Second Time Around (8 page)

“So we shouldn’t strive to be better? To be more? To do more?

He sidestepped around the coffee table to sit beside her. “I’ve spent twenty-seven years of my life trying to make you happy. And now… what year are you going to visit?”

She wished she knew. Should she visit her mother in the past? Go back before the divorce even happened? Or what about her decision to be a professional volunteer? Though it was rewarding, being the super-giver of her time, talents, and treasures could be exhausting… Yet what would she do instead?

“It’s the baby, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“I know we don’t ever talk about it. But I’m sure you’ve thought about the baby you aborted in college. How could you not think of it?”

He was right. “My father had me abort that baby.”

Dudley’s sigh was weary. “I won’t argue with you. I came into the picture a few months after the fact. But let’s say you do go back to have your baby. That would mean you may or may not hook up with me. Which means you may or may not have Rachel. You’d give up one child for another?”

I’ve given up plenty.
“It wouldn’t be like that.”

“It most certainly would.” He stood. “You know what I want to change?”

“What?”

“You ever finding that stupid lottery ticket.” He left her.

Just as she soon would be leaving him.

“Vanessa Rae! Why haven’t you returned my calls?”

She prepared an excuse her father might find feasible and left the truth for another time. “The phone’s been ringing constantly since I won, Daddy. I had to let the machine take the calls. I couldn’t—”

“But my calls… certainly you have time enough to talk to me.”

Time enough? Hmm.

“And it’s not just today. Where have you been the past few days? Even before the lottery I called and called and no one was home. You know how nervous I get when I can’t get a hold of you.”

“Dudley and I had some business to attend to.”

“I didn’t want to talk to Dudley.”

I was going through my mother’s things. I was finding out the truth about how you kept us apart.
There was so much to say, yet a lifetime of old patterns to rip apart before any of it could be said. And she didn’t feel up to it.

“Hello? Are you even there?”

“I have a lot on my mind, Daddy. I have a big decision to make.”

“Which is why I’m calling. I know the perfect time for you to visit.”

Imagine that.
“When?”

“The year you married Dudley. Your decision to marry Dudley.”

This was old news. Although her father and Dudley had found a measure of mutual respect over the years, in Yardley Pruitt’s eyes, Dudley still wasn’t good enough for his only daughter. Yet the biggest strike Dudley had against him was that he and Vanessa had met, courted, and married without thought to Yardley’s wishes or input. For that one all-encompassing sin, Yardley balanced a twenty-seven-year-old chip on his shoulder. “Don’t start, Daddy.”

“Don’t act like you’re so happy. I know you’re not.”

“Leave it alone, please.”

“Don’t take that tone, young lady.”

Vanessa hated when he called her that. At forty-nine she wasn’t young in any sense of the word and was feeling older all the time.

He was waiting. She gave him what he wanted. “Sorry, Daddy.”

“As you should be. Now, back to the issue of Dudley. Though I will admit he was better than some of those losers you dated, we both know you could have done better. Your college rebellion pained me greatly, Vanessa, and I handled it the best I could.”

Compared to the rebellious battles of many of her 1970s classmates, hers had been a skirmish. As far as doing better than Dudley? To be fair, he’d been a good catch. There was no one more stable, more constant than Dudley Caldwell. Yet there’d never been a spark between them, and certainly no fire. Their life was comfortable and contained. And though she’d had multiple moments during their marriage when she’d fantasized about a real romance, complete with real passion, she’d refused to let it pull her away from what she had.

“You know I’m right, Vanessa. You know your Dudley-decision would be the best choice to explore. Truthfully, sometimes I find him a bit too needy.”

Vanessa stifled a laugh. “He’s very kind to you, Daddy,” she said. “To me, too.”

“Yes, yes. But back to your decision.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. That’s the purpose of this week between the drawing and the leaving, to figure it out. Now, I really have to go.”

“You call me later and we’ll discuss this more. Or maybe drive over. This house gets pretty lonely, you know.”

So he said. Repeatedly. But seek him out for
this
decision? Seek advice from the man who’d lied to her all these years?

“Vanessa?”

“Later, Daddy.”

“I’ll be waiting to hear from you. Don’t let me down. I’m the only one who knows what’s best for you. You know that.”

The only thing she knew was that the rock upon which she’d based her life was crumbling.

Malibu

Lane slammed the door to her bathroom. “No more!” she yelled.

Her agent, Sol, answered from his side of the door. “Do not be angry at me, Lane. I’m the one who should be mad. What were you thinking buying a lottery ticket at the same moment I’m negotiating my tush off, trying to get you the part of your career?”

“I didn’t buy it. Brandy gave it to me.” It seemed a moot point.

“Then don’t accept the prize.”

“Too late. I’ve already called the Time Lottery people and accepted. It’s done.”

“Call them back. You can undo it. That’s the only answer that makes any—”

She opened the door to face him. “Are you nuts?”

“Sometimes. Often, working for you.”

She pushed past him toward the living room, towering six inches over his five-foot-three frame. The phone was ringing. Again.

Brandy stood at the breakfast bar. “Do you want me to get it?” She pointed toward the front door. “And the driveway is full of reporters.”

Sol’s cell phone rang. Lane pointed at it. “Don’t you dare.”

“You’re going to have to deal with them, Lane. If you won’t give back the prize, it’s your only alternative.”

“It’s all my fault.” Brandy sat.

“Don’t blame yourself. It was a wonderful gesture, a—”

“Gesture?” Sol said, laughing. “Oh, that it would have stayed a gesture.”

Lane fell onto a bar stool next to her friend, resting her head in her hands. “If only they’d leave me alone for this one week. Then I’ll do the time-travel thing and be free of them.”

“They’ll be in your past, too. You haven’t been free of the press since you were eighteen.” He moved across from her, into the kitchen. He poked her arm, making her look up. “By the way, what year are you going to visit? What choice could you possibly regret?”

She hated the condemnation in his eyes. The mocking. She glanced at Brandy—who expected her to revisit her Joseph connection. They’d never understand her wanting to go back to see Dawson, Minnesota, much less Toby.

The phone and the doorbell rang at the same time. The press was getting restless. And bold. She half expected to see them on her back deck, hands cupping their faces to the window for a peek at the great Lane Holloway.

Then suddenly, another choice presented itself like a prize behind door number two. And when she realized Toby could be a part of this choice, too, she smiled.

“I’m waiting, Lane. What year?”

She stood, taking the power position. Yes, this seemed right. This seemed perfect. “I’m going back to 1987.”

“Your first movie came out in eighty-eight.”

She nodded.

“You still lived in Lawson, Mawson—”

“Dawson.”

Brandy slid off her stool. “But Joseph wasn’t in Dawson.”

“I know.”

“Nothing’s in Dawson.”

“You were in Dawson—with me.”

“Yeah, but...” Lane could see her friend go through a memory scan. Suddenly Brandy put a hand to her head. “Eighty-seven was the year we graduated. The year you won the audition and brought me with you here, to—” Her fingers danced on the counter and her head started shaking. “Oh my, Lane… no…”

Sol looked between them. “Enough old home week. Tell me what’s going on.”

Brandy did it for her. “She’s going back before the tryout, before the tryout that gave her the part of Bess!”

“Bess made her a star.” He whipped around toward Lane. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

He let out a huff. “That would be like Lana Turner never going into Schwab’s Drugstore to be discovered.”

“That didn’t happen. It’s just legend.”

“And your point is…?”

It was all so clear. To find Toby again, to rid herself of the pressures of stardom. All in one amazing shot. She moved to get a bottle of water. “I want to see what
normal
would have been like.”

As she passed him, Sol rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. The entire world reeks of normal and would give anything to be in your movie-star shoes. And you want to join them, wallowing in mediocrity?”

She unscrewed the cap on the water bottle. “I had a good life in Dawson.”

“Then why did you want to leave?”

She took her drink and moved to the window to face the ocean view. She saw a reporter tiptoe onto the deck, as if on cue, camera already snapping. She calmly closed the blinds. Soon the whole world would see what Lane looked like pulling blinds. Pitiful. She set the water down and fell onto the couch, pulling her feet beneath her.

Sol took a seat on the ottoman. “Why don’t you go back to a time within the framework of your current life? Maybe explore what would have happened if you would have gotten the starring role in
When Harry Met Sally?
I’d like to know that one.”

It wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t extreme enough. It wasn’t far enough back. Lane had come to recognize the roles she’d gotten—or not gotten—as for the best. Even her few clunkers had been learning experiences. Besides, what good did it do to live in angst about a choice that was beyond her control, a choice that often was determined by obscure factors having nothing to do with her acting ability?

The doorbell rang a second time and they all looked in its direction. “Brave little buggers, aren’t they?” Sol said.

“Maybe I should talk to them and get it over with.”

“I could arrange it. I could tell them you want to give a statement.”

Lane looked at Brandy, who stood nearby, gripping the back of the loveseat. Her eyes were flitting wildly, but she was smiling.

“What are you thinking, Brand?”

“I’m thinking that this is cool. To go that far back? And I’ll be there with you, I mean, not me as me now, but me as the eighteen-year-old me. We’ll have a blast—or as much of a blast as was possible in Dawson.” She smiled broadly. “I’m impressed by your gumption, Laney-girl.”

Sol shoved the ottoman back a foot. “This is crazy. Go have a fling with some what-if moment if you want, but don’t do something so drastic. Don’t risk everything.”

“It won’t affect you, Sol,” Lane said. “What I do in my past will not affect you here. I’m exploring
my
Alternity. It’s parallel. The timelines don’t intersect.” She felt dumb saying all this, as if she understood the science of it. But it
was
the truth, at least as she understood it. “If I go back and—”

Sol stood. “If you go back before the audition, if you attain that precious ‘normal’ you’re after, you’ll end up staying in Dawson, marrying some Swedish farm boy, having too many kids too, too fast, and blending into oblivion, never to be heard of again.”

Lane’s stomach grabbed, but she said, “What’s so bad about that?”

“What about me?” Sol said. “Once you dig your domestic roots and don’t come back, I’m out my biggest client.”

She couldn’t argue with his basic point. “Maybe the movies I’ve already made will have a resurgence. You get a percentage of all those…”

“Until the novelty wears off and your audience moves on to stars who are producing new movies, better movies. Eventually you’ll be lucky to find DVDs of your movies two for ten dollars at Wal-Mart.”

“Wow,” Brandy said, plopping down on the loveseat. “You’re quite the doomsayer, aren’t you?”