Page 78 of The Princess and the Paparazzi
I delete the message, and the ones below it from Kenna and Tabitha. Then I come to the message I woke up to this morning.
Happy Gotcha Day, Lorelei.
I know who I need to call. The one and only person who can help me make sense of this.
There’s a bottle of bourbon in the cabinet, and I pour myself a shot before I dial the number on the text. It’s still familiar. The same number she had fifteen years ago. It hasn’t changed. Before calling, I snap a photo of the pictures I’ve swiped and shoot them back to her in a text.
I drain my glass and punch in the number.
“Lorelei?” She picks up on the second ring, sounding breathless, “is that really you?”
“Did I wake you?”
“No, honey. I was just looking at some auditions,” she says. My mother is still a manager, representing highly trained talent. Just not of the human variety. Now she’s pushing poodles.
“Did you see my text?” I ask. I picture her sitting in her bed with a stack of folders beside her, a thick layer of anti-wrinkle cream on her face.
“No, I was working on the laptop. Let me check. I’ll put you on speaker. God, it’s so good to hear your voice. Don’t hang up?” I hear her shut the laptop and wait patiently, trying to picture her face. Her reaction.
I am not disappointed. She gasps.
“Good Lord, Lorelei! Where did you find these photos?”
“So they are me,” I reply.
“Of course they are. My God, I didn’t think there were any photos like this out there.”
“Well, surprise! You didn’t manage to destroy all the evidence,” I say bitterly. “Backstories have a way of bubbling up, you know.”
“Destroy the evidence? What are you talking about?” she stammers.
“You know, until recently, I thought that stupid holiday card picture was the first photo you ever took of me,” I say.
“What holiday card?” she asks.
“The one on the mantel? With the stupid bow? I was what, three?”
“I love that photo of you. You looked gorgeous in that shoot.” My mother sounds hurt.
“I’m assuming that’s why that photo made it into my portfolio, and these other ones didn’t?”
“That’s not it at all,” my mom argues. I can picture her steeling herself to argue, then taking a deep breath before yelling at me. But she doesn’t yell. She speaks quietly. “You’re wrong, Lorelei.”
“Then why aren’t you smiling in the group shot? Did you have buyer’s remorse once you got to Siberia? All these other people look happy, Mom. You look like you just choked on your fish oil capsules.”
“Honestly, Lorelei.” She sounds sad now. Sad and tired. “It was something kind of like that. I was freaking out. But not really because of you. Because of me. I was so seriously overwhelmed. In over my head. Totally convinced that they’d made a mistake in letting me take you home. You weremiserablewith me. Crying nonstop. Nobody prepared me for that. I don’t know what I would have done without that nice lady and her brother. Honestly? I think you would have preferred to go home with them.”
“Is that why you didn’t take any photos of me? Because you weren’t sure you were going to keep me?” I’m not certain when the tears started rolling down my face. “Did the agency give you a warranty on defective merchandise?”
“Lorelei, are you evenlisteningto me? I felt like you didn’t want to keep ME. You know, it wasn’t that much of a shock to me when you emancipated yourself. It’s like I’d been waiting for you to kick me to the curb and get on with your life already for all those years.” Her voice cracks, and I can hear she is crying, too.
“I don’t believe you,” I say. “You were always ashamed of my being adopted. You didn’t take any photos. You didn’t want anyone to know. You were embarrassed. Just admit it.”
“I wasn’t embarrassed! I just didn’t think it was anyone’s business. You don’t know how it was back then. There were all these news stories all the time about the effects of early institutionalization. Movies about possessed orphans. There was a stigma. Kids were discriminated against. I just wanted you to have a normal childhood.”
“What about being a celebrity is normal?” I spit out.
“Do you have any idea how lucky you were?” my mom cries.
