Just Plain Strange: Artie and BeBe

I’ve noticed there are characters in my books who are just plain strange. They always come in pairs—and who better to start with than Artie and BeBe from Bellevere House?

Artie is like something out of a freak show. He is the son of a radio producer—perhaps constant immersion in show business accounts for his being out of touch with normal life. He wears plaid suits and just zones in on Bebe. Zones in. She’s interested in voice acting, so he targets her. He doesn’t marry her even though he’s actually in love with her. Instead she gets pregnant, for almost no reason, he picks on her eating and table manners (what the heck!?!?) Then he disappears into the blue and pretends to forget about her. Later, they pop up happily married and he hopes her dad will accept him. He doesn’t seem concerned whether BEBE will accept him, although I think that should be a serious IF. If I were her, he’d be dead. He would no longer be a part of the world of the living. He would be gone from the Earth as we know it, right about the time I first met him.

There’s no explanation of BeBe’s reasoning—seriously, who would be interested in this guy? She gets in a lot of trouble with her dad after Artie runs off and diffidently assumes she could never even dream of getting married to Artie. After all Artie is—is—is what, exactly? A freaky guy in plaid who treats her terribly for some unexplained reason. Like he’s trying to impress her with how knowledgeable and distant he is, how hard to attain, how critical about how to eat crackers? Artie ISN’T hard to attain. He followed HER around from the first. BeBe is quite self-centered. That must be why she doesn’t see him the way he is. She doesn’t see him at all.

I think she’s perfect for him. The person married to Artie should be blind as a bat.
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And there will be more updates.