Stripped (Stripped #1)(6)
Author: Jasinda Wilder

I think about it…oh my, do I think about it. I’m sitting at the bar in the kitchen, twirling a pencil in my fingers. I’m working on an idea for a film, writing the screenplay and thinking about the script. I try talking to Mom about it, but she doesn’t think it’s a very good idea.

“You know how Daddy is, Grey. Hollywood is immoral and the whole film industry is full of sharks. You’d be exposed to so many unclean things. It’s a glorification of all that’s sinful about our society.”

She’s borrowing directly from Daddy’s lexicon.

“I don’t think you’ve really thought about what you’d be getting into, honey. Pursue dance. Find a good, godly man.”

“You mean a pastor, so I can be like you.”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Mom asks, her voice sharp.

“No, but it’s not what I want. I love films. I love dance, but I love it for me. I don’t want to dance professionally, since it wouldn’t be fun anymore. I want a career in film.” I don’t want to be a pastor’s wife. I think it, but I don’t say it.

“I just don’t think that’s a possibility, sweetheart.” She pushes her carefully curled blonde hair away from her face. Two fingers pinch the bridge of her nose, and she breathes out slowly. “Just think about it again, Grey, honey. Is it worth alienating your father over? He would be so disappointed.”

She stumbles, then, as if dizzy or disoriented. I lunge off the bar stool and catch her against me. “Mom? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, dear. I just got dizzy for a moment. I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, so I might just be hungry.”

That doesn’t make any sense to me. “Mom, seriously. Are your headaches back?”

“They never really left, honestly.” She leans back against the counter of the kitchen island. “I’ll be fine. I’ll take some Tylenol, and I’ll be fine.”

I let it go, but the worry is back.

The following week, I approach Daddy in his study. It’s a Tuesday, which means he’s just starting his sermon for the week, which is the best time to talk to him. After Wednesday he gets cranky if he’s interrupted.

I plop down in the leather chair on the opposite side of his huge oak desk. “Hi, Daddy. How’s the sermon coming?”

He sits back, pulling off his glasses. He brushes a hand through his fine blond hair. “Hi, there, Grey. It’s going pretty well. It’s a discourse on the reality of practicing grace in a graceless world.” He peers at me. “I sense a ‘Daddy-can-I’ coming.”

I smile as charmingly as possible. “Maybe.”

He grins at me and takes a sip from a tall glass of sweet tea. Ice clinks, and a bead of sweat runs down the side of the glass as he sets it back down. “Well? Out with it.”

“So, I took a film class this last semester. I really, really liked it, Daddy. It was so fun. We learned a lot about movies. The instructor used to be a cameraman, and he worked on Ghost, you know, the movie with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore?”

“You mean the one about the man who haunts his wife? Ghosts are minions of the devil, Grey. Tools of the Evil One. It’s no subject for crass entertainment.”

“It’s romantic, Daddy. He loved her. He didn’t want to leave her alone.”

“He couldn’t accept God’s plan for his life.”

I sigh. “Well, regardless, I liked the movie, and I loved the class. Mr. Rokowski thought I might be a good candidate for The Film Connection.”

I show him the brochure and he leafs through it slowly, reading the explanation and the testimonials.

“I would love, love, love to do this. It would be an opportunity to really learn the industry. Mr. Rokowski thinks he could even help me get a scholarship so you wouldn’t have to pay much, if anything, for it.”

Daddy slips his glasses back on and reads the brochure from front to back, then wakes up his computer and types in the website’s address. I sit in silence, hoping against hope. After long, silent minutes, he removes his glasses again and leans back. “You’re serious about this?”

I nod vigorously. I’d thought long and hard about the best tactics for presenting this. I had to make him think it was about ministry. I had to show him how I could be different from Hollywood. “Absolutely. It’s what I want to do with my life. I don’t want to be an actress or anything like that. I want to tell stories. There are so many ways to tell a good story, to move people, and film is one of those ways. It could be my ministry. Like Kirk Cameron and Fireproof.”

He blows out a long breath. “I expected better from you, Grey.” His voice is suddenly hard, whip-sharp, and I flinch. “I really did. Film school? That’s worse than any lewd dancing. You would be working with the scum of the earth. People who think it’s okay to glorify murder and dishonesty and sexual perversion.”

“But Daddy, it doesn’t have to be like that—”

“It would be, though. They would take advantage of you. An innocent, beautiful girl like you in Hollywood? They’d eat you alive.”

“But that’s what’s so great about this program. It’s here in Macon. I wouldn’t have to move to L.A. to do it.”

He doesn’t respond for a long moment. When he does, his eyes are hard as flint. “This conversation is over. You will not be a part of that industry.” He swivels his chair away from me, toward his computer screen, a clear dismissal.

I fight back a sniffle. “You don’t understand.”

“I do, all too well.” He’s not looking at me, now. Dismissing me. “You’re the one who doesn’t understand what it’s like. What people are like, what they’ll do. They’ll pervert you. It’s my job as your father to protect you, to shelter you from that.”

My fists clench and tremble, my throat closing with hot, impotent anger. “But that’s all you do! Shelter me! You don’t understand me! Not anything. You never have. This is what I want. Just because you’re a pastor doesn’t mean I can’t live my own life and like my own things. Not everything is sinful, and that’s how you act, like every single thing that’s not a Bible study or a prayer meeting is sinful!”

I’m standing up, crying and shouting. “God, you’re just so…so damn close-minded about everything!”

Flushed with anger, Daddy stands up and knocks over a mug of pens. “Don’t you dare take the Lord’s name in vain in that manner, Grey Leanne Amundsen.” He points a finger at me, and now he’s in full-out preacher mode. “I am your father, and God has given me the responsibility of taking care of you. I am responsible for your soul.”