Trophy Kid (2 page)

two

Two weeks later, I was sitting in our breakfast room when our housekeeper, Rulia, ushered Tom in. Guava had already been chauffeured to the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank, where her new television show,
Flavors,
about a family who runs an ice cream parlor, was in the middle of its production schedule. Robert and Greta were still upstairs—it always took them at least an hour to get ready in the morning.

Tom was wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt.

“Hey, Joe, how ya doin’?”

“Fine,” I said, squinting as I looked up at him. The lace curtains Greta had had made by the set designer of her latest movie to be released (a modernized version of
Little Women
called
My Crazy Sisters
) were doing little to keep the sun out of my eyes.

A pot of coffee was already on the table, and Rulia poured Tom a cup.

“The security guard at the gate was ready to break me in two until I gave him my name,” Tom said.

“You dress like the paparazzi,” I explained.

“You’d think paparazzi wouldn’t actually drive up to the guard gate. I always picture those guys hanging out of trees or perched on cliffs overlooking beaches.” Tom must not have been aware that a paparazzo perched on a cliff had outed Robert and Greta as a couple.

“We had the gardeners prune all the exterior trees,” Greta said, entering the room with Robert. Tom stood up to shake their hands. Robert was dressed to “take a meeting” (jeans, white shirt, sports coat, and Italian loafers) and Greta for a day of “power shopping” (sundress, sandals, and light, not-too-sparkly jewelry). My adoptive parents always looked like the movie stars they were, no matter what they were wearing: Greta with her bright green eyes, slightly upturned nose, and charming smile, and Robert the handsome leading man, with a strong build, intense brown eyes, and thick, dark hair.

“We like the round table because it’s more egalitarian,” Robert said, pulling out a seat for Greta.

I glanced over to see Tom’s reaction to Robert’s moronic statement, but he kept looking attentively at Robert as if
egalitarian
were a word everyone used to describe their dining table.

“I had Octavia make eggs Florentine for you and Joe,” Greta said. Rulia placed a half grapefruit in front of her, then gave Robert his eggs Florentine, minus the English muffin and Hollandaise sauce. It was basically eggs and spinach.

“So tell us a little about yourself, Tom,” Greta said, sprinkling a minuscule amount of artificial sweetener over her grapefruit with a tiny silver teaspoon.

“Do you have any ketchup?” Tom asked.

I knew from experience that his asking for ketchup would instantly diminish Greta’s opinion of Tom. Although Greta had been raised in a middle-class family in the Midwest, she sometimes acted as if the Duchess of Windsor had reared her.

“I think we may have some tucked away somewhere. Rulia, would you see if you can find some ketchup for Mr. Dolan?”

“Thanks,” Tom said. “Well, there’s not that much to tell, really. I played ball in the Reds organization for a few years, and when things didn’t work out, I went back to school—”

“You don’t need to recite your resume,” Greta interrupted. “We’re familiar with your credentials. Are you married?”

“No, but I’ve got a girlfriend that I’ve been with for about ten years. Jessica. She’s a writer, too. Mostly magazine stuff.”

“You don’t believe in marriage?” Greta pried, with the innocent frankness that had made her America’s favorite female star.

“It’s not that,” Tom responded, not at all disarmed. “Baseball players are pretty superstitious, so if something is working, they don’t want to change it. I played with guys who wouldn’t change their underwear for weeks if they were on a hitting streak.”

“So you equate marriage with underwear?” Greta teased.

Tom let out a short laugh.

“What about children?” Greta asked, her green eyes peering into Tom’s face.

“What about them?” Tom said, chewing on more than his eggs Florentine.

“Do you have any?” Greta continued, like the prosecuting attorney she had once played in a movie.

“No.”

“Are you planning to have any?”

I knew that it was just about time for Robert to interrupt when he said, “Let’s not turn this into a talk show, honey,” slightly annoyed.

“What? We’re just having a conversation,” Greta snapped back.

“Let’s talk about the book,” Robert said, ignoring her. “What’s your plan, Tom?”

Planning was very important to Robert.

“Well, I don’t like to work from a plan, exactly,” Tom said, spooning ketchup out of a small glass bowl Rulia had just set on the table.

From the look on Robert’s face, Tom might just as well have told him that he was a serial killer.

“Well, then how do you work?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll just start hanging out and talking and see how things develop,” Tom said. He then turned to me. “Does that sound good to you, Joe?”

“Yeah,” I said. I liked Tom’s nonplan…plan.

Obviously, this didn’t sound good to Robert. In a slightly disparaging tone, he said, “However you work is fine with us. Everyone has their own process. Although it sounds like your process is not to have a process. But that’s fine. Whatever works. The main thing is we want this to be an inspirational story. We want people to be uplifted by Joe’s journey.”

Journey
was studio talk for what the main character of a movie goes through to accomplish his goal.

“Joe’s journey?” Tom asked, even though I was pretty sure he knew what Robert meant.

“Yes. Joe’s journey of having lost his family and then finding a new family,” Robert said seriously. “People love that kind of story. They need that kind of story.”

If Tom had any reaction to what Robert told him, he didn’t show it. He was much better at hiding what he was really thinking than either Greta or Robert. So was I.

Robert, having made his point, finished his breakfast, wished us “good writing,” and took off.

Greta smiled at Tom. “Don’t get worried by all his film-speak. The main thing is that the story be personal. In Joe’s own words…as best as you can write them,” she said in all seriousness.

Greta took a last bite of grapefruit. “I’m still hungry,” she said in a cutesy baby voice. She then shouted toward the kitchen, “Rulia, are there any English muffins left?”

“What’s your earliest memory?” Tom asked. We were sitting in the room above our garage, which Robert had converted from a guest room to an office where he could write a screenplay. He’d worked on the script for about two days before giving up on it.

Tom’s large black tennis shoes were on the coffee table, facing me. He had a notepad in his lap, but I quickly learned that he seldom wrote anything on it.

I was drawing a blank.

“Tell me about your mother. Your real mother,” Tom asked.

I closed my eyes and saw my mother sitting across from me on the floor of our apartment in Dubrovnik.

“She was really pretty.”

“Okay.”

“And she was tall.”

“Everybody’s parents are tall when they’re three.”

“She was taller than my dad. My real dad.”

“Okay, she was tall.”

“And she loved me a lot. She played with me all the time and made me laugh. So did my dad.”

I recognized Greta’s step on the staircase.

“She wasn’t like Greta at all,” I said harshly.

“Who wasn’t like me at all?” Greta asked as she came through the open door. “And honey, you know you shouldn’t call me Greta. We don’t want Tom to get the wrong impression, do we?” She ruffled my hair—which I hated.

“I was talking about my real mom,” I said, looking up at Greta, causing her to frown.

“It’s my fault,” Tom jumped in. “I thought it would be easier for me to keep track of who Joe was talking about if he referred to you by your first name. Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. We’re a modern family. We don’t cling to titles. The point is we all love each other. Isn’t that right, Joe?”

“Just one big happy family,” I said sarcastically.

Greta looked like she was about to reprimand me for this snappy remark but decided to let it go.

“I have to go out for a few hours, honey.” She then looked at Tom. “Everything going all right so far?”

“We just started,” I said sort of grumpily.

“I asked Tom,” Greta said with a slight edge to her voice.

“We’re doing great,” Tom said.

“All right. If you need anything, just ask Rulia. Nice to meet you, Tom.” She smiled.

“Likewise,” Tom said.

Greta went down the stairs. We listened to her Porsche starting, the car rolling down the gravel driveway, and finally the electric gate opening and shutting.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tom said.

“What about the book?”

“We’ve got plenty of time. Come on.”

There was a small park not far from my house. When we got there in Tom’s blue PT Cruiser, Tom pulled a baseball and two gloves from the back of the car. We found a spot away from the moms and nannies with toddlers and several homeless guys and tossed the ball back and forth.

“You want to go to a ball game this weekend?” Tom asked. “I have an extra ticket to the Dodgers-Giants game on Saturday.”

“Yes, but I’ll have to check with Robert and Greta,” I said eagerly.

“Do you always call them by their proper names?”

“Pretty much. ‘We don’t cling to titles,’” I said, imitating Greta, “unless we’re making some sort of public appearance, like at a movie premiere or a charity event. Then they want me to be all ‘Mom and Dad.’”

Every toss Tom made came directly to me, chest high, while my throws were all over the place; Tom, however, casually caught the ball as if I were making perfect throws, just like his.

“I don’t know why she cares if I call her by her name in front of you,” I said.

“We’re writing a book—that’s a public event. Did you ever call them Mom and Dad? I mean, on your own?”

I knew where Tom was going with this: had I
ever
thought of my famous adoptive parents as anything more than famous adoptive parents?

“No.” I shook my head.

“How come?”

“I don’t know. I guess the adoption never really took,” I said, half joking.

Tom laughed. “You mean like a heart or kidney transplant?”

“Exactly,” I said, pleased that Tom got what I meant.

One of the homeless men walked up to Tom and asked for money. Tom pulled out his wallet and gave him a ten-dollar bill.

After the man had walked away, I asked, “Why did you give that guy so much money?”

“I waste ten dollars all the time. To that guy it’s a big deal. He can get something to eat, or use it toward crashing someplace other than the park, or whatever he needs to do.”

“Robert would say you’re enabling him.”

“Yeah, I’m enabling him to get a meal. Speaking of which, are you hungry?”

I was always hungry.