Free After Perfect by Christina McDowell Page A

believe, with a strict schedule of singing with David Cassidy, acting with Danny Bonaduce, dance rehearsals, and photo shoots. One afternoon Shirley Jones taught all of us Lauries how to bake a homemade cake at a house in the Hollywood Hills. It felt more like summer camp than a reality television show. Emily and I had grown to become great friends. She nicknamed me Audrey, and I nicknamed her Gilda, for Audrey Hepburn and Gilda Radner, honoring our favorite actresses. She would have me on the floor in the green room, crying from laughing so hard over her Britney Spears impersonation. And whenever Josh walked in, it turned into a scene from Napoleon Dynamite .
    Josh: “You stayed home and ate all the freakin’ chips, Kip!”
    Emily: “Don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting with online babes all day. Besides, we both know I’m training to become a cage fighter.”
    Josh: “You’re such an idiot! Uh!”
    It was obvious that Josh and I had a crush on each other. Neither one of us cared to play by the rules, and he had opened up to me about his father being the executive producer. It was his first job after having just graduated from USC’s film school. He kept finding excuses to sit next to me during meal breaks.
    â€œIs it okay that we’re sitting alone together? You know, since I’m not supposed to be fraternizing with crew members,” I said.
    â€œDon’t worry, my dad doesn’t give a shit. It’s Sony we have to watch out for.”
    Josh looked around. We were sitting at a table underneath one of the tents in the parking lot behind the stage. “We’re in the clear.”
    â€œSo what was it like growing up in LA?” I asked.
    â€œProbably similar to growing up in DC, if you substitute movie stars for politicians . . . so what do your parents do?” Josh asked.
    Suddenly utter panic consumed every fiber of my being. No one had asked me this since my father had been sentenced to prison and would be disbarred. I had no answer prepared. My father’s attorneys had prepped me for everything else but this: what to say in the aftermath. I had managed to avoid any talk about my family on set. I didn’t want anyone to know that once a week, late at night, I had been driving to the rental to give him my per diem money we received on set for food and gas. They needed it to put food on the table until more money was wired into the Wells Fargo bank account.
    During my first week on set, after Chloe and my father had moved out to Los Angeles, and the house in Virginia was officially gone, I met them for dinner at the Pearl Dragon the night they flew in. It was a chic Asian fusion restaurant in Pacific Palisades, and my father tried to pay with the credit card, but it was declined. I watched from the other end of the table, the waitress kneeling next to him, whispering something and handing him back the card. So I got up and handed him the few hundred dollars that Becky had given me for the week. “Here, Dad, take my per diem money.” He took the cash and paid for dinner while I walked back to my seat. He didn’t thank me or look me in the eye—the humiliation was unbearable. But I was happy to do it. I didn’t want him to worry.
    In the months before my father had to surrender to prison, every day felt heavy with anticipation. My father never left the house. He was nothing short of a recluse, staring at his computer screen all day. I walked by his open computer once when he wasn’t in the room and saw he had been reading a document that a friend had sent him about how to survive prison. And all of the things he should be warned about. I didn’t know anything about prison except that I believed he didn’t belong there. I was too afraid to bring it up with him or ask him about it. No one wanted to talk about their feelings or talk about the truth: that he was leaving us and no one knew when he would be