“Audra’s not really a movie girl,” said Kelsie, lightly elbowing Josh in the side. “Maybe we can change her mind.”
“You don’t like movies?” asked Josh incredulously.
“Well, that’s not true,” I said, thinking about his question. “I guess I kind of look back to the Golden Age of film and feel, I don’t know, weirdly nostalgic. The modern stuff doesn’t always do it for me.”
“Understandable,” said Josh. “It’s definitely a different world.”
“I just stopped paying attention,” I said, shrugging.
“I’m going to change that,” said Kelsie, swiftly leaping over to me and threading her arm through mine. She pulled me close to her. It made me weak to have her so close, to have her touching me. I was both surprised and elated that she felt comfortable enough with me to latch on and give me a bit of a side hug.
“Oh yeah?” laughed Josh. “Are you going to make her sit through one of your famous movie binge nights?”
“Maybe!” remarked Kelsie in a sassy tone. She stuck her tongue out at Josh. It was obvious the two of them had a nice rapport, like perhaps they had worked with each other before or hung out together. They were friends.
“Watch out,” said Josh to me, pretending like he was telling me a secret. “This girl doesn’t know how to turn the TV off some times when she’s deep in a movie binge.”
“Don’t tell her my dirty secrets, Josh,” said Kelsie, playfully pushing him away from us.
“I like dirty secrets,” I said with a silly grin, trying to fit in. I felt pretty out of place among two friendly movie stars. It sort of made me feel like I was some bumpkin, even though I knew I wasn’t.
“See,” said Kelsie. “She’s on my side.”
Josh laughed and shook his head.
“Excuse me,” said a woman in a headset with a clipboard in her hand, butting into our conversation. “I’m sorry. Josh, Reggie and Marc would like to see you to chat a little about this next scene.”
“Duty calls,” said Josh. “Nice talking to you, Audra.” Josh gave us a smile and then followed the woman off toward where another group of the production crew stood.
“Are you going to stick around for a bit?” asked Kelsie, joy in her eyes. She bounced off of me and turned to face me.
“Sure,” I said. “I can stay for a bit. But I should get back to the hotel in an hour or so.”
“Totally cool,” she said. “I just wanted you to see what we’re working on out here. I bet I can convince you yet that modern movies are worth seeing.”
“You might be able to,” I said, trying to hide my giddiness. God, I felt so embarrassed. This girl was really taking me out of myself. Do you know the feeling? I like to think I’m a pretty cool and collected person, pretty even, stable. But being in Kelsie’s presence, feeling her attention, it made my heart race, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was one of those chemical attractions that you just can’t help.
“Josh is right,” said Kelsie. “You should come out to LA and drop in for one of my movie marathons.” She said this with such earnest enthusiasm that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“C’mon,” I said, kicking my foot into the grass and looking off. “That’s ridiculous. A bunch of Hollywood people and me? I totally wouldn’t fit in.”
“You think all my friends are Hollywood people?” Kelsie asked, dramatically lifting her brow. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about me, Audra. I told you before, I’m not typical Hollywood. I’m still getting used to this skin I’m in.”
“Okay,” I said, smirking. “Next time I’m out in LA I’ll drop in. Mind you, I’ve never left Michigan in my life.”
“You’d love LA,” Kelsie said with wide eyes. “The west coast beaches are amazing. You said you like the beach. Well, California is the beach.”
“Have you ever surfed?” I asked meekly. I had always dreamed of surfing. Whenever I saw it on TV I couldn’t turn my eyes away. It looked magical. To just be out there on the water, separated from the waves by only a thin plank of wood, focused on the task of staying level, staying upright, riding along the great unpredictable surges. It seemed so meditative.
“Of course!” said Kelsie. “Do you want to surf?”
“I’d love to try it,” I admitted. “I’ve never had the chance.”
“You’ll just have to come to LA,” said Kelsie brightly, almost singsongy.
“We’re all set,” said a gruff looking member of the crew, sneaking up on us as Kelsie and I grew one step closer together. “We’ll need you on set, Kelsie.”
“Sure thing, Paul,” Kelsie said with an eager grin. “I’ll talk to you soon, Audra. Do you want to, I don’t know, maybe get together tonight?”
“Tonight?” I repeated, taken aback, feeling a knot in my throat.
“Sure,” she said. “Maybe you can show me your beach?”
“Um, yeah,” I said slowly. “Okay, let’s do it. Why don’t you stop by the front desk a little later and we’ll do it.” I felt for a split second like I myself was in a movie, like I was hovering above my body, watching this conversation with Kelsie, simply observing the scene as though I were just a member of the audience. It was unreal. But it quickly stopped.
“Perfect,” said Kelsie, scrunching her nose up as she smiled. She reached out and gave my elbow a light squeeze. “Stick around a bit and watch. I’ll chat with you soon.”
Kelsie trotted off and I admiringly watched her leave. Her body was limber and wild, her skin fair, her rear pumped up and down with each step, held in by only the thin denim. This was a crush. I was smitten. I felt drunk.
Meandering through the hotel lobby and up to the desk, I lifted my backpack off my shoulder and set it down onto the wooden reception desk with a soft thud. Jake looked up at me from his accounting notebook, tapping his pen onto the page below, and offered me a welcoming smile.
“Everything go smoothly over there?” he asked.
“It sure did,” I said.
“What did they need?”
“Um, just… you know,” I started. “Jennifer, the production person, wanted to go over some needs they had for some of the crew members’ rooms.”
“Oh, great,” said Jake, sitting up in the chair. “Lay it on me.”
I took a deep breath and looked around. I guess I had sort of forgotten that we were all pretty bored around here in the hotel and any deviation from the norm would be something remarkable, something to actually talk about. Jake had extremely expectant eyes, eager to please the movie people and make their stay as accommodating as he could.
“Jake,” I said. “I’m sorry. I sort of… bent the truth a little bit.”
“What?” His face changed to one of confused surprise.
“Yeah,” I said, coming around back and pulling my backpack across the desk, allowing it to drop down to the floor below. “Kelsie Kent, the actress, she invited me out to watch a little bit of the filming. And I kind of, um, fibbed to you.”
“Audra,” said Jake disapproving, looking at me with a stern avuncular face. “You didn’t have to lie. You could have just asked and I would have rearranged the schedule so you could go.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I don’t know why I did it. I’m feeling weird lately. I know you wouldn’t have been mad if I asked.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re my best employee.”
“Right,” I said with a longing sigh. With the film crew here in town, with the excitement around the hotel, with my visit to the farm set, it was really beginning to make me question my life. Okay, question my life more than usual. There was this great big world out there that I was completely ignorant to. I was living here in this small town, loveless, near friendless, just whiling away my days in pursuit of nothing much. The fact that I was Jake’s ‘best employee’ wasn’t really a compliment, if you see what I’m saying.
“I can see that doesn’t make you that happy,” said Jake, moving his head side to side as
he tried to catch my eyes.
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “You know I appreciate how good you are to me, keeping me employed even when we really don’t have any guests. It means a lot to me and I was dumb to lie to you.”
“It’s okay,” said Jake with a smile creeping on his lips. “I think we’ve all got a little Hollywood fever with these movie stars in town.”
“I’m really not like that,” I protested. “I’m not that starstruck person.”
“It’s okay to admit it,” said Jake comfortingly. “You don’t have to fight your feelings. It’s entrancing, Audra, it’s new and different and that kind of thing can be exciting. We don’t see this kind of action very often. Ever, really.”
“I’m just not that person,” I reiterated. What I really meant was that I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to feel stupidly starstruck, I didn’t want to follow some celebrity actress around, dote on her, trying to get her autograph or be her friend, get in her good graces, whatever it is that fans want to do. I didn’t want to be associated with those kind of people. Now, maybe if I had been alive a hundred years ago and Virginia Woolf was in town, okay, maybe I’d follow her around and try to get her to autograph my copy of To The Lighthouse but that’s the extent of my fandom. Literary.
“Okay,” said Jake, cracking a smile. He nodded slowly. “Why don’t you take over the desk now. I’ve got to go help Miguel with some ordering issues in the kitchen. We’re not used to this capacity.”
“All right,” I said. As Jake stood up from the desk chair, I navigated around him and took my seat back. Almost forgetting his notebook, Jake deftly leaned in front of me, shut the pages, and took it from the desk.
“Just… one more thing,” said Jake before he left. “It’s okay to be vulnerable.”
Jake gave me one last smile, turned, and wandered off.
Of course he’d leave on a note like that, making me question deeper things about myself. He had a habit of doing that, trying to be some sort of sage, some sort of teacher or whatever. And I guess he was that. He was good at forcing me to look inward. I liked that about Jake but it also kind of annoyed me. He didn’t know how much anxiety, uncertainty, confusion he was stoking in my heart.
I guess maybe I like to pretend that I’m just a bored or composed or unflappable girl, maybe like I’m better than some of the people around me, but it is a bit of a defense to my vulnerability, as Jake hinted. I mean, look, I can be honest with you. I often feel like a complete loser. I don’t think I’d tell anyone that in my life. And feeling like a loser makes me a bit anxious, which only furthers this weird ball of energy knotted in the pit of my stomach. It holds me back. It’s like, what if I go out and attempt something, something like moving to Chicago with my old best friend, or go out to LA with Kelsie, or whatever, just something different… what if I attempt that and I fail?
Or worse yet, what if I go for it and the people who are already there, already doing amazing things with their lives, what if they realize that I am just that bumpkin I’m so afraid of being? That would be scary. I guess that fear is another thing that’s held me back here in Champlain for so long. I don’t want to come to terms with the fact that maybe I’m not as enlightened, or whatever, as I like to think.
For a long time I was really upset with my friend Katie for moving to Chicago. Upset might be too light of a word. I was angry, pissed, I kind of hated her to be frank. It was a bit of jealousy inside of me, a feeling I’d never quite experienced before, and it made me really uncomfortable. But she invited me out to Chicago with her. She tried to stay in touch. I mean, she emailed me, she called, she tried to see me when she’d come into town. I spurned it all. I pushed her away. And I did it because I was jealous that she went for it.
It didn’t make me feel good thinking about this stuff. It made me feel like a brat, like I was ungrateful, like I was a bad friend. I knew that I wasn’t perfect, of course I wasn’t, but I had definitely been a little close-minded in my past. And scared. I guess fear is what did it to me. Fear of the unknown. Fear to try. And where did that get me? Sitting behind this old hotel desk, still living at home, never leaving my hometown, stuck in a state of petrification. It’s like I didn’t even give myself a chance.
I guess I was just like my father in that regard. No, Audra, don’t compare yourself to him. Get these thoughts out of your head. I squinted my eyes shut and lowered my head toward the desk below, my hands cupping over my ears like putting myself in this position would really stop my overactive brain from thinking the thoughts that were coming.
He was scared, too. Scared to do anything after his mechanic business went under, after my mother left. He was too fearful to get his life back on track that he succumbed to alcohol. And now, who was he? Just one of those stereotypical alcoholics you see on TV, a bit scraggly, unhealthy looking, dependent on his government check and his working daughter, totally capable of going out and doing something great but too ashamed of who he’s become or fearful of failure or whatever it might be, all of this built up and keeping him from being the good person he once was.
“Stop,” I said aloud to myself. The lobby was empty and even though my voice was quiet, it echoed throughout the old room, bouncing off the wooden walls.
I didn’t want to see the comparisons between us but there they were. Like my father, I was too scared to really do anything with my life. But unlike him, I still had a lot of gas left in the tank, I still had a lot of years left to make my mark, to do something worthwhile, to give myself the opportunity to love, to be loved, to love myself. Jake had given me permission to be vulnerable and my mind ran with it. Maybe a little further than it should have gone, but then again maybe not. There was just so much inside of me that needed out and I really didn’t know how to let it out easy, let it out like a slow leak rather than in a single big burst.
I wiped at my eye, daubing a single wet tear. What was I doing here? What was I doing behind this desk? What was I doing in Champlain? There was so much world out there that I hadn’t explored. How had I let it get this bad? I was a good person, I was a smart person. I knew this. I believed it. So why did I feel so pitiful and embarrassed?
I had to stop. I had to stop. I sat up straight in my chair, took a deep breath, searched around with my eyes for something to look at, finally settling on the computer screen. Taking hold of the mouse, I opened up a web browser and typed in ‘Kelsie Kent’ to the search engine. So much came up. Her picture on the right-hand side. Her IMDB page, her Wikipedia page, an option to sort through a slew of press and red carpet images. She smiled gleefully, standing there in front of some movie poster, dressed up like a damn princess or something. You know what I mean? Like, in a ball gown, her red hair done up, face painted, lips bright red, just absolutely glowing.
I couldn’t help myself. I began devouring everything I could about Kelsie. I felt like a kid doing it, I felt sad and embarrassed, like I’d given in to some compulsion. I even clicked on some of the celebrity rag websites, the kind of media that can make you feel sick to your stomach at how invasive it is, the paparazzi photos, the hounding, I just ate it all up. But I knew I wasn’t starstruck, I knew it. I mean, I didn’t care about the other actors in the movie, I didn’t care about Josh Timony. No, I was Kelsie-struck. And fortunately for me, like a smitten little schoolgirl, pretty much everything I wanted to know about her was at my fingertips.
I certainly felt bad about doing it. I felt kind of like a stalker, to be honest. But it was like I couldn’t stop myself. My mind wanted to know everything and my body reacted in kind. The rational part of me was saying, ‘come now, Audra, you might tick Kelsie off a bit if she finds out you did this.’ But whatever weird lusty insatiable part of me that lived deep in my subconscious, my ego or lizard brain or whatever you want to call it, it just grinned devilishly and egged me on, urging me to read more, dig deeper, just absorb everything I could about Kelsie in the hopes that maybe I might find some way to relate to her.
Or th
at maybe I could show someone as cool and beautiful and fearless as her that I wasn’t just some timid, anxious girl that failed to launch herself out into the real world. Because that’s exactly how I felt.
“Dude,” exclaimed Kelsie, a wide smile on her face as she held on to the roll-cage of my Jeep with one hand, the two of us bouncing together as I drove us down the desire path dirt road. “This is amazing!” Her voice trembled slightly with the bumps in the road.
“Right?” I said with a knowing smile, looking over to the passenger seat, watching Kelsie enjoy the ride. The sun was almost completely set, a beautiful orange hue beaming off in the west as we drove toward the Lake. I had seen all the faces of Lake Michigan and this was one of my favorites.
“Ooh!” said Kelsie, leaning forward slightly and pointing. “There it is.”
She was right. The Lake was coming into our view. It was such a vast body of water, much like an ocean, as it seemingly went on forever. While I’m sure Kelsie had seen plenty of beautiful waters in her life, it’s always nice to add a new one to your experiences. And Lake Michigan, on the Michigan side, was one that was definitely worth experiencing.
The road just about ran out as it dissolved into a sand dune. I slowed the Jeep down, pulling off to the side and bringing the car to a stop. Flicking the ignition off, I turned to Kelsie and grinned.
“Here we are,” I said.
“Woo!” she cried out, speedily removing her seatbelt and stepping out of the car. Kelsie immediately kicked off her sandals and ran in the fine sand toward the Lake.
“Wait up!” I called after her, following her lead and leaping out of the Jeep. My flip-flops flipped off and I chased her toward the gentle slope in the dune.
I watched as Kelsie then flipped her body, not quite going head over heels, but close, and when she hit the sand below she began to tumble with a wide joyful expression on her face. At first I was a bit scared, like I thought she had fallen on accident, but I quickly saw that it was a purposeful gesture. Her body tossed up sand as she rolled.
Hotel Hollywood: A Lesbian Romance Page 4