Chapter 4: Take Four

Lavinia has a huge crush on Dante, so she spends her time blabbing to him on the phone, while I talk to Chamomile, aka Cammy. She's nice, I suppose, but just because our moms are friends doesn't mean we have to be friends. I mean, she's a bit stuck up and thinks her parents are way more successful in the Hollywood industry than Mom and Harley is, but hey, it isn't a competition! Heidi is really kind to me, though, and is almost like my second mom. She can take topics to new heights with her wonderous way of sparking up a conversation, and you almost never get bored. Mom told me she had a strong desire to stay positive after Heidi went through a period in her career when she had drugs and alcohol problems and had to go to rehab. This happened to Mom as well after she divorced Dad, although I was only three at the time and have no memory of him. Mom doesn't really like to mention him, thus I do not know much about him, although I do know his name: Troyjan Lester Ryefeld, although the media and Mom seemed to refer to him as just "Troy". It made me wonder if his first name came from the Ancient Greek Trojan Horses, and I remember asking Saffron if he was possibly Greek, as I didn't want to ask Mom this time. Saffron said she recalled him telling her he was born in Athens to Greek and Jewish parents. That made sense! I've always been curious about my dad, so I have done some Googling about him and there have been many Hollywood tabloid reports from years ago. I've seen news headlines stating that Mom broke up with him due to him "not being famous enough" and after his "sluggish career in the industry". I wonder, did he have a horrible career? He mostly acted in sitcoms that were cancelled after the pilot episodes, and unknown movies that got a hubbub when they came out, but weren't nominated for Academy awards or anything else. But the press, as usual, was probably looking at all his failures and highlighting all the "horrors" of his career. Just rumors about violence with Mom and Mom filing a lawsuit, and I remember her telling me, "Most things are untrue and just a whole load of meaningless crap," Mom told me when she saw a CelebBuzz News headline of a rumor that she had been kicked out of a film production, when she had actually only quit because she was pregnant with me. A paparazzi shot of Mom with her pregnant belly walking down Sunset Boulevard was plastered on the front page of the L.A Times, when I did more Googling about Mom. Mom would kill me if she found out that I was doing all this secret research behind her back, as she wants me and Lavinia to get distressed by the amount of news we see online about her, our Mom. But her hiding just makes me more intrigued and interested. Why doesn't she want us to know about certain things? What secrets has she kept from us about her incredible career? She's busy with work all the time so I never get to ask her these sorts of questions. I don't know what Dad is doing now, as he seems to have slipped into a state of incognito after the breakup, which has been over ten years now, and there have been no reports of him acting in films since or doing anything major in the film industry. I occasionally have the thought of what my real dad is doing and if he was a good dad. Mom changed mine and Lavinia's surname from Dad's to her surname, Mulette, immediately after the divorce, thus there is no record or information about my previous surname. I've always been a Mulette since then and probably always will. Just because Mom wed Harley in the spring I have no intention of changing my surname, as I don't feel a close bond with my stepdad yet.