Seattle Girl (25 page)

“Except to get mochas?” Seth raised one eyebrow in the direction of my pile of to-go coffee cups in the kitchen.

Diane grabbed my hand. “I know you feel shitty right now, but you can’t give up on yourself. You can’t believe what they told you. You can’t let it get you down. Girl, if anyone was meant to make it on radio, it’s you! You’re hot! Just because some stupid, conservative, lame-ass programmers don’t see it, doesn’t mean that the rest of us don’t. Someone is going to give you that big break, and you’re going to knock their socks off. I guarantee it!”

“Hell yeah!” Seth chimed in.

Even in my extremely down state of mind, I could appreciate the fire beneath her words. It was exactly how I had always felt. Well, up until a month ago that is.

I guess she could see that I had weakened enough to be receptive to her next suggestion, because without further discussion she said, “We’re packing you up and you’re moving into my guest room.”

She got up from the couch, and as she headed into my bedroom she winked. “I’ve got big plans for you, my dear. Now, where are your suitcases?”

And that was that. Next stop, Seattle.

I was going back home.

Thank god.

I read in a magazine recently that we all have at least ten defining moments in our lives. I hate to think that all of my moments revolve around some guy, but the truth is that many of them do.

My experiences with these men pop up like ghosts all around me. In my stories. In my dreams. With no warning, they are standing in front of me, daring me to turn away.

I’ve never been able to clear them from my memory. I still can’t. I don’t even try anymore. It’s easier to let them stay with me in my body, on my lips.

I hope these men haven’t been able to forget me. Because, no matter what I do, or how much time passes, I can’t forget them.

* * *

I was unpacking my things in Diane’s guest-room when I suddenly realized that it was time to let go of all of the things that had been holding me down.

Looking back, I can see that I never thought I could do that—I always just figured I had to live with the “truth” of who I was. But here’s the thing I finally figured out: It wasn’t my truth. It was the truth according to someone else. I sure as hell wasn’t the one in charge of taking those pictures in second grade where my underwear was sticking out of the waist-band of my cords. And I know I wasn’t in full agreement to have my portrait taken for the school yearbook when I had that terrible haircut and braces in junior high. And frankly, my parents had no business getting behind the lens of a camera at all. What an awful knack they had for capturing me in the fattest light, in the stupidest poses.

It was time for me to re-write my past. Sort of like a “Create your own history” day at school, where I could invent a new life for myself straight from the depths of my imagination.

Sitting in Diane’s apartment, pulling old photo albums out of a box, I finally realized it really wasn’t me in all of those embarrassing pictures. Nope. She was some girl that some loser, no talent bozo with a point-and-click decided to create.

I threw away almost everything. And as the garbage bag filled up, I felt better and better. As I whittled down through things, I found lots of cute pictures of me as a kid. Happy smiles, good hair, no glasses, playing, laughing, having fun.

I had just uncovered the real Georgia Fulton.

The Georgia Fulton that my grandkids would see.

The Georgia Fulton that I was proud of.

* * *

It took me the better part of a month to get back on my feet. Lots of long walks along the water and late-night dancing at the clubs with Seth and all of his boy-toys.

Slowly, things started to look up.

Seth came out to his parents, which was awful at first when they treated him like dirt, and then amazing when they came around on their own and apologized for treating him so poorly.

Diane was finally, truly happy for the first time in her life. All because of the carpenter, a simple, wonderful man who had shown her the kind of love she deserved, and who helped her forgive her parents for being so self-centered.

Even my parents had seemed to accept that I needed to live my own life, my own way. My mother couldn’t resist the occasional jab at my dearth of boyfriends, but at least she was trying.

And then one day, I was reading the Sunday paper with Seth and Diane at Cafe Cafe when Diane shrieked, “Oh my god! Georgia, I’ve found it!”

“Found what?” I was just the slightest bit worried by the tone of her voice.

“Your new job,” she said in as serious a voice as I’d ever heard fall from her perfect lips. She handed me the paper and pointed one long red nail at the following advertisement:

FEMALE TALK RADIO HOST NEEDED FOR NEW SEATTLE TALK/NEWS STATION. ONLY EXPERIENCED HOSTS NEED APPLY.

I handed the paper back to her. “Not interested.”

“What the hell?” she exclaimed. “Of course you’re interested.”

I shook my head and Seth said, “Girl, I don’t care if I have to talk in falsetto and make the phone call for you. You’re going to that interview!”

I held my hands up. “Fine. I’ll do the stupid interview. But be prepared for me to say ‘I told you so’ when they give me the big ‘R’.”

Diane snorted. “I don’t even know what the big ‘R’ is but you are so going to get this job. Use my cell. Call now!”

And so, with the prodding of my very pushy friends, I found out where to send my press kit and audition tapes. Since neither Seth nor Diane really trusted me not to wimp out, that afternoon they forced me to put together my package and on Monday, Diane mailed it for me from her spa.

I can’t tell you how surprised I was when I got the call requesting me to fly out to New York to interview with the head of the network.

Color me surprised.

* * *

I have always hated airports—almost more than I hate hospitals, but not quite—and will take rather extreme measures to avoid them. Like, for instance, never traveling outside of Washington state if I didn't have to.

The problem is, simply, that I’m not a good flyer. When I was twelve my parents and I flew to London for a vacation. I threw up nonstop the whole flight. I remember switching planes in Chicago for the leg to London, walking down the long narrow corridor to board, throwing up all over the walls and the carpet just from thinking about getting on another plane.

God bless the inventors of Dramamine. I swear I’m going to write them a song to the tune of “God Bless America” and mail it to the company headquarters one day. Dramamine flat out saved my life. I am mindlessly devoted to it.

God willing, may the Dramamine Company never go out of business. At least I know I’m doing my part to keep them flush, with no less than five bottles stashed throughout my travel bags and my medicine drawers.

I’m a really messy flier too. I’m one of those chicks who gets off the plane all red-eyed and static-haired in baggy clothes, comfortable shoes with an old bag stuffed full of everything from neck pillows to CDs to crafting projects to romance novels.

Geek-girl extraordinaire, your limo is waiting.

I’ve always marveled at women who travel in tight jeans, heels and perfect coifs. Honestly though, I’m amazed by these women even on the ground. Don’t they ever get yeast infections? How early do they need to get up to put on their face? And do they have a personal shopper that only gives them coordinating, non-wrinkle separates?

Okay, so it’s just another subset of women that I’m insanely jealous of. From high school beauty queens to no-static-cling travelers, I feel that the sheer evidence of their existence screams out how inferior I am.

Like they stopped working on the Georgia Fulton model long before they had perfected the design.

The day of my interview, I set the alarm for 4:15 am, which is approximately five hours too early for this girl to even be stumbling out of bed to pee.

The 6:30 a.m. departures were cheap and I figured that I could brave a little sleep deprivation if it meant I’d have a couple hundred dollars left over to spend on something fun. Given my sacrifice, in return all I asked the higher powers in the sky was to make my flight as painless and uneventful as possible.

Not a chance.

Standing in line at the baggage check-in, I woke up enough to notice that the “Flight Status” next to my flight said ‘Cancelled.’
 
I was hoping that this wasn’t a sign of disasters to come.

By the time I inched up to the ticket counter, the flight staff woman got on her computer and booked me onto the 6:30am flight to New York on a competing airline in the other terminal.

I was standing there thinking, “You’re fucking kidding me, right? That plane leaves in twenty minutes! There’s no way I’m gonna make it and then I’m gonna be totally screwed,” but maybe because it was so early in the morning and I was still comatose, I didn’t say anything. I just took my reservations and walked away. Can you believe it? Me neither.

Anyway, I get the sense that the airline staff-woman thought she was doing me a huge favor by putting me on the next available flight. No that’s not true. What I really think is that she figured it was easier to pawn me off to another airline so that she could get on with her day more painlessly.

I gathered up what few wits I had that were awake and I ran outside with my suitcase to get on the inter-terminal bus. In the new terminal it took precious minutes to track down the airline rep in the mob of people waiting to check in. And then, as fate would have it, right when I had finally managed to push and shove my way through the crowd and was about to ask for her assistance, she yelled “Same to you!” to some angry guy who was stomping away.

Flustered and out of breath I said, “I just got switched to the 6:30 flight. Can you help me make my plane?”

She glanced at her watch, which now read 6:15, and then looked back at me. Maybe I was hallucinating, but I’m pretty sure she was smiling. “Not a chance. You need to go to the back of the line and wait to be transferred to another flight.”

She turned away, but I refused to back down. I needed to make this flight or any potential future I was going to have in big-time radio was probably out the window. Bye bye career!

I grabbed her arm. “You’re kidding right? You actually expect me to stand in a huge line again today?"

She shook my hand off, her eyes angry slits. “Yes,” she spat at me. “You need to get back into line. I can’t do anything for you.”

Yeah, right. Try “won’t” lady. So I gave it one last shot.

“What if I run to the gate and have them gate check my suitcase?”

I must have gone too far with my final questions, because this time she grabbed my arm and yelled, “Look, I’m telling you to get back in line. There is no way they are going to gate-check your bag.”

Totally pissed off, I turned to leave and, even I have to admit, did something really nasty. I rolled my suitcase over her toe. I know it was badly done, and yet every time I think about it I laugh out loud.

As I quickly made my retreat back through the throngs and out toward the gate, she screamed, “Excuse you!”
 
I could swear that I heard the faint streams of applause from the other helpless travelers stuck in line under her nasty, little thumb.

Desperate and out of options, I decided to go for it. I made my way through security in record time and ran like hell for my gate, which was, of course, the final gate down a long corridor.

Sweaty and breathless I shoved my ticket to the attendant at the gate and begged for mercy. “Please, please, please, could you gate check me for this flight?”

In an act of pure, sweet benevolence, she let me board.

In my seat, before I dozed off, it struck me that maybe this was what life was all about. Not necessarily smooth, no guarantees, but if I could just hang on through the tough times and be ready to run, eventually I would end up where I was meant to go.

* * *

I landed at JFK and caught a taxi. After taking a quick nap at the hotel I went downstairs to see if the restaurant looked any good.

I was checking out the menu in the glass case when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Georgia, my sweet cupcake, you are a difficult one to track down, aren’t you?”

I spun around and stared into the face of Jerry, my semi-psycho caller who I had completely forgotten about since the last time he had called me. The last day Bill and I had ever seen each other.

Jerry looked different than I thought he would have. He was tall – more than six feet if I had to guess – and good looking. And young. Almost the kind of guy I would have gone for.

I shivered slightly. “What are you doing here?”

I was trying not to seem too panicked. After all, we were in a public place. What could he pull in the lobby of the hotel?

“I need to talk to you,” he said in his creep-o voice.

I looked around at all of the people milling about in the lobby. “Fine,” I reluctantly agreed. “How about the bar? And don’t try anything funny, Jerry, or I swear to god I’ll scream so loud you won’t know what hit you.”

He didn’t say anything he just sat down at one of the empty tables. The waitress came by and he said, “Whiskey on the rocks for me and something fruity for the lady.”

I nearly laughed. “Actually, water’s just fine for me,” I said before she walked away. I couldn’t help myself from asking “What’s with the whole fruit thing?” now that we were face to face, and there was clearly no escaping until he said whatever it was he wanted to say.

He looked a little hurt. “You don’t like it?”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I don’t like it. It’s creepy!”

“Oh,” he said as the waitress delivered his drink. He downed it in one big gulp. “Actually, Georgia, I wanted to let you know I’m on the board of the ClearView Media radio network.”

“You’re what?” For a moment I felt as if I had fallen down the rabbit hole.

“That’s right. You may find this hard to believe, but I’m a very wealthy man. Not always the happiest one, I’ll admit, but rich.”

I knew my mouth was hanging open, so I forced myself to shut it.