A Little Less than Famous (38 page)

I hesitated. I knew what I needed to say. I knew that the best decision was to say no, that I couldn't do it anymore and that I needed to get out now. If I stayed out of this world, I would never have to worry about Jake or Wendy or Andrea, even Justin, Summer or Charlie. I would be completely away from any of that. But for once, my head wasn't winning out. I loved doing this. It was a ton of fun and I was good at it. It wasn't often that I found something that I was good at. "I'm just not really sure, Adrienne."

She sighed and looked at me. I felt for a moment like I should be embarrassed. I was stripped down to my underwear and was being fitted into the dress. For some reason, though, I just didn't. "Look, McKinley, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm not. I'm just telling you this; you have talent.
It’s
raw and could use some work but if we work at it, you could do a lot. And people love you. You're real; you don't starve yourself. You have curves. That makes you relatable. If you don't want to do it, then don't. But I would seriously encourage you to do it."

I stared my reflection in the mirror as she said that. I still needed to hit the hair and make-up chair. My hair was windblown from the beach and my make-up was a little smudged but I felt beautiful. I never really thought of myself in terms of beauty but more in terms of confidence. I had always had the confidence but lately I'd actually seen the beauty that went along with that. "I need to think about it," I said, surprisingly even myself.

She nodded. "That's fine. But you can't take too long, McKinley. We have to jump on this before you disappear in the people's minds. Especially since you aren't dating Jake anymore. Understood?" I nodded, once, my hair bouncing. "I'm sending those scripts home with you."

I looked back at my reflection. "Okay," I agreed, wondering if I was making the right decision or not. I guess I would find out.

Chapter Thirteen

My grandmother was coming to California to visit me. I hadn’t really thought about it, to be completely honest. I had sent an email back to her, saying that I was excited for her to come. After that, it had mostly slipped my mind. I had become too wrapped up in trying to break up with Jake and figuring out what the hell was going on in my future.

Now, it was right there, smack in front of my face and there was no time to try and get ready for it. It was happening. Her plane had landed; she had grabbed a taxi and was on her way to the diner. I had asked her if her plan was to stay with us and, to my relief, she had declined. We didn’t have a lot of room in the upstairs apartment and I didn’t think that it would really be up to her standards.

We had spent most of the morning and early afternoon cleaning the café and the upstairs apartment. Luke wouldn’t actually come out and say it but I think that he felt like my grandma was a judge on his parenting skills. He cleaned everything in the upstairs apartment, made sure all his gentleman magazines were gone and even took the Storm Trooper helmet and hid it in the closet. We were both nervous on meeting this person.

I knew who she was as soon as she walked in. I would like to say it was because we had some instant bond or something but that definitely wasn’t it. She just looked exactly how I would imagine Olivia Evans Trent would look like. She wasn’t as old as I’d thought she was. I knew that she had my mom when she was 21 and my mom had me when she was sixteen but I had that view of grandmothers being super elderly. She had auburn hair that was full of grey and she was short and curvy. I felt a little surprised at how we had that in common. It was her clothes though-a long tan trench coat, grey pants and a pink sweater with a pearl necklace-that let me know who she was.

She came straight to the counter, taking a seat right in front of me. “McKinley?”

I nodded, feeling the lump in my throat grow larger. “Yes. That’s me. Olivia?”

“That would be me,” she said, cheerfully.

I took a deep breath. Yes, this woman sitting in front of me was my grandmother but I didn’t have to act like I was completely incapable of speech. “Did you want any coffee or iced tea or anything?”

“I’ll take a coffee for now, definitely,” Olivia agreed. “And if you have a menu, I’ll take that too.”

“Of course,” I answered, pouring her a cup of coffee and sliding a menu across the counter.

Luke appeared next to me, basically out of thin air. “Hi Olivia. I’m Luke Scott.”

Olivia smiled, extending her hand across the counter to him. “Luke, its so wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.” She leaned closer to him. “I have to say thank you for taking such great care of my granddaughter.”

Luke looked sheepish and embarrassed and I felt a real genuine smile spread across my face. “Well, I just…of course.”

She winked at him. “I’ll leave you alone now. I don’t want to make you blush anymore than I already have.”

She took a few minutes to look at the menu before ordering the B.L.T. I wrote that out and gave the order to Chris, who was reading a pretty battered copy of
A Storm of Swords.

             
There was a good ten minutes of silence between us. Olivia looked really comfortable, looking around the diner, taking in all the decorations. I, on the other hand, felt extremely uncomfortable. I had no idea how to talk to her, and what to talk about. I rested against the counter, racking my brain for things to say. Chris interrupted my thoughts, shouting out “Monroe” behind me.

             
I turned, grabbing the plate off the counter and swept out to the dining room, dropping off the sandwich at the Marilyn Monroe table. When I came back, Olivia was looking at me curiously.

             
“What does Monroe mean?” she asked, when I came back.

             
I stared at her, wondering if it was okay to let her in on the not-so-secret secret. Well, she was family. “Monroe means the Marilyn Monroe’s table’s food is ready. All the tables are named after movie actors.”

             
Olivia nodded. “I like it. That’s pretty clever.”

             
“Yeah, my uncle Luke…Luke’s dad, he came up with the whole design and decoration of the diner and we just never changed it.”

             
“Well, its very quaint,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. I nodded. “I brought something for you.”

             
I looked at her, warily. “You didn’t have to…”

             
“I didn’t buy anything; you can calm down,” she said, smoothly, smiling. She reached into her overlarge purse (was this a requirement for older ladies?) and pulled a large photo album. I wondered how anything else possibly fit there for a moment and then took it from her.

             
I flipped it open and immediately recognized a face. It was me…except that it couldn’t possibly be me. “Wait…”

             
“That’s your mother, when she was two years old,” Olivia said, pointing at the picture that I had thought was me. My mother and I had looked pretty much the same when we were toddlers. I had never seen pictures of my mother when she was younger. I didn’t even know there were pictures of my mother anywhere. There was a boy of about seven, standing next to her. “And that is her brother, your uncle, James, right next to her.”

             
“I have an uncle?” I asked, staring at him. “My mom had a brother?”

             
“Oh yes,” Olivia said, wiping her mouth with a napkin and leaning forward to look at the photo. “James is six years older than your mother. I’m not surprised that you’ve never heard of him. Your uncle James, he was one of those guys that had everything going right.”

             
“Oh yeah?” I said, starting to flip through the pages.

             
“Oh yeah,” she agreed. “James was the star quarterback, class president, had a ton of friends, a steady girlfriend who he escorted to cotillion. Corinna…she was a good kid but she just never seemed to fit. She was really shy and she just couldn’t fit into that world. Oh, I remember when we were preparing for cotillion and she hated it so much. She left before she could actually go through with it.” She paused, as if thinking about it. “Oh, that’s your aunt Marie. She was a little drunk at that Christmas party. Well, she was always drunk at Christmas.”

             
“She came by. My mom. About three months ago.”

             
“I know.”

             
I looked up at her, surprised. “Wait, what? How did you know?”

             
“She called me, asking if I knew where you were. I don’t know why she asked me, when she didn’t even tell me when you were born. I told her as much. This was back in October so I wasn’t sure how you felt about that. She called me again a few months ago saying that she found you.”

             
I swallowed hard. My mom had looked for me long before the world had found out who I was. I had no idea what that meant, or if it meant anything at all. Maybe she had spent more time looking for me and actually wanted to see me. I hadn’t heard from her since she left back in December but maybe she needed more time. She had taken twenty years to find me the first time.

I shook my head and continued to flip through the book. Olivia finished her lunch and slid the plate to the side, pointing out different people and telling stories. It was surreal to see all these people who were related to me and who looked so similar to me. There was my nose here, my eyes there. It was crazy. I watched as the pages turned and my mother got older and older, to about sixteen years old. The last page had a picture of my mother and her brother, my mom’s smile seeming a bit strained and then a picture of her with a boy, who looked about twenty, who I didn’t recognize from the previous pictures.

“Who is that?” I asked, looking up at Olivia. She hesitated, staring at the photo for a long moment. “Olivia?”

“That is your father.”

I felt my face flush and I yanked the picture out of the album and brought it closer to my face. I had never seen a picture of my father; I had no idea what he even looked like. I didn’t even know his name and there he was, staring at me in picture form, at about nineteen years old. “That’s my dad?”

“Yes, that’s him. His name is Brendon Cambridge.”

I looked up at her, feeling my heart slam harder and harder in my chest. “Did you just say
is
?” I asked, my voice strained.

“Yes. He still lives in Raleigh. He played ball for awhile but now he is settled down and teaching at the high school he and your mom went to,” Olivia said, looking at me with concern. “Are you okay, McKinley? You look kind of purple.”

“My dad’s alive?” I squeaked out, clutching the counter for support. Luke looked up, and walked over quickly.

“McKinley, are you okay?” he asked, his hands on my shoulders.

“We were talking about her dad and what he does now,” Olivia said, looking bewildered. “Then she suddenly got purple and…”

“Her dad is alive?” Luke asked, shocked. He turned to me. “McKinley, sit down.”

I sat down on a box of coffee grounds. I put my head in my hands and tried to breathe.

“Well, of course he is,” Olivia said, sounding surprised. “Unless something happened since I left Raleigh, but I can’t understand why you’d know before me.”

Luke looked angry for a moment and then just as quickly, it was wiped off his face. “Corinna told us he was dead, that he died in a car accident when McKinley was two years old.”

“Oh my…” Olivia’s hand flew up to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know! I would’ve…I don’t know, broken it gently. I feel horrible.”

“It’s okay, Olivia, you didn’t know,” Luke said, his voice tense.

             
“My dad’s alive,” I said, my voice full of wonder. “That’s…he’s alive.” I looked up at Olivia through my fingers. “Does he know about me?”