A Rising Star

The Bed

I miss our bed the most.

I can never admit that to anybody, not my mother and certainly not the Producers. The bed is a constant reminder of my mother's failed aspirations to be the most powerful woman in the country. But as I roll out of Momma's arms, my toes curling into the threadbare beige carpet, I know that the twin-sized bed reminds me of safety and comfort and all the ways that I am loved. It is nothing like the silk and feathered monstrosity I sleep in alone at the mansion.

"What time will they pick you up?" Momma seats up on her elbows. Her lips upturn, but her eyes have glazed over. She stares at a spot just above my ear.

"Not for a few more hours."

"I'll make breakfast." I don't bother to ask her what it will be. Since I was a child—and every year subsequent when I return for my twice yearly vacations—we have had hard-boiled eggs and toast for breakfast. One egg for each of us, to make sure our monthly rations last. On special occasions, she always adds a few drops of honey to the toast.

I watch Momma set the water on the stove before placing two pieces of bread into the toaster. When she was my age, sixteen, her hair reached her mid-back in tight coils. She told me she had straightened it once and it flowed to her legs. But I've only known Momma to have a sensible pixie, her curls cropped close to her head. As she moves around the kitchen in her navy terry-cloth robe, she sings a little melody about dancing until sunrise. Her voice is beautiful, as always, but her words ring hollow. She is trying too hard.

"Don't waste the honey on me," I say when she opens the cabinet to grab the jar. We both know that I can eat all the honey I want at the mansion. She ignores me and spreads a generous dollop.

By the time I bite into it, the honey has sunken into the toast, making a soft-crunchy symphony on my tongue. I am happy for the honey.

Momma regards me silently from her side of the kitchen table, drinking hot water flavored with a few drops of lemon, as if it was a mug of espresso. Beauty is her name. And with hair as dark as the espresso she deserves to be drinking every day and a constant coral glow beneath umber skin, she is all things beautiful and more.

Compare that to my bright and tawny freckled skin that clashes with my copper kinks. I would have named such a disappointing daughter Bitter as well. After all, my birth is directly responsible for her move into one of the government-sponsored high-rise apartments in Southern California. She had been destined to live in the high society of Foggy Bottom.

"You don't have to go back, you know." Momma says that every morning I leave and every morning I leave, I lie.

"I want to." This morning I add something further. "I really think this is the year." I chew on my lower lip, an irritating habit that is only surpassed by the annoying tendency to cry at all the wrong times.

Momma stands, stacking my white plastic plate on top of hers and running her fingers across rippled rim. "I don't think being First Lady is as wonderful as the Shows make it out to be." She only needs to turn her waist to place the dishes in the sink.

"You wouldn't know." My words are rushed. I feel an all too familiar heat spread throughout my chest, and up to my eyes. I clasp my hands to keep from shaking, as I force the tears back down my throat. "You never were First Lady."

Just then our television flashes on. The thundering baritone of the morning announcer doesn't even cause our eyes to flicker in the direction. The required silent hours are over. I need to get dressed if I expect to look presentable before The Producers return me to Hollywood.