“Rumors are afloat that you have some steamy scenes with him on the upcoming episodes. Is he a good kisser?”
“Yes,” I smiled. “But he is a much better kisser in real life. On camera, it’s so weird. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
The interview went on for another hour or so. I steered the conversation away from Jake as much as possible and talked about the diner, and jazz, and my favorite books.
A few weeks later, the magazine hit the newsstand, a photo of me, looking way hotter than I probably was, graced the cover. It was one of my favorite shots, where I was lying on my back on the blanket and the camera had been above me. My hair was fanned in a great mess around my head and I was looking kind of off camera, a very small smile on my face. My eyes were heavily lined with black eyeliner and my lips were a deep red. I looked amazing and not at all like myself. Everyone in the diner had celebrated and Oliver had even blown up the front cover to be hung behind the counter. Sometimes I found myself staring at, as if I couldn’t actually imagine it was me.
Jake was introducing me to a world that I could hardly even imagine. We were hitting movie premieres and charity events and we’re always at some club or some VIP room at a restaurant. We hardly ever stayed in; everywhere we went, people treated us differently. Doors were opened; strings were pulled. We made appearances everywhere. A couple days after my photo shoot, Jake dragged me out to a Laker game.
I didn’t want to go and I told Jake repeatedly I didn’t want to go. The seats that Jake had gotten were insanely ridiculously priced and were so close, there was no way anyone was going to miss us…and there was no way that I could sneak in a book and read. I told him he was better off bringing Luke, who would actually enjoy the game. Instead he pushed and pleaded, even had Adrienne send me a text message about what a good appearance it would be for the two of us. There had been some negative press going on, just some minor stuff, about a blowout between Andrea and I on set. It was blatantly untrue, and Corinna had responded as such but it would look good for us to go to the Laker game, looking as if rumors didn’t bother us at all. It bothered me a little, especially after learning that the beginning of his relationship with Andrea was based on appearances but I let it go.
So I went. I grumbled the whole way there, hating that I looked too dressed up for a basketball game. I was in a V-neck black shirt, tight grey jeans and calf high boots. What I wanted to wear was a t-shirt, normal jeans and a pair of vans but I was voted down. Every appearance, even an unofficial one, was important. It could end up in US Weekly or on Entertainment Tonight and I needed to always look presentable.
We were escorted through a separate door, away from the crowded doors where Jake was sure to be recognized by the tons of people lining up for the game. They took us through the arena, taking us to our seats, which were literally courtside seats, folding chairs set up parallel to the ones set up for the players on the other side of the court.
“They’re not going to ask us to play, are they?” I asked, nervously, feeling like I was too obvious and exposed in this spot.
“Huh?” Jake asked, taking a beer from a young girl dressed in all black.
“We’re so close to the court. I was asking if we’re part of the team now.”
Jake laughed, tossing his head back. “Do you realize that you say some of the most ridiculous things sometimes?”
I scowled, turning away from him and facing the court, my arms folded tight across my chest.
“Hey,” Jake said, scooting closer and putting his arm around me. “That’s not a pretty face for the cameras, now, is it?”
I threw an exasperated look at him but I could feel the corners of my mouth turning upward. He grinned, leaning forward to give me a kiss and I turned into it. That was one thing I wasn’t going to say no to.
He pulled back, his smile even wider than before. “Yeah, that’s much better.”
A couple of the players came by and said hi to Jake, slapping hands and fists in some kind of complicated handshake. I was introduced and a couple of the guys actually knew who I was. They were all huge; they made Jake look tiny and I felt extremely insignificant all of a sudden, especially after Jake explained how good they were.
I spent the first half of the game confused and bored. Every time I tried to pay attention to what was going on, I just got lost and couldn’t understand. I stood up once it was halftime, ready to go to the concessions to grab myself something to drink. I couldn’t really admit that I wasn’t entirely excited on seeing the Laker Girls dancing in their skimpy outfits right in front of my face.
“Where are you going?” Jake asked, looking up at me.
“I’m thirsty,” I said.
He gave me a funny look. “Sit down, weirdo. They’ll just bring you one.” He motioned for someone to come over and told him to bring me a Coke.
“Oh,” I said, sitting back down, feeling a little foolish.
“Are you having fun?” Jake asked, his arms sliding around my waist and, yes, his eyes completely glued to the cheerleaders who were mere feet away from us. I rolled my eyes but let it go. Jake was having a fantastic time, and seriously seemed in his element. He was wearing his black Lakers hat and chatting with people around him. Already we had made small talk with Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg and even Ben Wright, who I hadn’t known was a Laker fan. That was one of the only times I had perked up.
I, on the other hand, felt extremely out of place. For one thing, I didn’t really understand the game. I mean, sure, Luke is the one who raised me and he is definitely a huge Laker fan. But I just never showed much interest in the game. I was too busy rebelling for so long and then when I did settle down and start to find my own interests, it was books and jazz that I turned to.
Another reason I felt really uncomfortable was because this was the first time I felt like a normal person in the celebrity world. I was comfortable at parties; all I had to do was blend my way in and I didn’t really have to talk to anymore because it was too loud to talk to anyone. Then there were the premieres and red carpets where I was ushered from place to place and I answered questions I had already answered a dozen times before. Those were too chaotic to worry about anything else. This time I was face to face with real, known celebrities and it was intimidating, especially since Jake was so comfortable with it.
“Yeah,” I answered him.
Jake raised his eyebrow at me. “I know when you’re lying, McKinley Evans.”
“I’m not lying. I’m having a really good time,” I said, my eyes wide. He stared at me for a moment longer and I caved in. “I just don’t really get what’s going on more than half the time.”
He gave me a look as if I had surprised him. “That’s fine. Here, I’ll explain it.” The third quarter had just started up and the players were hitting the courts. Jake leaned close to me, and helped to explain the basics of the game. He was extremely patient, spelling out some of the tougher points of the game and explaining each and every foul that was called. I’ve seen some of Amanda’s boyfriends getting impatient, trying to explain baseball or football or basketball to her. Jake was so good about it, even though sometimes he missed good plays while he was explaining something to me.
By the fourth quarter, I was bouncing up and down in my seat, cheering every single time the Lakers scored a basket. Jake was watching me with a bemused expression especially when I started booing every time the opposite team, the Thunder, shot free throws. I high fived Jake every time there was a good play, or what I understood to be a good play and started having serious fun.
The Lakers ended up winning the game. Jake exchanged high fives with Mark and I saw Ben tossing a couple thumbs up my way. A couple of the players came by and gave high fives to Jake and I once again felt that surreal feeling of disbelief that this was actually happening, that I was getting a chance to see this world and to be a part of it.
It was about a week after the Laker game that it happened. Luke and I were sitting in the diner, cleaning
up after a busy day. I was counting my tips at the counter and Luke was mopping underneath the stools when someone walked in. I turned to tell them we were closed and choked on my words. I stared, completely at a loss for words.
She looked different. She was skinnier than I remember, more harsh angles than the softness she had when I was younger. Her hair was still reddish blonde, cut into a short pageboy, very different from the long hair I remembered and there were wrinkles that definitely hadn’t been there before. She looked older, definitely older. But it was her. Despite all the time, and all the changes, I knew it was her.
Chapter Ten
Before I could say anything, Luke dropped the mop and turned to her, his eyes wide.
“Corinna?”
My mom looked at the both of us, her own eyes wide. As I was noticing the differences in her, especially how much older she looked, I wondered how we looked to her. Luke had been twenty-three when she left and I was five. I was now the age that Luke was when she left. “Luke, hi. And McKinley…”
“What are you doing here?” Luke interrupted sharply, staring at my mom as if he’d never seen her before in his life, as if she wasn’t real.
She looked a little taken back by Luke’s tone of voice. “I came back. To see you. Both of you.”
Luke looked over his shoulder at me, gauging my reaction. I didn’t have one; I couldn’t have one. My hands were frozen in the middle of counting my tips. “You came back to see us?” he asked, his voice dripping with disbelief.
“Is that so hard to believe, Luke?” she said, her voice even but hinted with a bit of annoyance. This was more like the mom I remembered. She looked over at me. “I wanted to see my daughter.”
“She’s not your daughter anymore,” Luke said, anger seeping into his voice. “And you should know that I want nothing to do with you.”
“Luke,” I said, finally managing some speech.
“Who is the one who left her here twenty years ago? Who is the one who just disappeared and left her behind?” Luke spat out. My mom stared at him, unable to answer. My head swiveled between the two of them. “Who decided that it was fine to leave a five-year-old girl with her twenty-three year old boyfriend who knew absolutely nothing about raising a child?”
I winced. Luke had obviously been holding a lot of this in over the years. We didn’t talk about my mom often and the few times we did, it was all about me, and my feelings. We had never talked about how Luke had felt about my mom leaving. Despite everything my mom was, he had loved her and I know he had felt something when she had left, especially since she had left a daily reminder of her abandonment: me.
“I made a mistake,” she answered, calmly, placing her hand on the counter, only a couple feet away from my own hands. I stared at that hand for too long, amazed at how close she was. “I never should have left.”
Luke snorted. “So you just came back? You just walk in, expecting to just see McKinley and have everything fixed? She’s twenty-three years old, Corinna; the last time you saw her, she couldn’t even tie her shoes. You just expect her to still be here, waiting at the counter where you left her?”
“Luke!” I said, my hand flying up to my mouth.
“Of course not! But I wanted to see her, I wanted to apologize!” My mom’s hair, so unlike mine, stayed perfectly still as she shook her head in anger.
“It doesn’t work like that! It’s been nearly twenty years, Corinna!”
“So you’re not even going to give me a chance to see my daughter, to talk to her?”
“She’s my daughter! She’s mine!”
“Hey!” I yelled. They both turned to look at me, as if surprised that I was still there. “Yeah, I’m standing right here. And yeah, I’m twenty-three years old, an adult, so can you both stop talking about me as if I’m a child?”
“McKinley,” they both said at the same time. They glared at each other.
Luke spoke first. “You’re right; I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I’m sorry too,” my mom said softly. “It’s so weird to think of you as an adult. You’ve grown up so much.”
“Okay, wow, you can just stop that right there,” I said, my voice shaking. “I can’t…I can’t have you talking about all the time that has passed as if it was just a weekend getaway. You left. You left me here.”
“I know, McKinley, I…”
“No, just…just no,” I said, cradling my head in my hands and sinking onto a stool. “I can’t do this.”
“You should leave,” Luke said, taking a hold of her arm and steering her towards the door.
“Let go of me,” my mom spoke firmly, pulling away from him. “All I want to do is see McKinley…to talk to her.”
“You can’t.”
“That’s my decision, isn’t it?” I spoke up, still staring at the ground, trying to process what the hell was going on.
My mom looked up at me hopeful. Luke stared at me in disbelief but let go of her arm. “Oh thank…”
I held up my hand to stop her. “Don’t get carried away here, Mom. I want you to answer a few questions first. Honestly.”
She looked a little nervous at that but nodded. “That seems fair enough.”
“Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?” I said, spitting out the words, refusing to look at her. I couldn’t look at her. I couldn’t even accept that she was there, standing in front of me.
“Oh McKinley.” She sank into a stool next to me. She reached out to me, as if to touch me but I turned away and her hand pulled back. “It had nothing to do with you. I was so young. I was twenty-one years old and I had a five-year-old child and I was just so tired. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I needed to get away; I needed to have some time to myself. I didn’t intend to leave for good.”
I swallowed hard. “Why are you here? Really?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“And that’s the truth?”
“Of course it is.”
“How did you know I was here?”
She didn’t speak right away. When she did, she took a deep breath and said, “Well, I didn’t. I didn’t know what had happened to you. I didn’t think you’d still be here, with Luke. I thought you would’ve been…well, I didn’t know. I thought you would’ve been in the foster system…and then living on your own.”
“I would never let her go into the foster system,” Luke said, his voice fierce.
“Luke,” I said softly, shaking my head at him. I turned to my mom, my voice steady. “So you came back to the diner? What, did you expect me to still be sitting at the end of the counter, coloring in my coloring books?”
“I thought maybe Luke would know where you were.”
“That’s a lie.”
She looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t come to Luke’s, hoping that he would know where I was. You knew I was here.” Her mouth opened and closed a couple of times. “And I know how you knew. So let’s try this again; how did you know I was here?”
She looked down at the ground, then back up at me, to Luke and then back to me. She knew she was caught. “I saw you on T.V.”
I sat back, the realization hitting me. “You saw me on T.V. and decided to come back and see me?”
“No!” she answered, frantically. “I mean, well, yes. I mean…I wanted to see you. I had wanted to see you for so long. And then one day, I turned on the TV and there you were, my baby girl, on Entertainment Tonight, in the arms of a movie star. They showed you coming out of Luke’s and…and I knew where to find you.”
“Of course,” I said, flatly. “Perfect. Just perfect. Eighteen years have passed, Mom! It’s been almost twenty years and you finally make your appearance after I start dating a famous celebrity and I’m on television? I don’t know why I’m surprised at that.” I stood up, my tip money blowing off the counter and onto the ground. I stared at it for a moment. “If you’re looking for money or something, there it is right there. I don’t have anything else. And I can’t get any from J
ake either.” I turned to walk away from her.
“I don’t want anything from you!” my mom began to protest.
“No, please, just leave me alone,” I said, turning my back to her and running up the stairs, trying as hard as I could to keep her from seeing the tears running down my face.
* * * * * *
I was left alone in my room for a couple hours before someone knocked on my door. I ignored it, until it sounded again. Assuming that it was either Luke or my mom, or both, I yelled, “Go away.”
“I’m not going away, McKinley Evans, so you better let me in.”
I bolted up into a sitting position, surprised at the voice that had come from the other side of my bedroom door. I threw off my bed covers and crossed the room, opening the door slowly and peeking out. “Amanda?”
A Little Less than Famous Page 17