Trophy Kid (12 page)

“What kind of problems?”

“Well, you know how Rusty is with gambling? How he can’t help himself?”

“So he joined Gamblers Anonymous,” I said.

“Exactly. Toni is kind of the same way except with bad boyfriends. She picks the worst guy she can find and then totally wraps her life around him until something goes wrong and they break up. It’s just tough on Martie, you know?”

“What about Martie’s dad?”

“He fit the mold. The last we heard, he was living in a trailer somewhere in the Northwest. He never writes or calls her.”

“I guess in a way Martie’s an orphan, too,” I said. “It’s lucky she has you guys.”

“Hello, Joe,” Martie said, coming onto the patio with Jessica. Her voice sounded like nothing was wrong, but I could tell she’d been crying. Jessica brought Martie a bowl of spaghetti, and we told her about our plans to go Dubrovnik.

“Maybe you can come, too,” I blurted out.

Tom and Jessica looked at each other.

To me it seemed like a great idea. Martie could get away from her mom, who might recover from the bad boyfriend by the time we got back.

Jessica said, “That’s nice of you, Joe, but I really don’t think that’s possible. You have things to do, right, Martie?”

“Not really,” Martie said. “My mom and I were going to go to Lake Tahoe for a couple of days, but I think that’s off now.” She looked a little embarrassed and disappointed.

Tom and Jessica looked at each other again.

“All right,” Tom said. “Let’s think about it. I’ll have to talk it over with Robert and Greta, but maybe we can make it happen.”

I hoped so.

fourteen

Having Martie join us on the trip was easy. Several nights later, we were all in the entertainment room after dinner, and Greta said to me, “Your friend is coming with us.” Robert was watching the news while Greta and Guava were sitting on the floor going over the artwork and photos for Guava’s upcoming CD. Having completed the first season of
Flavors,
Guava was now fully focused on preparing for the recording studio.

“What friend?” Guava asked.

“What’s her name, Joe?” Greta said. “Something with an
M
, right?”

“Martie,” I said, trying hard to keep the happiness out of my voice.

“I can’t believe that mother of hers,” Greta said, “abandoning her daughter so she can run off with some guy.”

“Tom says Martie’s mom has an addiction to bad boyfriends.”

“Smart fellow, that Tom,” Greta said, without looking up from Guava’s photos.

“Do I have to share my room with the girl who’s coming with us?” Guava asked.

“I told you, you and Megan are going to share a room.”

“Great move hiring Tom,” Robert said to Greta. “I sent John Handleman the sample chapters, and he was very happy with what he read. It’s exactly what I was hoping for. Tom just gets it.”

Wait until Robert, Greta, and John Handleman read what we’d
really
written.

“John says Tom has written some screenplays,” Robert continued. “I might have him take a look at that script for the remake of
To Kill a Mockingbird
I want to direct,” Robert continued.

“That’s the first I’ve heard about it,” Greta said, looking up from the CD artwork.

“I thought I told you,” Robert said, keeping his focus on the TV.

“You’re going to run for Senate
and
direct a movie?” Greta snapped.

“I’m also thinking of playing Atticus Finch.”

“This is wrong on so many levels,” Greta said, shaking her head and throwing her arms in the air, as if appealing to some higher court.

Guava and I exchanged an
oh, boy, here it comes
look.

“First of all,
To Kill a Mockingbird
is one of the greatest films of all time, and it should never,
ever
be remade,” Greta began. “Second, if you are going to ignore my advice and go into politics, I don’t see how you are going to direct and star in both a major motion picture and a Senate campaign at the same time.”

“Did you say
star
in a Senate campaign?” Robert interrupted. “This isn’t a lark, Greta.”

Greta ignored the interruption. “And third,” she said, “if you think the public is going to vote for you because they think you
are
Atticus Finch, and not some ego-driven, megalomaniac actor from Red Hook, New York, then either you or they are stupider than I thought…. And you know, I have a lot of faith in the intelligence of the American public.”

“Are you through?” Robert asked calmly.

“For now,” Greta said.

“First of all, great films get remade all the time. It’s a business, in case you hadn’t noticed. A business that has been very good to our family.”

Oh, brother, he’s going to argue Greta point by point as if he’s in a political debate. He’s probably thinking this is good practice.

“Second,” Robert continued, “I haven’t ignored your advice, I simply don’t agree with you as far as my entering the Senate race is concerned. The movie will shoot in the fall and leave me a full year for the campaign. And third, no one in Hollywood ever lost money by
over
estimating the intelligence of the American public. People want simple stories and simple messages, and if they see me playing one of the greatest moral heroes of the last century, they will get the message that morality is what Robert Francis is all about.”

“Oh, my God, you’ve started referring to yourself in the third person. We’re in deeper trouble than I thought,” Greta said sarcastically.

“Daddy,” Guava said, “if you become a senator, do we have to move to Washington? What about my TV show?”

“We’ll still live here, honey, but we’ll also have a home in Washington,” Robert said.

“You’ll see your father even less than you do now, sweetie,” Greta said, stroking Guava’s hair.

“What do you think about this, Joe?” Robert asked, surprising me by asking my opinion.

Judging by the politicians I’d met, I figured Robert would be as good as any of them, maybe better. But my main concern was the trip to Dubrovnik, so I didn’t want to side with either him or Greta.

What would Tom say?

“I think you’re both right,” I said diplomatically. “It’s a big decision that will affect our family and maybe even our country.” I knew I was pouring it on a little too thick, but they seemed to be buying it. And I figured if you live with drama kings and queens, you sometimes have to use a bit of drama yourself.

“That’s a very intelligent answer,” Greta said, as if I had just totally agreed with her.

“Very much so,” Robert said, implying that, in fact, I was agreeing with him.

“I just want to go to Dubrovnik,” I said honestly.

Two weeks later and we were really going. The early-August heat was intense, so it felt good to be in the air-conditioned grand ballroom of the Hyatt near the L.A. airport.

Seeing Hana again was awkward at first. She was waiting near the front of the room when our entourage came in. She looked younger than I remembered. She was a large woman with wavy brown hair that went just past her shoulders. Her nose was long and pointed and her eyes were hazel. Upon seeing me, she rushed over and hugged me.

“Josef, look at you. You are so big!”

“Thanks, Hana,” I said, a little embarrassed to be fawned on in front of Tom, Jessica, and especially Martie, who was ecstatic to be going with us.

“Joe, we need you,” Megan called out from the platform that had been set up at the front of the room.

A short while later Robert was saying, “It is with the support of my family and those citizens who believe in making the American government accountable to the American people that I am announcing today my intention to become the next senator from the state of California.”

It would be nice if he were as accountable to me as he promises to be to the American people,
I thought, standing with Greta and Guava at Robert’s side.

A large ensemble of supporters, reporters, and cameramen were present to witness Robert’s announcement and take photos of him with his America’s Sweetheart wife, his America’s Newest Little Darling daughter, and his America’s Favorite Trophy Kid adopted son.

Tom, Jessica, Hana, and Martie were huddled together off to the side of platform, next to Larry Weinstein, who, like a ventriloquist, mouthed the words as Robert spoke them.

Robert effortlessly segued from his political campaign to our trip to Dubrovnik. When he said, “In returning to Joe’s birthplace, the site of so much tragedy, we seek to find reconciliation and newfound hope,” Larry actually pumped his fist and said “Yes!” like we’d won a sporting event.

Robert concluded by saying, “Thank you very much, and God bless
all
of America.”

I had to admit Robert was totally charming and looked the part of the crusading public servant; if I’d been old enough, I might have even voted for him.

When reporters asked me what I thought about Robert’s running for Senate, the words Larry had coached me on came effortlessly: “He made my life better, and I’m sure he’ll do the same for everyone else in California.”

But when asked what I was hoping to find when I returned home, I said, “The truth.” This was definitely not the answer Robert or Larry wanted me to give. I wasn’t sure why it popped out; I was supposed to have said, “Peace.” Larry said this would have the double meaning of finding Croatia at peace and finding the peace of closure from my own past horrors.

Once “the truth” had popped out of my mouth, I felt laser-beam glares from Robert and Larry, and was peppered with follow-up questions from reporters.

“What do you mean, ‘the truth’?” one reporter asked.

“Has the Croatian government been hiding something from you, Joe?” asked another.

“Who’s the lady? Does she have something do with this?” a third reporter asked, pointing to Hana.

My old trophy-kid instinct kicked in. “I want to make peace with the past is all I mean. Isn’t peace what we all want?”

Robert looked relieved; Larry, impressed.

“And the woman you were pointing to,” I went on, “is my former nanny and my translator for the trip.” Hana looked uncomfortable with the attention she was getting, and Larry looked equally ill at ease with the focus on her. He quickly announced to the reporters that we needed to get to the airport, adding, “Thank you all very much for joining us on this historic day.”

Our “Dubrovnik party,” as we were later described on one newscast, made our way out of the hotel and into a pair of waiting limos. It was a short distance to the airport, where we were driven onto the tarmac. Our plane, a chartered Gulfstream V, was waiting for us, along with a throng of reporters and photographers. Security abounded; I guess Robert’s simple announcement that he was running for Senate warranted all the extra men and women dressed in darks suits, wearing tiny walkie-talkie receivers in their ears and serious crowd-scanning looks on their faces.

After passing through the gauntlet of cameramen on the ground, we climbed the moveable stairway and boarded the plane.

The plane seated fifteen, which was exactly the number of people in the Dubrovnik party. It looked more like someone’s living room than the cabin of an airplane, with a sofa, tables, and leather chairs.

Our security team—Rodney and Butch (neither of whom had worked for Robert when Vladimir crashed my eleventh birthday party)—was seated closest to the pilot’s cabin. Next came Greta, Guava, and Megan. In the middle sat Robert, Larry, and Cal with his cameraman and sound person. I was seated in the back of the plane with Tom, Jessica, Hana, and Martie.

Tom draped the green corduroy jacket he had brought over the back of his seat. In his blue jeans and plaid shirt, he looked like he might be going out to see a movie or to the Hollywood Bowl on a summer evening and not traveling over seven thousand miles to a small city on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.

Jessica was helping Hana, who seemed a little overwhelmed by everything, to get comfortable.

I was still wearing the dress shirt and slacks I’d worn to the press conference. Martie, in a pink T-shirt and jeans, was across from me. “The flight attendant told me they have all sorts of games,” she said. “We could play Scrabble or Monopoly or…” The list went on, but I was too busy thinking
She’s so pretty, don’t look at her, she’s so pretty, don’t look at her
to listen.

When the engines started up, I became incredibly nervous. Not because I thought we might crash or something, but because of what I might find—or not find—once we landed in Dubrovnik. It was a fourteen-hour flight, including fuel stops, so I had plenty of time to anticipate and speculate on what might lie ahead. I’d already waited two years since Vladimir Petrovic had appeared by our baby grand piano, so what was another fourteen hours?

Still, my mind raced with what-ifs: What if my real dad was alive? What if we found him lying in some hospital bed in a coma? Or what if I found out that he was healthy, except for the minor detail that he had no memory of his life before a bomb exploded on the bridge he was rebuilding? Or worse yet, what if he remembered everything but had chosen not to find me? What if seeing me only reminded him that he’d lost his wife and daughter, and he felt it would be best for both of us not to see each other? These thoughts were so intense that I didn’t even realize the plane had taken off.

I looked at Robert sitting next to Larry and across from Cal, and my blood began to boil. If Robert had done anything to keep me from my real family, I would never forgive him.

As soon as our flight attendant announced we could “move about the cabin,” I grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt out of my travel bag and went to the bathroom to change.

When I returned to my seat, Cal was waiting for me.