No Ordinary Life (31 page)

73

W
hen we reach the freeway, my phone buzzes, and I pull it from my back pocket, consider not answering when I see who is calling, then reluctantly press the answer button. “Hey, Sean.”

“Faye, the phone is ringing off the hook,” he says excitedly.

“We're fine.”

“Yeah, I know you're fine. So
Extra
is offering the most…”

“I didn't hit her.”

“Really? Looks like you did. Not that anyone can blame you—looks like she was being a little shit. But I'm thinking if we don't do an exclusive…”

I hang up.

“Was that Daddy?” Molly asks.

“Yes, baby. He wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“Is he coming to see me?”

“No, baby. He's taking care of Em.”

My phone buzzes again and I ignore it, but when it continues to buzz, I pull it from my pocket to turn it off and am shocked when I see it is Chris who is calling.

“Chris?”

“Faye, you okay? How's Molly?”

Tears spring to my eyes with his concern.

“We're okay. Griff came and got us. We're in the limo and on our way home.”

“Thank God. Damn buzzards. Where the hell was Patrick?”

“He stayed in New York to spend the holiday with family.”

“He left you on your own? Are you kidding me? Well, rest assured, he's done for. I'll make sure of it.”

Patrick sending us off to the piano with a high-five flashes in my mind. “No, Chris, that's not necessary. It wasn't his fault. It was all…It was just too much. I didn't hit her. You know that, don't you? I didn't hit Molly. My bag slipped. I was just reaching up to catch it. They made it look like I hit her, but I didn't.”

“I know you didn't hit her, but that's irrelevant.”

“Irrelevant? It's not irrelevant. You need to tell them. We need to have a press conference or something and tell them I didn't hit her.”

“Faye, calm down. The last thing we need to do is call more attention to this. What we need is for you to lay low for a few days and let this all blow over.”

“But everyone's going to think I'm a horrible mother, that I hit my kids.”

He laughs. “Yeah, you look like a real bruiser.”

“Chris, it's not funny. I don't hit my kids, and I didn't hit Molly.”

“Welcome to the crazy world of celebrity, where fiction becomes fact. You don't hit your kids and Helen isn't sleeping with Jeremy and Jules isn't Gabby's father. It's all part of the game. You just need to go with it.”

“But there's a limit.”

“There's not.”

“There should be.”

“Faye, you chose this life and the exposure that goes with it. Fortunately Americans have a very short attention span. Take the rest of the week off, and by the time you come back to work, another story about another famous somebody will be in the news, and everyone will have forgotten all about this. Now can I talk to Molly? I want to make sure she's okay.”

I hand the phone to Molly, who lights up when she finds out it's Chris. “Hey, Chwrissy Cwrossy,” she says, and my heart swells with gratitude at how much Chris cares.

74

W
here are we going?” I ask when I realize we're not heading in the direction of my mom's condo.

“Can't take you home,” Mack says. “There's a media mob waiting there worse than the one at the airport. Griff says to take you to his place.”

The words send a new tremor down my spine with the thought of my mom and Tom being at the condo alone with the piranhas below.

My mom picks up on the first ring. “We're fine,” she says, knowing my panic before I can even ask. “We have plenty of supplies and plan on just holing up until the reporters get tired or bored.”

“Griff called you?” I ask.

“Yeah. A good guy that one. Why can't you date a nice guy like that?”

I nearly groan in annoyance. I've avoided telling my mom about my unkissable status with Griff, not able to bear her nodding along in agreement.

“We're just friends,” I say, the statement sounding as adolescent and lame as it is.

“Yeah, I know you're just friends. That's the problem. The nice guy is who you decide to make your friend; the jerk, you marry.”

An hour later, we're in the city of Pasadena, a hillside community of rolling hills, old orange orchards, and quaint neighborhoods. We thread our way through the town and onto a quiet street with ranch-style homes like the ones I used to dream of living in when we lived in Yucaipa.

I press my head against the glass and let the coolness seep into my head. Anonymous people living anonymous, worthwhile lives. I wouldn't mind being anonymous again. As a matter of fact, the idea is beginning to appeal to me greatly.

The limo pulls to a stop in front of a gable-roofed bungalow with natural wood shingles and dark green trim. A taxi pulls up behind us. Griff pays the driver and steps from the backseat, his jaw clenched, his face blanched white.

“You okay?” I ask.

He ignores the question, marches to the stoop where Mack has set our bags, and leads us inside.

Whoa!
Appearances can be deceiving. What looked modest on the outside is mind-blowing on the inside. The house is a sprawling chalet with leather couches, a grand piano, and an expanse of glass that looks out on a courtyard flanked by two wings.

“Come on, Squidoo, I'll show you your room.”

Molly shuffles after him.

Through the window of one of the bedrooms, I watch Griff help Molly into her pajamas then tuck her beneath the covers. He sits beside her, and by the way she's smiling and the way his hands are moving, I'm guessing she asked him to tell her a story.

I wander the living room, admiring the beautiful furniture and Griff's amazing collection of artifacts from around the world. I don't know where the masks, strange wooden board games, and terra-cotta bowls came from, but I know they didn't come from anywhere nearby. There's nothing Ikea or Target about anything in the room.

I stop beside the piano. On the wall above it is a collage of at least forty photographs that chronicle a remarkable life. Griff can't be more than five years older than me, but he's done so much more with his time on this earth. There are photos of him holding snakes, riding elephants, and standing atop mountains. He's been to places where there's only snow and places where there's only sand. He's hauled in swordfish from the ocean and trout from jungle-laden streams. He's ridden rapids and jumped from airplanes. The man's lived more adventures in a third of his life than I could imagine living in all of mine. In a few photos, he poses alone, but in most he is surrounded by others—friends, foreigners, women—all of them grinning at the lens, sharing the amazing moment.

I'm filled with envy. I can only dream of having a life so full and am jealous that so many have already laid claim to his heart.

Griff is back.

“You didn't have to do that,” I say.

“Which part, tuck Molly into bed or rescue you at the airport?”

“Well, you kind of had to rescue us. After all, the show must go on.”

His face loses its humor. “That's not why I did it.”

I look away.

“Come on,” he says. “I need a drink.”

I follow him into the kitchen, and he pulls two Heinekens from the fridge.

“Glass?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“A low-maintenance girl. I like that.”

“Yeah, real low maintenance—you only need to leap into a pond of poisonous snakes and fight them off so my daughter and I can get to our limousine, and I won't demand that you provide me with a chilled glass for my beer.”

He smirks, but it's low wattage, and again I wonder what's wrong, but this time I don't ask. Silently I drink my beer, waiting for the alcohol to seep into my bloodstream and take the edge off. Over and over my mind catches on the reporter's bright white teeth and her pink lips telling the world I slapped Molly, my memory replaying the fuzzy video that showed my carry-on bag falling from my shoulder as I reached to lift Molly from the sidewalk, my hand flying up to keep it on my arm and the vague appearance it gave of me hitting her.

“People are so cruel,” I say. “At the airport, no one helped us. Everyone just gaped and took pictures, like seeing Molly break down and me struggling to get her away from the reporters was entertainment.”

“It was,” Griff says with a sigh, then he drains the rest of his beer and grabs another. “The public is used to seeing headlines about celebrity meltdowns. Personal issues are fair game.”

“This wasn't that,” I say. “This was an exhausted little girl who needed a moment to calm down.”

“Exactly, but that doesn't sell commercials or pay salaries, so they spun it for maximum impact, and the masses took to it like pigs to mud.”

He tosses our empties in the trash then grabs two more beers from the fridge, and when he shifts sideways to reach the bottle opener below the sink, I see it, a photo not with the others in the living room. It is a black-and-white shot framed in thick ebony wood. In it, a tall white-haired man smiles at the camera, his arms draped over the shoulders of a little girl with blond hair and a good-looking, darker-haired boy. The man registers first—Trent Hemsley, one of the most famous actors of his time, best known for the cowboy series
Arroyo
, which he directed and produced. My focus shifts to the girl, catching on her dazzling eyes—
Helen!
I snap to the boy—exotic eyes, dark at the rims, high cheekbones—
Griff? Griffin Wade? Megastar, teenage heartthrob?

“You're famous?” I stutter.

Griff's eyes follow mine to the photo, and he sighs. “Was,” he corrects. “A long time ago.”

Griffin Wade—his disappearance was legendary. There were even bumper stickers that said
Where's Griffin Wade?
that became all the rage for years after he vanished.

My eyes fix on the picture. With the exception of the eyes and cheekbones, the boy in the photo and the man he turned into look nothing alike. As a matter of fact, it's hard to imagine Griff as a boy at all; with his linebacker size, deep voice, and abundance of facial hair, it seems like he must have hatched that way, fully grown, burly and tough.

It's no wonder no one recognizes him. I pride myself on being observant, and I was a religious watcher of
Arroyo
, and until this moment, I had no idea Griff and Griffin Wade were the same person. And even sitting here, the evidence in front of me, it's difficult to believe.

My eyes flick back and forth from the photo to the man, trying to make sense of it, until finally the puzzle clicks into place. “You don't want to be famous?” It's half question, half realization.

His head shakes. “Being good at something and recognized for it is great. It's all the other stuff that sucks.”

I lean against the kitchen island, and he sits on a stool, making his famous eyes level with mine.
Griffin Wade is sitting beside me sharing a beer. That's crazy.

“So you changed your name?” I ask.

“My name, my country, my personality.”

“And then you came back?”

“Ten years later. I assumed it was safe. I didn't look like I did. I had this kick-ass beard.” He strokes his furry chin.

And more of the world aligns itself as I realize why he wore the hat and sunglasses at the airport, a wave of horror washing over me as I remember the red-haired woman with her camera aimed at him.

“That reporter recognized you,” I say.

He finishes his beer and sets it down. “Figures I would fall for the one girl in the world with a kid even more famous than me.”

And the last piece of the puzzle clicks—the reason kissing me was not a good idea—then, just as quickly, the revelation is blown to smithereens with the realization of what he just said. “You've fallen for me?”

He answers by wrapping his hands around my hips, pulling me between his legs, and pressing his lips to mine.

“Are you sure about this?” I say.

“Very sure. Only good thing about tonight is that I no longer need to worry about it. Might as well do as I damn please, and at the moment, the only damn thing I want to do is you.”