Mean Season. Heather Cochran
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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