The Comeback

by Ella Berman

  “So, actually, I am here to thank you, Able, in a way.” I turn to look at him, for just a moment, and I can see that he would kill me right now if he could. I take a deep breath.

  “Thank you, for making me aware that there are an infinite amount of ways to get hurt, every day of my life, even when you are nowhere near me.”

  The room is more than silent—it is frozen in time. I am suspended above them, my words floating and falling around us all like blossoms, settling into the darkest, loneliest crevices of Hollywood.

  “Because knowing what I know, and still getting up every single day, despite it? That makes me stronger, and braver, and better than you. So, Able, you don’t get to have ruined me. Not even one tiny part of me.”

  Able is looking away from me, into the wings behind me, and that’s when I see Emilia standing there. She turns and walks away from both of us. The audience is silent because, like the good, docile actors they are, they are waiting for someone to tell them what to do, some director or publicist to tell them whose side they are on. Then the queen of Hollywood starts to clap, slowly at first, but it rings out like thunder in the silent auditorium. A few others join in, but I’m already walking off the stage and straight out of the back of the building, past the photographers who don’t know what’s happened, past the crowds of fans waiting to catch a glimpse of their favorite actor, and past the black town cars and SUVs that are lining Highland, waiting to take the stars inside back to their real lives. I walk past them all, limping alone down the eerily quiet stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, the hem of my dress dragging over the names of everyone who came before me, encased in stars for eternity.

  EPILOGUE

  One Year Later

  I hold my twenty-fourth birthday dinner at Musso and Frank, right where Hollywood’s heart would be if it had one. Photographers are still waiting outside, but I’m a different kind of celebrity now, and we all know that I’m not theirs in the same way anymore. I smile at them as I pass with Esme, and I remember what it was like at my first public appearance, where so many strangers were calling my name that it turned into a sound I didn’t recognize anymore. Maybe that’s how I forgot who I was.

  At first it feels strange to watch my friends and family interact with each other, but when I notice my mom and Laurel sparring happily in the corner, or Esme quizzing Dylan about licensing music for the movie she has now nearly finished, I feel a flicker of hope that overpowers my need for control. At one point I try to stand up to thank everyone for coming, but my voice becomes thick and my eyes fill with tears, and I have to sit right back down again. Laurel and my mother spare me any further embarrassment by pretending not to notice, but Esme quietly takes my hand in hers, and my dad smiles at me from the other end of the table. Dylan signals for Lana to bring my birthday cake out then, a towering rainbow sponge cake with a large 24 on it, and I hide my face while everyone sings “Happy Birthday” to me. As I close my eyes to blow out the candles, I think about second chances, how maybe I am one of the lucky ones after all. Then, just when I think it’s time to leave, Esme stands up and taps her spoon against her glass.

  “To my big sister,” she starts, grinning at me and holding her glass out. “The most infuriating, bravest and probably the best person I know. Happy birthday, you cretin-buster.”

  I raise my glass until it meets hers.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dylan is driving me home, and we’re listening to our favorite The Cure song, the one that we nearly danced to at our wedding before someone told us it was about death not life. He’s sneaking glances at me to check that I’m okay, which is something people around me have been doing a lot since the IFAs.

  I watch as the city that gave me everything and took it all away from me slips past in the window. I’m slowly taking some parts of my life back, not in the same way I was before, but steadily, carefully, in a way I sometimes think might just last.

  “When I was blowing out my candles earlier, do you know what I was thinking?” I say to Dylan, and I’ve been trying to work out how to word it without worrying him or seeming like I’m being dramatic, but now I just think fuck it because it’s the truth, and for some bizarre reason, he seems to want to know this kind of thing about me.

  “What?” Dylan asks, and he slows down a little because we’re nearly at my new house, a few miles up the coast from Coyote Sumac.

  “So we’re there, with all my favorite people in the world, and I know that I’m feeling something that’s like . . . the most obvious, uncomplicated happiness that I can remember experiencing. I’m trying to just soak it up, and be present, but then I start thinking, isn’t it fucked that you will never know if you’re actually living the happiest moment of your life until you’ve lived them all? Isn’t that some sort of massive flaw in the human experience?”

  Dylan is shaking his head and laughing at me, about to say something, but I hold up my hand to stop him.

  “But, then I thought about it some more, and maybe there are some things you just don’t need to know. Maybe it’s all right that there’s always the potential to outdo your best. Plus, there is no way you’ll actually be trying to work that shit out when you’re dying.”

  “You thought all of this while you were blowing out your candles.”

  “Yep,” I say, shrugging. “I’m quite the existential multitasker.”

  “So what was your takeaway?” Dylan asks, pulling to a stop outside my house even though I can tell he wishes we weren’t here yet.

  “Takeaway was, maybe it’s okay not to be okay all of the time,” I say, smiling slightly because even though it sounds like a bland inspirational quote from a coffee mug, I still think I mean it. “Maybe it’s okay not to be perfect, or the best, or even special for a while.”

  Dylan shakes his head but he’s looking at me like I’m magic, and for the first time in my life, I actually want to believe him.

  “Are you going to be all right?” Dylan asks while I’m reaching for my jacket and bag from the back of the car. I understand that he still has to ask me this question because just over a year ago I drove off a cliff into a ravine at the bottom of the Santa Monica Mountains, and I have the scars to prove it. Because after I faced the source of all of my nightmares at the IFAs, I then had to endure hours of questioning at the police station about the emotional abuse, the sexual assault and, finally, the crash, so that by the time they let me go, I didn’t know if I felt weightless or drained of everything I had. The state won’t press charges against me for the accident, but are still deliberating over what to do about my claims against Able. My lawyer told me that Emilia was right, the reality of California law is that my case is unlikely to make it to court, and if it does I will have to endure weeks of attacks on my credibility by Able’s lawyers that, best-case scenario, will result in a couple of months in jail and a small fine for him. Some days, just knowing that there are names for what he did, things that at one time seemed so horrifyingly unique to just me, feels like it could be enough. Other days I want to stand up in court and testify against the man who abused me in so many ways, fire roaring in my veins. I change my mind every day. And I’m allowed to.

  “I think so,” I say. The truth.

  I kiss Dylan on the cheek before I climb out of the car, and he smiles because it has to be good enough for the moment, while we’re still figuring everything out.

  I’m a couple of feet away when Dylan winds down his window.

  “Do you think it’s an appropriate moment to . . . say the line?” he says, grinning so widely I start to laugh.

  “I’m not sure that it’s ever appropriate to say the line.”

  “Come on . . . it’s kind of perfect.”

  I stand for a moment, hands on my hips, trying to remember what it felt like to play a homicidal sex worker in an orange jail jumpsuit, rage pounding through my veins in every scene. I think about the line tha
t strangers still shout at me when I pass them in the humid city streets; the line that I once believed could get me an Oscar, but that I now know just means a part of me will always belong to other people, whatever happens next. The line that Able wrote just for me. I take a deep breath as I turn the words over in my mind, and then I just drop my hands back down to my sides and shrug.

  “You know, I think I’ve officially earned the right to never say the line again in my life,” I say, grinning at Dylan unapologetically. Our eyes meet for a second and I feel that familiar kick, low in my belly.

  We’re both still smiling as Dylan drives away, his waving hand nearly lost in the Malibu dust that billows behind him. And that’s when I notice the sky above the Pacific. Have you ever seen a sunset like this one? I hope you have, the wild pink sky slashed with flaming streaks of gold, the kind of sunset that makes you feel lucky, golden; the type that has the power to tell you that perhaps, for one small moment in time, you are exactly where you need to be.

  THANK YOU

  To my parents and Sophie, for your support in me and for being the funniest (and best) family in the world. D—thank you for always encouraging me to write and be creative, and for leading by example. I promise I’ll read Dracula now. M—thank you for all of your thoughtful advice and for being the first person I trust with anything, in both writing and life. S—thank you for being my best friend and my memory, and for having enough enthusiasm for us both. I am so BEYOND lucky to have you all.

  To Jen Monroe, for being the smartest editor I could have dreamed of. Thank you for understanding me (and, more importantly, Grace!) implicitly, and for excavating the heart of the story. Working with you has been a dream.

  To Julia Silk, for seeing something in my writing early on and for setting everything in motion. Thank you for your patience and for your wicked sense of humor—some of the lines exist only to make you laugh.

  To David Forrer, for choosing to take me on and transforming my life almost overnight. I could feel your warmth and magic from the first time we spoke.

  To Jin Yu, Jessica Brock, Diana Franco, Craig Burke, Jeanne-Marie Hudson and Claire Zion at Berkley, for your ideas, enthusiasm and support—I’m so grateful for all that you do. To Colleen Reinhart and Emily Osborne, for the beautiful cover. To Angelina Krahn, for being a truly talented copy editor and making me look better than I am.

  To Lola Frears, for being my first reader, my hype man and my therapist all in one. I can’t wait to see what you do next. WE STILL GOT THIS, RIGHT?

  To Tilda and James Napier, who believed I could do this even when I didn’t. Thank you for being such positive forces in my life, and for Jackson and Jeanne.

  To Rachael Blok, for the early edits and emotional support, as well as the much-needed punctuation lessons. And to everyone at CBC, particularly Anna Davis, for the early reads and advice.

  To Tim and Martha Craig, for the early lessons in confidence and kindness, and to Nora Evans and Mark Owen at KAS, for fostering individuality and creativity above all else.

  To Christian Vesper and Rustic Bodomov, for your invaluable insight into the respective worlds of film/TV and stunt work—any errors are entirely my own. To Christine Louis de Canonville—thank you for your tireless efforts to reform the laws around coercive control until they reflect the realities of so many.

  To Jacqueline, Lili (and Bodhi!), Mary, Dan, Jazz, Charlie, Lottie, Athina, Claire, Vikki, Maggie, Jenni, Ed, Vanna, Will, Sarah, Nenners, Merry, Janet, Dave, Hannah, Owen, Rach, Emma, Bonnie, Kim, Paul and Ben, for your friendship and stories, and for keeping me (relatively) sane. I hope I didn’t steal any of your best lines!

  To Rocky, because it would be weird if I didn’t mention you once in 100,000-odd words. A true angel.

  And finally, to James. Thank you for your unwavering belief in me from the moment we met, as well as your love. Thank you for always falling asleep with a smile on your face. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I started writing The Comeback in February 2017, and I understood from the start who Grace was, and what she’d experienced in a male-dominated environment of toxic power that had gone unchecked for too long.

  This was eight months before the New Yorker and New York Times articles exposing the systemic sexism and chilling sexual abuse allegations in Hollywood came out. I watched in awe as the Me Too movement, started in 2006 by the relentless and inspiring Tarana Burke, took hold. At first it was stories from people like Grace, their words filtered through the mainstream press and given coverage because of who they were, but soon enough the stories took on a life of their own: thousands of secrets fighting their way out of bedrooms and offices and refuges across the world. The tireless work of Burke and the reporters who broke those initial stories—Megan Twohey, Ronan Farrow and Jodi Kantor—as well as the thousands of brave survivors who came out in the following months has been a beautiful, rallying example of how the Internet can be used for good, as well as showing the power that comes when we remove the secrecy and stigma from sexual abuse.

  I made the editorial decision to leave Grace’s story as I had first envisaged it, choosing not to reference the developments that were happening in the world around me and the effect these would have on Grace’s story. While aspects of Grace’s experience are familiar, it is, like every instance of abuse, ultimately a very personal story about the shame we can carry in the aftermath of trauma.

  I stand with the survivors of abuse of every gender, whether that abuse is sexual, physical, emotional or any other type, and I hope that in telling Grace’s story, I have done them a small justice.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ella Berman grew up in both London and Los Angeles and worked at Sony Music before starting the clothing brand London Loves LA. She lives in London with her husband, James, and their dog, Rocky. The Comeback is her first novel.

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.