Vignette #113: Saxon

“Okay, where are you?” She asked as she searched, not quite in panicked desperation, just a few seconds from it.

She was sure she’d slipped it off and laid it right on her dressing table. She remembered distinctly sitting there when she took her make up off last night, holding it up and watching it twirl in the mirror. It had to be right there.

Saxon pushed her freshly dried curls behind her ears and took a seat at the vanity. She didn’t reach for her brush. She pushed the bottles and loose earrings around.

“I can’t have lost it, not now.” She sighed and pushed a bottle of nail polish aside. “I know I put it right here.” She crossed her arms and pouted in the mirror.

“That always helps.” She could hear him say in her head. Funny, no matter what, no matter where, it was always Ian’s voice she heard in her head.

“Oh, sugar.” She uncrossed her arms and stood up banging her knee, as always, on some corner of the vanity determined to keep her black and blue.

She rubbed her boo boo and watched the bottle of Aztec Blue nail polish rock and sway, fall to its side and roll off. She watched its free fall to the plush carpet. Fortunately the lid was on tight. She reached down to pick it up.

There in the plush white carpet was her treasure. She smiled as she squatted and picked it up. She placed the nail polish firmly in place and looked in the mirror as she put the treasure around her neck.

It was just a little half penny, dangling on a little gold chain. She held the penny in her fingers and looked at it. She kept it polished and rarely took it off, only when she showered, before bed and when she walked down the aisle the first time.

The first time she got married Josh knew all about it. He knew all her secrets. She knew all of his. They thought the reason people got married was because they knew each other well enough to share it all, the good and the bad and that made the heart grow fonder.

They were best friends, suddenly in a maelstrom of publicity. They had known each other for two years, roommates for most of it. They were starving artists trying to hit it big in the big city. She was a poor small town girl from Grundy, Virginia. He was spoiled rich kid from Chicago running away from the parents who wanted him to go into the family business.

Josh’s family didn’t approve of his choice of professions and cut his monthly allowance down to just enough to keep him from living in a hovel and starving to death. They had met in a workshop on how to survive in show business. The opposites attracted immediately. Saxon was a survivor. Josh needed to learn how.

She taught him how to live frugally. He taught her how to light up a screen. She wanted to be an actress. He wanted to be a director. She had a monologue. He had a camera.

She taught him how to save money eating meals of peanut butter instead of Bruschetta. He taught her how to use make up to make the most of her features. She taught him that the endless auditions and interviews where all performances to be enjoyed and relished. He taught her how to develop a performance for the camera with subtlety and nuance.

They struggled together, making the most of every rejection. She did under fives on daytime television and a commercial for Wendy’s. He videoed weddings and birthday parties, and uploaded original shorts for You Tube.

Then his great aunt died and left him enough money to make his own little film. It was just $75,000, but that would be enough to guerrilla a little indie with enough left over to take it to a few film festivals.

Saxon pulled together a few actor friends and Josh made up a script as they went along. It was a silly little horror film, done with a hand held camera in eight days. Instead of monsters and vampires, they made the camera the monster.

They called it “Watching You”. Josh culled every horror movie cliché and deftly told it from the unseen monster’s point of view. It was at times horrifying, at times side splitingly funny and throughout ironically tragic.

It became the talk of the film fest circuit. Josh was invited to enter it in Sundance and it won the Audience award. It touched off a bidding war between distributors, Lion’s Gate finally winning. The little film became an instant hit and raked in big bucks for everyone.

Saxon and Josh went from nobody to royalty overnight. Offers came pouring in. They were smart enough to take advantage and make the right choices. She smartly did a small series of Scream Queen roles, and he stayed with small budget features he could maintain artistic control of.

Then they combined forces again, in a parody of their own careers achieving even bigger success. Disney came calling. They were smart enough to answer. They also thought they were smart enough to get married. Neither turned out to be the brightest decision either had made.

Disney stuck them both to a quick series of generic family comedies. None were successes. I do’s and a marriage license didn’t change their relationship at all. When their quick contracts ended, Disney sent Josh packing, but wanted Saxon for a small role in a series.

Saxon wanted more than television. She had always wanted to be a movie star, and with Josh’s encouragement, turned down the series and stuck it out. It turned out to be the right choice for her career, but the wrong one for the marriage.

It was a pseudo scream queen role, the damsel in distress in a sci-fi action flick starring Jeremy Tyson. It was a guaranteed hit adding box office luster back to Saxon’s resume. The reviews were better than average, critics latching on to the romantic chemistry and the comic edge Saxon brought to a thankless role. It led her to the series of romantic comedies that made her a superstar.

It also led Josh to meeting Caleb Hunter, the villain’s sidekick in the picture. It was a match made in heaven. Saxon had always known that Josh was gay. She just assumed she could live with it. It turned out she couldn’t.

They quietly divorced. Josh and Caleb went off to live openly ever after. Saxon had lost a husband, but gained a career. She carried on, remaining in the spotlight as America’s sweetheart.

Josh, too, carved out a good career in quirky independents. They remained dear friends. She even starred in one of his biggest mainstream hits, parodying once again her own career and netting her first Oscar nomination.

In between she thought she’d found love again. This time with Brady Brandon, a Canadian hockey player. It was love at first sight, a whirlwind courtship and as traditional a marriage as possible.

Saxon put behind all loves and hopes of the past. She concentrated on being a good wife and hopefully one day a good mother. She put the career on the back burner and followed Brady around the continent being his number one cheerleader as well as his wife. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of.

Then Brady got caught with his pants down in the locker room after a big game. He claimed the couple got him drunk and he thought it was all a big joke. Unfortunately the girl got the whole story with her cell phone camera and anyone with Internet could see the antics.

Saxon believed him and stood behind her husband. He was a hockey player for crying out loud and he was obviously under the influence of something. It wasn’t until she came home one evening early to surprise her husband and caught him in bed with the pool boy that the truth finally hit her.

She had hoped for another quiet friendly divorce, and it was, until Brady went on a daytime talk show on National Coming Out Day and came out. By the time the Nightly News came on, Saxon found herself embroiled in a very public divorce to another gay man.

It made her a martyr to every woman in America and an icon to every gay man in the universe. She plunged back into her career and just assumed that her private life would always be a very public disaster. Very few men wanted to be seen with her, assuming the public and the paparazzi would assume the worst.

Saxon became a team player, appearing in public with every costar. She was secretly called America’s Favorite Beard. She did what she had to and ignored the title hoping someday the right man would come along.

And Ian Justyn dropped right back into her life. She’d never forgotten him. How could she? Sure he was handsome. Sure he made her laugh and forget about all the silly difficulties of the past and present. Somehow, he was the other half of her soul.

She hadn’t realized how incomplete she felt until he appeared in the room. How could someone do that? How could some one just waltz in from the past and instantly make all the insane mistakes seem so insignificant? Most of all, why couldn’t either of them let go of it all enough to just let go?

Saxon smiled as she clutched the half penny and tucked it beneath her shirt. It had meant so much to her and it was the one thing he didn’t remember. She sighed and sat back down at the vanity in an attempt to tame her morning locks and not think about the only time Ian Justyn ever disappointed her.