Fifteen Minutes: A Novel (25 page)

“In his room. He’s . . . thinner.” Her mom’s eyes grew damp. “Very thin. He’ll be glad you came.”

“That makes one of you.” Kelly set her glass on the counter and walked down the hallway to her parents’ bedroom. Her heart skittered into a strange rhythm and fear shouted at her. She had never seen her father anything but strong and vibrant and bigger than life. Able to take on anything and anyone who came against him. She opened his door and one thing was immediately evident.

Those days were behind him.

“Daddy?” She walked quietly to where he lay on the left side of the bed. If she hadn’t known this man was her father, she might not have recognized him. He’d lost half his size at least. His frame seemed smaller, too, as if the battle with cancer had even cost him his great height.

She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand on his bony shoulder. “Daddy . . . it’s me. Kelly.”

“Mmmm.” The muscles in his eyelids flickered and after a few seconds—with a great struggle—he squinted at her. “Kelly! You’re here!”

Why was everyone so surprised? Was that really how her
family saw her? Too busy to visit or call or care about them? She wasn’t willing to wrestle with the possibility now. Not yet. She found her smile. “I would’ve come sooner if you’d told me.” She touched her fingers to his cheek. “You’re still so stubborn, Daddy.”

“I wanted to beat it first.” The corners of his lips lifted just a little. “So you wouldn’t see me like . . . like this.”

“Aww, Daddy.” She bent down and kissed his cheek. It felt hot and dry. She watched him try to keep his eyes open. Again she put her hand on his shoulder. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really.” Despite the cancer ravaging his body, the familiar shine in his eyes remained. “Not as much as missing you.”

There it was. Another reminder of how she had failed him. Failed all of them. “Daddy, please . . .”

“I know you . . . you don’t want to talk about . . . the past.” He paced himself, his energy clearly gone. “But the thing is . . . we don’t have much time, baby girl. I have to tell you the truth.”

“The truth?” She was confused. Did he mean about her life or about his disease? Were things even worse than she’d thought?

“You have walked away from everything . . . everyone who once mattered to you.” Compassion softened his expression. Despite his wasting body he suddenly looked like the father she remembered. Ready to pull her up onto his knee, always kind. Always merciful.

“My life . . . it’s my choice, Daddy. I’ve told you that.” She wasn’t going to fight with him now. But she wasn’t going to budge, either. “I don’t believe the same things I used to.”

“I understand.” He struggled to lift his arm from the bed, and slowly he reached for her free hand. “But God . . . still believes in you, Kelly. He . . . loves you.”

She had expected this.
Be patient. You don’t have long with him,
she reminded herself. “I need to spend more time with the kids. With you and Mom. I know that.”

“Good.” He smiled, and a fresh sense of peace seemed to ease the lines around his eyes. He squeezed her hand. “That’s a starting place.” He squinted, seeing straight to the place in her soul where the girl she used to be once lived. “Have you talked to Cal?”

“Daddy . . .” She exhaled long and hard. Was there nothing else they could talk about? “Cal’s been seeing someone else.”

“No.” Her father’s expression grew serious. “That’s not true. We had a long talk a few . . . weeks ago. He still . . . He loves you, Kelly. He’ll do whatever . . . it takes.”

She needed air, needed to escape this moment and her dying father and his insistence that she find her way back to Cal.

“I can still see you two . . . sitting together at youth group every Wednesday night.” He ran his thumb over her hand. “God . . . brought you together. You have a family with that man.” He shook his head, and the effort seemed to exhaust him. “Please . . . don’t throw it all away.”

The conversation created in Kelly a series of worsening knots. She didn’t believe in marriage the way she used to because she didn’t believe in God the way she used to. Without that foundation, she saw no reason to stay with Cal, no reason to call him. But her faith, her feelings about marriage, her decision to stay in the fight in Hollywood, none of it could be sorted out here. On her father’s deathbed.

“Daddy.” She smiled at him and ran her knuckles gently over his cheek. “Let’s talk about something else. I’d like to get another opinion on your cancer. Maybe someone somewhere has a cure.” She angled her head, remembering a thousand moments when
the two of them had talked like this. Back before every conversation turned into an argument. “I want you here. Alive and well.”

He grinned, even while the sorrow remained in his eyes. “I’ve never been more alive. The apostle Paul said to live is Christ. To die is gain. Either way I get to live.”

“Yes.” She nodded, amazed. He still believed. Even in the face of a cancer that would likely kill him, he believed. He had lived in this house and served at that church and stayed married to Kelly’s mother and never once for a single moment had he doubted God along the way.

Her father looked tired again. His eyes closed for several seconds and then opened. “Thank you . . . for coming.”

“We’re going to get you better, Daddy. We are.” The sting of tears again. This was where she wanted their conversation anchored. On the hope of healing. “You get some sleep.”

One more kiss on his cheek and she slipped out of the room. She could hear her mother in the kitchen, so she took a different route to the backyard. The minute she opened the door she was surrounded by Kai and Kinley’s laughter. She breathed in deep and felt herself relax a little. This was where she needed to be. Outdoors where the air was fresh and she could laugh like a child and play with her kids. Where questions about her faith and her fame and her family didn’t weigh heavy on every heartbeat. But even as she ran to meet Kai and Kinley she couldn’t entirely block out the truth.

Those questions would be there when she went back in the house. And sometime over the next few days she would have to make herself clear. She wasn’t ever going to believe again and she certainly wasn’t making amends with Cal.

Even if those things were her father’s dying wish.

C
handra wasn’t sure she could finish out the season.

Everywhere she looked contestants were falling apart, giving in to the pressures around them and losing the people they used to be. Even Zack Dylan. Sometimes she wanted to grab the mic stand on the judges’ table and scream at them all. Couldn’t they see what was happening? How they were being used by the producers to create a product? A hit show whose ratings and profit were the end-all?

It was mid-Saturday, the second round of group auditions, and already half the contestants had competed. Tomorrow half the singers would be sent home. Chandra couldn’t be happier for them.

“Your panties in a wad?” Cullen gave her a critical look as his makeup artist applied powder to his shiny forehead. “You haven’t said two words off-camera all day.”

“My panties are just fine.” Chandra stared at the table, at
the names of the contestants yet to perform. Zack and Zoey were on the list. She glanced through the open door at the stage wings. Kelly was out there somewhere on what seemed like a critical phone call. So just Chandra and Cullen sat at the table for now.

“Look, Chandra. You’re not happy here. We can see that.”

“I’m fine.” She lifted her chin. No matter what she felt, she had a reputation to uphold. If she had to be famous, she would do it with grace. She would never give the producers and paparazzi a reason to smear her name.

“You haven’t said much since last week. When you wanted to send Zack Dylan running home to his horses.”

She looked straight at him. “That’s where he belongs.”

“You’re wrong.” Cullen shifted his face so the makeup artist had a better angle. He pointed at the stage. “Zack Dylan belongs on that stage. For the rest of his life.”

“I can’t think of anything worse.” Chandra spun her chair around and searched the auditorium. Zack and Zoey were sitting beside each other near the back, laughing about something, their heads bowed close to each other.
Be careful, Zack . . . you have so much to lose.
Last night the judges had watched a segment on Zack and Zoey that the producers had put together. It was set to run the first week the show went live.

“We’ll air it if the two of them make it that far,” William Gaines had told the judges.

Chandra rolled her eyes again at the memory of his statement. As if anyone would dare kick Barbie and Ken off
Fifteen Minutes
. “Romeo and Juliet,” the piece was titled. The footage was compelling, the production perfect. By all accounts Zack and Zoey seemed to have found love on the journey to
Fifteen Minutes
of fame. The kiss in the hallway that night provided the
most dramatic moment in the piece. The producers positioned it right after Zack’s earnest statement that he had a serious girlfriend back home.

“So negative, Chandra.” Cullen’s makeup artist was gone. He took the seat beside Chandra and turned the chair so that he, too, could watch the contestants interact during the break. “This show made you who you are.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “You could be a little more thankful.” His eyes scanned the room. “One of them will win it all. And when he does, you need to be part of the celebration.”

Chandra considered her attitude. Cullen had a point. Nothing would change her views on the sudden fame that a show like
Fifteen Minutes
cast upon its finalists. But she had to remember the reason she’d agreed to this. Not because she believed in fame. No, it was so she could remember the girl she’d once been and maybe warn a few contestants along the way. Not only from the pitfalls that awaited them when the show placed them forever in the public eye. But from desiring that life in the first place.

She glanced at Zack again. If only she could get him to believe her. She had thought he was different, that he would hear her story and want nothing more than to tread carefully through the landscape of escalating fame. But maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just like every other contestant.

Including herself.

Chandra sighed and slowly turned her chair back around to the table. The next group would take the stage in two minutes. Kelly returned to her spot, and a minute later Cullen joined them. Chandra shot Kelly a quick look and she felt a hint of remorse. She’d been rough on Kelly. Truthful but rough. Chandra leaned closer to her. “Everything okay?”

Kelly’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. “What’s this? You have a heart?”

“I do.” Chandra faced her fellow judge. “I’m sorry. About the other day.” She looked down at her painted nails, her glittery jeans and high heels. She found Kelly’s eyes again. Maybe it was time to let her walls down a little. “Sometimes . . . I kind of panic.”

Suspicion colored Kelly’s expression. “Panic?”

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “Being Chandra Olson, it’s cost me everything. So then I see you and I want to say, Kelly baby, if you can save your marriage, save it. Don’t let this”—she motioned toward the table and the contestants and the vast, hallowed walls of Carnegie Hall—“all of this . . . don’t let it take one more thing.”

For a long time Kelly only stared at her, studied her as if she wanted to be sure Chandra was being sincere. Finally she nodded. “Thank you. But some things you give up willingly.” Her slight smile looked plastic. “No one’s taking my marriage from me. It was over a long time ago.”

Chandra nodded slowly. Kelly still didn’t get it. Maybe before the season ended. “Okay. Well . . . I
am
sorry about the other day.”

“We’re all under a lot of pressure.” This time Kelly’s smile seemed almost genuine. “And with your past and all.”

“Sixty seconds!” a voice shouted. “Places everyone.”

Chandra held still while an assistant ran onto the set and adjusted a few strands of her hair.
Here we go,
she thought.

Zack’s group was up next.

ZACK DYLAN WAS
killing it.

Despite everything Chandra knew about the changes ahead
for Zack Dylan, the heartache and compromise sure to come, she couldn’t help but enjoy his performance. He really was that good. Zoey, too. Most days, they were easily the strongest singers remaining in the competition.

As the song played out, Zack and Zoey commanded the stage, so that it was impossible to watch anyone else. They sang a Lady Antebellum ballad, and the number showed the difference between Zack and Zoey’s talent and that of the others in the group. When they finished, this time Cullen was first on his feet. “Zack Dylan!” he shouted above the roar of applause from the other contestants. “Good onya, bloke. You can saaang!”

“Thank you!” Zack was out of breath. He had his arm loosely around Zoey’s shoulders. The rest of the group stood close by. All of them were beaming.

Cullen stayed on his feet, over the top about Zack. “I mean, look at Zack Dylan, will you, America?” He raised his arms toward the audience of contestants, and another roar of applause and whistles followed. When they settled down, Cullen turned to Zack. “You ever get the feeling you were born for this?”