Читать книгу The Son Of Someone Famous - M.E. Kerr - Страница 12

From the Journal of A.

I’ll never forget the Christmas my father’s photograph was on the cover of Time magazine. It was during the early years of his marriage to Billie Kay. It had been a terrific year for my father. It had been the first year he’d ever been asked to the White House for dinner, and the year his photograph began appearing in newspapers and his name mentioned in gossip columns. We were trimming the tree, and my father was gulping down eggnog laced with brandy. When all the fancy decorations were tied to the tree’s branches, my father said, “Now for the finishing touch.” He took the photograph of himself on the cover of Time and pinned it to the very top of the tree. “There’s our star!” he said. Then he fell over backward and knocked the tree down, and everything broke.

I was remembering that on Christmas Eve afternoon, while I helped my grandfather paint empty beer cans gold and silver.

My grandfather had an awful hangover. The night before he’d phoned Late Night Larry to tell him he’d found a publisher for his book. (“When you become famous, Chuck From Vermont, don’t forget your friends in Radioland!”).

“You look down in the dumps, A.J.,” my grandfather said.

“I’m not, though,” I answered him. I was down, I guess. I often was at Christmas. One of the reasons I was down that Christmas was because I’d found out who was giving the Christmas party Brenda Belle had mentioned—the one she’d been invited to, on condition she didn’t bring me. It was Christine Cutler.

I was genuinely surprised. Maybe it had been my imagination, but I’d thought Christine Cutler took to me in some strange way. It was nothing I could put my finger on; it was a feeling I got sometimes when I’d see her in the hall or across a classroom. I’d thought there was just the slightest spark, no bells ringing or rockets going off, but the tiniest kind of undercurrent. I’d get her eye and she’d hold my eyes with hers, and I’d definitely feel this slight charge passing between us.

After Brenda Belle told me what she did, I crossed it off to wishful thinking on my part. Still, to tell someone she couldn’t come if she brought me didn’t do a lot for my ego. I wondered if it had something to do with the rift between my grandfather and Dr. Cutler. I wanted to blame it on that, but a part of me said to just face facts: The only time someone like Christine Cutler noticed yours truly was when she knew whose son I was. . . . In addition, Brenda Belle’s attitude toward me had changed. I knew she took me for this stupid phony; I knew she thought I made up things like Billie Kay’s coming so I could get attention.

I was beginning to feel like an outcast in Storm; I was beginning to wish they all knew who I really was.

“Doesn’t anyone in this town remember my mother’s marriage to my father?” I asked Grandpa Blessing.

He said, “First of all, no one knows you’re Annabell’s son, A.J. And secondly, no one remembers who she was married to. Your mother met your father in New York City. He wasn’t anyone in those days. She died a year after she married him. It’s all forgotten.”

“I’m glad,” I lied. I didn’t want him to know how much trouble I was having making it on my own.

“If you’re worried about anyone finding out who you are, stop worrying,” he said. “I never mention your father’s name around here. I hardly knew him, anyway, and I don’t believe in reflected glory.”

My grandfather was busy tying the painted cans to the tree we’d made.

He said, “Of course, I don’t know how you’re going to explain Billie Kay Case’s visit. Someone might recognize her, never mind the phony name she’s registering under down at the hotel. A lot of her old movies are showing on TV.”

“If someone should recognize her,” I said, “I’ll just say she’s a friend.”