by Dani Hall
“Mhmm.” The father muttered, seeming uninterested.
The mother made her entrance, going straight for the fridge.
“Morning! How are my two favorite men doing?”
“Fine, honey.” The father murmured, flipping a page in the newspaper. She seemed to be getting breakfast supplies out of the fridge, still in her nightwear while the father and Taylor were in day attire.
“Ready for school today, Todd?”
A camera zoomed in on Taylor as he was smearing peanut butter with a knife and accidentally went through to the cutting board.
“Yea. Got practice for the big game today.”
“You know,” the father interjected. “This murder thing is getting scarier and scarier.”
“Why do you say that, dear?”
“There was another body found in the park last night. This poor girl had her throat slit.”
I saw Taylor pause again, a ghost of a smile on his face. It gave me chills to see him behave like that.
“Oh God. Does it say how old?”
“No. But it appeared to be another high-school kid. Just taking a jog through the park. Todd, I don’t want you walking alone through that park any more, you understand?”
“Understood…Dad.” Taylor finished his sandwich, stuffing it into a bag. “I’m going to be late for school.” He announced and grabbed a brown bag with what I presumed had the rest of his ‘lunch.’
“Honey, do be careful.” His mother replied. “Whoever is committing these murders is obviously very dangerous. I really think you should reconsider taking that quarterback position, maybe the killer is taking revenge out on star players on football teams, who knows.”
Taylor had stopped at the door. His shoulders tensed as his hand froze on the doorknob. A green screen was behind the door, I guess they’d add in an outside background later.
“It’ll all be ok, Mom.” He said, under his breath. “I’m sure the guy isn’t even interested in the football team anymore.”
Taylor yanked the door open and disappeared off the set. The mother and father exchanged a look.
“Do you think he’s ok?” The mother asked. The father nodded.
“Yea, pressure of his grades and being quarterback is probably getting to him.” The father answered, going back to his paper.
“CUT!” Wade yelled. “Ok, everybody back on set!” Taylor reappeared on set, crossing his arms as he looked at Wade. “Ok, that was a good take. This time, Taylor, when you cut through the bread I want you to put a little more force behind it. Melanie, I want you to actually start making breakfast. Get a bowl, pour some cereal. Norman, I want you to get up and grab a bowl of cereal after she makes it. I want to add a line here as well. Melanie, you’re going to ask Taylor something along the lines of ‘you want some cereal’ and Taylor, you’re going to pause and say that you’re not hungry. That same dark persona going on. Ok, let’s take it from the top.”
I was surprised that they were doing the scene all over again. The director stopped and started the scene constantly; I lost count of how many takes it took to finally satisfy him.
After a few more minor scenes that took place in the kitchen, it was time to move to the green screen. Taylor was taken back into his dressing room and came back out in a black outfit. Another girl surfaced out of a room nearby, dressed up in a pink jogging suit. They took their places around the sand that was poured a good twelve feet along the floor. Kara had gotten bored and had returned to her dressing room.
“Ok, Connie, I want you to run back and forth for a minute here, and get short of breath. Then we’ll start your jog. You’ll stop almost at the end of the path to catch your breath. Taylor, that’s when you’ll enter.”
“Ok.” Connie agreed. Taylor didn’t say anything. Connie ran around the studio, taking a few minutes before she lost her breath. She jogged over to the first of the path.
“Jogging Murder scene, take one.”
“ACTION!”
Connie jogged down the path, stopping right when she was supposed to. It was difficult to see anything that was going on with so many cameras pointed in all directions. She put her hands on her knees, taking deep breaths. I saw Taylor appear out of the fake bushes and onto the path. He crept up behind her, grabbed her mouth and slit a knife across her throat. Blood poured everywhere and Connie appeared to fall lifeless to the ground. Taylor stood over her for a moment, just watching her body. He took no remorse as he dropped the knife, disappearing back into the bushes.
“CUT.” Wade yelled. “Great, great. Now, I’m getting a thought here.”
Taylor ripped off his ski mask, looking annoyed at Wade. This went on for a while, and it felt like forever when they finally finished. Every time they stopped they would have to redo the jogger’s outfit because fake blood was spattered all over it. They’d have to spend time cleaning up the scene and the jogger would have to run back and forth again to start the scene. It was all very tedious.
“10 minute break!” Wade yelled, looking out across the actors.
“Twenty.” I heard Kara yell from somewhere in the back. It was funny she needed twenty minutes when she had yet to film anything today.
Taylor led me back to his dressing room and let me in. People swarmed at first, reapplying makeup. I felt the one shoulder shirt I was wearing riding up. After everyone was gone Taylor stood up, walking over to me.
“Bored?” He asked. I shrugged.
“I didn’t know how repetitive this was. And I guess for some reason I thought you filmed scenes in order, not all over the place.”
“Yea. We’ll film all the scenes that take place in the kitchen and in the bedroom over the next few days. We’ll probably have to redo some of the things we did today.”
“That’s tough.” I said, reaching over my shoulder and attempting to readjust my shirt.
“Here,” Taylor said. “Let me.”
He shifted behind me, I could feel him take a hold of the fabric, but then he stopped.
“Take off your shirt.” He demanded
“What?” I said, turning my head over my shoulder. “Did I just hear you right?”
He sighed impatiently, and lifted the bottom of my shirt up. I felt his finger tracing lines across my back and I realized he hadn’t seen my scars yet.
“Kale…” He said quietly, his finger finding a new line. “What…?”
“I don’t know.” I answered. “I don’t remember how I got them.”
I felt him studying the lines across my back. There were about five long, thick scars that ran in vertical lines. I used to have a lot more, but they had faded with time. I could feel his fingers brushing over them. They were just a part of me now, it’s not like I could tell he was touching an actual scar. But the way his fingers traced, I could tell he was going over the lines.
“I was always embarrassed to go to a pool with friends when I was younger. Whenever I wore a bathing suit, people would stare. I always asked my Mom why I had all the scars; she told me I had an accident when I was little. I don’t remember what happened.” I shrugged and I felt him drop the fabric of my shirt. He adjusted it to the right angle, and then gently turned me to face him.
“How can you not remember what happened to you?”
“I must have been really small when I got them. I don’t remember getting them.”
He nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. I shook his shoulders a little bit.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. It’s just skin. It’s not like it’s hurting me now.”
He pulled me into a hug; a gentle hand rubbed my back. He pulled back suddenly, reaching for the button on his jeans.
“Taylor,” I said, alarmed. He rolled his eyes, pulling his pants to the side slightly to reveal a thick scar across his right hip.
“They cover it up with makeup if I do a scene shirtless.” He said. I reached out, running a finger along it, unsure of how I had missed it that morning when he had been working out. He buttoned his pants back up, shru
gging.
“How did you get it?”
“I was about ten.” He mumbled. Even though his pants covered it up, I could still see he had it memorized. He was running his hand over the area. “They had just brought my first little brother home. I wasn’t happy. My first movie had just come out, and they called me while I was sitting front row waiting for the movie to come on. They were at the hospital, delivering J.J. When I got back to the house, I was all alone. No one was there to tell me what a good job I had done on my first movie. Well, employees were there. But none of them really made me feel any better. I was mad that J.J. had ruined what I had worked so hard for. I decided I was going to run away…star in movies somewhere else. I got on my bike and pedaled down the road, not really sure where I was going. I took a wrong turn somewhere, ended up on a highway. It was at night and a car came down. They didn’t see me. They slammed on brakes but still bumped my bike hard enough to send me flying onto the pavement. I guess I must have landed on my hip somehow. The doctors said they picked glass out of my hip from the cool little rearview mirrors I had on my bike.” He shrugged. “Not a big deal, but still, those little mirrors weren’t so cool any more.” He joked.
I nodded, realizing his twenty minutes were up. I felt my stomach churn.
“Please, let me stay in here?” I asked, looking up into his face. “I don’t want to see you stick your tongue down that girl’s throat.”
He hesitated, but slowly nodded.
Chapter Forty-Two
It felt like forever since I’d seen Lisa. But when I opened the door to our dorm room Sunday night when I got back, she wasn’t there. I flipped on the T.V., it was on Star Gaze.
I saw my father’s picture up on the T.V. He was in the middle of a new interview.
“Kale quit her job up at that movie theater she’d been working at. Why does she need a job now? She’s got a movie star to pay for all her bills.” My father was saying to the interviewer. His eyes were red and he was wearing a different shirt. The same deep drawl emitted from his mouth.
“You believe this is what your daughter’s plan was?”
“I think she’s got college to pay off. She’ll need someone to pay it off for her.”
Little did he know that I had a freaking full ride scholarship to my name. I didn’t have to pay a dime towards my education, but do you think that they realized that?
“What do you say about Taylor Jett speaking out on behalf of Kale? Have you really not spoken to your daughter in ten years?”
“She won’t talk to me. I try and try to get in contact with her, but since she’s famous now, she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I just sit up at my house, wishing I could talk to her, but she won’t return contact.”
Fury sparked a fire in the pit of my stomach and before I knew it, I was grabbing for my car keys and my phone.
I drove for an hour. Time seemed to stand still as my hands steadied the wheel. I don’t know what possessed me to take that journey. I had class tomorrow morning. I needed to be in bed. There was nothing I could say to this man to make him change his mind. Nothing I could cry or scream about that would pay him back for all the hurt he had caused my mother and I for all those years. Maybe I would just have the satisfaction of knowing I was brave enough now to face him. I wasn’t that small ten year old kid any more, I was grown, and he was going to hear it from me that he didn’t have any kind of hold over me anymore.
I took a deep, steadying breath before reaching a long narrow road. I’d never thought I’d find myself down this road again. But yet, here I was.
I drove up into the driveway of my father’s trailer. The same trailer I’d grown up in. He was exactly where we had left him ten years ago, the same rusted truck in the yard. I took a few steadying breaths before getting out of my car and walking up the broken down steps and onto the makeshift porch. I pulled my cell phone out and realized that I had a golden opportunity here. I flipped through my menu and finally got to a voice recorder. I hit the record button and gripped it in my hand. I rang the doorbell and listened for movement inside the trailer. My breath was short, my heart pounded in my chest.
“Get the hell off my porch.” I heard him yell from within. I knocked on the door loudly, but in turn I was greeted with silence. I finally pushed the door open and took a step into the hell that I used to know.
Chills went up and down my spine as I immediately recognized the smell of alcohol. I heard a cough come from the living room. I kicked aside multiple beer cans and stepped around rotting food that was all over the floor. Stains covered the walls and the fridge smelled rotten from where I stood.
He was sitting in the same chair he had used when I was small. A television set was propped up on a crate across from him. The couches were gone, lamps were no longer there, and it looked like he’d sold a lot of the stuff I remembered from my childhood. But these were the same walls I’d suffered in, this was the same carpet I watched my mother bleed on.
He looked up at me from his chair and sneered. He looked back at his T.V. and took a sip from his beer.
“Who the hell are you?” He snarled. “I don’t want any fucking girl scout cookies.”
“Funny you don’t even recognize me. You’ve only been spreading lies about me on the television for the past few weeks. Have you not stayed sober enough to recognize your own daughter?”
“Why the fuck would I recognize you? You haven’t been here in ten years.”
“I had no reason to come. But now I do. You’re wrecking the life that I have made for myself.”
“I’m making a life for myself, the money I’ve made off you in the past couple weeks is the best thing you ever did for me. You or your mama.”
“But it’s all lies.”
“So what? You think I give a shit about you or what you’re really doing? Because I don’t.”
“I’m prepared to sue you for false allegations against me. Trust me when I say you would lose more than you have made.” I said and pointed at the T.V. “It’s not fair that I’m making something of my life and you’re still sitting in this trailer, blowing all your money on booze and drugs.”
“What else would I spend my money on?”
“You could save it. Actually make something of yourself.”
“None of that stuff would make me happy. This-” He lifted the beer up in the air and then took a swig. “Makes me happy.”
“I came up here to clear my conscious, to say you could do something with your miserable life. I made contact with you. And I tried to convince you. My conscious is clear. You can stop saying I haven’t seen you.”
“Why the fuck did you even bother? You know I don’t give a shit about you, your mama, or her brainwashed church rotting husband or their bratty kid.”
I blinked. How did he even know about them? “She’s moved on, she’s successful now. She’s got someone who treats her right…”
“You know, I don’t even know how you got the guts to show up here today. After the way I left your mama when she threatened to leave me? The way I left you?” His deep guttural voice laughed. I had a flashback of my Mom. He had left her lying on the floor when he had caught her packing up bags. I thought she was dead when I first saw her. But she lifted her head up and asked me to get her keys. And we had driven all night long.
“I’m not scared of you, Reuben.” I snapped. He jerked his head around, looking at me hard.
“What the hell you call me?”
“I called you by your name.”
“I am your daddy.”
“You’re nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. You’re trash rotting in the same trailer that my mother left you in years ago. Abe is my father. He raised me after we left you.”
He was out of his seat; his hand almost went to a thick black belt around his waist, and he stumbled slightly.
“You best get the fuck out of here before I hit you so hard you won’t even remember your Hollywood fuck toy’s name. I remember how to use this thing, and I won’t th
ink twice about making you bleed out on the same carpet your mama did.”
“You’re going to regret saying that.” I snapped. I stomped my way back through the trashed interior and out of the door. The door slammed behind me as I threw myself at my car, hands shaking as I tried to unlock it. I jammed my keys into my ignition and lit out of there. It didn’t hit me until I was miles away that I was shaking with sobs.
The drive back seemed shorter than when I had driven to his trailer. I called Taylor, wondering if I could do anything with the recording.
“You. Did. What?” He thundered over my phone.
“I just thought that…maybe I could…talk to him.” I was still crying when I called him. I thought I had calmed down enough to carry on a conversation without sounding horrible. But apparently I had been wrong.
“I’m flying out there. I’ll ask them to cancel tomorrow’s shoot.”
“N-no. Don’t do that.” I said, trying to make my voice sound steady. I took a few breaths, calming my nerves. “You don’t…need to do that. Just-Just stay put. W-what do you want me to d-do with this?”
“I’ll give you a number to forward it to…actually, forward it to Jerry.” I could tell he was worried by the way he spoke. His voice was on edge. “Just stay put at the dorm, ok?”
“O-ok. D-don’t want the media to see-to see-to see.”
“No, I don’t care if the media gets pictures of you crying. That doesn’t matter right now; I don’t care about those morons. I can be there in an hour if you need me to. Just focus on you right now.”
“N-no. S-stay there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I managed to finally get a word out without having to stop for breath or stuttering.
“Ok. Do you want me to fly in tomorrow night after my set?”
“It’s up...to you.”
“Ok. You want me to stay on the phone with you?”
“N-no. You don’t have…to.”
But he did. He stayed on the phone until I was asleep in my dorm room. I woke up to find that my phone was next to my ear. I glanced at the clock and realized I didn’t set my alarm. Lisa was back, asleep in her bed. I had about thirty minutes to get ready for class.