A true story about making shit up.
She holds me down by the wrist,
while the other one grips my ankles and tickle tortures me with her endless scraping, scrubbing, digging. The feeling starts as prickly heat in my scalp. It radiates down my forehead and sinks throughout my vibrating being. Sweat builds in my armpits and springs from the pores on my face. My fingertips are numb, my heart has sped up like it’s at a rave, and my vision goes wobbly.
“I’m having a panic attack,” I say in slow-motion like I’m speaking through drain‑o as I attempt to wrestle my limbs from their strong, calloused hands. They don’t understand me. They speak no English. None. I speak no German. They won’t let go. I wiggle and they grip tighter.
“You VIP. Must finish,” she says like a German robot.
“No VIP. Freaking out,” I respond, trying to do deep breathing. They plow through my pain, buffing and filing violently, as if they’ve forgotten I’m a real person. I writhe in the chair and the entire back of my shirt is drenched down to my ass, and I’m hoping I don’t puke.
“I have to finish! Be still! VIP!” She yells at me again, dead-eyed and straight faced. She appears possessed.
Just twenty minutes ago, a publicist brought me here, to the basement spa of the Soho house in Berlin because I said I needed a mani-pedi. She told the nail techs that I was a VIP and to take care of me and do an extra good job. She said it in German, then translated for me what she’d allegedly told them, but I’m starting to wonder what was really said because it seems they hate me. Then she promised to return to pick me up when they were done.
My luggage was lost, so I’ve been wearing a weird tennis outfit for the last day and a half that I bought from the store in the hotel lobby. We arrived on Sunday and shops aren’t open, which seems counter intuitive to me as an American consumer. I was worried I’d have to find something else to wear to tonight’s premier but my suitcase magically appeared just as I was heading out to the spa. Now I have a new worry. How will I make it to the red carpet without dying?
Sweat pools in my crotch and I’m terrified it’s going to look like I peed myself and, holy shit, is that blood? Yes, that is blood – she has cut into the middle toe on my left foot, the big toe on my right, and my heart is a bad dancer with no rhythm, just fast and wild and then I remember … I am a VIP. I can’t escape but I can order whatever I want, I bet. Golden handcuffs in a gilded cage, we must make do.
“Champagne!” I say frantically. “Please can I have champagne!”
They understand, thank all the gods, they understand. They summon a woman who walks by, and say things in German and a moment later an entire bottle of Veueve Cliquot arrives. She pops it, she pours, and I drain the flute in one large gulp and ask for more. Please. Danke shön.
Warmth spreads up from my stomach and across my chest and the racing organ within seems to pause, and take a deep breath. I take a deep breath, finally I’m able to. I’m still sitting in dampness but my exterior cools as the golden champagne fizz replaces the icy fear and it seems we’ve narrowly avoided a grand mal panic attack situation.
The woman at my feet holds small cotton clouds that turn from white to dark crimson as my wounds gush, blood thinned. The one at my fingers is meticulously going over them again with another coat of shiny black, and I still long to escape so I take another swig of the bubbly. Then I remember, I’ve got to be perky for the red carpet, so I ask for a cappuccino.
Up-down-up-down-up-down, I think about being a kid, that was my favorite hair-do, the “up-down”, half up, half down and this is life now. No one knows how bad it’s gotten. Up-down: A self fulfilling prophecy in a pony tail holder. How will I wear my hair tonight?
In the back of a black car,
my hair is in big, bouncy curls and I’m wearing a white jumpsuit so the fact that I’m sweating again is particularly troubling, but it’s unseasonably, unreasonably hot here in Berlin, like 95 Fahrenheit. We pull up to a crowd, and a happy faced man with a laminate around his neck opens the door. As I step out of the car, in a thick German accent he says, “Holly, we have a surprise for you!”
I am so confused. “What? Me? Why?”
I am not the star of this show so I’m surprised he even knows my name.
“We have been planning it ever since we found out you were coming. We are just so, so excited for you to see your surprise!”
There are cameras flashing everywhere,
a good set up for a seizure, and people shouting as we are ushered onto the red carpet, blinded, and pushed into different configurations and formations of poses with different pals from the show, all smiling, laughing. I wonder if they feel self conscious too, or if they’re used to this. I can’t imagine ever being used to this level of energy coming at you.
I drank more champagne while I got ready so it’s safe to say I’m pretty lit and I try to be charming and not slur and my heart jumps around in my throat and I’m glad my nails look good, despite the blood. The flashes are incessant, we’ve been standing on this carpet for what feels like hours and there is deep fear in the pit of my stomach that I will google myself later and see that it appears as if I peed my pants.
Finally we’re ushered into an old church where the screening will be held, and what do you know, no AC, right, cause this is Berlin and it never gets this hot here. I feel drips down my spine as the happy man with the surprise approaches again, and guides me to stand before a group of robe wearing Germans on risers. Suddenly there are three cameras in my face, like tv cameras and the happy man says, exuberantly, “It’s for you! A German gospel choir!”
They begin to sing.
“It’s your song! They learned your song!”
I am so moved and also befuddled by the idea of a German gospel choir and the cameras are rolling and everyone’s faces are expectant as they stare at me. But by the second or third note, I understand they are singing the one song in the whole entire series that I did not write. They also have choreography, marionette-like with lots of dramatic limb dropping, heads falling and coming back to life mechanically as they sing in perfect harmony, the song that is not mine.
They finish and the cameras in my face draw closer. Expectant faces, closer as they wait for my remark. My heart is doing something weird again and I don’t have the heart to tell them their blunder so I muster my brightest smile and jump up and down and squeal with delight at what a wonderful surprise this was for me. I gush about how beautifully they sang the song. I certainly am surprised.
After the screening there’s a party,
and at this point I’m on the edge of blacking out. I drink another vodka soda. I chain smoke German Marlboros with a horrific image on the packaging of a gory hole in a neck, exposing the inside of a blackened throat and some words that I bet translate to “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE”. But hey, I made it here, to the red carpet, to the premiere, to the after-party, and maybe I’m already dead because this is so surreal.
I’m still sweating, drunk enough that I feel maybe it’s more of a glisten, and then there are cameras in my face again as I’m introduced to – oh yay – the sweet, sweet choir director. He’s telling me about the process of learning “my song” and asking if he got the lyrics right because English is tricky for him AND they’re not available online yet. I play along and tell him he nailed it and smile again for the cameras as we take a thousand pictures together.
But that’s not enough, he wants more. Really wants to get into the nitty gritty of the songs meaning, how I wrote it and what inspired it. The air goes still as everyone waits for my response. There’s no turning back now, the choir director’s face looks so sincere so I have to keep up the ruse. My tender heart has run the equivalent of fifty marathons today and I can’t bear to embarrass or let them down so I just start making shit up, make it all up, this is all made up anyway. The whole reason I’m even here is made up, and ultimately, it is because I am good at making shit up.
Though, this story is true.
—holly solem
Flommist Holly Solem is a singer/songwriter, model, actress and writer known for her work on Amazon’s original series Hand of God, as well as playing, touring and writing with numerous bands and artists. Copyright © 2024 Holly Solem. Art: Werks of George Grosz.
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