Hollywood Beginnings (A Novella) (9 page)

There was mild laughter to that one, but I didn't have time to wonder if he referred to me or some other woman I'd have to hate, a woman possessed one of my more irritating qualities.

Brian cleared his throat and went on. "But Van Baron did love. There's proof. And I required proof. He loved deeply and, in his way, faithfully until he died. And knowing that, I've had to re-think all I knew about him."

I could see Brian zero in on my mother, and I turned to her. "Why is he staring at you?"

She sniffed and fumbled for a tissue in her bag. I could see her hand shake, her eyes fill, and her voice was soft. "Van Baron loved me."

Loved her? My mother? They made one movie together a million years ago. "Mom, you were 18, and you had Grandma Eller as a chaperone. How much could have happened?"

"Grandma Eller drank."

"She--"

"She quit when we moved back to Minnesota. Well, after she took the cure up near Minnetonka. But she was mostly passed out here in L.A."

"You--"

"Amy, it was a long time ago. I was different then."

"I'll say." I thought of my teenage years when the dinner blessing involved pleas to God to keep us safe and chaste and to serve only Him and not the siren call of the flesh. Alright, maybe it wasn't that bad, but that's what I remember. "When I was 18, you said--"

"I wanted you to aim high."

"Aim high?"

"Well, higher than I did when I was young. Amy, when I went back home and later married your father, I needed to make amends. I might have overshot it."

"Overshot it? When I dated Billy Conroy you made me wear a rosary under my shirt, and we weren't even Catholic."

Mom sniffed, and I wasn't sure if it was from the tears that had pooled in her eyes or the bitter memory of her daughter dating Billy Conroy.

"When a parent names a child after a known outlaw, there's trouble."

Well, that cleared it up. "Not named after
Billy the Kid
, Mom. We've been over this."

"I just wanted my children to be better people than I'd been growing up."

That felt like such a harsh thing for her to say about herself I forgot all about Billy. "Mom, having an affair with some movie star when you're 18 and your mom is…" I tried to get my head around the news about grandma. "Drunk? Really?"

With tight lips Mom nodded, and I shrugged, "okay, when your mom's drunk. You need to give yourself a break. Not that you gave me one. I had to sneak around and--"

"Yes, the unfortunate deflowering in the car."

"Ewww. You knew?"

"I'm your mother. And Billy the Kid, who did not become a brain surgeon, left a delightful bit of evidence in the driveway."

"Sorry." I listened for the organist and wasn't surprised she captured both Van Baron and Billy Conroy with a jazzy version of Sade's
Smooth Operator
.

"Teenagers are a lesson in learning grace, Amy. You'll find that out for yourself."

Who was she kidding? All my relationships had gone south. I wasn't even close to having children. "I doubt it."

Brian gave a sad smile and ended the service still looking like he was surprised he could say anything good about the man who was his father. "Maybe he did the minimum a person needs to do to earn their humanity. We'd like to love well and broadly… family, friends, dogs, babies. But maybe it's enough to hold love in our lives for just one other person."

My mother quickly wiped beneath each eye. "I hope Brian will be forgiving."

"What do I need to be forgiven for?"

"Not you, dear, me. It's my fault his mother raised him alone."

The funeral crowd might have trickled in late, but as soon as the organist started playing Billy Joel's
Only the Good Die Young
, they stampeded to the doors. Maybe everybody needed to leave town as badly as I did.

I took Mom's elbow and guided her out what I thought was a side exit but ended up being a staircase to the basement. We stopped on the landing when I realized my mistake, but before we headed back up to the sanctuary I had to ask. "Did Van break up with Brian's mother when you came along?"

Mom let out a sigh. "I wish it had been that simple. I stole him from her. She was a nice woman, although very moody. It's really no wonder she suffered from depression later, raising Brian without support and already being, well, maybe a titch inclined to it anyway. I really had a hard time forgiving myself. My work at the church helped, raising you and your brother and sister as best I could. Helping other women in our church family. Eventually I was able to let my young mistakes go."

Well, it was becoming pretty damn clear to me why I'd had such a hard time forgiving myself for ever marrying someone like Duane. My mom could take beating herself up to a whole new level. I put my hand on her arm. "You date an older guy who dumps someone for you. I hardly think you needed to do penance."

"Oh, I seduced him."

She said it with her usual chipper voice, and I had to replace the tidy woman in front of me with the Beach Blanket Babe she'd been.

"I snatched Van right out from under her." She grimaced as if even she understood it was too much information to share with a daughter and quickly added, "So to speak."

Like that was gonna make the picture leave my brain.

"I knew he'd been seeing her, but I wanted him, and I got pretty much everything I went after back then. Your grandmother was either giving me what I wanted or passed out cold. I'd been the star of every high school play, prom queen, and was the county's Miss Dairy." She shrugged. "It wasn't pretty, Amy.
I
wasn't pretty despite what the Miss Cheddar Pageant Committee said."

She shook her head. "When Van found me in that ice cream line, I knew I could have him right where I wanted him. Because, I'm sorry to say, Amy, that's the kind of young woman I was. It was towards the end of filming when she said she was pregnant. Van might have believed her, but I didn't want to. Van and I were
the
couple, and I wanted the spotlight."

She looked hesitant to tell the rest of the story, but she went on. "I told him she was lying, and he gave her the money he had in his wallet and told her he never wanted to see her again."

Even I could feel the pain of that, thinking of Brian's mother, alone and facing the end of what she might have hoped for her life. But I could also see the pain on my mother's face.

Her eyes filled with tears, but she looked up to gather herself, and met my eyes again. "He never did, Amy. Van never met his son, his only child."

I started to defend her from herself, but she waved it away. "I know Van bears responsibility as well, but even when I found out she really was expecting a baby, I didn't try to convince him. I knew he wouldn't change his mind because he wanted to be with me."

I understood that. I'd seen the devotion my father had for her all these years. And I'd also witnessed the deep love she had for him. It wasn't hard to believe she'd been loved and loved someone else. "But it sounds like Van never did figure his life out."

"Van had his limits. He was, after all, a movie star." She tried to laugh, but it came out a little sad. "But he had great potential too. I wish I could at least say I loved him as much as he loved me, but
I
needed to grow up. I needed to learn to love, and I couldn't do that in a world where everyone spoiled me as badly as Grandma Eller did. So I left. At first it was running away, garden variety running away. But really I was heading toward something, a new life. I like to think I made a good one."

I didn't know what to think. I squinted at her, tried to juxtapose a spoiled and beautiful bikini girl over the woman I knew. Maybe I'd never understand what happened to her back then, where blame belonged if it belonged anywhere. They had been three flawed yet probably normal people with a baby on the way. But I did know who my mother had become. "You made my life possible."

She laughed, her eyes watery. "
That
I did."

Among the million things she'd said and done and modeled, she'd become my mother. She'd made choices that made my life and my solid childhood possible, and she'd always be a woman I'd love. It was time to take her home.

***

Brian needed to get out from behind the podium, but he was pinned down by women who wanted to talk about his father, and one guy who requested his mom's potato salad recipe. Brian didn't find it surprising someone remembered her Hollywood catering days. She'd made a mean potato salad.

For a few minutes, he listened, shook some hands, and got the guy's email address. He'd stored the recipes somewhere, keeping them helped him remember her good days. And there were, mixed into his mother's struggles, some happy times too.

But every minute he stood there talking, Amy got farther away. He'd watched her take the side exit with her mother, and he couldn't lose them. There were things he needed to say, probably to both of them, but first things first, and first was Amy.

He'd have to approach her carefully, with the finesses of taking a jump shot. He could see she'd been bruised by somebody. Divorced, he'd guess, but not derailed. That's what a lifetime of love had done for her. It showed on her face, how easily her emotions ran from irritation to amusement and back. But nothing seemed to rock that solid core she wore as well as the silky dress he'd practically memorized during the service.

He'd been sorry as hell to add to any of her troubles, but once he'd met her, he didn't want to be the one to tell her about her mom. And when he'd gotten to know the very funny and sexy Amy Moore, even a little, he had to admit he'd been scared as hell of screwing it up and having her leave L.A. for good.

When he first felt that pull, it hadn't made sense to him. He'd managed his whole life to never get close to a woman. Hell, he'd managed to not
want
to get close to a woman, and that was a real hat trick.
Scared as hell,
alright. That had been his game plan, and yeah, it was a game nobody won.

Looking into the faces of women who'd been hurt by Van Baron, he could see what a losing game plan really did to someone. He'd seen it every day when he'd looked at his mom. But part of that had been her choice, her plan to not get close to anybody.

When he'd first come to L.A. he intended to see the man who fathered him. He'd made up lots of reasons why he hadn't, reasons he'd invented day after day, to postpone, to give himself more time. But time ran out, and he finally faced the truth. He hadn't wanted to see his father because he didn't want to find out they were alike. But he'd met the man after all, met him at the funeral. Despite Van's deep and numerous flaws, Brian knew his inheritance from his father also included something priceless.

He excused himself from the small group that still lingered and made his way across the long stretch of altar and aisle, forgetting all about finesse and picking up speed as he hit the exit door.

I heard the door slam above us, but before I could get out of the way, someone ran down the stairs right into me. When he pulled me against him to steady us both, I knew without turning around it was Brian. Unfortunately, his hands were at my waist and his big warm grip distracted me from a crime of passion.

I watched Mom tear up. "Brian, you did a fine job, really. I hope someday you'll find it in your heart to--"

A man in a dark suit came up from the basement with a large candelabra and squeezed by us on the landing followed by a woman in a periwinkle silk dress.

In the awkward silence the three of us looked at each other, and I scooted over, forcing Brian to let go of me.

He cleared his throat. "So, I'm not stalking your mom."

"Not personally. Still your job, though."

"Uh, not exactly."

The two of them exchanged a look, like the looks they'd given each other in the restaurant. Hell,
I
was the one who'd slept with him. How many friggin secrets did he share with my mom?"

"I'm a sports reporter."

"You're a--"

"Basketball. I also do some announcing." He smiled. "Go, Lakers?"

I was not falling for it. I crossed my arms. "Go, Brian."

For a moment he looked like a little boy. "I don't want to."

"Well, I don't want people to lie to me either, but I'm apparently not going to get that."

I could hear strains of that damn organ floating down the stairwell.
You can't always get what you want…

I looked up the stairs where the evil organist seemed to be commenting on my life this time. "No fucking way!"

"Amy." Mom tried for disapproval then shrugged. Even she had to admit I'd earned an outburst.

"We're going." I nodded to her, and she smiled an apology at Brian and followed.

I'd almost made it to the top of the stairs when he spun me around and hefted me over his shoulder. The shock of it stopped me from saying anything, and I saw my mother continuing on as if I hadn't just been kidnapped.

Brian headed for the basement, hitting the last stair without even breathing heavily. Setting me down in the large community room, I could see the kitchen behind him and a couple of closed rooms like a bigger version of my father's church.

Brian smiled, a slow, sweet one like everything was just great, and I hauled off and slugged him in the arm. It was the least I could do, and I mean the
least
. I could have taken him down with a solar plexus punch or a knee to the groin, although even I knew I couldn't do that after our sexual encounters the night before.

He put his hand over the spot I knew would sport an impressive bruise by tomorrow. "Damn, you hit like a guy."

"I hit like a woman, so do not fuck with me, Brian Keller, or so help me god I'll show you real damage."

He held both hands palm out in surrender, but I knew better. He blocked my escape to the stairwell and was too big for me to budge, so I was stuck there. Still, I was too damn mad to hear him out. I flexed my hand, and he watched me as if also concluding I was too damn mad to hear him out.