by Amy Finnegan
This probably isn’t something I should tell Rachel. Not yet, at least.
As I’m thinking about all of this on my way home, my mom calls to say, “Trina won’t stop pestering me about making sure her daughter gets an audition for Stars in Their Eyes. Has Rachel been trying to talk you into making some calls?”
“Yes, and I told her I’d do whatever I could,” I say. “What’s wrong with that?”
There’s a sigh of exasperation, as if Mom can’t believe I still don’t understand how things work. “Emma. It’s one thing to talk to a few friends—once in a while—who happen to be working on a project you feel Rachel would be good in, but quite another matter to call people you don’t even know and use your name as though it can buy you the Taj Mahal.”
“Gosh, Mom. I don’t take my celebrity status as lightly as you think.” I’m not sure my plan to get Rachel an audition will work, but can’t I at least try? This is the first year she’s old enough for Stars in Their Eyes—a reality show that gives aspiring actors a shot at stardom. “Rachel is one-hundred-percent perfect for that show, and the casting director will know it the minute she auditions.”
“Then let her stand in line like everyone else,” Mom says.
“I just want to make sure she gets a place in line, okay?” A lot of people don’t, only because they wear a scarf one of the screeners doesn’t like, or something petty like that.
Another sigh. “These favors have gone on far too long, Emma.”
I’m tired of arguing about this. Rachel is exceptionally talented and deserves a break.
I’m home by then, so I end our conversation and try to erase all thoughts of my mom and even Rachel from my head while I get ready for Phoenix. I love the way Donna has been doing my hair, with just a little more body than usual, so I’m careful with it as I shower and remove my stage makeup.
One of the things I love most about my town house is the walk-in closet. Not only does it have room for all of my clothes—except for the formalwear that I keep in Arkansas—but it also has enough floor space for my hopeless addiction: shoes.
I decide to wear my favorite slingback heels. Now for a non-date outfit to match. I start with dark jeans, then try on five shirts, all black, and give each a thirty-second evaluation. I finally choose one with cap sleeves and a neckline that doesn’t show anything, um … flirty. I finish my makeup just in time for Jake’s knock.
One look at him tells me I should slam the door and bolt it.
I’ve just discovered Jake’s best look yet—freshly showered. His hair is shiny black because it’s still a little wet, and it curls up in all the right places. And he’s wearing a tight jade-green tee that’s partially tucked in.
Couldn’t he look bad just once? Just tonight?
We start with the usual chitchat—hi, hey, you ready, yeah—that happens whenever a guy picks me up. Only this isn’t a date. Nope. When we get to his car, I even open my own door, and nothing feels weird about it. Totally casual.
Jake turns onto the canyon road. “It’s gonna take a while to get there. You hungry?”
Crafty set out fresh peanut butter cookies as we left work, and I grabbed three. A paycheck is just a side benefit of this job. “I’m fine if you are.”
“Good, because I promised my mom I’d pick up her favorite burger along the way,” Jake says. “You aren’t a straight-salad girl, are you?”
“Do I look like a rabbit?”
“No, but you don’t look like you down a lot of burgers either.”
“I love hamburgers,” I say. “And pizza, nachos, popcorn … whatever.”
“And bottled water,” he says. I’ve noticed the same thing about him. He gestures to my bag. “How many did you bring along?”
“Just a couple.” I pull out a bottle for each of us. “It’s pretty much all I drink. I loved the lemonade we had for lunch today, though. I asked for the recipe.”
“Cool, now you can open your own lemonade stand. You’ll make a load of cash.”
Okay, he’s cute. I’ll admit it. “Does this come from experience?”
Jake smiles. “My one and only sidewalk stand was a bit more creative than that.”
“Oh my. A kissing booth?” I ask.
“I wish! I would’ve been in a lot less trouble. Instead, I sold all of my mom’s shoes.”
I gasp, truly horrified, and shift my Prada-clad feet far from Jake’s reach. “You were an evil little boy.”
For most of the two-hour drive, there’s a lot of banter like this, but no flirting … not really, and small talk about life in general. “How’d you get into acting?” he asks, finally coming around to work. “You like it, right?”
A coyote darts across the freeway ahead of us. I’ve seen more coyotes since I moved to Arizona than cats and dogs.
“I have a nice scripted answer for that,” I reply. “But it’s boring and superficial, and my real answer is on the edge of cheesy.”
“Pour on the cheese,” Jake says.
“Okay, you asked for it.” I chug down some water for dramatic effect. “I started acting lessons when I was six, was in community plays and such, then began auditioning for professional projects when I was nine. I did a couple of commercials, small independent films, stuff like that. Then, just after I turned twelve, my mom heard that a big-budget production would be shooting right by us in Fayetteville—a movie about a pioneer family, settling in the Ozarks. The role for the girl my age was a huge one, so my mom admits now that she really didn’t think I had much of a chance. But for months my friend Rachel and I got ready to audition, and then our moms took us out to Los Angeles for the big day.”
“Rachel acts too?” Jake asks. “The girl I signed the headshots for?”
“Yeah, but this is when she sort of slipped through the cracks,” I say, my chest tightening like it always does when I think back on this. “We don’t know if it was some bad food she ate or what, but the morning of the audition, Rachel was super sick. She still auditioned, but didn’t do her best.”
“And you got the part,” Jake says. “You probably would’ve gotten it anyway.”
“Maybe,” I say, though it’s likely true. The casting director told my mom during filming that they had hoped to find a small-framed girl with long dark hair, bright eyes, and a genuine Southern drawl. Totally me. “But try explaining that to your best friend when you get to go to the Oscars—Mountain Home went on to win Best Picture, after all—and she’s at home crying her eyes out because it could’ve been her.”
Jake stares straight ahead at the road, and I’m glad because my throat is suddenly constricted. Rachel has never revealed this herself to me, but Trina told me all about her daughter’s broken heart the night of the Academy Awards—how she had choked back sobs when I went up on stage with our winning cast, but clapped and cheered for me anyway.
“Rachel is a seriously talented actress, though, and she’s just getting into photography and is already great at it,” I say, having just realized how I made Rachel sound. “And she isn’t nearly as blubbering and flu-stricken as I just described her. She’s also smart and pretty. Really, really pretty.”
“Thanks for the sales pitch,” Jake says with a laugh. “When you finish telling me what you like about acting, maybe you can tell me what Rachel likes about it. If you really, really want to.”
I scowl at him but move on. “All right, this is the cheesy part: When we were shooting Mountain Home, take after take, I couldn’t imagine how it could end up like anything but a jumbled mess. And the days were sooo long and hardly exciting after a while.”
Jake nods as I talk, likely because he’s having similar thoughts at work.
“But,” I continue, “when I saw myself on the big screen, it felt amazing. It was incredibly cool to watch myself pretend to be someone so different from me. And I was stunned that I’d actually made the audience believe this pioneer girl was a real person. So it’s not actually during production that I love acting, but the rush I get when I
see the finished product.”
“That’s not cheesy,” Jake says. “Everyone should do something they can be proud of—whatever gives them that same sort of buzz.”
“Isn’t modeling like that for you?”
“Not even close,” he replies. “The runway stuff is awkward, but it’s not like my buddies beg for tickets to Fashion Week. And if they did, they wouldn’t be there to see me, anyway.” Jake drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s the print work that bugs me. For weeks before an ad comes out, I can already hear my friends’ voices in my head. I know exactly what jokes they’re gonna make.”
Jealousy has to play into it, at least a little, when his friends tease him. But it surprises me that Jake truly sounds humiliated when he says this. He’s so good at modeling. But like fame, success means something different to everyone.
“I get that way about tabloids,” I admit. “I take it all more personally than I should.”
“But no one really believes those stories.”
“Oh yes they do!” I reply. “Celebrity Seeker could run a bogus piece about me buying the entire country of Austria, and within ten minutes, there would be hundreds of people online trying to guess why I chose Austria rather than France. Or, heck, why not all of Europe?”
“With that kind of imagination, you should be a tabloid reporter,” Jake says, so I smack his arm. “But your friends and family are cool about everything?”
Good question. “Rachel is great. She comes to most of my premieres and award shows. And my mom … well, she’s also my manager, so sometimes those roles clash.”
“That’s understandable,” Jake says. “What about your dad?”
“My dad? Hmm … he’s a different story altogether. Proud of me, yes, but he kind of acts like my career is a fluke. Most of our conversations include him reminding me that the bubble will pop one day, and that I better have something ‘of worth’ to fall back on.”
“Is that why you decided to go to college? So you can eventually do something else?”
“No, I just don’t want to be one-dimensional.” We’re talking about me way too much. “What about you? How did you get into all this?”
Jake tells me how his agent found him playing basketball—I would have signed him too—and later suggested he might like acting better than modeling. “Don’t take me wrong, because so far, I’m loving it,” Jake says. “Acting is the hardest job I’ve ever had, and every day is a new challenge. But being a celebrity for the long haul … I don’t know. It just isn’t who I am.”
Then who is he? “What would you rather do?”
“Business, for sure. Negotiating deals, all that stuff. Selling my mom’s shoes was just the beginning.” He exits the freeway. There are mountains in the distance, but the most immediate view of Phoenix is the jutting up of tall buildings, ten times more than can be seen in the Tucson skyline. “I drive my agent nuts because I never want to sign a contract without a dozen rounds of negotiating. But besides the pay, the deal-making is the only part of modeling I’ve liked.”
“So you want a business degree?” I ask, and he replies with a happy nod. I almost laugh, tempted to tell him more about my dad’s job, but I decide to wait. I can, however, offer Jake a bit of advice since he’s already said he wants to talk about school. “Well, most general requirements are now available online. And we usually don’t work from mid-April to early July, so you could take a few campus classes too.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out since we talked a while ago,” Jake says as he pulls into The Hamburger Hut parking lot. “I’m just not sure where to start.”
He stops in front of a large drive-thru menu board, and I tell him, “I guess I could point you in the right direction, but I don’t work for free. You’ll have to buy me a burger.”
Jake gives me such an incredibly cute smile that my whole body goes limp. I need to plaster NO TRESPASSING signs all over him.
“You’re an easy girl to please,” he says.
I can’t help but laugh again. “You’re the first person who’s ever told me that.”
He leans a bit closer and twirls a lock of my hair between his fingers … that’s all.
But it’s enough.
I grab my bag, open the car door, and practically sprint out of it. “I’ll meet you on the other side of the drive-thru,” I say, and head straight for The Hamburger Hut restroom so I can stare into the mirror and remind myself that I will not fall for Jake Elliott.
Jake
If Emma had any mercy at all, she would have worn a frumpy dress and put her hair up in a librarian bun. Instead, she looks good enough to be on a movie screen and is just as untouchable. Right before she reaches the Hamburger Hut door, she pulls out a big white hat and sets it low, almost over her eyes. Man, that’s one face that should never have to be hidden.
Once I’ve picked up our food, I find Emma waiting at the end of the drive-thru. We talk a little more about school, then she asks, “Does your mom know I’m coming?”
“Yep,” I say. “But don’t worry, I clarified that this isn’t a date. She’s still excited, though, because … well, she’s a fan.”
“And she wants a hamburger.”
“That too.” We’ll be at my mom’s place in a few minutes, so I can’t put this off any longer. “Okay. I, uh … need to tell you something.”
Emma eyes me suspiciously. “All right.”
I suck in a breath. “My mom had a pretty serious stroke about a year ago that left half of her body paralyzed. Her face is looking better every day, but she’s in a wheelchair now, and the doctors doubt she’ll regain any more movement.” Emma just listens quietly, her arms wrapped around her waist, and I can tell she doesn’t know what to say. No one ever does. Not even me. “Anyway, I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable when you see her, and it makes her uncomfortable when people don’t know what’s wrong. Her speech is still a little slurred, but she’s fine, you know … mentally. So just talk like you normally would.”
Emma nods. “I can’t imagine watching one of my parents go through that.”
We pull up to Mom’s gated community, and I enter the code. “It’s been a tough year, to say the least. And it doesn’t help that she acts like it isn’t a big deal, like she can take care of things on her own. But my mom didn’t recognize any warning signs before her stroke, so it freaks me out, thinking that something like this, or worse, can happen again.”
The doctors aren’t sure why it happened in the first place. It “just did.”
Not only did the stroke come out of the blue, but the timing was horrible. I bought my BMW—straight off the lot, with every possible option—just before then, and had thought I’d been so responsible by saving cash for it. I didn’t count on having more important things to spend my money on, like the new house my mom needed, or her home health care and physical therapy. My sister had recently left for her study-abroad program in Italy, and I was already registered to start at ASU, planning on doing just a few modeling jobs a month. But everything changed overnight, and Liz went after the Armani contract so I could keep up with all the expenses. College had to wait.
While I wind through the roads of my mom’s neighborhood, Emma and I talk about lighter topics. I don’t want to show up with a solemn expression on my face or Mom will think I’ve been “feeling sorry” for her again.
Emma grabs the bag of food when I park in the driveway, and we head for the front porch. “This house looks new,” she says. “It isn’t where you grew up, is it?”
“Nope.” I unlock the front door. “We had a two-story house a few miles from here, but my mom has to live in a rambler now.”
We barely make it past the entry when Mom comes around a corner in her motorized wheelchair. “Get out of the way, Jake,” she says. “I can’t even see her.”
“Hello to you too.” I step to the side and introduce them.
My mom’s eyes light up. “My goodness, it’s really you,” she says.
I doubt I’ll ever adjust to the way Mom’s life is now. It kills me to think of how trapped she must feel in that chair, with the use of only one arm and one leg. She used to run for miles every morning. She loved it.
“You two must be starving,” Mom says as we make our way through the living room and into the adjoining kitchen.
“Only one of us is starving,” Emma says. “There was rumbling from the driver’s side all the way up here.”
“Even if my stomach had been rumbling,” I tell her, “you wouldn’t have been able to hear it because you were talking too much.”
Emma laughs—a sound that’s starting to make me smile instantly—but both she and Mom ignore my jab. “This boy of mine takes in food like a black hole,” my mom says as she parks her wheelchair at the kitchen table. “I can never feed him enough.”
“I get the feeling that I won’t be allowed to speak during this meal,” I say.
“I’ve raised Jake to be quite intuitive, haven’t I?” Mom asks Emma.
I sit next to Emma and help divvy out the food. She smiles at me. “Intuitive, and a few other things,” she says. “Jake keeps us very entertained at work.”
Mom shoots me an accusatory look. “You’re not teasing the girls again, are you?”
“Me? Never.” I take a monster-size bite of my burger.
“It sounds like he’s always been a lot of trouble,” Emma tells my mom. “Jake says he once sold all of your shoes.”
“Yes, but that was the least of his mischief,” Mom replies. I can understand her slurred words perfectly because I know her so well, but I wonder if Emma is picking up on everything. “I can’t imagine that he’s told you the worst of it.”
“Well … not about my little stint in Folsom,” I say. “If that’s what you mean.”
