No Ordinary Life

by Suzanne Redfearn

  My dress, which I thought was so glamorous, pales in comparison to the glitter of the bedazzled designer gowns and bling sparkling around me. Diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, not the costume variety, adorn the necks and wrists and ears of most of the women and some of the men.

  I wander, fascinated by the spectacle and catching glimpses of conversations. Most of the discussions are about wealth or vanity, what bargains are to be had, what investments will triple or quadruple fortunes, what new surgeries are all the rage—procedures to extend youth, the ultimate commodity in Hollywood.

  The chocolate fountain is four tiers of decadence cascading to pool into a three-foot-wide bittersweet pond at its base. A woman dressed in a white uniform stands behind it with a rag in her hand to keep it clean. She is my age, perhaps a little older, a gold band on her left ring finger. I wonder if she has kids. Judging by the darkness beneath her eyes, I think she does.

  I rake a strawberry through the sweet waterfall and take a bite. The chocolate is dark and smooth, the kind imported from an exotic faraway place like Belgium or Ethiopia or Venezuela. I stare at the gallons flowing like brown silk and wonder what will happen to the chocolate that isn’t used.

  “Dance?”

  My face lights up when I turn to see Griff extending his hand. Taking his outstretched palm, I try to disguise the jolt that ignites on contact then my disappointment when his expression doesn’t change at all, no reaction whatsoever to me, my touch, my dress. I might as well be his mother, his sister, or an aunt with a wart on her chin.

  “You clean up well,” I say, fishing for a compliment.

  “Thank you,” he answers, not taking the bait.

  I don’t let it go. “You didn’t compliment my dress.” Releasing his hand, I pirouette in a circle and chirp, “I feel pretty, oh so pretty,” imitating Maria from West Side Story.

  “Nice,” he says, with the enthusiasm of a bailiff announcing a docket number.

  “It’s silk.”

  “And it’s blue,” he says.

  I squint up at him, my nose flaring. “Yes, it’s silk and it’s blue. And. I. Look. Pretty. Why can’t you give a girl a compliment?”

  “Is that what you’re looking for? How about my costume?” He spins around. “Do I look pretty?”

  “No. You look like a high school shot-putter who was held back sixteen times and who is finally getting to go to his high school prom.”

  He laughs, a deep chuckle that causes his body to quake with delight. Then he takes my hand again and leads me to the dance floor.

  The band is playing Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and around us people are either swing dancing, hip hopping, or grinding depending on their generation. Griff does none of these things, his beefy arms flailing wildly as he flounders around like a beached octopus, endangering anyone within a ten-foot radius. He whips me around, a goofy grin on his face, his movements having no correlation whatsoever to the music. One of his cameramen gives him grief, and Griff shoulder checks him halfway across the dance floor.

  When the song ends, I am laughing hysterically and breathless.

  “Evening,” Chris says, stepping up beside us and looking very dapper in a tieless, all-black tuxedo. “My goodness, Faye, you are a sight to behold, a pure vision in blue.”

  Griff stands silent watching us, a smile still on his face.

  “And you look dashing as well,” I answer, feeling slightly preposterous with all the silly pretense. And I realize that, rather than return Chris’s flattery, what I really want to do is make a joke about it like, “Who died?” or “Yes, Godfather, I took care of it,” then kneel down and kiss his ring.

  “May I cut in?” Chris asks with a slight bow to Griff, nearly making me laugh while at the same time horrifying me. I really don’t want to dance with Chris. It’s bad enough that everyone knows I tongue wrestled him at the farm; the last thing I want to do is add fuel to the fire.

  Griff looks at me, sees my frozen expression, and says, “Nope, this one’s mine. Go find your own piece of finery.” Then he twirls me away and dips me nearly to the ground.

  “You probably shouldn’t have done that,” I say.

  He whips me back up so our faces are inches apart. “Probably not, but you looked like you’d rather eat a jar of live spiders than dance with him.”

  “It was that obvious?”

  “Good thing Molly and Tom didn’t inherit their acting genes from you.”

  He spins me from his arms, and we resume our flouncing.

  When the song ends and the band begins to play Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” the mood changes, and there’s an awkward second between us until Griff takes my hand and leads me off the floor to the bar.

  “What do you mean I don’t know how to dance?” he says in mock defense. “You just don’t recognize great style when you see it.”

  My laugh is cut short when I see one of the set designers pointing me out to a security guard near the door. Griff notices as well and stands with me.

  “Ma’am,” the guard says when he reaches us, “are you Emily Martin’s mom?”

  My blood turns cold as my head nods.

  “You need to come with me. There’s been an incident.”

  55

  A golf cart! You took a golf cart that didn’t belong to you?”

  My vision is red, the hotel security office and the people in it tinted crimson as Emily stands in front of me, eyes on the ground.

  “Answer me,” I screech, painfully aware that the hotel security director, Caleb, and Griff are standing only a few feet away.

  Emily looks up through her mascara-coated eyelashes, then her eyes slide to Caleb and she does the most awful thing—she giggles.

  My muscles clench, the heat of my anger scorching, and for the first time in my life, I feel the impulse to hit my child, a physical urge nearly impossible to contain. And when Emily titters again, my hand begins to rise. Then Griff is between us, his hands pinning my arms to my side.

  “Thousands of dollars,” I yell, craning my neck to see around him. “Do you get that? You crashed a golf cart into a car, and it’s going to cost thousands of dollars to fix. That’s what you think is funny?”

  “I’ll pay for it,” Caleb volunteers, and I actually lunge at him, Griff holding me back.

  “You little shit,” I scream. “You spoiled little shit.”

  Emily looks at him lovingly as if he is offering his right kidney, a chivalrous declaration of devotion. The kid’s worth a hundred million dollars. He’s throwing pennies at her, not laying down on a sword.

  “Faye,” Griff says, his voice a whisper close to my ear, “you need to calm down. They’re drunk. Wait until they’re sober and deal with it then.”

  I rear back like I’ve been struck, break away from him, and lift Emily’s chin so she’s forced to look at me. Her eyes are glassy, her breath coated with the sour stench of alcohol.

  She laughs again like I have no power at all, and this time Griff doesn’t get there in time, my hand stinging from where it slashed her across her rouged cheek and painted lips.

  I stare at my hand in disbelief, my repentance instant. “Em, I’m sorry.”

  “It didn’t hurt,” she says, her insolent glare igniting my desire to strike her again.

  I take hold of my right wrist with my left hand to quell the impulse, take a deep breath, and say, “Em, let’s go. Of all the days to pull a stunt like this, you chose today, the day that was supposed to be Molly’s day.”

  “Every day is Molly’s day,” she snaps back.

  I match her stare, furious that she is trying to turn this around.

  My mom appears in the doorway. “I’ll take her home.”

  “No, Mom, you stay.”

  She steps forward and touches my cheek, a gesture so unexpected and gentle that it nearly unglues me. “Tonight is your night as much as it is Molly’s, and I’ve already had the time of my life. Let me take her.”

  Something in my mom’s words reach
es Emily, the slightest shadow of remorse crossing her face, and for that reason, with incredible gratitude, I nod.

  When they’re gone, I give the security director my contact information, then Griff and I turn to leave. We’re halfway to the door when I realize Caleb’s still in the room.

  “Caleb, where’s your mom?” I ask.

  Shrug.

  My voice softens. “Would you like me to call her for you?”

  “I tried,” the security director says. “No answer.”

  Crap. Crap, crap, crap.

  I walk back into the room, wrap my arm around Caleb’s shoulders, and say, “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat, then we’ll find you a ride home.”

  56

  We’re famous.

  Like a light switch…no, more like a tsunami…our life has been carried away on a roaring wave that makes it difficult to catch a breath.

  We woke up the day after the premiere unaware how much our world had changed. Then we walked into the parking garage to half a dozen reporters waiting for us, cameras and microphones ready, and that’s when I realized that in the span of a single night, Molly had become a full-fledged, bona fide celebrity.

  “Molly, how old are you?”

  Molly held up four fingers.

  “How long have you been singing?”

  Molly’s brow crinkled, not understanding the question. Hasn’t everyone been singing their whole life?

  My heart pounded the whole way to the studio. Us, celebrities. Us, famous. I couldn’t believe it. It was unbelievable.

  The second week things got worse or better depending on your perspective. In the second episode, Molly and Miles sang with the band, and Molly also had a solo performance where she knelt by her bed, eyes closed, hands clasped together as she sang a prayer for her dad called “Moonbeams to Heaven.” Both songs topped the music charts for a week.

  Since the premiere, The Foster Band ratings have soared into the stratosphere, and Chris and the studio execs are happy as hyenas in a meat locker.

  The result of our success is that now, wherever we go, people crowd us for autographs and snap our picture, and the paparazzi trail us from the condo to the studio and everywhere in between.

  No matter where we are, a crowd surrounds us. There are websites dedicated to celebrity sightings, and since everyone in the world is connected, within minutes of us doing something as mundane as going into a Starbucks, we have an audience. Cell phones and iPads document our every move, hundreds of photos of Molly blowing on her hot chocolate or me ordering an almond biscotti posted to hundreds of Facebook pages and websites that are then viewed by tens of thousands of followers.

  At first it was exciting, but now, nearly two months later, we’re all kind of tired of it. Being famous is a lot of work. It takes enormous effort to constantly be upbeat and polite, and there are some days when we’re tired and just not in the mood to smile and wave.

  Actually most of the time we’re tired. Our schedule has become grueling. The demands outside the studio have erupted into a whirlwind of obligations that suck up every spare minute—interviews, photo shoots, appearances, endorsements, and fund-raisers.

  Most of it is grand. Molly is treated like a queen, and I’m treated like the queen’s mother. The fans love us and are so excited to see us, and if you give them a smile or an autograph, it’s as if you’ve handed them the moon.

  Helen has told me that I need to learn to say no, and sometimes I do, but it’s difficult to say no to raising money for cancer or diabetes or clean water in Africa, knowing that a few hours of our time can literally change lives. It’s also equally difficult to turn down the opportunity to make tens of thousands of dollars for Molly to show up at Toys “R” Us for a few minutes to announce that her favorite game is Twister. So on and on it goes, a demanding, exhilarating merry-go-round that leaves little time for rest and even less time to slow down and smell the roses.

  Because of the hullaballoo that surrounds us, the studio now provides an armored limousine to drive us all the places we need to go. This both gets us where we need to be and also provides a layer of protection between Molly and her adoring fans, many whose love borders on obsessive.

  There are now dozens of John Lennons haunting our lives, and it seems like every day another inappropriate gift or solicitous letter arrives. I understand now why Monique Braxton shrugged off my concern over the flowers and why the officer was so dispassionate about pursuing John Lennon over the locket. Compared to the lewd gifts and lascivious letters we’ve received since the premiere, the roses and necklace are tame.

  Because of this, I should be scared all the time, living in a constant state of fear, but what I’ve discovered is that fear is like happiness, it simply can’t be sustained. The truth is my adrenaline is worn out, which in turn is terrifying, since it is fear that keeps me on guard, and I know that when I forget to be scared is when something bad is going to happen. Knowing this causes moments of extreme panic and paranoia. I’ll be going about my day, totally not thinking about the letters or threats, when something will happen—a sharp movement, the flash of a camera, a loud noise—and my heart will seize up, certain we’re under attack. When my pulse finally settles, I promise not to slack off again, but the vow is short-lived because it’s simply impossible to maintain that kind of vigilance. So instead, I do what the others on the show do, which is not think about it, ignoring the fact that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of weirdos infatuated with my daughter. I especially avoid thinking about the “creepers” as Jeremy calls them, the fans who, for some demented reason, are hell-bent on hurting Molly.

  We’ve only received two of those sort of letters. The first from a religious fanatic who thinks Molly is the face of greed and materialism and therefore needs to be punished for her sins. The second from a man with a warped idea that Molly would enjoy a spanking and who has set out to detail all the ways in which he would like to give her one. Both letters were passed on to the police. Considering the number of letters we receive each day, two is a very small number, but two nutcases obsessed with hurting my four-year-old still seems like a lot.

  Last week, one of Kira’s creepers was caught breaking into her dressing room. It shook up everyone that he made it that far, especially Kira, and now she won’t go anywhere without a bodyguard, not even to the bathroom.

  Nighttime is the hardest, the time when my guard is down, my subconscious free to roam to all the dark places I don’t allow it to go during the day, and lately I’ve been having a hard time sleeping at all.

  Our limo driver’s name is Mack, and he reminds me a little of Bo in that he is tough and sweet at the same time. Black as beans, he doesn’t have a neck or hair or much of a chin, but he does have a great sense of humor and a heck of a voice that he uses to sing along with whatever happens to be playing on the radio. He also has a temper and no problem whatsoever running over a reporter or fan if they get in his way. He gives them fair warning with his horn, but then it’s up to them to step aside so we can get through.

  At first I hated the idea of a limo and driver—it felt so pretentious—but now I realize we’d never get anywhere if Mack didn’t clear the way. The paparazzi are the worst. They will risk life and limb to get a shot of us. When they first started trailing us, I couldn’t believe it was worth their time, but last week I heard one of them got $15,000 for a photo he took of Molly tying her shoe in the parking garage. The headline read, Molly Martin Learns to Tie Her Shoes! Molly’s been tying her shoes for months. Fifteen grand? Suddenly I understood why they’re so dogged in their pursuit. Part of me wants to toss them a morsel now and then so they can be successful, but a larger part of me is reluctant to give them anything, hoping they will move on to more lucrative prospects.

  Each of the members of our small clan deals with the attention differently. Molly seems immune to it. Once in a while she’ll wave or smile, but like squirrels in a park, there are so many that eventually you no longer notice them. Tom avoids. He s
tays close to my side, his eyes on the pavement. Emily engages. She loves the reporters and takes every opportunity to taunt and tease them.

  Yesterday, when we returned home, one of the paparazzi yelled out, “Molly, how about you show us a new dance move?”

  Molly ignored him, but Emily leaped right out in front and, to my extreme mortification, spun so her back was to the photographer, bent over, and shook her booty in an exact imitation of Miley Cyrus’s VMA twerking performance. She righted herself, pivoted back around, and said, “Miley taught me that.” Then with us trailing after her, she continued on to the elevator, leaving the photographers busting up laughing and with a nice gossip shot to sell to the highest bidder. It was actually a hilarious moment, very funny and not at all sexy, but I wish she wouldn’t encourage them.

  I’m reluctant to ask her to stop because things are so tenuous between us. Since the night of the premiere, she and I have tiptoed around each other in an attempt to mend fences. I confiscated her iPhone for a week as punishment for what she did but didn’t come down any harder than that. The hangover she suffered the morning after seemed punishment enough.

  Both of us feel bad about what happened. I feel terrible for slapping her, and she feels terrible for ruining my special night. She’s been on her best behavior, and I’ve made a concerted effort to give her more of my time. I feel like we are getting there, inch by inch our relationship returning to solid ground, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that, so I let her continue to have fun with the reporters.

  Today will be a move in the right direction. This evening is Emily’s school’s open house, and not only am I going to be there, but after, she and I are going to go out for a nice dinner, just the two of us. Her favorite food is lasagna, and there’s a restaurant called Angelini Osteria that is supposed to have the best lasagna in the city.