“It's starting to look like a big deal,” her mother said casually. “Every time I look at you, the foot is swollen. Did you tell the doctor that? You can't even wear high heels.”
Melanie looked sheepish. “I forgot.”
“So much for being grown up at twenty,” Janet added. Melanie didn't have to be completely grown up. In some ways, she was just a kid. It was part of her charm. And she had a flock of people around her to take care of her. In other ways, Melanie was far older and had matured from years of hard work and discipline in her career. She was both woman of the world, and enchanting child. Her mother would have preferred to convince her she was still a baby. It gave her all the power, but in spite of Janet's efforts, Melanie was growing up, and becoming a woman in her own right.
Melanie tried to take care of the ankle. She went to physical therapy, did the exercises they gave her, and soaked it at night. It was better, but she was afraid to wear platform shoes or high heels, and when she stood for a long time in rehearsal, it hurt. It was like a constant reminder now of the price she paid for the work she did, and that it wasn't as easy as it looked. The money, fame, and razzle-dazzle of her business didn't come easily. She had performed with a nasty injury all summer, getting on stage with it at night, traveling constantly, and having to make it look as though everything was fabulous, or at least fine, even when it wasn't. She thought about it all one night as she lay awake in bed, with her ankle hurting, and in the morning she made a call. She'd had the name and number in her wallet since she left the Presidio in May. She made an appointment for the following afternoon, went to meet him by herself, and told no one.
The man she went to see was a small rotund man with a bald head and the kindest eyes she'd ever seen, except Maggie's. They talked for a long, long time. And when Melanie drove back to the house in Hollywood, she was crying. They were tears of love, joy, and relief. She needed to find some answers now, and all of his suggestions had been good. And the questions he had asked her about her life had plunged her into ever deeper thought. She had made only one decision that day. She didn't know if she could do it, but she had promised him and herself she would try.
“Something wrong, Mel?” Tom asked her when he came to pick her up for dinner that night. They went to a sushi restaurant that they both loved. It was quiet, pretty, and the food was good. It had a serene Japanese look to it, and as Melanie looked across the table at him, she smiled.
“No, something right, I think.” She told him about the meeting she'd had that day with Father Callaghan. She said Maggie had given her his name when she said she wanted to do volunteer work. He ran two orphanages in L.A., and a mission in Mexico, and was only in L.A. part of the time. She'd been lucky to call him when she did. He was leaving the next day.
She told Tom about the work he did, mostly with abandoned children, young girls he rescued from brothels, boys who'd been selling drugs since they were seven or eight. He housed them, fed them, loved them, and turned their lives around. There was a shelter for battered women, and he was helping to build a hospital for people with AIDS. He worked with similar people in Los Angeles, but his real love was what he did in Mexico. He had been doing it for more than thirty years. Melanie had asked him what she could do to help him. She had wanted to volunteer in L.A., and thought he might ask her to write a check to help with the missions in Mexico too. Instead, he smiled at her, and invited her to come and visit there, and told her he thought it might do her a lot of good. It might give her answers she was seeking and had talked to him about, in her own life. She had everything in the world to be thankful for, she told him, success, fame, money, good friends, adoring fans, a mother who did everything for her, whether she wanted her to or not, and a boyfriend who was wonderful to her, a really good person whom she loved.
“So why am I so unhappy?” she had asked the priest, with tears running down her cheeks in rivers. “I hate what I do sometimes. I feel like everyone owns me, except me, and I have to do everything they want, for them … and this stupid ankle has been killing me for three months. I worked on it all summer, and now I can't get it better. My mom is mad at me because I can't wear heels on stage and she says it looks like shit.” It was all jumbled in her head as it came tumbling out like building blocks from a child's dump truck. Her thoughts were scattered all over the place. She could identify them, almost, but she couldn't make sense out of them, or make anything useful out of her concerns. He handed her a couple of tissues, and she blew her nose.
“What do you want, Melanie?” Father Callaghan asked her gently. “Never mind what everyone else wants. Your mom, your agent, your boyfriend. What does Melanie want?”
Before she could stop them, the words blurted out, “I want to be a nurse when I grow up.”
“I wanted to be a fireman, and I wound up being a priest instead. Sometimes we take other paths than the ones we expected to take.” He told her he had studied to be an architect, before going into the priesthood, which he found useful in the buildings they were putting up in the Mexican villages where he now worked. He didn't tell her he had a Ph.D. in clinical psychology that was even more useful to him, even in his dealings with her. He was a Franciscan, which worked well in his chosen line of work, but he had toyed with the idea of being a Jesuit. He loved the intellectual side of his Jesuit brothers, and enjoyed heated debates with them whenever the opportunity arose. “You have a wonderful career, Melanie. You've been blessed. You have a tremendous talent, and I get the feeling you enjoy your work, some of the time anyway, when you're not performing on a broken ankle, and no one is exploiting you.” In her own way, she was no different than the girls he rescued from brothels in Mexico. Too many people had been using her. They just paid her better for it, and the costumes were more expensive. But he could sense that everyone, including her mother, was pumping her to do their bidding, until the well ran dry. It had started to run dry for Melanie on her last concert tour, and all she wanted now was to run away and hide. She wanted to help others, and get in touch with what she'd experienced in the Presidio after the earthquake. It had been a time of epiphany and transformation for her, and then she had to go back to real life.
“What if you could do both? Do the work you love to do, when it's not overwhelming, maybe even on your terms. Maybe you need to take some of that control away from others. You can take some time to think about that. And take some time out of your life to help others, people who really need you, like the earthquake survivors you helped with Sister Maggie. Maybe the balance in your life would make more sense then. You have a lot to give people, Melanie. And you'd be amazed at what they'll give you back.” Right now, no one was giving her anything, except Tom. She was being bled dry.
“You mean like work with you here in L.A., or in your mission in Mexico?” She couldn't imagine being able to find the time. Her mother always had plans for her, interviews, rehearsals, recording sessions, concerts, benefits, special appearances. Her life and time were never her own.
“Possibly. If that's what you want. Don't do it to please me. You make a lot of people happy as it is, with your music. I want you to think about what would make you happy. It's your turn, Melanie. All you have to do is get in line, step up to the booth, and get your ticket. It's waiting for you. No one can take that away from you. You don't have to get on the rides everyone else wants you on. Get your ticket, pick your ride, and have a little fun here for a change. Life is a lot more fun than you're allowing it to be. And no one should take that ticket away from you. It's not their turn, Melanie. It's yours.” He was smiling at her, and as she listened to him, she knew.