I moved to walk away.
“It smells like boy feets in here,” she said as she set a large pot on the hob.
“Ah. Right.” Honesty was an admirable quality in a homemaker. “I suppose you got here in the nick of time.”
She sniffed again. “My children watched you when they grow up. That space show.” She looked me up and down. “You were chubby funny one.”
Her kids must be grown now too. Probably close to my age. That space show she referred to wasTerraFormative,part of a multi-billion-dollar franchise based on the science fiction books written by G.S. Sedar. The series followed three children through adolescence upon a spaceship adrift in space, looking for a new Earth. Eight solid years of my adolescence I was Freddy Finks, chubby comic relief of the Intrepid Trio. My real-life best friends Emma Flynn and Harrison Evans played my two closest comrades in trouble, Lucy Lennon and Adam Abbott, respectively.
Almost twenty years ago, over in the blink of an eye to most, and yet the thing that would always define me. I was used to these types of conversations. I kept my face blank.
“Freddy.” I dropped my arm before I could scratch the back of my neck again. “Yep. That was me.”
“Skinny Charlie is not so funny. You eat more. You be funny. Funny man gets wife. Or husband,” she added. “I’m modern woman. I understand.”
“Good. Right. I’ll keep that in mind.” I was hardly skinny. As I’d aged, my notable baby fat had melted off my face, but I would always be described as sturdily built—now with defined cheekbones.
Her gaze narrowed on me. “Soup will be ready in one hour. Come back. Have bread too.”
“I try not to eat carbs—”
“You eat the bread.”
I swallowed before I nodded, afraid to do anything but agree.
“Well, I better get back to my office to …”
To pretend to work.I finished in my head.
She paused from taking inventory of my cabinets to give me another sharp nod.
I slunk off to my unused office. I didn’t really work. Hadn’t really needed to in the ten years since the show wrapped. I’d been sober three of those years thanks to therapy and rehab. My only job now was to ensure I stayed on track and didn’t put the people who cared about me at risk for bystander humiliation. Each day, I spent about an hour responding to fan mail, but even that had dwindled down considerably over the years. That, reading, and working out occupied most of my time.
Maybe it wasn’t an exciting existence, but it was a safe one.
It was Emma who insisted I bring in help now that I had gotten most of my life back in order. Emma was all about goals and motivations and life purpose. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that simply making it day to day took so much emotional toll, there wasn’t much room for anything else. I would get back there eventually, but right now, I lived tucked away safely at my home in Devon.
After rehab, I moved away from the temptations of London and bought a former vicarage. The plan was to eventually modernize the estate, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. AA didn’t recommend too many major life changes once sober, so I’d been waiting until I felt secure. Sobriety had taken more focus than I had anticipated. Employing Agata felt like a step in the right direction, another level of accountability.
It was almost time for my monthly meeting with Emma and Harrison. Their schedules were far more packed than mine, but we at least tried to arrange monthly video chats. I had dubbed those first few meetings as “proof of life,” but I think seeing my face reassured Emma as much as it did me.
It was five minutes until our appointed time when they both texted to say they couldn’t make the call today. Emma had got caught up in the details of arranging clean water for a town in a developing country and Harrison was working on a film bound to land him another Oscar nod. And here I was, doing absolutely nothing except getting bullied by my new homemaker.
I let out a long sigh. They weren’t my keepers; they had busy lives, but this wasn’t the first time I felt stuck in limbo because of my actions as the world blurred by.
I opened a tab on the internet when a wave of something crashed over me. Boredom? Listlessness? Loneliness? I fought hard to keep the indescribable emotion from pulling me under. One thing about sobriety that I wasn’t prepared for was how both crucial and yet mind-numbingly boring routine would be in my life. It was better than the alternative: waking up without knowing whose bed I was in … or what country, for that matter. This was a slow and tedious process to feel secure in myself, but how many months of monotony stretched ahead? Every day safe, but uneventful?
Agata hit the mark when she made the comment about my getting a wife. At least, she recognized my restlessness. I was lonely, but that was a whole other aspect of moderation I wasn’t ready to tackle yet. Without my two best friends, who I was lucky to still have, I didn’t really have anybody else to talk to. I could call my sponsor, but I didn’t want a drink. I just wanted … I didn’t know, someone to talk to.
God, how pathetic.
Poor rich child star, all alone in his big country house with all his money.
I sighed again loudly and did the thing I told myself I wouldn’t do any more.Oneof the things. Because what else does a retired child star do when amid a pity party? They googled themselves.
The articles about me had slowed down in the years since rehab. My publicity team had done a great job of keeping press to a minimum. The top results were old articles about England’s biggest “glow up,” whatever that meant. All the links led to “articles” that included countless GIFs and JPEGs of shirtless photos taken in the past few years, side by side with chubby Freddy bulging out of hisTerraFormativeflight suit.
I rested my chin in my palm as I lazily scrolled. Bored. This was pathetic. I should just close out the browser to go workout or something.
