Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir by Melissa Francis Read Free Book Online

grown-up. Mom had washed and curled our long locks and even put a little blush on our fair cheeks and mascara on our lashes.
    When Mom finished curling the last tendril of my hair, I looked in the mirror to admire the finished product, and saw two different-sized versions of the same doll looking back at me.
    “You look so cute,” Tiffany said, putting her arm around my shoulders and smiling at my image in the mirror. When her eyes shifted to her own appearance, her shoulders tensed and she grimaced a bit, even though I thought she looked perfect.
    “You look beautiful. I love your dress more,” I said wistfully.
    “Do I?” she asked.
    “You do,” I said, utterly convinced. She smiled.
    Mom and Dad pulled out all the stops too. Mom shimmered in a long black dress that glittered and danced when she walked, and Dad put on his most handsome navy suit with a red tie. They looked as perfect and happy as I’d ever seen them, like the newlyweds I imagined they’d been before we arrived.
    When we pulled up to the party, security and staff ushered us down a red carpet. Mindy Cohen and two other girls from The Facts of Life buzzed around a chocolate fountain inside and squeezed my cheeks and arms as they greeted me. They all worked on the set next to ours, and would allow me to come play with them during lunch, as if I were their mascot.
    Mom floated joyfully around the party with the three of us in tow. She stopped to talk to the other moms, and drifted toward the bubbling fountain of melted chocolate. Her eyes lit up when she saw the show’s writers; she was eager to pick their brains and see if the show had any hope of being picked up for another season. Tiffany hung a step behind me and eventually stopped making the rounds with us. She and Dad gravitated to a table, where they sat and talked and eventually looked bored. They’d both been excited to dress up and come to the party, but the glitz wore thin once they’d visited all the food stations and danced a few numbers.
    At the end of the night, we slowly coasted back out to the North Valley in our limo. Tiffany and I chose the novelty of riding backward, trying hard to fight off sleep.
    I opened the robin’s-egg-blue box with the red ribbon they’d handed me on the way out. The colorful packaging fell away to reveal a shiny silver box lined with red velvet. It was as heavy as lead. On the bottom, the box was stamped TIFFANY & CO. On the top, the inscription read NBC with a tiny peacock next to it. I ran the tip of my finger back and forth over the engraving and thought about what treasures I’d hide inside.
     
     
    That Christmas, Santa brought every toy I’d ever imagined, and a few I hadn’t thought to wish for. Tiffany and I awoke before dawn and crept to the top of the stairs, where we sat on the first step waiting for Mom and Marilyn to say it was time to go down and tear open the cornucopia of presents that spilled out around the base of our enormous white flocked tree. Marilyn always spent Christmas Eve at our house so she could see our faces in the morning when we greeted our haul.
    “Whoa,” I said to Tiffany as we stretched to see everything that waited below. The lights on the tree danced and bounced off the wrapping paper and walls, making the living room look more like a disco.
    “I know. They outdid themselves. They must have been up all night!” Tiffany said.
    “They?” I asked, suspicious but still wanting to believe in the red-suited god who delivered pure joy once a year.
    “The elves. That help Santa,” Tiffany reassured me with a smile.
    Mom and Marilyn strode out of the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair disheveled. They were already sipping coffee in holiday mugs.
    “I thought I heard you two,” Mom said with a smile.
    “Should I wake Dad, or can we start?” I asked with a jolt of excitement.
    “Don’t wake him. Just come down and get started. But you have to open one at a time so Marilyn and I can see your faces. It will be hours