Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
J ared hadn’t been pleased to be called back to pick up Charlie a few hours after dropping him off at the hotel–he’d been looking forward to having some downtime–but now that they were together, he supposed that he would just have to make the best of things.
I am not going to let anything this guy says convince me that he isn’t just another shallow celebrity, Jared thought as Charlie started speaking. He may think that he’s going to be able to use that charm on me, but he’s got another thing coming.
As Charlie started speaking, however, Jared couldn’t help but look at him every now and then. After all, this was Charlie Garrett they were talking about, and there were some very good reasons that he’d managed to become a major star. There was no denying that he was beautiful, the kind of guy that Jared would have dashed his heart against again and again in high school and beyond. It was more than that, though: there was something kind about his eyes, some inner niceness that seemed out of place on someone famous.
There had to be something about himself that he wasn’t revealing. His public image, as Jared knew all too well, was far too squeaky clean, but his digging, and that near blow-up outside the hotel, suggested that there was more to him than met the eye, that there was a darker side to the golden boy. Now was his chance to get to the bottom of things. All he had to do was let Charlie keep talking.
“I guess the first thing you should know about me is that I was born in a shithole little town up near Morgantown,” he began. “I know I shouldn’t talk about it like that, but that’s what it was. Wedged up in this little holler, with a tiny school and a cluster of churches.” He sighed, as if just thinking about the place caused him some pain. “It wasn’t that bad, I guess, but it wasn’t the best place to grow up if you wanted to get into the arts, and I always liked acting. I enjoyed watching old movies with my grandma, and as soon as I was old enough to drive I’d go up to Morgantown to go to the movies, even if it meant going by myself.”
He paused, as if he was gathering his thoughts. Jared snuck another look at him, to see whether he could tell what he was thinking, but Charlie looked like he was a thousand miles and a hundred years away.
Don’t do it, Jared. Don’t fall for his sob story.
While Charlie was trying to think of what he wanted to say next, Jared turned his attention back to the road. He wasn’t quite sure where he intended for them to end up, but somehow he’d brought them close to Ritter Park, without a doubt the nicest part of Huntington. It was the kid of place that you brought people when you wanted to give them a good impression of the city–with its historic buildings, its towering trees, its fountain, and its posh-looking people running and walking their dogs–but he was rather disappointed to see that Charlie was too wrapped up in his own story to be bothered to look around him.
Typical, Jared thought uncharitably. I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything else.
He thought briefly of taking Charlie up to the rose garden–maybe that at least would impress him–but then the other man started talking again and he put it aside for the moment
There’s time to do that later, if you still want to do it, he thought. Besides, you don’t want to give him the wrong idea. The rose garden might be a bit too…romantic.
Even so, there was a strange little part of him that didn’t think that would be such a bad thing.
“My parents weren’t quite sure what to make of their shy little boy who wasn’t interested in the same kinds of things as the other members of the family. I mean, I liked going outside and stuff, but I always felt like a fish out of water. They did the best they could for me, but I could always tell that they didn’t understand me, at least not in the way that I wanted them to.” There was a great deal of pain there, Jared thought, but he didn’t want to interrupt.
“Finally, when I was in high school my parents enrolled me in some acting classes up in Morgantown, and it was like I’d finally discovered the meaning of life. I wasn’t just the kid that everyone called ‘faggot’ on the playground. Now I was appreciated for who I really was.” His voice turned a little wistful. “I had my first gay kiss while I was there, and that changed my life, too, even though it took me even longer to come out.”
Suddenly he paused. Jared looked over, to see why he’d stopped speaking. It took him a second to realize that Charlie was waiting for him to say something in response to his story. Jared wasn’t sure what possessed him, but before he could think better of it he blurted out: “I have a very hard time imagining you being shy.”
There was a split second where he thought he’d really put his foot in it and managed to deeply offend their headliner– again –but then Charlie’s face broke into that radiant smile, and he actually laughed.
“You have me there. What can I say? It took me a while to come out of my shell…and the closet. Once I did, though, there was no shutting me up, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed.”
“Who, you? The great Charlie Garrett? Never.” Jared hadn’t meant it to come out quite as jagged as it did, but he could tell from the flicker of hurt in Charlie’s eyes that he might have gone too far.
“Do you…do you think we could go to the rose garden?” Charlie asked. He was clearly trying to change the subject, and Jared was more than happy to let him, even if it meant that they were going to end up in precisely the romantic location that he’d been trying to avoid.
Does this guy know how to read minds?
“Um, I guess, sure?” he managed to stammer out, still flummoxed that Charlie was asking to go to the very place he’d been thinking about just a few minutes ago. “I’m kind of surprised that you’ve heard of it.”
Charlie gave him a level look. “I know that you think I’m some sort of vapid star who doesn’t have time to do his own research, but I do have an iPhone, and I am a little bit curious when the mood strikes me. All of which is a way of saying that yes, I have in fact heard of it. It’s one of the things that made me decide to come here.”
“Wait, really?” Jared didn’t mean for it to come out quite so incredulously, but it just seemed so incredible to him that an actor of Charlie’s stature would come to the city of Huntington just for the flowers, no matter how pretty they were.
“I’m starting to think that you have this idea of what celebrities are like, that they’re just…some sort of heavenly beings that forget what it’s like to be on Earth once they hit it big, but I can assure you that that’s not the case at all,” Charlie said. For a brief moment, Jared almost felt bad at how he’d been treating the other man, particularly since he’d given him no reason to be like that. Then he remembered all of the reasons he’d never liked Charlie Garrett to start with. The way that he seemed to only helicopter into West Virginia when it was convenient, the way that he’d try to say something meaningful about LGBTQ+ rights in the country before stepping back from any controversy, the way he didn’t seem to have an investment in the place that gave birth to him.
He also hadn’t forgotten that the entire reason he was letting Charlie go on like this was because he wanted to find out the truth about him. So far, he hadn’t heard anything that outlandish or unexpected, which just made him want to find out more.
“I guess I just got used to the idea that some people do seem to separate themselves from their birthplace.”
“I think you’ll find that people contain multitudes.”
“So you're both a philosopher and an actor? That’s quite impressive.”
Again there was that little bit of an edge to his voice that he couldn’t quite control, but fortunately Charlie seemed to take it in stride.
Jared found a parking space close to the garden–it wasn’t hard, considering it was fairly early on a Thursday and the park wasn’t yet swarmed with its afternoon visitors–and they got out of the truck. Jared closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the clear fall air. As he did almost every time he came here, he marveled that there was this little oasis of calm and nature in the middle of a fairly big city. For a minute he could almost imagine that he was back in the country where he always wanted to be.
“Um…are you okay?”
Jared shook himself out of his reverie. “Yeah, I’m fine. I…,” he stopped, not sure what he was going to say or whether he wanted to be honest with this guy. Then, shrugging, he went on. “I was just thinking about how lucky we are to have a park like this in the middle of the city. It makes me feel like I’m back in the country.”
“You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy?”
It was an undeniably cheesy thing to say, but for some reason coming from Charlie Garrett–who had that earnest look in his eyes again–it felt just right.
“I guess you could say that. I’ve lived in Huntington for the better part of two decades, but there’s always a part of me that wants to just move back to the country in a nice little cottage with a flock of chickens and forget the rest of the world.”
“I gotta say I didn’t peg you for the type of guy who would like chickens. You strike me more as the turkey sort of man.”
Jared couldn’t resist a laugh at that.
“You know what, Charlie Garrett? You’re not so bad.”
“That’s quite a compliment coming from you.”
Jared narrowed his eyes. “If you keep that up, I might just take it back.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Jared just shook his head and led them over to the small creek that ran through the edge of the park. As they walked up the stairs leading to the garden, Jared couldn’t help but think how he would like to be doing this with someone that he was dating. It had been quite a while since he’d brought anyone here on a date–most guys he’d been with were far too cynical for that sort of thing–and it was actually quite refreshing to see how genuinely invested Charlie seemed to be. He almost seemed like a great big kid, so caught up in the adventure that he forgot to be on his dignity.
Jared wasn’t ready just yet to give Charlie the benefit of the doubt, but he was definitely softening.
You’re getting sentimental in your old age, he thought.
It certainly helped that the roses were in the full flush of their bloom. Even though it was early October, there were still blooms on almost every bush, and as they walked the brick pathways the air was filled with heady scents. This was, Jared thought, the most magical place in all of Huntington and, as absurd as it sounded even to himself, he was glad that he’d brought Charlie here.
“You know,” he said, “this is the place that made me first fall in love with Huntington when I first came here back in the early 2000s. It was just…so magical, and so unlike anything I’d ever encountered. I almost couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to be in a city that had something like this.”
Charlie gave him a little smile. “You really were a little country boy brought to the big city of Huntington, weren’t you?”
Jared knew that Charlie was gently kidding him, but he’d put up with so much teasing about being a country boy (and for being a gay country boy at that), that it always put his back up a bit when someone said something like that.
Charlie, however, with that sixth sense that so many actors seemed to have, immediately recognized his mistake.
“I didn’t mean anything by that, you know. In case you’ve forgotten already, I’m a country boy too, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Then why do you spend so much of your time trying to convince people to forget that about you? Jared almost said. Instead he just gave him a weak smile.
They spent the next few minutes just ambling through the roses, pausing every now and again to lean down and sniff a particularly beautiful specimen. Jared was particularly impressed by the one suitably called “Perfume Factory,” which was perhaps the most fragrant and intensely aromatic rose he’d ever encountered. When Charlie bent down to give it a whiff, he got such a look of pleasure on his face that Jared couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be the one to cause it.
Behave yourself, he reminded himself. You definitely do not have that kind of relationship with Charlie Garrett and you’re not going to.
Finally they took a seat on one of the stone benches, each of them content to sit in silence for a few minutes. Sitting there in peaceful quiet was his idea of a good time, and while he wasn’t sure what had possessed him to share this particular location with someone that he barely knew, he was glad he’d done it.
“Thank you for bringing me here, Jared,” Charlie said softly. “It means a lot to me that you’d share this with me, even though you don’t like me that much.”
Something about the raw vulnerability in Charlie’s voice caused a tiny little knot to start twining itself together in Jared’s chest, and he knew that he had to nip this in the bud before it got any worse. He wasn’t going to start falling for this movie star, no matter how charming and handsome he was, and no matter how vulnerable he was.
You know you have a crush on him, so why don’t you just admit it? That little voice in his head sounded irritatingly like Rebecca, and he pushed it away.
“Do you want to go to the Stonewall?” The words had popped out of his mouth before he could really think about what he was saying, and he kind of regretted puncturing the softly intimate mood that Charlie’s gratitude had created.
Charlie looked hesitant, and Jared immediately regretted asking him. He should have known that he wouldn’t want to go to some busy bar, particularly not after that little altercation in the front of the hotel. While the bar was usually free from protesters these days, things had been getting a little tense of late. What if that same guy showed up with his little sign once he found out that Charlie was going to be there?
“Before you answer that, I have another question” he said, to give Charlie a bit of an out from having to decline going to the bar.
“Hit me,” Charlie said, taking it.
“How is it that we haven’t had paparazzi tailing us all day? I thought that was one of the things that went along with being a star. I mean, there were some of them at the hotel when I picked you up, but they haven’t been swarming after you every second of the day.”
Charlie barked out a laugh.
“Well, I’m not exactly that kind of star, you know? I’m more of a grannies and wine moms kind of star. The press is usually just interested when I’m out doing something official, like arriving at the hotel. Of course, part of the reason there were so many of them there was because Sheri made sure of it. It’s the same reason I came in on a private jet. She wants everyone to know that this is a big deal. She wants to make sure that I make the next big leap in my career.”
He hesitated. “The reporters also tend to show up when I say something that I shouldn’t.”
Charlie rushed on, as if he didn’t want to dwell on his past indiscretions. “If everything goes as planned while I’m here, I might finally get to be a real star, not just a made-for-TV movie wannabe.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jared almost couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You’re one of the most famous people to have come out of West Virginia, and you’re going to say that you’re not the right kind of star?”
Charlie shook his head.
“You don’t understand. There are TV movie stars and then there are real movie stars. As I said, the only time the press really gets worked up about us is if our publicists do a lot of heavy lifting to make us a big deal or we do something stupid or controversial.”
“You mean like punching a homophobe?” Jared asked. “Or saying something that ruffles a few feathers?”
Charlie looked sheepish. “Yes, exactly. Then my face would be splashed across every news website in the country, and I don’t think I need to tell you that that would be very bad. In fact, it would probably torpedo whatever chance I had of actually making it big.”
Now we’re getting somewhere, Jared thought. Now I get to see the real Charlie Garrett. Unfortunately, however, he’d moved on from that bit of confession into safer territory.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m really happy with what I’ve managed to accomplish in my career, and I love my fans but, well, I’ve always wanted to become the kind of star that might even get an Academy Award. I know that sounds dumb, but that’s the way it is.”
In fact, it did sound a little silly–he was Charlie Garrett, for goodness’s sake–but Jared also had to admit that there was something kind of sweet about Charlie’s desires, too. Even if he’d never known what it was like to be a star of any kind, he did know what it was like to end up not quite where you expected to. When he was young he’d wanted to become a famous writer, someone who the world could look at admire but, though he’d managed to get a few pieces placed here and there, and he was occasionally asked to write press releases and other material for the Council, the truth was that his dreams hadn’t worked out the way he’d planned. He loved the work he did for the Council and for the city of Huntington, doing what he could to make life better for the queer folks living there, particularly the young ones, but there were a lot of times when he wished that he’d been more adventurous when he was young.
“What are you thinking about?” Charlie asked.
Jared was so taken aback by the question, banal as it was, that he couldn’t think of anything to say right away.
“Uh, I guess you could say that I was thinking about dreams, and about how sometimes life doesn’t work out like you think it will.”
“That’s very deep for a country boy.”
“You know, it’s not just movie stars and people like them who get to think about big things,” he said. “But yeah, it’s just…well, I grew up wanting to be a writer, to see my stuff in print, to have everyone know my name, but I’m afraid it hasn’t quite worked out like I wanted it to.”
“It’s never too late to do something about that, you know.”
Jared decided to let that one go by without a sarcastic comment. Of all people, Charlie should know how hard it was to break into the creative industries, particularly when you didn’t have any connections or know anyone.
But then, Charlie was able to do it, so why can’t you?
That was a line of thought that he didn’t want to pursue too closely, in part because it made him wonder whether his resentment of one Charlie Garrett was due more to his own jealousy and sense of failure than anything Charlie himself had done.
“I know it isn’t,” he said. “But it’s also not as easy as you might think to get ahead in the writing business. No matter how hard you try, you get knocked down, and it can take a lot to get back on your feet after that.”
Charlie barked out a little laugh. “I think that rejection is just a key part of being a creative. You have to develop a thick skin about these things.”
Jared wanted to tell him that he knew all of that already, which was why he was content to just…not deal with it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle rejection–he could, or at least he thought he could–it was just that, having dealt with so many disappointments and rejections in his personal life, he would just rather avoid having to deal with them in his professional life.
Don’t go there, Jared, he thought. Just keep it light and smooth and let it go at that.
Charlie seemed to sense that he might have overstepped a boundary because he made an abrupt change of direction in their conversation.
“You know what,” he said. “Let’s go to the Stonewall tonight.” Again he got that rather sheepish look on his face. “I’ll admit that I did a little bit of research on that place, too. I still can’t quite believe a place like Huntington has a gay bar.”
“It used to have three,” Jared said matter-of-factly. “But, well, times change, I guess, and it’s gotten harder to keep gay bars open.”
Charlie shook his head. “You know, it’s a shame. I don’t think people these days realize how important gay bars were to guys our age.” He snorted an indelicate laugh. “I guess we’re being called geriatric millennials.”
“Funny that you would make an assumption that I’m also a geriatric millennial,” Jared said even though, of course, he was very much a geriatric millennial.
“Well,” Charlie said with a smirk, “you do have quite a lot of gray hair, so unless you started going gray at an early age, I’d say that you’re at least in your mid-thirties.”
“Not all of us are lucky enough to be blonde,” he said. “You’re never going to really go gray. It’ll just gradually turn white, until you look like a distinguished older gentleman.
“Or an English lawyer.”
They both shared a laugh and, just like that, something seemed to change between them, for a while at least.
“You’re just lucky that the Stonewall is open tonight at all,” Jared said. “They’re normally closed on weeknights, but they decided to have a special night since the film festival is in town.”
Just then Charlie’s stomach growled, and so did Jared’s.
“Uh, would you like to get something to eat?” Jared asked. He glanced at his watch. “It’s gonna be quite a while before the Stonewall opens, so we have some time to kill.”
Charlie beamed that smile at him.
“I’d love that.”
They got some McDonald’s–“It’s my favorite cheat food,” Charlie explained with a blush–and somehow managed to spend the next several hours just driving around Huntington and its environs. Jared found it strangely to show off this city that he’d come to love. By the end of the day they were at Harris Riverfront Park. It might have seen better days, but Jared had always thought it had its unique faded beauty.
The sun was already starting to set and, if Jared was being honest with himself, he wasn’t quite ready to go to the bar yet. He couldn’t quite define why, but he knew there was something magical going on here, something that he wouldn’t be able to recapture once it went away.
You really are a hopeless romantic.
“I’m not quite ready to go yet, though,” Charlie said, seeming to read his mind. “I just kind of enjoy sitting here in peace and quiet.”
And that’s just what they did, until the last sliver of the sun slipped below the horizon, leaving them bathed in the gloom of evening.
Jared sighed, because it was starting to get chilly, and he just felt that it was time for them to get going, before this little rendezvous could get any more romantic.
You could kiss him right now and no one would be any the wiser, a little voice in his head said. You know you want to.
He shook his head to clear it of that troubling little thought. His life was messy and complicated enough without kissing Charlie Garrett and opening that whole can of worms.
“Shall we go?”
The words sounded abrupt and a little rude to his own ears, but if Charlie thought the same thing he didn’t say it. Instead he just flashed that dazzling smile, and Jared found himself glad he was sitting down, because his knees felt a little wobbly.
Good Lord, pull yourself together.
“Yes, let’s,” he said instead.