Distance is relative

My second cousin is on TV! And she has no idea that I’m alive.

by Camille Dodero

I’m no George Dubya Bush. My father can’t anoint me leader of the free world. My family’s assets haven’t allowed me to slurp cash at oil wells. And although my brother’s name has three letters (Ted), he can’t score me the Sunshine State.

But I have something Dubya doesn’t, something even the Lennon sons can’t claim: my second cousin is a soap star. Yes, a real live soap-opera star! The kind who’s suffered amnesia, switched personalities, and risen from the dead. The kind named Most Beautiful three times by Soap Opera Digest. The kind whose on-screen legacy as half a supercouple finishes second only to that of (gasp!) General Hospital’s Laura.

Yessiree, my father’s cousin’s daughter plays Hope Williams Brady on Days of Our Lives. Her real name’s Kristian Alfonso. And she has absolutely no idea that I’m alive.

From the ages of seven to 11, I was obsessed with Kristian Alfonso, my kinda-sorta cousin. I cut every single mention of her name from the pages of TV Guide. I collected her pin-ups from drippy fan magazines and tacked them to my bedroom walls. I filled my bookcase with VHS tapes of Days of Our Lives episodes.

To this day I’m not sure what my 700 Club–watching, born-again-Christian mother was smoking when she let me, an impressionable second-grader, sit home every day after school and salivate over steamy sex on hay piles, villainous backstabbing, and motorcycle kidnappings of bosomy brides. Maybe she recognized that I saw a version of success I could emulate in this televised woman: Kristian was born in my city, she attended my future high school, and her grandmother was my great-aunt. (Never mind that we both had dark hair and dark eyes!) Maybe my mom recognized that my silly little psyche saw this faraway actress’s TV contract as a measure of my own potential. Or, more likely, my mother was as pathetically starstruck as I — that was our voluptuous pseudo-relative being kidnapped on the motorcycle!

But really, this archetype of feminine pulchritude was barely a blood relative. Sure, by some gnarled branches on the family tree, Kristian Alfonso was my second cousin. But my parents really didn’t know her — I’d never even met her. She’d never stood in our kitchen. We’d never even eaten cake in the same room. She moved across the nation before I even knew I had a second cousin.

But my nonexistent relationship with the chestnut-haired maiden of early-’80s daytime didn’t stop me from milking the blood connection. Sharing a few strands of DNA with a gorgeous semi-celeb garnered me respect. After I nonchalantly mentioned my TV-star cousin, the boys in my class tried to kiss me during recess, my playmates’ soapophile moms stopped cross-examining my parents before sleepovers, and my fresh-out-of-college second-grade teacher, who dutifully taped Days of Our Lives every day (probably to forget that the only roomful of males she toyed with still peed in their pants), gave my composition about my “very beautiful and famous second cousin” a check-plus-plus-plus.

See, I never actually had to say how well I (didn’t) know the woman behind Hope Brady. I just said we were related — and since most people are easily wowed by famous names, that was sufficiently dazzling. If anyone actually asked questions about Kristian Alfonso, I told what I knew: Peter Reckell, her on-screen love Bo, went home with her for the holidays! She calls home a lot! She married a guy named Simon! People figured this was firsthand knowledge. Actually, I heard it through my uncle. Or read it in Soap Opera Digest.

On The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem raps that “all the sudden, I got 90 some cousins — hey, it’s me!” I tried my best “Hey, it’s me!” at the age of 10 when I scribbled Kristian a fan letter oozing my unconditional admiration. Of course, I also slipped in a bold sentence identifying myself as her second cousin. I secretly dreamed that she’d read it, rescue me from Brockton, Massachusetts (her birthplace and my childhood home), and get me a part as her younger cousin or little sister.

I didn’t get a role on Days of Our Lives. Or a phone call. Or a scrawled note. What I got was an autographed glossy, a vampish one of her in an off-the-shoulder shirt à la Flashdance. My mother must’ve sensed my letdown, because she reassured me that Kristian probably didn’t notice the brightly crayoned declaration of our family tie. I pretended not to be disappointed about my dashed hopes: my (second) cousin is a soap star and all I got was this pouffy-haired publicity shot.

Fifteen years later, I still have that black-and-white photo tucked away in a drawer. Not because it’s the closest I’ve ever come to my pseudo-cousin (I did finally meet her when I was 11, although I guarantee that she wouldn’t remember), but because it was my first lesson in the cult of celebrity, the first time I was forced to recognize that worshipping a veritable stranger is supremely impersonal, entitlement isn’t always a birthright, and unbridled boasting, mine included, is often bogus.

So these days, I don’t mention my hot cousin to coax fellas into kissing me, and I’m not terribly astounded by murky affiliations to marquee names. But whenever an acquaintance loudly touts a vague tie to a famous moviemaker, a morning-news anchor, or an acclaimed author, instead of scoffing, I smile, act suitably impressed, and remember that humbling, mass-produced print at home.

Besides, if the bragging gets really pompous, I can always say my second cousin had a recurring role on Melrose Place.

Kristian Alfonso can reach Camille Dodero at cdodero@phx.com.