“Pent up, buttoned down, blue oxford with khaki pants, brow beaters.”
“Any more clichés in the box, Pandora?”
“Not right now.” He grinned at her over his coffee. “But I’ll let you know.”
The divide in their faith smarted more than she had imagined it might. Her first disappointment in this young relationship.
“When I was ten,” she began, giving life to a random thought, “I auditioned for a kids’ show,Sleuths. The part was for a fun, brainiac kid who solved her detective-father’s cases. I wanted that part... Finally, the day came. I had five minutes to wow them. I’d picked my clothes, fixed my hair, wore a pair of prop eyeglasses. I was Debbie Dough.”
“I remember that show. You tried out for Debbie?”
“Sixty seconds in, the casting director takes a phone call. The producer had to ‘step out for a moment.’ And I knew him. Sam Aiken. He was a friend of Dad’s!” Chloe propped her elbow on the table, chin in her hand, and stared toward the door. A lean, lanky man with a Vietnam-vet cap entered.
“Morning, Duke,” the waitress said. “Coffee?”
“That’ll be fine.”
Chloe went on. “Sam returns right in the middle of my best line and says, ‘Chloe, we see you more as Lizzy. Why don’t you read a few of her lines?’ Lizzy. The chubby girl who ate junk in every single scene. If she wasn’t eating, she wanted to eat. I was devastated.”
“Hollywood is not for the fainthearted. What’d you do?”
Tears welled in her eyes. She’d never talked about that audition. “I read for the part.”
“Chloe—”
“As humiliating as it was, little did I know...” She broke off a piece of bacon. “Since I can remember, Hollywood has been telling me who I am, what I look like to the rest of the world, and how I should behave. When I blew up at Haden, went all bat-crazy on him, it was the first time I didn’t care who I was or who was watching.”
“Did you get the part of Lizzy?”
“No. Sam came to the house, talked to Dad. They wanted to offer me Lizzy. Said I was perfect for the freckled, fat-girl role.”
“He said that to your dad?”
“Yes. I was listening outside the door. ‘Come on, Sam,’ Dad said. ‘She’s not that bad. Why can’t she play Debbie? She drove us crazy prepping for the part.’”
Funny how she remembered the conversation twenty years later.
“Your dad stood up for you then.”
“Not really. At least it didn’t feel like it to my ten-year-old heart. Sam goes, ‘You know, Ray, if you want Chloe to succeed in this town, get her to lay off the chips and ice cream.’ Dad laughed.”
“He laughed?”
“He said, ‘You ever get between a girl and her ice cream?’ Har, har, har, yuckity, yuck. Looking back, I know he didn’t mean to diss me, but I’ll never forget the way I felt.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“I think he’s forgotten about it. I should too.”
“What’d he do when the videos with Haden came out?”
“He tried to defend me, but what could he say? ‘She didn’t mean to hit Haden’? ‘She didn’t mean to swear like a gutter rat’? I was an adult woman.” Chloe raised her paper cup to her lips. She hadn’t known it then, but God was pursuing her. Her choices had led her straight to Him. “I think I’m stronger for it, you know. What about you? What’d your parents do?”
“Mostly tried to ignore it. Not speak of it. Afraid of tipping me over the edge.”
“Were you on the edge?”
“Couldn’t have beenmoreon the edge. I was aimless, restless, really angry. Guilty. Once in a while, Dad tried to remind me it wasn’t my fault. I’d blow up at him. Then he’d suggested I get busy with work. My folks are of European breeding, you know, like Hamilton. The pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind. So I moved to LA. The land of make-believe.”
