a strip of skin amid all that solid manliness that’s like silk. At the apex of Thom’s hip, angled down toward his thigh, was a strip of skin so smooth I want to run my tongue along it.

  So I did. He goose-bumped instantly and I liked that, too.


  “We had an agreement,” he murmured, fisting my hair in his hands and raising my head up. “And you are dangerously close to breaking it.”

  “You’re right.” I shimmied up his body to safer territory. “What’s this?” I asked, tracing a tattooed image on his biceps. It was a small cartoon drawing of a fish leaping against the current, followed by a smaller, identical fish. It was clearly a parent and child.

  “Salmon swimming upstream. I got it when Sammy’s mom left. Because salmon shouldn’t be able to swim upstream. It’s impossible. But they do it anyway.”

  I kissed both images and rested my head on his chest. A second later I felt the rumble of his laugh. “I thought you were going to be my pillow.”

  “Nope,” I yawned. “Good night.”

  20

  Are you shocked, given the chaotic events of the night before, that we overslept?

  21

  Thom’s phone rang, permeating our sleep fog.

  I nudged him, getting progressively more violent, until he rolled over and startled himself awake. I didn’t want to know what time it was. The fact that daylight surrounded our tent was answer enough.

  A moment later, Thom pushed the phone into my hand. “It’s for you,” he slurred, and rolled back over to sleep.

  “Hello?”

  “Holly, hey,” Renee said. “Where are you?” Her voice lowered, as though she were worried Thom could hear. “Was that Thom? He sounded cute.”

  “Hey, welcome back. We’re in Pennsylvania, in the woods behind a Lowe’s. Long story.”

  “I look forward to hearing it.”

  “And I want to hear all about Belgium. How was Lainey’s birthday?” A lump filled my throat but I managed to make my voice sound normal. Bright, even. The first birthday I hadn’t helped to plan. The first birthday I hadn’t been around for. The first of many to come.

  “That’s a long story, too.” Muffled voices in the background. “Just a second, Laine, I’m talking to her—okay, okay…Uh, someone wants to talk to you.”

  “Molly,” yelled a voice.

  It was her old nickname for me, one she hadn’t used in years. The lump expanded in my throat. Tears filled my eyes and I tried my best to hide them by sniffing them back in.

  “Sir Laines-a-lot! Did you buy me anything from abroad?” I expanded the last word so it came out “abrawwwwd.”

  “Yes, some chocolates. They’re a bit squished, but I kept them safe.”

  “We can’t keep her long, she’s on someone else’s phone,” Renee said. To me, she added, “We got in the night before last, and I already FedExed your stuff. But listen, you had a ton of messages on the home line. I’ll text you the names and numbers and you can get back to them when you have a chance. I can’t believe you left rehab to drive to New York! I haven’t told Mom and Dad yet. They still think you’re meditating all day or something.”

  “Thanks for keeping it quiet. I’ll be on the anniversary special tonight if you guys want to watch.”

  “Mmm,” she said noncommittally.

  With thousands of miles between us, and Thom’s phone as a shield, I found the wherewithal to ask something I’d been wondering about for a while. “How come you’re not angry with them?”

  Silence. Then: “It would be like being angry at a good memory.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there are people you meet when you’re young, right, and as you get older, you realize that if you met them now, you never would have become friends. You’re too different. So the fact that you met them early enough to be friends at all makes it even more special.”

  “You’re being way too enlightened about this.”

  “I also pretend they died.”

  My almost-tears become a bark of laughter. “Renee!”

  “What? I do. They kind of did.”

  “You know they used us. For years and years.”

  “Didn’t we use them, too?”

  “No,” I retorted.

  “Think about it. Wasn’t it fun when they would visit, and we were the only people who knew where they were, and what they were up to? Wasn’t it fun sneaking them out of the house in hats and scarves and pretending they were our cousins from out of town who suffered from ‘sun weakness’?”

  “You’re really not mad at them? Not even Kelly?”

  “If I give them any thought, it’s usually What an unfortunate outfit at the checkout line. Although, whenever I’m at an airport, like yesterday, I think about the time we picked up Kelly before the second season. Remember?”

  After the first season of Diego and the Lion’s Den ended in 1993 and everyone flew back to their home states for the summer, Renee and I received a package in the mail, in a thick, twelve-by-fourteen padded envelope from Muncie, Indiana. It was a flat stack of folded clothing from a store called Units that had taken the Midwest by storm. Renee and I had nearly peed ourselves when Kelly described it to us; for her part, she couldn’t believe we’d never heard of it. According to Kelly, the Units store at the Muncie Mall had no changing rooms, aisles, hangers, or mirrors. It was nothing but white shelving built into a wall, piled high with one-size-fits-all rectangles of fabric in solid colors. The fabric could be worn in any capacity the wearer wished. Mini skirts and tube tops were indistinguishable; slouchy dresses, tunics, and pullover sweaters oddly similar; belts and head wraps interchangeable. You were supposed to layer the “units” in endless varieties of personal style yet the only possible outcome screamed “futuristic drapery.”

  They were, in a word, and to an item, hideous. Especially the neon-pink and -orange ones that Kelly had been sure to send us.

  So naturally, when we picked her up at the airport that fall to shoot season two, we wore every Units item she’d sent us—all ten of them—one on top of the other. It was enough to send us into fits of shrieking every time we caught sight of ourselves walking past a mirror or reflective window in the airport. In those days you could walk right up to the gate and greet your people as they disembarked from the plane.

  Passengers trickled out.

  “Quick, Holly, take off the belt-thing…” Renee whispered, half pushing me.

  “What? Why?”

  “Hurry, just, like, step out of it or lift it over your head. I’m going to conjoin us…”

  “Oh my God,” I giggled.

  Once I’d wriggled free of one of my top layers, Renee snatched the neon-green band from my hand, looped it over her head, and pulled it down over mine. It got twisted and stuck, serving as a strapless “over-bra” for her and a neck brace for me.

  A shout: Kelly had spotted us.

  We hobbled toward her, a laughing, two-headed monster.

  She hugged us, then unzipped her carry-on and removed another Unit, which she proceeded to configure to make us a three-headed monster. We tripped and giggled and knocked into things all the way down to baggage claim.

  “It sucks she wasn’t there for you after Lainey was born,” I pointed out. I knew I was pushing on a bruise by bringing it up, but I needed something from Renee. Proof that my feelings were valid, that the hurt I’d been tending to these past two months deserved its own garden.

  Renee got quiet. “Yeah, it does. But what I remember most about that time is that you were there for me. Anyway, your purse and phone and all that stuff is on its way, and don’t forget to check your texts. Call me after the show. Good luck!”

  We said goodbye, and I lifted Thom’s sleep-weighted hand.

  “You have a bunch of missed calls, all from the same number. It’s probably Ben. Put in your password and let’s find out if the car’s—” The digital clock read ten fifty-six. “Oh my God, it’s eleven. How is it eleven?”

  “I don’t know,” Thom protested, shielding his eyes from the light.

  I paced in the tent, throwing my hands up at random intervals. “How can it be eleven right now?”

  “I set the alarm for six.”

  “Let me see.” He unlocked the phone, tapped his cloc
k app, and groaned. “I set it for six p.m.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I’m so sorry.”

  I flopped down beside him. He was shirtless, with mussy hair—mussed by me—and part of me wanted to wrap my arms around him and go back to sleep and forget about the world and everyone in it. Because last night…had been perfect. Perfectly us, at least, which was why I loved it so much.

  But the Daily Denizen countdown clock chugged along, ticking down the seconds. I didn’t need to pull it up online to know what it said:

  9 hours

  21 minutes

  We were still in the wrong state.

  I was considering hyperventilating and wondering whether being in a tent would make it worse when Thom’s phone rang again. He hit answer and speaker in rapid succession so I could hear, too.

  “Hello?” He rubbed his eyes.

  “Hi, it’s Ben over at Harrisburg Motors. I’ve been trying to reach you guys all morning.”

  I knew it. Dammit!

  Thom and I exchanged worried looks. “Is the engine fixed?” Thom asked.

  “I got the part, and I tested it several times, and it doesn’t work. I’m sorry, guys.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Thom said before hanging up.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  “Let me call my parents.” We kissed like it was a promise.

  Thom stepped outside the tent as I packed our bags. By the time he finished the call, I’d torn down the tent.

  “It’s too late for my parents to come get us—they won’t make it in time for the return trip to get us there by eight.”

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” I snapped my fingers, remembering. “Your groupie, Braden. Call him.”

  “I don’t have his—”

  “We got his number when he dropped us off. Hurry, hurry.”