“You knew he went here, Dad,” she grumbles, face reddening with embarrassment that he’s making this a thing. “It’s a small school.”
You don’t say anything as she drags her father away. She’s about to climb into the passenger seat of his car when you step forward, calling out to her. “Hey, Garfield…”
She stalls, turning to you.
Her father glares from behind the wheel.
“You forgot this,” you say, holding up her comic book.
She grabs it, but you don’t let go right away, hesitating as she says, “Please, don't call me that. Call me anything but that.”
You release your hold, and she gives you a smile before climbing into the car and leaving, taking her comic book.
You don’t know this, but that girl? She gathers up her Breezeo comics as soon as she gets home. All fourteen issues in all three storylines—Transparent, Shadow Dancer, and Ghosted. She spends the weekend re-reading them, just so they’re still fresh in her mind, so when she brings them to school for you to borrow, she remembers every single line.
Chapter 5
KENNEDY
“In entertainment news, Breezeo star Johnny Cunning was involved in an accident last night in Manhattan…”
I’m halfway to the kitchen when those words strike me, my footsteps stopping. I turn around, looking at the television across the living room, thinking I must’ve heard them wrong, but no… there he is, stock footage playing from some red carpet, his smiling face on the screen, bloodshot eyes staring right through me.
“The twenty-eight-year-old actor was struck by a car near the set of his latest film. Eyewitnesses say Cunning stepped into traffic during an altercation with the paparazzi.”
I approach the TV as the image on the screen changes, a video of the aftermath playing. The first thing I see is blood streaming down his face. He’s alert, though. He’s alive. The relief that floods my body nearly buckles my knees.
“A spokesman for the actor says he’s currently stable and in good spirits. Filming for the movie has been temporarily suspended as Cunning heals from his injuries.”
“Mommy?”
The second that I hear Maddie’s voice, I press the button to turn off the TV, hoping she hadn’t seen it. I turn to her, my hopes dashed right away. Oh crap. She looks shocked. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Is Breezeo okay?”
“Sure,” I say, giving her a smile. “He had a little accident, but he’ll be okay.”
“You mean like he’s sick?”
“Something like that,” I say.
Her expression shifts as she thinks about that, her face lighting up. “I can make him a card!”
“Uh, yeah, you can,” I say, not letting my smile falter. “I’m sure we can find an address to send it to.”
His agency accepts fan mail for him. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t personally open it, so there’s no harm sending something, if it’ll make her feel better.
Maddie runs off to her bedroom to get to work on some art while I get busy making dinner, booting up my old piece-of-crap laptop while a frozen pizza cooks. For the first time in well over a year, I type his pseudonym into the search bar.
I take a deep breath when the results pop up. Pictures and pictures—whoa, so many pictures—along with a video of the accident. My heart drops as I stare at it. I press play and watch. Thirty seconds. I hold my breath, expecting the worst from him—drunken staggering into traffic with no regard for his life, maybe. But instead, I see him shove a man, telling him to back off when a girl gets caught between them. The girl goes into the road, and his reflexes are fast, so fast, as he grabs her and shoves her back onto the sidewalk before—
Cringing, I slam the laptop closed the second the car strikes him. He saved that girl from being hit.
I sit there in silence, stunned. My nose starts twitching, the smell of something burning tickling my nostrils. It takes a moment—too long of a moment—before my eyes start to burn and it strikes me. Dinner.
I run for the oven, turning it off, and open the door. The smoke detector starts blaring, and I make a face, fanning the smoke away. The pizza is charred.
“Mommy, what’s stinky?” Maddie asks, strolling into the kitchen with a stack of paper and her box of crayons, her nose scrunched up.
“Had a bit of a mishap,” I say, glaring at the burnt pizza. “Maybe we’ll just order some pizza for delivery.”
“And chickens!” she declares, climbing onto a chair at the table. “And the breads, too!”
“Pizza, wings, and garlic bread—got it.”
I pick up the phone and call the closest pizza place, ordering the whole gauntlet. Can’t afford to splurge, but what the hell, right?
After hanging up, I sit down with her, staring at her paper as she draws Breezeo. She’s good. Talented. She could be an artist. She could be anything she wanted.
I know, because she’s not just my daughter.
His blood flows through her veins, too.
He was the dreamer. The doer. The believer.
When he wasn’t high, when he wasn’t drunk, when he wasn’t so utterly screwed up, I saw something in him, something I see when I look at Maddie. The two of them, they have the same soul, they live with the same heart.
And that scares the daylights out of me.
“Mommy, what kinda sick is Breezeo? Where does it hurt?”
“Uh, I’m not sure,” I say. “All over, maybe. Johnny—you know, the real guy that plays Breezeo—got hurt by a car when he was helping a girl.”
“But he’ll get better?”
She looks at me, her eyes guarded.
She’s worried about her hero.
I’ve tried to explain the difference between reality and the movies, to prepare her, just in case, but I’m not sure if she gets it.
“He’ll get better,” I tell her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart.”
“I just… I can’t believe this,” Bethany says, standing beside me in the aisle as I restock canned goods. She leans against the shelf, nose buried in the latest edition of Hollywood Chronicles. The entire thing is dedicated to Jonathan.
Story after story, speculation and theories. Drugs. Alcohol. Maybe he was feeling suicidal. I have no interest in reading any of that nonsense, but Bethany insists on spilling every nitty-gritty detail while on her lunch break.
“You know, you’re supposed to pay for that before you read it,” I tell her. “This isn’t a library.”
She rolls her eyes, flipping the page. “You sound like my mother when you say that.”
I make a face. “I’m not that old.”
“You sound it.”
“Whatever,” I mumble. “I’m just saying…”
“You’re saying either put up or shut up.” She closes the magazine as she pretend-gags. “I’ve already read about as much as I can take, anyway. Who even buys this junk?”
She does, I think. I’ve seen her buying copies.
She’s quiet for a moment as I work before she asks, “You don’t believe any of it, do you?”
“Believe what?”
“Any of this,” she says, waving the paper around.
“I believe my opinion doesn’t really matter.”
“But where Johnny Cunning is concerned, anything is possible, right?”
I cut my eyes at her when she tosses my own words at me. “Right.”
She frowns, defeated, and goes back to her register.
I finish what I’m doing, trying to shove all of it out of my mind. When three o’clock comes, I clock out, grabbing a few groceries and heading to checkout. I have to be back here in an hour for inventory, giving me just enough time to see Maddie after school and get her settled at my father’s. I pay and am about to leave when I notice the Hollywood Chronicles paper tucked beside Bethany’s register, meaning she bought it.
“Look, you met Johnny Cunning, right?” I ask. “And he was nice to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s all that matters, isn’t it? Whatever that trash says about him being horrible, you felt different. Don’t let some guy sitting behind a computer spinning sensational stories change what you believe.”