Searching for Glory Read online

  I calculated that it would take two full days of driving to reach my destination, Princeton, Missouri; longer if I stopped to rest. I could fly instead and arrive in about four hours, but I needed the time to think. This trip was one I had thought about over the years, but it had still blind-sided me. I hadn’t been home in over ten years, not since the day I packed up my car and left for good. A lot of intense shit had gone down in Princeton, and some of it I wasn’t ready to face yet.

  I decided it would be worth my while to swing by my place and pick up some personal items. In my hasty packing at Richard’s place, I hadn’t even remembered to grab my tooth brush. I also had a more valuable item in mind. After grabbing the essentials like deodorant and underwear, I pulled an old shoe box from my closet.

  I opened the lid to quickly made sure everything was still in order and the folder paper on top caught my attention. I really needed to get on the road, but I found myself removing the letter from the box. The handwriting on this letter was slanted and winding- my handwriting. The story inside was over twenty years old but the emotions that went with it were still an open wound.

  Princeton, Missouri: 1990

  I don’t know if you remember that day, but I can’t forget it. It’s part of my soul. Back then I was just six years old, still known just as little Glory Stark. Prior to moving to Princeton, my family of four had lived in a two room trailer in an even smaller town, so I had seen the move as a step up in the world.

  While my parents unloaded our meager possessions, I ran around the house to check out the backyard. It was even bigger than I had hoped. An overgrown tree toward the edge of our property drew me forward. At the bottom of the tree, I stopped when I heard a small voice call out.

  It was then that I noticed the tree house buried up high in the branches. It was rustic and simple, but to me it looked magical. A tiny head emerged from the small doorway, a head that was covered with dark, wavy hair. It emerged a little further and I could see that it belonged to young boy about my own age. His skin had been browned by the summer sun and his eyes were an icy blue, like the color of a pond frozen over in the dead of winter.

  “Who are you?” the boy called down to me timidly.

  “I’m Glory,” I yelled back. “I live here now. What’s your name?”

  “Johnny. Johnny Carter.”

  That was how we met- at the edge of our backyards. We would go on to spend many days and nights playing in that tree house. Later, we would go there seeking refuge from the chaos that engulfed our lives. But on that day, it meant nothing more to me than a new adventure, and a new friend.

  “Glory Stark! Get in this house right now and help your sister,” my mother called from inside the house.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “Do you want to be my friend?”

  “Sure.” It was the first time anyone had ever asked to be my friend.

  I flashed you a smile, revealing my missing front teeth, then skipped back across the lawn and disappeared inside the house.

  I often think back to that day and wonder how different my life would be if I hadn’t gone into the backyard. I also wondered how different your life would have been. It’s the one part of my old life that I will always allow myself to remember; I insist on remember us like that- innocent and happy, neither of us having damaged the other yet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As I drove, I never stopped being amazed by how every small town I passed looked identical to all the others. From the town squares and local businesses, to the rustic storefronts and peeling awnings. A hardware store, barbershop, tavern and church were mandatory. I didn’t see a Wal-Mart or a Starbucks.

  My cell phone rang out a merry tune from the passenger’s seat and I checked the caller ID. It was Richard, again. I let it go to voicemail, just as I had done with the last seven calls. Eventually, I would have to take his call, but first I needed to think about what I would tell him. He had probably thought our relationship was fine; not perfect, but we had been happy together. I wasn’t sure how I would tell him that I hadn’t been truly happy even one day in the past ten years.

  Johnny’s letter had brought to the surface all of the feelings I had kept buried since I left Princeton. And now that they had gained buoyancy, those feelings were only getting stronger. I had to deal with them, and I had to face my old demons.

  I lost track of time while I drove, letting the wind cool my face and tangle my hair. I had passed through two states already and I was making pretty good time so I decide to stop and get some rest. I pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of a sketchy looking motel. In my Hollywood life, I stayed only in five star hotels; but now I was living a different life and I thought this motel suited me just fine.

  The attendant inside barely looked up as he entered my information into the system. I was using my Glory Stark identification since I had never officially changed my name to Gloria Star. It was a technique that helped me keep parts of my life private. He started to hand me the room key, making eye contact for the first time, and a flash of recognition lit up his face.

  I thanked him in a hurry and grabbed the key, leaving the room before he could confront me about my true identity. My room was simple but clean and despite my better judgment, I flopped down on the questionable looking bedspread. If I wasn’t so tired I might have thought twice about the possible infestations and germs it carried, but I was exhausted and I drifted quickly into a nightmarish sleep.

  Memories from my past found their way to the surface as I slept: the last night of my father’s life, the day my mother had packed up and left, Johnny in handcuffs being put in the backseat of the police car. In all of these memories, I stood watching helplessly as nothing more than an invisible figure in the corner. I awoke covered in sweat, my heart racing.

  I gave up on trying to sleep and stumbled into the bathroom. After turning on the hot water in the shower as far as it would go, I stood under it and let it scald and cleanse me; a metaphorical baptism. I stood there until the hot water ran out and then I dressed quickly in ratty jeans and a plain white t-shirt. In Hollywood, when I wore this look they called me fashionable; when I had worn an identical look in high school they had just called me poor, white trash. Go figure.

  I ran a comb quickly through my long hair and brushed my teeth. Then I stood and looked at my reflection wondering how the image staring back at me could ever be considered the sexiest woman alive. My hair was long and blond, and it naturally dried with a slight wave. It was easily my best feature.

  The rest of me was plain, at best. I had been told my face had a good bone structure but I didn’t really know what that meant. My blue eyes were round and expressive, sometimes giving away more than I would like. Some people described me as having a girl-next-door appeal and I thought that was a pretty good description. I was slightly tall, just about 5’8” and I had an athletic build. Basically I looked like a million other women with no distinguishing characteristic besides being famous. Life was funny like that.

  Outside, the humidity was already rising even though the sun had just barely cleared the horizon. I tossed my overnight bag into the trunk of my car and then walked across the street to the local diner. Normally I just drank a lot of coffee for breakfast but after not having dinner last night, my stomach was growly angrily.

  I seated myself at the counter and a young girl, probably still a teenager, took my order: an egg-white omelet with a side of bacon and coffee. Her nametag said her name was Amber.

  Amber was wearing heavy eye makeup that aged her beyond her years, but not enough to mask the innocence in her eyes. I wondered if my eyes had ever looked like that. She placed a mug of coffee in front of me and tilted her head thoughtfully. “Anyone ever tell you that you look like Gloria Star?”

  “Quite often actually,” I said humorlessly.

  “You ever wish you really was her?” She snapped a pink bubble in my face.

  “Not even a little bit,” I said honestly. “I’m still tr
ying to figure out how to be me.”

  Amber laughed knowingly, wise for her age. “Tell me about it. You ever figure it out, you come tell me.”

  “Will do.” I wondered if Amber ever wished she was Gloria Star. If so, I would’ve told her it was a fool’s dream and that she was much better off just being Amber. But I ate my omelet and said nothing.

  I left a big tip and offered a friendly wave on my way out the door. For the next couple of hours I drove with the radio turned up, drowning out any stray thoughts that fought their way into my brain. It worked until I lost reach of the music stations in a barren part of Nebraska.

  Since my road trip had been completely impromptu I hadn’t come prepared. No CD’s or iPod to take over the silence. I tried listening to talk radio but it wasn’t an effective distraction. I could feel the thoughts rising again, and this time there was the added thought that I would be arriving in Princeton soon. That meant I would be seeing Johnny soon. And that’s when the panic attack started.

  * * *

  A sign along the highway announced that I was now in Missouri. There was no turning back. I pulled over at a rest stop and grabbed a soda and candy bar. As I chewed on my Snickers, I started to wonder about Johnny, and what his life had been like since I left. I knew that he had lost his baseball scholarship at the local college and a few years back, his father had suffered a stroke, but that was all I knew. Vic had tried to talk to me about him many times but I always changed the subject. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know; I just didn’t want to hear about how badly his life had been screwed up because of me.

  I had been relying on my GPS for directions up until this point, but now I was navigating purely by memory. The small towns I passed through were all familiar to me. When I reached Princeton, I drove around the outskirts of town, heading for Vic’s farm.

  After our father had died, our mother completely lost it. She had already used drugs on a semi-regularly basis, but Douglas’ death had ruined her completely. When I was thirteen, she met a man when she was at work one night. Two months later, he had to leave town and she went with him. She sent us money every few months, just enough to pay the bills.

  Vic was only fifteen but she got a job and struggled to keep us afloat so that Child Services wouldn’t find out about our situation. More than anything, she didn’t want us to end up in separate foster homes.

  Vic, like many young girls without parental guidance, had gotten pregnant when she was still in high school. She had dropped out and married the baby’s father, Jake, and he had moved in with us. He was older than Vic by two years, and had a steady job. He took good care of Vic, and I had approved of their decision to try to make things work. She gave birth to her daughter, Julia, at the ripe age of seventeen.

  I used to babysit Julia when Jake and Vic were at work. She was one of the only bright spots in my life back then, and I had loved her more than I had realized was possible. Two years later, Vic and Jake had a baby boy, Christopher. He was mild mannered like his father, and with him in our lives it felt like we had formed a dysfunctional but happy family.

  After I had moved away, Vic and her family had only stayed in the house for a couple more years. Vic got pregnant again, and the house wasn’t big enough. Jake decided to give farming a shot and they had bought a large plot of land to the east of the city. I have never been to the farm but I was able to locate it based on the black mailbox near the road that was helpfully labeled “The Delroys” in giant block letters.

  The house was set far back from the road and I turned my car down a narrow dirt path to reach it. A cloud of dirt was kicked up by the wheels of my car and I coughed against the violated air. As I slowed in front of the house, I spotted Vic a few yards away carefully hanging freshly laundered clothing on a battered clothesline. She looked up curiously and then her brow creased as she realized it was me. She didn’t exactly look happy to see me.

  “This is a surprise,” she said as she picked up the laundry basket at her feet.

  “A nice surprise?” I asked hopefully, walking around the front of the car to greet her. The sun was shining brightly so she raised a hand to shield her eyes as she looked at me.

  “That remains to be seen.”

  She turned on her heel and headed toward the house. I stood by my car uncertainly, not sure if I was supposed to follow.

  “You came all this way,” she called over her shoulder. “You might as well come inside.”

  I followed Vic inside the house, taking it all in. It was a traditional two-story farm house; weathered but homey. The inside smelled like freshly baked bread and I could hear sounds of children fighting in a distant room.

  “Come see who finally decided to pay us a visit,” Vic called to her children with a bit of tartness that was purely for my benefit. “You want something to drink?”

  “Water. Please.”

  “Aunt Gloria!”

  My body slammed up against the kitchen counter as I was crashed into from behind. Based on the sticky hands that were gripping my legs I knew that I had just been tackled by my youngest niece, Marta. The sound of more tiny feet pounded the hardwood floors and I was hit again from behind by my nephew Jake, Jr.

  “You kids are getting strong,” I said, twisting in their arms to hug them. Marta was just six years old, the youngest of the brood. Her blond hair was secured tightly in pigtails tied with pink ribbons. Her brother, J.J., was three years older and he had a red kool-aid mustache coloring a messy shadow on his upper lip.

  “Where are our presents?” Marta asked, looking around hopefully.

  “Marta,” Vic scolded her daughter, but not with a lot of conviction. I tried not to laugh; the only time I ever saw the kids was around Christmas which had conditioned them to expect presents whenever they saw me.

  “It’s okay. I would have brought presents if I had known I was coming. It was all very last minute,” I explained. Marta and J.J. had already lost interest in me now that they knew I had nothing to offer. “I’ll take you guys shopping later.”

  “Yes!” J.J. grinned, revealing another missing tooth. Vic let out a frustrated sigh and handed me a glass of ice water.

  “You two better go pick up your rooms right now. If those rooms aren’t spotless, nobody is getting any presents.” There was just a split second pause before they both fled the kitchen, shoving one another on the way.

  “I guess that’s one way to get them to do their chores,” I said, taking a long drink of water. “I wonder if I could get them to wash my car.”

  “What are you doing here?” Vic was clearly not in the mood for small talk.

  I didn’t want her to know about the letter yet so I said, “I just needed to get away from California. All the glitz and glamour of Hollywood was starting to get to me. I thought it might be nice to go where nobody knows me.”

  “Well good luck with that. Everyone in this town knows who you are.” Vic grabbed a couple of glasses from the dish rack and filled them with ice cubes. “You’re famous everywhere, not just in L.A.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “Do me a favor. Take this water out to Jake and his friend? They’re out by the barn working on one of the tractors.” Vic handed me the water glasses but the look on her face said she was thinking of something else. “I need to go check on the kids.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Vic was up to something, but I wasn’t ready to confront her for lying to me. I walked outside slowly, being careful not to spill water in the house. I was able to walk slightly faster once I was outside and I headed off toward the red barn. I approached the dirty yellow tractor parked in front and spotted someone bent over the front of it with his back to me. I sat the water glasses on a fence post and crept up behind him.

  “Hey ya, Jakey. Lookin’ good,” I said, pinching one of his ass cheeks playfully. Jake and I had always had a teasing relationship, playing pranks and just generally giving each other a hard time. He flinched and then straightened up slowly.

>   “I ain’t Jakey, darlin’,” a familiar voice drawled. Even before he turned around I realized my mistake.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered, quietly cursing my sister.

  Johnny finally turned around and my heart nearly stopped. He was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a white t-shirt with oil stains on it. His hands were also covered in oil. His hair was cropped close on the sides but the top was longer, a mess of gentle waves. His skin was the deep tan that one can only get from spending a Midwest summer working in the sun.

  Everything about him was familiar to me, but he was also taller and more built than I remembered. I could see his biceps flex as he wiped his hands on a dirty rag. I knew I should say something; already an awkward amount of time had passed with me staring at him. Johnny smiled faintly and only then did I notice his eyes. I had spent many hours of my life looking into those eyes, fascinated by both the color on the surface and the warmth hidden deeper. But now, those same eyes were guarded.

  “Johnny,” I finally managed to choke out his name. I picked up one of the waters and held it out to him. “Vic wanted me to bring you some water.”

  “Glory.” He reached out to take the glass from me and the combination of hearing his voice say that name and feeling his fingers graze against mine was almost enough to make me run all the way back to California.

  “I didn’t know you were out here,” I said, lamely trying to explain away my earlier behavior. “Vic must have forgotten to mention it.”

  “Forgotten, sure.” Johnny gave me a bigger smile now, one reminiscent of the smiles he used to give me a long time ago. “So, what brings the famous Gloria Stark to Princeton?”

  “You already know the answer to that,” I said softly. The smile vanished from his face.

  “You look good,” he said. “Different, but good.”

  “You, too.”