Summer 2010 - Crabtree

Winston Crabtree (33)

One evening, after falling asleep on his office sofa, Winston heard a noise.  Someone had broken into his house. He hurried to the phone and quietly dialed 911.

Luckily the police arrived right away and caught the burglar before they could get away.

Even though the culprit was caught, Winston was shook up by the ordeal.  At first he was upset.  He felt like he had been violated, like his own home was no longer a safe place.  Then he started to get angry.  How dare that sim break into house and make him feel this way.  If he ever saw them again, they'd better watch out.

Meanwhile, other things weren't going well in his life either.  Work was still stressful and his love life had also taken a turn for the worse too.  Fawn was angry and not speaking to him for reasons he didn't quite understand and she wouldn't explain.  The fact that he didn't already know, just made her more upset with him.  He just couldn't win.

He decided he needed to stop moping around the house, drinking away his sorrows and get away for awhile.  He made a few calls, put his work on hold, booked a suite at a little resort and headed for the beach.  Before he left he called Fawn one more time and left his room number on her answering machine, hoping she would change her mind and decide to join him after all.

After a dip in the pool and lounging by the ocean, Winston was beginning to feel restless.  The stage was set up for an evening concert, so he decided to jump on stage and try out the bass while no one was looking.

On his way down from the stage he ran into a woman.

"This D.J. is terrible.  Do you think someone could get him to play some better music?"

"Let me see what I can do," Winston said.  Helping the woman up the steps, he whispered a few words to the D.J.  When a new song came on he, asked the woman, "What do you think?"

"Way better!  Now this is something I can dance to.  Care to join me?"

Winston and the woman had to shout in order to hear each other over the music, but somehow he managed to find out that her name was Lara and she was a teacher's assistant at the elementary school.

Winston felt a little guilty for what he was about to do next.  He had hoped to be spending this time with Fawn, but she wasn't speaking to him and refused to come on the trip with him.  Not wanting to spend his vacation all alone, he asked Lara to have lunch with him and she readily agreed.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" Lara asked with a grin as they were seated at their table.

"No, should I?" Winston asked, genuinely surprised.

"We've talked on the phone a few times."

"We did?"

"Yes," Lara laughed.  "About Sierra Hayes.  I'm afraid I probably came off like one of those pushy stage mothers."

"Oh . . . I remember you now.  You're Sierra's mother?"

"Oh no.  I'm kind of her 'big sister.'  I'm the one who volunteered to travel to New Eden with her, since minors aren't technically allowed to fly out of CAS alone.  I just called a few times, because I was curious about how her career is going."

"I see," Winston smiled.  "I had no idea that was you.  I thought you looked too young to be her mother."

Lara found herself grinning like a school girl at the compliment.

After lunch, Winston was feeling extremely tired.  It had seemed like a really long day, a long summer really.  "I wish I could spend some more time with you, Lara, but I feel like I can barely stay on my feet.  Will you be around tomorrow?"

"No," she said, regretfully.  "I wish I could stay longer, but I'm going home tonight."

"Maybe we could get together sometime after I get back home."

"Sure, that would be great.  I'll give you a call.  Remember, I've got your number."

After a nap, Winston headed back to the beach for dinner.

"What happened to that pretty lady you were here with earlier today?" a friendly waiter asked.

"She had to go home earlier.  I'm all on my own tonight." 

After dinner, the air was beginning to grow chilly, so Winston went back to his room to get dressed before going back to the beach to enjoy the sounds of the ocean.  It wasn't much fun being on vacation alone.  He was starting to get homesick.  The next day he decided to cut his vacation short and head home.

Back home things were the same.  No messages from Fawn and she still wasn't taking his calls.  Winston picked up his work again from his home office, but found himself getting lazy, not bothering to get dressed for the majority of the day, drinking from the bar more often than he should, rather than bothering to prepare meals.  He was in a definite funk.

He was surprised one afternoon when he recieved a call from Keith, the waiter who had struck up a conversation with at the resort restaurant. 

Only after Winston had left the resort did Keith realize who he was.  When he realized that his customer had been Winston Crabtree, the famed talent agent, he knew he had to look him up.  Keith had been wanting to move on from waiting tables and begin a career in show business, but he didn't know how to go about it.  This chance connection seemed the perfect opportunity to get his foot in the door.  He couldn't believe his luck.

They started talking business, but before long their conversation turned personal. Keith asked about Lara and if Winston had heard from her again.  He hadn't.  And Winston found himself spilling the whole story about how he and Lara had met and how his romance with Fawn had suddenly and inexplicably gone sour.  When their conversation went on for over an hour, Winston realized he was more starved for company than he realized.  He was glad to have a sympathetic ear to listen to his sorrrows, even if it was unprofessional for him to do so.  After their conversation, Winston invited Keith over that evening to talk about his future in the entertainment industry.

"So, Keith, what field are you interested in, acting, music, modeling?"  Winston asked.  He definitely had the looks and the posture of a potential star.  Looking him over he could see a potential model standing before him, but as an old pro he knew looks weren't everything.  "What are you good at?  What are your talents?"

"I'm open to anything, really.  Anything to get me out of waiting tables.  I'm pretty good at playing the drums."

"I don't have a drum set here, but let's set up a date to meet and I'll have you play for me and we'll see if you've got what it takes."  He smiled and shook Keith's hand as the waiter left, feeling better about life than he had in awhile.  Maybe a new professional challenge, some new changes in his life was just what he needed.  He decided to get out the phone book and look up Lara's number.

*ROS - Winston takes a vacation.  He definitely needed it after the break-in at the end of the last rotation and after Fawn's relationship suddenly dropped for him, for reasons I still don't completely understand.  I must have missed something.