2
A
t eleven p.m. that evening in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn, New York, Patrick Alan Esposito blinked rapidly at his Acer laptop screen, duct tape holding its CD drive closed.
“I don’t believe it,” he whispered. “She wrote back. Lauren Short actually wrote back.”
This is amazing.
He wiped dust from the screen with his sleeve.
Her e-mail is still there. I’m not seeing things. Lauren Short wrote back to me, and it isn’t a form letter. She actually answered my e-mail, despite Chazz breaking off her engagement. She called me by name, and she included a smiley face!
And she wants me to keep smiling, too!
I’m smiling!
I can’t remember the last time I smiled.
It almost hurts my face to smile.
Though he was amazed at Lauren’s response, Patrick was more amazed that he had written to her in the first place. He had had a crush on Lauren Short ever since he saw her in
Crisp and Popp,
a TV show that debuted and then disappeared after only six episodes in the fall of 2001.
But that was fourteen years ago. How can I still have a crush on her?
He shot both his arms to the ceiling and shouted, “Yes!”
A Hollywood star, a TV actress, and a certified beauty wrote back to
me.
I wish I had someone to tell.
He ran his hands through his floppy mass of thick black hair and scratched at his coarse beard.
But who would believe me if I did?
I’m glad she can’t see me now.
I can barely stand to see me now.
Patrick lived frugally, some would say “barely,” in Boerum Hill, a thirty-six-block section south of downtown Brooklyn east of Cobble Hill and west of Prospect Heights. A handyman and jack-of-all-trades, Patrick was the go-to guy to fix problems at five Salthead rental properties in Boerum Hill. He imagined that most tenants had his cell phone number memorized by now.
Mrs. Moczydlowska probably chants my number in her sleep. It took me a month to say her name correctly: Mot-chid-LOVE-ska. I know I see her in my sleep, all four foot, seven inches and two hundred pounds of her. She’s so chubby, I can barely see her eyes. “I call your boss,” she says. “You do not fix, I call your boss. You not come, I call your boss. You are not here by eight sharp, I call your boss. . . .”
Even
I
don’t call my boss.
Patrick wasn’t even sure who his boss was.
For working up to sixteen-hour days, Patrick received a meager salary and half rent (eleven hundred dollars a month and all utilities) in one of the Salthead rentals on State Street. He had seven hundred square feet of less-than-spacious living in a nineteenth-century house that had been carved into eight apartments. A lumpy brown cloth couch canted slightly on faux wood linoleum in the main room, in front of an antique coffee table holding a thirty-five-inch television. A queen bed swallowed most of the blue-walled bedroom, glass double doors to the only closet showcasing five pairs of coveralls, assorted stained jeans, hooded sweatshirts, and scuffed and discolored work boots. A light tan window shade on the bedroom window allowed the morning sun to streak across to the bathroom, the only “modern” room in the apartment with a double-bowl sink, postage-stamp green tile, and recessed lighting, all of which he had installed himself. Under the counter in the skinny kitchen were a dishwasher he never used and a washing machine he used once a week, thick red brick walls providing the only vibrant color.
Even Patrick’s apartment was barely an apartment.
Patrick maintained, rebuilt, painted, and even overhauled five-thousand-dollar-a-month apartments in buildings on Atlantic, State, Dean, Bergen, and Baltic. He carried a heavy tool bag slung over his shoulder wherever he went, roaming daily past Boerum Hill’s million-dollar “row houses” to unclog sink drains, replace chipped tile, seal drafty windows, remove former rodents from traps, set off bug bombs, rewire overworked electrical outlets, plunge toilets, swap out aging water heaters, clean shower traps, free blocked sewage drains, and anything else the tenants demanded that he do.
He had finished Mrs. Moczydlowska’s daily “Do it today, or I call your boss!” list over on Bergen only half an hour before he had read Lauren’s e-mail.
I’ll bet Mrs. Moczydlowska is busy thinking up more for me to do tomorrow. There’s always something wrong. “What is this bug, and what is it doing here? Why does the toilet take so long to flush? Why does the floor make so much noise?”
Patrick had learned to save Mrs. Moczydlowska’s apartment for last after she had once called him back six times in one day to “Fix the fridge!” or “Get me the hot water!” or “Make the sound go away!”
Patrick led an anonymous life in stained coveralls, but he wore his stains with pride, mainly because the stains held his coveralls together.
He hit the REPLY button, then warmed his massive hands and flexed his rough fingers.
How does a nobody like me write
back
to a movie star? Writing to her the first time was easy. I was only a fan then. Now I’m . . .
I don’t know what I am now.
A friend? A confidant? What should I say this time? Should I even write back? What if I do and she doesn’t write back this time? Maybe she was just being nice. That’s the kind of person I think she is. Yeah. She was being nice.
He sat back from the laptop.
But I don’t want to leave this alone. It’s not as if we’re going to have a long “conversation.” I just want her to know that someone cares about her, even if that someone is a nobody handyman who lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. There’s no harm in that. I care, and I want her to know that I care.
I have to do this.
Lauren:
I’m so surprised you wrote me back.
Well, I am,
he thought.
But I’m sure she knows that I would be surprised. She is a star, after all, and I am not a star.
He backspaced until he had a blank screen.
Miss Short:
I’m glad you wrote back.
I am glad, aren’t I? Why tell her the obvious? And calling her “Miss” might remind her that she’s still a “Miss” and isn’t married after being engaged to that jerk for three years.
He highlighted and deleted everything.
Lauren:
If you ever need someone to “talk” to, I’m here.
He sighed.
Am I being too bold? I am actually assuming that this wonderful person doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Of course she has someone to talk to! I’m sure she has plenty of friends to see her through this mess with Chazz. She doesn’t need me.
He sighed again.
And what if she thinks I’m some reporter trolling for information? I’m sure that’s how some reporters operate. They get in nice and friendly with a seemingly innocent e-mail and then air the dirt they uncover on television or in magazines.
He scratched his hair, a few dots of white paint floating to the coffee table.
What does it matter, anyway? She’s not writing back.
He signed it “Patrick” this time before adding a postscript :
Crisp And Popp is still the best TV show of all time. It is the world’s loss that they canceled it.
He hit
SEND
.
I
am
here if you need me, Lauren,
he thought. He shook his head.
Maybe it’s really me who needs someone to talk to. I am so tired of talking to myself.
He shut down his laptop.
As he was walking all of ten feet to his bedroom, his cell phone buzzed.
Mrs. Moczydlowska. It figures. Doesn’t she ever sleep?
He flipped open his antiquated cell phone, one Salthead had provided for his use. “Yes, Mrs. Moczydlowska?”
“Oh, you are up,” she said.
We handymen never really sleep. We only recharge our batteries.
“What may I do for you?” Patrick asked.
“It is the refrigerator again,” she said. “It does not keep the food cold again and it makes the noise again and I hear the rats in the walls again and what you painted today does not match anything after it is dry and . . .”
See you tomorrow, Mrs. Moczydlowska,
Patrick thought as she droned on and on and listed something wrong in every room.
I wonder if she would care that I just received and answered an e-mail from Lauren Short, Hollywood actress. She probably doesn’t even know who Lauren Short is.
“Yes, Mrs. Moczydlowska,” he said absently.
“You are writing this down, yes?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Moczydlowska,” he said, writing random letters in the air.
“There is much to be done!” she shouted. “When you come? You come first thing in the morning, yes? You must come here first thing.”
He yawned and stretched his back. “I come first thing,” he said, instantly regretting it.
“What time?” she asked.
The crack of dawn.
“As soon as the sun rises.”
“I will be waiting. Do not be late, or I call your boss.”
Click.
He edged into his bedroom and fell back onto the bed.
If I brought Mrs. Moczydlowska a new refrigerator or rid her walls of every rodent and bug, she would complain about how
quiet
it was. If everything was perfect, she’d worry that something was
about
to break.
He pulled up the window shade, and the room filled with the amber light from Downtown Gourmet Deli across the street.
We’re both open for business twenty-fours a day,
he thought.
And people expect us to be open and available no matter what.
But it’s a living.
“Just not much of one,” he whispered.
3
A
t thirty-eight and now disengaged from the world’s premier blockbuster movie star, Lauren Short couldn’t afford to be choosy about getting work, especially since she had not been seen in movies or on television shows for seven years.
When her agent, Todd Mitchell, had sent her any script back in the good old days, she would begin reading it immediately, often finishing it before the envelope it came in hit the floor. The thicker scripts had excited her the most since they held the promise of extended projects and larger paychecks, and there were plenty of big paydays when she was in her twenties. She had starred or costarred in eight films over a four-year period, and while five were ensemble “sister” films, they had made her extremely visible to the moviegoing public. She had won half a dozen BET, Black Reel, and Image Awards for those movies, but once she’d started dating Chazz, the scripts stopped coming overnight.
Todd Mitchell, her agent, had tried to explain why. “Lauren, baby, Chazz is white, and that’s why, um, why you’re not getting any more, um,
ethnic
scripts.”
“But shouldn’t I be getting more mainstream roles, then?” Lauren had asked. “Shouldn’t I be ‘crossing over’ to multicultural movies? Sanaa Lathan has done it. So have Zoe Saldana and Kerry Washington.”
“I’ll look into it,” Todd had said.
Todd had looked into it.
Nothing had come of it.
As a result, Lauren quit acting to become Chazz’s arm candy at awards shows, premieres, and film festivals, spending stupid amounts of money on designer dresses she wore only once.
For seven years.
Today she held a script Todd had sent to her by express mail. She read Todd’s brief cover letter:
Dear Lauren,
Shantelle Crisp isn’t quite dead yet!
In 2001 Lauren had starred in
Crisp and Popp,
a TV crime drama. She played the sexy, wisecracking detective Shantelle Crisp, and Hayden Billings played the no-nonsense white detective Richard Popp. They solved crimes when they weren’t flirting, lusting, and sleeping together. The show received rave reviews, mainly for not being “overtly racial,” but NBC canceled it because the stand-up comedian and lead writer of the show, Will Weaver, had upset the world during a live HBO special just after 9/11. . . .
“Why is everyone blaming George Bush for all this?” Weaver had asked a packed audience in Los Angeles. “Sure, our president is a little short on intelligence, foresight, and knowledge of the English language, but terrorists have been on the warpath since the seventies. Didn’t
we
arm Saddam Hussein so he could fight the Iranians? And didn’t
we
give weapons to the Taliban to fight the Russians? Didn’t we know that this sort of thing was bound to happen eventually? If you give guns to pissed-off people, they tend to use them against whoever pisses them off at the time. Instead of pointing fingers, we should be pointing missiles . . . at Washington, D.C., and Langley, Virginia. . . .”
Lauren sighed.
I miss doing that show.
Crisp and Popp
was a smart, well-written, groundbreaking show that didn’t deserve to die because Will Weaver told the truth. That show was funny in all the right places, sexy in even more right places, and looking back, just about everything Will Weaver said in his rant was the absolute truth. No one wanted to hear the truth back then, though. And no one’s heard from Will Weaver since. They’ve barely heard from me or seen me, either—unless I was with Chazz.
She nodded. “I need a job now,” she said.
I need something that will show the world that I still have talent. I need something to show everyone that seven years with Chazz and our recent disengagement haven’t ruined me forever.
She returned her attention to the cover letter.
Please read over this first scene of
Gray Areas
, the pilot for an upcoming Tumbleweed Television sitcom. They want you to read for the part of Lauren Gray. You essentially get to play yourself!
Call me back as soon as you can!
Todd
PS: The writing is a little stereotypical and over the top, but keep in mind that this is a comic starring role, Lauren. You need this. Chazz who? Knock ’em dead!
True,
Lauren thought.
Chazz who? I need this chance badly.
She settled into her love seat, flipped the cover page, and began to read:
GRAY AREAS
By A. Smith
Episode 1
Scene 1
(A handsome, muscular white man in tight jeans, an unzipped hoodie, and unlaced Timberlands walks in slow motion past two black women who are drinking coffee at an outdoor café in Manhattan. They check out his butt longingly.)
LAUREN
He ain’t bad looking . . . for a white man.
SHARON
Lookin’ at a cracker don’t cost nothin’, Lauren.
Oh . . . no,
Lauren thought.
I don’t like the way this begins. Is this supposed to be comedy? The first two lines might alienate every white person in America!
She forced herself to continue.
It can only get better, right?
It didn’t get better.
LAUREN
Sharon, he ain’t got no booty. I’d have nothing to hold on to.
SHARON
Nope. Looks like a straight shovel back there. He probably has divots in his hairy cheeks.
LAUREN
You see the rest of him? His face was as hairy as a bear. Puh-lease. I bet he’s all static clingy. He’d probably shock me every time he touched me.
SHARON
He had blue eyes, though. Gotta like them.
LAUREN
Yeah
. (Sighs deeply.)
SHARON
You ain’t thinkin’ about getting a little cream in your coffee, are you, Lauren? What would your boo, Marcus, the lawyer, think?
This hoochie has a
lawyer
for a boyfriend?
Lauren thought.
Why? What lawyer—or man—in his right mind would hook up with this coarse, uncouth creature? Only on TV.
LAUREN
Marcus and I are through.
SHARON
Since when?
LAUREN
Since I caught him banging his secretary in our bed. I knew that white hoochie was after him.
(Smiles.)
But she ain’t gonna be able to smile right after what I did to her.
SHARON
You cut her, huh?
LAUREN
No. I punched her out. Snapped one of her front teeth in half.
SHARON
She a snaggletoothed bee-otch now, huh?
Bee-otch?
Lauren thought.
What in the world? What century am I in? And does this Lauren have to be so violent? I don’t have a violent bone in my body.
LAUREN
Yeah.
(Sighs.)
Nah, I am through with black men, Sharon. They have never done me right. All of them are dogs. I need to get me a white man and get me some cream and some sugar.
And now the script alienates black men,
Lauren thought.
Who is left to watch this show? Do they want
anyone
to watch this show?
SHARON
I hate to burst your bubble, but white men ain’t no good in bed, Lauren. They ain’t got no rhythm, and they don’t know how to work the booty. And the faces they make?
Puh-lease
, girl. Trust me. It’s a real horror show
. (Makes a horrific face.)
LAUREN
(Laughs.)
You’re giving me nightmares. But how do you know all that? You been with a white man?
SHARON
Just one. I forget his name. Chip or Joe Bob or Bubba or something redneck and Caucasian like that.
The script just lost most of the southern United States,
Lauren thought.
This isn’t comedy. This is an extended racist joke! They would have to use a laugh track for this show because a live audience would be booing or growling. I wonder if a live audience has ever walked out on a taping. If it hasn’t happened yet, this show would guarantee it happening.
She forced herself to continue.
LAUREN
Why you mess with him, girl?
SHARON
I was curious.
LAUREN
What was he like?
SHARON
Like a little puppy dog. Once he got a taste of my coffee, he kept coming back for more. I’m a regular Starbucks, girl. I’m better than caffeine for keeping a man up, and I kept him up all night. I bet he never went back to no milky-white heifer after me.
LAUREN
Once you’ve had black, you’ll never go back.
SHARON
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice.
(They exchange some dap.)
Lauren shook her head so much, her neck hurt.
Todd said this script is a little over the top. He’s dead wrong. This script is over the abyss and falling like a cartoon anvil.
LAUREN
Is it true that when their hair gets wet, it smells like a wet puppy?
SHARON
Yes, girl. Joe Bob’s hair smelled like mildew and Grandma’s draws. And white men’s ashy skin smells like onions sometimes, and not the good kind of onions, either. And they have absolutely no table manners. They eat food that hits the floor, just like the puppy dogs they are. And the only thing they can cook is Hamburger Helper. At least they can always get you a cab in this city.
(Shared laughter.)
But they
love
to go down there, girl.
LAUREN
Why?
SHARON
Evidently, it’s the only way a white woman can have an orgasm.
And now we’ve lost the white women,
Lauren thought.
This just
has
to be a joke now. Todd sent me this script to cheer me up in some twisted way. No one on earth would ever take this script seriously.
She stared at the ceiling.
No, Todd wouldn’t send me anything unless it was real.
She looked back at the script and sighed.
I just wish he hadn’t sent this piece of crap.
LAUREN
Oh.
(Smiles.)
Then Marcus’s secretary ain’t never gonna have an orgasm, cuz Marcus never did none of that.
(Slaps hands with Sharon.)
SHARON
But a white man isn’t that big or long, girl. Just warning you.
LAUREN
I hear they have girth, and that’s enough for me.
SHARON
Yeah, the one I was with had some girth. He didn’t know how to use it, though.
Girth?
Lauren thought.
Can they say
girth
on TV? This can’t be for regular TV. This has to be for some late-night show only the truly desperate would ever watch.
LAUREN
How’d you meet him?
SHARON
I hung out where white guys hang out. Grocery stores, in the meat section. Electronics stores. Bowling alleys. Softball fields. Golf courses. Church.
LAUREN
Yeah, no brothers goin’to church these days. Where’d you meet your white boy?
And now we’ve lost any church folks, not that they’d ever tune in to this filth,
Lauren thought.
If I were the writer, I’d go into the witness protection program.
SHARON
At Stinky & Minky on Sullivan Street.
LAUREN
That old clothes store?
SHARON
It’s a
vintage
clothing store, Lauren. He was actually buying an old Izod jacket, if you can believe that. I said, “You want some of this?” and he said, “Cool.”
(Laughs.)
He actually said, “Cool.” And he had no trouble about wearing a condom, so I knew I wouldn’t get pregnant. And even if I did get pregnant, I knew I’d have a little light-skinned chocolate baby with good hair and a trust fund who could dance real good about half the time.
She didn’t just say . . .
Lauren closed her eyes.
Oh, my goodness. How many foolish, untrue stereotypes can we squeeze into the first five minutes? This script is trying to set a record!
She opened her eyes.