Acting Up

by Kristin Wallace

  Aunt Ruth had always been a mind reader. The words didn’t relieve the burning in Addison’s heart, however. The beeping monitor turned into a nagging complaint.

  Bad niece. Bad niece.

  “I could have visited,” Addison said.

  “Stop it. You’re here now.”

  “I know, but—”

  Her eyes sharpened. “No, enough guilty talk. I don’t resent anything.”

  Addison took a deep breath and let out a dry chuckle. “Okay, the role of martyr will now be played by someone else.”

  “Good girl.” She ran a searching gaze across Addison’s face, perhaps looking for traces of Alice. “You’re so beautiful.”

  The lump in Addison’s throat threatened to choke her. “It’s been a long time since I felt beautiful.”

  “Your husband was such a fool,” she said, squeezing Addison’s hand.

  “Ex-husband. As of forty-eight hours ago. The papers came—” She bit her lip.

  If Addison hooked herself up to the monitor, would the machine stop beeping altogether? How could a heart remain beating when it was damaged beyond repair? Her aunt’s voice pulled her back from the hypnotic pulse.

  “Listen to me, Alice Faye Jones — and don’t tell me not to use your real name because you’ll always be Alice to me — you will be whole again. Your heart may be bruised—”

  “Broken, shattered, stomped on.”

  Aunt Ruth nodded. “Yes, all those things, but you are a strong woman. You have to rely on God, and everything will come out right in the end. I know it’s hard to see now, but He has wonderful things in store for you.”

  A spark of annoyance flickered to life, echoed by the incessant bleep-bleep. “Are you telling me God orchestrated Merrick cheating on me with Angela as some sort of master plan? What passage in the Bible covers things like a co-star stealing your husband?”

  Bad niece! Bad niece! Why are you attacking a feeble, old woman? Your issue is with me.

  Great, now the machinery was talking back. She’d heard of voices in a burning bush, but surely God wouldn’t choose a heart monitor as a communication device.

  Aunt Ruth pursed her lips, a sign she was trying not to reveal she’d been hurt. Addison recognized the signal from her childhood days.

  Releasing a gust sigh, Addison stroked her aunt’s hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

  “And I should have known better than to offer platitudes when you’re still so raw.”

  “The truth is I’m not sure I can rely on a God who would let my life implode like an old Las Vegas hotel,” Addison said. “Why did He allow my marriage to be destroyed?”

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  Bleep-bleep. Bleep-bleep.

  Stupid, mocking beeper machine.

  “You must be exhausted after your trip,” Aunt Ruth said. “Why don’t you go on home and get some rest?”

  Addison kissed her aunt’s cheek one more time and stood to leave. “All right, but I’ll be back tomorrow morning. I want to hear a full report from your doctor.”

  “I’m so glad you came back.”

  “Me, too,” Addison said, turning to leave.

  “Alice?”

  She glanced over her shoulder.

  “Buildings are imploded for a reason,” Aunt Ruth said. “There’s structural damage, or the facility is outdated and doesn’t serve its purpose anymore. When that happens, a better one is always built in its place.”

  Chapter Four

  “Do you think she’s dead?”

  “Nah, she’s breathing. See, her chest is moving.”

  “Poke her and make sure.”

  “You poke her.”

  Addison had been dreaming of Merrick and Angela cavorting on a sun-swept beach, so it took a moment to register the new voices belonged to someone else. Still groggy with sleep, she pried her eyes open to find two faces looming over her.

  Cursing, Addison jerked back, managing to flip herself out of the hammock and onto the ground.

  Two grubby little boys stood in her aunt’s back yard. Identical, grubby little boys. Unless she was still dreaming.

  “Lady, you said a bad word,” one of the boys said.

  “Daddy’d tan our butts if we said that,” the other echoed.

  Addison shook her head, but the double mirage remained. “Please tell me there are two of you standing there.”

  The boys grinned. “I’m Jason,” the one on the left said. “And he’s Carson.”

  Addison sat back on her heels as she surveyed the pint-sized interlopers. Central Casting would snap them up in a second. They were adorable, apple-cheeked and rumpled with the kind of towhead blond hair actresses paid over two hundred dollars to possess. Two pairs of green eyes stared back at her with intense curiosity.

  “How old are you guys?” she asked.

  The boy on the left, Jason she thought, spoke first. “Seven. We just had a birthday party. With a cowboy and balloons and water-gun fights and everything.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “We wanted a pony, but Daddy said that was excessive,” the other boy said.

  “A pony is excessive? Let me tell you, your daddy hasn’t seen excessive until he’s gone to a celebrity kid’s birthday party. I know one parent who rented a whole circus.”

  They regarded her with astonishment. “With clowns and jugglers and trapeze people?” Carson asked.

  “And lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” she said.

  Both boys giggled, and she couldn’t help but grin back at them.

  Jason dropped to the ground in front of her and propped his chin up with his hands. “What’s a celebrity?”

  “Someone who’s famous. Like an actor on TV or in movies.”

  “Like Dora?”

  “She’s a cartoon character.”

  Carson dropped down next to his brother. “Nuh-huh. She’s real. Daddy took us to a show last year, and she was on stage and everything.”

  “Right. I’m talking about human famous people.”

  Carson nodded. “So you know ‘em? Famous people?”

  Addison leaned toward them. “Can you two keep a secret?”

  Their blond heads bobbed like those weird little dolls.

  “I’m sort of a celebrity myself.”

  Jason popped back up. “No kiddin’? Who are you?”

  “My name is Addison. I was on a TV show.”

  “What show?” Carson asked.

  “It’s called House of Fashion.”

  Their eyes widened like saucers. “Gamma watches it every week,” Jason announced. “You’re the mean lady!”

  The mean lady. Pretty much summed up her entire career in a nutshell.

  “You don’t look mean,” Carson said.

  Jason nodded his agreement. “You’re pretty. Like a princess.”

  She ruffled his hair. “No one’s called me a princess in years. At least not as a compliment.”

  He grinned. “Daddy says we’re pistols.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Something about their innocence made her heart suddenly lighter. Addison had risen early to visit her aunt and meet with the doctors, and the update had been disheartening. The upshot was Aunt Ruth would be in the hospital for another week before being moved to a rehab facility for therapy. Which meant Addison had the place to herself for the foreseeable future. Even though she should’ve been grateful for the solitude, the thought of rambling around her aunt’s house alone was depressing.

  “Were you takin’ a nap?” Carson asked. “We don’t have to take them anymore.”

  “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I guess my body hasn’t adjusted to East Coast time, though. I came out here to think and must have dozed off.”

  Jason scrunched up his nose. “Where’d you come from?”

  “I live in California. A long way from here. Where is your house, anyway?”

  Carson narrowed his eyes. “We’re not supposed to tell strangers where we live.”r />
  “Is the house on this block at least?”

  The boys shared a silent look and Addison knew there was some kind of mysterious twin communication happening.

  Jason answered. “No.”

  “So, you’re passing through?”

  Another look.

  Jason again. “We’re stayin’ at Gamma’s house next door till Daddy gets off work.”

  Next door?

  “What’s your last name?”

  They’d forgotten to be suspicious. “Thomas,” they said in unison.

  Addison knew the name. A memory of three teenage boys flashed through her mind. Ethan, Jake, and Matthew. The Thomas brothers had been quite the heartthrobs back then. Golden and beautiful, she’d spent hours watching them from whatever window gave her the best view. She remembered they’d liked to pull off their shirts and toss a football around in the yard. She’d been the happiest thirteen-year-old on the planet on those days.

  She wondered which brother could claim father to these two boys.

  “You stay with your Gamma a lot?” Addison asked, shamelessly probing for more information.

  Jason nodded. “When Daddy works late. Sometimes we play at our cousins’ house. Daddy says we’d blow up the house if we stayed home alone.”

  Addison grinned. “Do you get into trouble a lot?”

  “We were trying to launch our rocket,” Carson said, as if that explained everything.

  “We did it outside and everything, but it went zoom right through the window,” Jason said, in a clear attempt to defend their actions. A swooshing motion up into the sky accompanied the fervent account.

  Carson finished the story. “Then Daddy said we needed a keeper, and since Mommy wasn’t here to do it anymore, it’d have to be Gamma.”

  “Where’s your mommy?”

  “In heaven,” Jason said.

  Carson hung his head. “She went to sleep and forgot to wake up.”

  Addison’s heart stopped. She had another memory of a letter from her aunt a couple years ago, telling her about two tragic deaths within weeks of each other. One was the minister’s wife from cancer. The other was the wife of one of the Thomas brothers.

  Addison couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of these sweet, funny boys growing up without their mother. Like she’d had to without her father.

  “My dad died,” Addison said.

  Their heads came up. Icy fingers skated down her spine as they stared into her eyes. A connection from a shared tragedy.

  “Did your daddy forget to wake up, too?” Jason asked.

  “No, he died in an accident. I was a bit older than you guys. Then I came here to live with my aunt.”

  “You lived here?”

  “Yeah, and I’m visiting for awhile.”

  Carson popped up on his knees. “Mimi Ruth fell down and hurt her leg.”

  “Mimi Ruth?”

  She wasn’t surprised when Jason also popped up on his knees. “She lets us come over and play the piano. We’re learning scales.”

  “Sounds fun—”

  “Jason? Carson?”

  The two boys shared identical uh-oh glances, and Addison turned to see Catalogue Man from the gas station round the corner.

  ****

  Ethan tromped through the grass toward Ruth Carlson’s back yard. He’d had yet another confrontation with Mrs. Turney today. Except it was no longer only Mrs. Turney. Now there was a Greek chorus in his face, demanding he solve the problem of the spring musical. Unfortunately, he was no closer to securing a replacement director. If he knew one thing about singing or acting, he would have taken over directing himself, just to get Mrs. Turney and her posse off his back.

  The added stress meant his temper was already on a hair trigger, and arriving at his mother’s house to find the boys nowhere in sight did nothing to help. The boys knew they were supposed to stay within eyesight of his mother.

  “Boys, didn’t I tell you about sneaking over here with Mrs. Carlson gone—” He came to a halt as he spotted the blond woman sitting in the grass next to his sons. His pulse kicked into high gear.

  The boys jumped up and ran to him before he could shout a warning. “Daddy, there’s a lady stayin’ here. She’s on Gamma’s TV show.”

  “TV show?”

  He turned to look at her more closely, and the breath left his body, like a defensive end had hit him.

  It was her. The woman from the gas station. The woman who had, in one blinding instant, made him glad he hadn’t followed his impulse to drive off the road. Made him happy he was still alive. He’d tried hard not think about her since the strange encounter across the service island, but a man didn’t forget having his engines revved for the first time in years so easily.

  In one graceful movement, she stood and ambled toward him. Unlike the other day when she’d been in jeans and a sweater, this time she wore some kind of white filmy dress, which seemed to dance around her calves. Her hair was loose, flowing around her shoulders to frame blue eyes.

  It was as if Aphrodite on the clamshell from that painting had suddenly come to life. She was beautiful… stunning… entrancing and any other word one could imagine to describe an attractive woman. He blinked, wondering if stress and nearly two years’ worth of sleepless nights had driven him over the edge. How else to explain a living goddess showing up in this back yard? Her face was almost too beautiful to be real.

  She stopped in front of him, and Ethan stopped breathing. Thinking.

  “House of Fashion,” she said. “I’m the mean lady.”

  The what? He shook his head in confusion.

  “I’m Addison Covington.”

  “Addison…” What was a TV star doing here?

  Her smile grew, a teasing grin threatening to short-circuit Ethan’s brain again. “I’m Ruth’s niece.”

  Ethan shook his head as a picture flashed through his head. A memory of a gangly, brown-haired mouse of a girl. His jaw dropped open. “Good grief. Alice?”

  “It’s Addison now,” she said, her patrician nose wrinkling.

  “Right,” he said, still trying to match the shy girl he remembered with the woman facing him now.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know I was in town,” she said. “Even the old geezer at the gas station knew about my homecoming.”

  “I knew you were coming back, but I didn’t know you were who you were,” Ethan said, unable to hide a wince at his own inanity.

  Addison laughed. “I guess I look a little different than I did when I lived here.”

  “No kidding.” Ethan couldn’t help letting his eyes travel from her tousled blond hair to her feet. Her toenails were painted fire-engine red. The engine revving kicked up again, this time shifting into turbo drive. He swallowed and turned to his sons. “Go grab your stuff from Grandma’s. We need to get home.”

  The twins opened their mouths to protest, but one stern look from him and they thought better of it.

  “Bye, TV lady,” Jason called, as they took off.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow!” Carson said.

  Addison watched the boys until they’d disappeared around the corner. The brief respite gave him a chance to get his head together.

  He hoped.

  “How do you tell them apart?” she said, finally shifting her gaze back to him.

  “It’s not hard once you get to know them.”

  Silence reigned while he and Addison both seemed to be searching for something to say. He didn’t have a clue how to start a conversation with a famous actress.

  “Ethan Thomas, right?” she said finally.

  His eyes widened in surprise.

  “You left an impression on a teenage girl,” Addison said with a smile. “The football star thing. The dimples.”

  Yes, he remembered Alice had spied on him and his brothers constantly, usually from her bedroom window. He wondered what might have happened if he’d paid more attention to her obvious crush.

  “You okay, Ethan?”

  �
�You must think I’m a complete idiot,” he said, laughing in obvious embarrassment. “I can’t believe I’m standing here with you. Except you’re different. I keep trying to picture the little girl who lived here, but you don’t look—”

  “Anything like the frumpy mouse I used to be?”

  Ethan swiped a hand over his face. He obviously had no idea how to talk to females over the voting age anymore. “There I go being an idiot again.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “No, the truth is I have a hard time believing how my life turned out.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  Her head tilted. “Yours didn’t work out the way you wanted?”

  A long time ago he’d wanted to play college football and then maybe even the pros. Fate and God had had other plans. Everything he’d worked for his whole life had shattered, along with his leg, in his senior year. Those dreams seemed so far away now.