Shards of Glass (6 page)

“I don’t know. If it’s in the name of art and the shots are cool and interesting and artistic?”

“I doubt they will be if tacky Samuel Myers has anything to do with the creative side of the film.”

“That’s where Daniel Glass comes in. He’ll make sure it looks good.”

“There’s many a slip ‘tween cup and lip.”

“That’s from
Hamlet
, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I think so. The old bard was wise. Daniel is a very talented theater director but he has little experience with film, and certainly the Hollywood Machine. Anything could go wrong. Even midway in the shoot. He’d be under Sam Myers’s porky fat thumb.”

Star laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard old Sam’s pretty slimy, but Pearl seems to have him wrapped around her pinkie finger. She’s clever that way; never antagonistic, but always gets what she wants. Janie, you’re no fool and your instincts could be spot on. Shame, I so wanted for you to be part of my world. Never mind, we’ll find another leading role for you. I’ll call Steven, and I know Sandra has some cool stuff going on.”

Steven Spielberg and Sandra Bullock, no doubt. Star knew them all.

“You happy with your agent?” she asked. “You want to meet mine?”

“I’m a loyalist, Star. My agent helped me get
Where the Wind Blows
. I won’t change her now, whatever carrot is dangled before me.”

“You’re a good person, you know that? Decent. In fact you’re too good for your own good. That’s a lot of ‘goods’ in one sentence! There aren’t many like you in this town.”

I shook my head in denial. I
wasn’t
a good person. But I didn’t want to tell Star why—share the Daniel story with her. My unhealthy obsession with him, resulting in his wife dying, only days after I’d wished ill on them. I wanted to believe it was fate, a coincidence—nothing to do with me, but deep in my bones I knew that wasn’t true. Thought is powerful. Admitting to myself I had bad karma coming my way was difficult enough, but letting others in on my secret was harder—nobody else needed to know. Maybe Hollywood, with its lies and deception, would suit me perfectly after all.

STAR AND I STOPPED off for a coffee in Brentwood on the way back to her house. She donned the big hat and shades again, and kept her back to the street—we were sitting outside on a terrace. So far, nobody was bothering her. She checked her messages so I did the same.

I listened to my voicemail.

The first was from Pearl Chevalier. She got straight to the point. “Janie, I have to admit I was pretty shocked by what you did in our meeting . . . ”—my stomach turned inside out. I’d embarrassed myself,
and
her. I listened to the rest of the message—“However, it certainly got Sam’s attention and he has changed his mind about . . . how should I say this? He has a different opinion now about your assets and talent.”

I sniggered to myself.
Talent? Straddling and kissing someone is a talent now, is it?

Pearl’s message continued: “But now there’s a new problem. Daniel Glass and Sam Myers do not see eye to eye on how the movie should be shot, the look and feel of it, specifically concerning the sex scenes. And I’m somewhere in the middle. I’ll call again later, meanwhile sit tight.”

The next message was from Samuel Myers himself. Before he even opened his mouth I knew it was him, because there was a bout of heavy, wheezy breathing coming down the line. Finally he spoke: “Jane,” he said, getting my name wrong,” I eat my words. I see who you are now. You are
Rambling Rose
! And I like it. I like it very, very much. I’ll be in contact. Don’t fly back to New York yet.”

I hoped that there would now be a message from Daniel. Nothing. Daniel was obviously a lot less impressed by my shenanigans. Probably even majorly turned off despite his hard-on, which would have been a normal physical male reaction in any red-blooded man who wasn’t gay. I mulled over Samuel’s words. “Rambling Rose” . . . who, or what, was
Rambling Rose
? I had humiliated myself with Daniel. He was a
theater
director, with principles and standards.

Fiddling with my phone, I saw that Daniel hadn’t called my voicemail, but he
had
left a text. It read:

You’re worth more than that, Janie. Don’t sell your soul.

I felt I’d been stabbed. Only Daniel knew how to wound me so profoundly. But he was right. The direction this movie was taking was the opposite of everything I stood for. I didn’t spend four years at Juilliard, probably the best damn drama school in the country, to simply rip off my clothes and act like a prostitute.

I called Pearl back. She didn’t answer so I left a message.

“I’m so grateful for the chance,” I said, “and I appreciate your interest, but what I did at our meeting was completely out of character for me, and it’s a direction I don’t want to pursue. I don’t know what came over me, and I’m sorry I let myself get out of control. Please thank Mr. Myers but let him know that I do not want the role in his movie, as I do not believe I’m the right actor for the part. Thanks again, and it was great meeting you.” I paused and added (so I didn’t burn all my bridges), “I would love to work with you in the future if you have anything that suits me better. Thank you so much. Goodbye.”

Star stared at me with an open mouth. “What the fuck was that all about?” She took a sip of her coffee and picked at a muffin. “Don’t you think you should have chatted with me about this first? I mean, Samuel Myers may be a jerk but he is very powerful. Janie, you have sabotaged a great opportunity.”

“An opportunity to behave like a slut? To flash my wares on screen in front of millions? That’s just not me, Star. I trained and
trained
at drama school. Two toads terribly tired tried to trot to Tewkesbury.”

She laughed. “
What
?”

“Grab the groundhog from the glazed grass. Around the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran.”

Star tried to say that sentence and failed miserably. We burst out laughing.

“Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry, red lolly, yellow lolly,” she blurted out, then laughed again.

Then I said earnestly, “Look, I didn’t learn to enunciate my consonants, breathe from the diaphragm and learn reams of Shakespeare so I could then whip off all my clothes. It’s not my ambition to be famous for the sake of being famous. I’m a serious actor.”

“Whatever,” Star said with a hurt look on her face.

I realize I’d insulted her. Not only was Star not a “trained” actor, but she had taken her clothes off once or twice in movies. But in her case it worked. Me? It would be my debut and something I’d never be able to shake off for the rest of my career.

“Let’s go, or we’ll be late,” she said, getting up. “I have to collect my kids from their friend’s house. First we need to swing by my place though.”

Uh-oh, I’d unwittingly snubbed her. “I love your work, by the way,” I said, to try and smooth things over. “Really, you made me cry ugly tears in
Skye’s The Limit
.”

WHEN I SET MY GAZE on Star’s home, my nose prickled and my eyes welled up at its beauty. It was like something you’d see in an architectural magazine. She lived in Malibu, right on Pacific Coast Highway, her backyard a wild garden, and the beach her playground. There were olive and orange trees, and tropical grasses that sprung from the sand, climbing jasmine, sweet and aromatic, and a hammock above a wooden deck where you could laze and read books. There was even a pool, the water not bright turquoise but a gunmetal blue. The back of the house was a set of vast, sliding glass doors, leading from the enormous, state-of-the-art kitchen, and living room; the view spectacular. I breathed in the salty breeze. This place was heaven.

“You like our pad?” Star asked with a wink. “Not bad, huh? For a girl who grew up in a trailer park.”

“You grew up in a trailer park? I never knew that.”

“Before I became famous. Before we were financially solvent. You could have a place like this, you know, if you choose to branch out into movies.”

“You mean, if I take my clothes off?”

“Hey, I’ve done some work I’m not thrilled with, but it paid the rent. It put food on the table. You can either go and read
Miss Julie
somewhere and study your craft ‘til you’re blue in the face, or you can get on board and make some real money.”

I was surprised. I had believed that Star was an actress who held onto her ideals. Now, it seemed, as if she was advocating film, not as a craft, but as a vehicle for making money. But then, she’d been very poor, judging from her background. Poor is something you never forget. My damp apartment that had patches of mold growing on the ceiling came to mind. It was a “steal” by New York standards, even with the mold. I thought of my younger brother, Will, who—intellectually impaired and with mild autism—needed all the aid he could get. I helped him out financially whenever I could. And here was Star offering to give me a leg up, introduce me to her power agent, and make calls to Steven freaking Spielberg! And I was acting like a purist, a green ingénue, fresh out of drama school. I couldn’t ride on my Tony nomination forever, yet at the same time, I didn’t want to let go of my morals, my ideals, about who I was as an actor. At least, the type of actor I had always wanted to be. The sort who, as Daniel said, didn’t sell her soul. I was one, screwed-up, hypocritical mess. Kissing Daniel that way, and at the same time saying I didn’t want to play parts like that. Who was I kidding? I needed to sort out my head. And fast.

I smiled wanly at Star and came up with, “Well, a girl can dream, right?”

Star took me by the wrist and looked me in the eye. “Yes, Janie, a girl can dream, but a girl also needs to
eat
. A girl needs to be practical. If you don’t want this particular part, fine. We can work on getting more auditions, more meetings. I know people, and I like you. I see your talent, I see something rare in you. And I can help you. But unless you are
with
me on this, I’d be wasting my time.”

“You want me to meet with your agent?”

“She’s very influential. She has a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. Your agent is good for theater, yes, but not much more. Maybe they could work out a deal so you don’t need to actually fire yours. Look, this world is tough, dog eat dog. You’re young and beautiful, but that won’t last forever. You have to strike while the iron’s hot. Right now, you
are
pretty hot because your performance is still fresh in people’s memories, but they suffer from amnesia in this town . . . before long you’ll just be another actress vaguely ringing a bell in their subconscious somewhere. I know I sound like a bitch, but what I’m saying is true, believe me.”

“I do believe you.”

“You have a cute, sexy little body. So what if your breasts flash on screen for a few seconds! That’s the European way. It didn’t bother Keira Knightley or Kate Winslet. The American way is to have a boob job, then hypocritically encase those sexy boobs in a bra and boast about how you ‘don’t do nudity.’ How fucked up is that? In Europe, kids frolic naked on beaches, women go topless. Nudity there is no big deal. If it’s done in a classy way, what’s the harm? That’s my point of view, anyway. But if you really feel strongly about it you can get a body double. Julia did that for
Pretty Woman
. You can stipulate that in your contract. Work is work, stop being so precious about it. Do you want a house like mine, or not? Or do you want to wait tables in New York for the rest of your life?”

Wow, Star was like a mind reader.

“The last time I waited tables I got fired,” I admitted.

“Well there you have it. Mull over what I’ve said. Think about it hard because the here and now is your chance. Not tomorrow, not the next day, not some hazy day in the future. Your decisions today will affect the rest of your life. Think, Janie, about what you actually want.”

5

T
HAT NIGHT I TOSSED and turned like a wild animal in a cage. I could hear the waves slapping against the sand and seagulls crying out like cats in the night. After Star’s pep talk all I could do was ask myself, over and over, what
is
it you want, Janie? And my pathetic answer came back to me:
Daniel Glass
. I wanted him more than anything else. More than a career. More than life itself. Seeing him again had undone me. I was a pathetic wreck. I hadn’t been raised that way, to put so much importance in a man. My mother had drummed it into me that I needed to be independent, earn my own living, to never rely on the male species. For anything. She knew. My dad was the unreliable type and she’d spent the best part of their marriage holding the reins. My younger brother, too, needed guidance, protection. “Women are the stronger vessel,” Mom always told me. “Hold onto your independence. Be a brick house, not a house of straw.”

Yet here I was, back to square one, as if the last year without seeing Daniel had never passed at all. I was still the twenty-one-year-old, impressionable actress in my heart, eager to please. Desperate to earn his approval.

My mind wandered back to dinner, earlier that evening. Star and Jake were so in love. I craved a relationship like that. They were alive, sparring with each other over who was the better actor, Al or Bobby—
The Godfather
or
Taxi Driver
. But they were laughing and joking, her daughter Hero asking silly questions that made us all laugh.