A/N: This is my first "RPF" written in honor of a young man I have recently learned about and cried tears over - Bobby Driscoll, one of America's very first "child star syndrome" cases in an era when no one knew how to handle them. I have done as much research on Bobby as I can get my hands on as an amateur author, and I write about him as respectfully as possible. It is my prayer that I portray him with the accuracy he deserves. I hope for the same in regards to information on Disney Studios in Burbank, and the time period of which I write. I have no firsthand knowledge of either, only a passion for Cold War-era history and a teeth-grinding OCD for keeping details straight. For some of this, I've obviously had to improvise, so please overlook any small matter I might have gotten wrong about the time period or about working for Disney :)
Disclaimer: This is a WORK OF FICTION that involves an original character's perspective of real-life people who are now mostly dead. The perspectives and opinions expressed here belong only to my character as she might have seen the world, and do not seek to cast an ill light on any person or any institution. Any inaccuracies noted should be taken as fault of my own and not to reflect events as they actually might have happened. In other words, this is JUST A STORY.
April 1, 1968
"It was the third of June, another sleep dusty delta day…"
Bobby Gentry's husky voice crooned out the lyrics for about the third time that week over the portable Victrola on Charlotte's messy worktable. Charlotte squinted, despite her reading glasses, to make out the tiny stitches she was using the seam-ripper on. Yet again, one of the young, big-eyed seamstresses from the sewing pool had incorrectly connected two parts of a pattern together.
"Oh for crying out loud, why are you constantly listening to that album? It's so depressing!" Opal Collins appeared at the door of the work room, startling Charlotte out of her peaceful reverie. "Since you've been blessed by the almighty Alice Davis by having your own sewing room, you can at least have some fun in here!"
"I'm having fun." Charlotte replied, peering up over the tops of her glasses, "And this is not depressing. It's realist, it's… reflective. Or something like that..." Charlotte sighed, setting down the fabric she was working on to give her straining eyes a break. She looked back at Opal, moving a strand of tumbled-down hair out of her face. "Artsy? At least compared to the Beatles." She couldn't help sliding that remark in, smirking. Opal could never abide anyone mocking the Beatles. But to keep her friend on track, Charlotte straightened up her face again quickly. "Need something?"
Seemingly ignoring the Beatles remark, Opal went on. "Yes. I need to tell you I'm leaving, and I'm the last one out here. So hurry up and get out of here yourself. You're always working over," Opal shook her head in a pitying way. "It's why you need to meet Arthur, Lotte! Get a husband, somebody to go home to besides your mother."
"Oh, not the time for that conversation again Opal," Charlotte groaned, picking back up her work. "Go on ahead. Thirty more minutes, and I'll close up the department and be out."
"Mm hmm." Opal clucked her tongue. "Always 'thirty more minutes.' See you in the morning."
"Goodnight."
With that, Opal closed the door behind her.
"And now you tell me Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Charlotte hummed the line along with Miss Gentry, content with the idea of pressing on through her To Do pile. When the sewing pool outside her work room was buzzing with activity during the day – which usually meant orders being barked out from movie production assistants passing through, or the other seamstresses gossiping and laughing – Charlotte liked to keep her door open. She enjoyed being tucked away in her own space a lot of the time, but she also missed the bustle of the main sewing room. As evenings would set in, however, and the other seamstresses would drift off for home one-by-one, she preferred to be nestled away in the comfort of her happy place, listening to her records and not becoming distracted and jumpy by every little shadow she might see darting across the quiet sewing room after dark. This was best achieved by closing her door.
Opal wasn't exaggerating about the prestige of having a private workspace. Charlotte had put her time in in the sewing pool the last few years before Mr. Disney's costume designer, Mrs. Davis herself, had picked her out along with a select few others to work on design troubleshooting, fixing mistakes made by other seamstresses, and piecing together the most complicated pieces for Disney's films. Charlotte knew she had certainly worked hard enough for a promotion, and she also knew she possessed the skill for it. But that didn't stop the other young women in the sewing pool from whispering their own theories to one another.
"Well what do you expect? She's an old maid. Something has to make her feel better about being twenty-nine and still stuck here with no ring on her finger…"
"Not that a sensible ring would fit."
A ripple of giggles seemed to follow the snarky comments every time, and every time, Charlotte would act as though she hadn't heard them. They were all just girls, the other seamstresses. Fresh out of college and biding time for the right man to come along and whisk them off to a life of domestic duty one by one. A few of the married girls stayed on, like Opal had. Ms. Alice herself, everyone seemed to forget, was a married woman with her own career. But the majority of the seamstresses, regarded merely as worker bees, usually left the work force for housewifery. For all the copies of The Feminine Mystiquebeing sold at the bookstores and all the bra burnings being reported on the street corners of L.A., the sewing pool at the Disney Studios in Burbank was little more than a waiting room for marriage. And Charlotte Leyton had been waiting the longest, in the eyes of onlookers, who all seemed to imagine her glancing up eagerly every time a potential groom entered said waiting room only to choose a mousy, small-waisted twenty-year-old to usher out instead. "So sad – although after all, no husband wants a wife with hips that wide…"
Her own mother had even said as much, and more times than she could count. But thankfully for Charlotte, she didn't necessarily care about most of what her mother said; and besides, it could only be a true idiot who would squander the chance to work for Disney just to stay home and iron trousers. Charlotte knew the truth about what wasted youth really looked like in the modern world, but she elected to let all these girls figure that out for themselves in about ten years. They always did.
But Opal was right about the fact that she did need to stop working so late, no matter how much she enjoyed her job. If for no other reason, it left her too spent to savor her evenings at home.
"And me, I spend a lot of time picking flowers up on Choctaw Ridge… and throw them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Charlotte took the breezy instrument strings that wound down into the closing chords of the song as a good sign for her to stop working, and she practically tossed the doublet-in-process away from her, leaning back in her chair and allowing her head to fall backwards. She stared up at the ceiling for a moment before closing her eyes. She was done for today. The velvet doublet correction could wait until tomorrow, because tonight, there was actually a book on her nightstand at home that she did want to finish. The idea was welcoming after such an unusually busy day.
She sat with her head leaned back for probably ten minutes - or was it longer? The comforting crackle of the Victrola as it lapsed into silence seemed to hypnotize her. She was complacent just to sit in the quiet and rest.
"Lotte?"
Half asleep and not entirely mindful, Charlotte forced herself to sit up, rubbing her eyes before opening them. When she did, she nearly came out of her chair.
A man was standing in front of her sewing machine.
How he had gotten in there, she had no idea. All the doors in the main sewing room locked automatically from the inside for security, and as far as Charlotte knew, everyone had gone home except for the maintenance man.
And looking at this guy's shabby appearance, she could tell he was no employee of Disney's.
"Who—who are you, how did you get in here?!" she hissed, eyes darting toward her yardstick as she backed her chair farther away from the sewing machine.
The man clearly had to be a bum from the back alleyway who had managed to get in here without so much as making a sound. He looked confused, eyes glassy as they slid around the room lazily. His long silence finally ended when he let out a guttural moan and staggered forward toward her, the work table still thankfully between them.
"Lotte. It is you, isn't it?"
Charlotte pushed her chair back even further, by this point almost reaching the big black telephone she kept in the righthand corner behind her, perched on an end table. "I… I don't know how you know my name, but you can't be in here." She reached for the receiver.
"… I don't know what's happening."
Charlotte paused for a moment, rattled by the confusion in his voice, but forced her attention back to the phone. Instinct told her she couldn't get sucked in to this vagrant's words. His tone could change on a dime, and he might take advantage of her distraction and overpower her all too easily. She fumbled to pick up the receiver and turn the rotary dial to the correct numbers. The action felt heavy and clumsy as though her fingers were submerged in molasses.
She failed to realize, as she was doing this, that the man's eyes had come to rest on a birthday card from last year she had been given by a few friends that was perched on the edge of her work table. "L-o-t-t-e. Right?"
Drumming her fingers impatiently against the phone table, Charlotte glanced over at him again, slightly bewildered at his behavior, waiting a seeming eternity for the call to be connected. "What…? Now you're trying to spell it, too?"
It was almost a smile that lit up his tired eyes as he turned back to her. "You listened to me. You still spell it… with the 't-e' at the end…" he trailed off, watching her face with a furrowed brow, as though confused himself about where his words came from.
Suddenly, a strange warmth began to materialize in the pit of Charlotte's stomach. The only conversation she had ever had about changing her nickname years ago from "Lot" to "Lotte" was…
She studied his face again, noting how it had changed and how much he had aged, yet at the same time… of course. Of course! How could she not have seen it before? Heard the familiarity in his voice underneath the odd-sounding layers of rasp and disuse?
"Burbank Police Department," a too-cheerful voice from dispatch had picked up on the other end of the phone line.
"…Nevermind. I'm sorry." Charlotte's hand trembled as she set the receiver back in the cradle. Composing herself as best she could, she looked back up. "Bobby? Bobby Driscoll…"
The light flickered again in his eyes then, as though a fire was stoked. "My name. Say it again. Please."
Charlotte stood, perplexed. "Bobby. Or Bob. Isn't that what you wanted to go by now?"
But he seemed to either not hear her question, or to purposefully ignore it. Shadows claimed his his face once more in a strange, almost tangible way. "Something… something's happened. You've got to help me, Lotte."
Straightening her back, Charlotte kept her eyes trained on him. Something was different here - something she couldn't quite put her finger on. "What? What do you want me to d—"
"Please help me. It all went wrong. I didn't mean for…" he trailed off.
A chill swept over her suddenly. "… Bobby, you… you must need help again. A-and it's alright, I'll help you. Let me, um… call somebody. I'll call your mother, what's her number?" Charlotte turned back to the phone, picking it up to bring it over and set it on the work table between them.
It was an action that took maybe one or two seconds.
That's why she couldn't understand how, when she turned back around, he was simply gone.
Her door was still closed.