Hollywood's Secret Baby

Then Jay is gone, but Cory watches the back of the man’s head until he is well and truly gone. “You watch out for that one.”

“He seemed friendly enough to me.” Which is true, if I ignore the fact that he just called me a dog. What wasn’t friendly was how Cory shoved Lizzie behind him like he was embarrassed of her something. But maybe I saw it the wrong way. It’s the first time he’s ever done anything like that, so I let it slide this time. But I’m definitely going to be keeping my eyes peeled for anything else weird like this.

“He likes to give off that persona, but if he’s here, that can only be bad news.” Cory’s eyes narrow as he says this. If we were in a cartoon, I would expect a single gray cloud to stop just over his head. But then the weather clears and he’s back to his bright self. “Now that you’ve met just about everyone in Hollywood, let’s grab a bagel and try acting out a few scenes. Just to get you warmed up.”

An hour later, while Lizzie is being given a tour of the studio by Cory’s cute assistant, Joan, Cory and I are in his office working through the scene I’m supposed to use for my read-through. Even though I’ve got the part, Cory still needs this for the producers’ sake, he says.

But after just twenty minutes—while Lizzie’s probably having the time of her life in the wardrobe department or playing with cameras that cost more than I make in a year—I’m still struggling to get past the first few lines. It’s probably just nerves, but my head is spiraling, and I’m just envisioning all this crashing and burning because the fact is that I’m just a terrible actor. And if my acting sucks, there’s nothing anyone else can do to save the movie. Which begs the question I can’t put off any longer.

I lick my lips and ask in a tentative voice, “Why me? Why come bring me back here and get me to act in your movie? I obviously stink.”

“You don’t—” Cory begins, but I cut him off.

“And don’t tell me that it’s because we were once friends or that you always held this flame for me. Because this is not the sort of thing people do just for sex. You could have had me without offering to put me in your next movie. You could have given me a small role. But you gave me the lead, which is just baffling because I’ve never acted a day in my life. So I want to know the real reason.”

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from Cory. Maybe for his mask to fall away and for him to finally be honest with me. To admit that this movie is going to tank, and he couldn’t get anyone else. But that doesn’t make sense, because Sarah seems very gung-ho about the whole idea. Plus, why would all these producers be waiting around for my script-reading if they didn’t think the movie stood a chance? There must be a reason that Cory chose me, but I can’t see it.

Cory stands and walks behind his desk. From the top drawer he pulls out a yearbook from elementary school. It’s like someone plucked a dusty memory from the recesses of my memory and brought it to life. I haven’t so much as thought of this yearbook in decades, much less imagined that I would ever see it again.

“In the second grade, our class did a Christmas play.”

“I was the Ghost of Christmas Future,” I say automatically, vaguely recalling how it felt to stand on stage and the terror that I would forget my lines.

“Yes, you were,” he says and holds open the yearbook. On the right page is a black-and-white photo of our class on stage. I’m in the front row, this rail-thin thing with pigtails and a lopsided smile. But I don’t see Cory anywhere.

“Why aren’t you in this picture?”

“Oh, I am,” he says and points to the back row where the very top of a messy head of hair pokes through. “God, I was short back then. Anyway, I was just a stagehand, which the other kids hated because they wanted to be acting. But I loved it. I got to be behind the scenes, helping get everything in order. It also meant I could stand back and just watch when your part came up. I know we were only, like, eight or something, but I got this crazy idea in my head that one day I would make this a reality.”

“Make what a reality?”

“I would become one of the big shots who works behind the scenes. I didn't know what a director was at the time, but that’s what I wanted to be. If I worked hard, I thought I could do anything. And then, I was going to make you the star in my movie.

“I didn’t think about it again for a long time. You know how I was back then. As distracted as a kid in a candy factory, and just as hyper to boot. But I told you years later when we were teenagers that I was going to be a director. And I tacked something onto that. Something we would do after you starred in my movie.”

So he does remember.

Our promise about what we would do if I starred in his movie.

And he’s waiting for a response.

There are these two distinct factions warring in my head. And if one wins, I throw myself into Cory’s arms, renewing the silly vow we made back over a decade ago. But if the other side prevails, I cast away this childish memory and explain how we’re now adults, and it doesn’t make sense to adhere to a promise we made before we understood how the world worked.

Both of these factions fall in the shadow of a much more recent memory. That of Cory and me walking along the beach earlier, Lizzie running back and forth showing off the seashells she’d found. That life could be mine. We could be a real family. Lizzie could have her father.

Or it could all fall apart. Because as much as I want to say that I love Cory—the past boy and the present man—the truth is that while I want to trust him, as a mother, I have to be careful not to protect just my heart, but my daughter’s as well.

“Do you remember what I proposed back then?”

The man who could make or break us is watching me right now, waiting for the answer that could change everything.

“You said we should get married after we made our first movie together.”

A nostalgic smile stretches out the corners of his lips. “And there were times when I was under Witness Protection, hiding from my dad’s connections in the mob, that I tol

d myself I would never see you again. I even convinced myself that you had forgotten all about me. I mean, who keeps in touch after they get out of school?”

“After you left,” I say and touch the yearbook with a soft stroke, “I didn’t have any other friends. You were it. The first and the last. Between juggling a baby and a part-time job, I barely managed to get into university. I had study partners, but that’s all we were. Our text messages were only ever about when to meet in the library. I couldn’t go to any of the parties because I had Lizzie at home. People would ask me to go out for lunch, but I lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches back then because I didn’t have money for anything else.” I reach out and grab his hand. “There were days that I hated you because you just up and disappeared on me, but I never forgot you. Or our stupid promise.”