Separated by Hollywood
ONE
He was my best friend. We were best friends since he had moved here in kindergarten. I had just turned six and walked to the bus stop with my mom, wearing my new back-to-school dress. He stood on the curb with his parents, hefting a metal Superman lunchbox. He looked proud of his lunchbox.
“Hi,” I said happily, skipping up to him. He glanced at me shyly with big, hazel-brown eyes and turned a bright red. “Hi,” he said back.
“I’m Charlotte,” I continued, ignoring his obvious discomfort with talking to a girl, a strange one at that, “but most people call me Lottie. What’s your name?”
“David,” he said to the street.
“I like your lunchbox,” I continued. He was so shy.
He brightened and turned to me, looking me in the eyes. “Really?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah!” I exclaimed. “My daddy and me love Superman!”
And so our friendship was born.
During our elementary school years, I was a weird kid. I read my reports out loud in weird voices to get my classmates to laugh (they didn’t) and on the last day of school I ran up and gave my diabolically evil science teacher a big hug, even though we all hated her. I was forever known as “the traitor.”
But he stuck with me. Every afternoon we went to each other’s houses, smuggling a pack of cards and a box of cookies. We would play cards, either poker, gin rummy, spit or war, betting the cookies. We just ate them straight out of the jackpot, anyway, because we were both crummy card players.
In seventh grade, his stint on television began. He went to audition for “Star Search” and he got on. Everyone, including me, knew that he was an amazing, incredible singer. He won the school wide talent show three years in a row, beating out eighth grades three times his size.
I watched the show religiously when he came back. We sang along to his songs, jumping up and down on the couch, singing at the top of our thirteen year old lungs. It was an amazing time.
And then high school started.
David came down with strep throat and stayed home for three weeks. I brought him his homework and some soup from the Banana Barn every day. We watched television, laughed and wrote songs together. Then he got paralysis in his vocal cords.
He couldn’t speak, and when he did, it only came in barely audible whispers. He was being tortured because he had no voice. His songwriting suffered. He was depressed. All I could do was keep giving him hugs and tell him it was going to be okay.
He got better. Slowly, he was able to sing again. After he sang, his voice would be reduced to a whispery rasp again, like an long time smoker’s, but he was constantly smiling. Soon, he was back to singing complete songs. He sang constantly around my house, his house, annoying his sisters and me. Whenever I said something even a little song related, he’d burst into song. I loved seeing him so happy.
Come junior year, he found out that American Idol was having auditions in San Diego. He had to go.
“Lottie,” he had said, “this could be amazing.” He threw down an ace of clubs. We were playing war. I just handed him my next card because nothing could beat an ace.
“One, two, three!” we said at the same time, and threw down. I beat him with a ten of hearts.
“Are you ready, though?” I asked. We threw down again. He won.
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, “I can sing without, y’know, croaking at the end like I used too.”
I nodded. We threw down again. I won. “But are you sure?” I looked at him seriously. “Is this your decision?”
He looked at me with those hazel-brown eyes of his and said, “Of course. Who’s decision would it be?” He smiled gently. “Wanna come with me?”
We threw down. Both cards were threes. We put down three cards face down and flipped the fourth card over. He won, beating my meager two of diamonds with a five of spades. He slid all the cards over to his side and put them on the ledge above his head.
“To San Diego?” I asked. He laughed, probably because he thought I forgot what we were talking about. I smiled and continued, “Yeah, sure. I’ll have to check with my mom, though.”
“She’ll say yes,” David said earnestly. He paused. “This is like a dream shot,” he said, glancing down at his cards. The cards were old ones, from third grade. The only ones the store had were Scooby-Doo ones that permanently smelled like the library. “If I get in, man, I’ll be everywhere -- you won’t be able to get away!”
He made what he thought was an ‘evil’ face, scrunching up his nose and making his eyes all squinty. It made him look like more a little boy than he already did. It made me laugh.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll come. Do you think Simon will like you?” I asked. We threw down. He won by a long shot.
“Maybe,” he said. “What song do you think I should sing?”
“ ‘Waiting On the World to Change,’” I said immediately. “It’s one of your favorite songs and I’m pretty sure that John Mayer would be jealous if he heard you sing it.” We threw down. He won again. I took it as an omen. He was going to American Idol and he was getting on.
“And you’re pretty cute, too,” I added, “but that’s, like, from a sister’s point of view.”
“If it was a sister’s point of view you’d say I was ugly,” he replied, “because my sisters always call me ugly.”
“No they don’t!” I protested. “They’re so nice!”
He looked at me in disbelief. “You’ve never actually had to live with them.” He laughed. His laugh had a breathless quality to it, like his voice. He always sounded he was out of breath, except when he was singing. When he was singing, his voice was so smooth and scarily perfect that you’d think a thirty-year-old Broadway star with twenty-seven years of experience was singing.
That was a bit of an exaggeration, but to me it was true.
The Idol auditions were right around the corner, so David practiced every minute of every day -- constantly. He even called me on the phone at three in the morning and asked me if his voice sounded okay.
“David,” I had said, “I love ya like a brother. But dude, I can’t tell what your voice sounds like because I’m half-unconscious. So if you’ll excuse me…” And I hung up on him.
I gave him a hug to make up for it.
When the auditions came around, we left at four-thirty in the morning to get to the airport. It was me, his mom, his dad, him and another friend stuffed with travel bags and other things in the Ford minivan. I fell asleep on David’s shoulder. He said he didn’t mind when I woke up. I did it again on the plane.
San Diego was sunny and warm. We got to the hotel, checked in, and went to the audition center -- aka the San Diego welcome center in downtown San Diego. There were thousands upon thousands of people there. Crazy people.
“Oh my God, does that woman have green hair?” I whispered to David while we waited to get in.
“Yeah,” he whispered back. He furrowed his eyebrows at me. “Why are we whispering?”
“Because it’s fun,” I said loudly, laughing. It lessened the obvious tension.
“Hey.” Some guy with a camera came up. “Can I interview you guys?”
“Oh,” I said, “I’m not auditioning, he is.” I stepped out of the camera’s range.
David was set up for a couple of shots and an interview with Ryan Seacrest. He was smiling broadly when he was done.
Then he got to talk on the “Idol Wall” where the hopefuls could talk to the camera. He talked about his paralysis, and Ryan Seacrest interviewed him about that. Then he auditioned.
I pressed my ear against the door and listened. I heard Simon and Paula talking, then David singing, and then Randy saying, ‘dawg.’ I heard footsteps coming towards the door and I stepped away. David burst out, carrying that magic golden ticket that would take him to Hollywood. I knew it. Those cards were definitely an omen.
It was only a matter of time. I had to go back to Utah. School was starting again.
We stood outside the hotel we’d been staying in for three days. I was close to tears, he looked pretty close, too.
“Make sure you don’t blow it in the Hollywood auditions,” I said with a watery smile. “Go far for me, okay? And don’t forget to call, email, IM, whatever.” We hugged and held on for a long time. We were best friends, finally separated by Hollywood. Somehow I knew it would happen eventually. “Bye, David,” I said into his shoulder. “Go far.”
I haven’t seen him since that day.
