Trophy Kid (15 page)

“For both of us,” I said.

“I do not know why he makes such problems when none are there.” Vladimir’s eyes then started to glisten again. “Josef, you are so tall. You look just like your mother.”

His words made me feel warm inside. Here was a man with a direct connection to my parents. Someone who’d known them and could see them in me.

“How did you know where we were?” Tom asked.

“When I hear you are in Dubrovnik, I ask around. I am very happy. I know many people in the hotel business. I manage little hotel outside of city. Very nice hotel. Everyone in Dubrovnik is in the tourist business. It’s not so good right after war, but very good now.”

I had so many questions for Vladimir, I didn’t know where to start. I was thankful when Tom asked, “How did you know Joe’s family?”

“My brother was married to your father’s sister,” Vladimir said. “I see you as a very little boy many times.”

“Do you know what happened to my father?” I asked.

Vladimir looked confused. “What do you mean?” he said.

I told him about the letter that had been sent to my mother saying that my father was not dead, as they had previously reported, but missing in action.

Vladimir nodded as I spoke, his eyes once again getting watery, but this time not from happiness.

“It cannot be. Everyone who survived returned after the war. I am sorry for you, Joe,” Vladimir said sadly.

“But what if he had amnesia and didn’t remember who he was?” I said, still holding on to a glimmer of hope.

“I do not think so, but relations are still not so good between countries who fought the war. Other families have same problem.”

“What happened when you came to see Joe in Los Angeles?” Tom asked, changing the subject.

“Did Robert get you thrown out of the country?” I added.

“No, no. I come to L.A. to visit you, Joe.”

This made me feel worse than ever that Robert had kept him from seeing me.

“Robert said he bribed you to stay away from me,” I said.

“What is this?” Vladimir asked, confused.

“Paid you money not to see me.”

“No, no, no,” Vladimir said emphatically. “I write to you to tell you I am coming, and you do not write back, but I think, Okay, he’s a boy, is typical. When I come to your home first time, I am taken away. When I come to your home second time, I am taken away but told to meet with your father and someone else.”

“Larry, his lawyer,” I said.

“Right. Larry say, ‘How much do you want to go away?’”

“I say, ‘I do not want to go away, I want to see Josef. I come to see Josef.’ I say, ‘I want to take him maybe to Disneyland.’ Larry say again, ‘How much do you want?’ I think he wants to give me money for me to take you to Disneyland. I know it costs much and I am not rich, so I say, ‘Maybe one hundred dollars? This is very nice of you.’ He writes me check for one hundred twenty dollars. I leave. Then I come to your house on your birthday and am thrown away,” Vladimir said, still hurt by what had happened.

“Wow,” Tom said. “They thought they’d bought you off for a hundred and twenty bucks. Unbelievable.”

“Maybe I should not have taken. But I hear that Disney is expensive land. I have not so much money as I do now. Later, I send the check back to Larry.”

“That must be the letter Larry told Rusty about,” Tom said. “You weren’t in jail, were you?” Tom asked, bringing up Robert’s other justification for keeping Vladimir out of our house and my life.

“Jail? No, never,” he said, a little insulted.

“I figured,” Tom said.

Hearing Vladimir confirm what I had suspected all along caused me to well up with anger at Robert and Larry for having treated him so badly.

“Joe, I want to throw a big party for you the night after the next night. Friends of your mother and father will come to see you, yes?”

“I want to, but they plan everything I do,” I said with bitterness.

“We’ll work it out,” Tom said.

“And tell your newer father and mother to come too. I keep no hard feelings. They did what they thought best for you.”

I found that difficult to believe. Best for them was more like it.

“We’d better get back inside,” Tom said. “They’ll be wondering where we are.”

Vladimir handed Tom and me his card. The hotel he managed was called the Pearl. “You can reach me here. Call if you need anything. Anything at all. I’ll see you in two nights. Come at eight o’clock. Okay?”

Vladimir gave each of us one more suffocating bear hug before turning and walking away down the narrow street behind our hotel.

seventeen

The soldier who had pulled me out of the street ten years before was easy to find. He was still living in Dubrovnik and working in the tourist industry, just like Vladimir.

His name was Andro, and he gave tours for a living. He was around thirty years old and was dressed in black slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt.

“He’s perfect,” Cal Noonan said, as if Andro were an actor who’d auditioned for the part of himself.

We were outside the old city in the neighborhood I had lived in for the first three years of my life. The street Andro had pulled me from a decade before had been closed off for our meeting. Besides Cal and the two-man crew he’d brought with him from Los Angeles, there were several additional local camera and crew people. A surprisingly large press contingency was also on hand.

Larry Weinstein and Cal choreographed everything. First I was to walk into the street by myself and look around; then, after several minutes, Andro would come into the street and we would shake hands.

“Why can’t they let you be natural?” Hana asked.

“It’s like reality television,” I said. “They script everything for the most impact.”

“
Survivor
is scripted?” Hana was aghast.

“Pretty much,” I said.

“Did you hear that, Luka?” Hana said, turning to her brother.

“What is
Survivor
?” her brother asked.

I didn’t know what shocked Hana more: that her favorite reality show might be scripted or that her brother had never heard of it.

“Okay, Joe,” Cal said. “We’re all set. Don’t forget to look around and take in all the buildings. Anytime you’re ready.” Cal moved away and took his position next to a small monitor that showed what each of the cameras was filming.

“This is so stupid,” Martie said. “Why can’t you just go and meet him?”

I looked across the street to where Robert, Greta, and Guava were seated in directors’ chairs. Later, they’d get their chance to thank Andro, and pictures would be taken that would appear in newspapers all over the world, maybe not on the front page like ten years ago, but prominently enough, considering Robert’s announced candidacy for the Senate. Andro was standing a few feet from Robert. Cal had decided it was best to keep Andro and me from saying anything to each other until we were face to face in the middle of the street. “Save it for the camera,” Cal had said.

“Anytime, Joe,” Cal called from ten feet away.

My feet were frozen to the pavement. This
was
stupid. Why did every moment in my life have to be staged and manipulated for some other purpose?

“Joe, did you hear him?” Jessica said softly.

I nodded.

Cal walked over to me. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“I’m not going out there,” I said

“What do you mean you’re not going out there?” Cal asked. “We’ve got a scene to shoot.”

“I’m not going to be in your scene,” I said, seeing no need to explain myself.

“It’s not my scene, kid. It’s yours.”

Robert was walking across the street toward me. “What’s going on?” he said.

“I don’t want to do it.”

“You don’t want to meet the man who rescued you?” Robert said reproachfully, his tone implying I was an ungrateful little snot.

“I don’t want to meet him like this.”

“Just do it,” Robert said firmly.

“No,” I said just as firmly.

The press had caught wind that something was amiss and began moving in on us.

“You’re embarrassing me and you’re embarrassing yourself. Tom, tell him to go into the street.”

“It’s up to him,” Tom said.

Robert gave Tom a
how dare you? you work for me
glare.

“Give us a minute,” Tom said.

“All right,” Robert said, “but this better end with Joe walking into that street.” He motioned to the press to back off, saying, “It’s all right. This is very emotional for him.”

“I’m proud of you,” Tom said. “That took guts. But we’ve got a lot more to do. We came here to find out about your dad. So I think you should forget about Robert and forget about what Cal told you. Just go out there and wait for Andro. Cal’s not going to direct you when you get out there, not with all these reporters around. Just meet Andro and forget everything else that’s going on.”

“Okay,” I said, calming down. I knew Tom was right.

I walked into the street. In my peripheral vision I could see Cal scrambling to get his crew moving, but I pushed them out of my mind. I was determined not to think about the last time I stood in this spot, because that was what Cal and Robert and Larry wanted: an emotional moment showing Joe, the orphan boy, remembering how he lost his mother and sister. After a few minutes Andro stepped off the curb and walked toward me.

“Hello, Josef,” he said. Upon closer look, Andro seemed older than his thirty years.

“Hi,” I said back to him.

“You look good,” Andro said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “A fine-looking young man. You will have lots of girlfriends, I am sure.” He laughed.

For a moment I thought about Martie, but then I refocused.

“Thanks for saving me,” I said.

“You are most welcome,” he said. “Please call me if you need anything. I have the best tour in the city. I know the old city and the countryside.”

“Okay,” I said. “That would be great.”

Then we shook hands—not because Cal and Robert and Larry wanted me to, but because it felt right.

The next item on our itinerary was a trip to the historic stone wall that encircled the city. Robert hadn’t spoken to me since our confrontation earlier that morning. Greta had given me a conspiratorial wink when we left Andro. I wasn’t sure what was behind it; it might have simply been her pleasure at seeing Robert take one on the nose, or it might have been respect for my defiance of him. Maybe it was a little of both. Jessica had said, “I think she wants to be your friend.”

We were on the westernmost side of the wall, the Adriatic Sea shimmering beneath us on one side and the red-tile rooftops stretching out on the other. While Cal was busy filming Robert being interviewed by a woman from a local newspaper, the rest of us had a chance to act like real tourists, taking pictures of ourselves in every combination: Tom and me, Jessica and Martie, me with Greta and Guava, and so on. It was funny; seeing Greta and Guava through the eyes of Martie, Jessica, and Tom made me feel closer to them.

The same couldn’t be said of my feelings toward Robert.

When the reporter had finished speaking to him, Robert left to go back to the hotel for another interview without saying a word to me. Under Larry’s supervision, I began my interview with the woman from the newspaper. Cal and his camera crew were stationed nearby. The reporter spoke English, so I didn’t need Hana to translate. I was still feeling defiant, so I answered each of her questions, paying no heed to the carefully prepared statements Larry had gone over with me.

“Josef, how does it feel to be home?”

“It’s strange. I’m happy to be here, but I don’t exactly feel like it’s my home anymore.”

“Do you think of Los Angeles as your home?”

“No, not really. It’s complicated.”

“You were adopted by two of the most famous actors in the world. What has that been like for you?”

I could see Larry tensing up about ten feet away from me. His hands were in his pockets, maybe to prevent himself from running over to choke me if I said the wrong thing.

“It’s weird. I mean, what do you think?”

“I think it could be quite entertaining,” the reporter said.

“It’s that, all right,” I said. “But it’s hard to…just be.”

I wondered how long it would be before Larry stopped the interview.

“What do you mean?” she asked pointedly, clearly realizing that this wasn’t going to be the fluff interview she’d expected.

“Sometimes it feels like one big commercial. Someone is always promoting something, and we have to be so careful about what we say because it can get misinterpreted, or correctly interpreted, and lead to trouble.”

Larry was shaking his head disapprovingly out of the reporter’s view. I ignored him.

“I understand you are writing a book. Will you tell the truth in it, as you are now?”

“Yes,” I said, knowing my answer might come back to haunt me.

“How would you rate Robert Francis and Greta Powell as parents?”

“Okay, we really need to wrap this up here,” Larry cut in. “We’ve got an extremely tight schedule today, and we’re already behind.”

“But this is great stuff,” Cal said, filming Larry as he spoke. Cal was obviously more loyal to getting good material on film than he was to Robert or Larry.

“Turn that thing off,” Larry said.

“Why?” Cal asked. My defiance seemed to have spread to our documentarian.

The reporter was jotting down their exchange as quickly as she could write.

“Turn it off,” Larry said again, walking toward Cal, who backed away, keeping his camera going the whole time.

Larry put his hand over the camera and tried to take it out of Cal’s hands. The others in our group kept their distance, but now I saw Tom rushing to help. He arrived just a moment too late as Cal, jerking his camera away, caused Larry to fall backward down a set of stone steps. Larry went tumbling like a bowling pin, finally coming to a stop on the landing about fifteen steps below.

“Aaahhhh!” Larry groaned loudly.

“What happened?” Tom said as we ran down the steps.

“I told the truth,” I said, reaching Larry.

Hearing the word
truth,
Larry let out another “Aaahhh!”