Free Hollywood Beginnings (A Novella) by Kathy Dunnehoff

didn't know how good his chest felt and how nice he'd smell if I put my nose into the collar right there to take in the warmth of him. My deep down desire was to ignore my own questionable judgment, walk up to that podium, and pull his sandy blond head down to my shoulder to give him some comfort.
    I was beach blanket twisted too.
    Brian looked out over the crowd, and I wondered why anyone in their right mind would let a tabloid writer in a funeral, let alone give him a mic.
    Mom sighed in what sounded like relief. "Oh, I'm so glad."
    I wanted to shake loose whatever nuttiness had gotten stuck in her normally pragmatic brain. "Mom, you'd better brace yourself, 'cause he's gonna say god knows what about you. We should go."
    She waved a dismissal and ignored me to give all her attention to her biggest fan. Yuck and yuck again. I wished I'd never slept with him, or at least not liked it so much.
    He cleared his throat. "Some people would say that a man like Van Baron had a lot of love to give."
    There was a murmur in the crowd as if they'd collectively determined it would be one of those eulogies, lots of gloss and no truth.
    "Some would say he had the same amount of love in him when he died."
    It took a moment for the insult to register and the take back the night woman laughed out loud.
    "Until yesterday I would have agreed." He glanced around the church, and I tried not to think he was looking for me, then he lifted one hand as if not sure where to go from there. "I'd say that Van Baron was like a father to me except he was nothing like a father to me." He smiled, shook his head. "He was just the man who fathered me."
    I sucked in a breath, trying to figure out the logistics of Van and Brian. I wished I knew exactly how old Brian was and that I'd paid more attention in math class. I felt myself pale, my head take a swoopy dizzy dive, and I grabbed my mother's arm. "I slept with him."
    Mom raised an eyebrow. "I didn't expect you played Parcheesi until dawn."
    "But he's..."
    "Van's son." She looked at me in question and then irritation showed on her face. "Would I have sent you with him last night if he were your brother? Honestly, Amy, what you remember from the Bible is quite disturbing. You were always like that. Ignore the lovely example of Ruth and wear out Revelations."
    "Mom! This is serious. Who's his mother?" I waited, tried to ignore the strains of the Beach Boys' tune I Get Around while Brian talked about Van's hometown of Detroit.
    My mother sighed. "Her name was Lisa. She worked in craft services on the set and made the best potato salad. I wonder if he got her recipe, bless her soul."
    "You knew her? Hey, wait, you knew Brian was Van's son?"
    "Well, I didn't before the restaurant. He took his mother's name, Keller. She raised him alone, unfortunately." She looked troubled by that. "But when I saw him last night, I knew. He inherited Van's leading man looks."
    I could hear Brian begin to talk about Van's career in the 1960's, and I knew I needed to pay attention. Something could come up that involved the strange woman sitting next to me, formerly the mother I thought I knew.
    "At one point in Van's career, there were fan clubs in every state devoted to him. I was growing up in Wisconsin with a single mother and neither of us were fans. When I came to L.A. I didn't look him up. I didn't see him. Maybe that's right, maybe that's wrong. Sometimes we can't even know what we'll regret."
    Now he did find me in the crowd and looked at me in a way I couldn't read. I held my breath.
    "Sometimes, if we're fortunate, we know what we'll never regret."
    I wanted to shake my head no , to make it clear to him that I did regret our night together, but I didn't. I couldn't.
    "Standing up here today was one thing I knew I needed to do. I thought I would lay out some accurate portrait of the man. His legacy is a Hollywood story, and we all know Hollywood legends are anything but accurate. Pretty sometimes, ugly other times, but almost