The Comeback

by Ella Berman

  And of course I can imagine it, have been imagining little else since Emilia suggested that I present the award. I’m standing onstage while the audience applauds my return on its feet. The glitter on my gown dances under the stage lights as I talk into the microphone, shakily at first, growing in confidence until my voice is loud and forceful. When I’ve finished, the audience is standing again, applauding my bravery. Able is frozen in his seat, every ounce of power drained from his body. I try not to think about Silver and Ophelia at home with their babysitter, Emilia’s pale face as she watches me from her seat next to Able, the inevitable mauling my family and I would receive from the media in the aftermath.

  Esme picks up a lobster claw and she seems lighter, as if she’s been reassured at last that order will be restored. Underneath all her teenage cynicism, I can tell that she still believes in the good guys and the bad guys, in retribution and happy endings, and I envy her for it. I already sort of wish I hadn’t told her about it, because I know that in doing so, I’ve finally made myself accountable to someone. Maybe I figured I would lose my nerve if I didn’t, or maybe I just wanted to make her smile at me like she is now, her eyes bright and wicked. I ignore the tiny bit of white flesh that lands on my arm as Esme cracks her lobster claw.

  “Maybe their turn for winning is over, Grace. Maybe it’s our turn now.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I try to hold on to Esme’s words as I stand on the doorstep of the peach house the next morning, waiting to meet Emilia for a coffee. After a minute, Emilia flings open the door and stands in the doorway with one hand on her hip and the other holding a bowl of sliced apples. She looks flustered, but she breaks into a wide, grateful smile when she sees that it’s me. I try not to feel guilty as she throws her arms around my neck like a little kid. She smells of peanut butter mixed with her peppery Le Labo perfume.

  “I am so beyond pleased that you’re here. You wouldn’t believe the morning I’ve had already,” she says into my hair as she hugs me. “The nanny, Marla, broke her leg last night, and we’ve all descended into absolute chaos as a result. It’s also the worst possible timing with this trip to Salt Lake in a couple days.”

  “You’re going this week?” I ask, pausing in the doorway as Emilia nods.

  “Yes, I’m sure I told you. For Able’s screening? At least I’ve somehow convinced my husband to fly home with me afterward,” Emilia says, rolling her eyes. “Do you mind doing coffee here instead?”

  I nod woodenly in response and turn around to close the door so that she can’t see my face. I tell myself that I always knew Able would be coming home at some point, and that at least this way I can arm myself with the knowledge and keep one step ahead of him.

  The twins are sitting at the kitchen table, chattering like excited monkeys with cheeks red from exertion and sticky hair stuck to their foreheads. I sneak glances at them when they’re not looking, relieved to find they look more like their mother than Able.

  “Will you two just stop screaming for a second? Come and sit with us.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about Marla,” I say as I take a seat at the table.

  “So was I. She’ll be out for weeks,” Emilia says brightly, smearing the apple slices with thick peanut butter. Her hair is damp and pulled into a messy bun at the nape of her neck, and she looks different without her glossy shield of hair, as if she’s been exposed in some important way without realizing it.

  “Girls, do you remember Grace?” she asks, and they both look up at me. Silver lets out a grunt and Ophelia waves before they lose interest again. Emilia seems to have given them each an early Christmas present to distract them—two new baby-pink Polaroid cameras.

  Emilia turns to stare at the shiny, industrial-looking coffee machine and then shrugs, stumped.

  “I’m really sorry about this,” she says.

  “I already had a coffee, it’s okay,” I say, but I don’t know if she hears me.

  “Do you know how much sugar peanut butter has in it?” Silver asks, glancing up from her camera long enough to squint at her mom. I try not to recognize any of Able’s mannerisms in the nine-year-old.

  “It’s the kind without the sugar.” Emilia rolls her eyes at me and ruffles Silver’s hair.

  “And the kind without the palm oil? Because you know that they have to destroy the rain forests to—”

  “I know, Silver. It’s also the kind without the palm oil. And I’m really still so pleased that Marla teaches you about this sort of thing,” Emilia says smoothly, miming shooting herself in the mouth behind Silver’s head.

  “Can I take a picture of you?” Ophelia asks me quietly while they’re talking, and I nod. I stick my tongue out just as she presses the button, and she giggles, a low gurgling sound that makes me smile. When the Polaroid comes out, she grabs it and waves it in the air.

  Emilia already looks exhausted, but she tries to make conversation anyway, rambling about a movie the girls’ school had tried to ban after they’d already seen it. Watching her struggle to maintain control of everything, I feel a jolt of sympathy, but then her phone rings a few minutes later and I see a photo of Able appear on the screen, dimples flashing as he leans against a palm tree. My whole body tenses, but Emilia doesn’t seem to notice, apologizing as she glides past me to answer the call in the living room.

  While Emilia is out of the room, I try not to think about the voice on the other end of the line, so I pick up the Polaroid Ophelia took of me from the table instead. In the picture I look carefree and easy, and I wonder if this is what Emilia sees when she looks at me. I have no idea how I fit into her narrative, whether she really does see me as an extension of herself or whether she still just pities me for being so alone.

  When Emilia comes back into the kitchen, she looks unsettled, those red blotches that very pale people get climbing her neck.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her, and she looks at me, taking a moment to focus.

  “Oh, nothing really. Able just reminded me that our financial adviser is coming over this afternoon, but I have to take the girls to school for their final holiday pageant rehearsal. I also have this deadline that I’ve been putting off.” Emilia breaks off and smiles at me. “You know, it’s fine. Millions of people do this every day. I’ll figure it out. I just need a moment to catch my breath.”

  I stand up and walk around to her, putting my hand on her shoulder. I can feel the damp heat of her sweat through her thin cotton top, and I feel a snap of guilt for what I’m about to do to the only person who has actually wanted to be around me since I’ve been back in Los Angeles.

  “Why don’t I drop the girls off at school?” I ask slowly. “I have something I need to do at home, then I can come pick them right up.”

  Emilia looks up at me for a moment, and the expression on her face is pure and grateful. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Where on earth did you come from, Gracie?”

  I try to concentrate as Emilia tells me the address of the school, and how I need to ignore Silver when she tries to sit in the front of the car, but my mind is already somewhere else. Sometimes, things start to fall into place so naturally, so neatly, it’s as if you have been planning them that way all along, without ever realizing it.

  * * *

  • • •

  I’d like to tell you that I didn’t go straight home and put on an eighties-style red bodysuit with a pair of vintage Levi’s jean shorts and a Gucci belt. That I didn’t run a brush through my hair, choose my best pair of sunglasses, the black ones with the gold rim, or that I didn’t apply a slash of bright red lipstick just before I left the house. I’d like to tell you that I didn’t wave to Emilia from the car as if nothing had changed, that I didn’t text Laurel with the address and time of the school drop-off. That I didn’t smile directly into the lens when the photographer started taking photos. Tha
t it didn’t cross my mind that the image would be circulated instantly, tearing through social media like the Napa Valley wildfires. That I had no idea Able would see them.

  But I would be lying, of course.

  Am I angry? All the time.

  * * *

  • • •

  Once I’ve handed the girls over to a blond teacher I think I recognize from an episode of CSI, I drive back to my rental. I make myself some scrambled eggs the way Emilia taught me, and then I sit on the porch and stare at the plate, waiting. At five p.m., Laurel messages me a link. There is a story online about me being back in LA and looking better than ever. The main image is a photo of me holding each of the girls’ hands and leading them from my car, followed by smaller images of me handing them over to the teacher. I do look good, smiling widely with my white hair glittering under the LA sunshine, my eyes covered in black sunglasses. The girls’ faces have been blurred, but you can clearly see Silver’s sparkly sneakers and the twins’ bright red hair.

  Laurel sends me a couple more links, the last one a piece reporting that I left town because Able and I were having an affair. The photo they’ve used is one from the Lights of Berlin premiere in London, Emilia and I on either side of a frowning Able. Emilia’s mouth is open because she’s in the middle of a sentence, and her makeup is wrong for the lighting—her skin coated in a bright white powder that catches the flash. I look relaxed on the other side of Able, and my perfectly made-up lips are pulled into a small, glossy smile. I try to remember the dread I felt when I was posing for the picture, but the memory feels out of reach now that I’m looking at the evidence.

  The story is from a trashy, disreputable website, but the thought that Able could be reading it, too, that he might be the one who is scared, powerless to stop whatever move is next, makes me feel more alive than I have in years. That’s when I receive a message from a number not saved in my phone, the only one I will never be able to erase.

  What are you doing???

  The inevitability of his words nearly winds me, because isn’t this what I’ve been waiting for this whole time?

  I delete the message before I can count the question marks or think about where he is, whether he can get to me again. Maybe from now on, Able can be the one to wait, to have to guess my next move. Maybe my time for winning has only just begun.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  How did you find me?” I ask when I open the door to find Camila, the journalist from Vanity Fair, standing on my doorstep the next morning. I have just woken up from a night of fractured, adrenaline-laced sleep, and I’m unconfident in my ability to handle this interaction. I look around for someone to save me, but the other residents of Coyote Sumac are all either already in the water or still in bed.

  “I asked around,” Camila says, and she seems calmer than when I first met her. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

  I smile wryly because we both know why she’s here.

  “I’m actually on my way out,” I say then, even though I’m clearly still in my pajamas.

  “I saw the stories about you and Able.”

  “It’s just trash, Camila,” I say, folding my arms across my chest.

  Camila studies me for a moment before changing tack. She leans in toward me and starts to speak softly. “Look, I want to be clear with you. I am going ahead with a story about the systemic abuse of power in Hollywood, and it is up to you whether you want to be part of it or not. I don’t need you, but I would like your voice to be heard. I have a former colleague of his implying that your relationship with Able wasn’t strictly professional. I also have an eyewitness account that he bullied you on the set of every movie you worked on together.”

  I curl my trembling hands into fists by my sides.

  “Without my side of the story, that’s just conjecture. I thought Vanity Fair had higher journalistic standards than that.”

  Camila watches me, sensing my hesitation.

  “You’re still trying to force me to do something, you know,” I say quietly. “I still don’t have control over it.”

  Camila pauses. “I’m trying to give you the choice. Can you understand that?”

  Of course I understand that Camila isn’t trying to catch me out. She’s just like the rest of us, trying to match her job to her ambition, without thinking about the fallout for anyone else. It’s just, when I think of the message from Able last night, the thrilling sensation that ran through me at the sight of those four words, it makes me wonder something . . . Why am I always the one who has to jeopardize everything I’ve built for myself? Why can’t Able suffer in silence for once while waiting for my next move, as his loved ones quietly pull away from him like he’s a virus nobody wants to catch? Why should I be the only person with nobody in the world to turn to?

  What are you doing???

  I’m closing in on you.

  “I’m not ready,” I say slowly. “But I might be able to give you something else. Do you want to come inside?”

  * * *

  • • •

  We plan the shoot in under twenty-four hours. Emilia instantly agrees to let me use the peach house for our location, as I knew she would. She is due to fly to Salt Lake City for Able’s screening that evening, so the twins are already at a sleepover with a friend from school, and she jumps at the chance to help me out. I wonder what Able will think when he sees the interview and photos of me in his house. Whether he can feel me circling ever closer to him even from all these states away.

  When I arrive at the peach house, Emilia throws open the door. She looks immaculate again, more than ready to charm whomever I need her to.

  “Did you see the stories about us all?” she asks, laughing, and I wonder what it would be like to feel so sure of your own place in the world that you never once paused to question anybody’s intentions.

  “I’d hoped you hadn’t seen them,” I say, because it isn’t necessarily a lie.

  “Oh, trust me, we’ve all been in this business long enough to know that reporters just tell whatever story they want to tell. It will blow over, just try not to worry. They can sense your fear.”

  “I’m not scared,” I say, wondering whether it could be true this time.

  “I know, darling, of course you’re not,” she says, and I immediately feel embarrassed, like I’m a sulky teenager whose ego needs to be stroked. Somehow I always seem to say the wrong thing around Emilia, even though she tries her best not to let me realize it. I force a smile, trying to piece my facade back together.

  “Thank you for letting me do this here. Honestly, I couldn’t let anyone see my dump of a house,” I say, and Emilia instantly waves her hand in the air.

  “Oh, please, don’t mention it again.”

  * * *

  • • •

  I have promised Camila an exclusive on the reason I left Los Angeles, the state of my marriage and a vague confirmation of the demons everyone now suspects I have. It’s not exactly what she wanted, but it’s an exclusive all the same: a rare glimpse into the life of someone notoriously private. As I wait for her to arrive, I sit cross-legged on the sofa and give myself a pep talk: Make yourself seem fragile at times but never broken. Don’t demand anything of Camila, or the people who are going to read the profile. There’s nothing more desperate than a celebrity seeking the validation of strangers. Forget the notion that she wanted to talk to you and therefore you don’t need to sell yourself. Remember that you always need to sell yourself. Keep your jaw pushed forward to avoid a double chin, and don’t frown too much. Seem uncomplicated and appealing and, above all, grateful for everything the public has given you. Never mention how quick they were to take it away.

  “Are you feeling okay about this?” Emilia says as she passes behind the sofa, touching me gently on the shoulder.

  “I think so,” I say, shrugging. “The media have been hard on me latel
y, so I don’t want to make anything worse.”

  “That’s how it works, isn’t it? They gobble you up, then shit you out when they’re done with you,” Emilia says, and I would laugh if it weren’t true.

  She sits down next to me. “You can turn this around. You just have to pretend to be suitably chastened, as galling as that might be. Everyone will want you to have learned something from your transgressions, as if life is ever that simple.”

  I pull a face and she laughs.

  “Have you run through the questions with this person in advance?”

  “Most journalists don’t do that,” I say, which isn’t entirely true since I’ve already told Camila exactly whom she can’t mention.

  “You’ll be fine. Would you like me to stay in the room in case you don’t like the direction she’s taking? I feel slightly uncomfortable that you don’t have a publicist here or anyone to support you.”

  I’m about to decline her offer, but I stop myself when I realize that having the physical reminder of Emilia’s presence might just stop me from revealing too much about myself. I nod, trying to look grateful.

  “Thank you, Emilia.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The shoot is straightforward enough. I am wearing a white shirt and ripped jeans with Emilia’s diamond and sapphire Bulgari necklace that she insisted I borrow. I choose the living room as the location because it’s dark enough that the photographer will have to use a flash without me asking, and it will be more flattering for me. Before we start, I make Camila promise not to airbrush any of the shots, knowing that she will include the surprising request in her story and that it will instantly endear me to thousands of normal Americans who will now take it upon themselves to defend my appearance. I pose in front of Able and Emilia’s extensive book collection with a small, sad smile on my face that says it all: I may be fragile but I am brave, and more importantly, I am learning.