Charly's Epic Fiascos (17 page)

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Authors: Kelli London

BOOK: Charly's Epic Fiascos
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III
BITING THE BIG APPLE
24
“P
sst. Charly.”
Charly opened her eyes, then cut them to her right. Nothing but faint darkness, passing lights from outside, and a faint glow in the east met her sight. The sun would rise soon. Her head leaned against the bus window, a jacket balled under it serving as her pillow. Punching the fabric to make it more comfortable, she turned her face back toward the open road, then shut her lids again. The ride ahead of her was long, and she wanted to be rested. Marlow moved in her lap, and she put her hand on the kennel to assure her that everything would be okay.
“Psst. Charly.”
Charly sat up this time, sure she heard her name. “What?” she whispered. It couldn't be anyone else calling her but Pee-Wee.
Suddenly Pee-Wee plopped down in the seat next to her. “I'm scared, Charly,” Pee-Wee admitted and shrugged.
Thunder rumbled and streaks of white light danced in the night sky. Charly rolled her eyes. “Pee-Wee, don't tell me you're afraid of a little rain. You're entirely too old—”
Pee-Wee shook her head. “Not of the rain. I'm afraid of going to Philly, and we're almost there. Can't I just go with you? We could like get a place together. Start a doggy business.” She huffed. “I mean, we do have two puppies.”
Charly scratched her head. She'd had a hard few days and didn't feel like dealing with Pee-Wee's outlandish dreams. “Look, Pee-Wee, I don't know what to tell you . . . other than we're not supposed to have Marlow and Petey in the same seat. But you know that already.” She paused. She was tired and irritated, and was trying to keep it all in check, but Pee-Wee was making it hard. Charly didn't know what it was about Pee-Wee that got under her skin. The girl really hadn't done anything to her. Other than her knowing Nicole, which kept Charly on possible offender alert, Charly had nothing to charge her with. Pee-Wee was just another lost soul seeking to be found. “What do you want me to do, Pee-Wee? I can't just take you to my family's house. I'm trying to piece it all together. I have to land this reality television series, find my dad and get to know him again. You name it, I gotta do it. Look at it this way, at least in Philly, you have stability. Family. But I'll always be a phone call away . . . just in case,” Charly added, feeling guilty for being so cut and dry.
“Okay,” Pee-Wee said, nodding her head. “Thank you, Charly. Thanks for being just a call away.”
Charly looked long and hard at Pee-Wee, then swallowed. Suddenly, she felt sorry for her, and recognized her uneasiness. She was also a little afraid, but she was more scared of going back to her old life. “Just sit here, Pee-Wee,” Charly said. “Sit here until we get to Philly.” She shrugged, then closed her eyes. “Get some sleep,” she said, her lids still shut. “Who cares if two dogs aren't supposed to be so close together on a stupid ride.”
It felt like only a few moments had passed before Charly was jolted awake by “We're here, Charly,” Pee-Wee said. “Get up. We're here,” she repeated.
Charly opened her eyes and stretched. “I see.” She gulped, then looked over at Pee-Wee. “Remember what I told you. Don't be afraid. I'm only a call away.”
Pee-Wee's arms were around Charly's neck, hugging her. “Thanks, Charly. And I'm here for you, too. Okay? And don't hesitate to call me. We're less than an hour and a half away from each other,” Pee-Wee said, squeezing her, then letting go. She got up as the bus pulled into the station, waved, and held Petey in her arms as she made her way down the aisle.
Charly smiled at Pee-Wee's back and wished her the best as she got off the bus and went to start her new life. “Good luck, Pee-Wee,” she whispered, then closed her eyes for her less-than-two-hour journey to New York, where she'd capture her dreams.
New York City's Port Authority was on Eighth Avenue and Forty-second Street, and was one of the busiest intersections Charly had ever seen. She walked along Eighth Avenue, her face constantly looking up as she went. Yes, she'd lived outside of Chicago for years, and knew it had its share of tall buildings, but New York was something else. It had a heartbeat, even before nine in the morning. She stopped on the corner of Eighth Avenue and West Forty-first, just opposite of
The New York Times
and a business underneath it called Dean & Deluca. She was amazed that she'd traveled so quickly. Her stomach growled and her mouth was dry. She would've loved to have a cup of coffee and a bagel or a muffin, a couple of the items she saw people carrying out of Dean & Deluca's as she crossed the street, headed to what she assumed was a café. Marlow scratched inside her kennel, and Charly stopped. How was she supposed to grab breakfast with a dog in tow? She looked around as if her answer lay with the busy pedestrians as they walked nine-thousand miles per hour; then a vending cart caught her attention, across a different street. She nodded. She could grab a bite there and, maybe, let Marlow out.
Her feet moved as quickly as the other people's, she noted, keeping pace with the other fast-walking pedestrians as they crossed the street. She was trying to blend in. It was bad enough that she was walking with luggage, she didn't want her greenness to show, proving that she was a tourist. In her mind, she was a bona fide, certified New Yorker, and no one could tell her any different, except for the food vendor.
“Excuse me,” Charly asked him, buying a stick of chicken slathered in barbeque sauce and topped off with a piece of stale bread. “Do you know how to get to Brooklyn?” she asked. She was certain that that's where Mason had said his cousin lived.
The man nodded. “Of course. Who doesn't?” was all he said, continuing to serve customers.
“Well, what about Uptown?” she asked, now with her hand on the corner of his vending stand, hoping for more information. Her aunt had told her that she lived uptown, and Charly believed it was a separate borough of New York like Brooklyn or Queens. She peeked around the opening of the Plexiglas with the menu painted on it in yellow and red. “You know how to get there?”
People whizzed by her, some walking down the street, others up the street. A bunch were crossing at the corner, and one or two stepped directly in front of her as if she weren't standing there and placed their orders. The man served the customers, and paid her no attention. Charly looked around. She'd never seen so many people in her entire life, and she was beginning to feel like New York was going to swallow her whole. “Order something or move it!” the vendor finally spoke.
Charly jumped in front of the next person in line. “Listen. Can you just please tell me how to get uptown?”
Someone laughed behind her. “That's easy. Go uptown.” A few people joined in the laughter. A couple others rushed her out of the way. “Little girl, move. We have places to be.”
Charly tightened her grip on her luggage, then wheeled her belongings and Marlow out of the way. She kept walking, looking up toward the street signs, watching them climb in numbers. The rude person in the group of people had told her if she wanted to go uptown she had to go uptown, and that's exactly what she was doing. But then her legs started getting tired and her feet began to hurt in the chocolate boots. She shook her head. She'd never have guessed that uptown was so far. Finally, she spotted a line of people sitting. A waist-high cement fencelike structure was just up ahead, and, thankfully, there was room for her.
Plopping down, she unzipped Marlow's kennel, hooked her leash to her collar, then set her on the ground. She closed her eyes for a second to steady herself. She was here. Here in New York, the place of her dreams. So why did she feel so lost? “Don't be helpless,” Charly told herself, finally pulling out her phone. She dialed her aunt, but no one answered. She left a voice mail, then decided to contact Mason's cousin that he'd told her about. She couldn't just sit in the city all day, that wasn't helping.
“Hello?” a girl asked. “Who's this?”
Charly gulped. “Um. Hi. This is Charly,” she said hesitantly into the phone.
The phone went silent.
“Hello?” Charly said. “Hello?” she looked at her screen to see if the call was still connected.
“Yeah. What do you want? Who are you looking for?” the voice was quick, impatient.
Charly gulped again. She didn't know who she was looking for. Mason hadn't given her a name, only a number. “Well, um . . . I dunno. My friend, Mason, gave me this number—”
“Got'chu. This is Mason's cousin on his mov'vah's side,” she said, pronouncing mother more differently than Charly had ever heard. “So, where are you? He said if you called, that meant you needed me. Tell me where you are, and I'll come get you—
but
, it's gonna take me a minute. I mean a real minute. And until I get there, don't talk to nobody. And I mean nobody.”
25
T
he sun was higher in the sky. Charly exhaled and wiggled, trying to get her blood circulating. Getting up from the hard concrete slab she'd sat on in downtown Manhattan, on and off, for over three hours, she paced, allowing Marlow some space to roam. They'd done this all day, the waiting, the pacing, the sitting back down and beginning again. Still, though, Charly had waited. She'd phoned Mason, but he didn't answer. He did message her though, then they'd played text tag, and he'd told her to be patient and promised that his cousin was making a way out of no way for Charly, and would be there. He had reassured Charly and she'd believed him.
“Whew,” she said to Marlow, then crinkled her brows. Some of the same people Charly had seen passing by her this morning, obviously on their way to work, were now passing back by her on their way to lunch.
“Yo! Girl in the boots?” an odd voice yelled from across the street.
Charly looked around and saw she was the only one in her vicinity who wore boots, then followed the voice. “Me?” she asked, hoping it was Mason's cousin, but not being able to trace the voice.
“Yeah. You. Your name Charly?” a guy asked, sticking part of his upper body out of an SUV's driver's window.
Charly was hesitant to answer. Mason's cousin was female, not male. But the person shouting to her was all guy, and, from where she was standing, he seemed to be alone, but she couldn't be sure of that. The SUV had extremely dark, tinted windows.
“Yo! You Charly or not?” a different voice asked from the back window, which was now rolling down.
A female's soft face appeared, and Charly relaxed. “Yes.” She smiled, getting up. “I'm Charly.”
 
Loud music blared from high-end speakers and the guy driving moved his mouth, rapping along with the lyrics. Charly was squashed, wedged between the door and Mason's cousin's hip, but she wouldn't complain. She was off the street and headed toward Brooklyn.
“So how long you here for, Charly?” Mason's cousin asked, wrapping her lips around a bottle of soda, then sipping. She bumped her elbow into the milk crates sitting next to her on the backseat, then cursed under her breath. “Sorry it's so tight in here. My boyfriend deejays, and these are his records. As in real records. He's an old-school spinner, he likes to scratch, but he uses the computer now too.”
Charly nodded and smiled. “Hopefully forever,” she answered, holding onto the handrail mounted just off the ceiling as the driver took a sharp turn, making her bump into Mason's cousin. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Mason's cousin nodded. “So where are we taking you?”
The song turned off and the radio DJ began talking. Charly held up her finger, silencing Mason's cousin. The station was announcing reality show tryouts, and said there were only two days left. “I'm sorry. You were saying?” she asked.
“Where are we dropping you off?”
Charly hadn't realized they were picking her up to drop her off. She thought she was going with them to Brooklyn. “Well, my aunt lives uptown, but works somewhere downtown at the television station . . . where they're filming the reality TV show,” she said.
“Cool,” Mason's cousin said, not phased by Charly's aunt's job. “So where do you want to go? Uptown or downtown? We're midtown now, so either way is cool with us.”
Charly pulled out a piece of paper and looked at her aunt's address. She handed it to the girl. “Here. She lives off Park Avenue.”
The girl raised her brows. “Well, this isn't exactly uptown. We're only blocks from this address.” She eyed Charly again, then told her boyfriend where to go.
He whistled. “With the kind of paper your aunt must have to live where she lives, I'm surprised she didn't send a limo to pick you up.” He shrugged and nodded in the rearview.
Charly watched as sidewalks full of people and tall buildings passed by in a blur. Excitement filled her and made the ride shorter. Finally, the car pulled over to the curb. Charly grabbed Marlow, hopped out, then took her luggage from Mason's cousin, who stood next to her. The girl gave her a quick hug, then hopped back into the backseat of the SUV.
“Take care, and call if you need anything,” she said out of the window, then rolled it up. The music turned up, vibrating the windows, and the SUV pulled off into traffic.
Charly waved bye to them from the corner next to her aunt's building and looked at her watch. She would barely have time to shower and change before heading back downtown to audition for the show. She wondered if her aunt could make a call for her so the studio would hold her place. She nodded, sure it was possible. She set Marlow on the ground, then walked toward the black awning where there was a doorman outside waiting.
“Afternoon,” he said, opening the door for her and Marlow, then reached for her luggage.
Charly smiled. “No thank you,” she said. “I have them.” She looked at the piece of paper in her hand, and saw her aunt lived on the top floor.
The doorman raised his eyebrows. “And who are we visiting today, young lady?” he asked, very pleasantly.
“My family.” She pointed. “All the way up top.”
He nodded, knowingly. “The Michaelses?” he said, looking up, as if thinking. “Yes, that's right. Anniversary time, isn't it? They told me you'd be coming and to let you up. I do apologize, miss. It's been a long day.”
Charly pursed her lips together. She remembered Brigette saying something about her aunt getting married years ago and thinking she was too good to take her husband's last name, but for the life of her she couldn't remember if the last name was Michaels or not. She shrugged. If the doorman called them the Michaelses, then that must be their name. “Yes, it is,” she said, entering the building and pausing. “This is my first time here in years. Which way do I go?”
He smiled, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out a dog treat and held it up. “Do you mind?” Charly shook her head. He gave it to Marlow. “Glad you asked about the elevators. They're updating the main ones, so I'm afraid you'll have to use service. I do apologize, and please tell Mr. Michaels it won't be long. The service company assured us the elevators would be finished before five.” He pointed to the back of the building. “Straight back and to the left, miss. And I must say, you resemble your aunt quite a bit.”
Charly turned left and there was a wall straight in front of her with two connecting hallways on either side. She raised her brows and looked down at Marlow.
“Which way do you think we should go?” she asked rhetorically, then decided left would be best. It was, after all, the direction the doorman had given. A person dressed like a janitor walked by them, and Charly assumed she must've selected correctly as the other elevators weren't working. At the end of the corridor was a door, which she opened. Another short hallway was before her, and from what she could see, it opened up to a few rooms. She and Marlow had obviously gone the wrong way. She shrugged, then backtracked until she reached the correct elevator, then hopped on and pressed PH. The elevator didn't budge.
“One second!” the doorman called, then hustled onto the elevator. He stuck a key into the elevator panel and turned it. “Glad I caught you. Sorry, this one won't go up to the penthouse without a key. Enjoy your day, miss.”
Soft jazz greeted her ears when the elevator doors opened. Her eyes bulged. She had been expecting another hallway, but instead she was inside her aunt's apartment. “Just like TV,” she said, stepping off. “Hello?” she called out, walking through the huge, immaculate apartment, which didn't resemble her idea of an apartment at all. It looked more like the first floor of a mansion. “Hello? It's me, Charly. . . .” she called again, and only heard her voice float with the music.
Walking through the place, Charly grew more and more impressed. Her aunt had really made something for herself, and Charly assumed being a hotshot at the network must've paid well because her aunt lived like a queen. Either that, or she'd married up. She wheeled her bags while Marlow walked beside her. Charly looked on the wall, saw that it was almost noon.
“We gotta hurry, Marlow,” Charly said, then zipped through the apartment until she found a bathroom. She had to hurry and shower, then get down to the auditions before they closed.

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