Searching for Glory
By: Hunter J. Keane
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EPILOGUE
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Hunter J. Keane
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.hunterjkeane.com
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To my family.
Los Angeles, California: 2002
This is the last letter I am going to write. Someday I might even find the courage to send it, along with all the others. But considering that I’ve never committed a courageous act in my life, that’s not very likely.
It has been a whole year since I left town- since I left you. You told me not to write. You said I should go and never look back. But we both knew that wasn’t possible. And it’s not that I didn’t want to run away, because I did. All the pain, all the guilt, all the scars- I wanted it to all be gone. All of it, except you.
I haven’t been able to come to terms with what happened. That night plays out over and over in my head every single time I close my eyes. One minute he was standing there, and the next minute he was dead. One minute you and I were madly in love… Anyway, I think by now we both know this isn’t a love story. It’s a tragedy. We aren’t going to live happily-ever-after together, but maybe if we’re lucky we’ll both find a way to live.
CHAPTER ONE
When I was eight years old, my mother decided to cut my hair. She was higher than a kite at the time, and the hair fell away in large chunks. The resulting style, if it could be called that, was something akin to poorly landscaped shrubbery. Ordinarily, this would be enough to humiliate a young girl. But my childhood was nothing close to ordinary.
The next day was school picture day and if that wasn’t bad enough, I was also sporting a shocking purple bruise around my right eye after spilling one of my father’s favorite domestic brews. Considering his usual proclivity toward violence, I had been glad to escape without a worse punishment. Needless to said, my third grade picture was not a keeper. And yet it was still better than the one I was currently looking at on the front page of Celebrity News.
“Look at it this way,” my agent Franny Zo said as she handed me a mug brimming with piping hot coffee, “at least you didn’t flash everyone your girly bits.”
“Yes, that is very good news,” I mumbled around a bite of my blueberry muffin. Franny pretended not to notice the sarcasm and launched into a speech about how even bad press is good press in Hollywood. I ignored her and focused instead on the disaster before me.
Two nights earlier, production on my television show Silver Lining had wrapped after four years. Naturally, the cast and crew had wanted to celebrate in style at the newest trendy nightclub, Louvre. I didn’t remember much of what happened that night, but I knew there had been a lot of shots of various liquors involved in our celebration.
At some point, I decided it would be a good idea to dance on stage. Unfortunately, I was hampered by four inch heels and enough alcohol to make even the most dedicated alcoholic want to check into rehab.
The result, as you probably predicted, was a photo of me biting it big time. I lay flat on the ground, my face smashed against the stage at an unflattering angle and my normally perfectly coiffed hair was instead a tangled mess illuminating an unsightly sheen of sweat on my face. The skin-tight dress I was wearing had hiked itself up so that the very bottoms of my butt cheeks were visible. The headline was the best part, in my opinion: “Fallen Star- Gloria Star’s Crash and Burn.” The subtitle asked, “Is this the beginning of the end for her career?”
I cut Franny off in mid-sentence. “You really think me making an ass out of myself is a good thing?”
Franny fluttered about her office, each erratic movement furthering my belief that she should never be trusted with sharp objects. “Gloria, this is nothing. It’s not the first time the press has tried to make you look like a lush. And it’s not even the most unflattering photo they’ve ever used. This is nothing. I swear.” She even drew a cross over her heart with one perfectly manicured fingernail.
“Thanks. I feel much better.”
“Look, all we need is a little damage control.” Franny finally took a seat across from me on the purple leather couch. “You and Richard need to be seen in public tonight. The press salivates whenever the two of you go out. Give them something to whet their appetite. Flash around that big diamond for once. Let slip some wedding plans. Grope each other inappropriately. Whatever. I don’t really care, just do something.”
I sighed loudly, realizing that she was probably right. Franny got on my nerves more than any other human being on the planet but in her eight years as my agent she had been right more times than she had been wrong. “Fine. We’ll do dinner.”
“Excellent.” Franny practically squealed as she retrieved her blackberry from under a pile of contracts. “I’m making you reservations at Shadow for seven tonight. There will be a ton of paparazzi so come prepared.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll call Richard and let him know. He’ll be thrilled.”
My fiancé, Richard Masterson, was nothing less than a press whore. He was a celebrity in his own right- a bona fide movie star. He made five million per picture, usually action movies that involved a lot of shirtlessness, and he loved an excuse to get his picture taken. Last season, he was booked as a reoccurring guest star on Silver Lining which was how we met.
The first day on set, I decided he was nothing more than a prick. He liked to talk about himself- a lot. He assumed that every female within a fifty foot radius would fall on their knees if he asked them to. He liked to check himself out in any object that gave a reflection. And most annoyingly of all, he had been obsessed with me.
He asked me out every day for three months and my answer was always no. He sent me flowers whenever he was away from set and brought me coffee whenever we had early morning filming. Eventually, my hard outer shell started to soften. I resisted as long as I could, mostly because Franny decided our union would be nothing short of the second coming of Christ.
I had known that she was at least partly right; the press would eat it up. But that also meant we would never have any privacy and my life would become more exposed than it already was. Even more than that, though I no longer hated him, I still wasn’t sure I even liked him. Despite that, we finally hooked up after the last day of filming for season three. I’m still not sure what made me give in, or give up, but we had been together ever since.
Three months ago Richard proposed and I couldn’t think of a good enough reason to say no. So now I wore an embarrassingly large diamond on my ring finger occasionally, and an even bigger chip on my shoulder all the time. It wasn’t fair to Richard; he hadn’t done anything wrong. Mostly I was just angry with myself because I knew the real reason I should have said no- I didn’t love
him.
Sure, there were times when I tricked myself into thinking I was in love. Sometimes people do that because love, even forced love, is a better alternative than loneliness. Sometimes I faked it so well that I started to actually believe I might be in love with him. But the moment would pass, and I would feel like crap again.
I had actually been in love once- deep, can’t-live-without-this-person love. It had been intense and painful at times, but it had always been completely real. I often wondered if I could ever get back to that place; if not with Richard, then maybe with someone else. But a part of me believed it would never happen, so I kept up my charade with Richard and hoped that eventually I wouldn’t have to fake it.
“Well here’s some good news that will turn that frown upside down,” Franny said as she peered at her phone.
“What’s that?” I asked somewhat wearily. Franny and I have vastly different ideas of what constitutes good news.
“You, my dear, were just named Sexiest Woman Alive.” Franny held up the phone for me to see.
She was right. According to Men’s Mag, I was chosen from a list of fifty female celebrities and was named their Sexiest Woman Alive. I looked at the phone, then at the picture of me lying on the floor in a drunken mess. It seemed to be a perfect metaphor for my life and I burst out laughing.
* * *
“Well what did you expect, babe?” Richard said, sipping his scotch. “If you get that drunk, something bad is going to happen. And we both know it could have been much worse.”
I swirled the ice in my water glass before taking a sip. “You make it sound like I’m an alcoholic. I hardly ever drink like that. I just made a mistake.”
“Well hopefully you’ve learned something from it.”
I fought the urge to throw my water in his smug face. We had been fighting throughout dinner, just as I knew we would. Richard loved trendy restaurants where we could see and be seen. I hated places like Shadow, and hated even more being stared at by other diners. It always made me uncomfortable and in turn, I took my discomfort out on Richard.
“Let’s talk about something else,” I said, pushing away my barely touched plate of food.
Richard smiled at me, a genuine smile and not his phony celebrity smile. When he smiled at me like that, I started to remember why I began dating him in the first place. “How about a toast to the Sexiest Woman Alive,” he said with a perfectly timed wink. Everything about Richard was like that wink- equal parts charming, attractive, arrogant and repulsive.
I clinked my water glass against his scotch glass and studied him with open curiosity. He was insanely attractive, sure. Easily one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. He had a prominent forehead, and perfectly chiseled nose. His chin held a deep cleft and his jaw was square and strong. I knew from experience that his body was even more sculpted than his face. But there was something about him that didn’t fit; I could never quite put my finger on it, but I kept trying to figure it out.
“Have you thought about a wedding date?” he asked, helping himself to a bite of my abandoned pasta.
“I’ve had thoughts.”
“Anything you’d care to share with your fiancé?”
“Nothing specific.”
“Have you talked to your sister about it?” He was prying for information now and we both knew it.
“Not really.” I was being vague, the way I always was when he asked me about my family.
“Well you’re at least going to invite her to the wedding, right? I think it would be nice to finally meet her.” Richard looked at his watch and I knew he was thinking we should leave soon or the paparazzi would be gone.
“Of course. I wouldn’t get married without my sister there,” I said, sounding more certain than I felt. “Should we go?”
We left the restaurant through the front entrance rather than using the private back exit. It was important for us to be seen as a happy couple, and more important for me to be seen standing solidly on two feet.
Franny had done her job and the paparazzi were plentiful. Richard was all smiles, perfectly practiced smiles that said he was a little embarrassed by the attention but he also understood that it was a necessary evil in showbiz. My smile was much more strained and made me look like I had just received a root canal. The paparazzi were used to my standoffish nature and had accepted it as part of my mysterious persona.
I waved to a small group of pedestrians standing nearby, looking awestruck. I knew that the flashes from the cameras would catch my diamond as I waved it around which was on my checklist of things to accomplish tonight. A few of the men with cameras asked us questions about the wedding, and we smiled coyly. Richard told them we were very excited but that we were trying to keep the details private. It wouldn’t keep them satisfied forever, but it was enough for now.
We went back the Richard’s place, a penthouse suite in the most expensive building in the Los Angeles area. I preferred my secluded house on the beach but Richard said he didn’t sleep well near the water. We made love, or something like that, in the way that couples do when they’ve been dating for awhile. It was over quickly and I was left unsatisfied, but I was starting to get used to that.
Richard was asleep almost as soon as it was over, his muscular arm thrown over my body in a possessive way. I shimmied out from under it and slipped out of bed. My overnight bag sat on the floor and I rummaged through it for some underwear. I pulled on one of Richard’s t-shirts and flipped through the mail I had picked up from my place earlier.
I didn’t get a lot of mail usually. Mostly just some catalogs and credit card applications. All of my bills were automated, and I didn’t have any real friends to speak of so I didn’t get a lot of invitations or cards.
I shouldn’t have said I don’t have real friends. I had friends that were as real as you can expect in Hollywood. My stylist and I spent a little time together socially, and I had also become close to several members of the Silver Lining cast. So I wasn’t a complete recluse, I just didn’t let myself get attached to people.
I took a seat in an oversized chair by the window. In the stack of mail, I discovered a plain white letter sized envelope. It was addressed to Glory Stark, a name I hadn’t heard in ten years. The handwriting was precise and fluid and I recognized it immediately. There was a hollow thudding in my chest that I suspected was my heart, but it could also have been a bomb about to explode. I glanced back at the bed where Richard was softly snoring. My finger slid easily under the envelope flap and I opened it quietly.
One sheet of paper, folded in thirds, rested inside. I retrieved it with shaky fingers. I sat it on my lap and stared at it, unopened. Richard snorted and I looked over to see if he was awake. He scratched himself with vigor and then rolled over, still asleep. I marveled that dating the most desired man in the country was nowhere near as glamorous as it sounded.
The letter was calling to me, the unread words forming possibilities in my head. It could be the letter I’d been waiting to receive for ten years, or it could be the one I’d been dreading. The only way to find out was simply to read it. It crinkled a little as I unfolded it, revealing the words within. I skimmed it first, trying to get a feel for if it was good or bad but it didn’t fit either of the scenarios I had in my head.
Something was wrong back home, something involving my sister and her family. The letter wasn’t specific, probably because the author of the letter was trying to be as succinct as possible. It had to have been an impossible letter to write. Most of it made no sense to me. I had spoken to Vic a week earlier and she hadn’t mentioned anything negative to me. She’d sounded like she always did- tired, but happy. Her four kids were thriving and she was still happily married to her high school sweetheart, Jake.
But this letter was suggesting the exact opposite. I was caught off guard, unprepared for how to deal with such a letter. The only part of it I understood- the part I had been hoping to find inside- was the salutation:
Come home.
~J
ohnny.
I sat there for hours, folding and unfolding the letter. Reading each word carefully and searching for a hidden meaning. I knew that I shouldn’t be trying to find a hidden message when the real message was painfully obvious. My sister needed me, though she was too proud to ever ask for help. As I sat in the darkness, the bedroom lit only by the city lights streaking through the open window, I knew without a doubt what I needed to do.
“What are you doing over there, Glor?” Richard called out, his deep voice stilted with sleep. “Come back to bed.”
“In a minute,” I said, knowing that I was never going back to that bed. Someone else needed me, and I owed that person everything. I folded the letter and tucked it back into its envelope. I placed it in my overnight bag, along with my other possessions that were scattered throughout the room. I changed into my own clothes and left Richard’s t-shirt crumpled on the floor. All of this I did quickly and quietly, being careful not to wake Richard.
If he woke up, there would be a confrontation. I would have to explain where I was going and why. He would want to know when I was coming back to town, and I didn’t know how to answer that question. Even worse, I didn’t know how to tell him that I was never coming back to him. Our relationship was effectively over- he just didn’t know it yet.
Fully aware that I was a shameless coward, I left the ring on his dresser, reveling at the lightness of my newly unadorned finger. My spirit felt lighter, too. I locked the door behind me on the way out and then slid my key under the door. He would be angry and hurt for awhile, I told myself, but he would move on quickly.
Twenty minutes later I was cruising down Ocean Avenue with the top down on my convertible. The ocean air was heavy with salt and smog and I looked forward to finally breathing in some fresh air soon. I dug my cell phone out of my bag and placed a call to Franny.
“Hey, Fran. Something’s come up and I’m leaving town for awhile. You can try calling me later but I doubt I’ll answer or call you back. I just need some time. I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”
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