Mean Season

by Heather Cochran

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  We did it the next day, and it started out pretty funny, I have to admit. I told Joshua that someone from Judy’s office had called and said that a new cast member from the movie was dropping by the house.

  “I don’t know who,” I said, when he asked. “Just that some actress was coming by who’s the new romantic lead, you know, that your character falls for.”

  “But I thought Sarah Powers was playing Elizabeth,” Joshua said.

  “Who?”

  “The girl in Bottleneck Junction? Really hot.”

  I shrugged, even though I knew who Sarah Powers was. I thought it would make me seem less suspect.

  “When is she coming by?” Joshua asked.

  “Soon, I think. Sandy and I are making cupcakes for the hospital bake sale. We’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

  So Sandy and I were there when Alice rang the doorbell.

  “Golly day, this is so exciting! It’s really you! Joshua Reed,” we heard her say. “I’m Nicolette Menderhutt. The new Elizabeth? Judy said you’d be here. You’re so cute!” Alice was wearing a wig that gave her long brown hair, and she’d put on what looked like a ton of mascara.

  “You’re in Musket Fire?” Joshua asked.

  “I still can’t believe it. Golly, well, I can but I can’t, you know?” she said. “That was some trip. I took a plane and then a train and then a taxi to get here. It’s like that movie!” Alice giggled.

  “Come in,” Joshua said. “I’m sorry. Your name again?” he asked.

  “Nicolette. Menderhutt. Did you get my headshot? Judy said she was sending over my headshot. I sure hope you got it. It’s my new one. With my dog. He’s a cutie-pie.”

  “Sorry, no,” Joshua said. “I only just heard you’d be stopping by. I didn’t even realize that Sarah Powers had dropped out.”

  “Yeah,” Alice said. “Sarah. Too bad. Oh, but not for me, of course.” She giggled again.

  “Do you know what happened? I’d heard she was solid.”

  “Affair,” Alice said, her voice dropping low. “So they told me. But I also heard that, well, that she caught something called an STD. That means sexually transmitted disease.”

  “I know what it means,” Joshua said. “But I thought she was married. Happily, even.”

  Sandy giggled. I got the impression that Alice was just making stuff up as she went along.

  “I’m just telling you what I heard. And what sort of person would lie about something like that?” Alice asked. “So where do you want to practice?”

  “Practice?” Joshua asked. “Oh, you want to run lines?”

  “I figured we could practice, I don’t know, maybe the romantic scenes. I haven’t done many romantic scenes. They make me nervous so I like to practice them a bunch beforehand. You know, to get warmed up.”

  “You mean, our lines, right?” Joshua said.

  “Yeah, and our lines. But everything,” Alice said. “This is my big break. I’ve got to do my best and I know I get nervous if I have to improvise. I work a lot better when I know what to expect. I’ve never been good with surprises. Jack-in-the-boxes still totally freak me out!”

  There was a pause, and when Joshua finally spoke, his words were slow and steady. “Maybe I should call Lars. I’d like to hear exactly what happened with Sarah Powers.”

  “I also want to go over our characters—you know, to see if what we’re imagining for their motivations match up,” Alice said quickly. “I hope I didn’t come on too strong. I’m just so thrilled to be working with you, and I bet you’ve done a lot of great thinking about your character.” This seemed to do the trick.

  “Yeah,” Joshua said. “So what are your thoughts about Elizabeth?”

  Alice paused for a moment. Sandy and I crept a little closer to the doorway, to make sure we could hear.

  “Gosh, my thoughts? That’s so nice of you to ask. Well, I see her as sort of…oh, what’s that word? What’s the word I’m looking for?”

  “Conflicted?” Joshua guessed.

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “Strong? Passionate?”

  “Actually, sort of lusty,” Alice finally said. “I want to play her all lusty.”

  Sandy rolled her eyes at me.

  “She’s the minister’s daughter,” Joshua pointed out.

  “And like you said, passionate. Sure, she’s passionate. About lots of things, and definitely about Josiah Whitcomb.”

  I couldn’t believe that Alice was actually saying that stuff. I loved her for it—but found myself a little scared of her, too.

  “I’m planning to come at Josiah differently,” Joshua was saying. “You know, he’s got all that conflict built up, after his father dies. I imagine there would be a lot of tension between them.”

  “Oh, okay,” Alice said. She sounded bored.

  “I don’t think lusty goes with that.”

  “But why do you want to make him so conflicted?” Alice asked. “There’s a war. His side wins. He’s the pretty boy.”

  “He’s not just the pretty boy!” Joshua snapped. “There’s more to him than that.”

  “But why else would they cast you?”

  The sting of Alice’s words hung in the air, like the silence after a thunderclap, when the dishes are still vibrating. I was pretty sure that our prank had stopped being funny.

  Joshua took his acting seriously, I knew that. I’d seen the way he studied the scripts Lars sent. I’d peeked at some of the notes he wrote in the margins, notes about inconsistencies in the characters or the scenes. Notes on how to keep the people and the plots less obvious. And I also knew, from all my fan club work, that most people only wanted him to sit back and smolder. A lot of the interviews I kept on file traced a common theme—Joshua complaining that he wasn’t taken seriously because of his looks and because he’d come up through soap operas. Alice’s dart hit the bull’s-eye. She had done her homework.

  I turned to Sandy, and in a panic, pushed her into the living room. She entered with a stumble. “Hey!” she said, too brightly.

  Neither Joshua nor Alice spoke.

  “We’re making…I mean, we’re getting ready to make…” She paused. I wondered what we were supposedly going to make. “Margaritas!” Sandy finally said. “Either of y’all want one?”

  “Thanks, no,” Joshua said. I was relieved that he’d finally spoken.

  “Oh, not me. Thanks. I’m fine,” Alice said.

  “Okay!” Sandy spun around and hustled back into the kitchen.

  “Margaritas?” I whispered at her. She shrugged and we returned to our hidden spot near the kitchen door.

  “Nicolette, it’s been interesting, but I don’t think I’m up for much character analysis,” we heard Joshua say. “Besides, we’ve still got at least a month before the production gets rolling.”

  “Okay. Then what do you want to do in the meantime?” Alice asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I came all the way out here. And we’ll be working so intimately.” Alice’s voice got breathy. “Don’t you want to test how compatible we are?” she asked.

  In the kitchen mirror’s reflection, I watched her take a step closer.

  “Maybe find out what the physical will feel like?” she asked.

  She put her hands on his chest. He flinched a little.

  “I think it’s going to feel good. Sure you don’t want to practice? Or maybe it’s true what I read about you—that you have trouble with your follow-through.”

  Joshua didn’t have time to answer. The phone rang. Sandy skittered across the kitchen and tried to pretend that we’d been baking. I grabbed for the phone. It was Judy’s assistant, saying that Judy was about to get on the line. That’s the way they make phone calls in Hollywood. I’d always found it weird and a little lazy that people didn’t make their own phone calls. But for once, I was glad for the few seconds of warning.

  “Who is it?” Joshua called out.

>   When pulled tight, the kitchen phone cord was barely long enough to reach into the living room. I did just that, pushing Sandy into the room before me.

  “It’s Judy!” I said, brightly like it was good news. “Your publicist.”

  “Hey, Judy,” I said to her, when she got on the phone. “How are you?”

  Joshua hurried over and held out his hand to take the call.

  “Judy, hold on a minute,” I said, but I made sure to drop the phone before Joshua could take it, and the cord contracted, dragging the headset back into the kitchen.

  “Damn it,” he muttered, and went after it, and in that same second, Alice grabbed her purse and headed for the door. By the time he was saying hello, Alice had opened the door and skipped out, blowing a kiss to Sandy and mouthing, see you later. I could hear Joshua in the kitchen.

  “Nicolette,” he was saying. “What do you mean? Your office called. I’m serious… That’s what Leanne said. Someone from your office called, and…then if you didn’t, who the hell is she? Hold on.”

  Joshua came back into the living room and looked back and forth between me and Sandy.

  “Where’s Nicolette?” he asked.

  “She left,” Sandy said.

  “She what?”

  “She left,” I said. “She said she had an appointment. Sorry, I figured you knew that. You guys weren’t done?”

  “She left?” Joshua said. “Go catch her!”

  “Me?” I asked him. “What should I say? I mean, she’s your co-star.”

  “But Joshua can’t go past the driveway,” Sandy said.

  “Oh, right. Do you want me to try to catch up to her?” I tried to sound helpful but stupid at the same time.

  “Or I could go,” Sandy offered. Sandy and I had practiced getting in the way like this for years, mostly on our brothers.

  “Do you want to go?” I asked Sandy.

  “I will, if you want me to,” Sandy said.

  Joshua had run to the door and was trying to see beyond the driveway. He looked like he might explode. “Forget it. It’s probably too late,” he said. “What the fuck?” he muttered, then returned to the phone.

  We could hear him in the kitchen, his voice rising and falling, first angry, then confused, then exasperated, then resigned. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the lack of cupcake supplies.

  “So I understand that someone called, saying they were from my office?” Judy said, maybe ten minutes later, after Joshua handed me back the phone.

  “Yeah,” I said. But I felt guilty. I hadn’t thought it through enough beforehand to realize that I might be forced to lie to Judy.

  “Man or woman?” Judy asked.

  “Woman,” I said, making it up as I went along.

  “And this woman, she said that someone was replacing Sarah in the film? Who was it? Did you recognize the voice?”

  I told her I didn’t.

  “Was it the same woman who came over to your house?” Judy asked. “Was it the same voice?”

  “It could have been, I’m not sure. I wasn’t really paying attention.” Another lie. I felt low. “Who do you think she was?” I asked.

  Judy sighed. “Probably just some psycho fan. It’s not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Not quite like this, but it has happened. Joshua’s a little freaked, I think. I don’t think he realized how safe he felt over there with you. But whatever. No harm done. He’s a little skeeved. I guess she touched him and said some things. If this happens again—if someone calls and you don’t recognize the voice, ask for me, okay?”

  I promised that I would. I hung up the phone. Sandy had gone home—or rather, she’d said that she was going to do more baking, though of course there had never been any baking, and she was headed off to meet Alice. I went out to the porch and gathered the magazines that Alice had left there for me. Back inside, Joshua was flipping through papers in the living room.

  I wished I didn’t feel so guilty. Part of me knew that there wasn’t that much to feel guilty about. It wasn’t like Alice was a real stalker or would ever hurt him. And he had been nasty. But all the same, he’d felt safe in our house, and I’d poked holes in that.

  “You need anything?” I asked him.

  He was reading a script. “I could use one of those margaritas,” he said.

  “Oh, right. Turns out we didn’t have any tequila,” I told him. “Whoops.” I felt like I was getting better at lying. Or acting.

  “Whatever,” he said.

  “Let me know if you ever want help running lines or something,” I said. “I know I’m not a professional. But if it would help.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” he said. “I mean, not being a professional. Thanks. I might take you up on that.” He looked up and smiled at me. “Sorry if I snapped at you—about not running out to get that psycho chick. I know you didn’t realize what was going on.”

  I nodded, but I could feel my cheeks get hot. “Yeah, weird, huh? Makes that drunk girl on the lawn look pretty good, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  He laughed, then gave a shiver.

  That night’s AA meeting was one of the open ones, and Grant Pearson suggested I sit in. I figured it would be more interesting than sitting in the car or the school hallway for the duration, so I said okay. It was held in the gym and pretty crowded—much more so than the first meeting I’d brought Joshua to. Grant said that open meetings always attracted a larger group, but I wondered if that was the entire reason for the increase.

  Poor Joshua—I think he was still freaked out from Nicolette’s visit. He kept looking around the room, and he gave a start whenever anyone made a quick move. I was planning to sit in the back, but he said no, why didn’t I sit beside him. Part of me was flattered that he asked, like I was important, or a friend. But more likely, in that room of strangers, he wanted as much of a buffer as possible.

  I recognized some of the people—the head of the cheese department at the Winn-Dixie, a clerk I often saw in the halls of the municipal building, the car mechanic who changed our oil and gave us a twelve-point service check over at the SpeedLube.

  It was interesting to hear people tell their stories. One guy stood up (“My name’s Bob,” he said, and then everyone said “Hi, Bob!”) to announce that he’d just reached five years of being sober. People clapped. Another guy said that it was coming up on the anniversary of his mother’s death, and he was getting worried about “the stress of it all.” A woman said that she was there because she didn’t like the people at the meeting over in Harper’s Ferry. Joshua didn’t say anything, except to mutter “This guy again” when some old codger took to the podium. The man said that his name was Homer (“Hi, Homer!” the rest of us said, like a responsive reading in church) and that he’d been sober going on twenty years, and that the meetings kept him from going out of his gourd. People applauded when he was finished.

  The man named Homer was walking back to his seat when he looked over at Joshua and frowned. That would have been okay, but then he stopped where he was—in the middle of the right-hand aisle—and pointed. Joshua looked like he wanted to disappear.

  “I recognize you,” the man named Homer said.

  This seemed to give everyone in the room permission to stare. I’d noticed a few glances and whispers when we first walked in, but now it felt like everyone was looking around.

  Grant Pearson hurried over and took Homer by the elbow. “You know that these meetings are strictly anonymous,” he said.

  Homer shook Mr. Pearson off. “How do I know you?” Homer pressed. “You come in the store?”

  “Nope,” Joshua said.

  “You buy that old shitbox car from me?”

  “What car?” Joshua asked.

  “Homer,” Mr. Pearson said.

  “You just said we was supposed to keep anonymous and then you go using my name,” Homer complained.

  “You introduced yourself,” Grant Pearson said. “Please let this young man be. If he wants to introduce himself, he can do so in his own time
.”

  After the meeting ended, Joshua went to use the bathroom, and Grant Pearson walked over to me while I waited.

  “I wanted to ask you, Leanne,” he said. “I get the impression that Joshua is kind of going through the motions here. I’m not sure he’s committed to the process.” He watched me as though waiting for a response.

  “That wasn’t a question,” I said. “Are you asking if I agree with you?”

  He laughed a little. “I guess that’s it.”

  “I do,” I told him. “He doesn’t want to be here—not just here, but in Pinecob, in West Virginia.”

  Mr. Pearson nodded.

  “But it looks like he’s been good for your meeting,” I said, toward all the people still milling. Some of them met my eyes, then looked away. I realized I was being stared at nearly as much as Joshua. I didn’t like it. I wondered whether any of these people had asked Max about me, about what was going on in our house. “I mean, getting people here.”

  “I suppose so,” Mr. Pearson said.

  I saw Joshua come out of the bathroom and start looking around. “Listen, I’ve got to run,” I said. “I’m supposed to have him back to the house by nine-thirty.”

  “See you at the next open meeting?” Grant Pearson asked.

  “Sure, okay,” I said. I started walking away.

  “Leanne,” he said.

  I stopped and looked back at him.

  “You know, you can talk, too. If you ever wanted to.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “It might be—”

  But I cut him off. I told him I’d think about it, and I left.

  Chapter 10

  Shutting Up Sandy

  My mother wasn’t the only person I knew to suffer a mean season in Pinecob. Sandy hit one of her own not long after returning from the beach. When she first got back and told me about her and Alice, it was all gentle, like she was worried that I’d be upset or judge her wrong or something. And hell, I can see her point, but I knew that her leanings weren’t anything that should come between us, not after so many years being practically sisters.