Trophy Kid (5 page)

After checking in to our hotel, Tom and I spent the day going to monuments and museums. Robert was meeting with some lobbyists, while Greta and Guava were having tea with the First Lady.

“What’s your favorite place in D.C.?” Tom asked on our way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

“The Air and Space Museum. I like looking at the capsules and space suits from 1960s when we put men on the moon. The chief of NASA led Robert and me on a tour of the museum once. I think I was about five years old. NASA was having trouble getting money for the space program, and one of Robert’s senator friends from Texas wanted to make sure the agency got all the money they needed to explore Mars.”

Tom was flabbergasted as I described the way Robert carefully prepped me before the tour.

“Okay, Joe, listen to me,” Robert had said. “When we’re in the room with the
Friendship Seven
capsule, the man from NASA is going to ask you a question. Are you listening to me?”

“Uh-huh,” I responded. I was a very good listener.

“He’s going to ask you what you think of all this. And you’re going to say: ‘I want to be an astronaut.’ Okay, say it back to me.”

“I really want to be an astronaut,” I said.

“That’s right,” Robert said.

“No. I
really
want to be an astronaut.” I really did.

“Great,” Robert said, “and after you tell him you want to be an astronaut, he’s going to ask you why.”

“I know,” I said. “And I’m going to say, ‘Because I want to go to Mars.’”

“That’s great, Joe,” Robert said, giving me a proud pat on the head.

On the news that night, you could see me saying my line, followed by the NASA chief saying the lines he’d also rehearsed: “Maybe it takes a child from a country that was stripped of its dreams to remind all of us of the American dream of exploring space. Hopefully, Joe, with a little help from Congress, you can one day live your dream.”

“You
are
living a lot of kids’ dream life,” Tom said after I’d finished the story. We were walking across the Mall to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

I knew Tom was right, but that was the thing: like a dream, my life never seemed quite real. I often wondered if I’d have felt this way if I had been adopted at two instead of three; then I might not have had any memory of my real parents and sister, and if I didn’t have those memories, maybe I would call Robert Dad and Greta Mom. Or what if my adoptive parents were not two of the biggest movie stars in the world? What would my life be like then?

“You’re not so different,” Tom said kindly, reading my thoughts. He pointed to the wall as we walked alongside it, looking at the names of those who had died in the war in Vietnam.

“Everyone here was someone’s father or son or husband.” He came to a stop, then reached out toward the wall and touched an engraved name:
JOHN DOLAN
.

“I was five when he died. He was a helicopter pilot,” Tom said quietly.

There was a ton of questions I wanted to ask him: Do you remember him much? How did it happen? What was it like at home after you found out? But I didn’t ask him anything. If there had been a wall in Dubrovnik for men and women who had died in the war in Croatia and I had been looking at the names of my mom, dad, and sister, I think I just would have wanted a moment alone with them.

Because the truth of the matter was, no matter how many opportunities I’d been given by living with Robert, Greta, and Guava, I always felt like an outsider with them; I didn’t belong and I didn’t want to belong. I wanted my real family back.

My trophy-kid duties were light that evening. It was Robert’s night to be honored; I was just there to help project the image of a happy family.

Tom sat next to me at the awards dinner and seemed to enjoy the whole thing. Robert and Greta looked like royalty, and Guava looked bored beyond belief. Her restless, swinging legs constantly kicked me under the table. Other award recipients that night were a former basketball player, a chemist, a diplomat, a TV talk-show host, and an economist. But all I kept thinking about was that moment at the wall when Tom had reached out and touched the engraved name of his father.

Robert had an important meeting with a studio chief the next day, so we flew back to L.A. on the red-eye. I liked flying at night. It was quiet on the plane, and there was something about being in all that blackness so far off the ground that made me feel like anything was possible.

I was happy that Tom had taken the trip with us. There were so many things I wanted to tell him now that I was beginning to trust that he’d understand. But going to the Vietnam Memorial seemed to have taken a lot out of him, and he fell asleep almost immediately after the plane took off. Maybe that was for the best. If I’d told him what I really wanted to tell him, he might have thought I was crazy, or worse, he might have pitied me—and that would have ruined everything.

six

The Fourth of July was always a big deal at our house. Every year about 150 guests would show up for the Independence Day extravaganza. They were mostly Robert and Greta’s friends and colleagues from the entertainment business, many of whom brought their children. The party was always catered by one of the best restaurants in Beverly Hills or Hollywood, and featured a popular rock band on a stage that had been set up in the backyard. My favorite part was the fireworks show they put on after it got dark. This year was special for me because Greta had invited Tom and Jessica. They were among the first to arrive, around six o’clock.

Tom and I tagged along as Greta gave Jessica a tour of the house. Jessica kept saying, “Tom, can you believe this?” as we went from room to room. “Why didn’t you tell me how great their house is?”

“It’s incredible,” agreed Tom, but it was obvious that he wasn’t all that interested in the curtains, rugs, and tile flooring that were sending Jessica into rapturous envy.

We came back downstairs and Greta opened the French doors to the library. Robert was sitting in his favorite chair. It was made of extremely expensive leather, a color Greta described as “Napa Valley Cabernet.” The chair was always strategically placed in front of the built-in bookshelves that lined the walls of the library, instead of behind his large oak desk. If Robert was a meeting with a Hollywood producer, the chair was set in front of a collection of great literary works and art books that would make a librarian drool. However, if Robert was meeting with one of his political friends or someone seeking his backing for a charitable organization, the chair was placed in front of an assortment of significant books on history and philosophy, and biographies of great men and women.

That evening, Robert had positioned the chair in front of the nonfiction wall of books; obviously, this was a political meeting. Robert was dressed in tan linen slacks and a crisp, short-sleeved white shirt. The two men facing him both wore dark pants and sports coats, despite the fact that the temperature outside was around ninety degrees.

“Sorry,” Greta said, acting surprised to see the room occupied. “I didn’t think anyone was in here.”

I was pretty sure she just wanted to see who Robert was in there with.

“That’s all right,” Robert said. “We’ll be finished in a minute.”

Greta closed the doors. “Those guys want Robert to run for Senate next year,” she said, leading us away from the library and toward the sunroom.

She’d finally said something that seemed to pique Tom’s interest.

“Do you think he’ll run?” Tom asked.

“Yes, of course he will. He’s wanted to run for office for years,” Greta said with some bitterness.

“You don’t want him to?” Jessica asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Greta said. “Isn’t this a great room?” she chirped as we entered the sunroom. “Joe, you should practice your speech. Tom can help you while I find out from Jessica why he hasn’t proposed to her.”

Jessica gave Tom a
don’t abandon me
look, but Tom just smiled and said, “Okay.”

“Let’s go up to the writing room,” I said.

A few minutes later we were in the room above the garage.

“Why do you have to make a speech?” Tom asked incredulously. After having worked on the book with me for almost a month, he still could be jaw droppingly surprised by some of the things I had to do as a trophy kid.

“I have to make speeches. It’s how I earn my room and board,” I said dryly.

“Very funny…. How long has this been going on?” Tom asked with some trepidation.

“Pretty much ever since I could read.”

“You’re joking. So does that mean…”

“Everything’s written for me. Or for my character in the movie that’s Robert and Greta’s life, is more like it. You know, the one whose story we’re supposed to be writing.”

“This is unbelievable. Keep going,” Tom said, fascinated.

“Well, at first I said clever things kind of naturally, but Robert couldn’t always count on that. I might say something that could make him and Greta look bad.”

“Like at the baseball game?”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Right. So about your speeches?”

“Robert or Larry give me lines to say, or if it’s something they think is really important, they hire writers to write for me.”

“I thought that was just for the time you testified before Congress,” Tom said, still having trouble grasping what I was telling him: that my public persona was almost entirely scripted.

I shook my head. “Usually it’s just a line or two, like when I was seven and we went to the premiere of this science-fiction movie set in the future when there was no water. If anyone asked, ‘Joe, what did you think of the movie?’ my line was ‘It made me thirsty.’”

“Pretty funny line,” Tom said.

“It should be. A friend of Robert’s whose job it is to make unfunny comedies funny told me to say it.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of people like that. They’re kind of like ghost screenwriters.”

“One time, when I was older, I think around ten, I told Robert that I felt like a phony saying all those lines I supposedly thought up myself.

“‘Everything we give you to say is based on who you are,’ Robert said to me. ‘We just want to make sure you’re being yourself when we go out in public.’

“‘How can I be myself if everything’s written for me?’ I asked him.

“‘Because it’s your best self,’ he said. ‘Based on your personality. People love you, Joe. Don’t you like that?’”

“That is so messed up on so many levels,” Tom responded.

“They hired you, didn’t they?” I said, shrugging.

Tom nodded. “They sure did.”

A worried look was on Tom’s face.

“What?” I asked.

“If Robert is expecting this book to be about the you the public sees…” Tom broke off.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Tom said. “Come on, let’s go downstairs.”

“What about practicing my speech?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

The band had already played a full set when Robert and Greta took the stage and thanked everyone for coming to their party. Robert introduced me by saying, “Our son, Joe, wanted to say a few words to you all.” He then looked at me; I was positioned at the side of the stage. “Joe, come on up here.”

When I got onstage, I wanted to say,
My dad’s a big phony…. So is my mom, and so am I.
But instead, I gave my short, prepared speech, about being grateful for America and Americans like my mom and dad, and closed with “Everyone should forget their diets for the rest of the day, because the food is really expensive.”

That, of course, got a big laugh, and everyone applauded when I jumped off the stage.

“You’re good,” Tom said, laughing and shaking his head.

One of the highlights of the evening was supposed to be Guava singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” complete with tap-dancing and sparklers. Her act would lead into the fireworks display. It was a highlight, that’s for sure.

At dusk, the music to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” came through the expensive sound system. Guava came onstage dressed like Uncle Sam, except with short, sequined pants. The crowd applauded loudly. Guava had a mike on the lapel of her Uncle Sam coat and loudly sang out the words to the song, strutting from one side of the stage to the other.

When she went into her tap dance, she reached into her coat and pulled out little firecrackers. This must have been her own idea, because all the color drained from Robert’s and Greta’s faces as Guava lit the first firecracker, tossed it onto the stage, and tap-danced around it until it exploded. The crowd went wild. She repeated this action four or five times; the audience was eating it up.

Guava then lit another firecracker and tossed it onto the stage as before, only to watch it bounce and land on one of the band’s electric guitars, which was resting in its stand next to an amp. The guitar and amp must have still been turned on, for no sooner had the firecracker gone off than the guitar burst into flames. There was a loud crack from the power amp, which suddenly had smoke pouring out of it.

A few screams erupted from the crowd. Guava was frozen, and everyone else, me included, was either in the same petrified state or looking around for someone else to do something. Finally, Robert jumped onto the stage and grabbed Guava, while Tom pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall at the bottom of the writing-room stairway and quickly sprayed the amp and guitar.

Once Robert had gotten her out of harm’s way, Guava, in tears, ran into the house, followed by Greta. Robert told everyone to go back to enjoying themselves and thanked Tom for his quick thinking. Everyone applauded Tom, who looked slightly embarrassed. I was relieved that Guava hadn’t been hurt, but I wished I had been able to do something to help her instead of just sitting there. I wished I could be more like Tom.

After a brief interlude allowing everyone to settle back into having a good time, the
planned
fireworks display went on without any accidents or surprises.

I sat with Tom and Jessica during the show.

“How come you knew what to do?” I asked as fireworks of all colors and shapes were lit on the tennis court, which was a safe distance from people and houses.

“Comes from playing gigs in a lot of clubs,” Tom said, checking out the array of colored lights exploding in the sky. “You never knew what might go wrong. I got in the habit of knowing where the fire extinguisher was in every joint we played in. I kind of do it automatically now.”

“Remember that night Rusty set his pants on fire?” Jessica laughed.

“What happened?” I asked eagerly.

A huge firecracker went off with a loud bang. The white light from it was reflected in Tom’s glasses. He had a smile on his face that might have come either from the latest explosion or from the memory he was about to share with us.

“Okay,” Tom started, “we were onstage and Rusty lit a cigarette between songs and without thinking tossed the match on the ground. Except the match was still lit, and instead of landing on the ground, it landed in the cuff of his pants. We were about a third of the way into the next song when I heard some strange notes coming out of Rusty’s bass. I look over and Rusty’s beating at his pant leg with his bass, trying to put out the fire. I found the extinguisher and sprayed his leg. It wasn’t a big deal. The worst damage was from Rusty smashing his ankle with his bass guitar. He walked with a limp for about a month.”

I was beginning to see one of the reasons Tom kept Rusty as a friend: a lot of great stories.

“This could have been a lot more serious,” Tom said, referring to Guava’s pyrotechnic display a short while before.

Robert came over and squatted in front of us.

“How’s she doing?” Tom asked.

“She’s still pretty upset. Greta’s with her. Thanks again for putting out the fire. I owe you one.”

“No problem,” Tom said, as if putting out fires was just part of the job he’d been hired for.

Guava rejoined the party a little while later, no longer dressed as Uncle Sam but wearing a
Kids in the House
(her favorite TV show) T-shirt and jeans. I was surprised when she came over and sat by me. After a minute or two, she leaned her head on my shoulder. It stayed there until the last of the firecrackers did its business and dropped to the ground.