Mean Season Read Free Page B

newsletter.
    I know people wondered about it—what my real deal with Joshua was. Mostly, I let them guess, although it was obvious to me that I wasn’t flying off to Los Angeles for weekends, and no limos were ever parked along Prospect Street. Fact is, I knew a lot about Joshua, and I could answer almost all of the questions that club members would send in. (For example, Judy called him J.P. because his real name was Joshua Polichuk. He started going by Joshua Reed when he moved to L.A.) But I never talked to him on the phone or anything. Once, when I was talking to Judy, she said that Joshua said to say hi, but I didn’t hear him say it, so I don’t know whether he was even in the room with her. He did write—a couple of times. Not really letters, but he would scrawl a note at the end of something Judy was sending off. He had messy, uneven handwriting, but his signature was polished. Probably from signing all those photographs. The first time, he wrote: Leanne, Judy tells me you’re my biggest fan. You’re the best! xoxo, Joshua Reed.
    The second time, he wrote: Leanne, you’re the best for keeping all this together!
    The third time, it was: Leanne, Be sure to tell all your friends about Villains, and also about Celebrity Jeopardy! That wasright before Villains Can’t Be Choosers came out, and Judy was keeping him busy with all sorts of special events and appearances, mostly in California, but also in New York.
    Sure, it would have been nice if he’d written more or even called on the phone once or twice. That way I might have known him in a personal way, different from the facts and stories that were out there for everyone. But it’s impossible to know where a thread starts when you’re looking back on things. Maybe if I had known Joshua better, I would have quit the fan club long before I did, and Judy probably figured that. Still, it was fun seeing my name in his handwriting, and he spelled it right, too. A lot of people spell it Leeanne, or Leann, or some other way. But Joshua always spelled it right.
    I didn’t stick with the fan club because I thought that we were meant for each other, Joshua and me. I’m not going to say that a seventeen-year-old girl doesn’t imagine things, and I’ll admit that I imagined plenty in my early days with the club. But that was before Beau Ray suffered the first of his bad seizures and before Momma went through the months she’d come to call her “unraveleds.” I referred to those months as her mean seasons, since it seemed like she was pissed at everything and everyone in the world. Of course, folks in such a state never realize how ornery and off-putting they’re being, so when you find yourself in the midst of someone’s mean season, the best you can hope for is to stay out of their line of fire. Back in Momma’s worst times, I’d call Tommy or Susan for help, but neither ever offered to head home for even a week to make dinner and check which bills were least overdue. (That was around the same time that the idea of me going off to a full-time college stopped being talked about like it was a good thing, something that might really happen.)
    But whenever I thought maybe I ought to give up the club and focus on getting my own life in order, I’d feel a heaviness, almost like family, like I’d be letting Judy down. Judy, who always said “thank you” to me. Judy, who asked “would you please.” Judy, who sent cards on my birthday and told me when she would be unavailable (like during her honeymoon) and called whenever she was going to send a new set of photos or an updated credits sheet or a rewritten biography—so I’d know it was coming. Part of me wanted to be like her. Even more of me wanted to be her, out there in California, seeing Joshua close up and making dinner for myself, just myself.
    At the beginning of my seventh year with the club, membership reached