The Animators(25)

“You’re an alcoholic,” I tell her.

“Oh, come on.” She flaps around in a circle. “Shut up, Sharon.”

“No one except an alcoholic gets up and makes Irish coffee at eleven in the morning. No one except an alcoholic gets wasted and strips at a panel discussion. Normal people don’t do that. People with drinking problems do that. And I think the movie pushed you into a bad place. I regret having any part in this.”

“I don’t see you turning away the checks we’re getting. I don’t see you turning down NPR interviews. But hindsight’s twenty-twenty, isn’t it.”

“I have a standard for how I should be treated,” I say. “And you just went way below the line.”

She rolls her eyes. “Where’s this standard with the dipshits you date?” Draws a smoke out of her pocket. Lights it. There aren’t many people on the platform. She gets a few dirty looks, but only a few.

“You started out charming Glynnis,” I say. “She liked you, not me. But then you ran it into the ground. She’s probably lucky you didn’t take off your shirt and slap the sound engineer with it.”

Mel leans over the platform again. “You’re never going to let that go, are you.”

“If I left,” I say, “no one would blame me.”

“You can’t do this without me,” she says. “You know you can’t.”

It knocks the breath out of me. It’s a long moment before I can even speak again. “There are people who would actually appreciate working with me,” I tell her. “Do you know how many calls I’ve deflected from Brecky Tolliver this summer?”

Mel opens her mouth. Shuts it. Crosses her arms over her chest.

“Yeah. Ever since the panel discussion. She tried to hire me while you were buzzing around hitting on coeds.”

“Wow,” she says. “Look at you, whipping Brecky out like that. What, are you trying to make me jealous?”

“I’m letting you know where you stand,” I say.

“Typical,” she spits. “You’re doing this like a total girl, parading it around. You gonna pick another dyke to buddy up with, Sharon? Someone you don’t have to compete with?”

It’s mean—a meanness she was searching for, somewhere down in the dregs of herself.

“You know what,” I say quietly, “why don’t you keep the ugly shit to yourself for once instead of pouring it out all over me. I’m tired of this.”

Mel blinks at me, breathing hard. Then lifts her hands. Yells, “You know what? Fuck this.” She starts for the stairs, cigarette clamped between her teeth, and bounds up, her back growing smaller and smaller until she’s gone.





HER NAME WAS STARLA


Mel disappears. I spend the worst heat wave New York City has seen in a decade—blacktop oozing apart, old people collapsing on the subway—lying in the midst of her cigarette butts and half-gnawed Charleston Chews, purposefully avoiding our workstation. I throw my back out lugging the air conditioner into my bedroom, throw it out some more carrying the TV in there, and set up shop eating popsicles, sweating, and attempting to overcome the situation with lethargy.

It’s been over a week of this when Donnie calls. “Would you like to talk about it?” she says.

“No, I’m good.”

“I’d like to talk about it, frankly.”

It’s ten in the morning. I know without seeing that Donnie’s at her desk, a can of Diet Coke sweating by her elbow. NPR had its edited way with the aired Glynnis segment, but an unedited version, illicitly nabbed from someone’s hard drive, made its way to Donnie almost immediately after. “I just—I’m not even sure how to begin to ask the questions I need to ask right now, Sharon.”

“She wasn’t that bad before the interview. I swear.”

“Sharon, if Mel wants to strip down and dance the rumba at a panel discussion, that’s bad enough. But it doesn’t get much worse than doing a nosedive on Glynnis. This is—this is another distinction altogether. But why am I explaining any of this to you? You know how bad it was. I could practically hear the sound of you cringing over Mel ripping the sound equipment apart.”

“I don’t think this is entirely fair,” I say. “Shouldn’t you be talking to Mel?”

“You’re not wrong. It’s not fair for me to ask you to babysit. But that’s how we’re rolling these days, apparently. Even more so now with the grant. People are watching, Sharon. Taking notes. This is your job.”

I sit up. “Wait. What do you mean by that?” This is where it comes out, I think with a pang. This is when Donnie confirms what Glynnis made me even more afraid of. That my job is Driving Miss Mel.

“I mean that both of you have a responsibility to carry out your share of public relations,” she says.

I relax. “Oh.”

“Don’t oh me. Market this to the best of your ability. Don’t embarrass yourselves. That’s all you have to do.”

Jesus. “Right.”

“Agreeing with me doesn’t mean cock unless you carry it out. Keep her in hand, Sharon. It’s this or stuff her into rehab. If she would even go. Which she would not.”

“Okay.”