I’ll admit, up until recently, I had been pining for Dex. Not in some lovey-dovey way but I certainly felt myself grow more attracted to him over the three days we spent together. I guess there’s a lot to be said for those situations where epic circumstances bring complete strangers together. That’s pretty much what happened to us, well to me, anyway. But after some time and distance between us, he didn’t occupy my thoughts in quite the same way.
That’s probably because I had more important things on my mind. When Dex’s boss/partner at Shownet, Jimmy Kwan, agreed to let us have our show, he made it very clear that I would have to be available for shooting between Thursday and Monday night, the pay wouldn’t be very good, and I most likely needed a job on the side.
The thing is, I had a job. In fact, I had been promoted recently, which actually excited me (I had worked at the advertising agency for over a year and there was nary a hint that I would ever move up from receptionist). However, with the new shooting schedule, I would have to get the agency to let me work part-time.
I was cautiously optimistic that not only would they let me work Tuesday to Thursday, but that they would allow me to keep my promotion. That said, I didn’t end up saying a word to my boss about this whole scenario until Friday.
It didn’t go down very well. I got fired.
Apparently, my boss took my request as a form of ungratefulness. That wasn’t the case, of course, but what else was I supposed to do? Well, I guess I could have said no to the low-paying gamble of an internet show and yes to a proper career and money. Leave it to me to the do the most selfish and irresponsible thing.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been dealing with lately. I spent the whole weekend in a state of catatonic shock, barely getting out of bed. It’s ironic because I had dreamt about the day I could say goodbye to my job and now that it actually happened, I was completely horrified. Granted, I had always prayed that I would be let go in some massive layoff so I could spend my days in total freedom while receiving unemployment pay. But instead I got myself fired. It was humiliating, devastating and 100% my fault, which made it that much harder.
Thankfully, the only person who knew about my predicament was my sister Ada. My parents would eventually find out but I wanted to keep that from happening for as long as possible.
All of this made tonight’s show even more important. I hoped it would be just good enough so my parents would have some faith in the project and faith in me. That way when it came time to tell them about how I got fired they wouldn’t see me as such a hopeless case. Maybe they would both magically think that this show held the key to my future success and financial independence. I knew that was asking a lot, especially since I didn’t really believe it myself. In three weeks I went from thinking my life was finally going somewhere, to cursing myself for gambling on something so…silly.
“Things will be fine,” Ada said, placing her hand on my shoulder. I jumped out of my daydream (again) and looked down at her small hands, her nails impeccably manicured for a 15-year old. I appreciated the irony that a high school student was telling her older sister that everything would be OK. Of course she would think that. Ada was a gorgeous, skinny, popular 10th grader with a successful fashion blog and the world on a platter. I was her 22-year old loser sister who just lost her job due to her own immaturity.
I swallowed hard, trying to hide the bitterness somewhere deep inside, and gave her a meek smile. “You promise?”
She nodded confidently just as my parents entered the room.
As predicted, my father produced a giant bowl of popcorn.
“Did we miss anything?” he asked, peering at the computer screen through his thick glasses.
I shook my head, the nervousness threatening to swallow me whole. Normally I got nervous about the smallest things (like calling to order pizza), which I blamed on some unchecked anxiety problem. Now that I actually had reason to be nervous, I started getting dizzy. I could feel the suffocating reaches of a mild panic attack slinking around at the corners of my mind.
My dad pulled out my desk chair and my mother awkwardly sat down on my bean bag chair. She smiled at me wearily. I could tell she didn’t have as much stock in the show as I had originally hoped.
My dad passed the bowl of popcorn to me.
“Eat, you look like you’re going to pass out,” he ordered.
I reluctantly popped a handful into my mouth and glanced at the clock on the computer. The big hand ticked over to 7PM. It was go time.
I took a deep breath, almost chocked on a leftover popcorn kernel, leaned over and pressed refresh on my browser. I quickly sat back and covered my eyes with my hand.
“Oh my God, I can’t watch this,” I muttered, peeking out through my fingers, as if that was going to shield me from possible embarrassment.
“That’s why we’re here honey, to watch it for you,” my mother said from down on the floor.
I peered at the screen. It was all black with creepy keyboard and guitar sounds coming faintly from the speakers. The words “Experiment in Terror” flashed across the screen.
I laughed. “Experiment in Terror? That’s an old Blake Edwards movie.”
I shook my head at the lack of originality even though it actually was quite fitting. It figured Dex would come up with a hokey name like that.
“Hope you’re not going to get sued now,” my father said.
“You can’t copyright titles dad,” I hushed him.
Beneath the title, the words “The Darkhouse” appeared.
“Darkhorse?” asked my mom, squinting.
“Darkhouse. Like the opposite of a lighthouse,” I offered, though again, this was all Dex’s doing.
The words faded from view and a wavering, hazy image of the lighthouse appeared. A growling, rough voice came through. It took me a few seconds to realize it was Dex’s voice, albeit a bit lower than usual. I had only heard his voice once in the last few weeks. It still took me by surprise that it belonged to a somewhat short, thin, scruffy man instead of a tall, hulking behemoth.
“At the turn of the century the Oregon Coast was a busy cornucopia of merchant vessels, ships and boats which plied the waters heading for lands both near and far,” Dex narrated. I cringed at the sloppy writing and wondered why I hadn’t been asked to whip something up. If I had known he was going to narrate the episode I would have insisted.
“Did you find some old sailor to do the voiceover?” my mother asked.