A girl from Penticton doing an audition in the States. I stare at Charo and ask, “How did she do?”
Charo rolls her eyes. “Terrible. She was wearing a black leather microskirt and a bra top. Like that would impress them. When she sang, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, she did okay. Even the judges said so. But when they told her she needs to work on her voice, wow. She went off! They had to beep out almost everything she said. She didn’t stop swearing until they called security.”
“Huh.”
Charo shakes her head. “In a way, it’s sad. I was friends with her until last year. Then she got, I don’t know, twisted or something. All she cared about was being famous.”
“That’s too bad,” I say. “But it sounds like she did it to herself.”
Charo nods. “I guess. But I don’t get it. Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. We’re quiet for a minute. I watch Charo chew her lip, trying to figure it out. Then I realize when she’s not chewing on her lip, it’s quivering. “Hey,” I say.“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. I was just thinking about how she must feel right now. I heard she left town in case this happened. I guess they tape auditions, and you don’t know if they’ll show yours until it’s on tv. She must have been hoping they wouldn’t show her.”
“I’ll bet,” I mutter.
She sighs. “By now she knows everyone saw it. Or if they didn’t catch it on tv, they’ll be watching it online.” I cover up my guilt. I definitely plan to check out Jolene’s performance. “I’ll bet she feels pretty bad,” I say. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Charo asks.
“What if she likes it? Doesn’t this make her famous?”
Charo’s mouth forms a small circle. “I never thought of it that way. I mean, this is more what you’d call being infamous. But with her, you never know.”
We talk more, and it dawns on me that Charo isn’t the average lemming I assumed she was. She’s interesting. It turns out she used to play keyboards in a girl garage band with Jolene.
Huh.
I tell her, “I play around with a guitar sometimes.”
“Really?” she grins. “We should get together sometime and jam. Just for fun.”
I don’t make any promises, but when I head home later I think, maybe. I also think about how people have forgotten my stupid drama. Was it eclipsed by Jolene? Maybe fame is nothing more than talk. When we flock around the latest thing, do we create the fame—then take it away when we move on?
I don’t know. But I do know I have to watch the video of Jolene. I didn’t like it when everyone ogled my picture, but I’m not so above it. I have a cruel wish to see Jolene make a fool of herself.
The video clip is everything Charo described. It’s not pretty. The colors I get with her song are bad. I see beige with a few dull streaks of pink as she wobbles through a pop tune. And Jolene’s reaction to the judges is crazy.
But if fame is all Jolene wanted, she got it. The video has recorded thousands of hits. There are lots of comments too, most of them nasty. I’m about to close the site when a name catches my eye. Frank. He wrote, I tried to tell you the same thing. I bet that means he too tried to tell her that she wasn’t ready.
Watching Jolene fail doesn’t make me feel any better. If anything, I feel sorry for her. She’s one seriously screwed-up girl.
And I was one screwed-up guy. Jolene played me for a fool, but I set myself up for it. Why? Was it being bored and lonely? The music?
Frank’s music.
I have to tell Frank about burning those cds before they burn a hole in my conscience. I call Slick Sal’s, and they tell me he doesn’t play there anymore. And no, they can’t tell me where I can find him.
So now what? I’m not ready for another round of playing detective. I try to pump myself up for the search by remembering I found Jolene without so much as a name. How hard can it be to find Frank?
This time, my motivation isn’t quite the same. Lurking outside pubs in the dark, hoping to find an angry guy, doesn’t sound like fun. There has to be a better way.
It turns out I don’t have to find Frank. A couple of weeks later, he finds me.