Becoming Mila by Estelle Maskame
7
My phone rings and I answer the call, half-asleep, to the sound of Ruben’s enraged voice yelling down the line at me.
“Your father told me what happened last night. Totally, utterly one hundred percent unacceptable!”
“Good morning to you too, Ruben,” I mumble, sitting up in bed and checking the time on my phone. Eight a.m. Sunlight is filtering into my room, but my eyes are too sensitive, so I clamp them shut and rub at my eyelids. “Isn’t it only, like, six in LA? Why are you up so early?”
“Mila, darling, there’s no rest for the wicked in this industry,” he says dryly. “Your father was attending a very important dinner last night and you think that’s a good time to have your little hometown buddy call him? Where precisely were you? It didn’t sound like you were at the ranch as per my instructions.”
“He isn’t my buddy,” I protest. My throat feels scratchy from dehydration, and I pull back my sheets and stick a bare leg over the side of my bed so that the AC hits my skin in just the right spot.
“Then what happened? Are you befriending the Tennessee locals by offering personal phone calls with Everett Harding?”
How could I have forgotten how much of a pain in the ass Ruben is? He’s kinda like an uncle to me, but one that I loathe for always being on my back about everything. “Of course not! I was at a—” Abruptly, I stop myself. Maybe I shouldn’t be confessing to Ruben that I’ve broken his rules so soon.
“You were at a what, Mila?” he prompts.
“Okay, I went out with an old school friend to a tailgate party,” I say in defeat, but I have to rescue this so that Sheri doesn’t get in trouble too. “Sheri didn’t know, but don’t worry, she’s set me straight now. No leaving the ranch. Got it.”
“Mila,” Ruben practically growls. “Not even twenty-four hours and you’ve created a shitshow. Must be a new record. You just couldn’t stop yourself from mentioning your father, could you?”
“I didn’t! Someone else did! ”
He sighs. “Can I suggest that you bond with those relatives of yours, help muck out a horse stall or two, maybe read a couple romance novels? No leaving the ranch. No. More. Parties. Understood, Mila?”
I slowly peel open my eyes, adjusting to the light, and wake up enough to get defensive. “Ruben, that’s impossible. How do you expect me to maintain a low profile in Dad’s hometown where everyone knows exactly who we are? You should have packed me off to a different continent if you really want me to remain undetected.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” he huffs. “Like I could trust you out in the world.” Then his tone shifts. “To be honest, I don’t care where you are. But I’m taking over your social media accounts as of now.”
I squeeze my phone harder. “What?”
“I’ve changed all your passwords,” he announces. “You only have to put out one tweet – one photo on Instagram – that even remotely hints at the fact that you’re back at the old stomping grounds, and the paparazzi will start sniffing around.”
“Ruben, has anyone ever told you that you’re the most annoying person in the world?” I ask sweetly, wishing I could climb through the phone and strangle him.
“Yes, darling, plenty of times. But I’m the absolute best at what I do.” I hear him blow me a kiss down the line. “Now behave, Mila sweetie, and keep yourself busy at that ranch. Don’t have me call you a second time.”
The call goes dead, and I throw my phone to the floor and slump back against my pillows, groaning into my sheets. I wish I could be a normal sixteen-year-old who doesn’t have her father’s manager controlling her every move, but as Mom always reminds me, I’m not normal. It’s not easy on her, either. She’s the wife of a goddamn movie star. The rumors that circle are insane, and the pressure to play the role of the perfect, gorgeous, supportive wife gets to her too. No wonder she focuses on her own life within the industry with so much passion. It lets her be her own person.
Hell, I wish I had my own identity.
With a tired yawn, I stretch out my arms and then slip out of bed. It’s an odd thing, waking up in a brand-new room. Back home, my bullet journal sits on my mirrored glass end table; my favorite body lotion and perfumes are aligned in perfect order along my dresser; my jewelry is arranged in dainty little boxes along the shelves on my walls. Here, everything is all over the place, spread out over the floor. I make a start on unpacking, but I feel even more exhausted by the time I sift through everything. I’ve piled my clothes into groups across the floor, lined up all of my self-care products, and set my teddy bear on my pillow. Then I give up on putting everything away and head downstairs instead.
The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafts from the kitchen, so I follow the scent. The house is so silent that I’m surprised when I find Popeye in the kitchen. He’s fiddling with the hinges on a window, a wrench in hand, while gazing outside across the ranch he is so proud of. I look out at the fields with him. I think it was actually my great grandfather who built the Harding Estate up from nothing after the Second World War, then Popeye and my grandmother inherited it and raised their own family here. Dad would have been in line to take over if life had played out like generations before him might have expected, but his ambition threw a wrench in the works. That’s why Sheri has been helping Popeye out with the ranch all these years, because I imagine one day it will belong to only her. The ranch used to be so much bigger when I was a kid – a few hundred acres larger – but Popeye sold off most of the land a few years ago right before the security walls went up so that it’s much more manageable. I can’t imagineDad ever returning to live here, even if his career were to end at some point. It’s so far from who he is today.
“Good morning,” Popeye greets me, holding up the wrench. “Sheri is with the horses, but she said she’ll cook you a hearty breakfast once she’s back. I’m trying to fix this darn window that won’t stop creaking.”
“That’s okay. I can grab something myself,” I say. I pad across the wooden flooring and plant a kiss on his cheek. “Good morning, Popeye.”
My hand is on his shoulder, and he squeezes his fingers around mine, his skin warm. He looks down into my eyes. “So, I hear you got stuck outside the gate last night.”
I throw my arms around him from behind and bury my face into his shoulder blade, inhaling the scent of . . . Well, the scent of Popeye. Like someone who has lived his entire life on a ranch. “Yeah, I did. Let’s not joke about it.”
“It’s been just Sheri and me around here for so long it’s easy to forget we have someone else to consider for once,” he says, though his tone is more downbeat than playful.
I’m painfully aware that we really haven’t visited as much as we should have over the years, and an image of Sheri and Popeye sitting at the dining table, just the two of them, day after day, tugs at my heart. It’s kind of like, when Dad packed up his life and moved to LA with stars in his eyes he forgot about the lives of those he left behind.
I unwrap my arms from around Popeye’s shoulders and he sets his wrench down, then crosses the kitchen. He rifles through a drawer rammed full of papers and cables, then holds up a plastic device like a small TV remote. “This is for you,” he says. “I’m going to call that technician and give him a piece of my mind if he doesn’t show up and fix that gate soon, and when he does, you can use this electric remote to get in and out. But until then, please make a note of the correct code.”
I move across the kitchen to take it from him, turning it over in the palm of my hand. “Thanks, Popeye.”
Sheri appears at the back door to the kitchen, shaking her hair out of its ponytail. She’s wearing an old shirt and tattered jeans caked in dirt, and she kicks off her grubby rubber boots by the welcome mat. Sheri is blessed with naturally gorgeous features, so even when covered in horsehair and muck, she still manages to look like a million dollars. Dad once told me that, in her early twenties, Sheri was set to marry a paramedic from the city, but he was tragically killed in a car accident out on the interstate. She has never gone on to marry anyone else or have kids of her own. It seems to suit her, though; she always seems cheerful and contented.
“Oh, good morning, Mila, you’re awake!” Sheri says, crossing the kitchen. She lifts a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, right up until Ruben woke me up. He wasn’t too thrilled about last night.”
“Last night?” Sheri repeats, stiffening. “Ruben knows you went out?”
“Yeah. About that . . .” I say sheepishly. “There was a little . . . Incident. Someone took my phone and called my dad.”
“Oh, Mila!” Sheri groans, turning for the sink. She lathers up her hands with dish soap and rinses them beneath the faucet. “Now Ruben will call meand give me hell!”
“No, he won’t,” I say with a shy smile. Although I haven’t had much of a chance to grow close with my family over the years, I do like Aunt Sheri, and I really appreciate that she’s willing to take me in for the summer. The last thing I want to do is make life difficult for her. “I covered for you.”
“Thank you, Mila. That’s the kind of teamwork we need to have, okay?” she says with a relieved laugh, shaking the water from her hands. She might be my aunt, but I get the sense Sheri is still young at heart. “Oh, Dad! What are you doing with that wrench?”
Popeye gestures with the tool. “Fixing this darn window! That latch you broke last week. I don’t want this place turning into a tumbledown shack. Not now, not fifty years from now, not ever,” he grumbles.
“Okay, but perhaps this isn’t the best time . . .” With a groan, Sheri turns back to me. “Mila, we have church at ten, so make sure you’re ready to leave in an hour.” Her eyes catch on my frayed jean shorts. “And our church’s attire is semi-formal, so please wear a skirt.”
“Church?” I repeat as though she’s spoken a language I don’t understand.
“It is Sunday,” she says, brows pinching together as she scrutinizes my bewildered expression. It seems to dawn on her that I’m not confused about which day it is, but rather confused about the notion of attending church in the first place. There’s a distinctive shift in her demeanor. “I assume Everett doesn’t take you in LA?”
“No.”
Popeye mumbles something unintelligible under his breath and walks out of the kitchen, banging the wrench down on the table with a clatter. Sheri lets out a disappointed sigh.
I fear upsetting her further, so in as positive a tone as I can muster, I tell her, “Skirt it is. I’ll get ready.”
I mean, how bad can church really be? It’s clearly super important to Sheri and Popeye, so I guess that means it has to be important to me while I’m here in Fairview.
Sheri disappears off to check on Popeye and I toast myself some bread, taking it upstairs to my room with me. I should probably call Mom at some point rather than just text her, but honestly, Ruben has sucked all the energy out of my soul, and I’ve had enough of a reminder of my life back in Hollywood for one day.
I spend ten minutes doodling in my bullet journal instead, designing a new spread for this fresh chapter of my life here in Fairview. I create a section entitled “New Memories” which I plan to fill out with any memorable events that occur while I’m here, and I make a note with yesterday’s date and the words “tailgate party”. Hopefully, stuff will actually happen over the summer, because I’ll feel super lame if the pages in my journal remain mostly blank.
Then, I shower and get dressed so I’ll be on time. I keep my hair down in its natural waves and I put on a denim skirt, the most modest blouse I packed, and sandals. Part of me wonders if denim is even allowed, but it’s the only skirt I brought with me.
When I head back downstairs an hour later, Popeye is sitting in the shade out on the porch and looks handsome in his brown slacks and white shirt. His silky white hair has been smoothly combed over and he even smells like cologne. He reaches for my hand again when I join him, and I realize that I’m the only grandchild he’s ever had. No wonder he looks at me as though I’m something pure and special.
“I’m glad you’re coming with us,” he says. “Lots of young people attend, so it’s not just us oldies.”
“If church is important to you, Popeye, then I want to see what it’s all about,” I tell him, though it’s not one hundred percent the truth. I’m not thrilled about going, but I know my words are ones he’ll be happy to hear. And that’s really all there is to it – you keep your grandfather happy, even if you have to lie a little.