by Ella Berman
“I hear you’re not working with Nan anymore?” one of the women asks me, and even though I’m still reeling, trying desperately to scan the room and locate Emilia, I pull my attention to her. They are all indistinguishable to me, these women with their glowing skin and haircuts as blunt as their questions.
I excuse myself as soon as possible and lean against a wall on the other side of the room. You can see the whole living space from here, even through to the expansive deck that overlooks the ocean. And that’s when I see him. The man who both created and destroyed me. He stands with his back against the doors that lead onto the deck, telling a story to his crowd of fans. He speaks quietly so that those around him have to lean in toward him to catch each word. People are drawn to him like this. They hover around him and laugh too loudly, even when he’s not being funny, which is most of the time. I remember how important it felt to remain in his glowing orbit, to do whatever it took not to be cast back into the dark. He controls everyone around him, refusing to acknowledge my presence because he doesn’t have to, even though I know that he’s spotted me from the deliberate way he will look anywhere but at me.
The fury comes now, the force of it buoying me up instead of pulling me under for the first time since the day I met him. I watch him from afar, blood pumping through my veins, my fingers tightening around the glass in my hand. I watch him so intently that everything else around us starts to blur, the lights flaring and everyone else fading into the background. Able’s blond hair is thick and perfectly tousled. His skin is golden, his red lips plump and his incisor teeth sharp.
A hand snakes around my waist and I turn quickly, ready to knock someone out. When I see that it’s John Hamilton, I step deftly back, angling my face so that he can kiss my cheek with no risk of him getting anywhere near my mouth.
“Publicity already kicked in on the movie, right?” he says, and I stare at him blankly. “The photos? Outside my house?”
“Sorry, of course. Yes, exactly,” I say, trying to focus on him. Even in the dim lighting, I can see the film of sweat covering his skin, his lips slick with spittle. John is cumbersome, even repellent, seemingly a different species from Able. I think how different it might be if his was the face of my nightmares instead of Able, whether people would understand it more, maybe even want to believe me.
“I’m going to pay my respects to the man of the hour. I hear this new one is his best yet,” John says, before he claps me on the shoulder. “No offense.”
“None taken,” I say, stepping out of the way so that he can sail past me, settling in next to Able.
Silver comes up to me then, wearing a polka-dot dress and clutching a pack of Lucky Strikes like it’s an Oscar.
“What are you doing with those?”
“I heard someone say that smoking is so uncool, it’s actually cool again,” she says, and I should probably stop her, but I let her wander off instead, still holding the pack of cigarettes. I put my glass straight down on the vintage butler’s table Emilia traveled to an auction in New Haven to pick up. I don’t take my eyes off Able for a second.
When he and John slip outside with a couple of cigars, I move closer, into the living room area. An aged rock star sits in the emerald velvet armchair, his tobacco-stained fingers twitching on the armrest. A young actor, tipped to clean up this awards season, sits in the other chair, comparing vapes with his older cast mate. The porcelain caroler figurines that were once Emilia’s grandmother’s line every surface of the room, and I try not to look at them for too long, each of their shiny frozen faces pulled back into an eternal scream.
Someone else taps me on the shoulder, and I turn around. The woman standing there already feels familiar; her lips are fleshy and slick with glossy lipstick.
“Grace, it’s me. Lorna,” this woman says, her mouth stretching wide into a smile. Lorna. I shake my head, no, too disoriented to feel bad for not knowing who she is.
“From the first two movies?” she says, embarrassed now.
“I killed you in the second movie,” I say, because of course, she was the other female assassin. I try to concentrate while also making sure that I know exactly where Able is. He’s still outside. Where’s Emilia? I shake my head and try to form something resembling a normal question. “What are you up to now?”
“I’m working in script development,” Lorna says self-deprecatingly. “We can’t all be famous, I guess.”
“I would swap it with you,” I say honestly, and she shrugs, maybe because she’s one of the only people who would believe me and wouldn’t want it either. I’m about to turn away when I remember something. Another piece of the puzzle that was in the wrong place.
“You know the day we shot your last scene . . . the day that Able shut down the set,” I say, and Lorna nods. “What did the rest of you do? I never even thought to ask.”
“Oh.” Lorna puts her head to one side, remembering. “You know, we went to Disneyland. One of the makeup artists told me it had been planned for weeks. Able just has to make a big deal out of everything, doesn’t he?” she says, chewing a loose piece of skin off one of her nails. “It was good to see you anyway, Grace. Good luck with everything.”
I think of the girl in the launderette, and my memory warps, flickering slightly like an old movie reel. There is no such thing as luck. Everything about my life has been inevitable, predetermined from the moment I cried onstage during the audition at my school. Suddenly, it’s as if I’m looking down on the room from above, watching myself ricochet from person to person, each encounter taking something different from me, diminishing me slowly until eventually I am the size of one of Emilia’s carolers, my face frozen in a silent scream. For the first time in a long time I understand with a near-blinding urgency what I need to do in order to rebuild all that was lost.
I need to get out of this house.
* * *
• • •
I’m nearly at the front door when Emilia intercepts me. She grabs me, her nails digging into my arm again. I struggle slightly, but her grip only tightens.
“Gracie, I thought you’d want to speak to our surprise guest. Or maybe you’re the surprise guest, I can’t keep up anymore,” she says, and I can tell that she’s drunk from the way her pupils can’t focus. She takes a step back, leaving me and Able staring at each other. Each synapse in my body is firing, screaming at me to get away from him, but I force myself to step toward him instead because Emilia is watching and I don’t want her to see how scared I am. I kiss Able stiffly on the cheek, and his golden skin is still papery and rough up close, just like it is in my nightmares.
“Grace,” he says quietly, formally, as we step back from the embrace.
“You must have been relieved the storm cleared up,” I say, my voice tight, and Able frowns, seemingly both confused and irritated by me.
“The storm?” he asks, and we both look at Emilia. I understand now that she lied to get me here, in front of him, so that she could see for herself. I have to watch it happen on her face after that, the confirmation that nothing is what she thought it was, that everything she feared most in the world is here, in this room between us.
Emilia grips the back of the sofa, and there is a moment when I think she is going to sink to the floor, but of course she recovers beautifully, straightening up to smooth a piece of hair behind her ear before she focuses somewhere above my head and touches Able gently on the arm.
“Darling, you must introduce me to Jennifer. I’ve heard such wonderful stories.”
They float away from me, and I’m left standing alone among the hundreds of stricken carolers, trying to remember how it is that we breathe.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
I’m in Able’s office. I was going to leave, but instead my body led me here, and I don’t know what I wanted but my heart is racing fast in my chest and I feel sick and scared, and it’s clear to me now that everything is exactly
the same as it was back then, that I am exactly the same, and that I always will be.
The lights in the office are low, hidden in the walls above the mahogany desk. The walls are still lined with books chosen to make Able seem smart, informed: Stanislavski, Chekhov, Miller and Williams, most of which I know Able will never have touched, let alone read. With trembling hands, I pick up the photograph still on the desk. Able and Emilia stand proudly behind the girls, frozen in time at age three with Able’s hands on their shoulders.
The door to the office swings open, and I jump behind the desk, dread tracking heavily through my veins. Emilia. She closes the door behind her and she looks exhausted, sadder than I’ve ever seen her.
She starts to make her way over to me, but I flinch and she stops moving, somehow understanding that I can’t have her near me right now. She smells of champagne and cigarettes, of good times, but her eyes are drained of all signs of life.
“The other day, in my kitchen. Your face,” she says quietly, and in her I can see my own rawness reflected back at me. “Just tell me one thing. And I will never ask it again.”
I nod, and the ringing in my ears gets louder with every passing second.
“Were you ever in love with my husband?” she asks, and I understand she’s asking me what I have asked myself every single day since I was fifteen in my own attempt to do what she’s trying to do right now.
“No,” I tell her.
Emilia’s body deflates like a balloon, her shoulders curving in as if she can’t support herself anymore, and I can see how hard she’s worked to keep everything together over the years. I can see all the rumors, the late nights, the self-deprecation, the fake smiles. A whirling dervish with a martini in her hand and lipstick on her teeth. I feel sad for her now, this stranger who tried to help me when she thought I needed it the most. She didn’t know she’d already been cursed, just like I had.
Emilia straightens, and picks up the photo from Able’s desk.
“I didn’t think so,” she says, turning it facedown.
* * *
• • •
I’m on my way out of the house, knowing that it will be for the last time, when I become aware that something is happening in the kitchen, and that everyone else is pretending not to notice. I make eye contact with a tall man in a green velvet smoking jacket who is standing closest to the kitchen door, and he raises one eyebrow back at me. I frown at him but I’m listening now, too, my back pressed against the cool wall.
Emilia’s voice is taut but shrill, cutting over the ambient Christmas music and hum of polite conversation.
“Why aren’t they leaving?”
“Emilia, please. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
I don’t hear what Emilia says in response to that, but Able’s voice gets quieter, his tone rougher. I have turned to stone, my feet rooted to the floor, and maybe I want to tell her my story before he does, or maybe I want to protect her from him, or maybe it’s always been something more complicated than that.
Emilia opens the kitchen door and pushes past me. She walks straight upstairs without looking at anyone. Most of the guests notice her but nobody wants to go home yet, even though the alcohol ran out at least an hour ago. I consider following her, but I don’t know what I could say.
When Emilia emerges again, she is wearing cream silk pajamas, and her hair is pulled into a scrappy knot on top of her head. She has removed her makeup, and her eyebrows have disappeared completely, replaced by smooth skin that is shiny and raw, like the rest of her face. She walks down the stairs slowly, coming to a stop at the foot of the staircase, then she sits on the bottom step, her arms folded across her chest and her face set, unreadable. Silver runs over to her.
“Mommy, what are you doing?” she asks loudly, clearly panicked. Emilia brushes her away. She sits in silence, glaring at everyone until they are forced to acknowledge her presence. The music stops and the guests finally start to make their excuses, shaking Able’s hand firmly, then bending down to kiss Emilia’s clean cheek without quite meeting her eye. They trickle out the door steadily, already gossiping about the night as they leave. The coat check girl is the last to leave, and I stand by the door, holding it open for her too.
Once she’s gone, I follow Emilia like a ghost into the kitchen, where the girls are sitting. Ophelia is playing with the cheese board in front of her, but Silver is anxious, watching her mother closely.
Able storms into the kitchen and opens all of the cupboards, searching for something.
“I’m sorry, why are you still here, Grace?” he asks as he slams another cabinet door.
“Don’t be rude,” Emilia says sharply. I think of her, sitting on the steps in her pajamas, still lifting her cheek for everyone to kiss good-bye because the worst thing in her world would be to be impolite.
“I’m tired, I just got back, and I would like to spend some time alone with my family,” Able says quietly, leaning against the counter and folding his arms across his chest. I recognize the pattern of behavior instantly: the steely quiet before he blows up.
Silver tugs at her mom’s sleeve, but Emilia is still staring down at her hands.
“The hands are the first thing you notice. People say it’s your neck but it’s your hands,” she says quietly.
“Okay, Lady Macbeth,” Able says, always irritated by the oblique. “I need another drink. Girls, why are you still up? Where the fuck is Marla?”
“Marla broke her leg,” Ophelia says, not lifting her eyes from the piece of Brie she has wedged her fingers into.
“I told you that twice,” Emilia says.
“Can I have some wine?” Silver asks, trying to get anyone’s attention. Her cheeks are flushed, and she’s on the verge of a tantrum. I sit frozen, watching the family portrait unfold around me, despite me and because of me at the same time. I am unable to move.
“We’re out of everything,” Emilia replies to Able coolly.
“I’m going to go and pick something up then.”
Able pushes off the counter too quickly and has to grip the back of a chair to steady himself.
“You can’t go anywhere in this state.”
“Daddy’s drunk,” Silver sings desperately, willing even to sacrifice herself to change the dynamic in the room.
“Well, then you go get me something,” Able says challengingly.
“I’ve drunk too much too. It’s enough. We’ve had enough. Able, sit down. The night’s over. It’s over.”
Emilia’s voice is hard and Silver starts to cry. Emilia turns to comfort her.
I stand up then, slowly and deliberately.
“I can drive you, Able. I haven’t had anything to drink.”
Emilia looks between the two of us, her expression unreadable as Able finally meets my gaze.
“Yes, Able. Why don’t you let Grace drive you?” Emilia asks tautly, daring her husband to say something. The air stops moving around us all.
“Fine,” Able says as he turns and walks out of the room, knowing that I will, of course, follow him.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Able tosses me the keys and slides heavily into the passenger side. My heart is pounding, but I try to steady my hands as I turn the key in the ignition. A Tom Petty song plays softly through the speakers. I pull out onto the road.
“I hear you’re speaking to John Hamilton about Anatopia,” he says, tapping his fingers on the console between us. “It’s a smart move for you.”
I shake my head. “I know what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.”
He shrugs. “Whatever you want.”
Neither of us speaks for a moment.
“Do you ever feel bad about it?” I ask, my voice tight.
He stares out of the windshield and pauses for long enough that I think he must be considering it at least. “I try not to feel bad about anything.�
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“No regrets,” I say, thinking about how my mom has always said the same thing, and neither of us has ever lived by it.
He touches the car audio system, skipping a couple of tracks before he lands on another Tom Petty song. That he feels the need to even control what song is playing infuriates me so much I can’t think for a moment.
“You need to leave my family alone, Grace. I know you know that.”
“Emilia is the one—”
“Emilia feels sorry for you because you’re lonely, and you’re mentally unstable,” he interrupts, holding up his hand to stop me.
“Don’t pretend this is about her. You still need me,” he says, so simply that I almost believe him.
“I don’t need you.” Almost.
“Why are you hanging around my family then? Always in my house? You can’t keep away from my life.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“You don’t know yourself like I know you, Gracie. You never have,” Able says. “You want me to notice you. That’s why you’re doing all of this.”
My breath is coming thick and fast now as I try to wade through his words, unpicking them like I always have to. He moves his hand up to my head and starts to gently stroke my hair as panic floods through me, its icy claws gripping my heart.
“After everything you’ve done to me, please, please don’t make me feel like I’m crazy too,” I say. My memory of the assaults are sometimes razor sharp, but at other times they break and shatter like a strobe light. I can’t quite reach any of it right now, when I need to believe in myself the most. My eyes fill with tears but I blink them away.
“Can you speak to someone about this? Or would you like me to? Maybe Nathan, or your parents?”