Hollywood's Secret Baby

Cory stands first, pulling me up and lifting his eyebrows when I don’t immediately join him in waving appreciatively at the adoring masses. It’s not that I’m not thankful; it’s that I’m too stunned to breathe, much less control any of my other motor functions. Cory leans over and kisses me on the cheek. This earns an appreciative whistle from somewhere towards the front. The clapping seems to go on forever, but it’s probably no more than fifteen seconds or so. Even when it ends, I can hear it roaring on, reverberating in my thoughts like comforting rain on a tin roof.

“Do they always do this?” I ask Cory for confirmation, because my disbelief is trying to erase this happy moment before my hopes rise too high to safely come back down. This could be a typical reaction. Maybe every film gets similar applause, even the truly shitty experimental ones that no one understands.

In reply, Cory holds up his phone. His caller ID identifies the person calling him even now as ‘Cuckoo Productions’. While it rings, messages pour in from other production companies.

This time when he kisses me, his lips tell me what mere words would fail to do: we’ve made it. The movie is a hit, and despite all of Jeb’s trickery, we’re actually going to get a real release. His life in Hollywood hasn’t ended. And mine is just beginning.

When Cory ignores the call and takes my hand, I ask, “Don’t you need to take that?”

He pulls me out of the aisle and wraps me up in a hug and yet another kiss. “They can wait. Tonight’s our night, not theirs.”

Coming down from the balcony seating is a different journey from the one coming up. This time we don’t pass by unnoticed. Faces turn when they spot me. Hands clap Cory on the shoulder. A woman I’ve never met compliments me on my dress. And at the bottom of the stairs, we find Sarah. Even being surrounded by a swarm of reporters and cameras doesn’t slow her down. She lurches towards me and wraps me in a hug, kissing my cheeks as she showers me with praise.

I’ve not had many female friends in my life. Besides Cory, I haven’t really had any friends. Not exactly easy making social occasions when you’re a single mom at nineteen. While Sarah and I walked vastly different paths to reach this moment, I know she doesn’t have the luxury o

f real friends either. So in each other, we’ve found something that I never could have imagined when I agreed to follow Cory out to California.

The rest of the night is full of other things I never could have imagined. After a brief intermission, the next film is shown. It’s a documentary, but for the life of me, not a single frame of it gets through my skull. I sit there, holding Cory’s hand, applauding at the end, still feeling like this can’t be real. That when we leave this place and get back stateside that none of this will matter.

But the after party goes a long way in convincing me that nothing is going back to the way it was.

Food and drinks and celebs. People shaking my hand, complimenting my acting. Another director joking that he might just steal me out from under Cory. The head of an animation production company handing me their card, saying, “You’ve got a lovely voice. Get in touch and we’ll get you an audition for this project we’re working on.”

The business card has the Disney logo on it.

Lizzie would freak if I actually got a role in a Disney movie.

The night doesn’t slow. This time, Cory doesn’t down half a bottle of whisky, but I do get tipsy on champagne. And wine. And some cocktail Cory hands me while I’m waist deep in the first interview of my life. The reporter is a lovely girl in her twenties. Sarah keeps joking with her in French, and I can only hope I’m not screwing up my answers to her questions about what it’s like to be an actress.

About two hours into this party, just after midnight, Cory pulls me out of a circle of actresses who only had small parts in a movie that’s scheduled to show tomorrow. I’m just drunk enough that I’ve barely been following the course of the conversation, and when Cory’s hand envelops mine, I look up at him in bewilderment.

“Joan texted. Lizzie’s asleep. She moved her to our room.”

Slightly inebriated Augusta knows exactly where this is going. And she is all for it.

“But if she’s in our room…?”

“Follow me.”

I lick my lips as he pulls me towards the exit, but before we make it, Sarah’s soon clinging to both of us.

“What’s wrong?” My brain immediately goes to what Jay let slip earlier, but I haven’t revealed what I know to Sarah yet, so how could she know? Then I wonder if Jay has gotten to her again, maybe said some vile thing that’s shattered her. But the Sarah I know is too strong to be rattled by a grotesque man’s words. So what’s going on?

“Guilty!” she screams out.

“Guilty?”

Cory gets it first. I can see it in the satisfied smile and the way his hand tightens on mine.

Then it hits me.

“Jeb?”

Sarah’s nodding, her hair disheveled. “They convicted him just now. Sentencing will come later, but it’s going to be a minimum of twenty-five years.”

Cory pulls out his phone to confirm the news. He shows me the headline. I scroll through the article and read the last line:

“The defendant will face a reduced sentence for naming another leader in his ring of Hollywood blackmail and sexual assault. Jay Westerwood, the defendant’s brother-in-law, is now wanted for questions in regard to a number of alleged crimes.”