The Safest Time

Sure, I had been in many blockbuster hits.

I was born, well, more poignantly and in exact terms, I was created in Hollywood’s image as I was forming in my mother’s womb.

I am not the typical Hollywood story, but I feel like my roots of a WASP-y mother growing up in LA—-my no dad growing up, angry teenager mindset still well into my early twenties, upper middle class upbringing might make you wanna gag hearing about it. So I won’t tell you everything! Just… a few little, tiny things.

I’ve been living in a celluloid world since I first started breathing, as my mother explained:

“You didn’t scream or cry out as other babies. You didn’t announce your birth as most do in ear piercing wails, you looked around and gave the doctor a cheeky, sarcastic look. I thought you were an alien. The nurses didn’t visit my room much.” Her bright brown eyes narrowed and she smirked with an almost proud glare. It always felt more jealous than actually proud to me, though I never said so. Her so-called “maternal” looks always made my heart feel achy and a bit fluttery as her only daughter, as though I was always potentially in trouble, but I would put on the innocent “doe-eyes,” and always be so gosh darn honest with my lines of, “Mommy, I wouldn’t dream of stealing your expensive lipstick to practice putting them on my dolls!”

I threw my dolls away after awhile. I used the lipsticks as war paint to carry myself into the tip top Hollywood catacombs of the silver screen.

Sure, I tried indie and independent stuff, and my fans attributed it to getting my name out there and slowly rising to the top like the cream in fresh dairy milk.

Fans.

Ugh!

I can’t stand them. It’s a good thing the list of them is as short as my pinky finger.

The way to go when you’re feeling low(according to my always absent dad, who only said this to me)…. “If you’re on everyone’s shit list, might as well make yourself sparkle! Be goady. Place the biggest fuckin’ diamond on your little finger. Show them how little they all mean to you.” His voice would rise and fall and crescendo like a villain in a James Bond movie. I took notes.

Then he never talked to me again, a sixteen year old brat in a twenty seven year old drama queen body, and I realized how little I mattered, too, pop.

Now I’m sixty years old. Never married.

My last movie was in 2024. It was a romantic comedy. It did decently at the box office. But barely put us over budget. I got paid decently. But I felt myself becoming tired, hollow.

Paper thin with a heavy heart, I felt like I could literally blow away in the artificial wind of the set design industrial fans.

Then, he came back. Stirring and pouring slowly like a heart shaped latte, I felt a flood of relief hit me: I was glad he was still alive. I knew I hadn’t heard anything about him in a few months except for the dark comedy movie he debuted in last March, and watching it made me nostalgic and lonely. He was very reclusive now and didn’t ever do interviews. So, of course I worried. But I did nothing to get in contact with him.

This sweet, once happy guy that I co-starred with in that cheesy film for that kids film was recognizable even with the bit of extra weight. Way back in the nineties when cheesy comedy romance movies with silly characters and over the top animal effects were all the rage, we made the film in good spirits and a general sense of fun. Now, I saw him, overweight and sad eyed, and he was grabbing coffee at a cafe. So was I, of course. Venti chai tea latte with all milk, no water, cinnamon, 7 pumps.

His was a simple latte.

“You getting a coffee, Lemon Drop?” He asked me, and I felt my whole body stiffen. My heart felt as quiet and yet as fast as a hummingbird’s wings in flight, and my cheeks felt slightly burny.

He used to call me that on set all the time. For my too yellow hair and affinity for eating candy in between takes, he started calling me this and I learned to stop pretending how much I hated it.

Sure, he was a sad sack and only did these weird, sad, experimental films now. But, I saw a spark that he had back in the day, come out when he said that to me.

“Hey, Georgie-porgie. Got something to dish?” I said quickly as I grabbed my order and he followed me, as though my hip was tied to his, an invitation that he gladly followed by my slightly overflowing waistline.

I heard rumors.

Rumors of his past being marred by extreme abuse at the hands of high level executives and even that he had been painfully assaulted by the head of a recording company that he worked for after we parted ways. Professionally and socially.

I regretted not staying in touch. More than I can admit, more than I can say.

He still had that silly, sweet, goofy smile when we were younger, more full of guts and blood and fresh, stupid hope.

I told him my order and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh no! I could throw up. You turned into a pretentious Hollywood starlet,” He said in a overtly dramatic manner and I laughed. “You used to be so boring and normal.”

“Well…You know me,” I said so quietly he actually lowered his body into the chair, and our eyes met.

“So… Les, what have you been up to?” He asked as he drank his latte slowly.

I couldn’t answer it. I was writing, sending off my articles and various letters and short stories to various publications and magazines. No one cared. I felt worse than ever, lost and a bit depressed.

I was a wash out now, a tired has-been.

But it was when he and I locked our tired eyes that I knew… I knew we had more in common than we thought.

I sighed, “Not a whole lot. My mother is in rehab again. She’s too old for rehab. Eighty six. The tabloids run stories on me for it. She never cared about my career, only the way she could grab attention from me. And in general,” I grabbed up as much air as I could and let it out angrily, “I am not feeling well.” I forced a grin. “You?”

His eyes widened and he gave me a soft look. His eyes always felt like a gentle kiss to my ear, a warm whisper that said things I needed to hear.

“I’m doing some work. Not too much,” he said after much delay.

I nodded. “I liked that last film you did. The Black Night Noir. You were very good,” I said. He smiled a bit and we tipped our drinks into each other as a silent toast.

We didn’t talk for a few minutes after that but it felt like we were saying a whole lot. His eyes were on me and we moved a bit closer to each other, sipping our drinks.

Yes. I realized it now.

I had never come to terms with our relationship ending so abruptly. Without recourse.

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out.

“You okay, Les?” He asked, his hand reaching for my arm. I felt naked and cold, but when his fingers lightly touched my arm, me, Leslie Louise-Ann Walsh-Murray, couldn’t find the logic in the huge jump in my body temperature. It was volcano magma hot.

“No, George, I think I am pretty far from okay,” I chuckled after I found my voice again. “You know, something? I think I just had a realization. A revelation. You know how… how when you realize something so big it tears your world apart… yet always builds it up new again?”

George sighed. “No. I don’t know about those things.”

He wasn’t on my wavelength right now. He was somewhere else. Somewhere else. Somewhere deep, a dark place. A cashmere soaked, Hermès cloaked, lime green spotlight hell.

“George, look at me. Please.”

He did. But his eyes were wavering.

I looked down and felt my whole body hurt and sink, the years of all of our combined silence and all my failed, estranged relationships that never came to be hitting me hard. Suddenly, I looked at him again, and a wave of euphoria hit me.

I had to sudden urge to start talking of the old days. “Remember that day my hair was a mess? And I locked myself in the dressing room?” I grinned.

George looked a bit confused for a moment, his eyes squinting as though he were trying to read the directors shitty scribbles for “notes” on a script. Then, his eyes opened so wide I tilted my head toward him and he smiled back, making me feel flushed.

“Yes! I do. That was …hilarious?” He said it in a question as I knew my face was getting more and more crinkled and scrunched together in annoyance.

“No. I was not laughing. Maybe you were!” I lunged forward and shoved his shoulder playfully. He laughed and I swore he leaned into my touch.

Our faces got a little too close and I had a flash of memory.

The time we had kissed. Unplanned, Wet, sloppy, sweet and awkward. I felt like he was claiming me with his eyes even before the kiss, but with his tongue sliding over my lips, begging for entrance, teasing and dreamily melting my very body, my feet weak—-I knew we were each other’s by how tighty we were grasping each other.

His masculine grip on my womanly hips, my hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him close. I wanted to engulf him, I wanted him to melt into my very form. Become one with me.

Before we shot the silly wedding scene, it was a hasty, amazing, impulsive, romantic moment. He touched my face like it was a soft blanket; I felt like I was wrapped up in heaven.

“Two hours you held up production! What a waste for some frizzy hair!” George teased.

I growled, my face warm. “It wasn’t frizz! It was the Bride of Frankenstein!”

George laughed harder and threw his head back in mirth.

“You’re still a child, aren’t you?” I grumbled and he nodded. I couldn’t hide my growing grin, and he noticed grinning wider.

“George, listen, I gotta tell you something.”

George heard me but didn’t say a word.

“George?” I whispered.

“Les, I never thought I’d see you again,” he looked at me with an almost desperate pull and bit his lip, “I… really missed you. Every day. I know you’ve had been trying to find your way with other guys, I heard they weren’t too good for you…”

My shoulders tightened and I frowned. His eyes didn’t look judgmental, but worried and sad. Caring, more than anything. “Yeah. None of them were for me. Nor, I for them, apparently. They… some of them took advantage…” I felt a sting in my eyes and he nodded.

“I know something about people taking their shot, using their power against you. That one film producer and… a couple others…” He grimaced and slightly twitched, shrinking a bit in his seat.

I moved my chair so close to his, our legs touched. He looked at me with a sad smile.

“You didn’t deserve any of that shit,” I say with an angry whisper. He took in a forced breath and nodded.

“It’s really hard to think about it. Hard to think of a lot of things. Isn’t it?” He huffed and laughed in a soft, almost bittersweet way.

“Like how much time has gone by since we have actually talked face to face?” I asked carefully, and he nodded, his eyes now looking at me with a hurt look.

“Yeah. After everything, and all the crap everyone kept saying about me, I thought.. you’d call. I thought you’d try to see me. You didn’t.” He looked away, his mouth a tight line, neutral and solemn.

I sighed shakily and placed my hand near his. I wanted to hold his hand so bad, but my fingertips wouldn’t move even move past a spider crawl.

“George… I can’t lie. I was scared. I was a coward. I wanted to hide…. Hide from what I needed, I wanted.. and I retreated into depression and feeling bad for myself. For my upbringing. As much as I said I wouldn’t let me bring it down, I let it,” I said with a unleashed emotion I couldn’t place. It was worse than regret. It was more than a misplaced feeling that I had longed to feel again one day. “I let… you down.”

He turned his head and our eyes seemed to really see each other for the first time since we sat down. I saw his features, worn and aged, but still fresh it seemed. Green eyes and a silly expression or wild grin waiting to burst forth.

“I know that…” he licked his bottom lip, a nervous tick he did often on set, and I felt inclined to place my hand on his. He didn’t move away. I sighed in a small relief. “I know that we had to go on our own paths. I know. We had to learn our own shit. Do things and make mistakes.” He sighed in deeply and placed his hand on his head, running it slowly over his brown locks, pushing it over his ear. “And… fuck, I sure made a ton of them.”

“Today made me wake up,” he continued, my gaze attentive on his face, his eyes, his words, so much that as I sat up in a burst of energetic excitement, I practically stood up as he spoke. “You… we… that time we made our movie, it was,” he looked at the sky outside the cafe and took in a deep breath.

“It was the…” he mumbled and his eyes bore into my hungry eyes.

“Safest time? It was the safest time I ever had. The real time,” I finished his sentence and he gave me a shocked look. His lips slightly parted. His green eyes dilated. “Being with you. Cameras and lights on, we were safe and real.”

George looks to the side, his slight graying long brown hair tilting toward the table as he lowered further into the metal chair. I heard the legs of the chair moving on the ground, screeching quietly.

“We were real, Les,” he agreed. “And that camera gave us our safety. We brought it out in each other. It was so real, we couldn’t handle it. Too safe. Too good. So, we never spoke again,” he looked at me in a painfully sad way and I teared up.

“Let’s remake our movie, George.”

Suddenly, he grinned so big I leapt up and took his hand.

We left our drinks on the table side by side.

The table cloth the paper drinks laid on were empty; the wind blew suddenly.

I turned around and saw our cups dancing gently on the blowing table cloth.

I blew them a kiss.

“Drama queen!” George whispered and I rolled my eyes.

“You mean Lemon Drop, George,” and he nodded as we locked arms, walking far away from the Hollywood Hills, closer to life than ever.