Are You There, God? It's Me, Charmaine

Are You There, God? It's Me, Charmaine

It all started in a little salon tucked between a dance studio and an insurance agency in a small town in Tennessee. On one side, you could hear the constant tap-tap-tap of tiny shoes practicing for recital season. On the other, someone was always trying to file a claim for a fender bender in the Kroger parking lot. In the middle sat Charmaine, wrapped in foil like a baked potato, her platinum hair glinting under the fluorescents while my sister-in-law Megan muttered that if I ever dyed Charmaine’s hair again, I’d be paying for the correction myself.

Charmaine, of course, thought it was hilarious.

I’d dyed her hair blue by accident the night before, just hours before we were supposed to fly to Los Angeles for Fastest Pitch Fest, speed dating for screenwriters, where you pitch to producers while someone rings a cowbell. The salon was chaos. Charmaine looked at me from under all those foils, lifted her chin, and said, “Are you there, Christie? It’s ME, CharMAINE!” like she was announcing her entrance on a game show. Natalie did not laugh.

That line, “Are you there, God? It’s me, Charmaine” became her signature. She uses it every time someone walks into a room and doesn’t acknowledge her immediately. And it’s not just the phrase, it’s the delivery. She emphasizes the wrong syllables: she says “kit-TEE” instead of “kitty,” and “it’s ME, CharMAINE,” with a full-octave rise between syllables like she’s doing the audio version of a neon sign.

So off we flew, me with my cherry-red and chocolate braids (thanks, Megan), and Charmaine with freshly restored platinum blonde. It was still the early 2000s, so we were deep in our grunge era, blissfully unaware that cultural appropriation was about to become a thing. That weekend, we were just two Southern girls loose in L.A.

We made it to the hotel before midnight without incident…Charmaine’s purse stuffed with airplane bottles of vodka and mine stuffed with a wardrobe better suited for July in Miami than January in California. Turns out the Pacific Ocean in winter is only for people who’ve lost a bet. Needless to say, we needed to shop.

The next morning we called a taxi and headed to the only place I’d ever heard of to buy clothes in California: Rodeo Drive.

The cab dropped us on a cobblestone street that reminded me of Beale Street, until I looked up. There were no T.J. Maxx stores in sight. I counted out my $250 in spending money, picked the closest store, and walked in. Floor-to-ceiling shirts and jeans were bedazzled with rhinestones, crosses, and words I didn’t recognize. “Looks like Vegas,” Charmaine said.

Then a young man in a denim jumpsuit covered in rhinestones, looking like a movie star from the forties, asked if we needed help. Charmaine pointed to me with an unlit cigarette. “Not me. Her.” He looked me up and down and said, “Women’s is next door.”

“These are men’s clothes?” Charmaine asked, as stunned as I was. He walked us through the back to the next store.

“Lord!” Charmaine whispered. “This T-shirt is $300. Are they crazy?”

We left Rodeo defeated, found a Walgreens, bought four pairs of pantyhose, and walked to a bar.

Inside, a group of Irish men were watching football. “Have you ever seen so many hot guys in one place?” Charmaine whispered. She was in Heaven, football, foreign accents, unlimited alcohol.

I was not. The only thing I hated more than bars was football. Getting her back to the hotel before the pitch fest would require divine intervention.

Charmaine was thrilled when the crowd cheered each Titans touchdown. But after a while, I noticed they cheered every touchdown, no matter who scored.

“These are not Titans fans,” I thought. And once Charmaine figured that out, she wasn’t going to like it.

She’d already grown irritated that none of the men were flirting with her. That alone should’ve tipped us off, but Charmaine was committed. We were not leaving before the game ended.

Three drinks and two touchdowns in, she finally had to pee. She returned two minutes later, wide-eyed and scandalized.

“Christie,” she said, voice tilting like always, “I just went to the ONLY bathroom in this place and there were pee troughs allllll along the wall. And the stalls…no doors.”

“What?” I said.

“Yes!” she went on. “I think the girls and boys go in the same place!”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because,” she said, drawing it out like she was solving a crime, “as soon as I went in the stall, a boy came in, unzipped his pants, and just…started going. Like I wasn’t even there!”

“Mercy,” I said. “We need to leave.”

So there we stood in our Walgreens pantyhose and Southern-girl confusion, surrounded by the friendliest fans we’d ever met, trying to make sense of a bathroom situation that belonged in a sci-fi movie.

Charmaine called a taxi and stopped a man to ask where we were.

“Rawhide,” he said.

She relayed the name. “Rawhide? You do? Okay. We’ll be by the door.”

As we waited, we watched the crowd, tall men in boots, perfect hair, and all of them so well put together they looked like movie stars. Charmaine leaned in like she was revealing state secrets.

“Christie…” Long pause. “I think we’re at a gay bar.”

Mystery solved.

Two hours later, I sat in front of two producers. The one from Georgia smiled. The one from L.A. stared out the window like I was fungus.

“Can you believe they ring a cowbell?” I joked.

Georgia chuckled. L.A. didn’t blink.

I pitched my story: A girl finds out her granddaddy’s cheating, and when their car gets stuck on train tracks, she pretends to help, but locks him in. He dies. Her grandma hears the whole thing on speakerphone.

I thought it was edgy.

L.A. Guy said, “Miss Christie, your character has no redeeming qualities. No one wants to see that.”

Bell rang. I cried in the bathroom.

Back at the hotel, Charmaine was already tipsy. She wanted food, so we went to a restaurant in Beverly Hills and got seated next to the producers from a popular TV show. We heard them talking about it while they ate. Then it happened…they got cookies. We didn’t.

Charmaine, indignant, said, “Well, WE didn’t get any cookies!”

They politely handed her theirs. She accepted them like royalty. I disappeared into the wallpaper.

A few minutes later, the waiter returned, smug as a Downton Abbey butler, and presented her with a plate. “Your cookies, ma’am. Compliments of the chef.”

I said I was stuffed. He looked personally offended. “Stuffed it is, ma’am.”

Charmaine said, “I’ll take a beer to go.” He returned with one in a paper bag with handles.

Charmaine opened it, lit a cigarette, and we were escorted out.

That night, we went to a bar owned by one of our favorite actors. You could drink inside, but had to smoke outside. So Charmaine straddled the door like a hinge…beer in one hand, cigarette in the other. And she drank a LOT.

When the bar closed, she vanished.

I stood in the rain, calling, “Charmaine!” The only people left were me and a half-dozen winos.

“Charmaine!” one yelled. “Charmaine!” another echoed.

We became a search party.

Finally, one called out, “She’s over here!”

Charmaine was curled behind a sidewalk sign, smoking and drinking, refusing to come home.

With the help of my search team, I rolled her into a cab.

And that was just Day One.