LateNight with Victoria Hamilton

“People are fascinated by you and by your story. Do you want to share a little bit about it with me?” 

My eyes are wide as I look down at the table in front of me. I’m searching for the words to begin. Do I want to tell anyone about it? I feel strongly that I do. Why? Any time I’ve spoken about my life I’ve always said too much. I spend hours painstakingly going back over every word I said and replaying every glance and every expression I saw on someone’s face as I told my story to them.

I take a deep breath in and let out the air in a telling huff. It sounds as if the very act of breathing in and out is too much for me to bear. Sometimes, it is. I think I’ve done a very good job of hiding that though and I’d like to continue. I smile and shake my head in that way I’ve come to learn is charming. Not too self-deprecating, not too over the top. 

“Kelly, where to begin?” I laugh with the ease of a woman who's strolling through the park on a sunny afternoon as a light breeze rolls through and gently lifts her hair off her shoulders. I imagine being there. I imagine being her. I tuck a strand of my own hair behind my ear as I look up at Kelly. She’s simple. I can tell by looking at her. Not simple in a bad way or in a way that’s dim. In a way that someone like me has always envied. Kelly probably had loving parents.

Her mom probably read her stories and her dad probably made her feel safe from the monsters under her bed. I imagine Kelly as a kid, laughing as she rides her bike. I imagine her glowing as her parents took pictures of her on prom night. Radiant in a silver gown and perfectly pinned updo. Her honey blonde hair nestled atop her head like a crown. I’m assessing the equation of how she ended up here. I’ve done the math now and I know what Kelly will want to hear.

I am never more uncomfortable than when I’m sitting across the table from the Kellys of the world. I tap my fingers four times each. Imperceptible to anyone watching me. I admire how my dark red nails look upon the pearly gray table.

“I was orphaned and wound up on the steps of a convent. No one knows who my parents are or where I came from. The sisters took such great care of me. I don’t think my life would have been the same without them. I always felt so blessed to have been taken in, it speaks to the plans only God can know.”

This is my script; I know it inside and out. It is my buoy in the ocean of my life. This story is how I made a name for myself. It’s how I survive. Without it, there would be no Victoria Hamilton. Do you like the name? I came up with it myself. I picked it because it sounded like the kind of name a woman would have if she were successful. It’s simple yet strong, all the while sounding familiar. The perfect balance. Victoria Hamilton is a public figure.

Kelly is nodding her head and looking at me with the expression I’ve come to expect when I tell this story. The look of knowing. The look of understanding. This is a narrative Kelly can relate to; it’s nothing like the real story. It’s nothing like Sara Naese. Isn’t that a frumpy name? Sara Naese. There’s nothing special about that name. There’s nothing special about me.

I continue on with the rest of my tale. “One day, I remember looking out the window of my bedroom. I shared a room with six other girls, the beds were lined against the wall like in that old cartoon Madeline.” Cue the laughter from the nostalgic memory. “I always wanted to live that way! In a way, I really did. I felt a kinship with Madeline. Both raised by nuns and living in a group with other girls. It was like having built-in lifelong friends. As I looked out the window, I saw the fire.”

Kelly nods again, and this time she sits back in her seat and adjusts her posture. “I can understand that feeling. Do you want to tell me when the symptoms started?” 

The symptoms. No, I don’t want to talk about when the symptoms started. I want to follow the script. I want to tell Kelly that even though all of these terrible things happened to me, I somehow made it out just fine. See? I’m smiling and saying all the right things. 

“There wasn’t a fire was there?” She tilts her head sideways, just a little as she looks at me. "Or an orphanage?" She’s wrong. There was a fire. Only it wasn’t at an orphanage. My mother was taken by it in my early teens and her mother was taken by it before her. All my life I spent sprinting away from the blaze. I can’t remember when it started. Only that I’d spent all this time hoping it would never reach me. I made the rest of the story up. You have to understand. There's more than one way to be an orphan. This was just easier to explain. People took it better when I told them this version. This version allowed me to create a life for myself.

“It’s okay, we can come back to it later. Do you want to tell me more about how you made a successful career for yourself?” It's like she read my mind. I’m relieved about the change in topic. Yes, this is what I want to talk about. I go back into interview mode. I’m comfortable here. 

“Yes, I ended up getting my first job at seventeen. I paid my way through college and became a journalist, and a few years later I published my first book. I was invited to speak on all the late-night shows.” I’m getting ahead of myself. “Wait, sorry. I was looking out the window at the orphanage. There was a fire outside.” I can feel the threads unraveling a bit. Kelly knows there wasn't an orphanage. I don't know where to go from here.

“Sara, I know this is hard for you to talk about.” I can feel the tears forming in my eyes. I don’t want to cry in front of Kelly. I want her to feel like we’re equals. Like I’m as strong as she is. The tears begin to fall. 

She places a hand on mine and gets a box of tissues. She places them in front of me on the gray table. This isn’t an interview. “Sara, I’m going to recommend a retreat. I think it would be good for you.” She says a retreat, but I know in my mind what that means. It means the fire’s caught up to me too. 

“I think it’d be healthy to take a step back from this public persona. I think that you’ve been extremely strong and have done your best to outrun this, but Sara, even Olympians need to rest sometimes okay?” 

I stare off the side and catch a glimpse of myself in a small mirror Kelly has on the desk next to me. I know she wants me to agree to this. To admit defeat. In the mirror I see my natural brown roots growing through the perfectly maintained blonde hair I’ve kept up for years. As I wipe tears away, my burgundy nails make my skin look porcelain and perfect. The only tell is the dark circles beneath my eyes. I can’t hide my lack of sleep. “Yeah, maybe.” I say.

I think of how my grandmother became an urban legend in my own family tree and wonder if that’s who I’ll be now too. A ghost. A whisper of a woman who the family buried long before she was gone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The burgundy on my fingertips now reminds me of roses placed upon an alabaster coffin. My accomplishments washed away as my eventual death puts out the fire I’d tried so desperately to outrun. 

When my grandchildren point to the pictures of me and ask about me, will they say what they said of my own grandmother? “No one, honey. She was just crazy.”