11
Tuesday, March 5th, 1985, 8:14 P.M.
Charlotte pulled into her gravel driveway on Escondido Beach Road and settled under the carport. She arrived home exactly on time. She put the gearshift into park and turned off the headlights. She was just about to turn off the engine and the radio when she decided to listen to another minute of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” by Tears For Fears. She closed her eyes and absorbed the music.
As soon as she exited the vehicle, she could hear the roar of the ocean and the squawking of the seagulls. Being a native Californian, it was a familiar sound. She walked onto her front porch and was just about to insert the key into the lock when she changed her mind. She looked to her left and slowly started to meander out to the deck. She placed her purse on the floor and leaned up against the wooden railing. This was something that she often did on nights when she came home late from work. It was therapeutic for her; something she felt she needed on this night.
Charlotte loved to look out on the vastness of the Pacific ocean and take time to contemplate her life. It was hypnotic and would often put her in a trance— exactly the kind of thing she was trying to achieve on this evening.
She adored her life and all of the things that were involved in it. She was so proud of herself and the band for everything they had accomplished. Although there were other female rockers that had come before them, somehow it felt different for the Go-Go’s. Because they were on television, the world seemed to place them in a much higher category, yet Charlotte knew that this was not justified. Those other women had laid their hearts on the line every bit as much as they did (so much more in some instances) but didn’t seem to be getting the credit they deserved. Both mediums required excruciatingly hard work, of course, but the Go-Go’s seemed to have an edge due to the spotlight of prime-time television. And, like so many other acts past and present, they just happened to be in the right place at the right time when the network came calling; a common occurrence in the show-biz world, to be sure. It was something to be truly grateful for.
Indeed, Charlotte was exactly that.
She was definitely grateful for the times. She was grateful that she was able to step out of the murky waters of the seventies and into the bright sunshine of the eighties. It was an openly conservative decade, one which allowed her to push ahead with her agenda without the fear of reprisal. It was a time when people talked brazenly about being rich and famous.
In other words, everybody was doing it.
The Go-Go’s appeared to be tailor-made for the eighties. Even though they were mired in the male dominated world of television, they seemed relatively free from any kind of overt chauvinism and free to do whatever they wanted. They played their real-life roles to perfection and thumbed their noses at conventional norms, instead choosing to tear off their clothes and shout from the mountaintops. They sprinted through the hallways of life, stopping in each room just long enough to say “hello” and then quickly racing off on their way.
It was positively surreal and Charlotte was thrilled to be the matriarch of the gang. Being the oldest “sister,” she felt a responsibility to look out for them and take care of them financially. Charlotte was not just making money for herself, she was making money for all five of them. As previously mentioned, the other girls had no idea what to do with their new income. She formed a general partnership with them, each receiving an equal 20% share of the company, then placed herself in total control of the day-to-day operations.
Without even consulting their attorneys, the other four Go-Go’s readily gave up their earnings for Charlotte to invest in the company. They entrusted her with their lives and Charlotte did not disappoint. The stipends that she paid them every other month were more than enough for them to live a generous lifestyle. They all bought homes, cars, and had unlimited spending cash. Charlotte, in the meantime, had her eyes on one of the biggest financial prizes of the current times: She was determined to be the first, female billionaire in entertainment history. It was an avaricious, greedy, and gluttonous goal that sometimes riddled Charlotte’s entire body and her soul with pain and anguish and unending guilt.
It also seemed like a helluva’ lot of fun.