Dead Stars (24 page)

Telma went & sat in his wheelchair but a property person came along. He was very nice about it but said he needed to take the chair away.

She went over to the snack table and picked up a gooey slice of honeydew melon. Too sweet. The bananas were gooey too, and the cantaloupe too hard. She grabbed a handful of almond M&Ms & baby pretzels. She was glad to see her mom talking to someone in the distance. A girl came to the table and started shoving soda cans into a big cooler filled with ice. Telma asked her if the creator Ryan was coming. Without looking at her & continuing to shove cans in the cooler, she said
O he doesn't tell us when he comes but he's usually here every day
. Then the tomgirl gal appeared & sweetly wagged a finger at Telma.
You guys are supposed to be having lunch with the Cheerios. You guys are gunna get me in trouble.

She walked the young guest outside. Gwen was already sitting in a golf cart, waiting. The outdoor lunch tables were supposedly four or 5 whole soundstages away but you could smell the BBQ from here.

As she went toward the golfing cart, Telma saw Heather Morris. Heather/Brittany was one of her total role models because the dancer was cast permanently by accident. (Even though Telma wanted to be cast permanently
not
by accident.) Heather was the biggest testimony to the magic & miracles and
serendipity
of how
s are born, that was a word she loved that her mom told her meant a person's happy destiny. Heather was in Telma's opinion one of the friendliest & least jaded of the cast too because everything was so new to her, she had never set out to be a star. Telma had among others a Heather Morris Google Alert, in every YouTube clip or whatever interview with fans or press she always came across as crazy-kind because in her
she must have known how blessed she was, that what had been given her could so easily be taken away, not necessarily by Ryan the Creator but by TV gods in general. (There would always be h8trs, trollers & flamebaiters, one of them was a Mean Girl who kept writing
heather's just a fame whore a total poser cant you people see?
& Telma wrote back
YOU are the whore can't
YOU
see? not heather
but felt kind of bad about it after, even though she knew she did the right thing because as a rule she didn't like to be a Mean Girl h8tr herself. What is a poser anyway, what does that even mean? How could Heather be fake! But she knew Heather was strong, & getting stronger each day as her fame grew, that Heather must know that such is the price one must pay for true
dom, be it be granted sudden or gradual.) As she became famouser, of late Telma could tell it
was
getting maybe a bit harder for Heather to be Heather. Like when she got googalerted to a
Glee
event in Beverly Hills at the Museum of Television. The whole cast was there & the fans could ask any question they wanted. When Heather left the event people were screaming for her to sign posters & whatever, they just wanted her attention, & Heather looked like maybe she wasn't feeling well, she just got into the limousine and crouched down, she ducked down hiding from everyone. At first you could hear the fans—if you could call them that because Telma read how so many of these so-called “fans” hunted down stars for autographs then promptly sold them on eBay—you could hear them say how cute it was that she was playing peekaboo from the limousine, everyone had so much good will toward Heather, more than the usual star, because she was always so nice, she always shined, and made whoever she was talking to shine too, but when the so-called “fans” realized she wasn't playing peekaboo, that she was just on the floor hiding & maybe having a tiny nervous breakdown, their voices grew louder, but the car pulled away. That's when Telma heard one of them shout,
There'll come a day when you'll
WISH
we wanted your autograph——————
how awful.

Heather was in a robe on her way to her trailer and Telma went right up. She was
so nice,
she looked Telma right in the eye like she was a real person, a big person not a little person, she was so
kind,
she said right away that her new friend Catherine already told her
all about
who she was, & Heather said she “loved warriorgirl” & was so impressed!

Telma asked if she could sit with her for lunch but Heather got a sad look and said she had to give an interview to a man who came all the way from Italy, and that she wasn't having lunch with everyone today
Telma was hoping she would invite her into her trailer at least to hang out & maybe have a tiny lunch during her interview but Heather just kept on apologetically sad-smiling.

When she was finally excusing herself, Telma asked if she could give her a kiss & Heather said
Yeah!
but everything got superjumbled in Telma's grasping, desperately in the moment, overheated mind whether Heather was gay in real life, because
Brittany
was, maybe just like Ryan the Creator had written Lea's & Gwyneth's roles especially for them, maybe he did the same with Brittany basing her some or a lot on the
real
Heather, probably Heather was partly gay in real life, there'd been such a fuss over the original Brittana kiss, & with Kurt kissing Blaine, & Darren Kriss & everyone now always kissing, tho mostly it seemed girls kissing girls & boys kissing boys, so Telma, in heady,
felt, headrushed desperation thought maybe
that
could be the way to gain entrée, to leapfrog
Glee Project 2
& any
other
kind of project, person or thing Ryan & Dante were considering, the way to stand out from the pack, that maybe if she
did
then Heather would tell Creator Ryan, the creator Ryan was bold, a kiss between older & younger could be the new frontier because everyone was getting tired and bored (thought Telma, in that moment) with the boy-boy/girl-girl same-age kiss, this way maybe would be another way to help her to be permanently hired– – – – – – – – – – –so– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –she put her tongue right in Brittany's mouth, deep, Brittany didn't see it coming, Telma had her eyes open as she pushed it further and further in, the expression on Heather's face was
total shock
which actually allowed Telma to keep the thick pink muscle in there longer, even if it was only a
sliver
longer because as it turns out a sliver happens to be a
lot
in tonguetime, Telma only kissed once like that ever, one boy (not Biggie
), was kissed
by
him more than kissing him, that little swordfight first-time exploring tongues do, but not as deep as
this
, she twirled & swirled around in Brittany's mouth til Heather grabbed her & practically threw her off her to the ground saying
What are you doing are you
CRAZY?!?!?! Then she looked around declaiming to no one in particular
OMG
this little girl just kissed me with her
TONGUE
OMG
HOW GROSS! THIS
is so
W E I R D
,
who
IS
she, where is her
GUARDIAN?

the tomgirl gal rushed over, and a few stragglers too, half-smiling not knowing if it was a joke, Heather saying

shouldn't I tell someone, who should I tell? (half-smiling/half-spooked as Telma backs up in shock & embarrassment then falls on her ass but keeps backing up crab-like)
WHO SHOULD I TELL??????!!!!!!!!!

. . .

On the long walk back to the car, all Gwen could do was ask her daughter why.

When Telma said she thought it would help get her on the show (tho her logic was torqued & perilous), Gwen's heart broke again. It broke all day long, every beat like a bone china teacup shattering against a wall.

A golf cart headed toward them, not from the soundstage but from the direction they'd originally come. Gwen saw the shaven head from a distance and knew it was Ryan Murphy. When Gwen told Telma who it was, her face dilated in tiny ecstasies.

He pulled up, smiling.

A tiny girl sat in front, with his asst & a mom in back.