four character sketches

A recent fascination of mine has been reality tv—from Vanderpump Rules to Love Island and back again to Bravo for the Real Housewives franchises, I’ve gotten my fill of reality tv drama over the last few years. So here’s a silly start to September, four character sketches smushing together bits and pieces of reality drama with my own imagination and an extra dash of absurdity.

Enjoy!

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Dottie

Dottie had moved to California with the intention of becoming a serious journalist, maybe settle in San Francisco and work for the Chronicle—a very serious journalistic life in a beautiful city with a beautiful man, maybe also from the Chronicle (who knew?) and they would take on the burning world together.

Somehow, though, Dottie found herself working for an online gossip column in West Hollywood following the lives of B-listers. She found she was strangely drawn to this less serious side of life, and though she didn’t want to admit it, she enjoyed it. The nightlife, the parties, the fashion, the sheer frivolity of it all. Her on-hand excuse was that it would be experience for when she was ready for a serious role. Maybe when she sobered up, when the party was over, she would know when it was time to get out…wouldn’t she?

Lily

Lily had slept her way to the top and that’s where she intended to stay, scandal or no. Twenty-six years old and married to millions. Who wouldn’t want this life? Sure, her husband was kind of a dud and things were getting messy, but this is the life she had worked for—and it was work. Keeping up with socials, distracting the rumor mill, being seen at the right place at the right time with the right people—that’s work. Sometimes she thought about her family dog growing up, Murphy. A sweet golden retriever, always loyally slobbering alongside whoever was closest to him. She thought about the town she grew up in and, on her darkest days, wondered if it would have been better to stay.

Eh, she thought, losers, all of them. She had everything now, and she would do whatever it took to keep it.

Jack Morton

Mr. Morton needed a new pair of shoes. So, Mr. Morton got a new pair of shoes. Mr. Morton needed a new car, so Mr. Morton bought a Bentley. Mr. Morton decided he needed a new wife, so Mr. Morton bought a 26-year-old Hollywood wannabe a BBL and a boob job, and poof!, Mr. Morton had a new wife.

Gina, bless her heart, was there for it all.

Gina

Gina had been Mr. Morton’s housekeeper for the better part of a decade. A mother to now-adult children in her mid-fifties, Gina had an unassuming aura that put the Hollywood almost-elite at ease. No one really batted an eye when she was found dusting the baseboards just outside Mr. Morton’s study as he vehemently argued with a business partner. No one fretted when she washed Mr. Morton’s clothes with lipstick on the collar—it was most certainly not the lipstick his wife used. No one mustered even a shrug of the shoulders when she overheard whispered promises or one side of a salacious phone conversation.

So no one clocked Gina when Jack Morton’s affair leaked on the WeHo Whistler or when his schemey music empire began to crumble.

It was as though she had never even been there at all.

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I hope these character sketches added a little levity (and a bit of scandal!) to your day.

(queue Gossip Girl’s voice)

xoxo,

E.B.