"She's still here," Sharla said, entering the editing bay with Jay as they looked at Natasha, lying facedown on the couch, clutching a magazine in one hand. Jay sighed and headed further into the room, kneeling beside the couch and touching her head.
"You okay?" he asked, before glancing back at Sharla, "is she okay?" "They called me a role model," Nat murmured, getting Jay to turn his attention back to her as she continued, now flapping the magazine in her hand at him, "they had the gall, the sheer audacity, the nerve even, to call me this years local role model. I'm not a role model. I can't even be a good mom. Where'd they come to this conclusion?" "These things usually mean nothing," Sharla said, "often what they do is put a poll online on a social media page and then ask users to vote for someone in said poll. Ordinary everyday people have no idea what's going on in your life, man. They can't...they can't know what you're going through. They aren't privy to your problems at home." "Listen to her, she's right," Jay said, making Nat finally look up at him, her eyes red like she'd been crying all morning; he felt bad, he thought this sort of thing would normally make her feel better, but not this summer. Not after what had happened. He sighed and added, "look, it's just some random poll, it doesn't mean anything." "Yes it is," Nat whispered, pushing her face back into the couch, refusing to elaborate on her reasoning. Jay sighed and stood up, looking around the room before looking back at Sharla. "Where's Corrine?" he asked. *** "You have fantastic hips," Corrine said, watching as Ashley sat upright on the bed and lit a cigarette; she continued, "I wish I had hips half as nice as yours." "Well, you're welcome to borrow mine anytime you'd like," Ashley said, leading to an awkward silence before she added, "...sorry, that...that was meant to be romantic, but instead it felt creepy. I haven't flirted in a long time, and definitely never with a woman, so." "Amazing how one can be so bad at flirting but so good in bed," Corrine said, making Ashley laugh loudly. "Do you wanna go get lunch somewhere?" Ashley asked, "It's almost 1pm. We could go get something to eat. Strenuous physical activity like this always makes me hungry afterwards." "I suppose. I don't have anything to be working on, so it should be okay," Corrine said. The two women got dressed, then headed to Ashley's car. They got in and she pulled out of the driveway, heading down the road somewhere. She'd figure it out along the way. That was kind of how she rolled these days, it seemed. As she drove, she reached over and held Corrine's hand, one hand still on the steering wheel. Corrine blushed at this show of genuine affection, and glanced out the window. The last thing she expected this summer was to meet someone else...especially the sister of the woman she worked for. They eventually settled on a little hole in the wall sushi place, and parked and headed inside. Sitting at the counter, taking small plates with sushi off the little boats that swam past them, Corrine couldn't help but feel paranoid that everyone here somehow not only knew who they were, but also what they were doing. She had been having regularly paranoid episodes ever since her breakup, and she hated it. "...how's Violet doing?" Corrine asked, unsure of what else to talk about. "She keeps to herself," Ashley said, "I try and be a good host, you know? I am her aunt after all. But...it's weird. She's very closed off. I think she doesn't really know how to feel about everything. I think she's, like, waiting for someone to tell her it's okay to be angry or something." "When I was a kid," Corrine said, popping another sushi roll in her mouth, "I didn't understand how to feel things, so my teacher made me go to a special class where a woman showed me a chart with various faces on it, and asked me what I thought 'sad' felt like depending on the face. It was...weird. I'm better with feelings now, but I imagine that must sort of be like what Violet deals with." "No, not really," Ashley said, wiping her mouth with her napkin and sipping her soda, "I mean, she knows how she feels. She's upset. She has every right to be upset. But she's mad that she's upset, and worse than that, she's mad that her mom isn't more upset than she is. She's all jumbled up and confused. Teenagers are like that." "...maybe I could talk to her?" Corrine asked. "Actually, she's seeing Noreen today," Ashley said, patting Corrine on the thigh, "besides, I wouldn't wanna lose any time with you." Corrine blushed and looked away. She may have used to have problems with feelings, but she sure knew how she felt right now. *** Noreen and Violet were sitting in Noreen's bedroom. Violet hadn't said a word in over an hour, instead just looking through a photo album while Noreen made a beaded necklace on the bed. Finally, Violet put the album down and looked across to Noreen, who smiled at her as she looked up, her hands still working on threading beads. "I feel like you're the only one who really understands me," Violet said, "and it isn't fair that you weren't in our lives until recently, because, ya know, I could've, uh, used you before." "Well I'm here now, that counts for something, right?" Noreen asked. "I just want my mom to, uh, to...to see me as, like, I don't know...worth her time? She says she does all this for me, she says I'm why she works so hard, but it always seems like everyone else comes before me and she doesn't really know how to be a mom proper. She has the idea of what a mom should be, but doesn't know how to do it?" Noreen sighed and set down her beads and looked at Violet seriously. "...I think it's because women of our generation didn't exactly know that we wanted to be moms, but it was still expected of us, socially, to do so. So a lot of us had children without the ability to know how to properly raise them. A lot of these moms see themselves as friends, not parents, and you can be a friend to your child, but you also need to be a parent," she said, "your mom is trying, sweetheart, she really is. She just...doesn't know how." Violet sighed and looked back down at the photo album, seeing an image of Noreen and her parents on a camping trip, and she smiled. Noreen had gotten the childhood Violet wanted for herself, and she was simultaneously jealous and grateful that at least one of them had had it. *** "I don't get what the big deal is, frankly," Sharla said, sitting on her workout ball and sipping from her stainless steel water bottle; "if someone called me a role model, I'd be flattered. It's what I try to be. A good example of how to live. I eat well, I exercise. I am trying to be a role model." "...yeah, well...that's the irony isn't it. I'm not," Nat said, sitting upright on the couch now, "you don't get it, you guys...any other year this would've made me happy, but this year..." She looked down at the magazine again and sighed, shaking her head as Jay and Sharla waited and listened. "...if Violet sees this, it'll simply reinforce her idea that I'm only here for others, and not for her. That her own mother is inaccessible to her. I wanna help people, sure, I wanna be a role model. But not right now. This is not the best time. I couldn't even be a mom, how the hell could I be a role model to strangers? Do you see my dilemma now?" Sharla nodded and continued sipping as Jay unwrapped a piece of gum and stuck it in his mouth. "I do, but you're thinking about this all wrong," he said, "you need to look at it from a different point of view. Maybe she sees it and she sees all the good you really do, and it makes her reconsider how-" "No, see, that's the problem, Jay, right there, doing mental gymnastics to make sense of my daughters disappointment with me," Natasha said, "she shouldn't have to accept these things, how she feels is completely understandable and valid. She shouldn't have to go through hoops psychologically to like her mother." "She has a point," Sharla said, as Jay shot her a nasty glare and she shrugged, taking another sip, whispering, "what...she does." Nat looked back at the magazine and sighed again. She should just go talk to Violet, but she didn't want to intrude on her daughters personal space. After all, she'd moved out of the house for a reason, and the last thing Nat wanted to do was violate that decision in some way. She tossed the magazine on the couch and buried her face in her hands. "I'm just saying that she's not wrong. Violet should be able to feel and think the way she does without trying to be convinced otherwise that she's somehow the one misunderstanding the situation. She's already mentally challenged. To gaslight a mentally challenged person is a whole other level of abuse, quite frankly." "I'm not saying she needs to be gaslit, jesus, but just that maybe she's capable of seeing it from another way," Jay said, "there's no reason for..." They'd heard the door shut, but neither one had seen Nat get up and leave. Jay sighed and shook his head. He wanted to get up and follow her, but he was beginning to ask whether she was worth the effort. She clearly wanted to be alone. Violet clearly wanted to be alone. Like mother like daughter. *** "Don't you feel guilty, even just a little bit?" Corrine asked as she sat on Ashley's lap in the front seat of the car after lunch, making out. "No, do you?" Ashley asked, making Corrine shrug. "...not particularly, but I wanted to make sure we were on the same page," she replied, making them both chuckle; she leaned in and kissed Ashley again, then added, "I just meant to ask, you know, cause of Stephen and everything, like, maybe you-" "I mean, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel something remorseful about it, but I learned a while ago life is too short to worry about that sort of thing. I'll end things with him, I will, I just feel awkward about it because he was there for me and stuff, you know? It's all super complicated." "...you're sure you want this, right?" Corrine asked, "I'm sorry, I just...I have trouble believing anyone could ever remotely like me. When Nat and Jay first approached me to work with them, I was like 'is this some sort of extreme practical joke?' and now you liking me just makes me wonder the same thing. I've never really been able to believe that I'm worth the time or effort people give me." Ashley smiled and ran her hand through Corrine's dark brown hair. "Your uncertainty about yourself is one of your most admirable traits, I like a girl with no self esteem," she said. "Hey!" "but yes, I'm sure. I thought I was gonna die, remember? I spent a good portion of a while thinking I was on my way out, and then evaluating all the things I'd never get to do as a result of that." "Things like that?" "Things like hot women with no self esteem," Ashley replied. "Okay, you need to stop saying I have no self esteem. It's ironically ruining my self esteem," Corrine said, making Ashley throw her head back and cackle, which made Corrine blush and go back to kissing her. Who was she to question what life choices Ashley was to make? It's not like she herself had made the right ones. Hell, even Natasha hadn't. Perhaps, she thought, that's what truly binded them all together, was not being good at making decisions, so perhaps if they made decisions with eachother, they'd at least get one right once in a while. *** Stacy Keach was sitting at her desk when her office door opened, and Natasha walked inside. Stacy looked up, genuinely surprised to see her. Natasha stopped in front of the desk and sighed, then put the magazine down on the desktop. Stacy looked at the magazine, then looked up at Natasha. "Can I help you?" she asked. "You wrote this, right?" Nat asked. "I did." "Was it a poll? Did you put a poll online and ask random people to decide?" Nat asked, "Why was I the role model you picked? Why would you choose me? Don't you have any idea how bad things have been for me lately? Now you're out here telling people that I'm someone they should look up to, to strive to be, when my entire career has been based around telling people to be themselves and not be me?" Stacy listened, then leaned back in her chair and nodded. "I went to your live show," she said, "the one you did last year? It took me by surprise just how adamant you were that people not listen to you, but instead listen to themselves. That's generally not something a self help person says to their followers. In fact, the entire concept of the modern day self help guru is to keep people invested in constantly thinking there's something about them that needs to be fixed so they keep giving you money to help them fix it." Nat exhaled, furrowing her brow, confused at where this was going. "but that's not what you did. Instead, you told people that they should be the best them they could be, no try and be the best imitation of you they could be. And you're right. You're a mess, it's clear to anyone that you're a mess and nobody should be trying to imitate you. That's just going to make them a mess too. Your entire business plan is built on the idea that you genuinely want people to better themselves, not stay just broken enough so they need you to get better." Stacy pulled the magazine towards her and tapped on it with her perfectly manicured nails, smiling warmly. "...that's why I picked you. And it was me, personally. Not a poll. Not an online question. Nothing from social media. Me, specifically. I picked you. Because I was so genuinely impressed not only by your absolute desire to not be famous but also your absolute desire to ensure others choose themselves over you. That's just not a level of honesty one often sees in the media, especially not from people in your line of work. I guess more than anything you're the local role model of the year because you helped inspire me to stop thinking I needed others to get better, when really I just needed to listen to myself." Nat slumped a bit, the anger now gone, replaced with cautious gratefulness. Her eyes were watery, and she wiped them on her arm. "...thank you," she whispered, without looking at Stacy, "thank you. I...I needed to hear that." "I do wanna ask you thought," Stacy said, "...why don't you ever listen to yourself? I mean, you make such a big deal about people knowing their own needs, but why don't you do that very thing too? Do you ever listen to your own needs? Or do you just...ignore how you feel and instead be what everyone thinks you are?" Nat felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her. In 2 minutes flat she'd had herself explained to her by someone she'd never met, and it blew her away. Stacy had a point. She'd been ignoring how she felt. She'd spent this entire summer worrying about everyone else, specifically about her daughter, that she'd never once taken into consideration just how burnt out and worn down she felt herself. When Sharla tried to cheer her up, she took her up on the offer, because it's what she assumed she was supposed to do. When Ashley wanted to meet with her, she did it because she assumed it was her duty to repair their damaged sisterhood. She'd never once, not one single time, stopped and wondered... ...is this what I wanna do? What do I wanna do? Natasha stood back up straight and turned, heading towards the door. "Miss Simple?" Stacy asked, "Where are you going?" "...I don't know," she said, "anywhere else." And she exited.
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Public Access follows Natasha Simple, a self qualified "self help" instructor with her own show on local public access. But when she makes a sudden and surprising statement on air, her entire life changes, for the better...and the worse. Archives
December 2022
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