I AM pretty sure I heard Kathy wrong. I blink and look at her, wondering if this is her idea of some sort of joke.
“What?”
Kathy shifts in her chair, glancing over her shoulder as if someone will be hovering nearby. “Rich has a child.”
I feel, just for a moment, as if the ground is going to open up and swallow me whole. Mixed emotions are swirling through me. I can’t seem to pinpoint the one that is the most horrifying. Is it because I am shocked at the fact that Rich has a child? Is it because I can’t believe something like this has been under my nose the entire time and I had no idea? Or is it the look on Kathy’s face, as if she thinks this is delivering a death blow to my feelings for Rich?
“How do you know this?” I finally ask her.
“I tried to tell you right away,” she says quickly. “Remember? I texted you twice. I should have called you, but I was so busy.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her, realizing Kathy is afraid I will take out my feelings on her. “I should have contacted you back. I’ve just been so busy lately.”
She gives me a small nod and then runs her fingers through her hair. “I was on break from filming an episode. I thought if I ended up going to the café on the studio grounds one more time, I was totally going to flip. So I walked down the street to this other coffee shop I had been wanting to try out. Anyway, I was in the corner, eating a sandwich and having my coffee, when this woman storms into the building. She looked flat out exhausted. But I looked back at my phone ‘cause I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t until she was suddenly looming over me that I looked back up.”
I order a drink at this point, feeling nervous.
“She asks me if I work on the soap and I tell her yes,” Kathy continued. “I’m thinking maybe she is a fan. But then she asks if Rich ever visits the set. When I tell her no, she looks so upset that I offer her to sit down with me because I am afraid she is going to start crying. She sits down across from me, and I offer to buy her a coffee but she turns it down.” Kathy takes a sip of her drink. “She asked me if I can tell Rich that she was here. Says her name is Sarah. I ask her what it is about, and she says that she is sick of Rich being behind on his child support.”
“She just said that?” I blurt out, my eyes widening.
“Yeah! I couldn’t believe it either. But Sarah seemed so angry, as if she had come down here just to find Rich to make him pay the money. She tells me she had been trying to corner him and the last she heard he worked on the soap opera. She said she got the idea after she saw him in the press, dating you.”
I cringe. Even though it is Rich who is being an asshole, I feel guilty for dating a guy who is apparently behind on child support.
Kathy leans forward, lowering her voice. “She said that she recognized him even after his plastic surgeries and that his name change hadn’t fooled her. She knew who it was.”
I let this sink in. Plastic surgery? Name change? Of course I knew by this point Rich was a slime ball, but it never occurred to me that he would have changed so much and ran off so that the mother of his child had to track him down.
“So I just asked her like, why doesn’t she report him to the police or something for non-payment instead of tracking him down? Sarah got irritated, I think she was on edge to begin with, and said that she had tried but she didn’t want to go into it further. So she came to Hollywood once she saw him online but no luck so far.”
“Did she say anything… anything about the child?”
“Sarah said that her daughter is fourteen now. She had her when she was sixteen and struggled as a single parent without Rich – sorry, she said his name was Doug, actually – to help or offer any support. He popped up when her daughter was young but faded off but at least made the payments. About four years ago, he vanished and Sarah has been trying to raise her daughter on her own but she needs Rich’s financial support.”
I lean forward eagerly. “Do you have any contact information for her?”
“Yeah,” Kathy replies slowly. “I have her phone number. But why do you want to call her? Listen, Jenny, this guy sounds like a creep, honestly. I know things got weird over Jon and stuff, but I still don’t want you getting hurt.”
I find myself appreciating Kathy’s concern. I want to tell her that I am working on it and that with each tidbit of information that lands in my lap I become more determined to put Rich in his place. But I don’t want someone else to know what I am up to and instead smile at her.
“I appreciate the concern. Maybe I can help the two of them meet up? If I have her number, I can reach out to her. Get things settled.”
Kathy nods and then pulls out her phone, texting me Sarah’s number. I feel thrilled at this chance to talk to someone who knew Rich way back when. It feels like a breakthrough I can actually use, unlike the laptop sitting in the back of my closet.
“Listen, be careful, okay?” Kathy says. “She asked me to contact her whenever I hear from Rich, but I didn’t say anything about giving her number to you. She seems really stressed out and might not want to talk to you.”
“I’ll try, at the very least. If she says no, then I can give the message to Rich.”
“Okay.” She nods and finishes her drink, standing up. “I’m sorry to drop this on you. Are you mad?”
“No. Thank you for telling me about this.”
Kathy relaxes slightly and nods. She gives me a hug goodbye and I watch her go, my mind swirling. Rich has a daughter. Part of me isn’t that surprised. It is clear that Rich is nothing but an asshole who uses people to get money and whatever else he desires.
As I sip my drink, I realize that I have to reach out to Sarah and see what I can find out. It would be stupid not to.