“Not a call you need to answer,” Charlie assured him. “Put me right through to voice mail.”
“You’re sure this isn’t about the letter?” he asked, his tone delicate.
“This has nothing to do with the letter,” she snapped. Of course, it had everything to do with the letter, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “I threw it away.” Another lie.
“Great!” he said, too peppy, overcompensating. “I just mean... You gave me quite a scare, young lady.” Charlie was, in fact, ten years Miles’s senior. “So just never do that again, okay?”
“Won’t happen again, officer.” Charlie nodded, her eyes on that poster of herself lying on a park bench in Boston Common, the title Midnight Daydream written as a constellation. Signed by the cast and crew—including Miles, then just a college-aged production assistant.
Charlie grabbed his arm as leverage, rising from her chair on that mangled leg. “Can we go back to talking about important things now, like when you’re going to make your move on the guy at the juice bar?” she said, hobbling out into the old-Hollywood glamour of the crimson velvet lobby. She had gutted the place, done a head-to-toe HGTV-worthy renovation after buying it on a whim—like a pack of gum at Stop & Shop—following the night of drunken revelry that was the wrap party for Midnight Daydream.
“I know, the protein shakes are garbage but I keep buying them to see him.” She felt relief at the return to normalcy.
“Listen, it’s not in the shakes to hold our destiny, but in ourselves,” she semi-quoted. “And in the meantime, we’ve got a subtitled Romanian horror film to show.” Charlie pushed him toward the entrance.
A guy who looked barely old enough to drink peered inside, hands against the locked glass doors, searching for signs of life. They got a lot of students here, especially on weekends, like last night’s weekly Dawn of the Super Id screening. She had shown it once as a joke long after its doomed theatrical release and it sold out. So Charlie kept it going and it had become her theater’s answer to Rocky Horror. They came at midnight every Friday in masks and capes, some handmade from dorm bedsheets. They yelled the terrible dialogue. They sang the theme song. They always left joyous, free, raucous. And when Charlie needed to feel like she was contributing in some way to society, she could at least appreciate having given them a night like that.
She liked to watch the transformation that swept her young audience over the course of that hour and fifty-three minutes. (In addition to its myriad detriments, the film was, in Charlie’s estimation, a solid twenty-three minutes longer than it had any right to be.) She just wished she hadn’t stayed last night. She had forgotten that, at some point, the sleeping pill would, presumably, do what it had been advertised to do. And that she could do something like drive into the river.
“Can’t see this stuff everywhere.” Miles crossed the lobby to unlock the doors.
Back in her office, Charlie’s fingers hovered over her laptop keyboard. Changing her mind, she patted at the floor for the smooth stationery with that neat penmanship. It had been a while since she had received a letter like that: formal, kind, thoughtful. Slouched in her chair, injured leg propped on her desk, she read it again. And again. Always coming back to the closing.
...Without prying, with only reverence and respect, could I ask: Why did you stop doing something you’re so good at? And more important: When will you come back? You are missed.
2
I MISSED YOU TOO
Charlie studied herself in her bathroom mirror. In just a week her bruised eye had faded to the dull gray of rancid meat, now easily disguised by concealer. She flat-ironed her raven hair, securing it in a sleek, low ponytail, then rummaged the closet for her most professional-looking getup: that slim black suit, pale pink silk blouse with the bow at the neck and the stilettos she only wore when she felt compelled to impress. Her wardrobe from that perfume ad a decade earlier but timeless nonetheless, just like the moniker that had been etched in script on the curved bottle of the fragrance.
Outside, Boston did its best impersonation of her supposed hometown, London. (Though she had lived away from there enough during childhood to have eluded the accent.) The dreary May rain made her think of her mom: the estimable Dame Sarah Rose Kingsbury. News of Charlie’s incident had warranted mentions in a few celebrity weeklies and, unfortunately, made the hop across the pond. Her mother had called, texted and finally, after no response, emailed: Charlie, Did you receive my voice mail and text? I trust you’re alright. Another of your stunts? Please respond. Love, Mum. Her mom’s correspondence always scanned like a telegram, full of stops and full stops—much like their relationship itself. Charlie, reveling in being briefly unreachable and not in the mood to answer questions, hadn’t yet bothered to replace her phone and had indeed missed the call but wrote back assuring her mom that she was fine, though the accident had not, in fact, been performance art.
By the time Charlie reached the foreboding Suffolk County Courthouse, her lawyer/friend Sam—who had shepherded her through the theater purchase (while questioning her sanity)—was already there pacing, barking into her phone.
“This should be easy,” Sam told her, hanging up, hugging her while scrolling her inbox. Sam wore suits and radiated responsibility, two things Charlie found comforting in a lawyer. “Be contrite and it should be open-and-shut for community service.”
The sterile courtroom’s pin-drop silence made Charlie shiver. Next to her, Sam tucked her phone in her bag and rose to her feet, gesturing for Charlie to stand as the judge materialized at the bench. Charlie found it oddly reassuring that the judge was the kind of woman who wore pearls and a frilly collar outside her robe.
“You were okay with my email, right?” Sam whispered, as they sat again.
“What email?” she whispered back.
“My email. An hour ago? You have got to get a new phone,” Sam scolded.
“I know, I know—”
“There was this arrangement, last minute, I hope you’ll be amenable to but—”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie pleaded.
The judge had begun speaking, so Sam hushed her. Too late.
“Ms. Savoy, this is the part where I get to talk.” The judge looked up from the paper she had been reading aloud. “Maybe it was different in your episodes of Law & Order?”
“No, ma’am, I mean, Your Honor, sir, ma’am, no,” Charlie stumbled. She had been wrong about the judge. The woman continued on about the damage Charlie caused and the significant hours of service required like Charlie was the honoree at one of those Comedy Central roasts, albeit one that could end with her in a jail cell.
Until finally, the judge cut to the chase: “...an assignment has presented itself,” she said slowly. “Which will make fine use of Ms. Savoy’s expertise...” Charlie caught Sam’s side-eye. “So Charlotte Savoy shall be required to complete sixty days with the Chamberlain Summer Theater in—”