Day 2
Hey! I've enjoyed all your stories so far! This is a fun thing to do! I'm going to make it a new tradition. :)
Today when I woke up everything was the same. My breakfast was once again was served to me on a silver platter. My daughter, who I found out was 15, once again, came bounding into my room with a magazine.
She wasn’t going to school today though. Apparently, it’s Saturday. Instead, she begged me to let her come to my reading. So of course, being the cool mom that I’ve always thought I was, said okay.
The one thing I knew I had to do today was find out how I became famous. I mean, I was always this shy girl who had big dreams, but I never thought they’d come true.
I got ready for my reading and then Emilee and I went out for ice cream before I actually had to be there. I figured it would be best to nonchalantly drill her about my rise to the top.
While at the ice cream shop, I started the drilling, “Do you remember how this all started?”
Emilee smiled at me, “Sure! About ten years ago, you went to an open mike night with Aunt Dorothy out in Tennessee. Toby Keith happened to be there, for some unknown reason and he figured you’d be perfect for a duet he was working on. After it became a hit, you became a famous singer. Then, like a lot of singers do, you tried out Hollywood. Now you’re bigger than Britney Spears and she hates you.”
I laughed, it was almost like some of the stories I wrote as a child. “If that was ten years ago, you would have only been five. How do you remember all this?”
“Don’t you remember?” She shook her head, “You told me the story a million times! Now Tom Hanks wants to be in a movie with you! That’s so exciting!”
“Hm…” I pretended to think, “Today Tom Hanks, tomorrow Dan Aykroyd.” I laughed at my little joke, but Emilee looked at me funny.
“He’s retired.”
“Bill Paxton?”
“Directed your last movie. Duh.” She giggled.
“Steve Martin.” I smiled proudly.
“Um…mom…we went to his funeral last year.” Emilee raised an eyebrow, “Are you okay mom?”
“Yeah.” I sighed, “I’m fine.”
“You’ve been watching Old School Saturday Night Live again haven’t you?” She laughed, “You know what’s great about you mom? You have all sorts of fortune and fame and you can have anything and anyone you want, but you still like to watch Dan Aykroyd play a refrigerator repair man.”
I shrugged, “You can’t beat the classics.” Then I thought about it. I was rich and famous, but all my favorites were retired or dead. “Wait, whatever happened to Tom Cruise?”
“Don’t you remember? Katie Holmes left him a couple years ago and then he disappeared. The Scientologists have been questioned, but they say they don’t know anything. I think they ate him alive. He was getting really obnoxious. Worse every year.”
I smiled; at least I didn’t have to worry about having to work with him. “Well kiddo, we’d better get going.” The two of us climbed into the limo and headed off for my reading.
The reading went well. The movie was a drama about a young woman looking for her father. I still have to thumb through the rest of the script to figure out how exactly it works. But I read for the part of the girl. The shooting begins next month. If I’m still here of course. Tom Hanks seemed really excited that I got the part. He would be playing the part of the father, who is looking for the girl or something like that. I always knew he was good at drama, but I really still wish he’d do some comedy. Of course, I said that ten years ago too.
After we’d returned home, Emilee once again plopped onto the couch and watched television. I decided to head upstairs and see what I could find out about the past ten years. I found a closet full of photo albums and scrapbooks. That seemed to be the best place to start.
Each album was filled with newspaper clippings, letters and photos. The newspaper clippings proved most interesting. I seemed to be a busy woman. The pictures were a little more fun to look at. There were tons of Emilee albums, then there were albums of me in concert, at photo shoots, premiers, with other actors and actresses and every thing in between. The letters were mostly from fans. The ones I had in the albums were interesting, which is probably why there were there.
The one thing I noticed was there weren’t any pictures of my family. Apparently, according to one clipping, we’d had a falling out. Immediately, I became incredibly sad. I mean, I remember the family fights and everything, but nothing ever made me want to just leave them completely.
That explained why I was alone. It was the one major thing that I’d realized since I’d been here. I had Emilee and butlers and maids, but I never once heard the phone ring, never once had a friend drop by or even leave a note.
In my new life, I had everything I wanted. Everyone loved me and wanted my picture. They wanted to be with me and watch me on TV. I had the world at my fingertips.
And I was alone.
There had to be some way to fix this.