Home Sweet Home

by Melanie Shawn

  Between PAs, craft services, director, producers, hair, makeup, wardrobe, talent... and the list went on... there were always dozens of people busily bustling about their work at all times of day.

  Not now.

  Only a few people here and there were wandering around, and they were not rushing with the urgency that usually characterized their movements, but rather in a relaxed manner that spoke of there being no deadline or time clock attached to the tasks that they were completing.

  With purpose, Lauren walked up to a PA who was gathering up paper plates and empty Styrofoam coffee cups and dropping them into a garbage bag.

  Lauren touched the girl's shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” she said, trying to keep the urgency out of her tone, “What's going on? Where is Ben?”

  The PA looked up in surprise, and then her forehead wrinkled with consternation.

  “Didn't anyone tell you?” The PA said in surprise.

  Lauren waited, assuming that the girl would continue and fill her in on whatever it was someone was supposed to have told her, but realized after an uncomfortably long silence that apparently the girl was going to wait for an answer to her question before she shared any information of her own.

  “No,” Lauren said, trying to force as much patience in her voice as she possibly could, “no one told me. What is it that they were supposed to have told me?”

  “Oh, wow,” said the PA, looking uncomfortable, “someone definitely should've told you. That was definitely someone's job. But it wasn't mine. But someone's head is definitely gonna roll... I swear to God, someone was supposed to tell you...”

  Lauren, still trying to maintain her calm and even tone but finding it more and more difficult, said, “Well, we can actually rectify that situation right now if you would just tell me whatever information it is that obviously did not get delivered to me earlier.”

  The PA’s forehead wrinkled again.

  “Huh?”

  Lauren closed her eyes, doing her level best to keep a lid on both her anger and her fear.

  “Please just tell me what is going on,” she said, slowly and deliberately.

  The PA brightened, “Oh, right, sure. We're not shooting today. We're gonna have to make it up tomorrow.”

  Lauren nodded, waiting for the girl to go on. She didn't.

  Lauren took a deep breath, reminding herself not to let it out in a rush, lest it sound like a sigh and make the girl more nervous, thereby delaying her eventual retelling of whatever she knew.

  “Do you know why?”

  The girl nodded as if it was obvious.

  “Oh yeah,” she said, “because Ben's at the hospital.”

  Lauren felt her knees weaken and feared she might faint. Ben was in the hospital. Her mind raced with horrific possibilities. A heart attack. A car accident. She didn't even want to let it wander further.

  “Where?” she asked weakly.

  “What?” asked the PA, “I couldn't hear you.”

  Lauren stood up straighter and forced strength in her voice, “I asked where. Where is Ben?”

  The PA shrugged. “Cedars-Sinai I think.”

  Lauren was now past even trying to keep the urgent tension from her voice, “what room?”

  The PA set down the garbage bag that she was carrying and picked up a clipboard which was laying on the table she had been collecting debris from. She ran her finger down the paper, consulting a list.

  “Looks like room 221,” she said.

  Before the girl had been fully raised her head to look up at Lauren, Lauren had spun on her heel and was running out toward the front of the house, where she expected the town car to be waiting in the driveway. She yelled her thanks over her shoulder but didn't wait to hear the girl's acknowledgement.

  To her dismay, when she got out of the driveway, there was no town car.

  After a moment's consideration, she realized that since the shoot been canceled for the day, someone must have sent the town car home.

  Probably, she thought with a grimace, the same person who was responsible for letting me know that we were done and I was free to go.

  Rather than trying to figure out what happened with the town car or if there was any chance of calling it back, Lauren simply pulled her smart phone out of her bag, Googled “cab company Malibu” and pressed the button to dial the phone number for the first result that came up.

  Trying to keep her panic under control and out of her voice so that she wouldn't sound like a crazy person to the dispatcher, she gave her address and asked for a cab to be sent as soon as humanly possible.

  Within 10 minutes, a yellow cab pulled up in front of the house and Lauren ran to it and dove into the backseat.

  “Cedar Sinai,” she said breathlessly.

  “Are you having emergency ma'am?” asked the driver, looking concerned.

  “Um, yes,” Lauren said. I mean, a panic attack qualifies as an emergency, right?

  “You could call ambulance,” the driver said, looking even more concerned, and most likely concerned about possible litigation, “Ambulance is much safer.”

  “Just drive,” Lauren said forcefully, and the man – possibly seeing the steely determination in her eyes and deciding that he would rather fight her later in court than now in the car – stepped on the gas.

  It took about an hour, all told, to get from the beach mansion in Malibu to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center, and Lauren sat in the back of the cab the entire time, oblivious to the dazzling ocean view out the right window. Oblivious to everything, in fact, but her desperately burning hope that Ben would be OK.

  She took out her phone a couple of times, thinking that it might feel better to call one of the Fabulous Four. Each in turn, she scrolled to them in her list of contacts and almost pressed the button to call them, but didn't.

  She thought if she heard their beloved, familiar voices – so concerned for her, as they obviously would be – she would absolutely fall apart. She felt like she could stay strong in the face of anything but kindness.

  And she had to be strong now. She had to be strong for Ben.

  Lauren did not fall apart. She did not go to pieces. She did not have hysterics. That just wasn't who she was.

  Except, of course, for one notable time when Sam had been lost in a raging winter storm, and there was a distinct possibility that they would not be able to find her in time to save her life. In that instance, Lauren had come completely apart at the seams. She was entirely undone by the idea of losing Sam.

  The people in her life that she cared about, those close to her, they were her Achilles' heel. They were her only weakness. Worry and fear over their safety and well-being was the only thing that could bring her carefully guarded control tumbling down to the ground in pieces in mere moments.

  She couldn't fall victim to that here. She didn't have the luxury. She didn't know what was wrong with Ben, but she did know that he might need her, and she knew that if he needed her, then she needed to be there. No question, no debate, and certainly no falling apart. She needed to be strong for Ben.

  When the taxi arrived at the hospital and pulled up in front of the long walkway that led to the double glass entrance doors, she threw a wad of cash at him without even waiting to hear the total and jumped out of the car, sprinting toward the doors.

  She assumed by the way that she didn't hear his voice calling after her to come pay the balance of what she owed, but rather heard his tires squeal as he quickly pulled away before she changed her mind, that she had given him more than enough – probably far, far too much, but she didn't care, not one little bit.

  She barely registered the whoosh sound that the doors made as she hurried through them, forcing herself to slow to a brisk walk.

  She walked up to the information counter and asked where room 221 was, mentally noting the directions that the volunteer gave her, and then set off at a rapid pace toward her destination.

  When she finally located Room 221, she rushed in the door, knowing tha
t she was wild-eyed but unable to calm her nerves, only to see Ben, looking very shocked to see her – but he was not in the bed.

  No.

  He was sitting in a folding chair beside the same that girl she saw him go into his hotel room with, and in the bed lay an older woman who looked very thin and frail.

  Lauren stopped in her tracks, the scene was not computing, and she tried to process what she was seeing.

  The room was silent except for her labored breathing.

  The woman in the bed turned her head to see the visitor that had just slammed her way into the room and a small smile crossed her face.

  “You must be Lauren,” she said, and the weakness in her voice belied the spryness of spirit that her twinkling eyes revealed, “Since my son has obviously lost his manners, let me introduce myself. I’m Alana. I'm Ben’s mom, and this is Ben’s sister, Brianna.”

  Lauren still could not find words.

  Ben was OK.

  Nothing had happened to him.

  So why did she suddenly feel like she was going to cry?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ben could not have been more surprised if the Pope had burst through the doors of his mother’s hospital room.

  He was trying to put it all together, Lauren standing here in the same room with his sister and mother.

  Had he just entered the Twilight Zone?

  He heard his mother saying something and saw Lauren's eyes fill with tears.

  This immediately snapped him out of his shocked state.

  “Lauren?” He heard the strain in his voice as he stood to cross the room and pulled her into a hug.

  He felt her tears on his shoulder and he pulled back to look at her.

  Lauren's eyes jumped back and forth between his mom and sister, and her cheeks were beginning to color with embarrassment.

  He heard her say as she wiped her eyes, “It’s so nice to meet both of you. I am so sorry to intrude...it's just that they just told me Ben was at the hospital, I thought…I just assumed it was…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  He saved her from trying to go on, “You thought I was the one in the hospital.”

  “Yes,” she barked out a bitter laugh, relief written all over her face, “Seems silly and alarmist now, I realize. God, I feel so silly! I'm gonna let you get back to your family.”

  She pulled away from Ben, turning her attention again to his mother and Brianna, “It was really nice meeting both of you.”

  She moved toward the door and he heard himself say, “Stay.”

  What?

  Where had that come from?

  He had no idea what had possessed him to make such a request. Well...other than the overwhelming desire not to see Lauren walk out of the door…yep, I guess that was motivation enough.

  She paused and turned slightly to look back over her shoulder at him.

  Ben heard his mother say, “Oh please do stay, Lauren. What a lovely distraction you would be from this awful place.”

  Then he heard his sister pipe up, “Hey, what am I chopped liver?”

  “Yes,” he said playfully, and she threw an empty paper cup at him.

  He reached out his hand to Lauren and said, “Please, stay.”

  He saw in her eyes she wanted to bolt for the door, but then something else came over her – a look of determination – and she nodded her head and placed her hand in his.

  Although Ben had spent enough days and nights in hospital rooms with his Mom critically ill in the bed to realize the sheer lunacy of describing any afternoon spent in a hospital as “fun” or “pleasant” or anything like that, those were exactly the adjectives that he would have chosen to describe the time that Lauren spent there, with his family.

  They chatted and got to know each other, Ben even endured the good-natured humiliation of his Mom and sister relating embarrassing childhood anecdotes, of which he was the star.

  As the afternoon wore on, and it was clear that Lauren was beginning to feel truly comfortable with his Mom and sister, she said, “So, Alana, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, dear, anything,” his Mom replied.

  “How did you know who I was?”

  “I don't follow, dear,” His Mom said, her forehead wrinkling in puzzlement.

  “Well,” Lauren explained, “When I first walked in here, you said that I must be Lauren. How did you know that?”

  Alana smiled, “Well, I have your picture, of course!”

  Lauren was surprised, “Really? How? The show hasn't put up a website or anything. There isn't even a show for sure yet.”

  “Oh, no, no...that's not what I meant,” Alana clarified, “Brianna, honey, where's my phone? Can you get me my phone?”

  Ben said, in a warning tone, “Mom, maybe we shouldn't be doing this. Maybe you should just be resting.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Alana replied, either missing the warning tone or choosing to ignore it, “I'm not so far gone I can't summon the strength to swipe my fingertip across my phone.”

  Alana picked up a pair of glasses from where they were sitting on the tray in front of her and put them on. She then took the phone that Brianna was handing her and swiped to unlock it, then pressed the icon for her photos. She swiped a few more times and handed Lauren the phone, saying, “Here you are, dear.”

  Lauren took the phone, and Ben could see how intrigued she was, it was written all over her face. He shook his head. Dammit. What was it about the women in his family and the fact that he couldn't get them to not use their phones to harm him?

  He knew what the picture was. It was the photo that he had taken with Lauren across the street from her office, when he had been teasing her in front of her clients. It had come out really cute, him looking down at her with a supremely confident look on his face, her looking up at him, shocked. Her mouth was even open a little, as if her jaw was about to drop. He loved it.

  He had texted it to his Mom as a joke. He even remembered how he had captioned it. “Just thought you should know I still have a way with the ladies. Love you Mom!”

  It had never occurred to him, not in a million years that Lauren would one day be looking at that text.

  Great.

  He looked over at her. She had a faraway look in her eye, and a small smile of remembrance on her lips.

  He smiled, as well. He remembered very well, as she must be remembering now, what he had said to earn that shocked expression.

  'Damn, girl, you smell good enough to eat.'

  Lauren looked over at him and the two of them locked eyes, smiling, remembering the moment.

  Ben was snapped out of this lovely remembrance by the sound of his little sister's voice. “Um, hello?” she said sarcastically, “There are other people here? Maybe you two should get a room. And not a hospital room.”

  Ben picked up the crumpled paper cup she had thrown at him earlier and tossed it back at her. She squealed and put up her hand to block it.

  “Kids!” Alana said forcefully, in a tone that let it be known that she didn't care if the so-called 'kids' involved were 20 and 30, respectively, she was the one in charge here, “Stop that right now!”

  “He started it,” Brianna said.

  “Did not,” Ben shot back, and Lauren laughed.

  Brianna smiled. “Anyway,” she said to Lauren, “I just wanna know what he said to you to get that reaction. It must have been good.”

  Lauren blushed, and Ben felt like hiding under his chair.

  “Damn, girl!” Brianna continued, laughing, “It must have been something, you are 31 different shades of pink right now!”

  “That's enough, that's enough,” Alana admonished her daughter, but in an affectionate, amused tone.

  Ben was not as affectionate, nor as amused.

  “Brat,” he mumbled.

  Just then, a nurse popped her head in.

  “Sorry folks, visiting hours are over for the evening,” she said regretfully.

  Ben, Lauren, and Brianna all hugged Ala
na farewell and started out the door. Just before they were completely out, though, Alana said, “Hold on one minute, Lauren.”

  All three turned and waited to hear what she had to say.

  To her children, Alana said, “You two hooligans go on and wait outside. I want to talk to Lauren for a minute.”

  Ben was suspicious, “What about?”

  “Well, if I wanted you to know, I would have invited you to stay,” Alana said in her best 'mom' tone.

  Lauren chuckled and said, “It’s fine, Ben. Really.”

  Ben reluctantly left the room, dragging Brianna along with him. If he didn't get to stay and hear the secret conversation, his pain-in-the-butt little sister certainly wasn't going to!

  When they got outside the door, Ben propped it open a fraction of an inch and leaned in to listen.

  Brianna looked scandalized. “I'm telling!” she whispered, glee at this prospect lighting up her face.

  “Then I'll tell about the time you 'borrowed' Mom's car to go 'study' at 'Jenny's house' – and you and I both know there are, like, three lies just in that one sentence alone.”

  Brianna narrowed her eyes but made no further moves to block his spying. Ben leaned forward, straining to hear the conversation.

  “You take care of him, OK honey?” Alana was saying, her voice thick with emotion and with the import of the task she was imparting, “I was sick the whole time Benny was growing up. He had to take care of Brianna, and I'm ashamed to admit, he had to take care of me, as well. He deserves someone to take care of him...to take real good care. The kind I wish I could have.”

  Through the crack, Ben saw Lauren take his mother's hand and lean in close. With seriousness of purpose in her voice, she said, “Ms. Stevens, most people never get the opportunity to know how much they mean to the people that love them, or the opportunity to let the people that they love know the true extent of their devotion. Ben was given both of those things as a result of having to step up the way he has. Most people also never get the chance to be a hero for those they love. You let Ben be your hero. I think you did a wonderful job.”