Page 4 of Fan Favorite
But there was something about Charlie that Edie always liked.
He was guileless and sweet, and despite Alice’s oft-repeated disapproval over a close friendship with a boy , Edie and Charlie quickly became fixtures in each other’s backyards, kitchens, and basements.
Charlie never complained when Edie and Lauren gave him makeovers and poked him hard in the eye with a mascara wand.
He could always be relied upon to make Monopoly trades that improved Edie’s or Lauren’s position and diminished his own.
He loved Troop Beverly Hills and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead almost as much as they did.
And even as time went on and they got older and their interests diverged—Charlie: fantasy novels and Dungeons Edie: boy bands and, well, boys —their friendship had always remained.
They were bound by shared history and an unwavering commitment to life as indoor kids.
They weren’t sports people; they were marching band people.
They weren’t pool-party-this-weekend-at-Maddy-Morrison’s-manse people; they were drama club people.
They walked through high school like this— just as friends!
—until one particularly miserable summer day, right before senior year, when everything changed.
Edie and Alice had been running late. Typically, Alice ran the household with military precision, dragging a wild-haired Edie along behind her.
But today, the day of Bill Pepper’s funeral, it was Alice who seemed to have no concept of time.
She stood at the bay window in the living room, in her neat black dress and heels, staring into the abyss.
We have to go , Edie called. She crossed the Oriental rug and placed a hand on her mother’s back and Alice startled, as if she’d forgotten who, or where, she was entirely.
“Every home needs a man,” Alice whispered.
Edie looked out the window and there was Charlie Bennett, mowing the grass that had gotten much too long in the blur of her father’s heart attack and death.
“I’m alone now,” Alice said.
“That’s not true,” Edie said. “You have me.”
But Edie would leave for college in less than a year.
And her father—a man who wore bow ties, who read the paper every night, who slipped her a good luck Werther’s Original before her drama club plays, who’d been an old man her entire life, but who’d always loved her—was gone.
And somehow her mother already seemed smaller.
Alice took Edie’s hand and looked her in the eye. “Find someone to love you,” she said. “I won’t be around forever, and I don’t want you to be alone.”
Another memory came to Edie now of Charlie, in the fall of their senior year, right before they were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.
They were on a school bus after an away game, sitting together on a pleather seat sized for elementary kids.
He’d taken off his marching band jacket and his T-shirt was sweaty from where the bass drum had hung from his soft chest; his neck was splotchy red.
He smelled liked fall. When they’d performed the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” at halftime, she’d matched her steps to the thud of his drum and thought it was unbelievably romantic.
It was dark on the bus, and when he’d taken her hand and held it on the seat between them, she could hear Cassandra Bernstein and Jonathan Nash making out in the seat behind them.
Charlie had looked at her then, shyly, and smiled. He’d had that one crooked tooth.
Edie’s eyes were bleary from wine and despair when Lauren finally walked in, jingling her pet-sitting keys.
“I almost crashed my car into the side of a Walgreens, so thanks for that,” she said. “Charlie fucking Bennett, I literally cannot.” Lauren kicked off her shoes and pitched her purse on top of a box. “Seriously, when are you going to unpack this place, it’s been, what, a month?”
“Charlie Bennett’s going to marry a fitness model and have five perfect children and live in a mansion and be rich and tan all year round and I have thirty-eight dollars in my checking account and no one loves me or will ever love me and I’m going to fill my pockets with rocks and throw myself in Lake Michigan. Take care of Nacho.”
“Oh, please.” Lauren plopped down on the couch and took Edie’s mug of rosé and drank.
“Charlie Bennett. Charlie Bennett! I mean, when I think about Charlie Bennett, I think about that time he dressed up as Severus Snape at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets at the mall. Like, this fool was walking around with a wand and shit. This is so weird. I mean, didn’t he have, like, a severe skin condition or something? ”
“Yes.” Edie was completely relieved to be seen again. “He totally did. He was always breaking out in hives. And you know what? It never bothered me. Because I loved him.”
“Girl.”
“It’s true,” Edie pouted.
“Let me see that.” Lauren took the yearbook and began flipping the pages. “Oh my god!” She doubled over with laughter. “Look at you! ‘Most Likely to Win the Lottery but Lose the Ticket.’ I completely forgot about that! Too good.”
Edie looked over Lauren’s shoulder at the photo.
“That was during my Christina Aguilera phase. Look at that cropped cardigan. Fuck, have I always been awful?”
“Don’t be an idiot. Everyone is awful in high school.”
Lauren, of course, had never been awful in high school.
Lauren had always been effortlessly cool.
A couple of months ago, she’d chopped her hair into a short mullet and dyed it lilac.
Tonight she was wearing high-waisted denim shorts over black pantyhose, combat boots, and a preppy striped button-down with her favorite leather jacket on top.
Edie would look like she was cosplaying The Craft if she tried to wear that get-up.
But Lauren just looked like someone you might talk to about bourbon.
Or the best BBC deep cuts on Netflix. Or her favorite tattoo artist specializing in intricate floral work. Fucking Lauren.
“Apparently, some people change,” Edie said. “Where were you tonight? You’re cute.”
“I joined a feminist pinball league in Logan Square,” Lauren said with a wave of her hand. “I was on my way home when I saw your text. Obviously, I couldn’t let you live through this trauma alone. Anyway, I did some googling at the stoplights—did you see he was on Good Morning America ?”
“What? No. Show me.”
Lauren got out her phone and they watched Bennett Charles strut onto the GMA set in a gorgeously tailored black suit.
He hugged Robin Roberts and flashed a million-dollar smile and a magnanimous wave at the squealing ladies in the studio audience.
His bowl cut had been replaced with a trendy pompadour, short on the sides with a deep part, deliberately messy curls cascading over his right eye.
The total effect was very sexy-surfer-investment-banker, and damn it was good.
“He’s seriously so hot now, it’s mind-bending,” Lauren said. “Literally cannot believe I just said that. I don’t even like men. But objectively it’s true. Do you think he had plastic surgery?”
“Lauren.” Edie chewed her lip. “Don’t make fun of me, but I think maybe Charlie Bennett is The One .”
Lauren squawked with laughter. “Girl, no, he is not. Honestly, he seems pretty douchey.”
“Don’t say that! Why would you say that?”
“Edie, c’mon! The whole thing is pretty douchey. What kind of person turns their name backward and chugs Muscle Milk ’til they’re culturally relevant? It’s weird.”
On Lauren’s phone, Charlie and Robin took their seats.
Golden locks and keys fluttered digitally on a screen behind them.
Charlie and Robin chatted, but Edie couldn’t really concentrate on anything they were saying.
All she could think about was all the terrible boyfriends she’d had, all the guys who’d cheated on her, or ghosted her, or dumped her via text, and all the guys to come who’d be exactly the same.
What if Charlie Bennett was the only real, true relationship she’d ever have?
“This whole time, all these years, I’ve been searching for something I already had,” she whispered, her fingertip caressing Charlie’s yearbook cheek.
“Well, you don’t have it anymore!” Lauren burped and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
“That’s mean!”
“Uh, he’s the star of The Key —it’s all about getting people engaged!
Robin just said, ‘Are you hoping to end this season with a proposal?’ and he said, ‘Absolutely.’ So, since you’re not on this show, you should probably let that shit go.
” Lauren slung her arm around Edie’s shoulders and gave her an encouraging squeeze.
“But I promise to watch this trash with you every single week. That is, if you ever unpack this apartment. Seriously, what the fuck, Edie? It’s going to be hard to move on if you don’t ever put your shit away. ”
Edie considered this, but really, she didn’t want to let it go.
Somehow seeing Charlie Bennett on her TV clarified that she’d never really fought for anything of any importance.
That she’d just been floating through life, taking it as it came, and that’s why she was here now, in this messy apartment instead of a beautiful house.
Alone instead of with her husband. Old and dried up and probably barren rather than at Chuck E.
Cheese with her adorable children. What was it Lauren had said?
Since you’re not on this show, you should probably let that shit go.
Lauren was right! Not about letting it go—why the hell would Edie do that when right in front of her was the guiding hand of fate, shoving her toward the life she was meant to live all along?
Lauren was right that she wasn’t on the show. But she could be.
“Lauren!” Edie squealed, clutching Lauren’s arm. “I’ll go on the show!”
“Absolutely not.” Lauren gave Edie a look. “Call 911, you’ve lost your mind.”
“Be serious! What if my entire life’s happiness depends on me getting on The Key ?”
“Edie, first of all, it does not. Second of all, they’ve already started filming.
I looked at the website and all his contestants were already there—a bunch of Beckys with Karen moons.
And then I looked at The Key ’s Instagram and there was a pic of him in a hot air balloon with some girl.
Like, it’s already started. It’s happening. ”
“I know, I saw.” Edie felt incredibly dejected.
“Besides, what about that guy you were talking to? That PhD dude? Didn’t he have potential?”
“Chemistry Jim dry-humped me to the Talking Heads for like an hour two weeks ago and I never heard from him again.”
“Okay, that’s bleak,” Lauren said. “Wait—didn’t you have a date tonight?”
“He said I was too old to get married. I threw my shoe at him.”
Lauren raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Good. Fuck him. But also, the entire point of being old is knowing deep in your bones just how great you are and that you don’t need to be married!”
Edie grabbed Lauren and held her face in her hands.
“Bible: Do you think I could get on that show?”
Lauren, held captive, mumbled out of puckered lips, “Bible: You’re being crazy. Is this about Brian?”
“Of course this is not about Brian!” Edie said.
“And it’s very rude to insinuate everything in my life is about Brian.
I am way over that, and you know what, if me and Charlie falling in love all over again on national television makes Brian feel some kind of way, well, I can’t control that.
” Edie pressed Lauren’s cheeks harder. “This is about my One True Love! Don’t you want me to be happy? ”
Lauren, reluctantly, nodded her head.
“Promise you’ll help me,” Edie said.
Lauren tried to shake her head no, but Edie persevered and made Lauren’s head nod yes until Lauren finally relented and Edie released her.
“I don’t understand what you think we’re going to do.” Lauren said. “Drop him a DM, like, ‘Oh, I saw you on TV, can I hit that again?’”
“We should do whatever a fabulous, modern woman would do.” Edie paused. “What would a fabulous, modern woman do?”
“I have no idea—I’m not fabulous!”
“Lies! And you’re a journalist! You’re always making things happen.”
“How drunk are you? I can’t tell if you’re Fun Edie or Throw-Up-in-the-Bathtub Edie.”
“Oh my god, I’ve had three glasses of wine, maybe four. I’m perfectly in control of my faculties. Stay focused! What are we gonna do to get me on that show?”
Lauren sighed. “Well, I guess we could like, find a producer? Tweet at them? Are you sure you want to do this? This seems like a bad idea.”
“That’s perfect!” Edie squealed. And before Bennett Charles could finish his interview, Edie and Lauren had tracked down a Key producer on Twitter, taken a photo of a picture of Edie and Charlie in their dorky marching band uniforms from the yearbook, and tweeted it at @jessa.johnson with the caption, “Hey, Jessa, why you stealing my boyfriend??? I want him back, DM me!!!”
Edie fell back on the couch and sighed. Her journey to true love was about to begin. Again.