by Diana Currie
“Of course I do. Why would you doubt that?” Maddie questioned.
“I wasn’t sure,” Nathan said scratching the back of his head with one hand. “You mentioned how your friend would faint if she heard about me but I noticed you didn’t faint today or last Sunday. I don’t want to be a nuisance.”
Maddie smiled to herself. She thought he sounded suspiciously disappointed that she hadn’t keeled over at the sound of his voice. If only he knew how long she stayed up last Sunday night thinking about him! Her mind and heart had been racing until well after three in the morning.
“Trust me, I nearly did,” she assured his fragile celebrity ego. “And I’ve been looking forward to hearing from you all week.”
Nathan was relieved. He worried that he was pestering this girl with his petty troubles. Regardless of her starry-eyed crush on him, Nathan was aware how self-centered he’d been the previous week. His own self-loathing sickened him. He could only imagine what Maddie must think of him now.
“I’ve been looking forward to this too,” he said. “We mostly discussed my life last time, so tell me more about yourself. You’re a biology major, right? What kind of research do you do at that lab you mentioned in your letter?”
It impressed Maddie that Nathan remembered such a mundane detail of her life. Little did she know Nathan had that fan letter memorized; having read it at least twenty times in the last week. He also had Lupe scouring the house for Maddie’s other three previous letters that seemingly went unopened.
“Let’s see, I’m doing an internship that’s required for my degree. Right now we’re studying the effects of a new Alzheimer’s drug on mice.”
“Are mice particularly forgetful?” Nathan joked.
“Funny. No, we’re evaluating the physical side effects. Elevated heart rates, blood pressure, skin reactions. Those sorts of things.”
“It sounds like an interesting field you’ve chosen. You have how many years left?”
“I’m a junior. If all goes as planned I’ll graduate in two years.”
“Do you like it? College, I mean? I never went.”
“I thought you did a year at a community college in Wisconsin before moving to L.A.?” she countered.
Nathan was still caught off guard every time someone knew something personal about his life. He didn’t understand why his fans found details like that worthy of remembering but they all did. One time Nathan mentioned in an interview that he craved Captain Crunch cereal when he was hungover and the next week he must have received a hundred boxes in the mail from fans. Girls were strange creatures, that he knew, but fangirls? They were a whole other level of complicated. Nathan idly wondered if Maddie should be classified as a true fangirl or not.
“Yes, I did briefly attend a community college. My objective was only to appease my mother. I took three performing arts courses and a remedial math my first and only semester. Sometimes I think I should have made more of a commitment to college while I had the chance.”
“What are you talking about? You have an amazing life. You’ve achieved lots of other goals! And it’s never too late to go back, you know. Look at me. I’m twenty-five and still chugging along.”
Nathan wanted to ask why she was a few years behind in her studies but thought it too rude to ask. He hoped perhaps she would mention it on her own at some point. He liked to think that their phone calls would continue long enough for him to discover many more little tidbits about her life.
“You live with your parents, right?” Nathan asked.
“Yes. Saving money while I finish up with school. Kyle pays me a few bucks to babysit his girls and I work at the research lab ten to fifteen hours a week. Sometimes living at home is a real bummer but I’d be crazy to give up rent-free housing and the hot meals.”
“Is your mother a good cook?” Nathan asked. His stomach rumbled despite the fact he had just eaten.
“She’s the worst,” Maddie laughed. “My dad is awesome at it though. My mother has always been a little flighty so Joe had to learn to cook a few years ago when her yogalaties class clashed with dinner time. Thank goodness he did or Kyle and I would have starved to death. It became a hobby for him though; he made a pineapple upside down cake this afternoon just for fun.”
“That sounds really good. I miss my mother’s cooking more than anything else about being away from home.” He momentarily contemplated hopping the next flight to Wisconsin so he could have one of Nancy Foster’s hot meals. Absentmindedly, he placed his hand over his stomach but dismissed the idea of going home. If he didn’t have an all-day press junket the following day he might just have taken the red eye that night.
“Do you feel homesick a lot?” Maddie asked wondering if that might be a contributing factor to his recent troubles.
“I haven’t seen my parents in five months. And I don’t have plans to go home until Christmas. My brother came to visit me over the summer but it was weird having him here. I was busy with reshoots and I had a few meetings to go to about possible films. Garrett spent most of the time sightseeing on his own.”
“How old is your brother? I know he’s older than you, right?”
“Yeah, Garrett turned twenty-five in May. I took him to Chateau Marmont while he was visiting L.A. That was a huge mistake.”
Maddie frowned. “Why?”
“He got completely trashed and hit on Demi Levato,” Nathan replied chuckling. “We got into a fight the next day about his behavior. I told him he had to stop acting like such a tourist if he wanted me to take him around any more famous people. He accused me of being an elitist; said I changed and he hardly recognized me anymore. I’ve only talked to him a handful of times since then.”
“Oh, Nathan. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s hard being so far away. We can’t rib each other the way we used to as kids. If I try teasing him jokingly he gets mad. It’s like the dynamics of our relationship have changed since I’ve been gone.”
“I know my situation is completely different than being in Hollywood, but I can commiserate with you about being far from home. When I started college at eighteen I went out of state to the University of Alabama. It was so much fun at first being on my own. I had a cool roommate and we went to frat parties every weekend. I barely called home that first year, didn’t really keep in touch with my parents, and only came home on holidays.”
Nathan was interested in Maddie’s experience in a real college and he felt like once again perhaps she knew how to comfort him. Yes, their experiences were much different, but she still understood how it felt to leave home at a young age. “Did you feel like you were floating on air, free at last from the small town you grew up in? I remember feeling like L.A. was so big and exciting when I first arrived.”
“Yeah, UA made me feel that way too. It was like I was finally a grownup and didn’t need my family to take care of me anymore. Moving away from home was about freedom and the excitement of exploring another part of the country. I think I pushed my parents away on purpose, to prove I could take care of myself.”
“What changed then? I mean, you moved home again…,” Nathan questioned hoping he wasn’t pushing too far into her personal life.
“What changed,” she laughed without humor, “well my dad had a heart attack. I didn’t even find out about it until the next day because it happened on a Saturday and I ignored my mother’s calls until Sunday afternoon.”
Nathan was shocked to hear something so serious happened to Maddie’s father. He remembered she mentioned her father baking earlier that day so he was relieved to know that at least he recovered. “How bad was it?”
“It was a close call and he was in the hospital for a while. I left school with the intention of taking an incomplete in my classes if necessary, but my father was in much worse shape than my mother led me to believe over the phone. It took my dad a long time to get his strength back and Kyle was young at the time, just fourteen when it happened.” Maddie sighed. She didn’t like thinking about
that time in her life when her father was so weak and helpless. She grew up thinking Joe Sherratt was the most fearsome cop on the force. He fought the bad guys every day and always came home at night without a scratch on him. To see her father lying in a hospital bed with tubes in his nose shattered the false perception she had of him.
“He needed triple bypass surgery so I looked after Kyle while my mom sat with Dad in the hospital. I helped him with homework and took him to soccer practice. And when Dad was able to come home he needed help getting around. It was a slow recovery and I knew my mom needed my support. Spending that time at home after having been away for over a year made me rethink what was most important in life. Even after he went back to work I couldn’t bring myself to leave home again.”
“You’re an amazing person, Maddie.”
Maddie blushed and shook her head. “Any daughter would have done the same.”
“That’s not true at all. You helped me, a stranger you’ve never even met. And you put your own life on hold to help your family. I think you must be some kind of angel.”
Maddie chucked nervously, not at his bloated praise of her but at his use of the word stranger when he referenced himself. She knew that he was technically correct to think of them as strangers to one another but she certainly didn’t feel that way about him. Maddie glanced up at her lavender painted walls and studied the poster of Nathan that hung on the wall opposite her bed. It had been there for over a year, ever since his first big movie came out and she began following his life and career with dedication. Nathan Foster was not a friend of Maddie’s or an acquaintance, but he surely wasn’t a stranger either.
Maddie knew the actor was born Nathan ThomasFoster on June 17th, 1990 in Madison, Wisconsin. He attended a Catholic boy’s school and she even had a photograph of him from the 7th grade that was published in People magazine the year before. He had an older brother named Garrett, and his parents were Nancy and JohnFoster. Nathan looked more like his father, Maddie decided, after seeing them attend the New York City premier of Love Spelled Backwards.
She knew every detail of his film career. He became a household name with the success of Love Spelled Backwards the year before and Maddie went back and watched every movie Nathan had ever appeared in prior to that no matter how small a role he played. After watching the audio commentary on Love Spelled Backwards and countless interviews on YouTube she felt like she had a little insight into his sense of humor. It was dry and sarcastic, she thought. Maddie also saw how nervous Nathan seemed to be in his early interviews for some of his lesser known roles. She noticed how he’d grown more comfortable in front of the camera in the past two years and was now better equipped to handle a wide range of questions from journalists. So, strangers? No, Maddie didn’t feel like Nathan was a stranger to her at all.
“I’m no angel, I assure you,” she replied humbly while still gazing upon Nathan’s face in the poster from Love Spelled Backwards that hung on her bedroom wall. She suddenly felt silly for having it in her room.
“Well, you’re certainly a better person than me. You make me think I should visit my parents sooner. I have plans to go up for Christmas but that’s still two months away.”
“Why don’t you go sooner?”
“I’m still busy with press for Zero Gravity. I have to fly to London next week for the premiere over there. Not looking forward to that,” Nathan answered. He spoke the truth about his schedule, but knew deep down if he wanted to squeeze in a visit to Wisconsin he could find a way. He’d been using his demanding work schedule as an excuse for not going home for a long time. Nathan feared that if he sat in his mother’s kitchen or watched football with his dad while feeling the way he did right now he might not be able to force himself back to L.A.
Nathan loved being an actor, the California sunshine, and the money he was earning, but he hated the way his fame exploded following the success of Love Spelled Backwards. His agent had promised him starring in a movie geared towards teenage girls would be his ticket to stardom and Melissa certainly delivered. He couldn’t even go to a convenience store without the paparazzi photographing him. The complete loss of personal freedom had been the most difficult pill for Nathan to swallow. It made him feel claustrophobic; a prisoner in a ten thousand square foot mansion.
“Could your family come visit you instead? I’m sure you can afford to fly them out to California for a few days.”
Nathan grimaced. “That’s not an option. My father is deathly afraid of flying, he gets panic attacks. And it’s a twenty eight hour trip by car. Besides, I don’t even want to think what my mother would have to say about Los Angeles.”
“Why’s that?”
“She worries about me being here without any family nearby. She doesn’t think the culture is good for me.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine why,” Maddie replied sarcastically. Nancy Foster sounded like a smart woman. “What does she say about the drinking and partying you’ve been doing?”
Nathan glanced down at the beer bottle in his hand, feeling guilty that he couldn’t remember how many he’d drank so far that day. “Luckily Mom doesn’t subscribe to the Nathan Foster Google Alert.”
Maddie laughed. “That’s a relief! I get some really juicy tidbits that way.”
“Do you now?” he teased. “What have you heard recently?”
“Oh, this could be fun,” Maddie said sitting up in bed, switching her phone from one ear to the other. “Tell me if any of this is true. You were photographed entering a movie studio a few weeks ago. Was that related to the next Judd Apatow movie?”
“Speculation. It was just a meeting with my agent about possible scripts. Nothing to do with Judd.”
“Damn, I like his movies. What about the rumor that you were spotted hanging out with Justin Beiber?”
“Sorry, never even met him,” Nathan chuckled.
“Believe me, that doesn’t disappoint me! It was just something that got reported on a fan blog. I thought of another good one. Ready?”
Nathan smiled at her enthusiasm and was happy to go along with her questions. So many false claims were made about him daily that he was happy to set the record straight. He certainly didn’t want her believing some of the more preposterous rumors; like that he slept with the Love Spelled Backwards director while filming as was widely reported before the film was released.
“Go for it,” he said.
“There was a picture of a guy with a brunette woman sitting on his lap in the back corner booth at a night club maybe a month or so ago. The website claimed that it was you and a waitress and you were drunk and making out with her. A witness said the woman was seen struggling to get away but you held her down. Any truth to that one?” Maddie asked biting her lip. She half expected Nathan to get upset and refuse to answer such a personal question, but she was dying to know. Nathan hadn’t been linked romantically to any woman in months and the rumor mills were rampant with speculation about who in Hollywood has had the pleasure of warming his bed recently.
Nathan cursed under his breath. Maddie couldn’t have asked him about the supposed affair with his married director? Or maybe inquired about mistreating crew members, punching his costar on set, or the tattoo he supposedly got on his ass? All of those stories were completely untrue. But the woman at the bar? That unfortunately was for the most part accurately reported. He cringed thinking about the photo that circulated the internet for weeks.
“Nathan?” Maddie repeated warily.
“It was me,” he admitted ashamed of his behavior that night.
“Oh. You don’t have to give me any more details. It’s none of my business.”
Nathan shook his head and stood up in order to pace back and forth across his living room floor. He didn’t want to keep any secrets from Maddie, not only because he wanted to clear his conscience on the matter, but also because he felt like talking to her was the best soul cleanse he’d had in months. He wanted to keep nothing from her.
“She was a waitress at tha
t club and I’d been flirting with her all night. I swear she was into it, you know, the making out part. She kept telling me she could get fired if her manager saw her in my lap like that but I was too drunk to care. I didn’t understand why she was trying to wiggle off me when she did.”
“Oh, Nathan.”
“I don’t even know what happened to her when that picture came out,” he whispered. “She probably did get fired. No one could prove for certain that the guy was me so I didn’t care what happened to her.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure you don’t want to be thinking about all this stuff.”
Nathan took a long pull from the bottle in his hand, realizing his head was beginning to feel a bit fuzzy. “Maddie, can I ask you to promise me something?”
“Anything, Nathan,” she replied certain that he was going to ask her to keep the knowledge about the waitress to herself.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on between us but I’d like to think we’re becoming friends. Can you please promise me that we’ll never lie to one another? About anything, no matter how big or small the lie? I can’t handle one more friend who lies to me or tells me only what they think I want to hear.”
Maddie smiled and placed her hand over her heart. The sadness in Nathan’s voice nearly brought her to tears. His request was something that she could easily agree to. She reveled in the thought that she might have such an open and honest relationship with Nathan. Fake friends were not a novelty of Hollywood, Maddie knew. There were plenty of people like that in Amarillo too and Maddie wondered how hard it might be to keep her promise. Perhaps having a friendship that only existed over the phone would make it easier to always tell the truth.
“I promise, Nathan. No, I swear to you that I’ll never lie to you or sugar coat my opinions. But I need you to extend the same courtesy to me.”