Bebo

Frances O'Brien <CelebritySpawn>

	Chapter 25	686 Tage her
	The touch on my shoulder made me jump. After the day that I had had, I was not exactly expecting any friendly gestures. I turned quickly to meet this latest threat. It was Mom. She towered over me, a vision in the shimmering Versace dress that had finally been selected for her big opening night. Her make-up had been ruined – even waterproof mascara had its limits. We looked at each other for a long, silent moment. She seemed to be examining me for injury or harm. I was looking for evidence of her anger. On a scale of one to ten, I had pretty well gone beyond any measure of bad behaviour. I had lied to everyone, I had stolen, I had broken every trust. What did she think of me now? She sat down next to me and gently touched my face as if to check that I was real. And then she pulled me to her. She pulled me to her and she held me like she would never let me go. As she whispered to me, she rocked me gently. ‘Baby, baby, are you okay? I thought I’d lost you honey. I thought I’d lost everything…’ We held on to each other as we sobbed. ‘Mom, I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ve been so dumb.’ She pulled away and looked me straight in the eyes. ‘I haven’t exactly been a prize-winning Mom lately, now have I?’ she said. ‘I’ve let you down honey, I should have seen this coming.’ ‘How did you find me?’ I asked. ‘When I saw the note you left,’ she said, suddenly sounding pretty choked, ‘well, I called the house in London, to see if you had left any clue. Peter told me about your plans..’ There was a painful silence. ‘Honey, Robert Grand is not your Dad,’ she said. ‘I know,’ I said, trying to stop the tears. ‘You should never have had to go searching for the truth all on your own. It’s my fault. I should have told you about your Dad a long, long time ago. It should never have come to this.’ So I was finally going to hear the truth in the most unlikely of settings. It was just lucky that there were no fans or photographers around to see my Mom and I as we held on to each other on that dirty sidewalk in Paris. Mom squeezed my hand before she spoke. ‘Bliss, I want you to understand that I did what I thought was best. You deserved a great Dad. It used to eat me up with guilt to know that I could not give you the one thing that you most wanted. I’m sorry about that.’ ‘But you should know that, at one time, your Dad and I were very much in love. He was the only actor that I ever dated. When we met it was love at first sight.’ It was good to see her smiling at those memories. ‘His name was Daniel Duffy. He was Irish – so I guess that explains the red hair, huh? Honey, we hadn’t planned on having a baby. It was a shock to both of us when we found out that you were on your way. And it was more than he could handle. He was a young man…’ ‘If he had lived I’d bet that you would be the best of friends. You are like him in so many great ways. But sweetie, he died before you were even two years old. He was only twenty-five. It broke my heart…’ It was a lot to take in all at once – finding out who my Dad was and then losing him again. The tears that I cried were for a man that I would never know. My fantasies, however stupid they may have been, were no longer there to comfort me. I would never know my father. ‘Could I see a picture of him?’ I asked. ‘Honey,’ said Mom, trying to console me, ‘he was in a couple of movies that we could watch together.’ I tried to smile. ‘We’ll never be a family now, will we?’ I said. ‘We’ve got the best kind of family in the world,’ said Mom, with huge passion. ‘We’ve got a family that has chosen to be together. We’re tied together by love, even if we don’t share the same blood. You know, Bob has been watching over you ever since you took your first steps. In fact, he’s sitting over there in the car right now just waiting to take you home. And Andre and Portia may not be the most conventional people in the universe, but they are as crazy with worry about you as any real Aunt or Uncle could possibly be…’ I tried to lighten things up. ‘Has anyone ever explained to Ellen that she is the Grandma of this little troupe?’ Mom laughed and squeezed my hand. ‘Shall we go home then honey?’ she asked. ‘Where is home now?’ I wondered, out loud. ‘Same place it’s always been,’ Mom answered, ‘wherever we happen to be – together.’ We stood up. And as we waited to cross the road to the safety of Bob’s car, I knew that everything would be all right now. It occurred to me that happiness never came from getting what you think you want (like a dream dad), but from wanting all of the cool things that you already had (like a totally weird family). But life can change in an instant. The weirdo seemed to come from nowhere. It was the look of total horror on Mom’s face that made me turn around to see him. At first, the only thing that I noticed was that he was standing way too close to me. Then I saw the knife. He grabbed me before I could move. As I twisted to make my escape, he brought the huge silver blade up to my throat. The sharpness of the cold weapon made me too scared to breathe anything but the shortest of shallow breaths. I did not move. ‘Looks like I finally got your attention now Angel,’ he shouted. ‘All of those cards and letters; I tried to get through to you, I really tried. But you wouldn’t listen, would you? You got the police involved. They think you don’t want me.’ ‘It’s all a big mistake Thomas,’ said Mom, visibly shaking. ‘Just put down the knife and we can talk about this.’ That only made him increase his already tight grip on me. I realised then that I was in the hands of Mom’s most violent stalker – this was Thomas Anderson. No wonder Mom and Bob had been so paranoid about security. I tried not to think about anything but surviving. ‘Why did you ignore me Angel? I thought we understood each other. You know that I love you more than anybody,’ he said. The sweat from his shirt made me want to gag, but I focused on staying totally still. ‘Thomas I know that you love me,’ said Mom. ‘And that’s how I know that you would never hurt my daughter. Why don’t you just put down the knife now? I promise we can work this out.’ Mom took a step towards him, smiling her reassurance. But Anderson was not about to be charmed into submission. He pulled me tightly by the hair and he kept the knife firmly to my throat as he took a step backwards. ‘Stay away,’ he warned her, ‘you made me do this. It’s your fault that it had to come to this. Don’t make me do anything that you would regret.’ Mom quickly froze to the spot. ‘You don’t want her Thomas. You want me. So why don’t we just switch places? Let her go and then we can talk. It will be what you want – just the two of us.’ His grip on my hair loosened as he considered Mom’s offer. I twisted around slightly, away from the stench and the hold of the maniac. It was then that I spotted Bob. He was hiding from view behind one of the parked cars on the empty, tree-lined street. With a flick of his hand, he signalled for me to wait. It wasn’t as though I had too many options. Still, the sight of him made me feel that there was real hope of escaping with my life. Mom continued to talk to Anderson in a calm and reassuring tone. It was probably the most worthwhile exercise of her acting talent. Only a crazy man could have believed her promises of a new life together. But as she spoke her soft words of a future that would never be, I could feel Anderson begin to relax. His grip on my hair loosed and he dropped the knife to his side. That was my chance. Tony had always appreciated my need for a form of exercise that would be a little more challenging than pilates. Suddenly, all of those lessons in kickboxing were about to be put to the test. I tried to clear my head before I made my first move. If I could put some distance between me and the weirdo, then I knew that Bob would take care of the rest. This had to work. With all of the energy that I could muster, I threw my elbow into the side of Anderson’s ribs. This freed his grip on my hair. Before he could react, I turned towards him and kicked him hard between the legs. I did not wait to see him crumple. There was no time to lose. I ran towards my Mom. It was only as I reached her that I heard the shot.
	geschrieben von Frances O'Brien