Carmen Gardner | Witch

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✧resilient
✧heart of gold, despite what she's been through
✧talented musician and songwriter

Negatives:
✦alcoholism/drug abuse
✦troubled/abusive past
✦overly trusting yet incredibly private about her own life
✦has a tendency to avoid, ignore, and escape reality- she romanticises all the wrong things



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Parents: Jeanie and Jimmy Reynolds.
Siblings: None.
Other Family: Nanette and Tony Gardner, grandparents, both deceased.
Important Others: Zane Lancaster
History: Carmen’s mother Jeanie was the only child of film icon Nanette Gardner, musical star of black and white features and darling of Old Hollywood. Inheriting her mother’s beauty but little of her talent, Jeanie spent her life desperate for fame. Finding no reception for her mediocre voice and with her acting leaving much to be desired, she instead turned to drink, drugs, and notoriety to earn her place in the tabloids. Keen to keep the public’s attention regardless of cause, Jeanie married infamous West Coast gangster Jimmy Reynolds after a short romance.

The two lived opulently; indulging in expensive cars, frequenting the finest nightclubs, and often finding themselves in the headlines for their reckless spending and debauchery. Their relationship was very much a public affair, and though they were chaotic the Reynolds appeared very much in love. To the world, Jimmy was the charming gangster, the bad boy with a soft heart, and Jeanie his queen. What the public didn’t know of, however, was the abuse. Jimmy was an intensely jealous man, and became especially violent after drinking. As often as he beat Jeanie, he would proclaim his love to her; that he would die for her, kill for her even. Jeanie was infatuated by her husband despite the abuse, believing that he hurt her because he loved her too much.

Nanette had refused to attend her daughter’s marriage, disapproving of the match, and was estranged from the family until her death after a brief battle with lymphoma. Despite her estrangement, Nanette left the wealth she had earned from her Hollywood glory days to her only child, Jeanie. Carmen was born shortly after the Reynold’s second wedding anniversary. She was named in homage to another of Old Hollywood’s brightest yet most tragic stars, Carmen O’Hara, whose promising career was extinguished when she died in a high speed car crash with her on- and off-screen sweetheart, Theodore McBride. Nanette's death came shortly after Carmen’s birth, and though Jeanie maintained a publicly indifferent image during Nanette’s illness, she took her passing poorly and spiralled once again into addiction, undoing her pregnancy sobriety and ultimately relying on nannies to care for her new-born child.

Though Carmen’s childhood was lavish it was certainly not easy. Jimmy would only pay attention to Carmen when it suited him, and treated her like a princess when he did, but even her young age did not excuse her from his raging alcoholism and aggressive nature. Her father was not averse to yelling abuse, and stopped short only at physical violence while she was young; Jeanie bore the brunt of that. Carmen spent her early years afraid of her father, unsure whether he would return to the house with extravagant gifts or an uncontrollable temper.

Jeanie on the other hand, who was rarely sober, would dote on Carmen, and often took her on unnecessary and expensive trips across the country. This was largely to escape the violent tendencies of her husband, however. As a consequence, Jimmy would be at his most brutal upon their return and accused Jeanie of stealing his daughter away and poisoning her against him. Out of spite, because he knew Jeanie hated Carmen being involved, Jimmy would take his child with him to work while he made shady deals, fixed bets, and arranged murders.

Strikingly attractive even as a child, Carmen was paraded for the cameras as an object of beauty, and found early fame as a child actress. In demand for her deep, expressive vocals and unusually mature looks for such a tender age, Carmen starred in several moderately successful musical films until, at the age of 13, she encountered a complete lack of opportunities. Apparently, it had been decided by institution of Hollywood that Carmen’s ties to the crime world of California were too great to ignore, and the message had been sent out that directors should refuse to cast her. By this age, Carmen had decided that singing and acting was her dream, and so she was understandably crushed that the door had been so firmly shut on her young career. Her parents, too, were devastated- they had already squandered Nanette’s fortune on drink and drugs, and were fast running out of money to sustain their extravagant lifestyle. Jimmy, especially, became more physically abusive towards Carmen after this point,t still continued to shower her with gifts as an apology for his drunken violence.

As Carmen grew older, she grew closer to her mother. The two looked remarkably alike. Though Jeanie was, and always would be, a drunk, their mother-daughter relationship only grew stronger the more unpredictable Jimmy became. Jeanie always encouraged Carmen’s passions, but recognised in her daughter something which she knew would ultimately destroy her. She would tell Carmen that she had a chameleon soul, with no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and wavering as the ocean. It terrified Jeanie to think about where her daughter might end up, because she knew that she saw she wanted everything, that she had a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that no Hollywood mansion could satisfy. It had become Carmen’s dream to travel across the USA and find her fame in New York City, and she was by this time growing restless with her fractured home life and the lack of opportunity where there should have been an abundance.

Carmen had been a bargaining chip between her parents since birth, and eventually Jeanie had enough of her husband’s violence and manipulation. While Carmen slept and Jimmy was at a strip club, Jeanie locked herself in the bathroom and swallowed sleeping pill after sleeping pill until the whole bottle was empty, washing each down with a gulp of red wine. She was found in the early hours of the morning by her hysterical husband, who had returned drunk and in a particularly cruel mood. Carmen was woken by her father yelling for Jeanie, battering the locked bathroom door with his already bloodied fists, and watched in fear from a crack in her bedroom door as he took his revolver from the inner pocket of his jacket and shot the lock off. She watched, too, as he kicked open the door, cursing and screaming for his wife, and saw her mother’s lifeless body sprawled across the marble tiles. Blood was pooled by her open mouth, but otherwise she looked peaceful, as if sleeping. Carmen was just 17.

Jeanie’s suicide note read:
‘You did this to me Jimmy. I love you forever.
To my darling Carmen, my chameleon soul, mommy loves you with all her wicked heart. Follow yours, and find your dreams wherever it takes you. Live how you want to live, and not how I did. You weren’t enough to save me. See you in paradise.
Jeanie Gardner’

Jeanie Reynold’s suicide was the source of great public fascination. Though Jimmy arranged for an extravagant funeral to honour the wife he adored in brutality, his abuse was finally exposed, and his reputation as the gangster with the heart of gold went up in flames. He’d always liked his drink, this much was true, but following his wife’s death he drank almost constantly. In the days that followed, Jimmy became increasingly disturbed, and was eventually arrested for multiple counts of second degree murder following a mindless brawl outside a night club.

Carmen would have found herself the object of media storm, should she have chosen to remain in Hollywood; the once promising daughter of the beautifully tragic mother and the murdering gangster father, left to the mercy of the state. The night her father was arrested, however, Carmen already knew that he wasn’t coming home this time. One way or another, whether he was arrested or killed, she didn’t much care, she knew she would never see him again. Carmen fled before the news outlets had even shipped camera teams to her Bel Air mansion. She ransacked the house for all the cash she could find (a pitiful amount, as it had long since been squandered on drink), stuffed a rucksack full of clothes, stole all of her mother’s jewellery and her ID, and then took a bus out of town.

Leaving California, Carmen adopted her mother’s maiden name in the hope that some would recognise it, simultaneously shedding herself of her father’s gangland infamy, and slowly hitchhiked her to New York so he could pursue the career she had dreamed of since childhood. Life on the road was tough, but it was nothing compared to what was to come. Upon arriving in the famous city, it rapidly became apparent to Carmen that, talented as she may be, there was neither time nor space in the world for another pretty girl who could sing and act.

Rejected and alone, Carmen spent the night in a 24 hour diner in Downtown Brooklyn. Yet, if there was one thing that she had gained from her fractured childhood, it was independence. The maturity of her looks and of her voice allowed her to lie about her age and for it to be believed. Besides, she looked the spitting image of her mother, and it was her ID that she used. The money she had stolen from home was enough to pay for her original bus ticket and a couple of meals along the way, but it didn’t last the week.

Eight days after arriving in New York, having spent every hour begging for work around the city with no success, Carmen used her mother’s ID to gain entry into the seediest bar she could find, hoping they wouldn’t recognise the name. Dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, nursing her first whiskey with her rucksack at her feet and diamonds around her neck, she found herself the object of a stranger’s desire. She was not unfamiliar with male attention, as she had been very popular with the boys in school, but this man mistook for something she was not, and offered to pay for a night with her.

Rather than be offended by his proposition, Carmen came to the conclusion that this was the only way she was going to make money in this city. He was older than her by a few years and his hands were far too roaming, but he showered her with compliments and bought her top shelf liquor. And so it was that Carmen began to sell her body to men on the street. Like her mother before her, she turned to drink and drugs to fool herself that she was having fun.

Only 17 years old and walking the mean streets of New York, Carmen relied on the business of strangers. Home was wherever she laid her head, but she found that losing everything gave her the true freedom she had long craved. She sought safety in other people, be it only for a night, but never earned quite enough to keep herself in a steady home. Carmen always was an unusual girl with an unusual childhood, so to her it made sense that her life had taken this path, even if it meant she slept in sleazy motels with sleazy men, and got her meals from vending machines.

At 19, she met a man who would change her life. He had approached her as they all did, while she walked the midnight streets of Brooklyn, but the night they shared together was different from the rest. He was older than her, this was not unusual, in his mid-30s, heavily tattooed, with greying stubble and a weathered complexion, but he offered her all the things she had ever wanted out of life. He was a biker, and Carmen saw in him the freedom of the open road. The nomad inside her that had briefly stirred during her trip out to the east coast was reawakened, and she accepted his offer to show her America with a renewed sense of purpose. She journeyed across the states on the back of his Harley, in the midst of a gang of leather-clad men on roaring motorcycles.

Whatever brief fantasies she had of being able to leave prostitution entirely were destroyed, however, because her saviour intended her not as his sole lover but as the plaything of his gang. It took her a while to realise, because she was so used to being passed around in her life and mistook their lust for open love, but when she finally did she knew she had to escape it somehow. She attempted a few times but never made it far; she would always hear the familiar roar of the gang hot on her tail.

One night, three months into her biking travels, somewhere deep in the Mojave Desert and while the rest of the gang slept, Carmen and her so-called saviour drove into the night. He was drunk, like her father so often was when he abused Jeanie, and he was lay on top of her, kissing her neck. Carmen detested the feeling of his rough stubble on her soft skin. Without fully realising what she was doing, Carmen took his gun from the pocket of his jeans under the guise of reaching for his zipper. She shot him once, straight through the chest, and he collapsed onto her, dead.

Once she'd managed to push his body off her and with the gun still in her hand, Carmen stood over him for a few minutes, horrified by what she had done. Her shirt was wet with blood- she could feel it sticking to her stomach-and the weapon weighed heavily in her grip. The distant howl of a desert coyote brought her to her senses, and without looking back, she flicked the gun on safety, hopped onto his motorcycle, and drove until she found Las Vegas. She sold the bike off to an auto sales place just outside of the strip, and used to money to buy a bus ticket back to New York.

Back in New York, even after all she had been through in the past months, Carmen returned to her old ways of making money. Unlike before, however, she fell even harder into addiction; alcohol, cocaine, and sex. Any cash she got on the streets went straight into drink or drugs, and she resolved her sex addiction with her occupation.

With only enough money to fuel either her stomach or her addictions, Carmen chose the latter and turned to New York's homeless shelters to stay alive. It was in one of the city's many soup kitchens that she met Zane Lancaster, a volunteer, and the second man she met that would change her life- this time, for the better. The two bonded inexplicably despite their very different lifestyles, and Carmen would frequent his place of work more than any of the others in the city. Zane helped her out when she had reached the lowest point in her life. It was a friendship forged by mutual respect; Carmen loved Zane deeply not only because he aided her, but because he treated her as a person with thoughts and dreams and feelings- not as a sex object, which she had been since 17. He guided her out of addiction, helped her get a job as a waitress, and found her a modest apartment in a cheaper part of the city. He even encouraged her passions, and Carmen wrote several songs about her 'guardian angel', as she saw him. In many ways, he truly saved her life. And then, a year later, he disappeared.

Once again, Carmen turned to her old vices to deal with Zane's disappearance. She felt that he had abandoned her, and that she should have seen it coming. Carmen became more self-destructive than ever, seeking out dangerous situations to keep herself from boredom, and regularly risking overdose just to see if she could feel some semblance of her dreams. Gone were the days when she would sit in a 24 hour diner and write out lyrics on napkins. The only time she listened to music now was when she was stripping, but the light of hope had long since been extinguished from her Bambi eyes.





Alias: Blaire
How did you find us?: Google
Experience: 10 years, no Proboards experience
Other Characters: Blaire, Bridgette, Luciana, Fletcher
RP Sample: Carmen had been sat at the bar for no longer than half an hour when she was approached. She'd been staring into the amber dregs of the whiskey she'd ordered when she felt a hand press against her lower back, and she looked up to see who had touched her. He was older than her by 10 years, give or take, and she observed his cheap polyester suit. She didn't let this taint her opinion of him, however. She knew wasn't in Bel Air anymore, where the people were all inexplicably beautiful and rich: this was New York, the city of dreams, or at least where dreams came to die. Everyone started somewhere, and she had found herself at the bottom of the heap.

'What's a pretty young thing like you doing alone in a place like this?' he crooned, and from inside his mouth a gold tooth glinted in the dim bar light.

After a moment, Carmen giggled coquettishly and lifted a hand to press it against her neck, flicking her gaze to the floor before returning it to his, 'Well I'm not alone anymore, am I.'

The man grinned, and his gold tooth gleamed again, 'No ma'am you are not,' There was something lustful in his gaze, and the way his eyes roved over her body, but Carmen didn't much care. She felt his hand move slowly around her waist and over the curve of her hip. He brushed her exposed thigh, then sat on the stool next to Carmen's, 'How much for a night?'

Though Carmen was taken aback by this comment she didn't let it show. She giggled again, and flicked her hair over her shoulder. The day had been long and bitterly disappointing. It had been made abundantly clear that her dreams of fame and fortune would never come true in the unforgiving world of show business. She steeled herself, downed the rest of her whiskey, and when the burn had passed she told him, 'My momma always said that when you're good at something, never do it for free.'



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