Charly's Epic Fiascos (6 page)

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Authors: Kelli London

BOOK: Charly's Epic Fiascos
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harly's dirty clothes were bunched up in the corner of her room, peeving her. She'd been so busy working, crunching homework assignments, stockpiling for the phone, and juggling her other chores—including Brigette's demands and looking after Stormy—that she'd neglected her own needs. Her laundry had piled, her acting practice had been abandoned, and, now, she had to figure out who was this friend of Mason's, pick up her check, finally get her cell and sign up for the online acting classes. She put her hands on her hips, surveying the area. It was a disaster. A bona fide, certified hot mess of a mess, and she couldn't leave it this way. She nodded, picking up a couple of loose socks. The first thing she had to do was clean her space; then she'd find a sixties costume to wear to Smax's while trying to get in touch with Rebecca from the pet salon so she could help save Rebecca's job before she lost it due to Barkly's owner insisting that she be Barkly's groomer.
Sorting the clothes, she remembered the money she'd put in the pockets of the pants and skirt she'd worn the other day. She couldn't forget that. Brigette had been known to search her and Stormy's pockets, taking whatever she found. Retrieving her savings, she scanned the room, looking for a hiding place. She didn't want to walk with so much money on her, afraid of losing it, a thing she'd done a time or two or three before. Her eyes roamed past the dresser, the makeshift nightstand she'd made out of old acting books, and the mattress. All three were too predictable, as was the worn carpet she'd pulled up to hide cash before, only to come back and find that Brigette had beat her to it. Charly snapped her fingers. “The closet.” In the upper section, they'd stored old suitcases and boxes that were filled with Charly's old movie scene sketches, pictures of her dad, and lists of goals she was still determined to accomplish.
Grabbing a folding chair from next to the dresser, Charly dragged it across the room to the closet, then stepped up on it. On tiptoe, she managed to free one of the middle suitcases from the others. It was as big as it was heavy. It was also plain and dirty beige, something she was sure Brigette would overlook. She moaned under the weight of it, barely able to lower it from over her head without dropping it. “Don't slip. Don't slip,” she begged the old beat-up baggage. If Brigette heard it thump on the floor, she'd come snooping. With suitcase in hand and feet firmly on the floor, Charly struggled to the bed, dropping it on the mattress and opening it. Sure enough, a big picture of her and her dad met her eyes and caused her to smile. She didn't know why seeing him made her happy. He'd left her years ago, but the best memories of her life involved him.
A soft knock at the door made her pause and tense. Then she relaxed. Brigette was too lazy to walk to the room unless she was looking for something, and then would only do so if no one was there. “One sec,” Charly said, shuffling through pictures and papers, locating a place she could stash the money. In the corner of the suitcase, under a stack of rubber-band-wrapped index cards, she saw the lining of the case was torn. She nodded, folded the money as neatly and flatly as she could, then stuck it inside, pressing it until it seemed to meld with the case. She placed the homemade cue cards back over the slit, then covered it with the rest of the other contents. “I'm coming,” she said, closing and lugging the case back over to the closet, where she shuffled two lighter ones to the side, then sandwiched the dusty beige one between them.
“Charly? Can I come in or not?” Stormy asked.
Charly closed the closet, picked up the folding chair, then put it back next to the dresser. “Yes,” she said, out of breath, collapsing on top of the bed.
Stormy opened the door, then looked suspiciously around the room. “What are you up to?” she asked, then zoomed in on the pile of clothes. “Yuck! What happened in here?”
Charly shook her head. “This is not my bedroom; it's just where I dress and sleep. You know I'm too busy to clean up. Now I gotta get ready to go to Smax's.” She got up, then rifled through drawers. “Foxy,” she said, pulling out a glittery shirt. “Today, I'll dress up like Foxy Brown. Smax and Bathsheba will get a kick out of it. Now where's my wig?” she asked no one.
“Come on. I'll help you find it. I think it's great that you get to dress up for work,” Stormy said, adjusting her glasses on her face before they slipped down her nose.
Charly looked at her sister. The glasses needed to be adjusted, and everyone knew it, but Brigette didn't care. “I know. It's really cool wearing different costumes. Plus, I don't like to go in looking like a waitress. How boring is that, and anyway dressing up helps me with my acting, Stormy. I use work to polish characters while getting paid.” She held her index finger to her lips. “And today's payday, so you know I'm getting my phone when I get off,” she whispered. “I'm so excited.”
 
An afro wig was on her head, a wing-tip-collared button-up shirt was tied around her waist, and a pair of skintight bell-bottoms fit her like a second skin. Charly smiled, admiring herself in the reflection of the pet salon window. She looked like a younger version of the real Foxy Brown, except for her beloved chocolate combat boots with red laces.
Take that, Pam Grier
, she mouthed to her mirror image, then blew herself a kiss. A hand, waving from the other side of the glass, interrupted her. Charly clenched her teeth, a bit embarrassed at first, then shook it off. She was Ms. Too Everything to hold an ounce of embarrassment—too popular, too cute, and most importantly, too original. She was Charly St. James, star on the rise. She patted her afro until it was perfect, puckered her lips to smooth out her gloss, then smiled at Rebecca.
“Wow! Look at you,” Rebecca said when Charly walked in. “Are you like an actress or something? The other day, you looked like one of the Supremes.”
Charly smiled. “Yes, I'm an actress. And I didn't look like one of the Supremes. I was
the
top-billing Supreme. Diana Ross.” She batted her drugstore-bought long fake lashes. “Is the owner here? I need to talk to you. We have a problem here at the salon.”
Rebecca's brows raised in curiosity. “No. It's just me again. The owner's never here. The other girl is still sick, and the others only come in early mornings and on weekends. What problem do
we
have, Charly? You don't even work here.” She laughed.
Charly's smile disappeared and her arms crossed. “Well, it seems I do. Or at least we're going to have to make it look like I do. I ran into Barkly's owner the other day after I”—she cringed—“expressed Barkly.” She gave Rebecca the rest of the details.
Rebecca nodded, biting her bottom lip. “Okay. Okay. Okay,” she said, clearly not knowing what to do. “I can't lose my job, Charly. Financial aid partially covers my tuition, and I use the money here to cover the rest, plus rent, food—”
“Yada, yada, yada. You need the money for life—to live. I know what you mean,” Charly said, then walked behind the counter, and pulled up Barkly's standing appointment account. She drummed her fingers on the counter. “Okay, I got it. Barkly usually comes in when I'm working after school at the restaurant. . . .”
“Okay, that doesn't help,” Rebecca said, sighing.
Charly slapped her hand on the counter. “It's cool. As long as it's just a shampoo, we're good. I can work it so I'm taking my break then, but you'll have to do the work. I'll just be here to greet the owner, check Barkly in, and take him to the back. They don't have to know who's grooming him. Get it?”
Rebecca chewed her bottom lip again; then she nodded. “But what if I have a lot of work? What if I can't do it? What if the other girl who works here doesn't go for it?”
Charly tried to scratch her scalp, but the wig was in the way. She hadn't considered all those things. She moaned in thought, snatched off the wig, then paced, raking her fingers through her hair. She stopped in front of a mirror, putting the fake hair back on, and watched herself transform from Charly to Foxy. The change made her light up. “I got it! Just like I looked like Diana Ross the other day with hair and makeup and really big sunglasses, my sister, Stormy, can do the same.”
Rebecca's head almost spun off. “What?”
“My sister will come in on those days, costumed down. I mean, who can recognize me without my costumes? Not you and not Barkly's owner. I'll just send Stormy in in a different costume, and if there's a question, all she has to do is blame it on the costumes.”
Rebecca nodded. “That may work, Charly. Because, the truth is, I don't know what you look like, you know, regular.”
“But you'll have to pay Stormy and, maybe, give the other girl some hush money.”
Rebecca smiled. “I can do that, no problem. If it means that I can finish school, I can do it.”
 
Smax's roof was on fire. At least that's what all the old heads were chanting when Charly walked through the door, nodding her head to DJ's George Clinton/Parliament seventies remix that he was spinning so well. “Hey!” she said, bopping her way to the back to collect her pay.
“The roof. The roof is on fire!” the dancing crowd sang in unison.
“A late good evening to you, Charly,” Dr. Deveraux El greeted her when she passed.
“Good evening to you too, Doc,” Charly said. Today, she didn't have time to do the usual back and forth about how she should refer to him. Today she was here to do her job and get paid for it. She had things to do and people to see. Namely, the cell phone company.
“Hey, Mr. Rudy-Rudy,” she said to the double war vet as she passed the end of the counter, deciding to get both of her favorite customers out of the way. The faster she got through them, the faster she could go see Bathsheba and collect her funds.
“Charly, you certainly are foxy today. Pun intended,” Rudy said, patting his own afro. “I'm telling you, you're giving me flashbacks. And I'm not talking about the war either. That Pam Grier . . .” He shook his head, then drifted off to another time. “Whew—wee! I was something back then.
The
. Man.”
Charly pushed a chair up to the table, then straightened the flimsy white tablecloth. She moved the condiments to the middle, then looked to her left. Lola was standing there with a hand on her hip, a rib in another. “I'm coming. I'm coming,” she said, not understanding why Lola was in such a rush. She was getting the phone, not Lola, but the way Lola was being impatient one would've thought it was her buying the hottest gadget.
“Ugh,” she said, reaching in her shirt and scratching where she itched. The pay she'd just picked up was pinned to the inside of her shirt, thanks to Bathsheba and her handkerchiefing. Ever since the last time she'd lost her money, Bathsheba had tried to make her keep it in her “daily bank,” aka her bra, and when Charly had refused, Bathsheba made her pin it to the inside of her shirt in a neatly folded handkerchief that was secured in a rubber band. The place was almost empty save for Rudy-Rudy, and Dr. Deveraux El, who had a spread of literature on aboriginal peoples' literature before him on the counter, and occasionally ranted about only his American people being nationless.
Lola smacked her lips and closed her eyes in pure euphoria. “Smax know he wrong for making sauce this good,” she said, licking her fingers. “And what's Doc up to now? Who's nationless? I'm from America, and the last time I looked at the map, America was a nation.”
Doc got up from his seat, and made his way over to Lola and Charly. In his hands, he had a stack of papers and a dictionary. “America, my dear sister, is
not
a nation, it's a country. And even that is debatable. Though used interchangeably, there is quite a diffence between the two. A country—America—is a self-governed political body. A nation is a tightly woven group of people who share a common culture.” He nodded, then turned to Rudy-Rudy. “Isn't that correct, sir?”
Rudy agreed. “And I should know. I fought for the corporation.”
“
The
corporation,” Dr. Deveraux El parroted. “Indeed.”
Lola twisted her face, looking from one older man to the next; then she turned to Charly, who shrugged. “Corporation? I thought you just said America is a country.”

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