Fame (3 page)

Beneath the photos it said “Hollywood’s People sent a reporter to investigate Marc David’s recent trip to Leavenworth and guess what we found???” Dayne inched himself up in his chair. His heart raced, and he felt blood rush to his face.

What was this? Marc was his friend, but the guy had never mentioned anything about Leavenworth. Dayne kept reading.

Marc says he was raised by his mom with no whereabouts of his father. Not true, Hollywood’s People found out. Not true at all. Marc’s dad isn’t missing. He’s 10

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Joseph L. David, a two-time felon, rapist, and drug ad dict serving time in Leavenworth. Our reporter followed Marc to the prison. Sources say Marc’s known about his father all along. Now you know the whole story and so do wel Dayne felt his stomach turn. He slammed the magazine down on the table, reached into his pocket for his cell phone, flipped it open, and dialed Marc’s number.

His friend picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Marc, it’s Dayne.” He stood up and moved to the balcony wall, staring at the surf. “Hey, I just picked up Hollywood’s People. It came out today.” He paused.

“Is it true?”

There was the sound of a long breath on the other end.

“About my dad?” Marc sounded tired. “Yeah, it’s true.”

“But you never… I thought he was missing.”

“That’s what I told everyone.” Marc moaned. “Man, this stinks. My parents split when I was young, and after that my dad made some mistakes. Got into coke and speed and ran out of money. Robbed a few liquor stores. My mom tried to keep it from me, said it was too ugly. I was at New York University when I figured out how to reach him. He got some help. Then I started getting big, and we decided to keep it a secret.” “He’s at Leavenworth?”

“Yeah.”

“Man…” Dayne closed his eyes and shielded his face with his free hand. He didn’t mention the part about Marc’s dad being a rapist. “I’m sorry.”

“It was bound to happen someday. The press … they’re sharks.”

“How’s your dad now?”

A sad chuckle came from the other end of the line. “That’s just it. He’s been clean for five years. Found Jesus, made a change. He gets out in two years. My mom and him are even talking.”

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The pieces were coming together. No wonder Marc hadn’t wanted anyone to know about his father. The tabloids would print all the dirt and miss the part about how the man was doing

today, how he’d changed for the better.

And that’s exactly what happened.

“The picture?” Dayne glanced back at the magazine on the table, still open to that page. “He doesn’t look too good.”

“Yeah, I know. They found his booking pictures. They must’ve doctored it up. He wasn’t behind bars when the police took those.”

“Nice. So today the guy’s clean shaven with sober eyes, but they run that one.”

“Exactly.” Marc was quiet a moment. “Dayne… I called an attorney. It’s gone far enough.”

Dayne felt a surge of adrenaline, the way he used to feel back at boarding school when he and the guys would get in a tight game of soccer. “Serious?”

“Yeah.” Marc inhaled slowly. “My dad’s never raped anyone. The rag threw that in, just made it up.”

The hot feeling was back in Dayne’s face. “Go for it, Marc. Make it hurt.”

“That’s the plan.” Marc’s voice was strained. “I talked to my dad. He’s okay.

We’ll get through this.”

“You will.” Dayne clenched his jaw. He watched a seagull dive into the water and come back out with a fish. Every now and then a celebrity would sue one of the magazines and win. It didn’t happen often, and the rags didn’t care because they made enough money to defend an occasional lawsuit. But it still felt good.

Marc David taking on Hollywood’s People magazine. Dayne straightened and scanned the beach for cameramen. There were none. “Listen, Marc, you’ll have my support all the way.”

“Thanks, man. That means a lot.” His tone grew softer. “Hey, 12

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Dayne, I gotta go. One quick thing.” He paused. “What do you hear from Kelly Parker?”

“Kelly?” Dayne returned to his chair and put his feet up on the railing of the balcony wall. “She never goes anywhere. The paparazzi are freaking her out.”

“That’s what I thought. Tell her to call me, will you?” “Definitely.”

When the call was over, Dayne tossed his phone on the table, pulled the magazine closer again, and stared at the picture. Sud denly the image changed in his mind, and it was no longer Marc and his father. Instead it became a family. His family. The bio logical family who didn’t know he existed. He pictured them the way they’d looked that day in Bloomington. Eight or ten people with a few small children walking together through the parking lot of the local hospital, the same weekend he’d seen the girl at the theater. One of the little girls with them was in a wheelchair.

Even with the sun hot on his face, a chill made its way through him. He shut the magazine and threw it back on the table. What would the press do to the people he’d seen that day in the parking lot? What skeletons lay in the closet of the Baxter family? For starters, John and Elizabeth had given him up for adoption and apparently never told their other kids.

But what about the wheelchair? Was there a birth defect or an accident that put the child there? Whatever it was, the rags would find out and gleefully splash it across a centerfold given the chance.

Dayne stood and filled his lungs with the damp, salty air. He leaned his forearms on the railing and stared far out to sea this time. What were the Baxters doing now? No doubt they were still grieving the loss of Elizabeth. The private detective his agent used had found out the information almost immediately. Elizabeth Baxter died of breast cancer just hours after he had vis ited her briefly.

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Down the beach a way, a young couple was holding hands and flying a bright yellow-striped kite. Dayne studied them, the way they easily kept their faces out in the open. Did they know how wonderful it was, being out of the limelight?

Or did they long for fame the way so many did in Los Angeles?

He shifted his eyes upward. At least he’d found Elizabeth before she died. The conversation they’d shared was enough to answer his hardest questions—who was his birth mother and why did she give him up.

Elizabeth had loved him and longed for him. She had searched for him at one time and wondered about him all of her married life. In her dying days, her single prayer had been to find him, hold him once more the way she’d held him as a newborn, and tell him she loved him.

Those bits of truth were enough.

As for the others, his biological father and siblings, he’d made the right choice by leaving them alone. Dayne leaned hard against the railing. He’d only seen them for a handful of minutes as they walked from the hospital to their cars. They looked like nice people, loving and close. The sort of family he would’ve been proud to call his own.

But he could hardly land on their doorstep announcing the fact that he was their parents’ firstborn. The paparazzi would capture the moment from the bushes for their next cover story. No, he could never contact the Baxters, never tell them the truth about who he was. They deserved their privacy. Dayne narrowed his eyes. He could see the headlines: “Dayne Matthews’ Secret Family Revealed.” He couldn’t let that happen.

Even if he spent the rest of his life thinking about them.

He took his cell phone from the table, slipped back inside the house, and closed the screen door. Suddenly he knew how he was going to find the girl, the one from the Bloomington theater. He dialed his agent’s number.

“Matthews, how you doing?”

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“Great.” Dayne didn’t pause long. “Hey, I need a favor.”

“Oh yeah?” There was an edge to his agent’s voice, but it was a humorous one.

“Mitch Henry tells me you need an actress.”

“That too.” Dayne managed a weak laugh. “That’s the favor. I need you to find an actress in Bloomington.”

“Matthews.” The humor was gone. “Not Bloomington. I thought we agreed.”

‘No, this isn’t about my family. It’s about a girl, an actress I saw there. At the community theater.”

Silence shouted at him from the other end. Then he heard his agent draw a long breath. “You saw a play at the community theater when you were in Bloomington?”

“Yes. Well, no.” Dayne walked the length of his kitchen and stopped near the sink. The view from the window was the same as the one from the deck. “I mean, the girl wasn’t in the play; she was the director.”

“The director?”

“Yeah. She’s perfect. Everything the part calls for.” Dayne felt a grin tugging at the corners of his lips.

“How do you know she can act?” His agent sounded tired. “Call it a hunch.” Dayne took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water. “Come on, man; do it for me. She’s perfect; I’m telling you.”

“I have a question.” There was resignation in his agent’s voice. “You didn’t sleep with her, right?”

“Come on!” Dayne threw his free hand in the air. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, friend.”

“Okay, but did you?”

“Of course not.” Dayne pictured the girl, the way she’d looked onstage surrounded by kids. “I never even talked to her.”

“Great.” His agent let loose a long sigh. “So I send the investigator to Bloomington to find a girl who’s perfect for the part, even though you’re not sure she can act and you’ve never spoken to her.”

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“Right.” Dayne felt himself relax. His agent liked toying with him, but in the end he’d do whatever was asked of him. It was why Dayne had stayed with him for so long.

“Do you have anything else? A name? Something?”

Dayne didn’t hesitate. Her name had been on his tongue all afternoon. “Her name’s Hart. Katy Hart.”

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CHAPTER TWO …….. ,., ……

MORE THAN A HUNDRED kids and their parents were lined up at the door of Bloomington Community Church—Christian Kids Theater’s practice facility—when Katy Hart pulled her faded red two-door Nissan into the parking lot for the second time that Monday afternoon.

The first time had been half an hour earlier. That time, she’d driven the speed limit, casually noting the thunderheads in the distance as she passed through the downtown area and pulled into the parking lot ten minutes early, the way she’d planned. Not until she was at the church door did she realize she didn’t have the key.

That set off a race back through Bloomington and into Clear Creek, where she lived with the Flanigan family. A frantic search through her bedroom finally turned up the key, but now she was fifteen minutes late, and if the line waiting outside was any indication, she needed to move fast.

Auditions for Tom Sawyer were set to start at 4 p.m.

Katy and her creative team had just three hours to get the kids 18

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through the audition process and another hour to make a decision about who would get called back for a second audition. At eight o’clock the church staff needed the building for a meeting, and she’d promised that everyone from Christian Kids Theater would be out by then.

Katy bit her lip, grabbed her canvas bag, and darted out of the car. As long as CKT didn’t have a permanent home, schedules like the one they had today were part of life, At least Bloomington Community Church was willing to open their doors every Monday and Thursday and twice on the weekends so CKT could hold classes and practices. A facility of their own would’ve been nice, but Katy didn’t dwell on the fact. She picked up her pace. I’m thankful, God. Really, I am.

The minute they saw her, the kids began waving and grinning. “Katy… Katy!”

She ran along the line to the side door and spouted apologies as she opened it.

A burst of stuff} hot air met her. Katy frowned and stared up at the dark ceiling. The church staff had promised to leave on the air conditioner. She’d have to check it once the registration started.

Katy hit the light switch as the parent volunteers hurried to a few tables set up in the lobby. The children moved in behind them.

“You know the routine.” Katy waved at the kids, calming their voices long enough to be heard. “Have a photograph of yourself and your tryom form completed and signed by your parents. Get in line and someone will give you a number. Anyone without a photograph can line up in front of—” Katy peered around a group of kids to see which parent was manning the Polaroid camera—”Mrs. Jennings. I’ll take the first ten in five minutes inside the sanctuary.”

Three people would join her on the panel. Rhonda Sanders, the choreographer and Katy’s closest friend, and Al and Nancy Helmes, a couple whose passion for music and helping kids

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made them pillars of the CKT community. Al and Nancy would act as music directors for Tom Sawyer, and they’d be in on the audition process as well. The couple had an amazing love for each other and for their eight children—three of whom were part of CKT.

Once in a while Katy would catch the couple, their heads bowed in prayer before a meal or eyes locked on each other even in a room of people, and she’d wonder.

Would she ever have that sort of love? A love that rolled up its sleeves and worked together, played together, and raised a family together, all while looking happier and more enamored with each other all the time?

Katy hoped so.

She gave a few more directions to the moms working the checkin table, and then she spotted Cara Helmes, one of A1 and Nancy’s daughters.

“Hi, Katy! Another audition!” Cara grinned, her eyes dancing the way they always did.

“Best one yet!” Katy gave the girl a hug. I’ll see you down there.”

Cara nodded and headed down the aisle with her parents toward her spot in the second row, where she would sit ready and waiting for the auditions to begin.

Cara was twenty-two and had Down syndrome. She had an open invitation to attend any of CKT’s performances or auditions, something she looked forward to more than anything in her life. Cara was quick with a hug or a smile for the kids. No matter how poor a practice they might have, Cara would clap as if it were a Tony Award-winning performance. She never had a bad thing to say about anyone, and the kids and families of CKT loved her. Katy and Rhonda had agreed that in some ways Cara was CKT’s guardian angel.