Thousand Strokes of Luck

         Tangled between my sleeping bag and excess blankets, I struggled to find my cell phone as it rang waking me from a deep sleep. I blindly reached around and managed to find my cell phone just in time to hear the voicemail cue. It was early in the morning, early enough for a college girl after a night out to complain about. I forced one eye open, typed in my password, and listened to the hurried voice of my mother through the speakers. 

      Now at this point, between my makeshift bed on the floor being turned upside down, and the naturally loud voice of my mother breaking the silence of slumber in the room, Emily awoke. Emily, who has been a close friend for many years, looked ever so tiny as her 5"2, 100 lb. frame sprawled out on her king size bed.  

"What's all the commotion?" she asked with a scratchy early morning voice. 

"Sorry Em," I started, stuffing one foot into a sneaker while gazing around for a lost sock.

I continued, "I have to go home and finish painting the living room because my mom bailed on the "team project" she signed me up for with some nonsense excuse about going to hang out with George Clooney."

      Emily and I shared a disbelieving laugh agreeing any normal excuse would have worked just fine. I gathered all of my belongings and ventured home.

      A few hours later, as I continued to teeter high on the ladder with my paintbrush, repeating the criss-cross hand stroke pattern that my mother, "queen of projects" demanded, I found myself wondering where in fact she could be. We had been painting for days, and my mother is never one to start something and not finish it. 

      By 5 o'clock I began to seriously worry. She was not answering her phone and she was never one to skip out on family dinner night.  It was her favorite one night during the week where we were scheduled to sit like human beings at the dinner table all together and catch up.  Sure enough, as I finished covering the last remaining white spots on the wall, I heard the garage door open. I heard the chipper voice of my mother’s best friend, Leslie, and a man's voice that I couldn't quite place. I knew my dad wasn't due home from work for another hour and Leslie's husband was in the city so I knew something was up.

     The door opened and in the midst of the commotion of them entering the house I thought I had begun to hallucinate. George Clooney, as in George "I'm the major star of a million big budget movies" Clooney entered my living room. My mouth must have dropped so far open that it hit the floor, because everything went silent and he walked over and introduced himself as if I didn't know who he was! Now, one would think that in a time like this, a million questions would arise. However, at this moment in time, all of the questions that surfaced during the day about my mother's whereabouts had vanished along with any ability to formulate words. I stood gasping, like some sort of untrained animal, and my mother quickly transferred into recovery mode. 

     She began to explain how George, (apparently she was on a first name basis) had been filming his new movie, Michael Clayton, at the nearby private airport earlier that day. His production crew, a few months earlier, had called Leslie to request the use of her small yet immaculate private jet to be used in the movie. She agreed, naturally, with the condition that she got to meet the star. So somewhere between the voicemail my mother had left me earlier this morning, and him now standing my living room, my mother and Leslie convinced him to come over for dinner for a home cooked meal rather than the food his no name local hotel had to offer. 

     My head was spinning at this point, as George sat on my couch with a cocktail commenting on the "Family Guy" episode playing on the television as if this was a normal day. I sat on the chair opposite him, afraid that if I got any closer he would disappear and my dream would end, and just starred. His ash colored hair and dazzling smile mesmerized me. I immediately began to kick myself in realization of my paint splattered hair hanging loosely in my face and my ripped up, oversized sweats. 

     The few hours following his arrival in my home, continued with much of the same. I sat and starred as Leslie and George chatted about his weeks of filming in upstate New York. He went on and on explaining that he was the least important person on his set, and that he mainly stood around bored until his few minutes of fame were scheduled. He was just amazing.

When it was time for him to leave and head back to set, he graciously thanked us for our hospitality. I remember thinking, why in the earth would he thank us when we just got the chance of a lifetime. Just as I realized I had literally not said one word to him during his visit, he turned me, flashed his million dollar smile and said, “nice paint job by the way” and floated out the door. It was in this moment when I looked over at the thousands of hand strokes of paint on the wall and knew they would be forever a reminder of my day with George.