Free Famous by Todd Strasser Page B

face, and winked.
    My star was definitely on the rise.
    NEW YORK PRESS
Baby Pap Scoops the Pros Again!
    Jamie Gordon, the “baby paparazzo” has done it again! The fifteen-year-old prodigy photographer, featured three weeks ago in a New York Weekly magazine profile, has nailed the cover of People with a shot confirming that actress Naomi Fine is pregnant. Photo editors and fellow photographers are agog.
    â€œFirst the Tatiana Frazee child-abuse shots,” quipped one editor. “Now the Naomi Fine baby bump. It’s amazing. Either this kid is the luckiest thing ever, or she really knows what she’s doing.”
    â€œIt would be a remarkable accomplishment for any paparazzo,” agreed another. “But for a kid that age, it’s mind-boggling.”
    Some of Jamie’s fellow photographers are understandably jealous. “I’m not impressed,” said one. “Some people are saying that the first time might have been luck, but the second means she’s for real. But lots of people get lucky twice. They even hit the Lottery twice. Let’s see how long it takes for her to scoop everyone again.”

    The newspaper article featured a side-by-side display of the
People
cover and a photo of me taken by that paparazzo, Lynn, outside Naomi Fine’s building the day Marco the hairdresser freaked out. And, just as Avy had predicted, that was only the beginning. The story was picked up by national TV and dozens of other news outlets. Suddenly I knew what “more famous” meant. I was interviewed and photographed, TV news teams followed me from school to my stakeouts with other photogs. At one stakeout outside a restaurant, Seth Rogen made a joke out of coming up to me and asking for
my
autograph!
    Dad and I flew to LA for the
Tonight Show
. Even though I barely slept on the red-eye coming home, I went straight to Herrin from the airport the next morning, running on adrenaline and doing my best not to miss more school and tick my mother off. And, of course, looking forward to basking in everyone’s admiration.
    After all, there I was on TV, the Web, the supermarket news racks. For the moment I was not just the most well-known high school student in New York.
    I was, quite possibly, one of the best-known high school students in the country.
    If not the world.
    After school I trudged home, pulling my roller suitcase stuffed with outfits I’d brought for the
Tonight Show
. I was toast, completely exhausted after catching at mostonly two or three hours of sleep on the plane the night before. I left the suitcase in the front hall and went into the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at a mug of tea cupped in her hands, looking haggard and pale. I knew at once that something was wrong.
    â€œWhat happened?” I asked.
    She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes. “Alex had a seizure. Elena was taking him for a walk. Luckily they weren’t far from St. Vincent’s.”
    â€œIs he okay?” I asked.
    â€œYes, thank God. It wasn’t a bad one. We just got home half an hour ago. He’s in his room, resting. But it was terrible. I was so scared when I got that call. I had to cancel all my afternoon appointments and rush down there. My patients know about Alex, and they say they understand when I have to cancel at the last minute. But not everyone reschedules. Each time something like this happens, I lose patients. . . . Sometimes”—her voice cracked—“I just don’t know if I can handle it.”
    She placed a hand over her eyes and began to weep. Her shoulders trembled, and she looked old and drawn. She wasn’t just crying because she was tired and scared; she was crying because it was so unfair.
    â€œCan’t Dad help?” I asked. “Couldn’t Alex stay with him more?”
    â€œIt’s not practical.” Mom pulled thetears from the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. “Alex