"“What do you miss the most about your childhood?”
the interviewer asks me with feigned interest. Her occasional glances towards the clock and repetitive nods confirm this but I entertain her with my silence. Juggling it between a smile and a look of thoughtfulness, I allow it to settle uncomfortably amid the many cameras and crew members.
“Thank you for asking that question”, I start, my voice trained to always execute at a certain tone of seduction, “it really is a difficult one, I have to say.” Again the ambiguous silence. The first time I gave an interview, I had to hire an entire team of publicists, to make up for my tarnished reputation. Apparently, I gave away too much, too soon.
The room is stirring with anticipation and I give them the best of it before continuing softly, “A memory that comes to me now on reflection, is that of waking up to the sound of my parents chirping away to themselves at the break of dawn, while my father got ready for work and my mother for him. I would sneak out of bed and watch them sometimes from the corner of my bedroom door frame.”. A sad smile masks my face but it is momentary and I am quick to abandon it before looking down and away.
“And my mother would always know, despite my every attempt to hide my presence. I knew she knew I was there because after my father left for work and she went up the stairs to her room, there was always an extra plate on the kitchen table with some warm milk and cereal".
I look back at the interviewer now and smile that beguiling smile. The smile I have practiced a million times before the mirror, till I could perfect it. “I miss that a lot,” I add, a little gratuitously.
The rest of the interview leaves little mark on me and I get into the car with my heart still hinged to the doorframe of my childhood bedroom. What I do not tell them is of how on some days that was the only meal I got to eat. Of how my father got up to leave for work but he had no job to go to or how those few years were the stepping stone to my acting career because we all pretended. We all played an act of things being okay and we were brilliant
