"I met her," I said. "Right here. She came out of the building with some man and I was no more than a foot away from her."
"So?"
"It was my mother, but she pretended she didn't know me. She said she couldn't be old enough to have had a daughter my age and she laughed at me." I started to sob again. "She told the man I was some sort of riffraff coming off the street. She wished they had fixed the security system so I would be kept out."
"Take it easy," Spike said and put his arm around my shoulders. "She was probably putting on an act for that guy."
"But why? Why was that more important than me? I came across the whole country to find her and she hasn't seen me for so long. Why?"
He shrugged.
"She probably had an audition or something and maybe the guy was a producer she was stringing along. I don't know. This is Hollywood."
"You keep saying that as if it justifies everything that goes on around here," I snapped back at him. "I don't care if it's Hollywood. People should still be decent to each other, especially mothers to their daughters."
He smiled at me as if I had said the silliest thing.
"You know something," he remarked, nodding as he gazed at my disdain, "you could be quite an actress. You've got integrity. You can reach down into the emotion well and draw up the right responses."
"I don't want to be an actress! I don't want to be in Hollywood! I'm not pretending to feel bad. I do feel bad! I want my mother to acknowledge me and explain why she has done these terrible things," I cried.
"Maybe she will, one of these days," he said calmly. "But now's obviously not the right time. Come on. Let's get out of here. I hate complexes like this, filled with people trying to make it in the business. You can cut the desperation in the air. It's depressing," he said as he stood. "Come on." He held out his hand for me. I took it and stood up. "You okay? You think you can walk?"
"Yes," I said.
"Great." He kept his arm around me and we started down the walkway. The sight of a chauffeur walking with his arm around a young woman in an expensive Italian pants suit drew some eyes as we passed the pool again. It almost made me laugh, but my heart was too heavy for any sort of joviality. All I could think of was Mommy's cold, indifferent eyes and her voice cutting through me like a band saw.
I got into the limousine and Spike drove us away. He continued to make excuses for Mommy as we went along.
"If she is your mother, when you confront her alone, she'll be different," he assured me. "You caught her by surprise, that's all."
"She's definitely my mother," I said. "The instant I set eyes on her in person, I knew and she knew me. She just ... made herself so different."
"That's--"
"Don't say it," I warned. He laughed.
"Hey, you've got to step back, catch your breath and try again. You'll get to the bottom of it all, I'm sure."
I didn't reply. I gazed with empty eyes at the scenery that flew by, no longer seeing the beautiful flowers and plush lawns, the glitzy stores and exciting billboards.
This was a place I'd rather not be in, I thought. I closed my eyes and wished I was walking on the beach. I concentrated as hard as I could until I could hear the waves lapping at the shore and could see the whitecaps sparkling in the New England sunshine. It put a smile on my face.
"You okay?" Spike asked, watching me in the rearview mirror.
"Yes."
"Good. Hey, did I tell you I have a chance for a really great part tomorrow?"
"No."
"It's a recurring role. Know what that means?"
"No."
"Well, if I get the part, I'll be in this episode and then the writers will write me into others, so I'll work on a regular basis and really get some exposure. From there, the sky's the limit," he said. "It's not a very big role to start, about thirty lines, but it's the impact on the show that counts. You want to see the script, maybe help me rehearse?"
"Help you rehearse? How can I do that?"