Chapter 16 ZACHERY’S KEN FRAGILITY
Chapter 16
Z ACHERY ’ S K EN F RAGILITY
There’s nobody downstairs but Watson yawning behind the front desk, so only the beaver bids us farewell. Kelsey gets in her car, taking a moment to repack her overnight bag with new clothes.
It’s a good system, and I consider copying it, only I don’t have a smallish bag. Maybe I’ll pick one up somewhere.
Kelsey calls me as we hit the highway, so we can talk as we drive. The conversation makes the road trip feel like we’re together despite our separate cars. I consider hiring a driver to pick up my car so we can be together.
But then I remember that her endgame is a flannel-wearing husband and not me.
I should preserve my ability to bail.
Even though this scenario was the whole reason behind why I paid off the fortune teller, the way it’s played out so far has been more difficult than I expected.
Of course, I didn’t anticipate doing this on the road, much less sleeping in the same bed and having pillow fights. It’s been only twenty-four hours since she started this jaunt, and we’ve made wild leaps in our relationship. She better find someone I approve of, or this whole situation is going to flame out.
“Hey, Zachery.” Her voice is bubbly over the road noise.
“Yeah?”
“Remember that singing war from Pitch Perfect ?”
“You’re not going to suggest we sing, are you?” I’m not worried about this. I had fourteen years of vocal training. For nothing, since I did craptastic comedies, but Mom made sure I exploited what she considered the talent she passed to me.
“No, no, I was thinking I play a song, then you have to play the next song in the story.”
“You have a lot more faith in my song recall than I do.” I’m hopeless at knowing the top forty of any decade, other than the early 2000s, when I was in high school and obsessed with burning CD mixes for girls, mostly Foo Fighters and Radiohead, right until I got my first iPod.
Kelsey laughs. “Au contraire, I’m about to go straight into your wheelhouse.”
“You are?”
“We’re going to do this epic battle solely with songs from musicals .”
She’s making a big mistake. My mother performed on Broadway right up until she got pregnant with me. Show tunes were literally the soundtrack of my childhood. “You’re aware that I’m going to kick your ass, right?”
“I’ve been hanging out with Jester. My knowledge has grown.”
“What do you know beyond Phantom of the Opera and Cats ?”
“Plenty. I’ll even let you start.”
I shake my head. She’s about ten car lengths ahead of me on this tiny highway through the pine trees of Arizona. She waves, her head turned toward the rearview mirror as though she might be looking at me.
I think for a moment about what to play first. I should avoid any romantic themes, particularly after our rather intimate morning. But I can’t make it too hard for her to follow up.
I have it. “We begin our tale with a little town in trouble, but not for the reasons they think.”
“Ooooh,” Kelsey says.
I have to stay hands-free, so there’s no surprising her. “Siri,” I say, “Play ‘Ya Got Trouble’ from The Music Man .”
“I love it!” Kelsey shouts.
We both sing along for a while, but then she goes quiet, I’m assuming so she can think about her follow-up.
Finally, she says, “And the young men in the town need a total makeover! Siri, play ‘I’ll Make a Man Out of You’ from Mulan .”
She went Disney on me.
Well played.
Her fake-baritone singing along with Donny Osmond is hilarious, and I feel my cheeks starting to get weary from smiling already.
How to follow that one up?
But then I have it.
This time, I mute myself before verbally cuing up the song.
As Mulan comes to its dramatic conclusion, I unmute to say, “But the women need no changing!” Then I punch play on my song.
When it starts, Kelsey lets out a squeal. “I know that’s right!”
She doesn’t know every word, but she sings the best parts from the West Side Story tune: “I feel PRETTY!”
When it’s done, there’s a pause, like she’s trying to figure out her next move.
“Do you bow to my magnificent prowess?” I ask.
But then her next song begins, and I feel my throat tighten.
Her voice is in narrator mode. “But the pretty woman all fall for the manly men, as long as they’re not from Pitchfork, Arizona.” It’s followed by the opening notes of “Hopelessly Devoted to You” from Grease .
She knows every word to this one.
With an ache I scarcely recognize, I long to follow up with “You’re the One That I Want.”
But I can’t do that.
So I bring the tone back around, and the minute Olivia Newton-John has sung the last note, I immediately punch up “I’m Just Ken” from the Barbie movie. “And the men aren’t worthy,” I say.
But this doesn’t have the effect I thought it would. We’re not even a minute into Ken’s lament when Kelsey’s blinker turns on, and she pulls into a scenic overlook.
I slow down and pull in beside her.
“Are you okay?” I ask on the phone, but she kills the call and gets out of her car.
I stop the music. What’s going on?
The heat outside is oppressive, but the wind gusts make it manageable.
Kelsey walks past the brushy clearing to stand at the edge of the canyon, looking over the massive geological wonder, her arms crossed tightly over her stomach.
“Kelsey?”
She doesn’t turn to me. “Is that what you think of yourself?”
For a second, I don’t know what she means. Then I realize, it’s the song.
“‘I’m Just Ken’? No.”
She steals a glance at me, then turns back to the sweeping vista. Birds circle over an outcropping. We’re not on the desert side, but among the brushy trees that gradually slope down into the canyon. There’s no sign of human life anywhere. Nobody even drives by.
I stand beside her, trying to read her expression. Her gaze remains firmly on the view, but I’m not sure she sees it. The line of her mouth is tight. Her blond hair flies behind her like a veil.
“Kelsey?”
“Why did you play that song after mine?” Her tone is firm, like Desdemona’s when she wants an answer.
“I don’t know. I thought it was funny.”
She turns to me at that. “Funny? The woman longs for a man. Then you play ... that?”
Now I’m starting to wonder if she saw something in my choice that I didn’t. “What did you make of it?”
Her gaze locks on my face. “You don’t see any resemblance?”
“I’m not Ken.”
“The longing? The wanting to be more than you are? To getting stuck in a role you never asked for?”
Okay, I see it now.
“I’m okay, Kelsey. I know who I am.”
“I’m not sure you do. You’re magnificent.” She gestures toward me. “You can do anything you want.”
It’s not true, and she knows it. “I could make a list of all the doors that are closed to me.”
“When was the last time you tried to open one?”
Does she mean audition? I’m way beyond casting calls. Too proud, anyway. And I don’t need the money. “I stayed in Hollywood.”
“At a casting agency!”
“Desdemona is at the top of her game.” Or she was, when I first came on board.
“Your talent is so incredible. Do you know how many perfect pairs I could make with you?”
She’s thought about this? “It doesn’t matter. I’m typecast, and the type of movie I did is too offensive now. And there are real comics to play the legit roles in comedies.”
She sighs. “Actors do eventually age into a new type of role.”
She doesn’t have to remind me of how long it’s been. “Only the really good ones. Look, I did everything right. I didn’t piss anyone off. I didn’t throw any tantrums. I invested my money. I walk as many red carpets as any working actor.”
“But you’re not happy.”
How does she do that? See through me?
But I admit nothing. “I’m happy enough.” I’m ready to talk about something else, anything else. “What do you think about this hole in the ground?”
She stares at me a beat longer, but eventually turns back to the landscape. “Is this it? The Grand Canyon?”
“We’re on the northwest side, but yes. Not the most popular spot, but it gives you an idea of the scope.”
“The biggest hole in the world. Or is it? I don’t even know.”
“There’s a bigger one in Tibet.”
“Tibet,” she whispers.
“Do you want to see that one? I’ll take you.”
She laughs at that. “You’d take me to Tibet?”
“Sure.”
She walks forward, uncomfortably close to the edge. This tiny overlook doesn’t have a guardrail or stone wall like the more popular spots. It’s brush and rock that simply falls away.
Then she sits, her legs dangling over the abyss. “It’s beautiful. Vast. And not empty at all.”
I sit next to her. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. I guess for it to be desert down there. But there’s everything.” She gestures into the chasm. “Trees. Water.”
“Most pictures you see are the South Rim. It’s more desert. That’s where the touristy areas are.”
“I like this. There are birds.” The wind rushes through the piney trees, stirring up dust. “Isn’t that a line from one of the love songs from The Music Man ?”
I can almost hear the words. “Yeah. It’s called ‘Till There Was You.’”
She leans her head on my shoulder, and finally, I relax, too. Kelsey has always been rather impulsive and prone to outbursts.
Sometimes she hits a little too close to home.
And other times, she trips herself up.
Like when I found her on Hollywood Boulevard a few days ago.
She’d stumbled right into my arms.
Like a meet-cute.
Except this is not something we’re supposed to have. This trip is not for us.
I resist the urge to put an arm around her, or draw her close.
I’m a prop. Something to lean on.
Just like Ken.