69
Saturday, June 7th, 1986, 2:33 P.M.
“Come on, Charlotte, tell me, what’s wrong between you two?” Jane asked.
Charlotte had already committed to her guilt by not being more forceful in denial. Now, she had to make up a lie about the situation between her and Kathy. Her hesitation was a dead giveaway that something was amiss.
“Nothing.. There’s nothing wrong between her and me. We’re fine, really,” Charlotte stumbled.
“Bullshit,” said Jane. “You can’t fool me… Why are you doing that? Is it something serious?”
“JANE.. Don’t do that, alright?” Don’t act like you know everything… We just had a little fight, that’s all.. We said some pretty mean things to each other, okay?” Charlotte replied.
“That’s it?” asked Jane.
“Yeah, that’s it, okay? So just drop it, please? Let me and Kathy handle it.. ourselves,” Charlotte pleaded.
“Okay, fine,” said Jane, waving her hands. “It’s none of my business, anyway, I guess.”
“Thank you,” conceded Charlotte.
It wasn’t going to end there— Not with Jane. She wasn’t going to let this thing just fade away.
“Because we gotta’ be on stage together in less than two months… And I don’t want any friction up there when we’re performing… You know what I mean?” Jane rambled. “You know how I hate that. The audience can sense shit like that… So… if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Jane, ENOUGH!..OKAY?!” demanded Charlotte. “Would you please… let us handle it?”
“Okay, fine,” said Jane in the same manner as before.
A classic moment of silence lingered, as the two of them knew deep down inside that Jane was going to interject one more time.
“Cuz, ya know, I can talk to her..”
“JANE.. please!!” Charlotte insisted. “I’m not going to tell you again!”
“Okay, okay, I won’t say another word,” Jane lamented.
“Won’t say another word about what?” asked a voice from beyond.
It was Gina, who had managed to sneak up on them from behind by coming into the kitchen from another corridor. Her bare feet also kept her from being heard.
“Hey, Bean, how was your urination?” asked Jane, startled by Gina’s appearance and wanting to change the subject.
“Aw, it was fuckin’ great,” revealed Gina, taking a seat. “Still too yellow, though. Got a lot more drinkin’ to do… Hey, while I was throwin’ one into the commode, I was wondering if we were ever gonna wear our tiaras again?”
Gina was referring to the tiaras that the girls had made to match their Cinderella outfits from a couple of years back. When they first became famous, our frolicking five-some grew gradually tired of hearing that their lives resembled a “fairy tale.” It was clearly a sexist, demeaning title, perpetrated by a male dominated media, and unfortunately supported by almost everyone around them. The girls hated it.
And so, in response to this jaded journalism, Jane came up with the brainy idea of having Cinderella costumes made up for each one of them in order to perpetuate the charade. Charlotte, who was always thinking about sensationalism and clout as it applied to helping the band, decided to complete the farce by having the tiaras cram-packed with diamonds to an obscene level. She sought out the most prestigious jewelers in Beverly Hills and gave the project to them. Each tiara had the first letter of their names in a circle (B,C,G,J, and K) and the rest was diamond encrusted. Coming in at a value of 1.8 million dollars apiece, Charlotte purposely proceeded to leak the value of the crowns to the press in order to create some major buzz.
Sure enough, after pictures of them wearing the outfits were released, Barbara Walters immediately requested a special, one-hour interview with them for “60 Minutes” and ostensibly begged that they wear the dresses and tiaras. Her opening line for the interview was—
“I can’t believe I’m sitting in front of ten million dollars worth of jewelry.”
After that, they appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine in the same outfits under the heading “American Royalty.”
It was another glorious time in history for the Go-Go’s.
“Uh, I don’t think I’m ever going to wear that thing again,” Jane confessed. “At least not in public.”
“Is that to say you put it on up in your room when nobody’s watching?” asked Charlotte.
“Sometimes,” laughed Jane. “Not the dress though. I just put on the tiara and look at myself in the mirror. It’s too tempting not to.”
“Remember when Elton John kissed my hand?” recalled Gina. “Man, that was too good to be true.”
Gina was commenting on the time when they wore the outfits at one of their formal dinner parties. By the end of the night, many of the male guests had started to kneel before the girls and kiss their gloved hands; a direct reference to them being anointed “American Royalty.”
“I think we should sell them,” suggested Jane. “Give the money to charity.”
“Really?” wondered Charlotte aloud.
“Yeah, they make me kinda’ nervous being around here,” Jane confessed.
“You gotta’ be kidding me,” stated Gina. “Jane, this is a freakin’ compound. We practically have armed guards all around us. What could you possibly be worried about?’
“I don’t know,” Jane opined. “Maybe it’s not that… It’s not the security… Maybe it’s the first time I ever felt.. I don’t know.. really guilty about how rich we are.. I mean, you gotta’ admit, they are a bit over the top.”
Charlotte smiled as she looked at Jane, admiring her sense of humanity.
“How do you feel about that, Gina?” she asked.
“Fuck that, I love em.’ I’m keeping mine forever,” Gina responded.
Charlotte raised her margarita in a toast to that notion. Then she got up and went over to the counter to freshen up her drink. After she returned to the table, she lit up a cigarette, then announced to the two of them that she was going upstairs to her room to make a couple of phone calls. Her suspicious comments about Kathy, however, was something that Jane could not forget.
Tuning out Gina’s words for the next several seconds, Jane stared at Charlotte as she walked away.
Something wasn’t right, she thought to herself.
It just might be time to play a little detective work.
And that was a role Jane loved to play.