The Actress: A Novel (20 page)

After a while Maddy got dizzy and went back to her table to drink some water. She couldn’t get drunk—if she drank too much and got sick, the story could get out and it would be a disaster. This was one of many new things she hadn’t had to worry about a year ago. She spotted Kira making her way over from the dance floor. She was wearing high platform heels with ribbon straps that went around her ankles. She sat down next to Maddy and mixed herself a vodka cranberry from the bottles in the center of the table.

“Kira,” Maddy said, glad to have a second alone with her. “Watching the movie tonight, you know, I was so impressed. I never told you how good I think you are.”

“Thanks,” Kira said with a sigh, as if she didn’t enjoy the compliment. “I have this really good teacher in the East Village, and he’s teaching me that process will take me a long way. I’m not a natural, but I work hard.”

“I know you do. You and Steven are similar that way. You two work harder than anyone I know.”

Kira seemed to have matured over the past year. She seemed less outrageous and more serious. “Steven works at a lot of things,” Kira said.

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean that my goal isn’t exactly to be compared to him in the hard-working actor department.”

“Why not?”

“I have other idols.”

Trying not to take her bait, Maddy said, “It’s kind of insane that so much has happened to us since Mile’s End.”

“Yeah, who knew?”

She and Kira had never spoken of their kiss, which seemed like it had happened years ago and not months. Maddy felt the need to smooth things over. “When we were together,” Maddy said, “I mean, that night at the festival, I just want to say—I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Kira asked.

“Because I was lonely. And I—I used you.”

“Huh.
You
used
me
.”

“Isn’t that what happened?”

Maddy could see Zack and Reggie approaching. Kira said, “I don’t think so at all. I went for you, remember? I was drunk. You could have been anyone.”

The other two had sat down. Maddy lowered her head, not wanting to talk about it in front of Reggie. “Don’t be weird about it, Maddy,” Kira said. “Everyone at film festivals hooks up. Reggie knows we sucked face at Mile’s End. Zack, too. He’s not just my agent. He’s my friend.”

Zack glanced away, evidently not wanting to embarrass Maddy further. On the dance floor, Dan and Oded were doing 1970s-style moves to the delight of all the girls. “You didn’t tell Dan, did you?” Maddy asked.

“No, but I can tonight, if you want me to.” Kira started to get up, bluffing or not bluffing. With Kira, it was impossible to know.

“No!” Maddy said a little too loudly. “What would be the point?”

“I want both of you to know,” Zack said, raising his eyebrows Groucho Marx–style, “that I would have no problem representing two actresses who have sexual history. It’s excellent publicity for the agent.”

Maddy felt as though they were all making fun of her. She wanted to melt into the floor. “You know what your problem is, Maddy?” Kira asked, slurring her words. “You get all worked up over stupid stuff. It’s because you think you’re the center of the universe.”

“I don’t think I’m the center of the universe,” Maddy said.

“Even before you married Steven, with your fancy French honeymoon, and your, like, fifty-bedroom mansion, you always thought you were better. Better than Sharoz and me and even Dan. You looked down on us.”

“Kira,” Reggie said, putting her hand on Kira’s arm. Kira shook her off with irritation.

“I don’t look down on any of you!” Maddy cried. “I just told you how good you were in the film.” She looked at Zack pleadingly, hoping he could explain it, but he was examining the grain of the table.

“All you ever wanted was fame,” Kira barreled on. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to be famous, too, but there are limits to what I’ll do. I’m not as cynical as you. No matter how much I believed someone could help me, I wouldn’t do what you did.”

“What are you talking about?” Maddy asked.

“The contract, of course.”

Did Kira know about her postnup? Had it been reported on the Internet? Reggie was trying to whisper in Kira’s ear, but Kira was dodging her.

“What contract?” Maddy asked.

“I
told
you it’s not true,” Zack said to Kira.

“Oh God, don’t pretend you don’t know,” Kira exploded. “It’s all over the Internet. The
marriage
contract. For appearances. The one that pays you a salary to be his wife. You have to go out with him to public events and smile for photos, but you don’t have to fuck him. You get a million a year plus a million-dollar bonus for each baby, and you agree to do IVF with his sperm so the baby looks like him, too. And you get a bump to two million if he wants you to stay more than five years, but when it’s over, you get nothing.”

She didn’t like that “million a year” figure; it paralleled the postnup too closely. But a payout to appear as someone’s wife? Who came up with this kind of thing? Did people do this? She couldn’t tell if Kira believed it or was pretending to believe it to provoke her.

All her friends were turning against her. Dan being crass about Steven, and now Kira accusing her of taking money, like some kind of high-class prostitute.

“I don’t know where you read this,” she said, “but just because something is on the Internet doesn’t make it true,” She looked at Zack for help. “There is no marriage contract. Zack, tell her.”

“There’s no contract,” he said. “Kira, leave her alone. You had too much to drink.” At least he wasn’t rushing to defend Kira.

“Yeah, honey,” Reggie said. “Let’s go outside. Get some air.” She helped Kira to her feet in the platforms.

“Steven and I love each other,” Maddy said. “It was messy, I’m not saying it wasn’t. But it’s real. How could you not think it was real? What kind of person do you think I am?”

Reggie was guiding Kira away from the table. “Why don’t you go back to your haunted mansion with your old man,” Kira said to Maddy, “where you belong? Why waste one more minute with the riffraff?” And with that, she stumbled toward the door.

7

Maddy learned that Steven was to play Tommy Hall when she was driving to the set of
Line Drive,
flipping channels on the car radio. It was a few weeks after the
I Used to Know Her
premiere. She wasn’t even paying attention, just wanted sound for the car, and then she heard a talk-radio guy mentioning Steven’s name. Tommy Hall, who had been created by the novelist Jerome Roundhouse, was a legendary character with an insatiable appetite for sex and risk and a constant stream of bons mots. A divorcé with several ex-wives, he had a hankering for attractive women half his age. Roundhouse, a reclusive man in Connecticut, had written eight Tommy novels and for many years had refused to sell the rights, but the guy on the radio was saying Roundhouse had made a deal. The first adaptation was
The Hall Fixation
.

The radio sidekick, a woman, thought Steven was sexy, but the man, a shock jock with a nicotine voice, thought he was too old. Maddy had never heard Steven mention Tommy Hall. Her first thought was that it was a hoax, one of those radio gags they did to attract more listeners.

She pulled over and typed “Steven Weller Tommy Hall” into her phone. At least a dozen items popped up, all opening with some version of “Apollo Pictures has announced that Steven Weller is to play the iconic spy Tommy Hall in a three-picture deal.”

So it was real. If all these outlets were saying so, it had to be. She dialed Steven but got his voice mail.

When she arrived on her set, the cast and crew were abuzz about the Tommy deal, congratulating her, asking her to send him their good wishes. She nodded faintly, the only saving grace that she had heard it on the radio so she didn’t look like a complete idiot.

That night she was to meet Steven at the Italian restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. When she arrived five minutes early, he was already waiting in the garden. She could sense diners watching her as she paraded to the rear. As he stood, she felt her face crumple. She sat quickly so no one could see her, lowered her head, and said, “How could you not tell me?”

“The studio was going to announce it Thursday,” he said, “but it leaked, so they had to move forward with it. I was going to tell you Wednesday.”

“But why not before? You used to talk to me about your jobs. I tell you everything.” She often felt she put too much weight on his opinion, delaying responses to scripts until Steven had a chance to read them.

“This wasn’t an audition,” Steven said. “Everything came together so quickly. Bridget kept it secret from me for weeks.” He explained that Jerome Roundhouse had gotten director and actor approval and wanted only Steven for the role. He felt no one else could play Tommy.

“I thought you were into artistic films,” she said. “This is a total one-eighty for you, and you didn’t even want to share it with me.”

“It was because of the confidentiality, Mad.”

She wondered if it had something to do with their talk about Alex a few months ago. He must have felt violated to learn she had been in his study. She had snooped, and he was betrayed, so now he didn’t trust her with his decisions. She had built a wall between them.

The waiter came, and Steven ordered them a bottle of her favorite Tocai. “Aren’t you even a little bit happy for me?” he asked.

“I just didn’t think this was the direction you wanted to go in. I thought you wanted to do projects like
The Widower
and
Husbandry
.”

“I’m not sure those films were serving me. We’ll see what happens when
Husbandry
is released, but you know
The Widower
wasn’t what I had hoped. Anyway, I don’t see
The Hall Fixation
as selling out on any level. High art can be low art and vice versa. The script is going to be incredible. We’re trying to get Bryan Monakhov.”

She winced. Dan would be insanely jealous. “I just didn’t know you were interested in—a franchise.”

He stiffened at the word “franchise,” as if it were a slur. “This is a deeply personal project for me. I told you I read
The Hall Fixation
when things were bad with my dad.”

“You never told me that.”

“Yes, I did, you’re forgetting. I told you in London that night we went to see the Pinter. I’m not even interested in the thriller elements. It’s the father-son relationship between Tommy Hall and the boss, Richard Breyer. That’s the crux of the films.”

She was almost certain he’d never said anything about the books. She would have remembered. When he referenced books, they were usually by James or Wharton. It was as though he were spinning her, as he would spin the public. With a made-up story that Tommy was personal.

Lowering his voice, he proceeded to tell her the deal points: $12 million for the first film with a pay-or-play, and options on the next two Tommy Halls, with escalations.

“So you just want to be richer than you already are?” she asked. “It’s about money?”

“It’s about what the money means. This will give me longevity as a performer, and allow me more choice as I get older, which I’m going to need. It could lead to more producing. It’s not just for me, Mad. It’s for us. I want to have children with you. This will ensure that they’re taken care of.”

A family. He was trying to seduce her with talk of a family. But he already had money, which she knew from the net-worth statement he had had to prepare before the postnup. Their children would already be taken care of. He was speaking like a minimum-wage janitor who had just won the lottery instead of a man already worth tens of millions.

Later that night, as he was making love to her from behind, she told herself to forgive him. If he wanted to build a family with her, then he saw her as a partner. But if he saw her as a partner, then he would have told her about it. She had lost him in some way, and as he came in her and cried out, his face invisible behind her, she felt like she wasn’t even there.

I
n mid-October, a few days after Steven’s Tommy role had been announced, Maddy came home from a long day of complicated driving shots in
Line Drive,
wanting to eat a plate of Annette’s roast organic chicken and go right to bed. Steven was at the dinner table—Annette was
out—and though he’d already eaten, he had warmed a plate for her and poured her a glass of red. She was moved by how kind he was being, and they talked about their workdays. After a few minutes she could see that he was troubled by something. “What is it?” she asked, blotting her mouth with her napkin. “You seem upset.”

He waved his hand. “It’s— No, I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.”

He let out a little sigh. “There’s a story coming out, some guy came forward and said something ridiculous, but it’s in a low-class publication and we’re already on top of it.”

She put down her fork. “Go on.”

“Some lowlife took a payout from
The Weekly Report
to say he and I had an affair. They’re running the story in a couple days. Edward’s already on it, he’s drafting up one of his famous Edward letters. Actual malice, reckless disregard for the truth. We’ll get a retraction from the guy, but I wanted you to know because the paps are going to be worse than usual. Do you like the chicken?”

“Who is this person? Who said this about you?”

“He works at the yacht club. I’ve known his father forever, and we’ve met, but only dealing with the boat. He’s a dockworker. Last name Bernard. I can’t even remember the first, Chad or Charlie or something. Anyway, Edward’s going to squash him. Kid must be desperate for cash, because the supermarket tabs don’t pay as much as they used to. I think he has drug problems.”

It couldn’t be true. It was too perfect, too easy. A dockworker, the yacht club. It was only because Steven was famous that this was happening. And because he had signed on to do
The Hall Fixation
.

“You’re supposed to do the press thing for Tommy next week, right?” she asked, no longer hungry.

“Yeah.” He would be doing all the morning shows, the late-night comedies, choice entertainment-blog interviews, phoners with the international press, and a few trades. “But we know about the story early, which is good, and we’re going to get him. The guy will retract it before anyone can blink, and the magazine, they never retract, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll get a letter from him, and Edward will leak the letter. Everyone will know it’s meritless.”

His cell phone rang, and he went into the study to take the call. From his tone, it sounded like Bridget, but she wasn’t sure.

T
he first sign the situation had worsened was when Maddy pulled out of the studio lot, at the end of a long shooting day, and saw fifty paparazzi standing there. She wondered whom they were there for, and then one of the guys ran up to the window, the rest trailing behind, and said, “What do you think about the
Weekly Report
story about Steven? Is Steven gay?” She had to close her window, afraid that one of them would stick his hand or his face in the car. She drove so fast to get away that she ran a light.

At home, what looked like a hundred photographers were on the sidewalk corner. Maddy drove up the driveway and opened the gate, terrified that they would follow her in, and when she got out of the car, she ran in. Bridget was there. “Oh, my darling,” she said, and hugged her.

Bridget led her into the study. Flora, their publicist, was there; and Edward, a wide-faced sixtyish man who resembled a young Ernest Borgnine; and Steven, each typing frantically on a device. Classical music was playing in the background. Their faces were alert but not happy.

Maddy took a high-backed wooden chair. Bridget went to the chair behind Steven’s desk. She wore a big silver-and-opal vertical ring on the pointer of her right hand and stroked it periodically.

Steven cleared his throat. “I wish you didn’t have to deal with any of this, Maddy, but unfortunately, it affects both of us. We were just discussing that we’ll be hiring a temporary security team to deal with the situation outside the door. We’ll also be getting bodyguards, and if need be, we’ll relocate temporarily.”

“Relocate? What are you talking about?”

“You may not have to move,” Flora said, “but there are safe houses. Places you can go to get away from them. If they’re following you around all the time, it’s dangerous for you to drive. What you’ve experienced in your marriage is only a taste of how bad it can be.”

“How can this be happening?” Maddy said, conscious of the chamber music playing in the background. “I thought you were threatening a lawsuit, Edward.”

“I released my cease-and-desist today,” Edward said. “We’re saying it’s
defamatory and recklessly untrue and seeking a full retraction from this, this”—he looked down at a sheet of paper—“Christian Bernard.”

“The problem,” Bridget said, “is the Tommy Hall press tour. Steven was supposed to be on that plane to New York tomorrow. The studio doesn’t feel it’s advisable at this point. To expose him in this way.”

“But it’s not true. Shouldn’t he be going on with business as usual, to show everyone it’s baseless?”

“They want the focus to be on the role,” Bridget said. “The franchise. This is a massive distraction. It’s not responsible to put him out there in front of the press when he’s so vulnerable. Any appearance he makes, he’ll have to address this. Even the soft outlets. They still have a marginal obligation to what they consider newsworthiness. The studio is putting a lot of money on the line for him, and it’s up to them, not us. Flora agrees.”

Flora nodded. “I can’t feed him to the wolves. The studio’s doing the right thing. You type in Steven’s name on the Internet right now, and this is all you get.”

“When do you expect the retraction to come in?” Maddy asked Edward.

“We’re having trouble locating the guy,” Bridget said.

Edward said, “We’ll get him. I’m working with a PI, and it’s going to happen. This is no rocket scientist. If he were, he wouldn’t have done this. But it may take a couple of days.”

The meeting went on, with more and more news. Flora and Edward were running a campaign to discredit Bernard; they had done their homework and found out he had a criminal record (attempted assault in a bar fight, marijuana possession, reckless driving). The stories would come out, and he would be known as an unreliable, unstable money-grubber. Steven looked miserable even as they rattled off the details of how they were “countering.”

A half hour later, Edward left and an enormous, muscled security guy came. He, Flora, Bridget, and Steven got into a detailed talk about cars, and schedules, and avoiding paparazzi. Maddy got so tired that she went upstairs and lay on top of the bed.

She could hear them strategizing downstairs. She wanted to be in control, wanted to do the right thing, but her curiosity overcame her. It was
a masochistic curiosity in which the horror and the rush that the horror gave her were synonymous. She went into her study and opened her computer. Her first search was for the
Weekly Report
story. The headline was: “STEVEN WELLER CAUGHT IN GAY SEX SCANDAL.” Alongside was a photo of Christian Bernard, and the first thing that struck her was how devilishly handsome he was, in his mid-twenties, brawny, in a gray T-shirt, with thick, defined arched eyebrows and lips that pouted. She started to read the story but got only a paragraph in before the words on the page jumped out at her: “cocaine,” “poppers,” “wrestling,” “wanted to make a sex tape.” These words had nothing to do with the Steven she knew, who didn’t even like ibuprofen. What was the point of reading all this, why do it to herself? She was helping the enemies by giving them one more hit, driving traffic to their website. She could read it no longer, she had to stop. Only a woman who hated herself would keep reading.

When Steven finally came into the bedroom a few hours later, he looked twenty pounds lighter. “Come here,” she said. She pulled him toward her. His gaze was so open that she knew he was scared. “We’re going to get through this,” she said. She hugged him tightly. She had to be the grounded one, the low-key one. If they both lost it, there was no way they could make it. As she held him in her arms, she could feel his heart beating desperately against her own.