Sweetheart Starlet: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Read online

  “I gotcha,” I said. “I read you loud and clear.”

  “So we have an understanding?” asked Corinne, eyes wide. I could tell she was excited to open up to me but at the same time she was fearful for her career.

  “Absolutely,” I said in as much seriousness as a professional joke writer could muster. I slid my hand across the table and gently squeezed Corinne’s hand. “I promise. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Corinne smiled, flipped her hand over, and we touched palm to palm. It took her a moment as she shored up the courage inside. I knew she could trust me, but she was still learning that. Her face indicated some wavering but I knew something was about to drop when she raised her eyes to mine and gave me an intimate look.

  “I bat left-handed,” she said. “Like you.”

  “I knew it!” I said, balling up my hand into a fist. Corinne couldn’t help but laugh at me. “Suck it, Bernie!”

  “I can understand how much you’d love to rub in his face,” said Corinne happily. “But… you can’t.”

  “Ugh,” I said. “I can’t. Yeah, I did promise you I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

  “But on the bright side,” said Corinne. “You know a secret about me.” She smiled at me as though we were now in a members only club together.

  “It’s really too bad you’ve got to hide from the public,” I said.

  “I know people would be supportive,” she said. “But just because of the character I usually play, you know, I’d just miss out on a lot of roles and I can’t do that.”

  “I understand,” I said. “How long have you known,” I said, looking around conspiratorially. “That you’ve been left-handed?”

  “A long time,” said Corinne. “I’ve always been advised to hide it by business people who I’ve told. My agent, a few producers know. It’s in everybody’s best interests to keep it a secret. As long as I’m discreet, it doesn’t affect my life too much. You’d be surprised how many gay people there are in film who appear totally cliched straight on screen.”

  “I don’t think I would,” I said with a smirk.

  “Maybe not!” said Corinne. “Listen,” she said, taking out her phone from her small handbag. “We should get together sometime.”

  “Yeah?” I asked. “Are you in New York for a while?”

  “I’ve got a place here,” she said. “I’m back and forth between New York and LA, but I love it here so I try to spend as much time in the city as I can.”

  “Great,” I said, pulling my phone out of my blazer pocket. “Should I put you in as a fake name in case I lose my phone?”

  “Are you prone to losing your phone?” asked Corinne, giving me a sultry gaze.

  “No,” I mewed.

  “Then don’t worry about it, Tab,” she said. With that, the two of us exchanged numbers and I felt myself get a little weak as I realized that I was inputting Corinne Holmstrom’s number into my phone. Of course I had other celebrities numbers, but she was most definitely the biggest celebrity I’d ever gotten close with.

  Like I told you, being in my position, meeting celebrities quite frequently, I was no longer a starstruck person. It was just part of the job. But Corinne was different. She took my breath away. She was insanely beautiful, caring, funny, smart, and all those wonderful things wrapped up into one amazing young woman. Well, not that young I guess. Not robbing the cradle here or anything. But she was a handful of years younger than me. I think she was 27. Okay, I knew she was 27. I researched her on the internet.

  “It’s late,” said Corinne with finality. “I’m going to get a car home.”

  “All right,” I said, suddenly feeling a bit of loss. I really didn’t want to leave her presence. But I knew I had to play it cool. I had to play this entire hand as cool as I’d ever played anything. Just be cool, Tab. “Cool,” I said. Corinne laughed.

  “This week, though,” said Corinne. “Let’s get together. Okay?”

  “Perfect,” I said. “I look forward to it.”

  “Me too,” she said. Collecting her things, Corinne shifted out of the booth and stood up. She reached out and took my hand. “Thanks for an amazing week, Tab,” she said. “It was a total dream come true.”

  “I’m glad you had fun,” I said with a smile. Inside, though, I was buzzing and shaking and flipping out because I just wanted to spend more time with her. “I’ll see you this week.”

  “Definitely,” grinned Corinne. And with that, she sashayed away from the booth, making her way around the emptying restaurant, offering goodbyes to some of the others she’d grown close with over the week on set. I watched her the entire time. She had a magical presence. A true star. I was hooked.

  And seriously, I couldn’t believe I had her number in my phone. What kind of crazy is that?

  *

  “Tab,” I heard a voice say. I felt tired and woozy and out of it. “Tab, wake up,” said the voice again. I felt my shoulders shake.

  “Not ready,” I whined sleepily. “Come back tomorrow.”

  “Tab!” said the voice again, this time in more of a shout. My eyes jolted open and I looked up at Bernie, hovering above me, and then I noticed that I was sitting at the head of our conference table, in the writers’ room, with the rest of the This Saturday writers in their seats, starring down at me.

  “Oh,” I said as I started to come to.

  “Time for work,” said Bernie, giving me a stern look, and then taking his seat. “Rough weekend?”

  “I slept all day Sunday,” I said. “But I guess it wasn’t enough.”

  “Get hammered at the cast party?” asked Wayne.

  “No,” I said, holding my head, rising up from the table and feeling groggy. “But I did stay out a little later than usual. Sorry guys, I’m just out of it. How did I even get to this table?” I looked around myself, surprised by my surroundings.

  “Dunno,” admitted Bernie. “You were here when we all came in.”

  “I feel like I’m dreaming,” I said, looking down at my notebook in front of me. My pages for this week were empty. “Who’s the guest this week?”

  “Justin Trumbull,” said Gene drolly.

  “That’s perfect,” I said. “He’s easy. He’s doing both hosting and musical?”

  “Yep,” said Bernie.

  “Hallelujah,” I said. “That kid’s a lifesaver. I’m guessing him and Adam are working on some musical sketch together?”

  “Right,” said Bernie.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing back from the desk and standing up. “Let’s push this meeting back an hour. I need some coffee or something.” I yanked my notebook from the table and without another word I ambled toward the door and exited to the hallway.

  I couldn’t believe that I’d spaced out all Sunday and there I was at work, somehow, unprepared for the week ahead and bleary eyed. Was I really that lovesick? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d let a crush affect me so hard. It was almost embarrassing that I felt this way. Here I was, a grown adult woman getting all flutter hearted over some unobtainable celebrity starlet. But the wacky thing was, she really wasn’t unobtainable. That made the whole thing difficult to make sense of.

  Pushing a finger up into my glasses to wipe at my eye, my vision came into focus and saw Wes, one of the show’s cast members, bouncing toward me with a goofy face plastered on. He was one of those guys that was always on, always trying to get a laugh, hard to really get to know but you got the feeling that you probably wouldn’t want to get to know him if he let you.

  “Bloomers,” he said to me, suddenly standing at attention and saluting me.

  “At ease,” I said. “You’re chipper.”

  “And you look awful,” he said. “I don’t think your wig’s on straight,” said Wes, reaching out and giving my hair a tug.

  “Nope!” I said, swatting at him. “Nope!”

  “Hey,” he said, his hands shooting up to protect himself. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Can I help you with something, Wes?” I asked
with annoyance in my voice.

  “Can’t two coworkers just shoot the shit in the hallway?” he said. “Is it too much to ask to have a pleasant work environment?”

  “I’d ask the same thing,” I said. “A pleasant work environment where a woman doesn’t have to worry about her coworker tugging at her hair uninvited.”

  “I was just straightening your wig, Bloom,” he said.

  “It’s not a wig, Wes,” I said, lifting up a thick lock of my dark brown hair. “This is the real deal.”

  “Okay,” he acquiesced. “I do have a request of you.”

  “I knew it.”

  “So, Justin Trumbull this week,” he said.

  “Yes?” I said impatiently. “What about him?”

  “I want to get into a sketch with him,” said Wes. “I’ve been working on something myself but it’s not quite there yet. Do you think you could write me into something? He’s a funny guy.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, pushing past Wes now and continuing my walk down the hallway.

  “C’mon Bloom!” he called after me. “Just think about it!”

  The hallway was long and bright and various show employees greeted me as I absentmindedly strolled down the corridor. I could muster little more than weak waves at these people, the assistants, the admin people, the accountants. I was not the usual Tab and it infuriated me. My mind couldn’t stop thinking about Corinne and her dumb sexy alluring self. It was some sort of sick magnetism that drew me to her. And what I hated about it was that there’s no way I could be the only person who felt like this about her. I’m sure she inspired many people to beat their breast and gnash their teeth just to get another glimpse of her. I felt like such a stereotype, drooling over a famous actress.

  After getting a cup of coffee from the kitchen, I returned to the hallway and leaned up against the wall, sipping, trying to wake — and smarten — up, trying to regain focus at my task at hand, which was running the writing staff of this successful and institutional live sketch comedy show. That was my charge. A lot of people counted on me to make sure we had enough funny for an hour plus on Saturday night and it never got any easier. It always felt like a stressful mess. Add to it all this whole Corinne thing, and I really just wanted to be back home in bed, moping and whining.

  I saw George slowly slipping toward me and I couldn’t help but sigh. How would I appease the unappeasable when I myself felt so unappeasable? Really, this all had to be a dream because it certainly didn’t seem like reality to me. It was just one thing after another.

  “Tabitha,” said George as he approached. His face was even, as always, lips tight and emotionless, his visage near devoid of expression. His grey hair was coiffed and styled. I suspect the first thing he did each morning was head down to hair and makeup and have himself done up.

  “Hi George,” I said. “Happy Monday.”

  “I heard you were out quite late on Saturday evening,” he mused. “Very unlike you.”

  “How did you hear that?” I said. “Do you have someone trailing me?”

  George made a face at me and just shrugged.

  “You know it’s illegal to do that,” I said.

  “It’s not,” said George matter-of-factly.

  “It’s not?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “You’ve heard of private detectives before.”

  “You don’t have a private detective following me,” I said. ”This place is making me feel crazy!” I cried out.

  “Relax Tabitha,” he said. “I’m pulling your leg.”

  I almost snorted. I really was out of it. I took another sip of coffee and tried to relax, as George had advised.

  “I need you to do something for me,” said George.

  “Everybody’s got something for me to do,” I said, throwing my free hand up in the air. “As if my plate wasn’t full enough.” George gave me a look as though I were crazy. A look conveying something along the lines of, “this isn’t the way you talk to your boss.”

  “You know,” said George. “I’ve been quite pleased lately with Bernie’s work and I was thinking of promoting him—“

  “No, no,” I said. “Stop. I’m sorry, George. What can I do for you?” This made him crack a surreptitious grin.

  “That’s more like it,” he said calmly. “I need you to write Wes out of any sketches you have him in with Justin Trumbull this week.”

  “What?” I said, looking side to side, remembering the conversation I’d just had with Wes about the very same thing but, you know, opposite.

  “You see,” began George. “Wes beat me at a game of Backgammon recently and he was, let us say, a sore winner.” At this point, more emotion than George usually let out started to show on his face. “I’m just showing him whose ship this is.”

  “Fine,” I gave in with a sigh, pushing my fingers through my hair. “I’m not sure what our sketches look like yet for this week but I’ll make sure he’s out of anything with Justin.”

  George then suddenly appeared confused and looked down to his watch.

  “That’s odd,” he said. “This is usually when the writers meet, is it not?”

  “Oh shit!” I exclaimed. “I’m late! Goodbye George!” Breaking from him while trying to steady my cup of coffee, I started to half-run back down the hallway. I didn’t want to explain anything further to George so running made the most sense. Running away was always a viable option.

  I slowed my gait as I turned a corner, out of George’s view, and gasped for breath. Having spilled some coffee, I swapped hands with my cup and wiped my wet hand on my jeans. I really just wanted to avoid talking to anybody else. But that was easier said than done around this office. Everybody had something to say, everybody had something they wanted from you. Especially when you were one of the people who controlled their camera time.

  “Tab!” I heard in a chirpy exclamation.

  “No, no, no,” I said, trying to hide behind my cup.

  “Is everything okay, Tab?” Smiling brightly in front of me was Lucy, another of the show’s cast members. Lucy had been singled out as one of the funnier women on the show in our press and while she was once a humble and sweet actress from the midwest, she was now devolving into a full-on famous diva. She fell victim to letting her accolades go to her head.

  “Yes, fine Lucy,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  “You have coffee on your hand,” she said with confusion.

  “I thought I got all that,” I said, once again wiping my hand on my jeans. “What is it, Lucy? I’m kinda busy right now.”

  “I’d really love it if I could get into a sketch with Justin Trumbull,” Lucy oozed. “I think we have great on-screen chemistry together. Do you remember that sketch we did last time he was on the show?”

  “We’ll still putting things together,” I said nebulously. “You know how it is on Monday mornings, Lucy.” I tried to level with her. I wanted her to just leave me be. How was I going to be alone with my thoughts of Corinne if all these people kept coming up to me and wanting me to do something for them?

  “Just don’t forget me,” said Lucy, pursing her lips and shaking a finger at me.

  “How could I?” I said in a smarmy voice, but Lucy didn’t catch it.

  “Thanks Tab,” she beamed. “You’re the best!”

  “No, you are!” I retorted mimicking her enthusiasm. Lucy gave me one more grin and then bounced off, happily trotting down the long hall.

  Leaning back against a wall, I slid down it until I was sitting on the floor, cradling my coffee in both hands. I didn’t have a single idea for a sketch this week and I knew I would have to break into some old ideas to get through it all. But I wasn’t so worried about that. What I was worried about is that I’d never be able to focus with Corinne constantly on my mind. That lady had really done a number on me. I really understood her star power then. If she could make the male half of a film-going audience melt with a bit of sideboob, if she could make them all feel like I felt for her with a co
y smile up on the screen, she had to keep that power on lockdown. I mean, I was melting just thinking about the possibility of seeing some sideboob. I had to get a hold of myself.

  *

  “How about a fast food restaurant,” I said, flipping through my notebook as I sat on the couch in my office. Bernie was across from me, sitting up on my desk and facing me, as he sorted through his own notebook. He looked up to me and made a face.

  “Like how?” he said with a bit of confusion. “I don’t get it.”

  “Justin is a burger flipper,” I said. “Jack can be the manager, he’s good at playing authority characters. Lucy at the counter.”

  “But the idea isn’t very funny,” said Bernie.

  “Bernie!” I angrily chastised, shaking my head, scratching out the idea in my notes.

  “What’s with you today, Tab?” he said. “You’re totally out of it. Not your usual self.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” I said, feeling like I was sinking deeper into the couch. “Maybe I’ve got the flu.”

  “You’ve got something,” he said. “You look like you’re down in the dumps.” Bernie folded his notebook closed and set it beside him on my desk. He looked across the room at me and gave me an open half-smile, like he was ready for me to spill the beans.

  “I’m not in any dumps,” I said. “I’m just tired is all. I let the cast party get to me this week and I’m paying for it today, I paid for it yesterday.”

  “I heard you were out late with Corinne,” said Bernie, giving me the eye.

  “How does everybody keep hearing that?” I proclaimed. “Who told you? Most of the cast and crew were gone by that point apart from the party animals and they seemed all too blasted to care.”

  “George mentioned something to me,” said Bernie.

  “And who told George?” I said. I really wanted to know who had the loose lips around the show. It could have been any one of them really. The cast liked to gossip. It was like a sorority house sometimes around the office.