GobSmacked82

Wow, TL5, that was a bold character portrait of Annie. She's quite the savvy city girl, isn't she? Almost like a character out of "Pretty Little Liars" or something. She handled poor discombobulated Whitney like an old pro, just casually retouching her makeup and spilling beans about the ring and all.

KevneySF, I started reading it and so far so good.



OK, shippers, I guess this is your final episode in today's Kevney marathon! LOL. This wraps up 'Moonrise,' and hopefully all of this from KevneySF, TL5 and me will tide you over!



Kevin walks swiftly through the terminal of DeKalb Peachtree airport outside Atlanta, carrying just a backpack. He stops to look around for a moment and catches the eye of a rather big guy near the exit to the curb.

He walks up to the guy and offers his hand.

“Are you Steve?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Costner. I’m Steve Evans. I’ll be escorting you and your party today,” he deadpans and shakes Kevin's hand.

“Good to meet you, Steve. Let’s go then,” Kevin walks out onto the curb, where they get into a black SUV. He’s hoping this trip has a short turnaround, between retrieving Whitney from her house and picking up her mother and daughter later, to boarding a private jet back to California. He pulls a cell phone out of the backpack and dials a number. After a few rings, the line picks up.

“Hey Kevin,” Whitney’s voice is almost a groggy whisper. Kevin checks his watch, wondering if she’s forgotten what day it is, and if she’s still in bed.

“Hi Baby,” Kevin frowns. “I’m going to be at your house in about 30 minutes. We’ve just missed traffic coming from the airport. Do you remember what day it is?”

“Yeah, of course,” she says. “I’m up and dressed and waiting. Just sitting in my closet waiting for you.”

Kevin shakes his head at the sheer strangeness of what he’s hearing. He doesn’t want to ask, but does anyway.

“Your closet, Whitney?”

“He’s trying to get in here,” Whitney says. “He’s been yelling and carrying on all morning. I knew I should have done this differently. Maybe we should try this again another time?”

“No, Whitney!” Kevin pokes the passenger headrest in front of him. “You have to get away from him today. We agreed that this would be it, remember? So just try to leave the closet and come downstairs to meet me. Don’t even worry about any clothes for now if it comes down to that.”

Whitney breathes hard, and says she’ll do it. Right after they hang up, Whitney sits up straighter, wipes tears off of her cheeks and looks around her inside her closet. There are almost a half dozen semi-decently drawn eyes staring at her. They are all large and glowering, imposing their scowling brows on her. B----‘s handiwork. At first, Whitney thought they were the latest in his usual repertoire of attention-getting stunts. But he drew more and more of them, putting them inside and outside the closet doors, inside the closet on the walls, and everywhere else she routinely moved throughout the day. Whitney became convinced the eyes manifested his hostility and resentment toward her.

It was that hatred that was pushing her to leave, finally. She could endure the malicious rumors in the press, even pressed on in her marriage to defy the naysayers. She could forgive his habit of acting out, cutting up, and even the rumors of infidelity. But she couldn’t tolerate being hated, and she felt the tension in the house becoming more palpable and potentially explosive with every passing day.

Despite this line of thinking, Whitney weakened when she considered that B---- had been married for eight years, and she told herself that he hadn’t really done anything that she couldn’t handle. She started to explain some of this to Kevin, adding her real concerns about how he would function if she were gone.

“I don’t think I can—should do this, Kevin,” Whitney said. “The whole plan was a bad idea. If I could just talk to him and get him to take better care of himself, things would change. I’m sure of it!”

Kevin was utterly lost, and told her so.

“Why is this a bad idea, Whitney? And what do you mean by getting him to take better care of himself?”

“He’s not well. He was diagnosed a couple of years ago as bi-polar. Who is going to help him if I leave? Who’s going to make sure he looks after himself? That’s what a wife is supposed to do,” Whitney is on her feet now, walking in circles in her closet.

“Whitney, stop this!” Kevin says a little more desperately than he intended. He wanted to tell her that he meant business. That he brought out his jet, swapped time with the kids, and lied to his friends about his plans for that day, to keep all of this confidential. Instead, he focused on her, feeling that attention to her needs were sorely lacking in that house. “If you want to ask who’s going to take care of B-----, that’s a fair question. But the much bigger issue is you and your daughter. You have to think of the two of you.”

“It’s been eight years, Kevin,” says Whitney. “And I took vows. For better or worse.”

“That’s eight years too long, Whitney,” Kevin says. “It’s time to do what’s best for you, and all your friends and your mother are here to back you up. We’re near your property. Please tell the guard at the gatehouse to let us in.”

Kevin ends the call and peers out of the window. A short while later, his car pulls up to Whitney’s house and he pulls the door to get out. He draws his baseball cap lower over his brow, and trots to the front door. Instead of ringing the doorbell, he tries the knob, and it’s unlocked. He doesn’t know if he should be surprised about that or not. He steps inside and sees a house in slight disarray. The kitchen is tidy, but the living room is disheveled, with cushions crushed and out of place. Pictures on the wall are crooked, and a vase has been smashed. He finds the stairs and begins walking up. He halts halfway.

“You came for this?” B---- is holding Whitney roughly by her forearm. “Well, you can’t have it. What, you think you gonna just walk up in a man’s house like some white knight and take his ****?”

“Morning, B----,” Kevin says. He hasn’t taken another step since seeing Whitney. “That’s an interesting choice of words for that perfect woman who’s been your wife for eight years.”

“She ain’t perfect man. What you know about it?”

Kevin moves up another step, watching Whitney. She looks shaken, self-conscious and docile, drastically different from the trooper who masterfully handled the crowd at the show a month ago. Outwardly at least, she’s nothing like the sprightly young girl he twirled in his arms eight years before. He looks directly into Whitney’s face to speak.

“Are you ready to leave?”

“She ain’t going nowhere with nobody!”

“Well at least we agree on that because she is leaving with me,” Kevin says, and walks up the rest of the stairs. B----- cannot accept this, and becomes more belligerent. He starts mouthing off, pushing Whitney further into the depths of the second floor.

“Whitney, come on. Just pull his hand off you and let’s go,” Kevin says, gesturing her over.

“I said she’s staying!!” B---- pushes his nose into Kevin’s face. Kevin decides to try and fail one tactic before matching B-----‘s actions.

“Look, I know she’s unhappy. Heaven only knows why, because I don’t see your marriage every day,” Kevin says.

“That’s right, you little jackass. What you know about it?”

“Not everything, and not much since I don’t know your side. Marriage is not perfect, no one said it was supposed to be,” Kevin says, walking closer. “I’ve always thought that as long as the love and respect were there, you could work through anything. But sometimes love isn’t enough, you know? And it isn’t anyone’s fault, really. Sometimes two people are just not good for each other, and you can’t fake it anymore.”

Kevin feels like spitting, really vomiting at the notion that Whitney would be bad for anyone whose life she touched.

“So just let me take her out of here. She has some decisions to talk over with her mom, and she needs to do it with a clear head. Not here,” Kevin says.

The speech doesn’t work. B---- folds his fingers into a mock gun and points the "barrel," two fingers, to Kevin’s forehead.

“You best back-up, trine act like you know somebody,” B---- says, and pulls the fake trigger, while laughing.

Kevin decides to scrap diplomacy. He knocks B------ arm out of the way, surprising him, and then he grabs Whitney and starts to head down the stairs. B---- pulls at Whitney harder, cursing all the while, until she grabs a phone in the hallway and swings it at B----, landing it squarely on his cheek where it opens a gash.

Whitney drops the phone and gasps, watching B---- stagger backward. B----- lunges forward and tries to smash his open hand into Whitney’s face. He misses, but the move sets Kevin off.

“Whitney. Don’t watch this. Just run,” he says. Whitney wastes no time racing down the stairs, grabbing her hastily overstuffed duffel bag and running out the front door.

Meanwhile, Kevin grabs B----- by the collar and throws him up against the wall. Then he begins punching B----- in the face repeatedly. From the car outside, Whitney hears the commotion and looks at her watch.

“Baby, we need to GO NOW! Let the maid take out the garbage!”

In one last move, Kevin throws B---- down the stairs and calmly walks down behind him. Steve, the hired muscle, stands in front of the open car door as B---- stumbles through the front door and tries to catch Whitney. Kevin follows, pushing B----- aside. Kevin gets in the car and shuts the door behind him. Then Steve tips an imaginary hat at B----, and gets into the front passenger seat, before the car speeds off.

Some minutes later, the car zooms through the gate and makes its way to a restaurant, where Whitney’s mother and eight-year-old daughter are waiting for her. Whitney gets out to hug and squeeze them both, and then they all get into the SUV and head for the airport and private jet.

An hour later, they are in the air, heading to California where Whitney hopes to get a clear head, lungs full of fresh air and a new start.



Whitney is spooning with Kevin in bed. It’s just past noon, and the shades are draw, casting vertical striped sunrays on them. They haven’t made love; they’re just lying close to each other in their casual clothes.

“This is going to be so hard, Kevin!” Whitney clasps his hands. “Rehab? Without my family, and for nine months??”

“Less than a year out of your life, Whitney. That’s not a lot of time when you think what you could gain on the back end of it,” he says. “You can do this. I know you can, and you promised your mother that you would.”

Whitney turns around to face him directly.
“What are people going to say?”

“Most people will be shocked, because they don’t know the depths of your troubles,” Kevin says, not dressing up his frankness in any way. “But the people who matter, and who are rooting for you, well they are going to be proud.”

“I can’t do this without you,” Whitney says, leaning her forehead on his chin.

Kevin thinks about what she’s said, and knows it isn’t true. The trooper who slogged through four months of movie filming, the soundtrack recording, and a pregnancy while planning a world tour for The Bodyguard had to give herself more credit. The woman who followed that up with two more smash films and soundtracks, and was coming off of releasing arguably the best artistic album of her career needed to believe in herself.

“You can do this, whether or not I'm here, Whitney," Kevin says. "It's just a matter of imagining what's possible, and wanting it now with that urgency, that passion to live that I know you have. You can do this, and you won’t be by yourself. Trust your faith, your mother, your daughter, your cousin Dionne and your friends. You can get through this."

Kevin pulls Whitney in a little closer, reassuringly. "We all know there’s nothing you can’t do.”

Whitney nods and nuzzles Kevin, hinting for a kiss. He obliges her gladly, with movements that are both sweet and passionate.

“Besides, if you could clock that guy with a phone like I saw you do the other day, I know these issues won’t stand a chance.”

They laugh and snuggle closer, as a breeze picks up one of the shades and casts a broader sliver of light on them.