Author: Emily M. Danforth
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/emily-m-danforth/page,6,568862-plain_bad_heroines.html
Thankfully, despite the fruitlessness of the first endeavor, someone thought to again send searchers to The Orangerie for another look, and it was this second group of pitiable students who found Eleanor’s hiding spot beneath the angel’s trumpet tree, and thus found Eleanor herself. Though she was, of course, no longer herself.
And now for another deeply unpleasant bit of historical sightseeing:
A loud first-year named Winifred Garfield, having bent low to peer beneath a potting table, spotted first the red binding of Mary MacLane’s book. Moving closer, looking closer, Winifred saw, at precisely the moment she screamed, that a pale hand still gripped the book. The entirety of Winnie’s view at this moment was the book, the curled fingers, and a bit of wrist and sleeve, but she knew, she knew, that what she was seeing was very wrong.
Once the other students looked behind the planter and understood the cause of Winifred’s continued screaming, one of them, Nora—an older, in-charge type—took her by the hand so that the two of them could go find a teacher. This while the other three students attempted together to push the angel’s trumpet planter, even a few inches, to better reach their classmate. They could not. Their efforts did, though, shake loose several of the tree’s dangling blossoms, which fell heavily upon them, sprinkling their toxic pollen as they did.
Even though the students could not move the planter, it was clear, when she failed to respond to their shouting of her name, and then when their fingers extended to touch her cold body, that Eleanor Faderman was not moving, either. That she would never move again.
Eventually, it was clever Miss Trills who rigged the lever and roller system that moved the planter and allowed them to access Eleanor without crawling in and pulling her out—which no one seemed keen to do.
By that time, The Orangerie had become the somber meeting place for all Brookhants faculty and staff other than those still in the woods (someone had been sent to find them) and the three teachers tasked with the unenviable job of attempting to soothe the riled and rumor-spreading student body, each of which had first been accounted for, and then sent to their dormitories for fitful sleep—if sleep came to them at all.
The planter moved, and many lanterns now garishly lighting her, the full measure of Eleanor Faderman’s undoing was assessed, from the salt paste of dried sweat on her forehead, which matted and coarsened her pale hair so that it looked uncomfortably similar to animal hide, to the remaining bubble crusts of froth on her blue lips.
Eleanor Faderman, her cold body stiff and contorted and still dressed in her nightclothes. Eleanor Faderman, one hand gripping her stolen book. Eleanor Faderman, so many angel’s trumpets dropped around her, on her, smashed beneath her (they learned, when she was carried out), that the ground was more petal than stone, the cloying scent causing headaches in several of the onlookers.
No one had words for this ugliness, an ugliness magnified both by occurring in this place of such beauty and by its nearness to the deaths of Flo and Clara.
After all, Readers, words are only words with word meanings.
Eventually, it was Principal Libbie Brookhants herself who said, “Oh dear God. I think she’d been eating them.” She then carefully knelt and scooped up a handful of angel’s trumpets for the crowd’s inspection. The flowers she was holding were like those hanging from the branches above in every way save one: those in her palm bore clear indications of tooth marks, one or two bites missing from each, the edges of the bites browned with quick decay. The faculty now looked more closely at the blooms on the ground near Eleanor. There were bite marks in most of them, too many to count.
For the second time in a single semester, authorities were alerted, and soon members of the local police force made their way to the Brookhants campus.
For the second time in a single semester, parents were contacted via telegram with unthinkable news about their daughter and her time away at school.
For the second time in a single semester, the same copy of Mary MacLane’s book was found with the dead.
Tinseltown
Audrey Wells was eating an avocado and facon sandwich with her best friend Noel at the Bewildered Hiker in Griffith Park. This was something they used to do a lot.* But first they’d run three or four miles through the park, sometimes scaring each other by pretending to see rattlesnakes because they’d seen one once before.
Sometimes they’d pretend that they didn’t see the celebrities they actually did see heading up to the Observatory and back, or pushing their kids in jogging strollers; but there were also times that they said hi because they knew them, or at least knew them through so-and-so.
Used to be that even the Bewildered Hiker itself could be a little star clogged, though less so since social media made it a thing. Now there were too many tourists hovering around its outdoor tables and positioning their phones to take not-as-discreet-as-they-imagine pics of, I don’t know, fill in your favorite sweaty, trail-climbing, vegan-chili-eating influencer here: ____________.
Audrey and Noel were both on one side of a table, sharing a bench beneath a tree that kept dropping its green seedbud things on them.
“The San BernaDinosaurs,” Noel said that day. “Because dinosaurs.” He was squeezing agave nectar into his iced tea. There was now a small hill of buildup in the bottom of his glass.
“It feels too much like one you’ve already used,” Audrey said.
“We haven’t, though.”
“I know, but it feels like you have.” She brushed green seedbuds from his arm. They’d been talking about band names for what seemed to her a very long time.
Audrey Wells had known Noel Shipler for the entirety of her life. Noel’s father produced the House Mother movies alongside Audrey’s own father (which is how he’d first met Caroline). And years later their families spent Christmas ski vacations together. (Though this was, of course, before Audrey’s parents divorced and Caroline had her difficult period.)
Noel and Audrey were, in fact, in a quintessentially mid-90s music video together as toddlers. It’s one you might remember because of the series of short-lived (and confusing) controversies it provoked. Shot for rock band the Yellow Credenzas’ song “What Your Therapist Told You About Me,” the video’s gimmick is that Audrey and Noel are dressed up like other, more established acts of the day and imitate their more popular music videos—Oasis and Alanis Morissette and Counting Crows, Fiona Apple and Bush. You get the idea: tiny children playacting superstar make believe while alt-rockers sing obnoxiously enigmatic lyrics behind them.
Adorable, everyone agreed, the fans all loved it. Even more so once the trouble started.
That had to do with the video’s closing segment, which mocked (celebrated, the Yellow Credenzas swore) the “Macarena” video. For this portion, Audrey and Noel were both dressed in tiny black suits paired with loud, citrus-colored ties and the fluffy fake eyebrows needed to accurately imitate Los del Rio—the duo who sang the chorus of the “Macarena.”
People might have let that go as charming, but then those scenes were cut together with other scenes where Audrey and Noel were also dressed in the revealing 1990s club clothes and wild makeup of the backup dancers actually doing the Macarena in that famous video, the very feminine backup dancers. Our sweet toddlers nailed the song’s infectious silliness—and the dance, of course that—but, as you might now be recalling, they added one additional element to the mix: a kiss. Or two, really: one while they are dressed as men in their suits and one as women in their shiny hot pants and belly shirts. These are, of course, the most minuscule lip pecks imaginable, the stuff of Norman Rockwell illustrations.
And yet . . .
Because we are a nation of spewing, bigoted asshats, these things were enough to warrant editorials and boycotts and even the odd death threat. Some people claimed that Noel and Audrey had been oversexualized in the video, while others were more concerned about its blatant genderfuckery (though those two camps of complainers sometimes aligned in their disgust). And then there
were the random racists who took issue with a black Noel and a white Audrey kissing.
At any rate, soon enough the whole thing was dubbed “that controversial video” that made people angry. It went on to be nominated for Best Editing and Art Direction at the MTV Video Music Awards, among others. (It won, though, only for Viewer’s Choice, and Audrey and Noel—holding hands as they climbed to the stage in matching tuxedos—accepted the statue.*
My larger point here is that Noel Shipler and Audrey Wells have always, since they can remember, had intertwined lives—more loosely strung together during some periods, in tighter knots during others. They have dated. They have hooked up. They have not done those things for a while and have then gone back to doing those things and stopped again.
Put simply, Readers: they text each other first with news. Or they did so for a long time, anyway.
“I’m not completely against Fresnomads. Or FresKnowHow? FresNowhere?” Noel paused, set down the agave bottle, and tilted his glass to check the thickening contents at the bottom.
“I know you get mad when I say this, but maybe you need to move on from California.”
“Not it.”
Noel wrote and produced for all kinds of musical artists, his tastes and abilities wide ranging and his work ethic dogged. (His parents had started him on piano lessons right around the time he starred in that music video with Audrey.) Noel Shipler was talented, but more than that: other musicians liked having him around. They felt both put at ease by his demeanor and legitimately inspired by his suggestions. He had a knack for blending styles in ways that seemed like they shouldn’t work until they did.
But Noel’s passion project was his own band, which was still in the struggling-to-get-noticed phase. They’d blown up for about seven seconds for one of their YouTube videos, but they hadn’t really been able to break out beyond their small (if committed) California following, one that loved them best for their live shows.*
Noel and Audrey both heard a muffled buzzing noise. It was similar to the sound of a lone yellow jacket unhappily trapped in a jar, but was in this case the sound of a ringing phone set to vibrate. It was Audrey’s phone; Noel had kept it for her in the side pocket of his shorts during their run, and it was still there, and he was half sitting on it. It went silent. And then it started to buzz again.
Noel shifted his position to fish it out. “It’s gonna be your mom,” he guessed. “And she’s gonna be in, like, some sort of kale crisis.” He handed the phone to Audrey. “Kale-o-line,” he added. Then he sang, reworking Outkast’s “Roses” to suit his needs: “Kale-o-line. (Kale-o-line!) All the guys would say she’s mighty fine. (Mighty fine!)”
Audrey’s screen was bright with missed calls and texts. “Nope,” she said, scrolling. “It’s Gray.”
Gray was Audrey’s manager. She was surprised to see a screen of texts from him. They talked, of course, but not multiple texts and then calls and more texts in a row, talked. At least not at this juncture in her career.
His first was sent while they would have been just starting their run: Please call me ASAP. ASAP means right now.
And then he’d sent a few more of a similar sort before ending with one just minutes before, which read: I’m trying to convey the need for speed here, kiddo. This is serious. Please. Answer. Your. Phone.
“What?” Noel asked, reading her confusion.
“No idea,” she said, ready to press Gray’s name under Missed Calls. And exactly then Caroline texted: where are you? i’m worried
hike should be over
you need to call gray right away
Things like this—sharing a manager—made having the same career as her mother (or at least having the echo version of the same career her mother once had) more annoying for Audrey than it might otherwise have been. Her age and current life situation didn’t help, she knew, but she had to wonder if even when she was thirty-seven Gray would still call Caroline if he couldn’t reach Audrey fast enough.
Audrey did not reply to her mom. But she did call Gray. He answered so quickly she didn’t have time to daydream about what he was going to say.
“Where are you?” This was his greeting.
“I’m in Griffith Park,” she said. “With Noel. What’s going on?”
“No, I know that part,” Gray said. “I talked to Caroline. I’m here, I’m parking. Where are you?”
“What?”
“I mean where exactly are you, kiddo? Where in the park? Do I need to change into my Nikes is what I’m getting at? How far in until I meet up with you?”
Kiddo. She was still kiddo with Gray and probably always would be kiddo with Gray.
“No,” she said, confused. “We’re not—we’re done running. We’re at the Bewildered Hiker, the café on Fern Dell.”
“Oh thank sweet Christ,” Gray said. “Don’t move. Do. Not. Move.”
“OK,” she said.
“I’m coming to you right now. Keep it seated.”
“OK, weirdo,” she said. “I got it. I’m sitting here, not moving.” She paused to let him fill in, but he didn’t, so she asked, “Do you want me to, like, order you something?” She felt stupid about it right after.
Gray was breathing harder now, probably because he was power walking in her direction. “No,” he said, and then added, “Well, you know, yes. Wouldya be a lamb and get me an iced tea? Or maybe lemonade would be better. Do they have it?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “You want iced tea or lemonade?”
“Yes, that’s fine,” he said, with effort. “Stay put. I’ll be right there.”
She tapped End, shaking her head at her phone, then at Noel. “I guess Gray’s here,” she said, still not quite believing it.
“What, he jogs now?” Noel asked, looking over at a group of people on the trail.
“No, like, he came to find me,” she said. “Specifically. He wants me to buy him a lemonade.”
“Weird.” Then, as if he’d just been smacked with the thought, “Oh fuck! Could you be getting fired right now? You think that’s why he came here?”
“God, why would you guess that first?” Now there was a clench in her chest where there wasn’t before he’d said it.
“No, I’m just saying, why would he come here? I guess he could be, like, quitting the biz and wants to tell you in person.” Noel frowned. “What if he’s sick or something?”
She shook her head. “He’d want to tell me something like that with Caroline.” Her chest clench tightened. “Will you wait in line for the lemonade? Do you mind? In case he comes.”
“Anything for normcore Anna Kendrick,” Noel said, standing.
This was a joke they shared about notes she’d happened to see (OK, she’d strained to see) scrawled on a casting director’s papers after an unsuccessful audition: Giving good strip mall realism. Somehow an even more normcore Anna Kendrick. Maybe these notes had been primarily about Audrey’s looks. Like Anna Kendrick, Audrey was also petite with auburn hair and, if you were straining for a celebrity look-alike comparison, had a similar facial structure, though she didn’t really have the same angularity to her jaw, and her eyes were set closer together.
The uglier way to read those comments was that they had very little to do with Audrey’s looks and much more to do with something essentially uninteresting, even tired, about her: the cheaper imitation. That’s what made them stick. And hurt.
And it had hurt her, at first, but sharing it with Noel, making it a thing they now both privately referred to her as, all the time, had made it seem benign. Well, almost.
Noel joined the line behind several people. Audrey’s mother called and she ignored it.
And then there was Gray, weaving through the crowd. His brow was glistening, the sleeves on his pink-checked button-down rolled up to his elbows. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “How’s my showing up to put a little hot sauce in your afternoon?” He took a step back, then, and patted right below his collarbone, making a kind of sou
r grimace as he stifled a burp. Then he covered his mouth with his hand, the screen of his smart watch lighting up as he did.
“You OK?” she asked as he sat across from her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, swallowing another burp. “By-product of my power walking. Consider yourself charmed, huh?” He pulled a folder from his leather messenger bag and placed it, conspicuously, on the table between them. Green seed stuff fell on top of it.
“Noel’s getting you lemonade,” she said to say something. Fuck, she was nervous.
Gray nodded. Then he took a breath and said, “So listen, this isn’t easy but it just is. They decided to go in another direction for Eleanor. Tim and I have been on the phone with them all morning and it’s a done deal. They no longer think you’re right for the part.”
Tim was Audrey’s agent.
She tried not to give Gray a reaction, to keep her face placid as a puddle. I mean, that was Hollywood for you, right—you’re in, then you’re out, and if she of all people didn’t understand that by now, shame on her.
“I know it’s not the news you want, but it’s the news I’ve got and I’m sorry,” Gray said. “Younger, I think—they want sixteen playing sixteen—not twenty-three playing sixteen. But it’s not only that—they’re changing the whole project around.”
For a while they only stared at each other while green seed things floated around them.
And then, “Well, say something,” he said. “Do you understand?”
“Of course not,” Audrey said, brushing seeds off her shoulder and telling herself to speak calmly. “I mean, you’re, like, sitting there saying this is a done deal, so OK, what’s the point of arguing about it if it is, but then you’re making me feel like I’m not even allowed to have a reaction. And this is fucked up and you know it—I can still play sixteen. I don’t even want to be able to play sixteen but I can. And Bo wanted me for this. He told me that. I was always gonna be Eleanor Faderman, even before they cast the leads he knew that.”