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Continued from previous page…
Belinda was not about to accept this is any way, shape or form.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” she began. “You’re not gonna defend her… There’s no way you’re gonna defend her!”
Kathy tried to intervene into Belinda’s opening tirade, but was instantaneously shut down.
“Belinda, it doesn’t make any sense,” she ventured.
“Oh, it makes perfect sense!” Belinda refuted. “It makes all the sense in the world… She’s trying to steal my family, doncha’ see? She’s trying to take away all the things I have because she can’t get these things on her own.. She’s jealous of me… You all know that… She’s always been jealous of me… I’m part of the bold and the beautiful and she can’t handle it.”
“Well, bold, anyway,” countered Kathy.
Belinda was willing to let that slide.
“You see… Charlotte is a control freak,” said Belinda, squinting her eyes, wagging her finger, and acting all know-it-all. “Has been from the very beginning…”
Gina couldn’t let Belinda continue without butting-in on that one—
“From the beginning?!!” she burst-out. “Belinda, she was strung-out on heroin when we first knew her!! I’d hardly call that a control freak!!”
In a hilarious turn of events, Belinda continued as if she was back on stage at the sitcom. She comedically paused for a second, slowed down her finger-wagging, cocked her head back and forth, and spoke facetiously—
“Oh, like that’s some kinda’ big deal.”
Hooray!!! Belinda pulled it off without a script!
(You see, heroin addiction is indeed a big deal. That’s why this scene is… Oh, never mind)
Everyone was thoroughly impressed with Belinda’s extemporaneous follow-up. They were all hoping she had another one inside of her. Because of this, Kathy tried to set her up with a lead-in—
“A heroin addiction is a pretty serious thing, Babe,” she said with an anticipated look.
Belinda obliged.
“Yeah… but after that trifle.. inconvenience in her life… was concluded… She became a control freak right after that.”
Belinda summed things up by acting like— “I told you so.”
Gina caught on to the comedic flow of the conversation and continued on. She placed her hands on her hips and spoke emphatically—
“Right! And after that.. she developed a serious medical condition called Dual Identity Disorder… A disease that has left her virtually incapacitated and unrecognizable!!”
Belinda happily reciprocated to the professional lead-ins her adoring bandmates were giving her.
“Boy, you guys just wanna nitpick on everything,” she concluded, waving them away with her hand.
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
Would the real Go-Go’s be so cavalier? I wonder.
“Alright, Kathy… Now that you and Belinda and Gina have concluded your little yuk-yuk session on our behalf… Suppose you tell us who you really think left that bag under her couch?” asked Jane.
Kathy and Belinda looked at each other. Jane’s remark unfortunately thrust them back into the world of reality. Naturally, Belinda couldn’t wait for Kathy’s response.
“Look… I was in one of your guest bedrooms that night,” Kathy began. “And Beck Malenstyn and Tyson Kozak had an entire ounce of coke in a bag that looked uncannily similar to the bag that was found underneath your couch… And Beck started getting extremely paranoid about someone.. who he thought was following him… and was out to get him.”
“Who?” asked Jane.
“He didn’t say.. Or I didn’t listen well enough,” answered Kathy. “All I know is that he just kept yammering-on about a group of guys that wanted to kick his ass about a deal that went wrong.. and that he thought one of the guys in this group, in particular, had been following him around town.. looking for revenge.”
“Following him around Beverly Hills?” asked Gina.
“I don’t know, I guess so,” answered Kathy. “Beck lives in neighboring Burbank, so, somewhere in the general vicinity, I guess.”
“That seems kinda’ weird for Beverly Hills,” Gina remarked.
“Why is that weird?” asked Kathy.
“Well, I don’t know. Everyone is so fucking rich in that town, it just seems weird that there would be some.. lecherous dude.. just lurking around town in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses.. looking to bash Beck over the head and steal his money,” answered Gina.
“Gina, Beck and his buddy, Mason Geertsen, are cocaine dealers.. It doesn’t matter what town they’re from… Those people all live in a high-stakes, paranoid world of bullshit and backstabbing… It doesn’t matter whose rich or not. They’re all in it for the lifestyle.”
The room went silent for several seconds as the girls all took a moment to digest what Kathy had just implicated.
“And you think Beck might have put the coke under Belinda’s couch because he was paranoid that someone was out to get him?” asked Jane.
“Hey, Beck passed-out on Belinda’s floor, right next to that very same couch.. until Myles and a couple of guys picked him up and put him in one of the guest bedrooms to sleep it off,” replied Kathy.
“And you think…?” Jane inquired.
“I’m thinking it’s entirely possible that he shoved it underneath there in some sort of drunken, paranoid stupor, right before he passed-out.”
Upon hearing this, Belinda began pacing back and forth around the room, trying to process all of this newfound information that had just been presented. All eyes were upon her as she searched for the proper thing to say.
“This is crazy,” she muttered “I can’t believe what I’m hearing… How come I don’t know about any of this?
“Because none of us were allowed to visit you in the hospital,” said Kathy. “The staff wouldn’t allow anyone who they thought might have been a prior influence on you… Ya’ know.. with drugs and alcohol and shit like that.”
“So that’s why the entire band and all of management wasn’t allowed to visit you,” Gina joked, cupping her hand over her smile.
Belinda smiled in response. Then she realized something.
“Yeah… Everyone except Charlotte,” she observed. “I wonder who was pulling the strings on that one?”
The stark reality of Charlotte’s power and influence permeated throughout everyone’s body.
“Well, this is all enlightening information,” announced Jane. “And I want to thank you, Kathy, for keeping this from the rest of us… while Belinda was rotting away in that hospital… Information that could have been taken directly to Myles.”
Kathy knew she was now in a terrible predicament. As she looked down with a vacuous expression, it occurred to her that maybe Charlotte did indeed have some sort of hypnotic control over her. She began to realize that she now had no choice but to reveal her newly discovered feelings.
“Maybe she does have control over me,” she bled.