Being Hartley (12 page)

"What?" I ask her, pulling back slightly so I can see her face.

She smiles, blinking back her tears. "You're my bling. Thanks so much for coming. Thanks for being here and attempting to keep me borderline sane."

-
14
-

My mom returns to the suite not long after Rory leaves
, and I fill her in on the sudden change of hairstyle.

"Let me get this straight." She leans against the countertop in the kitchen in her sweaty gym clothes.
"She lopped it all off. Herself." She makes a chopping motion with one hand.

"In the bathroom," I add.
"Because she saw some nail scissors."

My mom sighs a long sigh.
"Oh, boy," she says. "That is
not
a good sign."

"It isn't? Why?
I mean, I know it's a bit out there, but the hairdresser fixed it up…"

"The thing is," my mom takes a swig of water from the bottle in her hand, "cutting off your hair is a symbolic act.
Doubly so when you have hair like ours. Cutting off your hair usually means something's happened. Or about to happen. Something big. Cutting off your hair is about
change
. Wait till I tell your father about this…"

I know what she's talking about.
Dad's the kind of screenwriter who gets called in a lot at the last minute to fix screenplays. And he gets paid a whole lot of money to do it. He knows pretty much everything there is to know about people and why they do things. Actually, it can get kind of weird at times. He'll tell you why you're doing something even when you don't know why you're doing it, and later on (usually after you've completely messed up), you'll realize he was right. Or he'll know things are going to happen before they do. Stuff like that. And it's not like he's psychic or anything like that. He just knows people inside and out.

"Plus," Mom adds, "I don't think any of the production team was after a new-look Rory right now.
Oh dear, and Eric is going to have a fit." Her eyes widen. "You know, the first thing I did when I left Hollywood at seventeen was cut my hair off. Even shorter than you're saying Rory has. It was a total pixie cut."

Uh oh.
"Well, even Uncle Erik will have to admit she looks amazing. Wait till you see her. Oh, and thanks for okaying the earrings. She really loved them."

"My pleasure," my mom says slowly, her head tilted ever so slightly to one side.
As she inspects me, I get the same feeling as I had earlier today, when I invited her back to keep viewing the fountain—the feeling that things are changing between us, though I can't tell why.

"Anyway." She moves all of a sudden, polishing off her water.
"I'd best have a quick shower. We don't want to be late for Rory's first show. You ready to go?"

The truth is, I've been ready for the past half hour and have already applied a final bit of lip gloss nervously about five thousand times since then.
I've never seen a real, live,
SMD
show before and am desperately trying not to give away how super-overexcited I am. Before she'd left, Rory told me she arranged for me to have a spot up front, right near the stage, but when I found out Allie was going to be watching from backstage, I said I'd watch this show with her, especially as Mom was going to be there. She'd hardly want a spot up front, near the stage—she'd be mobbed.

I'm about to answer when there's a knock on the door.

Mom and I look at each other. "Expecting someone?" she asks me, and I shake my head. Mom frowns. "Me either. Hang on."

S
he goes over to the door, and I take a few steps to the right so I can check out who it is. She looks through the peephole, and when she sees who it is, her whole demeanor changes. She turns around to me. "Stay right there." Then she cracks open the door and lowers her voice, saying a thing or two to whoever's outside. As hard as I try, I can't hear what she's saying, or see who it is.

After less than a minute, she slams the door and stomps back down the hallway and goes straight to the phone, where she rifles through some cards, selects one
, and then seems to dial a specific extension. "Robyn," she says, when someone picks up, and I remember Robyn is the guest services coordinator who met us when we arrived—the one Mom laid down the law to.

"It's Cassie Hartley here
, and I am not happy. I am not happy
at all
. I have just had a…" her eyes flick to me, "man at my door. An actor. An actor who was only released from rehab last week, if I remember correctly. I distinctly remember saying I did
not
want anyone at my door, and I especially do not want derelict drug-using actors at my door while my daughter is inside. Do I make myself clear?"

There's a long silence while Robyn obviously tries to smooth things over.
And she must be pretty good at her job, because the next time my mom speaks, she's managed to calm down a little. "Yes, he might have learned of my whereabouts because he's staying on the same floor, and yes, he might feel like he knows me because I've worked with him, albeit reluctantly, before, but that doesn't mean I want to have anything to do with him. And I especially do not want him to have anything to do with my daughter or my nieces. I don't think that's an unreasonable request."

A few more words from Robyn
, and Mom's done. "Yes, thank you, Robyn. Everything else has been just lovely. I've been very impressed. Goodbye." She replaces the handset, then pauses with her back to me for a moment and straightens her shoulders before she turns around again with a grim smile. "Right, so we were talking about getting ready."

Is she insane?
Am I really supposed to pretend that didn't happen? "Um, Mom? Who was that at the door?"

She takes a deep breath.
"It doesn't matter. Somebody I'd rather not have anything to do with."

I frown at her.
"Maybe he just wanted to say hello? I mean, you just said you worked with him before and…"

In front of me, I watch my mom's face harden all over.
"Yes, I did. And he was late to set. Every. Single. Day. He didn't shower, he didn't shave. He didn't learn his lines. And if the rehab stint is anything to go by, I'm sure I can guess what he was so busy with that didn't have anything to do with work."

"You mean drugs," I say.
"I do know they exist."

Mom looks at me for a moment or two, her breath quickening.
"Do you? Do you really, Thea? Because I do. I grew up with a mother who couldn't go anywhere without an extra suitcase full of painkillers and an understanding doctor on call 24/7, which is why I don't want them around me anymore, and especially not around my family, and never, ever around my own daughter." Her voice rises with each word. "So you might know they exist, but that's all I want you to know. And I'll do anything—
anything—
to stop you from being introduced any further than that."

What?
Wow. Mom never talks about her mother.
Never
.

"Mom…" I take a step forward, shocked at how much a guy simply knocking on our door has shaken her.

She makes a cutting motion with one shaky hand. "See? This is what happens when I get off-track. We shouldn't be here.
You
shouldn't be here. And now I have drug-taking losers turning up on my doorstep."

"Mom!" I take another step.
"It's okay. I'm fine. You're fine. He's gone."

She glances over at the door, unconvinced.

"Really."

When she turns back to me once more, she looks kind of deflated. "It's just very…important to me.
I won't have that for you. Not for
my
daughter."

In the silence that follows, I watch her carefully, my eyes welling up, suddenly understanding a whole lot more about my mom.
Why doesn't she tell me this stuff about her? About her family? Everything makes so much more sense when she does.

"Okay," I say, going over and giving her a hug.
"It's okay."

She hugs me tight in return and plants a kiss on top of my head.

* * *

Melinda, the producer's assistant, sends someone up to our suite
, and Mom and I are given backstage passes to hang around our necks. We're guided downstairs, then backstage when we get to the Grand Ballroom. "You should get a great view from here." The guy nods at us.

"Thanks," my mom says.
"We really appreciate your help."

"My pleasure, Ms. Hartley.
And can I say—I'm a huge fan of your work." He beams at her, gazing straight over my head. Seriously, I may as well be invisible.

"That's very sweet of you," my mom tells him.

As I listen to him start in on his speech, I know this is going to go one of two ways—either he'll tell her he's an actor, or studying acting, or he'll start to document each and every film he's adored her in. To be honest, I wish he'd just get lost. We really do not need any more weirdness after what happened before.

I still can't believe that my mom said anything about her family, or how she reacted to someone simply being at our door.
She's usually so…in control. But then that's because she always has control of her world and of mine. We're in someone else's world now—Rory's—and I'm starting to realize that the lack of control is freaking my mom out.

The guy goes to open his mouth again to say something neither of us really wants to hear right now, but then, thankfully, he pauses, his hand suddenly shooting up to his ear
—someone's talking into his earpiece. "Sorry, I have to go," he says. "Enjoy the show!"

Oh, I will, I think to myself, as I check out the stage.
It's already brightly lit, with all the signature
SMD
colors—pink and blue and silver. Arches of balloons stretch across the stage, punctuated with cascading silver fountains of foil stars. The ceiling is completely filled with matching balloons and roving lights scan the crowd. "Wow," I say, checking out the numbers. "How many people do you think are out there?" I glance back at my mom.

She moves forward to take a closer look.
"At least three thousand. And I think it could take four thousand."

Just for a split second, my eyes follow those people filing into the ballroom and let myself pretend it's going to be me up on the stage.
Me that they'll be watching. That I'll get my turn to dance. But only for a split second. And then, just as fast, I push the thought away, because I know from experience that if I let myself run with it any longer, it'll be even more painful to let it go.

"So, you guys ready for some good, clean
SMD
fun
?" Allie bounces up to us, rubbing her hands together, looking from Mom to me. The way she pronounces "fun" lets us know she thinks she's up for anything but.

Mom laughs.
"Oh, Allie, you sound so world-weary for someone so young."

People say this about Allie a lot. But then Allie's had to deal with things in the past year or so that most don't have to deal with until they're a whole lot older.

Allie rolls her eyes at my mom. "Let's just say I'm looking forward to ditching the world of trailing along behind
SMD
and going back to school."

Allie had had most of the last year off school because of her surgery and had been tutored instead.
Now that she's healthy again and can risk getting things like a simple cold, she's been given the all clear to return to school.

"Hanging around
SMD
isn’t your idea of a good time?" Mom asks her with a chuckle.

"Not exactly," Allie says, with a grimace.
"I tried to stay with Dad in the green room, but he pushed me out here to be 'supportive.'"

I turn back to the stage again, every cell in my body feeling suddenly weighted down, barely even able to listen to their exchange.
What I'd give to hang around
SMD
on a daily basis and not trail after my mother all over the world with only a tutor for company, I couldn't even begin to explain.

* * *

As we wait, I begin to get a bit worried that my misery on watching other people live out my dream will get worse on seeing the show itself, but oddly, the exact opposite happens. When the stars are introduced by the emcee, and one by one, run waving onto the stage to take their places, all I feel is excitement. I have this gut feeling it's going to be a great show, as do the audience, who are going insane. They go nuts when they see Rory's new out-there hair, too.

I grin as I crane my neck to see the first few rows of people in the audience
—kids, parents, grandparents, a real mix, just like Rory had said there'd be. All of them, as one, are jumping up and down, cheering, wooting, and generally having a fantastic time before the show's even begun. Before long, I'm able to stop thinking about myself in somebody else's shoes, and I can relax, let the mood envelop me, and focus on watching the dancers do what they do best.

The
SMD
format is always the same, and from what I saw at the rehearsal this morning, tonight's live show is going to be a pretty close match. There's a team dance to start with, with all three regular couples performing, as well as Mara and José, the understudies. It's a really slick, sophisticated routine set to Katy Perry's new song, and the audience is up on their feet immediately, even though it's not one of the dances they'll be learning the steps to like they will later on. Of course, as always on
SMD
, the dancing is flawless.