Mean Season

Mean Season
Heather Cochran

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Zoë

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Heartfelt thanks to all four of my parents for their varied support through this process. To some early and awesome readers, Brangien Davis, Aly Meranze, Dan Daley, Erica Payne, Gabrielle Dudnyk and Gwen Riley. Huge thanks also to Katherine Fausset of Watkins-Loomis and to my editor, Farrin Jacobs. And to David Allen, whose opinion matters.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Day One

Joshua Reed was delivered to our house on Prospect Street in a police car. Lars and Judy followed in their rental, then Momma and I in her station wagon. Momma was humming, like she found it all so amusing. My oldest brother, Tommy, had got into trouble with the law a few times back when he was in high school, and each call from the police station had sparked words between Momma (who wanted to see him punished) and Dad (who thought a good scare was punishment enough). But when it came to Joshua, Momma didn’t seem to care whether he learned anything from his punishment. She said that Joshua not being her son made it seem like a movie, something she might keep her distance from and maybe even enjoy a little.

The policemen who drove Joshua Reed to our house stayed for a couple minutes to make sure that his ankle sensor was working, and also to review the boundaries of our property. In the backyard, Joshua would be allowed to wander to the edge of the lawn, where the trees started, and on the unfenced side of the house, he could go as far as the stand of creepy dead oaks. In front, he could wander to the mailbox at the edge of our driveway.

Once the police drove off (after one of them had asked Joshua for an autograph, for his daughter he made sure to say), the five of us who were left stood a moment in our living room, me and Momma and Judy and Lars and Joshua Reed, newly incarcerated movie star. It was the first time that Judy and Lars and Joshua had actually been inside our house. I caught them looking around, and my cheeks burned. I was suddenly aware of the peeling ceiling paint and the frayed edge of the living room rug and how the fabric on the big couch was worn through, so that Momma had long ago thrown one of her quilts over top of it, like a slipcover that didn’t fit neat around the curves or corners. We’d cleaned—well, I’d cleaned—the house all that previous week. And it looked clean, but it was still nothing like the houses you see in TV shows. And I knew it was nothing like where Joshua Reed usually called home. A year back, there’d been an article about his house in a home decor magazine, so I’d seen pictures. The magazine had called his place an “artist’s cottage,” though it was maybe twice as big as the largest house along all of Prospect Street, maybe in all of Pinecob.

No one looked too comfortable, just standing there. I wasn’t sure what to do besides offer to show Joshua his room, and I noticed him glare at Judy and Lars before he followed me up the stairs.

“I’ll call you soon, J.P.,” Judy said.

He didn’t answer her.

I had put my best sheets on his bed and cleared out some space in the dresser and closet. Vince’s stuff was still all through the room, on the walls and the shelves. After he disappeared, Momma mostly stopped going in there, so it had stayed the same for the past decade. It was only maybe a season before that she’d started to leave Vince’s door open during the day, and I noticed that sometimes, when I got home from work, the shades in his room would be up, letting in a little light.

Vince had always been Momma’s favorite. Maybe I shouldn’t say that—it’s the sort of thing kids aren’t supposed to pick up on, which pretty much ensures that they will. I picked up on it, even when I was little. So when Vince took off, well, I’m sure I won’t get the words right to describe how hard it was on Momma. I can barely describe how hard it was on me. Vince had been my favorite, too.

If you knew Vince, you’d understand. He was the sort of person you’d notice as soon as he entered a room, and the sort of person your eyes would search for, as soon as you entered. He was the guy you always saved a seat for, because sitting beside Vince was like sitting in the sun on a cold day. He could make even church fly by, pointing out who was about to fall asleep, imagining who was daydreaming what, and when it came time to sing, belting out hymns in perfect pitch.

He made up silly games to pass the time, like the one where he’d give you two choices.

“Avocado or banana?” he’d ask, and if you chose differently from him, he’d make you say why. “Orange or green?” he’d ask. “Brother or sister?” he’d always end with. That was the only one we were allowed to disagree on.

Vince was a hair shorter and quite a bit skinnier than both of my other brothers, Beau Ray and Tommy. Still, he’d made varsity football his freshman year of high school, on account of being so fast. No one could catch him, and if someone did manage to get a handful of jersey, they had a hell of a time trying to keep him pinned. That’s what I’d tell myself, whenever I got to thinking about him, that he was one of those people you couldn’t hold down. Maybe he wasn’t made for a town the size of Pinecob. Of course, me being his younger sister surely had something to do with that opinion.

Even with the shades open, it was still Vince’s room. It was still full of his trophies and his football uniform and cleats; and those things, I’d left there. I didn’t know how much shelf space Joshua would need. I didn’t know if he was going to have boxes of clothing sent from California, or whether he planned to spend the whole of his time with us in sweat-pants. I showed him the closet, and the bathroom he would be using.

“I’m going to lie down now,” Joshua said, without looking at me.

As soon as I came back downstairs, Momma left to pick up Beau Ray from the adult care center.

I asked Lars and Judy whether they’d be staying for dinner—I figured they would, to make sure that Joshua was settling in okay—but Lars shook his head.

“Love to, Leanne, but we’ve got a flight back to Los Angeles tonight.”

I nodded. I had seen so much of them in the past weeks, it felt strange to remember that they lived all the way across the country.

“Leanne,” Judy said. “I want to tell you something. Lars and I both do.”

Her tone made me nervous. “Something bad?” I asked.

“Nothing bad,” Lars said, shaking his head.

“You must know how much we appreciate all you’ve done for J.P.,” Judy began. “I’m not talking about the fan club. If it weren’t for you, he’d almost certainly be in jail right now.”

I nodded. “I guess,” I said.

“But I want to say, well, I hope you’re not thinking,” Judy went on, “that the next ninety days are going to be some sort of slumber party.”

“Judy,” I said. I was embarrassed she would think such a thing. “I’m twenty-five. I’m not nine.”

“Oh, I know, dear, I know. It’s just that you’ve only really known J.P. for a week. Maybe it seems like you know him better, because of your work with the fan club. But you don’t. Not really. He’s a stranger. And Lars and I, well, we’d prefer that you keep that in mind.”

“That he’s a stranger?”

“You know, don’t be too accommodating,” Judy said. “Keep your distance.”

“But he’s stuck here,” I said. “For the summer. You’re saying I shouldn’t be nice to him?”

“I’m saying you don’t have to be. He hasn’t earned it,” Judy said. “He got himself into this mess,” she said. “You call me for any reason at all. Okay? You have all my numbers.”

I nodded.

“I’ll be back in the next month or so, as things with the production start to heat up.” She looked at me. “Trust me, someday this will make sense,” she said.

Chapter 2

The Joshua Reed Fan Club

I was fifteen when I first fell in love with Joshua Reed. Okay, so maybe love is a strong word, but it was all I knew at that age. Joshua had just joined the staff of General Hospital—not a real hospital, but the one on the soap General Hospital. He played Colin Ashcroft, a cardiology resident. He ran on-screen in order to save Miranda’s life with mouth-to-mouth, and I sat there, stock-still, staring at him. I called Sandy Wilson, my best friend since third grade, to ask if she’d seen what I’d just seen, but she wasn’t home yet from her job at her family’s service station. I watched him, wishing that I was Miranda or at least that I’d be given the chance to swoon in his general vicinity. Not that such swooning was likely—I lived outside of Charles Town and General Hospital was filmed in Los Angeles, about as far as you can get from West Virginia and still be in the States.

I knew that Joshua Reed wasn’t really a doctor. I knew he was an actor. For one, I’m sharper than that, and for two, he was way dreamier and younger than any doctor I’d ever seen in the town clinic where we went for shots and checkups. Even the night of Beau Ray’s accident, when we went to a real hospital, and even in the weeks that followed, I don’t remember seeing anyone who looked like Joshua Reed. Most of the doctors I knew were older and tired-out-looking, or young and scared-looking. I figured the young ones were scared that their patients were going to die on them. There were always a few drunks and some really gray-looking people in the waiting room at the clinic, so maybe those skittish doctors had reason to be scared. I felt so bad for them that I used to pinch my cheeks before a checkup, to look particularly healthy. When I was twelve, I pinched myself a little too hard and scared one of them into thinking I had scarlet fever. That put an end to such nonsense.

Colin Ashcroft was never scared, but there weren’t any drunks at General Hospital, or old guys up from center state where all the mines are, the ones who were constantly coughing and spitting. And even if there had been, technically speaking, his character wouldn’t have seen them, because he specialized in cardiology. Colin Ashcroft, as written, was a prodigy, in line to become the head of the cardiology unit, and I hoped he would someday, because it meant that Joshua Reed would keep showing up on my television screen.

Joshua Reed had also been on The Young and the Restless for a short time, playing Copper Malabar, a drifter who seduced a number of the leading ladies before leaving town. That was his breakout role, but I never watched The Young and the Restless (although back when I was fifteen, I fit the description well enough). Later, of course, I’d learn all his roles, from Copper to Colin to Nate to Stormy, and so on. But that’s because it became my job to know them.

The fan thing was new to me. I’d never been a devoted fan of anyone before, except maybe my brother Beau Ray’s friend Max Campbell, whom I had one doozy of a crush on, pretty much from the word go, which is to say, when I was eight and he was twelve. Sandy always liked Eleanor Roosevelt. And my sister, Susan, had a thing for Bo Duke, the blond one on Dukes of Hazzard, but I was always keener for dark-haired guys. Maybe that’s why I got hooked by Joshua, that day he ran on-screen to save Miranda. Even in green scrubs, he looked like I imagined a prince would—with short dark hair, deep green eyes and the end of a long day, shadow of a beard. He didn’t wear glasses. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t drink. He didn’t swear. And he was a doctor. He saved lives. I mean, it’s all fine and well to bag groceries at the Winn-Dixie (like Max, my longstanding crush), or build houses (like my oldest brother Tommy, who could lift me by his forearms alone), or even sell life insurance (like Dad did, before he died). That’s what normal people do, and it’s fine, but Joshua Reed seemed like so much more.

So there I was, fifteen, then sixteen, then seventeen, grinding through high school in Pinecob, West Virginia, starry-eyed over the actor Joshua Reed. I wasn’t obsessed. I did all the normal things a high-school girl does. I did my homework. I did my makeup. I went on dates. I got to first, then second base with Butch MacAfee, then broke up with him. I got to third with Howard Malkin, then broke up with him.

I didn’t break up with Howard because I was holding out for the likes of Joshua Reed. I’ve always been pretty realistic. You learn to be when you’re the youngest of five, and every day after school, you have to make sure your older brother hasn’t died during the day from a seizure or a clot or something. But I remember that it was around then, around the breakup with Howard, a low time even though I’d called it quits, that Momma found her autographed picture of Pat Boone.

She was being surprisingly nice to me about Howard, saying things like “that Loreen can’t hold a candle to you.” I didn’t expect the sympathy. For a few years after my dad died, Momma held back a lot of her mothering, as if she’d forgotten that I was still mostly a child, one that might need a parental sort of guidance now and again. I don’t mean to say that I suffered from it. Not more than anyone else. Besides, I had Sandy, and I was always welcome at the Wilsons’ house for dinner.

And every so often, Momma would muster her energy, and there’d be all sorts of activity as she hurried to catch up on the months she hadn’t been paying attention. One such time coincided with my breakup with Howard Malkin. Momma was down in the basement, knee-deep in boxes of her and Dad’s old papers, when she looked up and told me that Howard Malkin was a pissant who would never amount to much. A minute later, she found the Pat Boone picture, and rattled off the story behind it: how she’d had a crush on Mr. Boone back when he was first starting out, how she had written to him and been sent a signed photograph in return.

Early on, I had found a picture of Joshua—a really good one in Soap Opera Digest where he was in a tank top—and I stuck it inside my locker door at school. I always kept an eye out for him in Soap Opera Digest and Daytime Drama Weekly and even People magazine, but in those first years, he didn’t get much coverage. He was certainly handsome enough, but that was back when the whole country was obsessed with the Jasper and Helen storyline and whether or not Jasper would come back before Helen married Bart. All that buzz drowned out Joshua for a time. When my mother held up her picture of Mr. Boone, I realized that if all it took was asking nice in a letter, then, sure, I’d like a signed photograph, too. The cutout in my locker was getting a little ratty by then.

So I wrote to General Hospital. I sent my letter to Joshua Reed’s publicist, not to Joshua himself. Momma told me it would get forwarded to the publicist anyhow, so I’d get faster results that way. Besides, I didn’t want Joshua Reed to think that I was the sort of girl who wrote to stars and expected a response. Publicists, they’re supposed to write back. That’s their job. At least, that’s what I thought it was. I wrote about how I was a big fan, ever since the day Colin Ashcroft first saved Miranda. I wrote about how I’d watched the show consistently, how I had Joshua’s picture in my locker and how I would like to know more about him—where he was from, what he liked, what he was like.

That’s what started it all. It was the second semester of my senior year in high school when I sent the letter. A couple weeks later, a woman called me at home. She said that she did publicity for all of General Hospital, which was a huge job and growing (especially with the Jasper and Helen affair). She said that one of her duties was to organize the official fan clubs for every General Hospital cast member who had one. Of course Joshua Reed had a fan club, but it had been slow to get off the ground—not because he wasn’t popular, but because the woman who then ran it had gotten pregnant and wasn’t getting the newsletter out like she was supposed to. Judy—that was the publicist’s name—said that my letter hit her desk right when she was trying to decide what to do. She asked whether I had any interest in heading up the club, at least as a trial—then before I could answer, she asked how old I was. I said seventeen, almost eighteen at that point, and I could hear her start to backpedal. I could tell she thought I was too young, so real quick I explained how I was a mature seventeen, maybe not in the bra and hips way, but in the way I took care of Beau Ray a lot and did most of the grocery shopping and made sure Momma got presents out for Susan’s kids’ birthdays.

“It doesn’t pay anything,” Judy said. “You’ve got to really want to do it. I’m looking for someone who really wants to do it. I don’t have time to train and retrain and retrain,” she said.

I swore up and down that I wanted to do it, even before I knew for sure that I did. I was old enough to recognize that such an opportunity didn’t often show up in Pinecob.

She told me what I would have to do. I would have to keep the membership list current, forward membership dues and send out a welcome kit. I would have to organize and send out the newsletter four times a year. I would be expected to answer some of the basic fan mail and forward on to her anything that I couldn’t figure out or anything at all threatening. And, Judy said, she would expect me to keep her informed if I heard any rumors about Joshua, good or bad. Did I want to try it, she asked me.

Would I get to meet him, I asked her. Judy said maybe, someday, and surely that could be arranged if I ever found myself in Los Angeles. Judy said that she didn’t know how often J.P. (she called him J.P.) got to West Virginia. But if such a trip ever got planned, she would let me know. Judy seemed really nice—really busy, like one of those New York people you see in the movies talking on two phones at once, but really nice. I was seventeen, almost eighteen, and Joshua Reed was twenty-four. I said yes. I mean, what girl wouldn’t have?

I learned right away that you have to be organized. Judy sent me all the information I needed to get started, which included the membership list and copies of his biography and a whole stack of autographed 8x10 photographs. There were only two hundred and seventy-three paying members back then, with a lot in Texas (where Joshua was originally from) and Iowa and Washington state. From West Virginia there were just two—me and Sandy.

Dues were ten dollars a year, and for that, members got (and I had to assemble) a package that included Joshua’s biography and list of credits, an autographed picture, the quarterly newsletter and a membership card—Judy gave me a whole box of blank ones, and it was my job to type in the member’s name. All of that was mailed out in an envelope that had a picture of Joshua (dressed in scrubs, as Colin Ashcroft) printed across the front.

At first, all my supplies fit into a milk crate that Tommy had years back stolen from behind the Winn-Dixie, but once Joshua started getting movie work, I moved into a filing cabinet. I filled it with the clippings that Judy would send to me and the clippings that I came across, and all the normal fan mail. And I kept old photographs whenever a stack of new ones would arrive, in case I needed them some day.

Being president of the fan club made me stand out a bit in Pinecob. It’s not like I was an actress or anything, but people knew that I had connections to General Hospital, and that I could get them 8x10 glossies of just about any soap star, even those on other shows. Once you’re president of a fan club, you learn how those things work. But the fact was—and I knew it—I was still Leanne Gitlin, living at home with Momma and Beau Ray, working at the county clerk’s office over in Charles Town, going out on the weekends with Sandy or whatever guys would occasionally ask, and buying groceries at the Winn-Dixie each Sunday.

Momma was inconsistent when it came to my hobby. On the one hand, she was glad to see me focused on something that wouldn’t get me pregnant. Momma had some professional hopes for me, and I think she realized that my fan club responsibilities provided organizational practice, the sort that you might someday be able to coax into an actual occupation. Much as Momma loved Susan’s kids, Susan had been just sixteen when Kevin came along, eighteen with Kathy, and twenty-one with Kenny. Taking care of three kids when your husband is on the road all day takes skill, but not the sort you can easily turn into a job that pays well.

My oldest brother Tommy had his trade but never seemed to save a dime, and he’d taken to sometimes living out of his truck while he worked different construction jobs up and down the Shenandoah Valley. Vince—well, no one knew where he was, and it was one of those things that even my friends had learned not to mention when Momma was anywhere near. And no one ever talked about Beau Ray getting a job even though he’d had one before his fall. For a while, I’d tried to get Beau Ray to help me with my fan club duties—but even putting things into an envelope was hard for him to focus on, and he’d grow frustrated within five minutes.

But I knew that Momma also worried that the fan club would mess me up somehow, since it was different from what everyone else was doing, and different to her meant abnormal. Somehow she was fine with letting me take care of Beau Ray, and she didn’t mind expecting me to do most of the housecleaning from the time I was fourteen on—but the fan club thing threw her. She worried (I overheard her say so) that I would start to think I was someone I wasn’t, or want to be something I couldn’t be, or decide to move to Los Angeles to be a star and end up in porno movies. Of all us kids, I’m the one who never offered her any reason to worry, and maybe that felt strange, so she made up the hows and whys. I probably stayed in the county clerk job for as long as I did because she harped on me a lot less after I took it. I guess it seemed to her along the road to somewhere called normal.

But I wasn’t going to end up in pornos. Being president of Joshua Reed’s fan club gave me something to look forward to, was all. I liked that it was different. Still, life on Prospect Street got easier once I learned to manage most of my fan club chores from the basement in a couple hours on Saturday afternoons. That’s when Beau Ray went to his “Move Your Body, Move Your Mind” class at the Y and Mom went to her ages-old quilting bee, so I had a little quiet time. To tell the truth, by two years in, the fan club had become almost as routine as everything else.

Of course, it’s old news by now that Joshua Reed’s career really took off after he played Nate, the hero in Villains Can’t Be Choosers. It’s easy to see why. The costume people dressed him all in white and he grew his hair out, and he looked like Jesus come to life. Only sexy.

The fan club membership had been growing since I took the job, but it really jumped—it tripled in size—after that movie came out, and again when Villains hit video. Judy had to send a whole new batch of membership cards and glossies. By then, she wasn’t working for all the General Hospital staff—she only had a few clients, Joshua being one of them. By then, Joshua had made it into People a few times. I cut out the pictures and photocopied them for the newsletter.

I know people wondered about it—what my real deal with Joshua was. Mostly, I let them guess, although it was obvious to me that I wasn’t flying off to Los Angeles for weekends, and no limos were ever parked along Prospect Street. Fact is, I knew a lot about Joshua, and I could answer almost all of the questions that club members would send in. (For example, Judy called him J.P. because his real name was Joshua Polichuk. He started going by Joshua Reed when he moved to L.A.) But I never talked to him on the phone or anything. Once, when I was talking to Judy, she said that Joshua said to say hi, but I didn’t hear him say it, so I don’t know whether he was even in the room with her. He did write—a couple of times. Not really letters, but he would scrawl a note at the end of something Judy was sending off. He had messy, uneven handwriting, but his signature was polished. Probably from signing all those photographs. The first time, he wrote: Leanne, Judy tells me you’re my biggest fan. You’re the best! xoxo, Joshua Reed.

The second time, he wrote: Leanne, you’re the best for keeping all this together!

The third time, it was: Leanne, Be sure to tell all your friends about Villains, and also about Celebrity Jeopardy! That was right before Villains Can’t Be Choosers came out, and Judy was keeping him busy with all sorts of special events and appearances, mostly in California, but also in New York.

Sure, it would have been nice if he’d written more or even called on the phone once or twice. That way I might have known him in a personal way, different from the facts and stories that were out there for everyone. But it’s impossible to know where a thread starts when you’re looking back on things. Maybe if I had known Joshua better, I would have quit the fan club long before I did, and Judy probably figured that. Still, it was fun seeing my name in his handwriting, and he spelled it right, too. A lot of people spell it Leeanne, or Leann, or some other way. But Joshua always spelled it right.

I didn’t stick with the fan club because I thought that we were meant for each other, Joshua and me. I’m not going to say that a seventeen-year-old girl doesn’t imagine things, and I’ll admit that I imagined plenty in my early days with the club. But that was before Beau Ray suffered the first of his bad seizures and before Momma went through the months she’d come to call her “unraveleds.” I referred to those months as her mean seasons, since it seemed like she was pissed at everything and everyone in the world. Of course, folks in such a state never realize how ornery and off-putting they’re being, so when you find yourself in the midst of someone’s mean season, the best you can hope for is to stay out of their line of fire. Back in Momma’s worst times, I’d call Tommy or Susan for help, but neither ever offered to head home for even a week to make dinner and check which bills were least overdue. (That was around the same time that the idea of me going off to a full-time college stopped being talked about like it was a good thing, something that might really happen.)

But whenever I thought maybe I ought to give up the club and focus on getting my own life in order, I’d feel a heaviness, almost like family, like I’d be letting Judy down. Judy, who always said “thank you” to me. Judy, who asked “would you please.” Judy, who sent cards on my birthday and told me when she would be unavailable (like during her honeymoon) and called whenever she was going to send a new set of photos or an updated credits sheet or a rewritten biography—so I’d know it was coming. Part of me wanted to be like her. Even more of me wanted to be her, out there in California, seeing Joshua close up and making dinner for myself, just myself.

At the beginning of my seventh year with the club, membership reached 10,000. That’s paying fans, and dues by then were fifteen dollars a year. A year earlier, when it hit 5,000, Judy bought me a computer. I think she was exaggerating, but she said that she couldn’t have done any of it without me—that my help and organization and the way I always sent her the rumors that people wrote in about had helped Joshua’s career immensely. That’s why he’s only doing movies now. And good ones, big ones.

But like I said, it had long grown routine by the time Judy called one Saturday.

“Leanne?” she said. “Judy Masterson here.” She always told me her last name, although I didn’t know any other Judys so she didn’t have to. “I’ve got some wonderful news.”

“What’s that?” I asked. Joshua had been dating this Belgian supermodel named Elise, and I thought maybe Judy was going to tell me that they were getting married. But she didn’t even mention Elise.

“J.P. just signed to do a Civil War epic called Musket Fire. Think Taming of the Shrew meets Gone with the Wind. He’s not the lead—well, he’s the romantic lead, but not the historic lead, you know. We’re going to be filming back east, in Virginia, for about three months. Starting next month. Isn’t that exciting?”

“I guess I should include that in the Summer newsletter.” I must have been tired when I said that. I wasn’t thinking that it’s only forty minutes from Pinecob to the Virginia border—and that once you hit Virginia where the mountains ease up, the roads run a lot quicker.

“That would be great, but mostly, I called to say that I wanted to arrange dinner with you and me and Joshua. You’ve been working on the fan club for so long, and I swear, J.P.’s club runs so much more smoothly than any of my other clients’—I thought it would be nice…”

“Oh—of course,” I said. “That would be great. I wasn’t thinking. When?”

Judy said that she and Joshua would be arriving three weeks from that Sunday, but that the movie studio had already sent casting and location people to set things up. A lot of the filming would be taking place around Winchester and Front Royal, which were only an hour and a half or so from Pinecob. Judy asked whether I wanted to be an extra in the film. She said that Sandy and I could probably both be extras. It might require getting out of work for a few days, she said, but no one was a bigger movie buff than Mr. Bellevue, my boss in the county clerk’s office, so I knew he’d let me do it.

I couldn’t believe it: Joshua Reed, coming to Pinecob—well, not exactly to Pinecob. He and Judy were going to stay across the Potomac in Virginia for a few days, in part because there are nicer places to stay around there than in Charles Town (and there’s no place to stay in Pinecob if you’re not at someone’s house), and in part because Joshua’s character (the fiery lieutenant Josiah Whitcomb) was from that area of Virginia, and Joshua wanted to get a sense of Josiah’s history.

I told everyone, of course. How could I not? I told Beau Ray when he got back from “Move Your Body” class. I told Momma when she got back from her bee. I called Sandy and she screamed when I said how we could be extras, and she wondered whether she should try to get extra tan at the beach when she went. I even went to the Winn-Dixie a day earlier than usual, and when I saw Max, I told him.

Max didn’t seem that excited, but he’s a guy and Joshua Reed is one of those rare people who’s better-looking than Max is. Least, I always thought Max was that good-looking. I spent way too many hours of junior high and high school embarrassing myself by hanging around when he and Beau Ray played football, just so I could see Max wipe the sweat off his brow or lean into his knees to catch his breath. He was Beau Ray’s best friend up until the fall, and I think he tried to be afterward, before it became clear how different everything was.

After the fall, you couldn’t talk to Beau Ray in the same way—you had to keep to simpler, shorter conversations, and even then, he might not follow. Max would turn to me, since I was often around, to ask if I thought Beau Ray had understood something, or to try to figure out where my brother was taking a thought.

They were talking about airplanes once, I remember. This was a few years after the accident. The three of us were sitting in the backyard when Beau Ray had suddenly looked up and pointed.

“What’s that?” Max had asked, as Beau Ray traced his finger across something in the sky.

I looked up. “That airplane? Is that what you’re looking at?”

Beau Ray nodded.

“Where do you think they’re going?” I asked him.

“Hawaii,” Beau Ray said. He had watched a travel program a few days before with a piece on the various Hawaiian islands and the tourists who were flocking to them.

“I don’t think that’s headed in the right direction for Hawaii,” Max had said, squinting upward. “I think it looks to be headed east of here. Maybe D.C. or even Europe or something.”

“Hawaii,” Beau Ray said, sounding certain.

Max looked at the plane again, before it disappeared beyond the trees. He gave a little shiver, the kind you’d miss if you weren’t watching closely.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“I’m not much on planes,” he said.

“You ever been on one?” I asked him. I hadn’t.

“I don’t think flying’s for me. I like sticking nearer to the ground.”

“Max is taking the bus,” Beau Ray said.

“The bus?” Max asked. “What bus?” He looked at me, lost.

“To Hawaii,” Beau Ray said. “Everyone is going to Hawaii.”

“I don’t get it.” Max still looked confused, but I smiled.

“That’s one long bus ride,” I said to him. “Be sure to pack a lunch.”

Some folks might have viewed Max Campbell’s fear of flying as a weakness, but not me. I liked him just as much for his fear, and counted myself lucky to have been sitting nearby when he’d admitted it. I liked knowing that he wasn’t about to go flying off somewhere, that I could count on him being around. Sure, maybe someday he’d disappear down the road in a car, like Vince had, but at least it would take him longer to pull away from Pinecob. Hop on a plane, and you could end up anywhere.

Not that Max was going anywhere. By the time of Judy’s phone call, it seemed like he was almost always at the Winn-Dixie (he was an associate manager by then), and I would stop to talk with him whenever I went in. Max had been married for a little while, to a girl named Charlene who had once won the title of Miss Junior West Virginia in a beauty pageant. She’d blown in from the Northern Panhandle, and then blew out again, only a year after their wedding. It shook him something wicked. Judy’s phone call about Joshua Reed came maybe a year after Charlene had up and left, when everyone was still whispering about the torch Max carried, not dating and holding out hope she’d one day come back.

As I said, Max didn’t seem too excited about my news, but Martha, the weekend manager was beyond ecstatic. She told everyone. I was surprised she didn’t announce it over the loudspeaker. By the end of the weekend, it seemed that everyone in Pinecob knew that I was going to have dinner with Joshua Reed—and maybe even be in the movie!

Chapter 3

Dinner in Virginia

“What do you look like, Leanne?” Judy asked me. “It seems so funny to have to ask that, but I’m sure that the mental picture I’ve got is wrong. You live in L.A. long enough, and your sense of what people look like and what people are like gets all screwy.”

So I told her how I’m pretty tall for a girl and on the skinnier side of average and about my hair being halfway between red and brown, and that it was sort of feathering past my shoulders those days. I said I was white, since I realized that she might not know, except that Leanne Gitlin always sounded like a white girl’s name to me.

“But if I’m meeting you at the restaurant, won’t I recognize Joshua?”

“Oh, of course. I just wanted to try to get a picture of you in my mind. Why did I have you as a bottle blonde, I wonder? I’ve got to run. I’ve asked that the driver be at your house at six forty-five. We’ll see you at the restaurant.”

And then I was there.

Before then, I was in the car that came to pick me up, which was a lot nicer than any car I’d ever ridden in, even the one my ex, Lionel, bought new from the dealership. And before the car came, I was getting ready, and trying to figure out what to wear. Sandy had left for the beach the day before, so she couldn’t help me, but we’d pretty much decided on a sundress that I thought looked like one on the cover of the Vogue I saw in the salon where I got my hair cut. Except that my dress had red flowers on a white background, not yellow, and mine was cotton and faded a little and I think the one in the magazine was silk and was surely brand-new.

I looked in the mirror as I waited for my nail polish to dry. I’m pretty enough—people always say I’ve got good bones—but I’d never been pretty in the way of my sister, Susan. Even after she had three kids, strangers would still tell Susan how beautiful she was—like she might not have known, like they were the first to notice. People had never done that to me, although guys did cross bars to talk. Or at least, they crossed to talk to me and Sandy, but Sandy usually rolled her eyes and turned away, so I was the one who ended up in discussions about rebuilt car engines or Judas Priest vs. Motley Crüe. I’d nod and smile, and by the end of their talking, they’d look at me and say, “you know, you’re real pretty.” But by then, I was always unsure if it was because I’d been listening to them yammer on, or because they were tired of talking and wanted to make out, or because maybe, just maybe, I was pretty in the first place. Girls like Susan and Sandy and Max’s ex-wife Charlene didn’t have that to contend with.

I stared into the bathroom mirror. I dug through my makeup bag and wondered whether blue or green eyeshadow would look better against brown eyes. I put on a kiss of lipstick, then wiped it off.

I wore a lot more makeup in my teens than I was wearing at twenty-five. At thirteen or fifteen, makeup felt like magic. Wave the mascara wand, and suddenly I’d look older, more like the senior girls with their long, polished nails and cigarettes. Add lipstick, and I could imagine being the sort of girl that boys in my class whispered about, with her curvy way of walking by that would make even a football star press against the wall to let her pass. Add blush, and I might even start to resemble Brennie Critchett, who was prom queen back when I was a sophomore.

Of course, when I got older, I realized that there were a lot of things mascara couldn’t change or fix. Maybe if I’d been the prom queen, I’d have felt differently.

I blinked at my reflection in the mirror of the narrow upstairs bathroom. At the same age, Joshua Reed had a publicist and a fan club and a fan club president. Of course, not everyone can have such a life, or there’d be no one to run the registers at the Winn-Dixie. But I worried a little about the discrepancy between the girl in the mirror and the folks she’d meet in a few hours time.

I put the lipstick back on, and chose green eyeshadow. I thought the night might call for a little magic. It was Joshua Reed, after all. I wondered what Judy would be wearing. I wondered if I would get to call Joshua “J.P.”

And then I was there. The car ride took less time than I’d expected. Even though I was twenty-five, I’d only been to Harper’s Ferry maybe five times, and then, not to the Virginia side. I’d never even heard of the resort where Judy and Joshua were staying, where we were having dinner. It seemed so far from Pinecob that I expected to be sitting on that leather car seat for hours.

I walked in and gave the host my name and he took me to a table where a woman was sitting.

She stood up and said, “Oh Leanne, Leanne, Leanne. It’s a real pleasure.”

Judy was shorter than I was, but she was in heels, so it was hard to tell by just how much. She had short hair, too, in a sort of blond, businesswoman cut. She was younger than I expected, older than me but somewhere in her mid-thirties. And she seemed as nice in person as on the phone. Just as nice and just as busy. Right as I walked up, her cell phone rang. She glanced at it, then turned it off without answering, which I took as a compliment.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said. “Finally.”

“J.P. and Lars will be down soon enough, I’m guessing,” Judy said. I must have looked confused because she said, “Lars is my husband,” and then I remembered the name. “He decided to come with me, last minute. You know he’s J.P.’s agent, right? That’s how we met.”

“I don’t think you ever told me that,” I said.

“It’s not much of a story. Lars makes it his business to know everyone. So when he signed Joshua, he had to meet with me. The rest is history,” Judy said. “Listen, Leanne, before the boys show up and people start drinking, I want to thank you for your time and effort, all these years. You really keep the fan club rolling. I want to tell you that. J.P. certainly won’t,” she added.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way,” Judy said. “There are no complaints from his corner. Actually, there are many complaints, but none about you. He’s…he’s getting famous,” she began, but cut off. “There you two are!”

That’s when I turned and saw Joshua Reed in person for the first time. Judy stood, so I stood, too. I felt my heart start pounding a little.

“Joshua, I want you to meet Leanne,” Judy said. “Hi honey,” she whispered to a second man who had walked up and put his arm around her waist.

Joshua Reed leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Leanne. Favorite fan. It is a pleasure,” he said.

I nodded. I managed to say that it was nice to meet him, too. At least, I think I managed to say that. I was just taking it all in. There he was, Joshua Reed, Colin Ashcroft, Nate Cummings, soon to be Josiah Whitcomb. Joshua Reed.

He was shorter than the Joshua Reed in my mind. I mean, after seven years, I knew what his details were, and the official statistics put him at 6'1", but Tommy is 6'2", and I swear that Joshua was more than an inch down. But I didn’t focus on that. The rest of the statistics were accurate. The dark brown hair, the dark green eyes. He was growing his hair for the role, Judy had told me, and I could tell. It was curling a bit around the bottoms of his ears. He was beautiful. I’d never seen someone that beautiful up close and in person. I tried not to stare.

Judy introduced me to Lars, her husband, the agent, and he shook my hand hard and enthusiastic and then the four of us sat.

“So Leanne, Judy says that you’ve lived in West Virginia your whole life. Any plans to move?” Lars asked me this, right after our drinks came.

He looked like I always imagined New England professors to look—with little glasses and a beard. And he was one of those people who looked straight at you when you talked, like everything you said was fascinating. I wondered if that made him a good agent.

I told him that I didn’t have any plans as yet, that there were nice things about living in Pinecob.

“The town is called Pinecob?” Joshua asked. “What’s that all about?”

“J.P.,” Judy said. “Please.”

“I’m just asking,” he said.

“I don’t know where the name comes from,” I told him. “Pine trees, maybe. It’s just a small town. I imagine there are lots of small towns with funny names out there.”

“Of course there are,” Judy said, and Lars nodded.

“Has your family been around here for long? You know, I’m from Virginia,” Lars said. “Northern. Close to D.C.”

I nodded, to both parts.

“My father’s family is from Elkins, down south a bit. That’s where Susan, my sister, lives. My mother’s family is from close to Charleston, the capital—not Charles Town,” I explained. “Charles Town is just the county seat. But that’s probably more than you wanted to know.”

“Not at all,” Lars said, though I thought I saw Joshua roll his eyes. “What business is your father in?” Lars asked.

I heard Judy take a quick breath. She knew more about me than either of the men, and I imagine she was worried that I was going to feel uncomfortable, telling practical strangers about my life. But I didn’t mind. I couldn’t remember anyone asking before. That’s the thing about a small town—everyone already knows your story. It’s kind of nice to say it out loud every once in a while.

“My dad died when I was fourteen,” I explained. “But he was in the insurance business. Life insurance.”

“I’m sorry,” Lars said.

“You must have cleaned up after that.”

I looked over at Joshua, but I couldn’t read his expression. I couldn’t tell whether or not he was being nice.

“Why? Oh, because he would have a big policy? Yeah, you’d think that, but they say it’s like doctors smoking. He didn’t leave much of anything.”

“But that’s awful,” Judy said. “I didn’t realize.”

“Wait—your dad was a life insurance salesman and he didn’t have life insurance? Rude!” Joshua sounded annoyed.

“He had some,” I explained. “But it only covered the funeral costs. Anyhow, we’re okay. He had good health insurance, so most of my brother Beau Ray’s care is covered from here on out.”

“Beau Ray?” Joshua asked.

“Brother,” Judy said.

“Yeah, I got that,” Joshua said. He poured himself more wine. “What’s wrong with brother Beau Ray?”

“He had a fall. Years back. He was playing touch football, no helmet, and he fell and hit up against a rock. For a while, the doctors said he was probably going to die, but he made it, only he’s disabled.”

“Disabled how?”

“J.P.,” Judy hissed.

“I’m just asking,” he said. He sounded defensive.

“No, it’s okay. It’s not a secret. My dad always said that families shouldn’t have secrets—except around the holidays, you know, with presents and all,” I said.

I told them—we talked about it pretty much through dinner and on into coffee. Judy and Lars kept asking for details. Joshua Reed didn’t say much, but he did offer to refill my wineglass once, after refilling his own. I told them about Beau Ray and how he was more like a six-year-old than a twenty-nine-year-old, and how that wasn’t likely to change for the better. I told them about Tommy doing construction up and down the Shenandoah. I told them about Susan and her three kids and her husband, Tim, who drove a truck down in Elkins. I told them about Momma and her job as a receptionist in a dentist’s office and her weekends making quilts and how she hadn’t been out with anyone since Dad died. I mentioned Vince and how he left the house that night when I was fourteen, and that except for a couple of phone calls early on, no one had heard from him, no one knew where he was and no one much talked about it anymore.

“Jesus,” Joshua said. “That’s fucked up.”

“You never thought about going to college? You’re clearly bright enough,” Judy asked, waving Joshua away.

I couldn’t imagine ever waving him away, and here she was acting like it was no big deal. Judy was looking hard at me, so I knew I had to answer. I explained that I had figured on college, but when the time came, Momma couldn’t take care of Beau Ray on her own, and he was my brother, after all. I told her how, for a few years running, I’d been taking prelaw courses over in Shepherdstown—during the summer when things were slower at the dentist’s office. Judy and Lars nodded.

“It’ll happen eventually,” I said. “There are worse places to be than Pinecob.”

“I hope we’ll get a chance to visit while we’re here, don’t you, Judy?” Lars asked.

“Of course,” Judy agreed.

“Jesus!” Joshua said, and all three of us looked over at him. I thought maybe he’d burned himself on something. His voice was that sharp. “You think she really believes you?”

“Josh—” Lars began, but Joshua kept going.

“No offense Leanne, but if I get a day off, I plan to find a city, or at least a good-sized suburb. There are a few too many gun racks around here for my taste.”

“J.P.!” Judy said.

“Josh, that’s completely uncalled for,” Lars said.

“It’s okay,” I said. I could tell that Lars was angry.

“It’s not okay,” Lars snapped. He turned to Joshua. “None of your behavior tonight has been okay! None of your behavior on this entire trip has been okay! I want you to apologize to Leanne.”

Joshua turned and stared at me. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I was some sort of Goody Two-shoes I hadn’t meant to be. Turns out, I didn’t have to do anything. Joshua Reed turned back to Lars and ignored me altogether.

“I’m not your kid,” he said. “You want me to apologize because I don’t want to go to Pinecob? Please! Like you guys would actually be caught dead there. Why the fuck am I even here? Leanne runs the fan club. Great. Wonderful. I’m sure she does a bang-up job. But that’s your bag, Judy. Don’t drag me into it. I could be home in L.A., watching a Lakers game with my girlfriend. I did you a favor. I came to dinner.” Joshua stood up and stepped away from the table. He steadied himself on the back of his chair. “But I didn’t agree to be hauled around and shown off in random bumfuck towns.”

“You’re such a prick,” Lars said. “I’ve been with you for an evening, and I’m sick of you already.”

“Yeah, right,” Joshua said. “You say that and then you get your ten percent and you shut up awfully quick about how sick you are of me.”

“Fuck you,” Lars said. He stood, too, and stared at Joshua. “I don’t care how big you think you’re getting. It’s not worth it. You’re not worth it.”

“Oh, no,” Joshua Reed said. His voice was sarcastic.

“Joshua, please. Lars,” Judy said, but neither man paid any attention. They reminded me of cats in a standoff, staring at each other until one backs away.

“Fuck you,” Lars said again. “You want me to see to it that you don’t work here again?”

“In Harper’s Ferry? Go right ahead,” Joshua said.

“You know that’s not where I mean,” Lars said.

“You can’t do that anymore. You don’t decide,” Joshua said. “Just try.” And then he stalked off.

“You’re an asshole!” Lars called out after him.

There were only a few tables where people were still eating, but from where I sat, it looked like everyone in the room turned to stare at Lars. I shrank a little in my chair.

“He is,” Lars said. “Sorry.”

Judy took hold of Lars’s arm and pulled him back to his seat.

“Leanne, I’m so sorry,” Judy said. She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “I’m sorry you had to see…hear that.”

“It’s okay,” I told them, though I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Sure, no one likes to be insulted, or have the thing or the people they care for held up as goofy or uncool. But it was hard to take it personally. Joshua Reed didn’t know me, or my family, or Pinecob. He was just mad, and I knew that, whatever the reason, it had been there before he met me.

“It’s not okay,” Lars said again. “It can’t always be okay. It’s not okay to insult you, to make Judy cry. I’m really fed up with this kid.”

“He’s not a kid,” Judy said. “That’s the problem.”

“He doesn’t act like any adult I know,” Lars said. “So much potential and I have tried—really—to get him to use it, and not waste goodwill on these outbreaks. I’m serious. I can get a lot of agents not to touch him, but someone out there is going to offer him representation.”

Judy nodded.

“Listen, Leanne. It’s late,” Lars said. “You can take the car back home now, if you want. But why don’t you let us put you up here tonight? You can have a nice night away. We can have breakfast in the morning—I know Judy wanted to talk to you about the movie, didn’t you, hon?”

Judy nodded again.

“We can put this incident behind us,” Lars said.

“Oh, do stay,” Judy said. “They’ve got a great breakfast buffet.”

Like I needed convincing. I’d never stayed in a hotel that nice, and the thought of sleeping in a big bed and getting to use trial-size shampoos, that sounded fun. So I said okay, and Lars jumped up to take care of things.

“Joshua is going through a difficult period,” Judy said, quietly, once Lars was out of earshot.

I nodded like I knew what she was talking about. All I knew was that he was getting more and more famous, and getting to star in a bunch of different movies, and getting to date models like Elise. I wasn’t a guy and I didn’t live in Los Angeles, but it didn’t sound all that difficult.

“He’s…he’s adjusting to a new level of celebrity, and that’s hard,” she said.

“How long has it been difficult?” I asked.

Judy thought a moment, then shook her head. “Pretty much since I’ve known him, I guess.” She smiled but looked sad at the same time.

“That can’t be fun. For you, I mean,” I said.

“It’s not. A lot of the time. But he’s an excellent actor. He really is. He’s more talented than any of my other clients. And when I see him work,” Judy said, “it’s almost worth it. For Lars, it’s different. He doesn’t really like actors, so he’s got a lot less patience.”

“Was he serious about dropping Joshua?” I asked.

Judy seemed to think about it. “He might have been. Something to sleep on, anyhow.”

Lars returned then, with a room key for me. He gave me a brief tour on the way to the lobby. There was a bar that stayed open late, to the left of the restaurant. There was a smaller dining room, where the breakfast buffet would be served.

“What time do you usually wake up?” Lars asked. “For breakfast.”

“I’m usually up around six,” I told him.

“Yow,” Lars said.

Judy laughed. “You’re quite the morning person, but that’s a little early for us,” she said. “Especially since that’s three in the morning California time. How about around eight we meet down here?”

We were standing in the lobby. My room was down the hallway, theirs was upstairs.

“Eight’s fine, too,” I told them.

My room was small, but so neat, and the blankets were turned down and there was a chocolate coin on the pillow. I checked the bathroom, and there was a little bottle of shampoo and another of conditioner and also lotion and two kinds of soap, and a shower cap and a sewing kit. I put everything in my purse right away, then put the shampoo back, since I would need it for the shower in the morning.

I called home so that Momma knew where I was. And then I called Sandy at the beach.

“You’ll never guess where I am,” I told her.

“In Joshua Reed’s bedroom?” she guessed, whispering.

“No. But I am in the same hotel, and I’m staying here. In my own room. For the night.”

“So?” Sandy asked.

I told her all of it, and she was a lot more pissed than I was.

“What a butthole,” she said, when I finished.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Leanne,” Sandy said.

“No, I’m really okay about it,” I told her.

“It still shouldn’t have happened. That was a butthole thing to do.”

I agreed.

After I got off the phone, I was still wide awake and figured I might as well poke around the resort, in case a maid had left her cart out, and I could get more shampoos to bring home for Beau Ray. I didn’t find a cart, but I wandered through the various lobbies and waiting rooms until I found myself by the door of the bar. The bartender looked up from wiping the counter and waved me inside.

“Hey, have a seat,” he said. “You were eating with that movie guy earlier, weren’t you?”

“Joshua Reed,” I said, nodding. “Yeah. I hope the yelling didn’t disturb you.”

He just shrugged, as if one man calling another man an asshole across a nice restaurant was something that happened every weekend.

“What’s he like?” the bartender asked, and then he looked past me and said, “speak of the devil, I guess I’ll find out.”

I turned on my stool and saw Joshua Reed swagger into the bar. He looked over at me, frowned, and then walked up and took the stool next to mine. I got the impression that he had kept drinking between dinner and just then. He ordered a martini and turned to me.

“Leanne Gitlin,” he said.

I turned to him, trying my hardest to look like I didn’t care, or like I’d sat next to lots of movie stars in lots of bars before that particular night.

“I hope you’re not angry with me.” He smiled. I’d seen that same smile on Colin Ashcroft.

“Why should I be angry?” I said.

“Exactly,” he said. “You get it.”

“Sure, I get it,” I told him, even though I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he went on. “All these people putting demands on me, expecting me to do this, do that. I just want to live my own life. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I said again. I was afraid that I was starting to sound stupid even though I did know a fair bit about demands and expectations.

He took a sip of his drink and turned and looked straight at me. “Why the fuck do you do it?” he asked, and even though I’d heard him swear at dinner, it still made me flinch. It was hard to get used to him as someone who swore so casually. He never swore in the interviews I’d read.

“What do you mean? Do what?” I asked.

“Because you seem smart enough. I figured you for the usual ditzy fan, but you seem smart, so why do it? The fan club bullshit.”

“Oh. That.” I was glad to figure out what he was talking about. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s different. It’s something different.” I’m not sure he heard me, because he started in again while I was still talking.

“You fans sort of freak me out,” he said. “It’s like some weird fantasy. I don’t understand you people.”

“I guess I do it more for Judy than I do it for you,” I told him.

Joshua looked over like he wasn’t sure whether or not to believe me.

“Really? Yeah, I can see that now. She gets a lot of people to do things for her. She’s good at her job.”

“She’s a good person,” I said. I wanted him to understand the difference. “Other people matter to her.” I hoped that was true. It struck me that I didn’t know Judy as well as Joshua did.

“You think?” Joshua Reed asked. “Believe me, I’ve seen her act like they do. But I’m not so sure, in the long run. Hell, I know I matter, but I pay her bills.”

I didn’t want to follow his conversation to somewhere ugly, so I switched subjects and asked him whether he thought that Lars was serious about dropping him as a client.

“I don’t know,” Joshua said, shrugging. “I guess. We’ll see. I can always get another agent. I’m a prize bull at the county fair.” He stood up, unsteady. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “The drinks are on me,” he said, though he hadn’t ordered me one. He dropped money onto the bar. “See you around, Leanne Gitlin.” And then Joshua Reed wandered off.

I looked back at the bartender, who I figured had been listening to us the whole time anyway.

“Does that answer your question?” I asked him.

I slept until almost seven. After my shower, I pocketed the rest of the shampoo, and then put my clothes back on. I was downstairs at eight, but no one was around so I picked up a Virginia travel magazine and sat in the lobby. I read an article on horses until 8:10. I read an article on Thomas Jefferson until 8:15. And I read up on Richmond restaurants until Judy rushed in at 8:20.

“Leanne, oh, I’m so sorry!” she said. “This morning has been unbelievable,” she said. “I’ve got to get some coffee, but, my God! I just got off the phone with the studio. Because of some sort of farming statute, they can’t start filming for another two months.”

“Is that a problem?” I asked her.

“That’s not even the start of it.”

Judy said she wasn’t hungry and only drank coffee, but I figured I ought to take advantage of the breakfast buffet, because I’d never been to one so nice. So I was eating an omelette that the chef made special while Judy told me the story.

Apparently, after Joshua wandered out of the bar the night before, he had found the keys to one of the rented limousines and had taken himself for a ride.

“But he’d been drinking,” I said.

Judy sighed. “It’s not the first time,” she said, then pulled back a little and looked at me. “I’m sure it was a mistake,” she said, more slowly. “I’m sure he didn’t realize how much he’d had.” Judy said that Joshua had crossed the Potomac into West Virginia, though she didn’t figure that he had actually meant to go for a late-night visit to Pinecob. “He was probably looking for a bar or a girl or something. God only knows,” Judy said.

A weaving limousine stands out on West Virginia roads, and the police tried to pull him over. “And if that’s not bad enough,” Judy said, “I guess the lights or siren startled him. The limo ended up through a fence in a field. He hit a cow. He hit a goddamn cow!” Judy said.

I didn’t know the right reaction to news like that, so I just nodded.

“Apparently, it’s fine. The cow is fine,” Judy went on. “I’ve already been on the phone, calling around to find a way to mend the fence. A perfect metaphor for my day.”

“At least the cow’s okay,” I said. “He must not have been going very fast.”

Judy shook her head. “This is my personal nightmare,” she said. “This is the exact sort of thing I dread. Now I’ve got to either try to keep a lid on this, or put some sort of good spin on it, and at the very least, try to get him out of this mess. Lars has gone over to the station where they kept him overnight. He’ll probably be able to get him out, but Jesus!” Judy laughed. “What a fuck-up,” she muttered. “I’m really sorry you’ve had to see all of this. I can’t tell you…”

I shrugged. I offered her a bite of omelette but she shook her head.

“What I want is a cigarette,” she said, “but I quit, and Lars would kill me.”

“All I’m saying is that there must be something we can do. It’s West Virginia for Chrissakes. It’s not like it’s a serious state.” Joshua was trailing behind Lars as the two walked into the breakfast room.

He wore the same clothes as the night before, though his shirt was untucked and wrinkled, and a grass stain smeared one knee of his pants. He hadn’t shaved, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept, but even so, Joshua Reed was striking. Actually, I thought he looked just like the character Stormy Bridges, the street-smart runaway he’d played a few years back.

Lars stopped in front of our table. “Okay,” he said, turning around, “first off, how about you not driving drunk anymore? How’s that for an idea?”

“Well, duh, but that doesn’t help our particular problem,” Joshua pointed out.

“Your particular problem,” Lars snapped. “Because, legally, West Virginia is a serious state. Hi, sweetheart,” he said to Judy. He kissed her on the cheek. “Morning, Leanne. I trust Judy has brought you up to date on our most recent disaster.”

I nodded.

“Leanne Gitlin,” Joshua Reed said, looking down at me. “If it isn’t my number one fan.” He spoke with an exaggerated drawl, so that “fan” sounded like “fie-un.”

“J.P.,” Judy snapped.

“I’m practicing my Josiah accent,” Joshua said.

“You’ll be lucky if we can keep you in the picture,” Lars hissed. “There are lots of pretty boys willing to play Josiah, and a call to the director says one of them’s going to get that chance.”

Joshua’s face froze into an expression I couldn’t read. For the first time, he looked something less than cocky, maybe even a little scared. He glanced back at me and nodded a more polite good morning.

“Dude, so what do you want me to do?” he asked Lars, almost quietly.

“Go to your room. Take a shower. Get dressed. Then come back down here, and we’ll discuss this. You reek.”

Joshua nodded and walked off. Lars shook his head and took a seat at our table.

“So what does it look like?” Judy asked.

Lars shook his head again. “Oh, it looks great. Just great,” Lars said, and Judy winced. “He took a breathalyzer like he shouldn’t have—he should have waited, of course—and it came through as intoxicated, and with state reciprocity in effect, we obviously can’t plead first offense.”

Judy nodded. This was the first I’d heard of any legal trouble Joshua’d gotten into. I looked at the two of them and wondered how much else they had kept quiet.

“So now it’s pretty much a matter of mandatory sentences and precedents. Thank God he didn’t hurt that cow. I know people all through Virginia, but not here. Why couldn’t he have stayed in Virginia? Fuck, we’d be better off if he’d driven into the Potomac.”

“Lars!” Judy said.

“I know. I don’t mean it. Leanne, you know I don’t mean it.”

“How far did he get?” I asked. “I mean, in West Virginia. What county?”

“Jefferson, apparently,” Lars said. “I don’t even know where that is. The driver took me.”

“That’s Charles Town,” I said. “That’s my county.”

Lars looked at me. Judy looked at me.

“You know, I work at the county clerk’s office. Same building as the courthouse,” I told them.

“She works at the courthouse!” Judy said, suddenly excited.

“Not exactly. But in the same building. All the same, I probably know the judge on the case,” I continued. “There aren’t too many.”

“Oh my God, she knows…I mean, you know the judge?” Judy asked.

“I might. I probably do. At least I could find out who it is. You want me to call and find out?”

Lars handed me his cell phone without another word. I took it and stared at it. No one I knew had a cell phone, and I wasn’t sure how they worked. Judy took the phone from my hand and asked me for the number, plugging it in as I told her. She pressed a button and handed back the phone. I heard the ringing tone.

Mr. Bellevue, my boss, answered.

“Hey, Mr. Bellevue, it’s Leanne,” I said.

“We want to keep this out of the papers,” Lars whispered to me.

I nodded. “Something’s come up,” I said to Mr. Bellevue, and told him the story.

I knew that Mr. Bellevue would help if he could, on account of being such a big movie fan. Also I was pretty certain that he was gay, although I’d never asked, and Joshua Reed had a substantial following in that community. Mr. Bellevue listened and sighed a little, and seemed happy to hear that the cow was okay, and then he put me on hold to go find out which judge had been assigned to Joshua’s arraignment.

“Your fella’s a lucky boy,” Mr. Bellevue said when he got back on the phone. “It’s Weintraub.”

“He was Charlie’s, right? That is good news,” I said. I asked Mr. Bellevue to please keep all this to himself, but I wasn’t too worried. I knew that he respected privacy, at least the serious kind. And I promised to give him details when I got there in the afternoon. I handed the phone back to Judy to hang up.

“So?” Lars and Judy were looking at me.

“Yeah, when you paid and asked for the first available court date, that’s good—you got Judge Weintraub. People say he’s pretty progressive and also a nice guy. But what’s cool is that, Sandy, my best friend since third grade? Her brother Charlie got pulled over about a year ago, second offense, drunk driving. Is it Joshua’s second offense?”

Lars and Judy exchanged glances. Lars nodded.

“Because second is usually jail but third always is,” I told them, although I got the impression that they already knew something about drunk driving sentences. “Anyway, Charlie lost his license of course, for a long time, but instead of jail he got house arrest, at home, for I think it was ninety days. Weintraub’s really into families helping each other through hard times. It drove Sandy crazy to have him there. Charlie, not the judge. I mean, they let him go to work, but then he had to come right home. So you might be able to argue some sort of precedent. You know, if you were willing to plead guilty. That’s the thing, Charlie pled guilty. Pled? Pleaded? You get what I mean.”

“But what are we going to do about the movie? I know you’re pissed, sweetheart, but I really want him to be in this movie,” Judy said to Lars. “It’ll be good for all of us. We can’t have him sitting at home in California.”

“He couldn’t do that,” I told her. “Whatever punishment he gets will have to be in West Virginia. Probably Jefferson County. I remember that from my class on jurisdiction,” I said.

Lars smiled at me. “You’ll make a good lawyer,” he said. He turned to Judy. “Leanne’s right. Whatever happens, it’s bound to happen in Jefferson County.”

“What are you suggesting?” Judy said. “That we stick him in a hotel for three months?”

“I doubt that would count as house arrest,” Lars said. “It’s not a house. And I don’t think there’s such thing as bed-and-breakfast arrest.” Lars was almost laughing, but Judy looked serious.

“So who do we know in Jefferson County?” Judy asked. “We must know someone. Can we rent an apartment?”

Lars was looking across the table at me.

“You know me,” I said. “And of course, I know a lot of people.”

Judy turned to me, smiling and exasperated. “I don’t suppose there are any house arrest bungalows available in Pinecob, are there?” Now she was laughing. “Or guesthouses?”

I shook my head. I had a thought, bit my lip, then opened my mouth. I figured it was likely a stupid idea, that it wouldn’t work so there was no harm in saying it. Knowing what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have said it. Knowing what I know now, maybe I would have kept quiet and looked at my shoes instead. But I did say it. And everything that would have otherwise stayed the same started changing. Like experiments with food coloring we did in home economics, making icing in green and blue and red shades. Put a drop of red into water, and the water will never again run clear. You can keep adding more and make it deeper red, or add blue and make purple. You still have choices like that. But to get back to clear water, you have to pour out what you’ve done and start over. And that doesn’t work in life, with its days and geography. You can’t just start over. You can never just start over.

“The thing is, Judge Weintraub is really into families. That’s why he likes house arrest,” I explained. I remember hearing Sandy complaining about this. “I know he’s not related, but Joshua might be able to stay in Vince’s room,” I said. “There’s probably a legal guardianship thing to work out, and you’d have to convince my mother.”

Judy turned to Lars and raised her eyebrows. Lars turned to me and raised his.

“We could argue a long-term relationship, given the fan club,” Lars said.

“Can you imagine?” Judy asked. “Let’s think this through a minute. For starters, J.P. would hate that.” Judy didn’t add to her list. She stopped talking and looked over at me, too.

Joshua Reed appeared then, hair still wet from the shower but clean shaven and clean clothed. Even damp, he really was beautiful. Judy and Lars looked at him, then turned to me.

“You are really fucking lucky,” Lars said.

“Yeah?” Joshua smiled. He seemed surprised. “Hey, that’s great.”

“Leanne here knows your judge,” Lars said.

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