Read Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir Online

Authors: Melissa Francis

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #Entertainment & Performing Arts

Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir (25 page)

BOOK: Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir
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When we reached the counter, Mom cut the line and stepped up to a haggard but capable-looking agent with graying hair and heavy eyelids. I stood by her side, holding my breath to stop crying. Another man at the front of the line looked peeved, but saw my tears and didn’t have the nerve to complain aloud.
“We were supposed to be on the flight that just left for Boston. We lost my husband on the way to the gate. Is there any way to page him?” she asked.
“Of course. Give me his details. We can page him and call security. And I can help you get another flight if you still want to go today. There’s one on American that leaves in about hour. I think there are a few seats left.”
She paged Dad and booked us on the flight. We bought two seats for more than a thousand dollars. All the planning, buying our tickets in advance to save money, everything we’d done, down the drain.
Thirty minutes later, we sat at the new gate, silent and defeated. “What happened to Dad?” I asked.
“I have no idea. This is typical. If he’s not lying dead somewhere, I’m going to kill him.”
“You know, the real problem is that he doesn’t want you to go to Harvard,” she said. Mom always had a larger conspiracy theory to fit any crisis, no matter how accidental the situation seemed.
“Why?” I asked, unconvinced.
“He always said the UC schools were good enough. He doesn’t have the same drive that I have. He wants you to go to Stanford because it’s closer. I’d like you to stay too. But who gets into Harvard? You can’t just turn it down. I don’t know what you should do for sure, but this is sabotage on his part. Maybe he doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing, but that’s what he’s doing.”
 
 
When we arrived in Boston, Dad was waiting for us. We’d left a message with my aunt about the new flight information, and he’d thought to call her. He was sitting on a bench, hands folded in his lap, looking beaten and exhausted.
He’d somehow weaved past us in the crowd and boarded the original flight. He assumed we’d boarded that flight ahead of him as planned, but when he saw the empty seats in our row, he kept going instead of getting off. That decision was logical, he explained. We were all heading to Harvard no matter what.
“I stuck with the plan,” he said, a phrase he loved to hold over us. He constantly saw value in staying glued to whatever plan we’d made, not deviating, not flaking, no matter what circumstances arose.
I had been too worried about him to get on a plane and just ditch him. I wanted to make sure the whole team was okay and on board and count heads before moving forward. In retrospect, I should have just kept going east.
 
 
The weekend at Harvard turned out to be magical despite the rough start. The campus could have been a set for a movie about Colonial America, with centuries-old ivy-covered brick buildings at every turn. Each quadrangle of classrooms and dorms looked unlike anything I’d ever seen in California.
I’d picked up two new friends, Matt and Michelle, who were committed to enrolling at Harvard and immediately infected me with their unharnessed enthusiasm and momentum. They were shocked I’d even consider any other school, which was by definition second-rate.
Matt was a worldly, cerebral New York kid who I could tell would eventually own or at least finance most of the island of Manhattan. Michelle was pretty with long brown curls and a laugh that made you love her immediately. Plus she was one of the only girls on campus wearing makeup, so it made sense that we should team up. She had an older sister and brother already on campus, and they were both so welcoming. They adopted us and made the school irresistible.
I could see a window into my new life, controlled only by me, and the thought of being a million miles from home and Hollywood morphed from frightening into freeing. If I left behind everything that tethered me to my past, I would fly or drown, but I would know for sure whether I could live without Mom or the business driving my life. Maybe there was another option, another path, another life. Maybe there wasn’t. I hadn’t really considered the possibility that there could be another way to live until that weekend. Once I opened the door to that possibility, it couldn’t be closed.
 
 
I announced the news in the family room. I was going to Harvard. Mom sat on the corner of the fading green couch. Still in a housedress, she held a section of the
Los Angeles Times
in her lap, her bare feet on the coffee table and her eyes fixed on the television.
Dad sat upright in his chair, still in his sweats from the night before, deeply engrossed in the
Times
opinion section, which he never agreed with. He’d already swept through the sports pages. He sipped his second cup of coffee, still a good thirty minutes away from folding the pages and heading upstairs for his morning routine.
“I’ve decided. I’m going to Harvard.,” I declared to the room.
Mom looked up and smiled slightly, her lips closed. She knew this was coming. It was hard for me to surprise her. Dad cleared his throat but didn’t look up.
“Well, that’s a nice idea. I don’t know how you are going to pay for that,” he said. “You guys never sweat the details,” he laughed, but not happily. “But someone has to. Someone has to write the check. I don’t know who that’s going to be.”
“They offered loans and financial aid if we can’t swing it. I went to the financial aid office when we visited. They said that I was in and there was always a package to make it work, no matter what,” I said.
I had prepared for the standard dismissal: we can’t afford it. Lunch? We can’t afford it. Toast? No way. But I honestly didn’t think he would go there this time. Harvard wasn’t frivolous; it wasn’t a pony. This is what the money I had earned was supposed to be saved for, and my father had always assured me that it would be there for this purpose. If the cash wasn’t there anymore, it was hardly my fault, or my responsibility to replace it, no matter how the two of them justified its absence.
“Financial aid takes care of tuition, which is only half the battle, maybe less,” Dad pointed out. “What about flying back and forth? What about winter clothes? That takes bread. All things you don’t need if you go to Stanford. You get in your car and drive to Stanford, and wear the same clothes. It’s closer, it makes sense. It’s a fantastic school. You need to be practical. Like I am. It’s hardly a sacrifice to go to Stanford, and it’s probably a better school anyway.”
With that, Dad turned his attention back to the opinions of the
Times
writers. I was stunned. Dad always seemed to be in my corner; he was the rational one. I looked at Mom, who shrugged. I knew she didn’t want me to escape, but as she liked to say out loud, it was such a big deal to go to Harvard. I thought maybe I could swing her. I couldn’t believe Dad was going to be the holdout.
I was already late for school because it had taken me so long to work up the nerve to walk in and make the proclamation. Now I stormed out of the house and got in my car, flying backward down the driveway, throwing the car into drive at the bottom the hill, zipping out of the cul-de-sac.
All day at school, I went through the motions of going to classes, still in disbelief at my parents’ reactions. Who ever heard of a kid getting into Harvard and her parents not wanting her to go? It was astounding to me. Maybe I was making the wrong decision. Maybe they were right. Maybe I’d go thousands of miles away and fall off the other side of the continent.
I felt so confused I didn’t raise my hand all day. Was I just trying to escape from my family and would I later regret that? Was I the rash one? My relationship with acting had turned sour. I needed some distance. I’d never known a life that didn’t include it. I’d been an actress since my earliest memory. I’d taken for granted that acting would always be a part of my life. But then we’d had a falling-out. I started to feel silly playing dress-up. By the time I decided I wanted it back, it was too late. Like a spurned lover, it had moved on without me. I couldn’t break back in. In the last year, I’d done a few commercials, but I was barely even getting called to audition for the good roles, and even then, I wasn’t getting called back. I’d gotten close to landing a role on a new show,
Beverly Hills 90210
, but when that didn’t happen, I was so frustrated at having my hopes raised and dashed again that I wanted to put acting in a closet, lock the door, and throw away the key.
“What’s up with you?” Cori asked as we walked to AP Literature.
“My parents won’t let me go to Harvard,” I said.
She laughed. “That’s fresh,” she said.
“I know. It’s a mess. I don’t know what to do,” I said. Cori was wearing a Northwestern sweatshirt, her fate signed, sealed, and delivered. I envied how certain her future looked. Everyone in her family rowed in the same direction.
“I guess I do know what to do. I’m going,” I said.
 
 
I sat in last period Religion and filled out my acceptance card. I signed the bottom. Melissa Ann Francis. That was it. I was going no matter what. The response date was in a matter of days, and all that was left to do was get the card postmarked at the post office.
If the money really was gone, I would find a way to pay the tuition myself. I’d waitress. I’d save what I could to get going. I didn’t care how Mom and Dad felt about it. I was making this decision for myself, and I’d see it through. I needed to see if I could leave behind the life I knew and still survive. I could always come back. If acting called, I could always give up and come back. But I had a feeling there was a whole other life out there, and I had to try it on for size.
Technically, I didn’t need my parents’ permission to go, but I wanted it. I decided to go by Dad’s office and give him one more chance to get on the train before it pulled out of the station. Maybe he’d been thinking all day too. Maybe he regretted dismissing me that morning.
I pulled into the industrial park where his office was located and took a spot right across from the door. The company name, Theatre Products International, and the logo were painted on the glass door in hunter green. The facade was modest but respectable, like the occupant.
I pushed the door open and walked through the waiting area to his office. I stood in the doorway and watched as Dad rocked back in his large brown leather swivel chair, leaning in at various moments to scribble notes on a yellow pad with a sharpened pencil, phone cradled to his ear.
“I can get it to you by Monday, probably,” he said into the phone. His eyes looked up from the paper and met mine briefly, then returned to the pad. I stood there, expecting him to excuse himself for a few minutes and talk to me. Then I gave up and walked back to the waiting area, collapsing into a chair.
I chipped the polish off my nail while I waited for him to wrap up. I figured he would speak first, make his argument more apologetically this time, and I’d stand firm, express my hurt, and tell him I was going no matter what. He’d laugh at my petulance, relent, and everything would be fine.
Another ten minutes went by, and it occurred to me that he was staying on the phone on purpose. As he continued to talk, I got angrier. He was intentionally letting me stew. I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at my watch. The post office was closing in fifteen minutes. I’d give him five more.
My watch ticked forward like a bomb waiting to explode. The moment the second hand swept over the numeral twelve signaling the allotted time had elapsed, I bolted.
 
 
I was angry as I gunned the engine and flew down the street, pounding the steering wheel with my fist, angry at myself that I’d shown up and created an opportunity to be blown off again. I didn’t need his blessing, I didn’t need anything. At the end of the day, I was even more alone than I’d expected.
When I arrived at the Northridge post office, I rushed inside and waited in line to hand over my acceptance letter. The hand-to-hand delivery might have been unnecessary, but I wasn’t leaving my fate to chance any longer. I thrust the postcard at the clerk, and he smiled and raised his fuzzy eyebrows toward his receding hairline, knowing exactly what the card meant. It was that time of year. My eyes brimmed with tears, which confused him, so he simply took the letter without another word.
I rushed out the front door, having achieved my mission, and got into my car, throwing the gear into reverse and punching the gas.
Smash
.
I didn’t see the truck behind me until it was too late. The impact jarred my head forward, hurtling my forehead into the steering wheel, but I hadn’t been going fast enough to really hurt myself. My heart jumped into my throat, and I burst into tears, now limp and defeated in the driver’s seat.
The vehicle I had hit was a navy blue pickup truck with a Domino’s sign on the roof. A Hispanic guy, no older than twenty, got out and came to my door.
“Didn’t you even look behind you?” he said angrily.
“I’m sorry. It’s been an awful day,” I tried to explain.
He backed his truck up and parked at the side of the row of parked cars, then got out and inspected both of our bumpers to assess the damage. I watched him circle the car in my rearview mirror without getting out. I wasn’t sure I could stand.
BOOK: Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir
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