Shane and Carmen: The Novelization Ch. 11

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Busted.
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Part 11 of the 30 part series

Updated 08/30/2017
Created 12/16/2014
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Chapter 11: Busted

Dana insisted that the limo take Carmen, Jenny and Shane back to Jenny and Shane's house before it dropped them off. The girls thanked Dana profusely for a great vacation cruise, and then went inside. They found Mark standing on a stepladder in a corner of the living room, taking down one of his spy cameras, only they didn't know that's what it was.

"Hey," Shane said to Mark, setting her suitcase down by the couch.

"Hey," Mark replied with a sheepish grin. He climbed down off the stepladder as Carmen came in the door.

"Um, I'm just gonna get my keys," she said.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked Mark.

Shane walked to the dining room table where she saw a handful of small objects that looked like industrial cameras and a pile of video tapes.

"What are those?" Shane asked, pointing to the cameras.

"They're cameras," Mark said.

"What are all the tapes?" Carmen asked.

"There's something that I need to show you, and, um ... and then, after that, I don't know," Mark said.

Jenny walked into the dining room and looked at the pile of tapes.

"You'll probably want me out of here," Mark said. "It's going to take me a day or two to get my stuff, but ---"

"What's going on, Mark?" Shane asked sharply, which was unusual for her.

"I just finished taking down the last of the cameras. I pretty much had them all over the house. Um. Jenny saw ... a tape I'd made of the two of you--" He spoke to Shane and glanced at Carmen.

Jenny looked up at him, anger on her face.

Carmen began to understand. She put a hand on her forehead and stared at the floor, thinking about what might have been on those tapes. "Oh, shit," she murmured. How many times and places had she and Jenny fucked in the kitchen, dining room, living room? And then the conversation with Shane ... . Double oh shit.

Shane stared at the tapes and cameras in disbelief.

"--but she didn't want to tell you because she didn't want to ruin your vacation," he said lamely, trying to defend Jenny with the indefensible.

Jenny looked over the tapes briefly until she found the one she wanted. She took it to Carmen, who took it but couldn't look Jenny in the eye. Jenny walked down the hall to her room.

Carmen read the tape label. It said "SHANE/CARMEN LOVE CONFESSION." Carmen looked at Mark. She walked up to him and smashed the tape into his chest, then walked off to find Jenny.

Shane stood still, fighting the roaring noise in her head. She stared at the tapes and cameras, still processing the ten thousand implications and pieces of data streaming in from her past, her present and her future. Mark hung his head, and set down the love confession tape Carmen had slammed into his chest.

***

Carmen entered Jenny's room without knocking. She couldn't read Jenny's expression, but it seemed to contain elements of anger and hurt. She glared at Carmen and then glanced away.

"Jenny, wait a minute," Carmen pleaded. "Listen to me. If you ... if you heard this tape, this conversation, then you know exactly what I said, and I said that it is fun and easy to be with you, that I want to make it work with you."

Jenny suddenly seemed to relent. "It's okay ... that we're not meant to be together. And I know that the only reason why you're with me is because you wanted to be near Shane."

"That is bullshit, Jenny," Carmen said forcefully, but it had no effect. For once, it was Carmen who was deluding only herself. It was Jenny, for once, who saw things clearly. She walked up to Carmen with a sad smile, took Carmen's hands and clasped them to her own chest.

"Shane is my best friend. And I don't wanna fuck it up. Okay?"

"I ... what ... what does that mean?"

"It means that she loves you and you love her, and the two of you need to be together. And it means that if she's my best friend, then I want her happiness to come before anything else. That's why I want her to have you. I know you tried your very best, and I thank you for that. But I know where your hearts lie, even if you and Shane don't."

***

Shane sorted through the pile of tapes, picking up one here and there and reading the labels. Some of the labels read "CARMEN ON THE PHONE," "SHANE WITH FLOWER GIRL," "SHANE LATE EVENING," and "CARMEN COOKING," but most of the tapes seemed to be of Shane and only a few were of Jenny or Carmen. The more tapes she examined, the angrier she got.

She heard someone coming down the hall and turned to see Carmen, who stopped and stared at Shane, anger and pain in her eyes. Then Carmen turned away, picked up her suitcase, and left the house without looking back. Shane watched her go, feeling her heart sink even further. She turned back to the table full of tapes and saw Mark still standing in his corner, looking guilty. Shane picked up one of the tiny cameras and looked at it, then looked at Mark. He stared back with a pleading look. The heartbroken expression on Shane's face crushed him, and when he saw a tear run down her cheek and heard her sniffle, he nearly lost it himself.

She came over to him slowly, and he'd never seen anyone so sad, so hurt. He started to blink back his own tears, missing Shane's sudden movement as she cocked her right arm, and he finally saw the fist coming at him, too, too late. Shane clocked him one on the side of the chin, and he staggered and reeled. Shane turned, threw the tiny camera against the far wall, and bent over, sobbing. She collapsed onto the floor, crying her heart out.

***

Carmen's sweet face was on the TV monitor Shane had set up in her room, hooked to one of Mark's tape players.

"Hi. Me right here." Carmen cleared her throat. "I ... would make out with --"

Shane hit the fast-forward button.

Carmen again. "-- They can sometimes be a little sexy--"

Fast-forward. Shane watched her own face. "They're not scary, they're just stupid."

Carmen: "That's right, and stupid, Shane --"

Shane hit fast-forward. She saw her own face again as Mark's voice-over said, "Let me ask you this question, 'What are you looking for in a woman?' and Shane's response, "What are you looking for?"

***

It was a bad week for tears.

Jenny sat at the dining room table, cutting photos of herself out of old family photos as tears streamed down her face. She took one of the cut-out photos of her younger self and set it on a terrifying pencil rendering she'd drawn of a clown with its jaws open wide. The clown had huge, pointed teeth surrounding an opening slot in the paper where the mouth was. Jenny pushed the photo of her younger self through the opening so that it disappeared into the horror clown's gullet.

Jenny took a cut-out photo of two middle-aged Jews in Orthodox clothing, a man and woman, and put them in another pencil rendering of another horrific scene. This was a carnival at night, with a Ferris wheel looming in the distance. There was a large tent in the foreground. The tent was lit inside; there was a long table set with food. Jenny put the couple in the tent, by the table. She began to whisper the Sabbath blessing for the wine, in Hebrew.

"Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu Melech ha'olam. Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu Melech ha'olam." (Blessed are you, oh Lord our God, King of the universe.)

Jenny pushed a photo of herself into the open center of a crayoned drawing of a black body of water, ripples fanning out from the middle. The young Jenny sank from sight, drowned in a metaphorical Milton Bradley darkness.

"... Eloheinu ha'olam ... "

Jenny rocked back and forth, lost in the moment, in some black interior space inside herself.

" ... Borei pri hagafen." (... who creates the fruit of the vine.)

"Jen?" Shane stood in the dining room doorway.

Jenny stopped, looked up, wiped her tears away and smiled. "Hi."

Shane leaned against the doorway, watching her, looking worried. "What are you doing?"

Jenny looked at the table and started gathering the photos and drawings.

"Um ... I just keep on having ... these nightmares, and ... I'm just trying to work it all out."

"Well, can we talk for a second?"

"Yeah." Jenny looked at Shane.

"This is my home, Jenny. And, I don't know, it's for the first time, I ... I actually have a room of my own. That's a huge thing for me. And I'm sorry, I am, I am sorry about what you saw on that tape. But I like living with you. I love it. I think we have a great time."

Jenny smiled.

"All right? It's just -- I don't, I just don't want to lose it. I don't want to lose our friendship. It means too much to me."

"Yeah," Jenny agreed quietly, nodding.

They stared at each other a few moments.

"What are you going to do about Carmen?"

Shane looked at the floor, and shook her head.

"Nothing."

"I think the two of you should be together."

"What about you?

"I think, uh ... I think that it was a very important step for me, and now ... I'm on to other things," Jenny said.

"Is that why you've been pushing me and Carmen together?"

"No. That was because you're great together."

"I want to show you something," Shane said, waiting for Jenny to get up and follow her down the hall to her room.

Jenny saw that Shane had set up a monitor and one of Mark's tape decks to play a tape. They sat side-by-side on the edge of the bed and watched.

"I'm looking for a good time," Shane said on the tape.

"Come on. Really?" That was Mark's off-camera voice-over.

"Yeah. Why do you ask as if I'm not?"

"Because I want you to be truthful."

"I am," Shane said.

"'Kay," Mark said. The tape showed Shane poking the camera lens with a spoon. The scene changed to black-and-white mode, and showed Shane lying on her bed, holding a lit match, stoned. She pinched the flame between her fingers, snuffing it out. She scrunches up her face as smoke rises from her fingertips.

"What are you looking for?" Shane asks on the tape. The scene cut to an overhead view of Shane and a woman making out on the bed, Shane on the bottom, face up, staring blankly at the ceiling as the girl on top of her kisses her repeatedly, sinking down lower and lower until she's off-camera.

"Mark here, answering the question, 'What are you looking for in a woman?"' came the voice-over. "A little love. Happiness."

"And a little Al Green," Shane's voice-over says.

Mark's voiceover chuckles. "Most definitely a little Al Green. No, really."

"What?"

"What are you looking for?"

The tape ended. Jenny took Shane's hand in hers and kissed it.

"You're not scary," Jenny said.

Shane looked down at the floor.

"And Carmen is not going to get herself involved with something that she can't handle, okay?"

She made Shane face her. Shane looked at her and finally nodded. Shane pulled Jenny to her in a loving but sad embrace.

***

An hour later they were in the kitchen. The sun had set, and the open backdoor let in a cool breeze that carried the sound of crickets chirping. They were chopping vegetables for a dinner salad. There was a silence between them, but a comfortable one.

"You want to come to the Gay Pride parade with me tomorrow?" Shane asked.

"Yeah, sure," Jenny said.

"There's a party at The Planet afterwards."

Just then Mark came to the back door and knocked on the frame. "May I come in?"

Shane and Jenny turned around, not at all happy to see him.

"Sorry," Mark said, coming in but staying just beside the door. "I was just wondering if it would be all right if I just stayed here tonight and left first thing in the morning. I've almost got all the stuff in my car, but I just don't want to leave my car full of shit while I unpack at night."

"Yeah, someone might steal your cameras," Jenny said, not even looking at him.

"I know that you hate me."

Jenny looked away at the word "hate" as if it was inadequate to describe her feelings. Shane just stared at him.

"And while I would love to ask for your forgiveness ... I probably wouldn't forgive myself, so ... I don't know if you can ... relate to this, but it's like this ... terrible thing that I was doing ... suddenly became the best, truest thing that I had ever done."

"What?" Jenny asked, incredulous.

Shane frowned.

"I'll get the rest of my boxes. Sorry." He opened the door and went out. Shane made up her mind and went after him. "Hey," she called after him. "You can stay tonight."

Jenny scrunched up her face.

"Thank you," Mark called from the darkness.

Shane went back to cutting vegetables. Jenny just looked at her.

***

After dinner, Shane lay down on her bed and watched the SHANE/CARMEN LOVE CONFESSION tape. She was barely two minutes into it before she was crying, as she knew she would. This wasn't How I Spent My Summer Vacation.

"I know how hard you work to distance yourself from everyone else on this planet, and I am sure that deep down, you've got some great reasons why, but it's not working for you anymore."

"It's working fine," Shane watched herself say.

"No, it's not. It's not, because of this." She watched Carmen take her hand and put it over her heart. She remembered even now exactly how it felt, that flutter under her fingertips.

"Okay? Because of this right here. Do you feel this? Most people don't have this, Shane. This is rare. This kind of thing just doesn't happen, and I feel this because I see it and I know it."

"So what?" Shane had said, dismissively. But not even Shane believed herself as she watched the tape.

"That's right. That's right. So what? So what if nothing ever comes out of this? So what if you'll never act on it. You are so convinced that having a relationship with somebody is going to kill you."

"Because it will," Shane had whispered. Shane buried her face in her hands, rocking herself on the bed.

."...But do you know what's fucked up, Shane? What's fucked up is that you ... and I ... know what the real deal is. We saw it the first time we laid eyes on each other."

Shane gathered herself together, just a little bit.

"You're not living your life, Shane. And if you don't take any risks, then you might as well be dead."

And then Shane lost it again.

"...Because I need to love somebody, and I need them to love me. And, I don't know, maybe she can do what you can't, love me like I want to be loved. And ... and, if that's painful for you to watch, then I'm sorry, I really am. But I just need to let somebody try to love me, Shane, and maybe she can do that. And maybe I can love her the way I wanted to love you."

Shane re-wound the tape and then played it again, three more times.

***

Shane was pouring a cup of coffee when Jenny walked into the kitchen the next morning.

"Morning."

"You want one?" Shane asked.

"Sure."

While Shane got another cup and poured her coffee, Jenny looked out the window at the garage/studio. Somewhere in the neighborhood, she heard a Saturday lawn mower doing its thing.

"He's not there," Shane said.

"Did he leave?"

"I don't know."

They heard a car pull into their driveway. Shane handed Jenny her cup of coffee.

"Thank you."

They heard a car door slam and a moment later Mark came up to the back door of the house.

"We should get to the parade early," Shane said.

Jenny sat at the kitchen table with her notebook and pen. "Yeah? Is it going to be really big?"

Mark knocked at the back door.

"Probably."

Shane walked to the back door and opened it. Mark stood there, carrying a tray full of breakfast pastries.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Shane said, noncommittally.

"I brought coffee, and, uh ... those little organic scone things you guys like." He smiled. "I'm fucking lost, man. Can you just take this, please?" He handed the tray to Shane, who took it reluctantly. He lowered his voice. "Um ... can I talk to Jenny?"

"You've got to ask her, not me." She didn't bother to lower her voice.

"Now?"

Shane turned and took the tray of scones to the kitchen counter, and went to her room. Mark came in and saw Jenny sitting at the table.

"Could I talk to you?"

"Yeah," Jenny said, not looking up from whatever she was drawing.

Mark sat down at the table. "I wish so much that there was something I could do."

"No, I don't think there's anything that you can do. I think you did it," Jenny said, still not looking up.

"When I moved in here, I was the type of guy who was capable of doing shit like this, but I am not that guy anymore. I know that I've said it before, but you and Shane have made me a better man."

"Oh, fuck off, Mark," Jenny flared, now giving him her full attention. "It's not my job to make you a better man, and I don't give a shit if I've made you a better man. It's not a fucking woman's job to be consumed and invaded and spat out so that some fucking man can evolve." She said the word "evolve" like it was a bitter medicine.

"That's not what I meant."

"What the fuck are you talking about, then, Mark? You give me one reason why you think that I should forgive you."

"Because, Jenny, I made a big, big mistake. But from that, I have learned how difficult it is to be a woman."

Jenny hissed, "Oh, pleeeeease." She stood suddenly, slapping her notebook down on the table, and marched off into the living room. Mark followed her.

"Wait, Jenny! Hey!"

Jenny stopped and turned. She stared at him, watching in disbelief as he peeled his sweater up off over his head.

"Hey. Look at this," he said, taking off his T-shirt and unzipping and dropping his pants. He pulled his boxers down to his ankles.

"What are you doing?" Jenny asked.

He kicked his clothes off and stood, completely naked.

"Is this what you want?"

"No!" Jenny said, and threw her drawing pen at him. He flinched when it hit him, not from pain but just surprise.

"What I want is for you to write 'fuck me' on your chest," she said.

Mark's hands dropped to cover his crotch. He stared at the floor.

"Write it! Do it!" Jenny shouted at him. "And then I want you to walk out that door, and I want you to walk down the street, and anybody that wants to fuck you, say, 'Sure, sure, no problem.' And when they do, you have to say, 'Thank you very, very much,' and make sure that you have a smile on your face, and then, you stupid fucking coward, you're going to know what it feels like to be a woman!"

Jenny spun around and stalked off to her bedroom and slammed the door. Mark stood, naked and stunned, then started to put his clothes back on. Shane came out of her room to see what the shouting was all about and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Mark fumbling to pull his boxers up. He saw her, embarrassment and humiliation flooding into his face. "Shane, I'm just--" he tried to say, but Shane just rolled her eyes in disgust and retreated back down the hall to her room.

***

The Gay Pride parade was a success, as it had been in previous years, and each year it grew bigger and better. One consequence, though, was the the better the day was, the more tired and exhausted and worn out the participants were that night ... not that it stopped anyone from partying their brains out. Gay Pride Night was the biggest event of the year at The Planet, and Kit and Carmen had worked closely together for weeks, planning, organizing, decorating. It was exactly the kind of thing Carmen excelled at, and Kit was grateful to have someone so good and so competent as her deputy. As her confidence in Carmen grew, she herself was able to step back and concentrate on the day-to-day operations of The Planet while Carmen took more and more responsibility for Pride Night itself.

12