Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight Read online

  We were going to watch the three Bourne Identity movies in sequence. I had seen parts of the first installment on cable, a long time ago, but now we would see all three, including the two movies I’d never seen, in a marathon.

  I never told Samantha this, but one of the reasons I was interested in watching the show was because the actor who played the main character looked very much like someone I used to know. Although in truth, the real life person I knew was more handsome than the hero of the story, at least in my opinion. I had seen this actor in a couple of other things, but in this show his unfailingly calm demeanor during disasters and the ticked off way he looked most of the time was eerily familiar to me. It was like watching someone I know get trashed and do some trashing in return. I knew it was silly, but it made feel slightly anxious, and yet still drawn to watching it. And then one of the bad guys, played by another actor that I liked, had also been in another series that I loved, The Lord of the Rings. So it was enjoyable watching him as well, though weird to see him being bad as a Russian hit man instead of being heroic as a leader of the Rohirrim.

  What turned out to be not so enjoyable was the realization that I was being far too expressive in my reactions to the stressful scenes that kept rolling past. To my chagrin I noticed that Trevor was watching me more than he was watching the TV and that was terribly embarrassing. When we took a bathroom and snack break between the first and second movies I planned to set up a new position on the floor directly in front of Sam, with my back pressing against the couch. That way they could have the space on top of the couch to themselves and then I wouldn’t be subjected to being able to see Trevor laughing at me. Not that it would stop, just that I wouldn’t have to pretend not to notice.

  Trevor’s presence in my life was a double-edged sword. I was flattered and pleased to be the unlikely recipient of his attention—even if most of the time it was uncomfortable for me. But he made my dear friend happy—happier than I’d ever seen her—so he was a hero in my estimation, no matter how he made me feel personally. And with the exception of his observation antics this evening, it seemed like he had backed down on the teasing somewhat, especially since our sledding episode where he thought his teasing had made me psychotic. Every once in a while being crazy did have its advantages. I’d rather be happy than crazy, though. Just like I’d rather be clean than hungry, I guess.

  During our break Sam got a call from her mom, who was re-married and living in Hawaii on a resort with her new husband, the resort owner, with whom Sam did not get along. Conversations with her mom sometimes became unpleasant to overhear, so I went upstairs to investigate a more appealing prospect: the promising smell of chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. Since they weren’t quite ready, I took the opportunity to visit with Sam’s perpetually good-humored older sister, Serena, and her daughter, Kailee, an adorable toddler who looked like a mini-me of her mother. I commented on that while I was sitting on the floor with Kailee, who was demonstrating for me the features and benefits of her family heirloom ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ doll.

  Serena was sitting on the floor in front of a coffee table. She had an elaborate setup of beads and jewelry making paraphernalia spread across the top. It seemed like a bold move or an invitation for disaster with Kailee so close, but apparently the two had worked that out between themselves. As she maneuvered a bead onto a metal string she replied, “You know who she really looks like is her Aunt Sammie. Don’t you Kay-Kay?”

  I couldn’t be sure of that because Kailee wasn’t dressed in the Goth style at the moment. Serena rose and went over to the bookshelf to retrieve something. She made a show of sneaking over to look down the stairs before coming back to where we were on the floor. She opened up what I could see now was a photo album and turned to a page near the front. It appeared to be a portrait of Kailee—from the early 90’s, according to the gold inscription in the corner of the photo.

  Wow.

  The resemblance to Sam at the same age was uncanny.

  Was Kailee a clone?

  Serena got the reaction she was looking for from me and smiled hugely with satisfaction.

  “See? Sam Junior, huh?”

  “Wow. That’s amazing. Is that weird for you? I mean, you remember when Sam was a baby, right?” I asked.

  “Yes and yes. But it’s nice, too. It feels like home, in a way. I thought my parents had Sam just for me…she was my baby…still is.”

  She turned pensive as she looked at the pictures with me.

  “I was born at the beginning of their relationship, and she was born at the end,” she said with a sigh.

  I continued turning the pages slowly, eager to soak up historical images of my friend. She looked so different…so natural. The Suns were beautiful people, and well off, apparently. There were pictures of the girls playing in the driveway with a Porsche and palm trees in the background and what looked like a mansion for a house in the background of other shots. There were pictures of them with either one or the other parent atop the Eiffel Tower (the real one in Paris, not the replica at King’s Island) and with Cinderella at Disneyland, and Shamu at SeaWorld.

  Their mom looked just like them, except her skin was darker. Their dad was dark haired, but of a much fairer complexion. The four of them were never in any pictures together, though, and that gave everything a sad undertone.

  As I turned the pages and took in the fascinating collection of images documenting my friend’s past, I came across a section that I had to scrutinize very carefully, because at first I thought it might be some kind of photo-shop joke.

  It looked like Sam might have been eleven or twelve, and she was smiling beautifully holding three bouquets while surrounded by three identical boys. Significantly, this was not a portrait from a studio, or a print-off from the computer—it was the carefully clipped cover of a celebrity magazine!

  ‘Me Three’ was a program that I had watched faithfully when I was eleven or twelve. It came on at seven o’clock on weeknights. It was my favorite show on my favorite network, ‘Nickelodeon’.

  Each week over the next few years millions of other tweens and I had tuned in to watch the crazy hijinx of identical triplets pretending to be identical twins, so that someone could always have the day off. All three boys had a crush on the same beautiful girl next door…Kristy Elliott, played by Sarah Sun, or Sarah Samantha Sun, according to her birth announcement in the front of the album.

  That explained a lot.

  Serena smiled big at the shock and awe playing across my face. That was definitely the response she was hoping for. Then she got down to explanations.

  “Our dad’s a television producer. He got her that job. Turned out to be a blessing and a curse,” she explained, as she looked at the gossip magazine cutouts with me.

  “After the show got cancelled she came to live with me. The glamorous life is harder than it looks, I think. You never know who your real friends are. She’s so much happier here,” she said looking down at me with a beautiful but tired smile.

  She was still on guard for the approach of my two companions downstairs. Apparently I was being leaked some highly classified information.

  There were four or five pages dedicated to ‘Me Three’ memorabilia, including some photos of Sam with various famous personalities when she had been a presenter at the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. It was weird because I remembered watching that.

  Huh.

  To my deep gratification, the last page to be completed was a collage of Sam and me in our various exploits over the last few months, including a self-portrait of the two of us in Goth inside the handicapped stall at Tinseltown.

  This important new data was cool, but it didn’t change how I felt about Sam. I couldn’t love her any more than I already did. But it explained the whole obscuring herself thing. She just wanted privacy, and being in Goth was how she achieved it, allowing her to hide in plain sight. Plus it was a very good way to weed out true friends from false. As far as that went, I put up with Trevor; she’d
never have a truer friend than me.

  Suddenly the album was gone and I was looking at the carpet instead. Serena snapped it up and hurried to replace it back on the shelf. I quickly jumped into a game of tickle monster with Kailee and Serena moved into the kitchen area to answer the call of the oven timer.

  Trevor and Sam emerged from the lower level hand in hand and made their way over to the floor where Sam Junior and I were still having an epoch battle of clash of the ticklers.

  Kailee’s demeanor changed immediately. It was funny to me that even though Trevor and Sam were basically the same in their scary looks, the toddler regarded them each very differently. She was terrified of Trevor and kept trying to pull Sam away, as though she was worried for her aunt’s safety, and could do something about it. Or maybe she was just jealous—I knew how she felt.

  Trevor didn’t seem offended, but was amused, like me. I’m sure he knew just how frightening he was and didn’t need someone thirty inches tall to confirm it. The part of my brain dedicated to involuntary and abstract thoughts wondered what TV show he had starred in…something on SciFi Channel, no doubt.

  Chapter 14 – Repression

  Sam invited herself over for the night. It was an unusual move for her because she did not generally enjoy time spent at my house. But it turned out to be the lesser of two evils for her. She was looking for escape while Serena hosted one of her former Laker Girls team members, visiting for the night. Sam would rather stay with me and be herself than pretend to be pleasant for company she didn’t enjoy.

  This would be my first endeavor at hosting a sleepover. I wasn’t nervous about entertaining her. She was easy to be with. What made me nervous was the ‘worlds colliding’ aspect of being around Sam and my mom at the same time.

  Mom’s presence, or more specifically, my behavior in my mom’s presence (pleasant acquiescence) did not always meet with Sam’s approval, and at times it even fired her annoyance. She was an extremely free spirit, the epitome of self-directed maturity, and my most treasured hero; also my exact opposite.

  My mom’s pleasant but intractable insistence upon healthy eating, limited exposure to television, and everyone getting no less than eight full hours of sleep each night greatly cramped Sam’s style. The SS Montgomery, however, was a tightly run ship, where self-directed free spiritedness was discouraged by the X.O. Though I knew in my heart that my ranking officer loved me dearly, it was also a certainty that I would always be an ensign in her eyes.

  As she came to know me better, Sam developed the conviction that I was suffering from the ill effects of a ‘mommy knows best’ style of parenting. After my two biggest female influences had their first meeting, Sam made it her new mission in life to set me free from repression. The crazy thing was that my mom was unaware of her involvement in the battle for my soul. Because it was clear to her that Sam loved me, she in turn loved Sam—unconditionally.

  As we moved into my room for the night, my guest carried in a grocery bag, a duffle bag and something on a hanger.

  “Can I hang this up in your closet?” she asked as she opened the door, not waiting for permission. The chagrin settled on me while the scene on the back of my closet door settled on Sam. She stared at it wordlessly for thirty seconds or more.

  With a look of pure amusement, especially when she recognized her own image among the others arranged there, she looked over at me, eyebrows raised.

  “Wall of Heroines,” I explained, without flourish.

  Though I felt embarrassed, I decided to take a page from Sam’s manual and not act ashamed of my own preferences. Besides, she deserved to know what she was dealing with.

  “This is awesome!”

  She was being genuine. I felt relief, but not surprise. She always seemed pleased to unearth evidence of my strange personal preferences, probably because I was so secretive about them. She was invariably intrigued, but I was certain that eventually she’d make that final bizarre discovery which would end her charitable fascination with me once and for all. Apparently the collage of my very favorite lady heroes wasn’t the end game discovery I feared it might be.

  “Bella and Alice, Arwin and Eowen, Trinity and The Oracle,” she named them off as she identified them. “Who are these?” she asked as she pointed to some characters in the animation section.

  “That’s Red Riding Hood, and Granny Puckett, from Hoodwinked. And those are Elastigirl, Violet and Edna from The Incredibles,” I said.

  “Who is this?” she asked, pointing to a recent photo cut out.

  “My driving instructor,” I replied, shrugging.

  I braced for a line of interrogation but she let it go.

  “How many are on here?” she asked as she bent down to look at the faces that covered the entire surface of the door, all the way down to the floor.

  “Several years’ worth. It’s been a hobby of mine for a while,” I admitted, then laughing once I said, “Incidentally, Monica does not approve.”

  I knew that would get her fired up. She didn’t disappoint.

  “Why?”

  She was totally indignant.

  “She thinks it’s beneath me. Puerile, I believe, was the word she used.”

  “Okay, I’ll take the bait…what does ‘puerile’ mean?”

  “Silly, trivial, immature,” I explained.

  She drew breath as though she might retaliate with an insult of her own, but then thought better of it.

  Sam spent a gratifying period of time closely observing all the faces on the door, chuckling approval at some, questioning others. When she was finished with her analysis of a very real window into my psyche, she placed her things inside the closet, purposely leaving the door open, and then moved to my bed.

  “Tell me the truth, doesn’t your mom drive you crazy, El?” she asked as she stretched out on top of my comforter, with her back pushed up against the pillows at the headboard.

  I shut the closet door and crossed the room to join her, sitting cross-legged at her feet.

  “She’s entitled to her opinion. She’s really not that bad.”

  And she wasn’t. She was always very pleasant in her pursuit of health and happiness and decorum. I had never been yelled at or spanked in my entire life. I knew most people, including Sam, couldn’t say the same.

  “That right there! That’s what’s so disturbing! You’re taking up for her. You don’t even know how bad it is.”

  I sighed. We had this kind of conversation frequently because she was always pushing me to break the barriers I lived within. And cowardly as always, I would blame anything I didn’t want a part of on my mom’s rules.

  “You’re right. She’s pretty strict, I know. It’s just that she’s lost everyone she’s ever loved, well, except for me, and Hoyt. I understand why she’s so protective. I don’t mind, for now. It’ll be different when I’m on my own. I can be patient with her until then.”

  She brightened at that last part.

  “Speaking of moving out, I wanted to talk about college, about you and me getting a place together.”

  She was excited.

  I sighed again.

  “Sam, I don’t see how that can work out. There aren’t any Earth Science programs in the schools you applied to.”

  “You’re not serious about majoring in geology, are you? I’m sorry but that seems like a huge waste of your talents.”

  “Which talents are you referring to?”

  “Hello, Miss Walking Dictionary. How do you do? Miss Coin Aficionado. Greetings, Miss Exact Ethnicity Guesser. Good day, Miss Speaks Dead on in Foreign Accents. Come on Ellery. Rocks? Really? You have so much more to offer. There’s got to be a better fit for you than rocks.”

  My strange interests lent themselves to employment in a traveling circus perhaps, but nothing purposeful or particularly gainful.

  “Minerals, actually,” I clarified.

  “Minerals? How can minerals make you happy?”

  “Diamonds are minerals, you know,” I teased. “Girl’s
best friend and all?”

  “Wearing them, El, not digging in the dirt for them! Please!” she said with a huff.

  “You know who you sound like now, don’t you?” I asked.

  “No, who?”

  “Monica.”

  I smiled big knowing that she’d hate being compared to my mom.

  “Shut up!”

  She laughed and pushed at me playfully with the balls of her feet. Then she was serious again.

  “Ellery, please just consider some alternatives, okay? Here are the schools I’m seriously considering,” she said as she handed me a folded sheet of paper.

  I opened it up to see a printout of various schools with bullet points about their programs. I had a feeling that each of the respective admittance offices probably already had applications from me…

  “Look at everything with an open mind and see if maybe there could be something better for you. I’ll go to any of those schools. They all have top rate journalism programs. Just say the word.”

  Sam’s master plan was to pursue a career in sports broadcasting, with an inside edge as a former child star and connections like her NBA brother-in-law, and who knew how many celebrities from her Nickelodeon days. Once she got established as a reporter, she would work on producing her own show on cable, possibly a travel show. That sounded good to me. I’d definitely watch it.

  I wished I had a master plan like that. Unfortunately, a gift for strategy was not one of my ‘talents.’

  “Are you that sure you’ll be accepted?” I asked.

  She was smug.

  “Absolutely.”

  “And you’d actually let me decide…for both of us?”

  I was touched.

  “Of course. We’re like family. We’re going to share a place on our own, just you and me. It’s gonna be fantastic.”