free hit counters
Chapter 55
Jennifer lay on a chaise lounge in the quiet back yard of her parent's cottage. The sun was waning a little as the afternoon wore down, but it hadn't warmed up the cold feeling in her gut much.
Jennifer had remembered seeing Jackie around town in the past, but somehow, she'd never quite remembered meeting her. Still, there had been a sparkle in her eye when she'd walked into the sign shop, and she'd known she'd found a friend. They'd flown south
slowly, as Jackie related a little of how she and Mark had flown the plane around the country on their honeymoon, and when they'd seen the lights of the police cruiser on the ground behind them, they'd circled out of sight over the woods and flown back north to the club.
Jackie had dropped her off at the club's airstrip hours before. Jennifer had offered to get her something to drink, or something, at least to thank her for the plane ride, but Jackie demurred. "Thanks, but I'm not a nudist," she'd said. "Stop by the house sometime, and we
can have a long talk."
"I think I'll do that," Jennifer promised, knowing she'd found a new friend.
That had been hours before. Jennifer had kept to herself in the time she'd been at the club. Somehow, it hadn't seemed like the refuge that it usually was, and she wondered if she could ever feel free here again.
She heard a car pull up out front, but didn't get up to see what it was. Probably, it was her brother, back from work, or maybe her parents. It didn't matter.
"Hey," a voice said, "I didn't think you'd have a bikini on here."
She looked up; it was Mike, with a big grin on his face. "I borrowed it from Amy Ashtenfelter," she said. "I couldn't see making some asshole with a telephoto lens an instant millionaire."
"Well, you can take it off," Mike said. "They've got to be halfway back to L.A., now."
"Are you sure?" she said, sitting up.
"They were so glad to have someone drive them to the airport that they gave me two hundred bucks," Mike reported. "I deserve an Oscar for the line of bullshit I fed them. Those two aren't likely to ever be back here again."
"What did you tell them?" she asked.
Mike laughed out loud. "I haven't had that kind of fun in a long time. I'd sure like to have seen Harold and LeRoy. God, that was funny. After you left, Harold called me up, and he said, `What did you mean when you said to hassle those two?', and I told him, `Come
on, Harold, you've seen movies like `Macon County Line'. Act like that'. They dropped them off back on the old Ward Grade right where I told them to, and I hit it on the nose. They couldn't have been out of the woods five minutes when I found them hitching down the highway."
"They're really gone?" she asked.
"Incidentally, they didn't get any usable footage," Mike went on. "They only had odds and ends on the tape in the camera, but if they write and ask for their camera back, the only thing the tape is going to show is going to be out of focus footage of a car door. I ran the
tape back to the beginning and set it running. The other tapes in the car and at the motel were still in the package."
"Well, thanks for being thorough," she said. "Thanks for everything, Mike. I knew I could count on you."
"Like I said, it was kind of fun," Mike said. "What's more, we didn't break any laws. Maybe their story will get around the Hollywood underground a little. Might make it easier, next time."
"It might make it harder, next time," Jennifer said, laying back down, still uneasy. "The next time somebody comes, they might be more prepared, and not as stupid. Mike, how can I ever come back here again?"
"It's that bad, huh?" Mike said, sitting down on the ground.
"It's that bad," Jennifer said. "I mean, out there, I have to be Jenny Easton, and it's hard for me to remember that I'm really Jennifer Evachevski. As long as I've been able to get back here and be Jennifer Evachevski once in a while, I've pretty well been able to get
along. But when I'm here, I don't want to have to be Jenny Easton, here, too."
Mike found himself longing for another one of Webb's cigarettes. "You said something like that this morning," he said. "I thought about it a bit on the way back from Camden, and look, I don't know how to say this, but it's unhealthy for you to believe that you're still
plain little Jennifer Evachevski. You can call yourself whatever you want, but you've got to accept that you're still Jenny Easton, too."
"But Mike," she said. "I don't know how I can do that and stay myself."
"You aren't yourself if you don't accept it," he said. "And, I'm not kidding when I say it's unhealthy. You know Jackie, the woman that flew you out here today?"
"Yes. I don't ever remember meeting her before, but we were old friends in thirty seconds."
"You didn't hear this from me," Mark said. "Kirsten told me about it; she and Jackie were friends, back in high school. It seems Jackie's mother had trouble telling the difference between who she was, and who she wanted to be, and she wound up spending ten years
or more in the state hospital down in Camden, and eventually died there. It's called acute schizophrenia."
"You think I've got that?"
"I think you're trolling for it, real hard. Jackie could tell you it's not worth it, although Jackie won't tell you about it. Her husband, Mark, may not know as much as I've just told you."
"But Mike," she pleaded. "What do I do?"
"I'm no expert," Mike replied, "But you are going to have to come to accept that you are really Jenny Easton, then get control of what Jenny Easton is doing that makes you unhappy."
"But Mike, that's the one thing I don't know how to do."
Mike furrowed his brow. Jennifer was an old friend, and he was out of his league, and he knew it. Still, maybe some common sense couldn't hurt. "What's so important about being Jenny Easton?" he asked. "I mean, why are you putting yourself through that wringer?
There's got to be some reason for it."
It was a tough question, one that Jennifer had never really asked herself. "The money, the fame, the career," she said, finally.
"You've already got all the money you'll ever want," Mike said. "I follow your career more closely than you might think, and I know you're not one to throw your money away. I don't know how much money you got, but your grandfather said you passed him years
ago. That's plenty for anyone. As far as fame goes, you could never sing another note, never act another line, and you'd be as famous as anyone ever could want to be. You said yourself that you're working more than you want to, and you turn down more yet. I repeat, why are
you doing this to yourself?"
"I keep thinking about retiring," she protested, knowing she was evading the question. "Just coming back here, buying a house, and enjoying myself."
"Do that, and you'd really go nuts," Mike said. "Just from sheer boredom. What I'm trying to say is that you've seen the other side of the mountain. Sure, it's fun to come back here and run the Saxmayer, and I know you did yesterday. But it would get real old, real quick."
"Blake keeps telling me I can't really come home again."
"Blake is right," Mike said. "Sure, you could come back here and live. Maybe it would be a good idea. Hang around till it gets dull, then go do a movie, or a tour, or something, and when it starts getting wearing, come back home. Think of, oh, Barbra Striesand. She
does what she damn well wants to do, and when she wants to take it easy, she does. Jennifer, it would be nice to have you come home to live, but the only way you're going to be able to do it is to admit you're Jenny Easton. Oh, you can be Jennifer Evachevski in the phone
book, to drive off the curious people, but it comes back down to admitting you're Jenny Easton, too."
