Hollywood's Secret Baby

When Cory drags his feet into the kitchen I’m already at the table, sipping at my third cup of coffee. He yawns and says, “You’re up already?”

The truth is that I can barely look at him right now, much less stop myself from gagging at the thought that I slept with someone who fraternizes with Jeb Eli. I can’t trust anything Cory says anymore, and I’m thankful that Lizzie is already in the living room, eating a massive bowl of cereal.

While I lay awake the rest of the night, the inside my head was a cacophony of thoughts all jammed together, jostling for my attention.

First there was the voice trying to rationalize that I might be misinterpreting things. That Cory couldn’t possibly be like Jeb. Maybe he has to interact with the scummy man because this is Hollywood. Maybe Cory keeps it all professional by keeping Jeb at a distance. Maybe Jeb saying that he owns Cory means something else.

But before I can figure out a logical reason that Cory would be so intimately in touch with Jeb Eli, my thoughts jump the tracks onto another route, this one more focused on what I’m going to do. Selfishly, before I even wonder how I would go about reporting this to the police, before I can even contemplate how I could ever turn Cory in, despite his apparent sins, I’m wondering where all this leaves me. Whatever happens next is going to be swift, because there’s no way I can possibly keep my daughter in the same house of a man who’s apparently close to Jeb, even if that man is her own father. I don’t even want to see him a single minute more, but until I figure out what I’m going to do, I have to practice my acting and pretend that everything is peachy keen.

So when I first see him in the morning, his yawn breaking off the end of his question, I literally bite my tongue, holding it in place between my teeth while I come up with a believable excuse. “Wanted to read a few tips online about acting. You know, before my acting coach came over.”

When he walks past me and into the kitchen, he places a kiss on my cheek before I can jerk away from his reach. Which is all the better, because my recoiling from him would only set off alarms and taken the power out of my hands. As long as he doesn’t know what I know, I have time to think.

“Well, the first rule of being a good actor is getting enough sleep,” he says, stifling another yawn. He holds up a bag of bread. “Toast?”

I shake my head.

Cory pulls orange juice and raspberry jam from the fridge, slices an apple, and places two whole eggs on a plate beside the perfectly cooked toast I said I didn’t want. “I’ve been doing this sort of European breakfast thing where I eat boiled eggs with toast. It’s pretty utilitarian, but it saves me a load of time. Hope you don’t mind. It’s not exactly the most mouth-watering of meals.”

“I’m really not hungry,” I say, but he doesn’t listen.

“You have to eat.” He places a plate in front of me. “I get that you have the jitters, but an empty stomach is only going to make it worse.” He looks around the room like he’s finally noticed the missing piece. “Has Lizzie gotten up yet?”

“She’s in the living room with cereal she dug out of your pantry.”

“Good, good, “ Cory says.

While we eat, he talks about what I can expect in the coming days. I listen in silence, not daring to open my mouth or reveal that I won’t be here long enough to experience any of the things he’s got planned.

Without touching my food, I announce that I’m going to grab a shower. I don’t want to leave him alone with Lizzie, but I need time to get ready if I’m going to make a quick escape. So, before I head upstairs, I surreptitiously grab Lizzie’s phone from her room. I hand it to her and say, “I’m going to take a shower. Would you come up to the room with me?”

She looks at me with a mouthful of cereal and scrunched up eyebrows. “You’re being weird. Why can’t I watch TV down here?”

I don’t have a good reason. I just want her close. So I play the ‘mom card’. “Just come up with me. While I’m showering, you can go on your phone and make plans for Disneyland. Like which rides you want to go on, what you want to eat, and anything else.”

Her eyes glisten at this. “Are we going today?”

I wasn’t planning on it, but if we’re leaving, we might as well hit Disneyland before returning to our dreary lives back east. “Yes,” I say. “Today or tomorrow, I’m still not sure. But we need your plan first. You’re going to be the leader.”

Lizzie leaps off the couch, sloshing a mouthful of milk on her shirt, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She’s up the stairs and sitting cross-legged on the bed when I walk in and lock the door behind me. An action she thankfully doesn’t notice.

“Can we get souvenirs too?”

“Of course.”

She bounces up and down on the bed, her snaggletooth smile beaming.

/> I leave the bathroom door cracked as I shower, a fact that keeps the mirror from fogging up. When I kill the water and step out, staring back from the reflective surface is me. All of me. My face is naked, revealing pores on my nose that I wish were smaller. Shadows under my eyes that seem permanent after years of fighting insomnia. I look down at my breasts, remembering how Cory sucked on them just last night. I shudder at the thought, wondering where else his mouth has been. Cory was so perfect in my mind before my discovery. Directing multi-million-dollar movies. Bumping shoulders with the hottest celebs. Coming home to a place like this. We were best friends. Us falling for each other seemed like the stuff of sappy Christmas romance movies.

That’s where the dream ends and the nightmare begins.

My body goes through my normal bathroom routine with mechanical efficiency, but my mind is elsewhere. Wondering how I can get Lizzie and me out without him following, and whether or not I should report what I know to the police.

The answer to this last question is easy: of course I should tell the police. It might not bring down Jeb Eli, but linking Cory to Jeb would at least add to the police’s paper trail when he eventually gets taken down. Everyone’s heard the rumors about this despicable man, but somehow he’s always been able to skirt around his accusers, avoiding any repercussions outside of a few nasty articles. Even if my testimony glanced off his Hollywood armor as well, I would at least know that I had done something. That I hadn’t just run away, leaving the mess for someone else to clean.

But if I do call the police, what happens next? It’s not like I have any evidence that he’s done anything. Nothing besides an innocuous text that he may have already deleted. What if Cory figures out that I reported him? Would he come after me? Would I end up like that first girl who accused Jeb Eli years ago? They say she leapt from a penthouse where she was attending a party, but her parents claim she was never suicidal. Would I end up broken like her?

The knock at the door makes me jump so hard that I drop the powder I was holding. The plastic case clatters on the floor in a cloud of ruptured dust just as Cory asks from the other side, “Everything alright in there?”