“This is a strong start for the Sexpectations eBook cover Shelby, but it needs to be sexier,” Vivienne tells me over Zoom late Friday afternoon.
Today she’s dressed in a bright turquoise curve-hugging velour tracksuit. She and her partner Matthias live in a lovely condo above Santa Monica’s popular Third Street Promenade, not far from my parents’ house. This is one of her Friday afternoon outfits. She and her partner like to go to an early evening movie before the crowds arrive.
“Sexier?” I deflate. I thought what I’d put together was pretty hot. Not in a graphic way, but the colors and the text are flirty and fun and match the website’s look and feel.
“I’m not totally on fire about it the way I am with all of the graphics you’ve done for my website,” Vivienne shares, “and I want to be.”
As I listen to her, I’m taking notes. I doodle a little flame in the margins next to the word ‘sexier’ with several exclamation points.
“Okay,” I nod, trying to sound more confident than I am.
“This eBook has to sing for both of us,” Vivienne says encouragingly, “I need you to tap into your inner sex goddess to make the cover sizzle.”
“I don’t think I have an inner sex goddess,” I admit, drawing a bigger dancing flame next to the first one. It’s starting to look like the fire demon Calcifer from my Howl’s Moving Castle coloring page. That’s probably not quite what she’s looking for.
“Anyone who’s seen you shake your groove thang on the dance floor will beg to differ,” Vivienne chuckles.
“That’s the only place she appears,” I lament.
“Only because you haven’t invited her into other places in your life yet,” Vivienne says, in her most metaphysical way, “How are you coming along with your own Sexpectations homework and imagineering?”
“I’ve started to write a few things down that I’m proud of,” I say, feeling my face heat. This is true, but I’ve only had the nerve to answer one more question, “As far as imagineering goes, that’s proving a bit more challenging with Rune popping in all the time.”
“Take your time. Baby steps are valuable,” Vivienne encourages, “How’s your new coloring page and your Horse Girl project coming along?”
“Better than my homework!” I say enthusiastically, happy to be on an easier subject, “I’m warming up to the idea of a day planner, and people are responding well to my drawing Rune as Wizard Howl. I’m doing my best to finish the entire draft sketch this weekend.”
“I’d love to see where you’re at if you’re game,” Vivienne tells me, “I bet Marilyn and Naomi would too.”
“Really? I guess Rune won’t mind…” I say as I send her an email with the coloring page attached. Secretly, I’m delighted that Vivienne wants to share my rough sketch with her publicists. I hold my breath as she opens her email.
“Shelby, you’ve outdone yourself!” She says, “This is fantastic. All these cool characters and Rune with his long hair looking as hot as he did as Gregg Allman.”
“I’m glad you think so,” I say, thrilled and flattered.
“I know you have the real man next door, but did you go back and watch The Troubadour Tales again for inspiration?”
“No, I had a hard enough time sitting through it once.”
“Back when you were mad at him?” Vivienne laughs.
“Exactly.”
“You should go back and watch it again. I just did.”
“Why? Are you such a student of the 70s L.A. rock scene?” I ask, surprised.
“Neither. I love soul music, and the Allman Brothers had a lot of it. They also had a black drummer way before interracial bands were much of a thing,” she tells me, which I didn’t know, “but mostly, I watched it again because Naomi and Marilyn are worried about Rune.”
“They are?” I ask, uncomfortably remembering Rune’s reaction to Scott Treadman and having a last-minute trip this weekend.
“Since they know I know him through you, his longtime childhood friend, they’ve shared that they don’t understand why he threw his acting career away after such an amazing performance. He morphs into Allman. It’s uncanny. I can’t believe it didn’t get an Emmy.”
“I don’t think he intentionally threw it away,” I say carefully, “at least that’s not what he told me.”
“Oh?”
“Please don’t say anything to them, not yet, but I think something bad happened to him,” I say, happy to share my growing worry and thinking about Rune’s comment yesterday that he’s cursed.
“Why do you say that?” Vivienne looks concerned.
“Rune says he’s tired of acting but also told me he got fired for taking a leave of absence from a film when his mom was dying. After that, all his offers for roles dried up.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Wow, really?” Alarm registers on Vivienne’s lovely face, “I wonder why he hasn’t told Marilyn and Naomi his side of things.”
“I do, too,” I say, “but right now, he’s telling me to keep my nose out of it,” I admit.
“Okay, well, let’s honor his wishes,” Vivienne says, nodding, but adds, “In the meantime, watch The Troubadour Tales this long weekend and get inspired for some imagineering. I think that’ll help with the eBook cover. And try this, don’t think of Rune as Rune; think of him as his sexy acting persona, Asher Dillion.”
“That’s my homework assignment?” I laugh, feeling challenged, but I think this approach might help.
“Yes, and some dancing!”
As soon as we hang up, I try to look at the draft eBook cover without my ego involved. On a hot pink background, it’s a series of hand-drawn pen and ink bubbles floating up from a Champaign bottle at the bottom left-hand corner. The bubbles also float around a whimsically fun font for the title Sexpectations: How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Bed.
Vivienne’s right; it’s not there yet. What does this eBook need?
Nothing comes to mind. Theo’s on radio silence. I miss his feedback and I’m brain-dead. Sitting here longer isn’t going to get me where I want to go; I’ve been at it for hours. I already took Butterscotch for a walk earlier. Maybe Vivienne’s right. Maybe it is time to dance myself into a better place.
**
After dinner and putting Butterscotch to bed, I make my way upstairs. I’m carrying my laptop and stems of rosemary and red cedar leaves from the backyard that I’ve made into a little bundle.
I’ve been slowly moving into Theo and Reuben’s bedroom, but I haven’t slept in here yet. I take a deep breath as I walk into the expansive room. My whole apartment in Santa Monica (the one I shared with a friend from High School) could fit inside here. Having this much space for myself is exciting but daunting.
It’s also an undeniably masculine room. The furniture is sleek, light Scandinavian wood; the art on the walls, the lamps, and the area rug covering a good portion of the hardwood floor are all done in shades of blues and greens, most of them dark. The duvet on the king-size bed looks like the ocean, vast and dark.
As I open the French doors on the back wall to let fresh air into the still-stuffy room, I realize this might seem silly to anyone else. After all, I’ve had run of this big old house for six months now. But that doesn’t intimidate me the way this room does. I know I share ownership of the house with Sydney. But this room will be just mine, and it feels too large and too male.
The doors lead onto a narrow balcony overlooking the back deck. Beyond it is the small orchard, the expansive meadow behind it, and then the thicket of fir trees that edge the back of the property. There are two Adirondack chairs out here. Once I find some good cushions for them they’ll be a great place to sit and read.
How will I make all of this space my own? How can I give it a more colorful feminine twist on my tight budget?
I set my laptop on the long, low, modern chest of drawers next to a terracotta saucer I brought in from the potting shed yesterday. I light the loose end of my rosemary and cedar bundle, enough so a thin line of smoke drifts up. I lay it down carefully on the saucer to make sure it doesn’t burn the wood.
Marguerite gave me the idea of making this bundle and doing some smudging when I admitted to her how hard it was for me to move into this room. The burning of cedar, she told me, according to indigenous wisdom, is to help bring in good energy and chase out any negative. The rosemary is for clarity. I certainly need help with both.
I pull up one of my favorite Shamanic DJ Deep House sets on my laptop. Before I start the music, I step out of my slippers and pull off my socks. I want to feel the nubby texture of the bold geometric area rug beneath my feet.
My intentions as I dance are to allow myself to be more at home in this room, and to bring myself back into my body to help unlock my stalled creativity.
Not only do I need inspiration for Vivienne’s eBook cover, but I’ve also reached a stumbling block on my Howl’s Moving Castle illustration. I can’t quite get the right expression on Rune’s face as I was able to do in the larger detailed sketch of him.
I hit play. Drums and other percussion instruments start things off with a tantalizing swinging rhythm. Next come whistles that sound like bird calls, echoing each other. A low thrumming builds. Strings add shimmer. Each new instrument builds layers of interesting texture over the previous one.
I purposefully picked one of the sexiest sets I’ve ever found for today’s experiment. My routine starts very simply, with some shaking and swaying that I’ve learned from Qigong videos online.
The rhythm’s hypnotic. I shake and sway, take deep breaths, and let them out more slowly. I acknowledge how much tension has built up in my neck, shoulders, and back from sitting too much. Finally, the flutes come in with their lyrical yearning, and the beat kicks up. I begin by swinging my arms, then swaying my hips, and slowly put my whole body into moving, starting to do moves and steps I learned in years and years of jazz and hip-hop.
According to my phone, I dance for a solid forty minutes. Sweat isn’t dripping when I stop, but my heart’s pounding, and my body is much looser and more relaxed.
While running a bath complete with Epsom salts, I put my laptop on a bed desk I used to serve Theo his meals on. If I’m going to watch The Troubadour Tales I want to be comfortable while I do so.
On the streaming platform that's hosting the show, for each of the six episodes, there are alluring promo images of Rune and Cindy Gonzales, the actress who played Cher. The two are resplendent in 70s rock and roll wardrobes.
Intrigued, I look up the show’s own website. Here there are even more images of Rune and Cindy as Allman and Cher. I Google “Gregg Allman and Cher,” and find out that these promo images are almost exact replicas of famous images of the real duo wearing tight-fitting leather, velvet, and denim. Rune must have been in his element. He should have been born at a time when men were dressed as elaborately, or even more so, than women.
If these are some of the costume people Rune’s been reaching out to, I understand now why he was so fussy about how our photos turned out. It’s working; two of the people he’s contacted wanted more images emailed to them and a detailed description of everything I have available. Rune was very impressed I already had the information ready.
Good grief, the original Cher and Gregg were gorgeous together. Both were tall and gray hound slender, with long manes of shiny straight 70s hair, hers black, his light blond.
Interestingly, Allman never seems quite at ease when looking at the camera in paparazzi images. Most often, it’s obvious his heart isn’t into it. When I look back at The Troubadour images, I see Rune has mimicked that same slightly uncomfortable look.
Allman’s smile only becomes genuine when he’s gazing at Cher, and the photographer has caught him unaware. In contrast, Cher beams as fearlessly for the camera head-on as she does for Gregg in private moments.
I ponder this as I slip into my rose-scented bath. I can’t remember anyone ever looking at me with that sort of adoring gaze.
That’s not true, is it? Theo asks.
No, I admit, only after I’ve immersed my head to wet my hair. Rune used to look at me like that. Not romantically; of course, we were kids.
Is Vivienne enough of a witch that she can sense that? Is that why she wants me to imagineer a fulfilling sex life around my former childhood bestie?