“He’s the big star,” Kenny said. “He’s in trouble so he’s living with Gramma now.” Joshua laughed.
“Aren’t kids great?” Susan said. Then she turned to Kenny. “Only we don’t talk about people being in trouble in front of other people, remember?”
“She’s got yellow hair,” Kenny said, pointing at Charlene again.
“And it’s rude to point,” Susan said.
When breakfast was over, Joshua stood up, stretched and said that he could use a shower. The rest of us, save Beau Ray who was finally awake by then, had done our washing and dressing beforehand.
It was Sunday, and with Susan around, that meant church. Susan and her husband, Tim, were both active in their congregation, and were always reminding us to attend services every Sunday at the minimum. Momma went on and off, mostly for social reasons but I wasn’t sure she’d set foot inside a church since she’d begun seeing Judge Weintraub.
Still, with Susan visiting, Momma had decided that we should all attend church together. Even Judge Weintraub was going. All of us save Joshua, who couldn’t leave the house, of course.
“We’ll pray for you,” Susan told him.
“Every little bit helps,” he said.
When Joshua mentioned getting into the shower, Charlene stood and reached for her purse.
“Oh, please. Stay a while longer,” Judy asked her.
Joshua agreed. “Yeah, stay. I won’t be long,” he said, and so Charlene perched like a bug on the long couch in the living room. Joshua smiled at her and headed upstairs.
“So you and J.P.,” Judy said. “That was fast.”
Charlene nodded. “We get along,” she said.
Charlene sounded so wide-eyed that I wondered whether she might have a future in acting. I noticed Judy look at her watch, then glance in my direction. Then I heard her suggest to Charlene that the two of them take a sit out on the front porch. It was clear that I wasn’t invited, that it was private, girl-to-girl stuff, so I announced to no one in particular that I’d best get started on the dishes. Of course, as soon at they headed outside, I opened the kitchen window. I mean, it was my house.
“Leanne tells me you used to be married to Max,” I heard Judy say.
“For a little bit,” Charlene said. “Not anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” Judy said. “I tell you, if I weren’t happily married,” Judy went on. “That boy is poised to go places.”
“Max Campbell?” Charlene said. “He’s been at the Winn-Dixie since he was in high school.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Judy asked. “Oh, right, you weren’t around yesterday when Sasha saw him. Sasha does casting and the agency he works for sent him out to find the next big thing. He thinks he found it in Max. Between you and me, that boy has got star potential the likes of which I rarely see. More than any of my current clients. Don’t get me wrong, I love J.P. He’s been with me forever. But this Campbell guy? It’s like looking at the next Cary Grant. I’d bet my career on it.”
“Max? Really?” Charlene said. “But Joshua… And this movie in Virginia. About the guns?”
“Musket Fire. Right,” Judy said. Suddenly, she sounded distracted. “God, I need to tell him about that.”
“How do you mean?” Charlene asked. “Tell him what?”
“I haven’t had the heart, with him locked up here. But it turns out, they’ve found someone else for Josiah. The producers just didn’t think J.P. had enough, well, as I was saying, star potential.”
“No! Really?” Charlene said. “Can they do that?”
“He knew it might be coming, but I think he’s in denial. I think he’s having trouble accepting that he’s on a downhill slide. That’s why I’m so glad he met you. It’s nice that he’s found someone to cushion the blow.”
There was a long pause.
“I don’t know,” Charlene said finally. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be in town. I’ve actually been considering a trip west myself. I’ve always thought about moving to California.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know if Leanne told you, but I have an entertainment background. Tap dance. I used to be Miss Junior West Virginia.”
There was an even longer pause.
“Of course I’d be sorry not to see it work out with J.P.,” Judy said. “But if you were already thinking of California, why don’t you come to L.A. when Max and I go? I can get you into a few premieres, introduce you to a few people, get a little buzz going.”
“You’d do that for me?” Charlene asked.
“I would on one condition,” Judy said.
Momma came into the kitchen at that point. “I told Susan you’d ride with her and the kids to church,” she said. “Bill’s going to drive me and your brother.”
I was reluctant to turn away from the window when Judy and Charlene were still talking, but Momma was insistent.
“Leanne, I’m talking to you!”
“Yeah, what?” I said, finally turning.
“What are you doing?” she asked, then Momma walked to the window and looked out, down the porch. She turned back to me.
“Are you jealous of Charlene?” she asked. “Is that what’s going on?”
“It’s not Charlene—”
“Because you’ve got your own gifts, Leanne. Just because Charlene looks like she does don’t mean she’s a better person.”
“I know,” I told her.
“I don’t think it’s right her spending the night when there’s kids in the house,” Momma said, “but those California types, they live different than us. And Charlene’s always had a bit of the California in her, I’d warrant.”
“Apparently,” I said.
Judy breezed into the kitchen then. “Is there any more coffee?” she asked.
“Don’t you think that Charlene’s got some California in her way?” Momma asked Judy. “I was telling Leanne.”
“Sure, she does,” Judy said.
“Where is she?” I asked Judy.
“Who?” Judy asked.
“Charlene.”
“Oh, she left.”
“To go where?” I asked, but Judy just shrugged and poured herself another cup of coffee.
A moment later, Joshua was down from his shower. “Where’s Charlene?” he asked.
“She said she had some errands to do,” Judy said. “She said she’d call you later.”
Joshua seemed to accept this.
“Lars wanted me to give you this first thing,” Judy said, pulling a sheaf of papers from her bag. “It’s the newest script. I think you’ll be pleased. Josiah gets three pages more face time than before. You are going to be amazing,” She squeezed his shoulder.
“Yeah?” he said. “You’re the greatest. I’ll take a look right now.” He wandered off to read the revised screenplay. My mother left to check on Beau Ray’s progress getting dressed.
I couldn’t stop myself from staring.
“What?” Judy asked me.
“How could you do that?”
Judy opened her hands, palms up, and blinked. “Do what?”
“Push Charlene at Max. You sent her back to Max!” I said. I could only try to keep my voice steady.
“I only suggested that she consider all her options. You should always consider your options, Leanne. That’s a good lesson for you, too.”
“But you wanted her to go to Max.” I felt like I might cry. I remembered then what Joshua had said, back on the first night I met him. How Judy got people to do what she wanted.
“No, I wanted her away from Joshua,” Judy said. “I have seen what girls like that can do to a career. No one’s going to mess with J.P.’s career on my watch.”
“But Max?” I said. “Of everyone. You pushed her back at him.”
“I’m sorry, Leanne. I guess I forgot about your feelings for him,” Judy said.
“You didn’t forget,” I said. “You decided they weren’t important.”
“Please. You know that’s not true,” Judy sa
id.
But I didn’t know it. I thought about all the birthday cards she’d sent over the years. Every stray typo she’d found in the newsletters. She’d always been so good at details.
“How could you do that to me?” I asked her.
Judy took a deep breath. “It’s not about you,” she said. “It’s not personal, it’s priorities. My priority is J.P. and J.P.’s career. It always has been.”
It’s a gift, I guess, to catch sight of people as they actually are, and to recognize the moment when it’s happening. I knew, looking at her then, that this was the real Judy, not the person I’d so long wanted to be, and not some beast, either. Much as I hated hearing her say it, and likely I hated her as she said it, at least I finally knew. It’s a lot harder to fight in the dark.
But this was still fuzzy to me, right when it happened. I didn’t have the words to react and so instead, I left. I’d explain it to my family after the fact. They all thought it was about Max and the casting director anyhow.
I told Susan she’d have to pray for me as well as Joshua, and I hightailed it instead to Sandy’s place, stalking out the back way, through the itchy high grasses in Brown’s Field. Soon after she’d returned from the beach, Sandy had moved from her parents’ house into a rental place of her own, a sweet little bungalow on Valley Road over at the west edge of Pinecob, where she didn’t have to ask permission for her girlfriend to stay the night.
Sandy was working, but I knew where she kept the spare key, so I let myself in. In exchange for the safe haven, I cleaned her kitchen and bathroom. I knew she didn’t have the time or the inclination, and also I’d always found that cleaning when your blood is up can be near to exhilarating. Especially when it’s someone else’s mess. My own mess, I didn’t know how to start on that.
I knew my problem—I felt useless. I couldn’t help or hinder Joshua’s career, not living in Pinecob the way I did. And Joshua’s career was what mattered to Judy. She’d said so. Sure, my years with the fan club gave me some knowledge, but truth be told, Judy could have gotten any number of willing volunteers to take it over at that point.
In an economics course I had taken at the extension campus, my professor talked about something called a “sunk cost.” When a business, say, is trying to figure out its next strategic move, it’s supposed to ignore the time or money or resources it might have invested in its last move. You start from where you are on that day and move forward. What’s past is past, and you’re not supposed to let history sway current or future decisions.
But my past felt like roots that bound me to people and places. It wasn’t something I could easily extricate myself from, even if I’d been certain I wanted to. My past had made me who I was and advised me whom to trust, if not what to do. That’s the way I looked at it. I was sunk into it. Not sunk away.
When I was done cleaning, I dropped onto Sandy’s couch and flipped television channels a while. She got the same dull five as we did. No cable on Valley Road.
Later in the afternoon, I called home.
“Where are you?” Joshua asked. “Yesterday a crowd, and today no one.”
“Judy’s gone?” I wanted to make sure.
“She went back to Harper’s Ferry a while ago. Hey, you don’t have Charlene’s number, do you?”
I told him that I didn’t. Her family wasn’t from Pinecob— I didn’t even know what town they called home—and I didn’t know where she might be staying.
“Are you coming back soon?” Joshua asked.
“Why? You lonely?” I said.
“Well, yeah,” he said. And though I’d meant it to be a joke, his answer dug at my heart a little. I told him I’d head home shortly.
Joshua was out on the deck when I returned, two glasses of lemonade on the table. He handed me one.
“You’ve got this great, distinctive stomp, Leanne. I knew that had to be you from all the way on the far side of the field,” he said.
I sipped the lemonade and took the lounge chair beside him. He said that Momma had called to say that Susan and the kids left straight from church with Beau Ray, who was going with them to Elkins for a few days’ visit. Momma and the judge were spending the afternoon out at Antietam, over in Maryland, as Judge Weintraub was something of a Civil War buff. I wondered how the afternoon would unfold for them, seeing as how Momma’s family was originally from Tennessee and still called it the Battle of Sharpsburg, not Antietam as they do in the north. But long and short of it, Sunday afternoon was just me and Joshua and the hot almost-August sun and a pitcher of lemonade.
Joshua wanted to talk about Charlene.
“You were there when she left. Did it sound like she was coming back?”
I said I didn’t know. I said that Judy was the only one who might say for sure. “Did you ask her about it?” I asked.
Joshua shook his head. “I could tell what Judy thought of Charlene. But I thought for sure she’d be back. Hell, I was surprised she wasn’t waiting when I got out of the shower.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.
It was true. I didn’t know how much to say about what I’d overheard. It seemed a precarious thing—if Joshua knew that Charlene was leaning toward Max, he might say good riddance. If he heard me speak ill of Judy, he might think I was making it up, jealous of any number of things. Luckily, at the core, Joshua was more interested in himself than he was in Charlene.
“Want to know what the hardest part is?” he asked me.
“Do I?”
“When people expect me to be these characters. People actually expect me to be Colin Ashcroft or Nate Cummings. I didn’t even invent those characters. I just said some writer’s dialogue. I didn’t even like Colin Ashcroft.”
“You didn’t like Colin Ashcroft?” I asked. “How could you not like Colin Ashcroft? He was perfect!”
“Please. He was a pussy,” Joshua said. He counted on his fingers as he spoke. “He was smart, sure. But he was way too nice to all the old ladies. He always offered to work extra shifts—even when he’d been in surgery for, like, seventy-two hours. And he never got the girl.”
“He got the girl,” I said. “He had that thing with Miranda. And then he dated Chastity.”
“Yeah, but remember, he wanted Fern. But he never had the guts to go get her. I kept yelling at the writers. You know, let him ask her out.”
“But her father ran the committee that wanted to take away his fellowship,” I reminded him. I’d always found Colin’s shyness around Fern endearing.
“So what? He was a prodigy, for God’s sake! He should have asked for what he wanted. You’ve got to say what you want. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on a date with some girl and I’ll say something like that and she’ll get a look on her face like it’s a personal affront. Like I’ve been misleading her. On our first date!”
I nodded. The problem in a town the size of Pinecob was the opposite. Everyone knew everyone else almost too well. There weren’t enough surprises. And there was too much talk.
Max had said that I held things close, and maybe it was true. But that was a learned habit. Like Joshua with his acting, I’d practiced long and hard not to give much away. As the youngest Gitlin, I’d grown up hearing about my brothers and sister second-and third-hand. Good and bad, but gossip all the same, and that’s how you got a label. And in a town the size of Pinecob, labels are hard to pull off. My brother Tommy was the wild one who could be trusted to pick fights. Susan was the cheerleader whose first pregnancy kicked her off the squad. After his fall, Beau Ray was “that poor Gitlin boy.”
“Or sometimes,” Joshua went on. “They only want to be with the movie star,” he said.
“That’s not you?”
Joshua smiled at me, then looked out toward the stand of dead oaks at the far side of our house.
“You know what I like about you?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“That you’ve got only you. There’s just Leanne. You ask for Leanne, a
nd you get Leanne.”
“I don’t follow,” I told him. But I figured as labels went, “just Leanne” was okay.
“I hate Rackett, and, you know, that I wish I weren’t from that shithole. But that doesn’t change the fact that, deep down and way back, I am from Rackett. I sprung from that shithole.”
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure where he was going.
“Most of the time, the celebrity gig is fine. There are a ton of perks. But part of me…you know, nobody knows you like the people who were there when your past was your present day. For me, that’s knowing some drama geek named Josh Polichuk.”
“So bring back the drama geek,” I said. “You can’t fairly expect people to know him if you refuse to talk about him.”
“You know him,” he said.
“From one geek to another.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he agreed, which wasn’t exactly what I wanted him to say.
“I feel I’ve got to tell you something,” I said. “I think maybe Judy sent Charlene away.”
Joshua stood up then and walked to the edge of the deck, his back to me. I couldn’t guess his expression and what he meant by standing there, looking like he might dive into the green spread of the backyard. Then he turned back around, his face in a sort of sad smile.
“I don’t know why I didn’t see that,” he said. “Guess I’ve been around your family too long. No secrets and all. Thanks for telling me.”
I shrugged.
He got a little more mad then. “But that’s not fair! I’m stuck here!” He paused. “Max doesn’t have Charlene’s number, does he?”
“Max is gone, remember?”
That night, the phone rang, and I could gather from the way Bill Weintraub smiled as he handed me the headset that it was a call I’d want to take. I shushed everyone out of the kitchen for a little privacy.
“So how’s New York?” I asked.
“Hot,” Max said. “Crowded. Dirty. Loud. But cool, too. It kind of smells.”
“So do you love it?”
“Not yet. It’s different. Lots of people wearing black. Sasha says that Los Angeles is the total opposite of New York. But I was thinking that Pinecob was the total opposite of this place, so I don’t rightly know what to expect, aside from palm trees. Sasha’s already got me booked to meet a bunch of people.”
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