Second Time Around (14 page)

“Why not?”

“I’m having second thoughts.”

“You’re not planning on marrying the bum, are you? Because don’t expect me to spring for any have-to-get-married wedding. You told me he dumped you.”

“He did.”

“Good.”

Thanks a lot.

“So what’s the problem? We agreed this was best.”

A flood of words put pressure on the gate holding them back.
I saw Mother. She told me you’ve kept us apart. So many lies, Daddy. How can I ever trust you again?

“I’m waiting.”

“I don’t want to rush into it. This is a big decision.”

“Not at all. You’re unmarried. You got yourself pregnant. You’re in school,
trying
to get a degree.”

She didn’t like how he emphasized the word “trying.”

“Certainly you can’t be thinking of keeping it.”

Her mind hadn’t gotten that far. “I don’t know, Daddy.”

“I can’t have an illegitimate grandchild. I won’t… I gave you money—”

It was always about money, always about him. “I’ll return the money.”

“That’s not the point. We made a decision and I expect you to follow through. You’re weak in that department, Vanessa. You have a tendency to fall short, to bow out of the final goal. ‘He who hesitates is lost.’”

Lost. It was exactly how she felt. “’Night, Daddy.”

“But we’re not finished. I need you to—”

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“But—”

She hung up on him. And felt a surge of power.

Interesting.

Dawson, Minnesota—1987

“Miss Holloway? Are you with us?”

Lane looked up at the teacher. All eyes were on her. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“Obviously nothing that you heard.” Mrs. Williams took up residence beside her desk. Too late, Lane covered the bright yellow flyer. The teacher pulled it free. “Hmm. It seems our own Lane Hollo
way
wants to take Holly
wood
by storm.”

There were laughs all around.

Mrs. Williams handed the flyer back.

Jamie Calfield grabbed it away and read it, made a disgusted face, and shoved it to the edge of his desk, where it slid to the floor. “Do you actually think an audition that’s held in Minnesota will make you famous? Get real.”

Mrs. Williams retrieved the flyer and put it back on Lane’s desk. “Lane is allowed to have dreams, Jamie. You might try having a few yourself.” Then she gave Lane a pointed look. “But not during my class.”

Lane glanced at her boyfriend, Toby Bjornson, seated the next row over. He shrugged. He didn’t believe in the audition either.

Mrs. Williams moved to the front of the room. “Now, back to Gorbachev. What effect do you think his new policies of glasnost and perestroika will have on US-Soviet relations?”

Lane wanted to scream, “Who cares?” Gorbachev, Reagan, Khadafy, Oliver North… what did any of them have to with life in Dawson, Minnesota?

And what does you becoming a movie star have to do with life in Dawson, Minnesota?

Lane put a protective hand on the flyer. Grandma Nellie had given it to her last week, and she’d been carrying it around ever since.
“You go, child. You take this chance to let your star shine.”
Her star? Sure, she liked to perform. Sure, she always got the lead in the school plays. Sure, she loved acting more than anything. But acting in Dawson was far different than acting in Hollywood. At the audition, she would be up against the hopes of every wannabe in the nation. The nationwide search for Bess in the new movie
Empty Promises
was the most exciting actor event since the search for Scarlett O’Hara in the thirties. Their audition appointment was for seven this evening in Minneapolis.

Lane caught Toby glancing back at her. He smiled and offered a wink. He was the main reason she
wouldn’t
go through with it. They were engaged to be engaged, a condition they’d been holding onto since fifth grade when he’d first taken her hand in the coatroom at recess. But what would happen to the
us
of “Toby and Lane” if she went off to Hollywood?

It was a reasonable question but one that sent her into an Excedrin headache No. 78. She couldn’t think about it anymore. She was leaving for Minneapolis in a few minutes, as soon as class got out. She was. Grandma was taking her. There was no turning back.

The bell rang and Lane’s stomach stirred up more butterflies than she’d gotten watching Cher accept the Oscar for
Moonstruck.
Her family laughed at how involved she got with the awards. Nervous. “You’d think you were the one up for the award,” her father had said.

Someday…
hey, if Cher could win, so could she.

Toby scooped up her books and they headed for the hall, where he draped his arm across her shoulders.

“Don’t look so smug,” she said.

“What?”

“I saw the look on your face when Jamie made fun of the audition.”

They stopped at her locker for her coat. “Hey, he spoke the truth. He told you exactly what I’ve been telling you—”

Lane slammed the locker shut. People looked in her direction so she yanked Toby toward the exit. “I don’t need everyone telling me it’s a long shot. I know that. But I promised Grandma I’d go.”

Toby pulled her head close and gave it a kiss. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. Is that such a bad thing?”

“I don’t want to get hurt either, Tobe, but I’m afraid if I don’t try, it will hurt even more.”

Once outside, Lane scanned the waiting cars for Grandma’s red Rabbit. “There she is.”

But as she turned to give Toby a good-bye kiss, he dropped their books and took hold of her upper arms. “Don’t go, Laney. Don’t go.”

“But I promised—”

Grandma moved her car forward in line until she was centered on Lane. She beeped the horn. When Lane looked her way, she tapped her watch.
I
know. I know.
Lane turned back to Toby. “I have to go.”

“No. No, you don’t. You have to stay here with me.”

Suddenly, an image flashed in Lane’s mind. She was wearing a red blouse, crying in front of a table where three people sat. Three judges. Judges at an audition? Was she crying after making a fool of herself?

Toby was talking. “…put yourself through that?” He pulled her into his arms. His safe, warm arms. “I love you, Laney. I’m only trying to protect you.”

She closed her eyes, resting her head against his shoulder. In his arms her butterflies landed. He was right. Why should she put herself through such pain? The image of crying in front of the judges returned. Who needed such humiliation?

Not her. Not her.

She pushed back in order to see his face. “I… I won’t go. You’re right. I don’t need to put myself through this. I don’t have a chance anyway.”

He hugged her even closer now that she was truly his again.

“I have to tell Grandma.”

He stood aside, sliding his hands in his pockets. Grandma Nellie was leaning over the gearshift, watching. She rolled down the passenger window and called out, “Don’t just stand there. Destiny calls, child.”

Oh dear. As Lane walked closer, Grandma flipped the door handle, making it pop open. Inviting her in.

She opened the door but knelt beside it. How could she tell her most avid supporter she wasn’t going? Couldn’t go. Because she was chicken. She couldn’t look at the older woman.

Grandma sighed deeply. “Uh-oh. What’s going on?”

She had to say the words. “I can’t go.”

“It’s normal to be afraid.”

Lane put a hand on the seat, steadying herself. “I don’t like the feeling.”

Grandma laughed, but softly. “No one does. Fear is a part of life, child. You can’t let it win. A body has to push through it.” She reached across the seat and put her hand on Lane’s. “I don’t have any special knowing if you’ll get this part or not. I just want you to try. No regrets, remember?”

Lane smiled. “No regrets” was Grandma’s battle cry.

But was it hers?

“Hey, Lane? Where’s your limo?” It was Jamie. Jamie smacked Toby on the shoulder. “What are you going to do after she gets rich and famous? Be her chauffeur?”

The hurt in Toby’s eyes clinched it. Lane didn’t want to experience pain by going to the audition, and she didn’t want to cause it either. She looked at her grandma. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I really am.”

She stood, shut the door, and walked toward Toby.

Her grandma called after her. “Lane!”

It was hard to keep walking.

“So?” Toby asked.

She leaned her forehead against his cheek and lowered her voice so Jamie wouldn’t hear. “I’m not going.”

“You’re—?”

“Can we get out of here?”

He gathered their books, pulled her under his arm, and they walked away.

“Hey, hey, Lane,” Jamie said. “What’d you do, chicken out?”

She could take heckling. But what she found harder to handle was the sound of her grandma gunning the engine as she drove away.

She couldn’t win. She just couldn’t win.

They walked along their special place, across the walking bridge that spanned the Lac qui Parle River. The sound of their feet on the old wooden slats was reassuring, a connection with other days spent running over the bridge, pretending to be pirates or pioneers. They stopped halfway across and looked over the water. Lane zipped up her jacket and snuggled against Toby’s shoulder. “Hold me. Just hold me.”

He held her tight and she heard his heart beating. The sound gave her comfort—the beat of the heart of the boy who loved her. What could be better than that?

She’d expected his question, had even braced herself for his question, but when it came, she found she still wasn’t ready with an answer.

“Why did you change your mind?” he asked.

She thought of where she and Grandma would have been at this moment: on the highway to Minneapolis, Grandma pumping her up with big talk of big plans for her talent. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you were so set, so sure. I’m glad, but—”

She pushed away from him. “Don’t give me a hard time, Toby Bjornson. Ever since I heard about the audition you’ve been after me
not
to go.”

“Your parents didn’t want you to go either.”

“My parents have trouble believing Hollywood is a real place. They’re meat-and-potatoes people. They like things they can wrap their hands around, not dreams.”

He stroked the edge of her cheek. “You
are
talented. I’ve always said that.”

Talented enough for Dawson
—
population fifteen hundred.
She turned her face so his hand fell away.

His voice took on its normal tone. “So, just to know… what did I say that made you change your mind?”

Truthfully? Nothing. She thought back to the image of a failed audition, wearing a red blouse, crying…

Suddenly, she looked down. She wasn’t wearing a red blouse. She was wearing her lucky blouse that she’d worn when she got the part of Eliza in
My Fair Lady
at school last year. It was blue.

Toby repeated himself. “What did I say to change your mind?”

She sidled close again. “Just hold me.”

Bar Harbor, Maine—1958