SATURDAY, AUGUST 29th 1987
brandy's point of view
it was around 10 o'clock at night when the phone ringing on my nightstand snapped me out of my concentration on the tv.
"brandy, it's michael." my manager's voice came through the other end of the call.
"hi."
"where are you right now?" he sounded flustered.
"what'd i do this time?" i sighed, recognizing the annoyance in his voice.
"nothing- are you home?"
"yeah, i'm home. why?"
"i just got a call from the set of license to drive. is there any reason jason would want to brutally beat up greg?"
my stomach dropped, "what?"
"greg! the director! he was in his office when apparently jason came in and attacked him. i'm on my way over there now."
"um no- i-"
"i wanted to know if you were with jason because i guess he ran out of there like a half hour ago."
"no, i'm not. i can try to call him if you want."
"sure. brandy ... this is bad. very bad. if you have anything you needa tell me that could help jason in this situation, i suggest you tell me now."
"listen, i don't know. i think you should go find out exactly what happened and then tell me, alright?"
"okay i've gotta go." he hung up.
i quickly turned on my bed and dialed jason's number. it rang for awhile and i was almost certain he wasn't gonna pick up until i heard him say hello.
"what the hell were you thinking!"
jason sighed, "who told you?"
"michael, just now! what did you do to him?"
"brandy, i'm sorry. i know it's not my place. and i don't have anything to do with the involvement of you and greg besides the fact that i can hate him a fuck ton, but i just couldn't help it. i was driving around and ended up by the set where you guys film and my anger just exploded."
"how bad is it? i mean, does he look like he accidentally ran into the wall or does he look absolutely mangled?"
"that's a gross word to use." jason avoided the subject.
"just tell me!"
"i'm icing my hand right now so ... pretty bad, yeah."
i closed my eyes and shook my head, "greg's a liar and very manipulative. i can't see this ending well, i think you should flee the country."
"brandy, calm down. i'm gonna be fine, don't you worry about me."
"but i am worried about you!"
"whatever happens, happens. i'm just happy i got to punch his face in. like you said, he's gonna get what's coming to him and trust me, that son of a bitch did."
"this puts me in an awkward position because i don't know if i should be mad at you or thanking you for what you did." i gnawed on my bottom lip anxiously.
jason chuckled, "you can do both."
"make sure your hand is okay and call me if you need me to bail you out please."
"brandy, i'm not gonna be in jail-" i ended the call, cutting off his words. i sighed and flopped backwards on my bed not knowing what to think of this whole situation, let alone this whole day.
my mind immediately went to a dumb resolution and i grabbed one of the small white pills from the plastic baggy i kept hidden in one of my dresser drawers.
for the next forty five minutes i tried to distract myself by doing absolutely anything. i put laundry away, flipped through various channels on the tv, snuck downstairs and stole a bottle of alcohol, and stared at my ceiling until i didn't know what my life even meant anymore.
my phone rang again and i let out a dramatic groan. i didn't wanna hear anymore bad news tonight but then i told myself, how much worse can it really get?
"hello?" i mumbled into the phone.
"it's michael again."
"did you find out how it went down?"
"yeah we watched security cameras and i talked to some of the other people who were still there tonight in the offices."
"what'd they say?"
i heard him sigh, "lots of things i didn't wanna hear to put it in simplest terms. is your aunt home and or awake?"
i furrowed my eyebrows, "why do you need to talk to her?"
"is she there?"
"yeah, she's here but why?"
"brandy, just let me talk to her please."
i persisted on knowing why because he wouldn't need to talk to my aunt if this didn't involve me, which it didn't ... or at least he didn't know it involved me. my stomach dropped as i made sense of why he wanted to talk to her.
"give her the phone, sweetheart."
so much for telling myself tonight couldn't get any worse.
YOU ARE READING
𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐚 𝐞𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 , 𝟖𝟎𝐬
Science Fiction"what are you saying? the year is 1987, how hard did you hit your head?" [in which a teenage girl from 2018 wakes up as a troubled 1980s child star and finds herself becoming friends with famous actors from that time. it is almost a dream to be abl...
