Mean Season (12 page)

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 impres
sion 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.

Shutting Up Sandy

M
y 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.

A few weeks later, after she'd been harassed about it a few times and read up on where she now perched in the social scheme of things, she got a little mad. Sandy would say she was just more in touch with it all, with the anger
and
the love. Maybe that was true, but her ornery side was the most visible.

Sandy's mean season was wide-open that Saturday when we met at The Buccaneer, one of Pinecob's two bars. I always considered “Buccaneer” a silly name for a bar in a land-
locked state like West Virginia, but it sat dead center on the only commercial strip in town. With a good location, I guess the Buck's owner could have named that place anything and still pulled a crowd. Most everyone went there. Well, except Sandy and me, we hardly ever went there. But I was tired of Momma being the only person who got to go out on weekends, so I up and said that I was going. Besides, she wasn't home to stop me, and Joshua had been with us a little over a month by then, so I figured he'd do fine watching Beau Ray.

We sat at a booth near the jukebox, and ordered beers from Loreen Dunbar, the girl Howard Malkin cheated on me with. She'd been a waitress there for a couple of years, which is one of the reasons Sandy and I didn't frequent the place. Not that I held a huge grudge, but a little one, sure.

“So Leanne,” Loreen said, after we'd ordered. “Any good stories?”

That was a second reason I hadn't been hanging out at the Buccaneer. I hated all the asking, hated hearing myself tell the same story over and over. Maybe if I had good stories, I'd have felt different. Sandy's news was more buzzworthy, knowing Pinecob, but it wasn't common knowledge at that point.

“Nah,” I said. “I don't actually see him all that much.”

“How come?” Loreen asked, but I got lucky and she was summoned by another customer. “I'll be back with your beers,” she said.

“Guess who I see?” Sandy asked, and then she waved.

It being Pinecob, Sandy might have seen anyone from our growing up. It might have been Howard Malkin, the cheat himself, or Barton Albert or Paulie Pizzoni or Lionel Hutchinson or really anyone. But I turned around and saw Max Campbell walking over, which was better than all of them by a long shot. And somehow worse, too.

“Hey Sandy, hey Leanne,” he said. “I like your hair, Leanne. It's different, right?”

I nodded. I'd brought a picture from one of Alice's magazines to the salon the day before. All week, I'd been leafing through her loaner periodicals, but a haircut was all the change I'd managed.

“It looks good,” Max said.

“Who are you here with?” Sandy asked.

“My cousins Lisa and Laura are up from Roanoke. They wanted me to show them a good time,” Max said.

“So you took them to the Buccaneer? Remind me not to call you when I want a hot date,” Sandy said.

“Hey, they're not complaining.” Max pointed to two blond women playing doubles pool with a couple guys I didn't know.

“It doesn't look like,” Sandy agreed.

“What about you? And don't try to sell me on Leanne being your Saturday-night squeeze,” he said.

“Hey!” I said, pretending to be insulted.

Max looked at Sandy, it seemed to me, the way a lot of guys looked at Sandy, like she was a pleasant surprise, like looking at gold.

“None of your business,” Sandy said. “But I am seeing someone new. Someone fabulous.”

“Someone fabulous?” Max asked. He sat down beside her. “Won't Scooter be crushed. That might do the old boy in.”

Loreen brought us our beers, and I took a big sip of mine so maybe I'd be less tongue-tied. Loreen gave Max a big smile.

“Scooter will get over it,” Sandy said.

“You're heartless, Wilson. Always have been. Anyone I know?” Max asked.

“You know anyone in Hagerstown?”

Max shook his head.

“Then, no,” Sandy said.

“So tell me about him,” Max said, and in a space of a blink, Sandy looked ready to spit fire.

“Typical,” she snapped. “I said it's none of your business, and I'm serious!”

“Sandy,” I said, trying to point out that she'd been way snappier than need be.

“Sorry,” Max said. “I didn't realize you had nerves enough to strike.”

“Go bother Leanne about her love life,” Sandy said. “Leave mine be.”

“Sandy!” I said again, this time wanting to shut her up for a different reason.

Max turned to me. “I see Leanne every Sunday,” he said. “There's nothing to pick on her about. And even if there was, I promised I wouldn't gossip about her.” He winked, like the two of us had a secret. I thought about him standing there, in the doorway of my house and wondered if we did. “But you, Wilson, you've near as hell disappeared off the map.”

“How do you know Leanne doesn't have a love life to pick on? You don't know everything about her. Yeah, you see her, but you don't really see her. You hardly know
anything,
” Sandy said.

I tried to kick her under the table, but I missed and jammed my toe against the booth-back. Max looked over and sort of frowned. I smiled at him, hoping to seem nonchalant.

“I noticed her hair,” Max said. “Leanne holds her cards so close, I can't get anything out of her,” he said. “You, I can make all sorts of conjectures about.”

“But Leanne's the one with the hunk in her house, isn't she?” Sandy asked. “Right across the hall. Isn't it strange how little she talks about that?”

“We all know there's nothing there,” I said, quick as can be.

Sandy shrugged. “So you say,” she said. “But if you're so available, why aren't you out and about?”

“Look at me. I'm out,” I said, really wishing that the subject would die. But Sandy still wasn't done.

“What about asking out that guy from your office? Otto? Or that guy you think is cute at the SpeedLube? Or Lionel. You could always go back to Lionel. You could even ask Max here out to another play.”

“What?” Max asked.

“What?” I asked, only I knew exactly what she was referring to, and I hated when she did this, handing her pissy moods to me like dripping socks. Plus, when Sandy was feeling mean, she'd barrel over the same looks that she'd catch on subtler days.

“You remember…when Leanne asked you to see
South Pacific?
” Sandy asked Max.

“What are you talking about?” Max asked, looking between me and Sandy, like this might be a private joke he didn't get.

I thought it would be better if I told the story, so I cut Sandy off before she could say more. “It's nothing,” I said. “It was years ago. There's no reason you should remember. My mother's cousin, Nora, down in Charleston, is a drama teacher and her school put on
South Pacific,
and it won a competition, so it played in a bunch of the county seats, including Charles Town… None of this rings a bell?”

Max shook his head. “When was this?” he asked.

“I don't know—maybe three years back?” I went on. “It was a Sunday, and I was at the Winn-Dixie, and you were there, and I asked what you were doing later that week, on that Friday, when they were going to put on the play. I asked if you wanted to go see it—with me.”

“That sounds vaguely familiar,” Max said. “What did I say?”

“You told me you were scheduled to work that Friday, but you'd see if you could get off, and you'd call to let me know.”

“But,” Sandy said, forcing a transition. I braced myself for what had to come next, like when you see a pothole too late to swerve off.

“I didn't call?” Max guessed.

“What happened was…that was the week you met Charlene,” I said. “At least, that's what I found out later.”

“Oh, fuck,” Max said. “I think I do remember that. God, I'm sorry.”

“Whatever. No big deal now, you know. Bad timing, is all.”

“No, Leanne, I am sorry. That was kind of a crazy time for me. I probably dropped a lot of balls right around then.”

“That's putting it mildly,” Sandy said.

I knew that she just wanted to be mad at him for having assumed she was dating a guy, even though he'd have to have been a psychic to guess about Alice. I mean, Sandy had practically been engaged to Barton Albert just a few years prior.

“It's fine. I know it's not every week a guy meets his soul mate,” I said.

“That's not the word I'd use for Charlene,” Max said.

“Better that than, I mean, if you weren't going to call, better it's on account of meeting your future wife. Better than you forgetting, or it just being some other girl. But you know, no big deal.” I felt like I was about to cry although I didn't know the reason. It was nearly three years before that this had happened—or not happened—between me and Max, but it suddenly felt like last week. I turned to Sandy for help, and she seemed to see me for the first time.

“Got you over that little crush anyhow,” Sandy said. “Right quick, too.”

“I guess,” I said. “Yeah.”

“I feel like such a jerk. I'm really sorry,” Max said.

“Like I said, no big deal,” I told him. “I can't think why it came up.”

I frowned at Sandy, then grabbed my beer and downed it as quick as I could. I put the glass back on the table with a thunk. Sandy and Max looked at the glass, then at me. “Man, that was good,” I said.

Max looked into his own beer, still half-full. “Can I get you another?” he asked. It seemed obvious that he was trying to be extra nice for the slight, three years gone.

“Would you mind?” I said. As soon as he got up from the table, I turned to Sandy. “How could you say that? Why did you bring that up?” I asked her.

She blinked at me. “What?”

“About the time in the Winn-Dixie,” I said. “About
South Pacific.
”

“That was
years
ago. It's funny.”

“It's embarrassing.”

“But you can't still… It didn't seem to bother you much back then.”

“I would think that you, of all people in my entire life, could tell when I'm faking something,” I said to her.

Sandy's eyes got wide. “Oh,” she said. “It was worse than that?” Whatever anger she'd been carrying evaporated. “Oh damn, Leanne. I'm sorry. You should have told me.”

“You were all happy with Barton back then, remember? I didn't want…” I felt myself start to choke up again, and willed it away. “It took me a long time,” I said. “You know, first to ask, and then to get over asking.”

“So your crush?” She looked at me and I shrugged. “Still?” she asked.

“I can't help it,” I told her. “Even knowing about Charlene and him all holding on. Nothing's ever going to happen.”

“I never would have said it if I'd known. Please believe me,” she said.

“I figured it was obvious,” I said.

“The crush? No. Not at all. You're cool around him. Except for that part just now when you almost started to cry.”

“It's been a rough week,” I told her.

“I don't think he noticed,” Sandy said.

“So was it a good play? Did you go?” Max asked.

He put a new beer down and sat beside me in the booth. I moved over to give him room and could feel liquid jostling around in my stomach. It usually took me about an hour to finish a beer, so I didn't even know where to begin with the second one.

“What?”

“
South Pacific.
Your mom's cousin's school. Did you go?”

“Yeah, it was. I did. You know, I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair,” I said, singing it like they do in the musical. “How are your own cousins doing?”

Max turned toward the pool table. “We're going to head home after this game. We've got hours of home movies my mother wants us all to watch. Mostly of my mom and their mom when they were little. We figured we'd come here first and get a couple drinks down, to make the viewing more interesting.” Max looked at me. “But I'm just having this one,” he said. “I'm driving.”

I shrugged.