Rachel Gibson: Nothing But Trouble

Especially not one cranky, oversized, overbearing hockey player with a mean streak and a huge chip on his equally huge shoulder.

“This is great, Chels. Thanks.”

Chelsea glanced up from her plate of spaghetti and looked across the table at her sister Bo. The meal wasn’t great. It was Prego. “I’m a gourmet cooker.”

“It’s better than Mom’s.”

The sisters shuddered. “She never drains the grease off anything.”

“Flavors the sauce,” Bo quoted their mother as she lifted her merlot. “Cheers.”

“What are we toasting?” Chelsea reached for her glass. “My skills at opening a jar?”

“That and your new job.”

Except for the hair color, looking at Bo was like looking into a mirror. Same blue eyes, small nose, and full mouth. Same small bones and big boobs. It was as if the Olsen twins had gone out and bought sets of matching stripper boobs. Only the reality of being built like their mother wasn’t quite so glamorous. The reality was that they’d been born to suffer backaches and shoulder pain. By forty, they were doomed to start saggin’ and draggin’.

Bo touched her glass to Chelsea’s. “Here’s to lasting longer than the other home care workers.”

Chelsea was the older of the two, by five minutes, but Bo was the more mature. Or so everyone always pointed out. “I’ll last longer.” She wanted that ten grand, but she didn’t want to tell her sister what she planned to do with the money. The last time she’d brought up the subject of breast reduction, the whole family had flipped out. They’d accused her of being impulsive, and while that was occasionally true, she’d been thinking about getting a reduction for years. “He may have questioned my intelligence and disrespected my Pucci, but I’ve worked for a lot of jerks and I know how to win him over with my charming personality. I’ll just smile and kill him with kindness. I’m an actress. No sweat.” She took a drink, then set the glass on the table. “Although he must have a few brain cells out of whack, because who doesn’t love Pucci?”

Bo raised her hand.

“You don’t count.” Chelsea twirled spaghetti on the tines of her fork. “You’re afraid of color, and Mark Bressler doesn’t count because he’s too big a jerk to appreciate the artistry of designer clothes.” Bo’s apartment was a lot like Bo. Stark and minimalist. There were a few ink sketches above the black-and-white-striped sofa. She had a few dusty silk ferns, but no real splashes of color anywhere.

“He’s a hockey player.” Bo shrugged and took a bite. “Elite hockey players are arrogant and rude.” After she chewed, she added, “Although whenever I worked with Mark, he wasn’t bad. At least not like some of them can be. Before his accident, we were doing a big media push using him and some of the other players, and he was relatively nice. Sure we locked horns, but he eventually listened to reason. He didn’t balk at taking his shirt off.” She smiled and held up one hand. “The guy had an eight-pack. I. Swear. To. God.”

Chelsea thought of the man walking slowly up the sidewalk toward her, leaning on his cane, looking anything but weak. Everything about him radiated strength and darkness. Eyes, hair, energy. A dangerous archetype. Like Hugh Jackman in X-Men, minus the claws, facial hair, and superpowers. Not to be confused with the Hugh Jackman who’d hosted the Oscars and sang and danced. She just could not picture Mark Bressler busting out in song. “How bad was his accident?”

“No one in aftercare told you?”

“Some.” Chelsea shrugged and took a bite of garlic bread. “They gave me a folder with his schedule and some info in it.”

“And you didn’t read it?”

“Glanced at it.”

Bo’s eyes rounded. “Chelsea!”

“What? I saw that he has a physical therapist come to the house twice a week, and I was going to read the rest tomorrow. I never read everything till the night before. It keeps it fresh in my head.”

“That was always your excuse in high school. It was a wonder you even graduated.”

She pointed her bread at her sister. “What happened to Bressler?”

“Last January he hit some black ice on the 520 bridge. His Hummer rolled three times.” Bo took a drink of her wine. “It was horrible. The big SUV looked like it had been compacted. No one thought he was going to live.”

“Is he…” Chelsea tapped her finger to her temple. “…a few fries short of a Happy Meal?” That might explain his rude behavior and dislike of her Pucci.

“I’m not sure how he is mentally.”

“I knew a makeup artist who worked on the set of The Young and the Rest-less. After she took a header off a balcony, she was never the same. It was like she didn’t have a filter anymore and everything that ran through her head spilled out of her mouth. She told one of the directors that he had shit for brains.” Chelsea finished her bread and added, “It was pretty much true, but she got fired anyway.”

“I thought you were an extra on The Bold and the Beautiful.”

“That was last month. I worked on The Young and the Restless about three years ago.” She shrugged. “I played a bar hag and I wore a tank top and a pair of Daisy Dukes. My line was, ‘Wanna buy a girl a drink?’” She’d hoped that that one brilliantly delivered sentence would evolve into a permanent role, but of course it hadn’t happened.

“I have Slasher Camp,” Bo said through a smile. “We can fast-forward to your scene and watch it over and over.”

Chelsea laughed. She’d been the first slut to get axed, literally, in the B-movie. “I think that was my best scream ever.”

“I thought your best scream was in Killer Valentine.”

“That was a good one too.” Again, she’d been the first slut to get killed off. That time with a dagger in her heart.

“Mom hates the horror movies.”

Chelsea reached for her wine and looked across at the good, successful twin. “Mom hates most things about me.”

“No, she doesn’t. She hates seeing you seminude and covered in blood. She just worries about you.”

This was yet another conversation that Chelsea didn’t want to have. Mostly because it always ended the same. Bo feeling bad because everyone thought Chelsea was a fuckup. Impulsive and rash, but in a family full of aggressive overachievers, someone had to be the bottom bear on the totem pole. “Tell me more about Bressler,” she said, purposely changing the subject.

Bo stood and grabbed her empty plate and glass. “He’s divorced.”

Chelsea probably could have guessed that one. She stood and drained her wine. “Kids?”

“No.”

She reached for her plate and followed her sister into the kitchen. “He was the captain. Right?”

“For about the past six years.” Bo set her dishes in the sink and looked over her shoulder at Chelsea. “He had some of the highest stats in the NHL, and if he’d played in the winning game last night, he would have won MVP.” She turned on the water and rinsed her plate. “The day after the accident, the whole organization was in turmoil. Absolute chaos. Everyone was worried about Mark, but they were also worried about the team and what the loss of the captain meant to the Chinooks’ chances at winning the cup. The late Mr. Duffy moved quickly and signed Ty Savage. Everyone was shocked at how well it all worked out. Savage stepped in and did an awesome job of filling Mark’s shoes. Or skates, rather. Mark didn’t have to worry about anything but getting better.”

Chelsea had been at the winning game the night before with Bo and Jules Garcia, Mrs. Duffy’s assistant and a dead ringer for Mario Lopez. The Mario when he guest-starred on Nip/Tuck. Not the Mario of Saved by the Bell.