He shifted in his theater seat. His family. Yes, that was another reason. There were still the matters of saving the farm, getting better doctors for AJ, making a life for Reese. He couldn’t let them down.
But all of it was happening too fast to consider the impact, whether down the road he would long for these days and the chance to walk away. Before fame became a prison for him, too. He believed Chandra that it could happen. She wasn’t the only one talking about it. Last night Gaines had patted him on the back while he ate. “The other teen heartthrobs keep messing up. Lucky for you.”
“What?” Zack turned to look at the contestant coordinator. “Who?”
“The big names. Their reputations are sinking like the Titanic.” Gaines gave Zack another hearty pat. “It’s your turn, my boy. Watch and see. You’re gonna be one of the biggest stars this show has ever created.”
Zack was glad none of the other contestants had heard him. No one but Zoey, who was sitting across from him. Their eyes met and what she had said stayed with him. “Ever get the feeling our lives are scripted? Whether we like it or not?”
Now a chase scene played out on the big screen, and Zoey leaned in closer. “Chandra talked to you the other night. I’ve been wanting to ask you about it, but people are always around.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t try to pull away. “She told me fame is a prison. After this week, I can sort of see what she means.”
“Hmm.” Zoey let that sink in and nodded slowly. “I feel you. It’s like . . . we never had a life before the show.”
She was right, even if the thought terrified him. Their routines had been lost. The usual communication with family and friends was gone.
For a long moment Zack wondered about Reese. In the few minutes they’d had to talk, he hadn’t done more than ask how she was. Her answer was always the same. “I’m great, Zack. Everything’s fine.”
Their lack of communication created a distance that again only Zoey could understand. The scene in the theater remained loud. He spoke near the side of her face. “How nice is this?”
“The quiet? I love it.”
He thought about the way she’d chased him the first two weeks and how she’d backed off. She understood that he was serious about Reese. “I mean, it’s been fun. But the craziness has to stop sometime.”
“Exactly.” She stole a glance at him. The shine was back in her eyes. “You still have to teach me to pray.”
“It’s easy. You just talk to God like He’s there beside you.” Zack smiled at her. “Because He is.”
“There’s more to it than that.” Her eyes held his. “We need to find time alone. So you can tell me what you believe and why. Deal?”
“Deal.” Zack felt a pang of guilt. How come he hadn’t already told her about his faith? She’d asked a number of times. Yes, they were busy, but what could be more important than telling a girl like Zoey about Jesus? Not that he could do that here in a theater. And with Gaines watching him so closely he would have to be quiet about it. He’d signed the agreement. But there had to be time, right? “Maybe later this week.”
Suddenly he realized how much he loved being able to talk without anyone taking their picture. Nights were for rehearsals and after that curfew was strictly enforced. Fifteen Minutes had leased an entire floor of hotel rooms at the Benjamin, not far from Times Square. But production assistants did a pretty good job of making sure contestants stayed in their rooms.
“You know what?” She took his hand again, but this time held it only for a few seconds. “This is the most like me I’ve felt all week.”
“Same.” He smiled at her. “I’m glad you’re my friend. No one else understands.”
That truth should’ve terrified him, should’ve sent him running for Gaines and the permission to leave. Family emergency or not. Chandra had warned him, right? There would be no going back to life the way it had been. Instead, Zack wished the movie would last another hour. Reese didn’t know the insanity of what they were going through. She didn’t have to worry about people constantly taking her picture or making up stories about her. Only Zoey understood that. Which was why he wished they had more time. Because here, safe and unrushed, comfortable with Zoey at his side he felt something they had already left behind.
The feeling of being normal.
chapter 17
Kelly Morgan took the Fifteen Minutes private jet into Greenville. The plane gave her time to think—about the show and Michael and Cal. About the fact that her father was so sick. All of it stayed heavy on her heart.
She settled into the leather seat and stared out the window. Michael had called her on the way to the airport, spewing apologies and excuses. He would’ve called sooner, but the time difference was too great. The couple days with the South African singer hadn’t meant anything. The media exaggerated the facts. He didn’t plan to see her again.
Kelly had waited until he ran out of words. “Is that all?”
“Baby, come on. Don’t be like that. You’re the only one I love.”
His words poked pins at her, but the surface of her heart was too tough for him to pierce. “I’m boarding a plane, Michael. It’s over. Call the girl. Maybe she feels like talking.”
“Are you serious? I never took you as the jealous type.” He sounded desperate.
“I’m hardly jealous.” Kelly had found a very natural laugh. “You were good for a time, Michael. I’ve moved on.”
“It hasn’t been a week.”
“Good-bye.” As she had tapped the end button she knew it was true. They were finished. She blinked back the tears and put him out of her mind. Michael Manning was a part of her past—where he would stay.
She dismissed the memory of the call and closed her eyes. As she did, a conversation from earlier in the week came back. One she’d had with Cullen and Chandra about celebrity energy. Which of the contestants had it and which never would. They all agreed Zack Dylan and Zoey Davis had it. But then Chandra had said something that surprised Kelly and Cullen. “That boy should walk away from all this. If he knows what’s good for him he’ll head home to Kentucky and never look back.”
Cullen had looked at her like she’d sprouted an extra set of eyeballs. “Zack is about to own the world. How could you wish him back on the horse farm?”
Chandra could have a sharp tongue when the cameras weren’t rolling. Like the way she called Kelly out about Cal. In that moment, Chandra’s response had been much softer. “Really, Cullen? You like being famous?”
“Of course.” He looked smug.
“No you don’t.” She stared at him. “You can’t walk out your front door without people taking your picture.”
“Oh, please.” Cullen laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Everyone wants to be us. Look at your life, Chandra.”
Kelly winced a little. In light of Chandra’s parents, Cullen hadn’t exactly been sensitive.
Chandra’s voice grew icy. “You know why they want to be us? Because they’re not us. You and you.” She pointed at Kelly. “You’re addicted to all this and you tell yourselves you’re happy.” She gathered her long ironed hair. “But look at us. Our personal lives are a mess. We can’t do what we want or wear what we want or go where we want.” She lowered her voice again. “I wish the boy a ticket back to Danville, that’s what.”
Kelly opened her eyes and looked at the green rolling hills twenty thousand feet below. Did the pop singer have a point? Fame had cost them much. The murder of Chandra’s parents and a broken engagement. Her own marriage to Cal failed, and for Cullen, at least four publicly failed relationships in the last two years. The man stuck to his dramatic all-white getup. So had fame become an addiction for him? Had it become that way for her?
The plane landed and a sedan met her. Now she was ten minutes from her parents’ home in the country. She would stay today and leave tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully in that time she and her dad could find common ground. She hadn’t processed that he was dying. Her mem
ory of him would always be bigger than life, no matter what cancer might do to him.
The driver passed the church where her dad had been pastor for nearly four decades. Don’t bring up Jesus, Daddy. Don’t do it. Not this time. She looked away from the church. Too much history, Kelly and Cal. Wednesday nights. Rides to the lake in his pickup truck. She looked straight ahead. Chandra Olson’s rant had stayed with her. Kelly had no intention of taking Chandra’s advice about Cal. The singer’s verbal attack last weekend was completely out of line. If Chandra tried to corner her with a dose of relationship advice, she would tell her where she could take it. Kelly had been caught off guard, nothing more.
It wouldn’t happen again.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to see farther ahead. The road never changed. Pale gray asphalt lined with fading yellow dashes. Two stoplights a mile apart and then the turn. Right on Bentonville, another three miles on a road that was more one lane than two. A few more minutes, then a left on Sandy Creek, and there it was. The house she had grown up in. Kelly pulled her compact from her purse and checked her look.
All this travel wasn’t good for her skin, but she was holding up.
The breakup, the news about her father, the constant pressure from Rudy for her to meet up with Cal. All of it took a toll on her face. She pressed lightly on her cheekbones. As long as she looked okay on the outside she could keep it together. Play the tapes in her head. Life was good. She was young and successful. Everything would be okay.
She touched up her lipstick and returned the compact to her purse, a subtle Marc Jacobs number. The last mile felt like ten, but finally they pulled into her parents’ gravel driveway and up to the front door. The driver helped move her bags to the front porch while Kelly put the conversation with her fellow judges out of her mind. She hadn’t reached the door when she heard the voices of her children.
Kelly’s heart sank. What was this? No one had told her the kids would be here. She hadn’t seen them in two weeks, not since the last time their nanny had brought them from Cal’s house in New Jersey to her flat for a few days. They had planned for the kids to stay mainly with Cal while the Fifteen Minutes season played out.
Now as she opened the door, as she watched them run to her, she realized how much she missed them. How could two weeks have gone by without the three of them being together?
“Mommy! You’re here!” Kai was six, a miniature of Cal with blond hair and beautiful blue eyes.
“I am.” Kelly dropped low and held out her hands. Kai ran at her full force, wrapping his tanned arms around her neck and holding on as if his next breath depended on it.
Kinley was four, right behind her brother. “Mommy! You were gone for so long!” She worked her way into the hug and all three stayed that way for a long time.
“I’m sorry!” Kelly whispered into her daughter’s long pale blond hair. “Mommy’s been so busy.”
Kinley leaned back and smoothed her hand over Kelly’s head. “Grandma says mommies should never be too busy for their kids.”
Kelly bit her lip. She would have to thank her mother later. “Grandma’s right. Maybe your nanny can bring you over one day next week.”
“And we can spend the night.” Kai put his hand on her cheek, his expression deep and earnest. “Okay, Mommy? Can we spend the night?’
Something about his words or the way he said them exposed in her heart a blind ambition, a cancerous complacency that had found its way there. She ran her hand over his small back. “That would be nice, Kai. I’d like that.”
“Me, too!” Kinley jumped around, her eyes big. “We could finger-paint, okay, Mommy? Could we finger-paint?”
“We could.” The sting of tears was back, and Kelly wasn’t sure what to say or think or feel. Sorrow was rising within her like storm waters. These were the faces she’d spent every waking moment with until Kinley was one. The year she began answering more to the mirror and her manager than Cal and the kids. None of what she was feeling would make sense to Kai and Kinley. So she stayed there, on her knees. Hugging them and quietly saying the only thing she could say. “I love you both. I do.”
She saw something in the corner of her eye and when she looked up her mother was standing in the hallway watching. Kelly kissed Kai’s cheek and then Kinley’s. “I’m here for two days. We can bake cookies for Grandpa, okay?”
“Yay!” Their voices made a single chorus that rang through the house. The sound was more beautiful than Kelly remembered.
As she stood, Kai hugged her waist. His eyes lifted to hers. “We’ll be outside, okay? We’re making a fort.”
“Perfect. I’ll come see it in a little while.” She ran her hand over his head and smiled. “You’re more handsome all the time.”
He grinned in response. Then he took hold of Kinley’s hand and the two ran back outside. When they were out of earshot, Kelly looked at her mother. “Mommies should never be too busy for their kids?”
Her mom gave the slightest shrug, her expression unforgiving. “They shouldn’t.”
“Thanks.” Kelly pulled her bags into the house and glanced at her mom. “Nice to see you, too.”
“Kelly.” Her mom’s face changed. Instead of anger and indifference, a desperate hurt filled her eyes. “I don’t want things to be like this. You’re . . . you’re so different.” She looked over her shoulder toward the backyard and then at Kelly again. “Sometimes I wonder if you remember any of us. Me and your dad . . . Cal.” Her voice fell away. “Even your babies.”
The comment settled like gravel in Kelly’s gut. “Fine. You can think that.” She sighed as she walked past her mother to the kitchen. She helped herself to a glass of water. Through the window she could see Kai and Kinley chasing each other around a couple of the biggest backyard trees. She took a few long sips and turned to her mother. “It’s a busy life. I can’t help that.”
Her mom only stared at her, as if trying to see past the makeup and hair and designer clothes to the girl Kelly used to be. At least it felt that way. She thought about closing the distance between them and hugging her mother, but the timing felt off. “Where’s Dad?”
“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 hi
m. 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.”