No Ordinary Life

by Suzanne Redfearn

  I nearly drop my coffee, unable to believe she just said that. I want to die. Seriously. Curl up into a little ball and disintegrate.

  “Did she now?” George Stephanopoulos says with a wry smile as he turns to face me and my mortification.

  “Hey,” Molly says, causing him to turn back. “She’s not mawrried now. So now she can mawrry you.”

  George Stephanopoulos raises his left hand. “Except I’m already married.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Molly looks past him to me. “Sowrry, Mom, he’s awlwready mawrried, so you need to mawrry Gwriff instead.”

  This time the coffee does drop from my hand; luckily the lid is on and there’s only a sip left, so it doesn’t spill, but it clunks to the floor, and I need to scramble to my knees to retrieve it.

  It always amazes me how much more attuned my kids are than I give them credit for. I think they’re oblivious, lost in their egocentric worlds, then they go and say something like that, and I realize they’re paying a lot more attention than I imagined.

  “See you on the set in a few minutes,” George Stephanopoulos says as the AD signals to him that the commercial is about to end.

  “In a few, good as new,” Molly yells after him.

  69

  Molly does a marvelous job answering George Stephanopoulos’s questions, the same rote questions she’s grown accustomed to.

  “Have you always known you wanted to be a singer?”

  “I’m onwly fouwr, so I haven’t had a wlot of time to think about it.”

  Audience laughter.

  “Who is your favorite Foster sibling?”

  “It depends. Mostwly Jewremy, but sometimes Miwles. Evewryone’s wreawlly nice to me.”

  On and on the questions go until finally, “Will you sing for us?”

  Molly slides from her chair and walks to the stage beside the interview set where a band is already set up and waiting. She sings her hit single, “Moonbeams to Heaven,” and the audience goes wild with applause, then the show cuts to a commercial and Molly is shuttled from the stage.

  * * *

  A quick shower for me and a bath for Molly at our hotel and we’re back in the limo and on our way to FAO Schwarz for the unveiling of a new line of gourmet lollypops being introduced by Hershey called Molly Pops. Huge posters of Molly holding a Molly Pop wallpaper the windows, and a horde of hundreds stand behind ropes as the limo drops us in front of the giant toy store.

  “That me?” Molly asks, her brow pinched as she studies the larger-than-life photos of herself.

  I can understand her confusion. Between the makeup and the Photoshopping, the posters barely look like her. She looks like a smoothed-out version of herself without a mole, a vein, or a flyaway hair.

  Girls squeal and mothers and fathers press forward against the three police officers who part the crowd so we can pass. I hold Molly tight as Patrick shuttles us into the store. Though we’ve grown accustomed to fans swarming around us, it’s still disconcerting, especially at moments like these, when the line that protects us is so thin and the crowd is so large, when the smallest fissure would crumble our defenses and leave us at the mercy of a stampede.

  Dealing with this kind of fanfare is the most difficult part of Molly’s success. It’s so frenetic and at times so desperate. Hands reach to touch us, and voices clamor for our attention. People throw things at us—flowers, stuffed animals, chocolate, compliments, overtures of love. Girls scream Molly’s name and hold out pens and paper and skin for her autograph. Many have their hair curled like Molly’s and a lot wear overalls. Sometimes the excitement overtakes one of them, and they will faint or break down and cry.

  It’s strangely surreal and slightly disturbing, and when we are in the moment, like now, it’s as if I am viewing it through a lens, my brain disconnecting from what’s going on so it feels as if I’m not actually experiencing it but rather observing it from outside my body.

  A Hershey’s representative escorts us to a spot between the two escalators, and after a brief introduction and lots of applause, Molly cuts a large red ribbon with a pair of scissors nearly as large as she is, and a twenty-foot-tall acrylic display with a molded image of Molly holding a Molly Pop is unveiled. The bubble over Molly’s acrylic face reads, “Molly Pop, Molly Pop, Oh Molly, Molly Pop.”

  For the next two hours, we sign autographs for the fans with a wristband, how or why they are the ones with the privilege to meet Molly a mystery. A crowd of others press forward against the velvet ropes to take photos of us.

  Above us, on the second floor, is the famous floor piano—a giant electronic keyboard that kids can dance on to make music. As we work, the laughter and discordant notes of the kids playing float down to us.

  “Can I do that?” Molly asks at one point, looking up from her autographing.

  “Sure, baby,” I say, though I can’t imagine that she can, since the moment she steps on the platform, the world will stop, and everyone will be watching, and she’ll be left alone to play the music by herself, and it will no longer be fun.

  It’s after three when we finish.

  “Now can I pwlay the piano?” she asks.

  I look at Patrick, who looks at his watch and shakes his head. “We’re fifteen minutes behind schedule already, and we can’t be late.”

  I squat down to Molly’s level and look her in the eye. “How about you and I come back tomorrow and we wear disguises so no one will recognize us and we dance on the piano then?”

  Molly’s mouth curls into a knowing grin as she nods. She also knows it will be more fun if no one knows who she is.

  “Pwromise?” she asks.

  “Promise,” I say, and already I’m thinking of ways to disguise her trademark curls.

  Patrick herds us into the limousine where a lunch of burgers and fries awaits, and we pull away with a tail of paparazzi behind us—a few scooters and half a dozen beat-up, colorful little cars with their windows down and cameras balanced on the door frames. They weave in and out of the thick New York traffic, sticking dangerously close as we race to Yankee stadium.

  Patrick lights up at the sight of them, and I have the feeling that our itinerary was sent to the media ahead of time by our delighted publicist. It is not unusual for the pack to be tipped off by a publicist, an agent, or the star themselves. All press is good press, and free press is the best press.

  The mayor and his family meet us in front of the statue of Mickey Mantle for a photo shoot, then we are ushered onto the field for Molly to sing the national anthem, a song she fortunately has memorized because The Foster Band performed it in one of the episodes.

  We watch the ball game until the seventh inning, then Molly sings “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and almost gets the words right. The crowd roars in laughter when she bumbles a few of them, then they help her out on the final verse.

  We leave before the applause has even settled to race back across town for a dreary dinner at a fancy French restaurant called Jean-Georges. The Hershey executives are attempting to show us a good time but fall short, partly because we’re exhausted and partly because caviar and escargots prepared by a top-notch French chef don’t do much for a four-year-old.

  We arrive back at the hotel at ten, Molly falling asleep before her head even hits the pillow.

  I long to collapse as well, but first I need to attend to the dozen urgent emails and texts that arrived during the day. Most are requests for Molly to do this or that, and the others have to do with real-life issues like overdue dental cleanings and the dry cleaning that needs to be picked up.

  I save the message from Sean for last then, with a deep sigh, press play.

  “Hey, Faye, great news. I called Chris, and he got Emily an audition. I guess the writer for the show, Bradley Mitten, has been looking for a new love interest for Caleb and Emily’s the perfect age. So I need you to call your mom because she’s being a bitch and telling me we can’t stop by to pick up the jeans Emily wants to wear for the audition.”

  My ha
ir sticks up all over my body, my fingers fumbling to hit the callback button.

  “You can’t take her to see Mitten,” I say when he answers.

  “Christ, Faye, calm down. What the hell’s wrong with you? It’s all set.”

  “Well, unset it. Mitten’s a sick son of a bitch.”

  “Maybe, but he’s a sick son of a bitch with a lot of power. Did you know that he’s the one who discovered Gabby?”

  “Yes, I know that! And I know why he chose her. The guy’s a pedophile.”

  Sean laughs. “You always have had a flair for the dramatic.”

  “I’m not being dramatic. I’m telling you how it is.”

  “Yeah, right. And you, Faye Martin, are the only one who knows.”

  “Everyone knows.”

  “Everyone knows that the writer of The Foster Band is a pedophile, and yet no one has said a word about it? Faye, I get that you feel high and mighty in your new role, but you’re not the only one with connections anymore. Face it, I succeeded where you failed. Em’s stoked about this. So I know I’m stealing your thunder, but you need to get over it.”

  “Sean, this isn’t about me…”

  “You’re right, it’s about Em. Do you realize how hard this has been on her? Tom and Molly being stars and her being a nobody?”

  “She’s not a nobody.”

  “That’s how she feels.”

  “Sean, please, listen to me. I know Em wants to be an actress, but it’s really not her thing. She’s good at other things…”

  “She’s going to be good at this,” he says. “Christ, Faye, Em is right, you really do play favorites. I know Molly’s cute, but Christ, you should hear yourself. Em’s your daughter too, you know.”

  My jaw clenches, and my nose pinches against his hurtful words. “It’s not about favorites. Em can’t act.”

  “You memorize your lines and say them when it’s your turn. It’s not rocket science.”

  I rub my temple, my head throbbing. “Okay, fine. If she really wants to do this, I’ll look into other agents…”

  “She doesn’t need another goddamn agent. I told you, I got her a private audition. I thought you’d be happy. The three of them can be on the same show, and you and me, we can manage them, be a team again, like we used to be.”

  My breath catches with his suggestion of reconciliation, time slowing as the silence pulses, percolating then sizzling across the three thousand miles between us.

  “Sean,” I say finally, with as much compassion as I can muster, “it’s not going to happen. There’s no new role for a love interest for Caleb. Mitten just uses that as bait. You need to believe me. This isn’t real.”

  “Go to hell, Faye. Go to fucking hell!”

  The line goes dead and I turn off my phone, feeling like I’m already there, the fires of damnation burning a hole in my exhausted brain.

  70

  My eyes fly open, my breath heaving, the dream dissolving before I can catch it. My dad…no, Tom…one or the other, one first that became the other. Muddled the way lost dreams are. Panic. Something to do with water. Them, but I was the one drowning. I sit up and look at the clock. Five thirty. I rub Molly’s shoulder. “Come on, Bug, time to wake up.”

  “Don’t want to.”

  “I know, baby, but people are waiting.”

  At six, we’re on the move again, our paparazzi tail still in place, making me wonder if they work in shifts or simply don’t sleep.

  First stop is the St. Regis Hotel where we do a press circuit, which is kind of like media musical chairs—six consecutive interviews in six different luxury suites with six different publications—same questions, different faces.

  When we’re done, so is Molly. She needs sleep and so do I. No such luck. Lunch is with a mucky-muck from Mattel who wants to discuss the possibility of an exclusive endorsement deal for their Little Mommy line.

  Molly practically falls asleep in her soup. She doesn’t even like dolls, but the deal is for a lot of money and Fox loves the idea of a Molly/Mattel partnership that will generate advertising dollars for the studio.

  “Now can we go to the piano?” she asks when we climb back in the limo.

  Patrick shakes his head, and my heart pounds. We need to make it back to FAO Schwarz. I promised. On the limo drive to lunch, Molly and I devised a plan. If I tightly braid Molly’s hair and we wear hats and glasses, and if we don’t stay too long, and if Molly is careful not to laugh her signature gravelly giggle, and if we don’t pull up in the limo, we might just get away with dancing on the piano undetected. All the supplies for the ruse are in the limo and ready to go; now we just need the time.

  At two o’clock, we’re on the set for a taped segment of The Today Show. Molly tries, but the enthusiasm just isn’t there. She perks up when she sings but then barely responds when Matt Lauer high-fives her after.

  “When do I get to dance on the piano?” she asks when we’re done.

  I turn to Patrick. “We need to get to FAO Schwarz.”

  He nods. The man is a wheeler-dealer without a paternal bone in his body, but even he realizes how important dancing on the piano has become to Molly.

  “Three more interviews and there might be time,” he says.

  “No,” I say. “Cancel one if you have to or cancel them all.”

  “Cancel? We can’t cancel. It’s Teen Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Highlights.”

  “Then combine them or shorten them. Molly’s done her part, and she needs to dance on that piano.”

  He nods and scurries away to figure out how to condense the next three hours into two, and Molly hugs me around the waist, as pleased with me as I am with myself for standing up to him.

  The interviews fly by thanks to Patrick telling each reporter precisely how much time they have, and by setting his phone on the table with the stopwatch displaying a countdown to detonation.

  We’re halfway through the final interview with Rolling Stone, and I’m getting excited because it looks like we’ll not only have enough time to dance on the piano but also be able to visit the giant candy shop and enjoy our treat across the street in Central Park.

  “How do you feel about the accusations that your costar Gabby has a drug problem?”

  I step forward, but Patrick is already there. “This interview is over,” he says, literally pulling the plug on the microphone that is connected to the man’s recorder.

  His severity surprises and pleases me, though I’m uncertain if his fierceness is out of loyalty to Molly or the show. Boundaries for interviews are set ahead of time—what can be asked and what’s off-limits—but it doesn’t stop some reporters from crossing the line. They usually wait until the end of the interview, when they know they have their story locked up, then they throw in a zinger, hoping to catch Molly off-guard and to incite a reaction that will score a “hot” interview. In the past two months, Molly’s been asked about sex, drugs, alcohol, gay rights, and abortion—things she knows nothing about.

  “That’s not fair,” the reporter whines. “It’s a legit question.”

  Patrick rolls his eyes. “Molly, you’re done. Stomp on a few of those piano keys for me.”

  And I decide Patrick’s not so bad after all, and that maybe he has more of a paternal gene than I gave him credit for. Molly high-fives him, and we skip out of the hotel suite and down to the limo. Patrick will be staying in New York to spend Thanksgiving with family, so finally, for the first time in two days, Molly and I are on our own.

  “FAO Schwarz,” I say to the limo driver. “And step on it.”

  We’re thrown back against the seat as the driver guns it out of the hotel’s driveway. Thirty seconds later, he slams on the brakes. Half an hour after that, we’ve only traveled five blocks in the halting afternoon traffic, and Molly has conked out on my lap.

  I keep looking at my watch as the limo continues to inch along at a crawl. Our candy store/Central Park time is gone, and our piano time is dwindling. I will the traffic to move faster. I close
my eyes and pray. I make promises to God that I will be a better person if He will just part the sea of cars and let us get to FAO Schwarz.

  When the driver’s phone rings, my heart sinks. Though I can’t hear the conversation, I hear the turn signal go on at the next intersection, and I realize what’s been said. The driver has been told to take us to the airport so we don’t miss our flight.

  71

  You pwromised.”

  Molly and I stand on the sidewalk of the departures terminal. Our limo driver pulls our bags from the trunk and sets them beside us. I hand him a tip, and he climbs back into the car and pulls away.

  “I know, Bug, but we ran out of time.”

  In my peripheral vision, I see a flash, and suddenly I’m painfully aware that we are being watched. I turn my head to see at least a dozen paparazzi with their lenses trained on us.

  “You said,” Molly says. “You said aftewr we did evewrything we had to do, we would go back.”

  “I know and I tried, Bug, I really did, but it wasn’t up to me.”

  “Molly, over here,” a reporter says.

  Another calls, “Molly, look this way.”

  “Molly, tell us how you liked New York?”

  Molly sticks her tongue out at the reporter.

  “Molly,” I gasp.

  “Molly, give us a wave.”

  “How about a smile?”

  “Molly, look this way.”

  Molly sinks to the ground and puts her face in her hands.

  I signal to a skycap, who hustles over, scans our tickets, and puts tags on our bags. Cameras continue to flash, each flare like a grenade exploding in my brain.

  “Come on, Bug, let’s go,” I say, holding out my hand.

  She ignores me. She’s done, her disappointment on top of the exhaustion too much to take, and I feel the meltdown mounting.

  “Baby, we have to.”

  Her head shakes side to side, and suddenly the reporters are very quiet, all of them captivated by my predicament, salivating at being present to witness how I deal with my famous four-year-old refusing to budge.