Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
A fter Jared stormed out of the room and went up to the guest room, Charlie just sort of stood there with Joyce and Doug, none of them quite able to believe what had just happened. Somehow, between one minute and the next, the romance that had slowly been taking shape between Charlie and Jared seemed to have been burned entirely to the ground.
“Would you like to sit in the living room?” Joyce asked, finally recovering some measure of her equanimity. “I’m really sorry that you had to see whatever that was. Sometimes, I don’t know what gets into that boy’s head. Lord knows I love him, but I’d like to shake some sense into him.”
Charlie had a feeling that that was about as aggressive as Joyce ever got, and it surprised him. Jared must have shaken her up a bit with his little outburst.
They all retired to the living room, where they sat around in a semi-awkward silence, none of them quite sure what to say. They all seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement that the best thing to do was wait for Jared to cool down on his own, however long that might end up taking. It wasn’t until they heard his truck’s engine starting that they thought things might have gone off the rails a bit more than they thought, but even then none of them thought there was any reason to panic.
“I’m sure he’s just blowing off some steam,” Charlie said, and both Joyce and Doug nodded in agreement. It was clear from the looks on their faces, though, that they weren’t entirely sure.
When an hour passed and Jared still hadn’t returned, Charlie started to wonder, too.
Finally, it was clear what had happened. Jared had ditched them all.
“Well,” Doug said, slapping his knees, “I guess Jared has pulled a Jared.”
Charlie did a double-take at that, even though he was pretty sure he knew exactly what Doug meant, unfortunately.
“Doug,” Joyce said, a note of caution in her voice, “don’t.”
“No, Joyce. This is unacceptable,” he said, gesturing at Charlie. “He’s hared off again, and now Charlie is left here to fend for himself. It’s unacceptable and inexcusable. He should know better. He’s an adult.”
“Look, it’s no big deal,” Charlie said, deciding to head all of this off at the pass. “I’m sure I can find some way to get back to Huntington. Jared was nice enough to drive me here. I didn’t really expect him to have to drive me back too. I can just rent a car.” He chuckled, trying to set them both at their ease. “I think I can afford it.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” Doug said. “ I’ll drive you back to Huntington, and once I get there I’m going to give my son a piece of my mind.”
Charlie looked outside. It was already starting to get dark. Suddenly it all came crashing down on him, all of the things that he still had to do, all of the aspects of the film festival that still had to go on, no matter how much his life had changed. There was a part of him that just wanted to get on the nearest plane and get back to California, forgetting that all of this had never happened.
I’m not proud of that, but that’s the truth, he thought.
“You don’t have to do that, really,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” Doug said, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “How soon do you think you can be ready?”
This whole situation was spinning out of control much faster than Charlie would ever have expected, but he supposed it could have been worse. He did like Doug and, if nothing else, a four-hour car drive would give him more of an opportunity to get to know the other man.
It wasn’t long before Charlie and Doug were in the latter’s old Buick, headed back to Huntington and whatever waited there.
Charlie had to admit that this wasn’t exactly the way that he had envisioned this weekend coming to a close, but he supposed it was what he’d deserved. Much as he hated to admit it, Jared was right. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t let his temper get the better of him. For that matter, none of this would have happened if he’d stayed in California where he belonged rather than trying to be a white knight bullshit hero.
“I know that you probably don’t want to hear this right now,” Doug said, “but I want you to know that I think Jared really has feelings for you. It’s just that he sometimes has a hard time figuring out what to do with those feelings. As you know, he’s had a rough time of it with some of his exes, and none of them have really treated him like they deserve.”
Charlie knew that much was true, and he said as much.
“Now, I know that doesn’t excuse his actions today,” Doug went on. “In fact, I’m going to give him a good earful when I see him again. However, if the chance presents itself, I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive him. I think you’ll be glad you did.”
I’m not at all sure that’s true, he thought but didn’t say.
“I’ll do my best,” he said instead.
After that conversation most of the trip passed in a bit of silence. It wasn’t awkward, at least not entirely. Instead, it was more or less a peaceful interlude between two people who were comfortable enough to not have to fill the air with chatter, despite the fact that they barely knew each other. Charlie thought with a pang about the future he’d dared to begin to imagine with Jared and his family. He doubted that Doug and Joyce would want to have anything to do with him after what had happened this weekend.
They finally reached the outskirts of Huntington, and Charlie breathed an internal sigh of relief. He just wanted to get back to his hotel room, maybe have a drink at the bar, and try to get as much sleep as possible before tomorrow.
Fuck, he thought. I still have to write my speech for the festival. Assuming that Sheri hasn’t done it already.
Thinking of Sheri reminded him of all of the things that he was going to have to deal with now that he was back in town. The idyll with Jared had ended before he had come up with any satisfactory solutions to any of his myriad problems, and he didn’t think they were going to get any better.
“Where would you like me to drop you off?” Doug asked.
“Um…I guess at the Huntington Grande?” Charlie said, somehow making it seem more like a question. “I guess I should try to get my life together before tomorrow.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but I have a feeling you’ll get it all figured out. You strike me as the type of guy who always lands on his feet. You must be pretty special if Jared found something about you that he liked so much.”
The mention of Jared’s name seemed to cast a cloud over their conversation again, and they didn’t say anything more as Doug made his way through the streets of Huntington. Being back here brought Charlie back to the moments when he’d first gotten to know Jared–had that just been a few days ago?--and how much everything had changed.
Maybe I should have just stayed here and weathered the news storm, he thought.
Then they were in front of the hotel, and before he quite realized what he was doing he was standing outside and waving to Doug as he pulled away, disappearing down the street.
Well, that’s one thing taken care of, he thought.
Charlie wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended that there was no one outside the hotel waiting to attack him with cameras and shouted questions. In any case, he made his way up to his room without being seen but, as he swiped the key in the lock, he felt another pang, thinking about what Jared was doing and how he must be feeling about all of this.
Jared, he thought. I hope you know that you’re worth love, even if you can’t see it right now.
Just as he stepped inside, however, he heard someone behind him clear their throat, and he froze.
“And just what are you doing back here?” Sheri asked him in that no-nonsense voice that he’d learned a long time ago to fear. “I thought you were supposed to be out of town with your boyfriend and staying out of trouble?”
He turned around. Sheri was standing there in her usual pantsuit, arms crossed, one stilettoed foot tapping up and down while her fingers.
“Well?” she asked when he didn’t say anything at once.
“Let’s just say that things didn’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped,” he said.
There was a flicker of something that might have been sympathy on her face, but then it hardened again, no doubt as she thought about all of the complications that his being here was likely to cause.
“Please,” he said, holding up a hand, “I really don’t need any ‘I told you so’s’ right now.”
“Actually,” she said, “I was going to say that if you don’t want to do the talk before the film festival you don’t have to. In fact, it might be better if you didn’t. Perhaps we should just get back to California and forget that all of this ever happened.”
Charlie couldn’t deny that there was a part of him that was desperate to do just that, to get away from all of the mess and madness that had characterized his time coming home. In particular, he wanted to get away from all of the memories of Jared that being here would continue to conjure.
Jared, how did this all go so wrong? He wanted, desperately, to believe that this had all been a blip, that he hadn’t meant all of what he’d said. The more he thought about it, however, the more convinced he became that the ugly side of Jared that he’d revealed back at his parents’ house had, in fact, been the real person. Oh, he was sure there was something else there, that there was a core to him that was really beautiful and as sensitive as Charlie had thought at the beginning, but it was so buried beneath all of the other baggage that Charlie didn’t think he’d ever be able to dig his way out of it.
As he’s made clear, that’s someone else’s problem, he thought sourly. It was time to get this whole festival over with and put in the rearview mirror so that he could resume his life back in California.
“No,” he said. “I’m done with running away. We’re going to see this through to the end.”
Something about just saying those words aloud made him feel confident about his choices in a way that he hadn’t been in a long time. Whatever else happened during this trip–and he had a feeling that there was a lot more to come–he could at least take comfort from the fact that he’d seen it through to the end.
“Now that you’re back,” Sheri said, breaking into his thoughts. “I have something important to give you.” She walked over to his desk and grabbed a folder, which she then handed to him without even the slightest bit of ceremony.
“Do I want to know what this is?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Since I figured you’d decide to go through with the speech no matter what I said, I took the liberty of writing a draft. Trust me, it’s already made it through all of the revisions that it needs. This is the type of speech that will impress everyone and not piss anyone off, let alone the members of the Huntington City Council, who have been on the warpath ever since you left. If you just read this, I think we can smooth this whole thing over and take control of the narrative.”
Charlie reluctantly opened the folder and skimmed the speech. He could tell right away that this was exactly the opposite of what he would have liked to say even if, as Sheri had said, it was exactly the type of anodyne speech one might expect from such a gathering. It was full of expressions of gratitude to Huntingotn and to speaking in general terms about how much had been gained but how much there was still left to do.
Yeah, I’m not reading that, he decided right away. He didn’t say that to Sheri, of course, because she wouldn’t understand. In fact, he knew that she would reprimand him for being foolish enough to do what he was thinking about doing.
But if being here in West Virginia this past weekend had taught him anything, it was that it wasn’t worth bending yourself out of shape for someone else. You had to be honest about what you were doing, and let the chips fall where they may. What he was about to do might cost him his career, it might cost him everything that he’d already built, but he was going to go through with it.
There was no going back.
After getting rid of Sheri, Charlie spent the next several hours writing a new version of his speech. He decided to write by hand, because that always made him feel more connected to his thoughts and, as the hours passed and he kept writing, he found that it was a lot easier, and also a lot harder, than he had expected. There was a lot he needed to cram into a relatively short speech but, by the time that three hours had gone by, he felt like he’d written something he could be proud of.
He also realized he was incredibly hungry, so he ordered some room service, had a light dinner, and then went to bed. It was going to be a very busy day tomorrow.
As he drifted off, his thoughts kept returning to Jared, wondering where he was and what he was doing. Charlie tried to resist the effort, but he even checked his phone several times, just to see if somehow he’d missed a message. He hadn’t and, after about the dozenth check, he decided that it was time to go to sleep. Tomorrow he’d face the world.
The next day passed in something of a haze. Sheri informed him over a light breakfast that she’d already made plans for the jet to take them back to California after his speech was done that night. She’d already booked him a meeting with several producers of a new project, and she thought it was in his best interests to capitalize on at least a bit of the goodwill from the festival in order to get some things set in stone.
If only you knew what was coming, he thought but didn’t say.
Still, he packed all of his bags and got things ready for his departure. He resolutely kept Jared out of his thoughts, because he knew if he started to give in to thinking about him–and about the fact that he hadn’t even tried to reach out–then he was going to lose his focus, and he needed all of his resources to be able to focus today.
You can do this, he kept reminding himself.
At last all of his belongings were packed away, and he was left staring at yet another empty hotel room. For the briefest of moments his mind flashed back to that first night, and the way that Jared had brought him here after the incident at the Stonewall. A small smile flickered across his lips at the memory.
If only things could have stayed like that, he thought.
Then Sheri was knocking on the door, and it was time to go.
When they got to the theater it was clear at once that there was an even bigger crowd than they’d expected. Part of Charlie was excited and happy–and even a little proud–to see that so many people had come out to see him. Or, at least, he assumed they’d turned out to see him and his new movie, rather than the controversy of a few days earlier. As they started clapping and waving, though, he smiled, knowing that they really were there for all of the right reasons, so he plastered on the usual smile and waved in return.
The Keith Albee was one of the oldest theaters in Huntington, and even though its best days had seemed to be behind it, it had experienced a bit of a renaissance thanks to some wise investment. Being inside of the building, Charlie could see why it was a true local landmark, and he almost felt like he was walking through one of the old theaters from the early days of Hollywood, with its pillars and its carpeted floors and its magnificent painted ceiling.
There was, of course, quite a lot of hustle and bustle as everyone was still getting ready for his big screening. He was whisked into a backroom–there would be enough time to give interviews after the screening, assuming that Sheri still wanted that to happen after his speech–where he was given another once-over to make sure that he was ready for the cameras.
“You’ve got your speech and everything?” Sheri asked as she walked in. She was dressed in a pantsuit, as usual, and her heels made their usual menacing click on the tiled floor. “Did you make any changes?”
Charlie almost told her the truth. It didn’t seem fair to go through with this without at least giving her some kind of warning of what was to come. However, just when he started to confess, his tongue just seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth. Instead, he just said, “Yes, I’ve got the speech and no, I didn’t make any changes.”
For a second he thought that she might press him on it, but instead she just nodded her head.
“Good. Once you’re done with your speech we’ll start the movie, and then after that you can take a few questions, give a couple of interviews, and then we’ll get to the airport and go home.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know about you, but I’ll be glad when this whole thing is over.”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“You sure are quiet,” she said. “Is everything okay?”
He wanted to tell her that of course everything wasn’t okay, but he knew Sheri well enough to realize she wouldn't be particularly sympathetic to matters of the heart. That just didn’t compute with her when they were in the middle of business.
“I’m fine,” he said tersely.
She shrugged as if that was good enough and then went off to attend to some last minute details.
Time seemed to pass both very quickly and very slowly, and as it did Charlie looked around, seeing if perhaps Rebecca was going to try to touch base with him before he went on. He badly wanted to know whether she’d made any kind of peace with Jared or whether the two of them were still fighting. However, when it came time for him to deliver his speech she hadn’t shown up, so he had to step up in front of those gathered to hear him.
As soon as he stepped out on stage the enormity of what he was about to do came crashing down on him. If he went through with this, nothing was going to be the same, and he had to be okay with that.
You can do this, he reminded himself. Besides, you only have one copy of the speech with you, and it’s the one that you wrote. The one that Sheri had written for him–with its platitudes and stale compromise–had been left in the trash can when he left the room.
Taking a deep breath, he walked to the podium, conscious of all of the claps and approving smiles beaming up at him. Somehow, the fact that everyone there seemed to be in his corner made him feel better about all of this, giving him the strength to go through with it.
Finally the crowd quieted down enough so that he could start.
“When I first came back to West Virginia for this festival,” he began, “I thought that this was going to be one of those lovely speeches that people coming back to their home states from Hollywood always give, thanking everyone for helping to make them who they are, and you’ll get some of that tonight. What you’ll also get, though, is some tough talk, because the truth is that those who are in charge of governing various places in the Mountain State haven’t done as good of a job as they should have when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable.”
He rattled off a series of statistics that he’d quickly researched while revamping this speech. Some of them had been truly gut-wrenching, but he needed those people out there in the audience–particularly the straight ones who believed they were allies–to see just how bad the situation was. In fact, he’d been surprised by some of what he’d read, and he liked to think that he was on top of LGBTQ+ issues in his home state.
When he was finished delivering those stats, he could see there were a few people in the audience who looked uncomfortable, as if they hadn’t been expecting him to be this real in front of them. That was good, though. He wanted them to realize that they were all complicit in what was going on, in one way or another.
“Now, I don’t want to pin this blame on anyone in particular, but the truth is that there are some people right here in this town who are willing to either turn a blind eye to homophobia or to practice it themselves. I know for a fact that there is at least one member of City Council who likes to say homophobic things and thinks that he can get away with it. The ugly reality is that he has gotten away with it, because people are often too willing to cause a fuss. They’re more afraid of making things awkward than they are of the very real damage that’s being caused by letting homophobia go unchallenged.”
He could tell at once who Councilman Rhodes was in the audience, because there was only one man there whose face had turned about ten different shades of red as Charlie had continued speaking.
Well, that’s good , Charlie thought, because he needs to realize and come to grips with the fact that his time of terrorizing the people of Huntington is coming to a close.
More importantly, though, Charlie was struck by the hopeful smiles on the faces of so many of the young people out there in the audience. The thought that he was doing something good for them was enough to give him the strength to continue.
“The film you’re about to watch today is one that’s very near and dear to my heart. It’s one of those movies that reminds you that queer people of all sorts have always been around, even if their stories have either been papered over or pushed into the margins. This is a story about a love that is forbidden not just because it transgresses social classes but also because it’s between two queer men. It’s a crucial story, and I’m very proud to have been a part of it.”
He was conscious of Sheri behind him, and he could just imagine the look on her face as he set his entire career on fire right in front of her.
I don’t care anymore, he thought. The only thing that matters is being honest to and with myself. I have to speak my truth, and these people are going to listen to it, no matter how uncomfortable it might make some of them.
“It’s also a story about power, particularly the power of being true to yourself, of not letting the social expectations of others dictate your every behavior. That’s a lesson that hits home with me the older I get. I hope that everyone sitting in this theater, and everyone out there in the world tonight who might see this speech on YouTube or TikTok or somewhere else, realizes how much power there is in speaking up and speaking your truth. I’m happy to have been able to do so tonight. Going forward, I’m going to continue speaking out and doing everything I can to make life better for all of the queer folks who still call Appalachia home. They’re as much a part of this region as their straight counterparts, and it’s time that they’re seen that way.
“Thank you all so much for this chance to speak to you all tonight. I hope you enjoy the film, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the festival.”
And then he was done. The speech was over. There was a moment of pregnant, heavy silence throughout the auditorium, and then a few scattered people started clapping. As Charlie watched, they got to their feet, followed by several others. His stomach clenched as he thought of the rest of the crowd leaving the room. He needn’t have worried, though. While a few did storm out–most notably Councilman Rhodes–far more stayed there, and as they did the clapping grew louder and more enthusiastic, until practically everyone in the auditorium was on their feet giving him a standing ovation.
Looks like I made the right call, after all, he thought, heart swelling with joy and euphoria.
Then he turned around, and the look on Sheri’s face told him that he had definitely crossed a boundary and that she was very, very pissed about it.
“Sheri…,” he started to say, but she held up her hand. He closed his mouth with a snap.
“Save it,” she said. “We’re leaving.”