by Emma Dibdin
Much like George Clooney had done on ER a few years prior, Conrad found an unlikely route into movie stardom by way of network television. His heartthrob status among teenagers and their moms alike translated into a global fan base that propelled him to blockbuster success – the Reckless trilogy has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide – and critical acclaim. And for twenty years, he was one half of Hollywood’s most beloved golden couple, ever since he and Carol Conrad (née Marsh) first stepped out together at the 1995 Emmy Awards, she in a green silk Dior gown that became instantly iconic. ‘Carol and I had no idea what we were getting into that night,’ he laughs now. ‘She was wearing this dress – which, my God, I knew it was a spectacular dress, but I don’t really understand fashion or anything about that world. Her dress became a story, and my winning became a story, and the two of us together became a story.’
‘Something wrong?’ I ask him, because he’s stopped.
‘I just don’t know how to approach this – I mean, I’ve already told you more about my marriage than I should have.’
‘You know your secret is safe with me. That wasn’t an interview, it has nothing to do with this. Tell me whatever version you want, just something wistful and reflective about your marriage.’
‘Keep that glorious myth of Clark and Carol alive a little longer, huh?’
I look at him in surprise, his tone suddenly abrupt and cynical.
‘The thing is, what people loved about us, it was all surface. Not that we were unhappy, but nobody could possibly live up to this thing people wanted us to be. It doesn’t exist.’ He sighs, taking a long gulp of wine. ‘Sorry. That’s not what readers want, is it? Look, I’m giving you permission here – put some words in my mouth. Something moving. Make it about her.’
Humble though he is about his own stardom, Conrad admits he was never surprised by the public’s fascination with his marriage. ‘It’s because we were truly, genuinely in love. And I think people could tell. I credit Carol with most of that – she’s a much braver person than I am emotionally. All that warmth, that chemistry people saw in us, it was all her.’
The Conrad marriage is a story in which America has remained invested for two full decades. But last summer the couple confirmed their divorce, which was finalized in November and heralded the beginning of that aforementioned interesting year. Early in January, Conrad’s nineteen-year-old daughter Skye injured herself, prompting a stay at an inpatient treatment facility; she has since recovered, and has vigorously denied rumours that she was attempting suicide. And earlier this week, mere hours after his Oscar win, Conrad’s former girlfriend Amabella Bunch publicly accused him of domestic abuse, a charge that Conrad has vigorously denied in a statement issued February 28.
‘I’m bewildered by the whole thing,’ he tells me now, still visibly shaken. ‘Though we were only together for a short time, I feel immensely grateful for my time with Amabella – she’s a great spirit, really one of a kind.’ Though he can’t speak to any of her specific allegations, a court hearing still pending, Conrad ‘wishes her only the best’.
‘For this part, do you think Skye will be okay with me saying that it wasn’t a suicide attempt? I don’t want to draw attention to the rumours by mentioning it, but so many publications are still calling it that. I’d like to be as specific as possible.’
He looks confused.
‘I mean, this is a way she could deny it without having to make a statement or go through any more scrutiny.’
‘Two denials for the price of one.’
‘Are you okay?’
His eyes are bright, and he looks away from me as he asks, ‘Did she tell you that? That she didn’t want to die?’
‘Yes. She did.’
And I realize she told me more than she told him. Because this, of course, is a far easier conversation to have with a stranger than with the person you love most, and Clark probably couldn’t bring himself to ask. How could he?
‘Sorry,’ I say quietly. ‘I assumed she’d told you.’
‘I’ve never been sure. I just hoped.’
He shakes his head, his relief tangible and overwhelming, and I reach across the table to squeeze his hand.
The morning after our dinner, I meet Conrad in his corner office at his new production company, an eclectic cave filled with movie prints and rock ’n’ roll memorabilia. He’s drinking a green juice ‘reluctantly’, he says, at the behest of Skye. ‘At nineteen, she’s a far more responsible adult than I’ll ever be, and she’s got me on this healthy living regime with her.’ After an admittedly rocky start to his days as a single father, Conrad says he now cherishes his close relationship with his daughter, who since her injury has been focusing on self-care and reading; the pair are often seen hiking together in Griffith Park, and enjoying bonding time at neighbourhood haunts like Pace. ‘She’s my best friend, in many ways, and it’s taken us a while to get there. She’s the best thing in my life.’
Conrad’s goal with High Six Productions is to have more control over the projects he acts in, and to give opportunities to filmmakers from a variety of backgrounds. ‘I didn’t grow up wealthy, or connected,’ he says, ‘and if anything it seems to me that it’s become harder over the years, not easier, to get a foot in the door if you don’t know people. One of our priorities is going to be seeking out new talent, maybe the folks who don’t necessarily have an agent yet, or their agent isn’t the highest on the totem pole.’
But the company will balance out that risky agenda with some safe bets, including one that’s sure to make legions of fans very happy. Conrad reveals to me exclusively that Loner is getting a ten-episode revival series, a co-production between NBC and High Six. ‘I’ve been very resistant to the idea of rebooting Loner,’ he admits, acknowledging that he dismissed the possibility of bringing the show back as recently as last month. ‘But Richard [Davis, the show creator] came to me with, if you’ll forgive me this reference, an offer I couldn’t refuse. And a script I really couldn’t refuse.’
The Loner reboot is due to begin production in May, with a tentative release scheduled for next winter. But that project aside, Conrad is planning to take some time off from acting, in order to prioritize his relationship with Skye. The production company is appealing, he says, in part because it will ensure he can spend more time in Los Angeles and less time living the travelling life of an actor.
‘If there’s one thing I’ve really learned from this last year, it’s that none of this matters,’ he tells me, gesturing around at the walls of his production office. ‘I’m being glib, of course – I take my work seriously, I always have. But in the end, none of it matters unless your family is secure. I’ve lost sight of that at times in the past. The business is very seductive, and it can warp your priorities and make you believe things are important that aren’t. I know what’s important now.’
‘Do you always go through two bottles of wine when you’re conducting interviews?’
‘Listen, sir, you’re the one who suggested we move on to red. We should have just got two bottles of that to begin with.’
I reach for the check when the waiter brings it, and Clark snatches it out from under my hand.
‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘No!’ I protest. ‘I can expense this, it’s a business dinner.’
‘You’d still have to charge it on your card in the meantime, right? Until their accounts department got around to deciding to process your receipt and send you a cheque in the mail? Forget it.’
‘Clark—’
‘Jessica.’
It’s the first time I’ve called him by his first name and I find myself saying it again, my mouth lingering on the sound.
15
I’ve thought about waking up in Clark Conrad’s bed more times than I can count. I have never once thought about him waking up in mine.
‘Your place is close, right?’ he murmured into my ear as we left the restaurant, the length of his body pressed against mine. Though I wa
s conscious of the interview throughout dinner, half-writing an opening paragraph in my head, I couldn’t stop staring at him. His broad shoulders, the thick wire of his hair, the hollow of his neck visible behind the open collar of his shirt, every detail of him that I had gone from knowing on-screen to knowing in the flesh. By the time he finally kissed me my entire body felt electric, dizziness so overwhelming that I had to hold on to him and look hard into his eyes until I was steady again.
He arrived at dinner looking flustered and shaken, spitting about the mob of paparazzi that has once again set up camp outside the gate of his house, causing chaos on the already narrow and winding street outside. He drove himself here on his motorbike, stubbornly resistant as ever to being ferried around even when it would make life infinitely easier, and it means there is no discreet way for him to bring me back home with him. Laurel Canyon is not an option. And maybe he picked this neighbourhood because he knew it would be only a short ride to my apartment afterwards.
So I climb onto Clark’s motorbike behind him, my arms tight around his waist and my face pressed against the soft leather of his jacket, and remind myself to breathe. There is only one helmet, which he gives to me, despite my protests, and I spend the ten-minute ride home imagining how if we were flung off the bike I would hold on and wrap myself around his head and his neck, protecting everything that he is at all costs.
When I comprehend what is happening, that Clark is coming home with me, there’s a part of me flooded with panic, imagining what his reaction will be to the cramped space, the strange smell, the bugs that still appear reliably once or twice a day, crawling out of the walls to die out in the open. I imagine a hundred variations of Clark’s reaction, what dry words he’ll come out with upon seeing where I live. But in the end when we reach my apartment, his lips on my neck as I struggle with the keys and get the door open and pull him inside by his shirt, there is no time for talking. Neither of us would have noticed if the room was flooding.
But now, in the morning light, Clark is awake and thumbing through my hair and looking around with a mixture of concern and confusion.
‘This place is—’ He searches for words. ‘It’s really something.’
I stifle a laugh at how horrified he’s trying not to look.
‘Something?’
‘It’s— it has a lot of charm.’
‘“Full of character” is I think the real-estate term.’
‘“Quirky old-word charm”.’
‘It’s also a great deal – my landlord’s never raised the rent.’
‘I would hope not. I’d forgotten what it’s like to live in a place without walls.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure it’s been a while since you could see your kitchen from your bed.’
He’s walking around the apartment, examining surfaces, fittings, the layer of dust that’s accumulated on my dresser.
‘So where do you do your writing?’
‘Usually just in bed, if I don’t go out to a coffee shop. Sometimes I’ll stand at the kitchen counter. I dream of an actual desk, but you know. One day.’
He looks down at something beside his foot and of course it’s a cockroach, dead on its back. I wince.
‘Be careful where you walk. I hate those things.’
‘I’m not wild about them either.’
‘I can’t believe you lived in an apartment with pigeons. I’ve never even heard of that.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a few pigeons lurking in the roof of this place.’ He looks upwards, dubiously.
‘There’s three more floors above mine, so unless they’re living in the floorboards I think we’re safe. Anyway, I thought you said you loved that place. Felt like living in the wild?’
‘Well, yeah, but then I discovered camping.’ He slides back under the sheets and holds on to my waist, pulls me on top of him.
‘I’ve actually never been camping,’ I say, my voice unsteady.
‘We should go sometime. There’s a great place I like to hike up to on the West Fork Trail, pretty secluded, especially this time of year.’
I nod, leaning down to kiss him with a shiver. He’s already talking in the future tense, as though our ongoing present is a certainty.
‘You know what’s incredible?’ he asks, when we come up for air. ‘I slept better in this terrible apartment, with you, than I have in weeks. Maybe months. And honestly, this is the longest I’ve gone without thinking about— everything.’
Stroking a thumb over his jaw, I’m struck by the fact that I, too, haven’t checked Twitter or the news, not since before dinner last night. He and I are in a kind of suspended animation together, and I’d stay here, except that I only have until the end of tomorrow to file my profile of the man currently in my bed. A tight turnaround, but I told David I would get it done and I will get it done.
While Clark’s in the shower, I break the spell and check the news, but nothing much has changed. My fear was that the story would now be entering the think-piece stage of its life cycle, with writers filing essays on what Amabella’s accusations against Clark mean in a broader sense – about abuse in Hollywood, about domestic violence in America, about sexism – despite the fact that she is lying. But it seems as though everyone is still holding their breath on the story before committing to a narrative, perhaps because the evidence against Clark is looking increasingly flimsy. Several prominent people in the business have spoken out in support of him, though; among them Ben Schlattman, who’s quoted as saying, ‘I’ve known Clark for a couple of decades now, through most of his career, and I’ve never seen him so much as raise his voice. The man’s a labrador. A lot of people say a lot of things, but the truth always sticks.’
Clark emerges from the bathroom with a towel slung around his waist, steam billowing, and I quickly put my phone away like I’m guilty of something. I doubt he wants to be reminded of all this when he’s finally succeeded in distracting himself.
‘So I was thinking, seriously, we’ve got to get you into a better place than this,’ he says, the muscles in his chest and stomach visible as he towel-dries his hair. ‘Will you let me make that happen?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Just something that doesn’t violate any housing codes, maybe with an outdoor space of some kind. And a real desk. I hate to think of you locked up in here trying to write at the kitchen sink.’
‘Clark, there’s no way I’m letting you pay my rent for me.’ It’s bad enough that I’m sleeping with you, I almost say, but the truth is there’s no part of me that really considers this a bad thing. I’m still on fire from last night, and I know the moment he leaves I will disbelieve that any of this really happened.
‘Wait,’ I say on impulse, ‘just stay right there,’ and I snap a picture of him with my phone, then another, preserving the memory of him standing in my kitchen half-dressed. He raises an eyebrow at the lens.
‘Blackmail material?’
‘Yeah, I’m planning an exposé on your morning hair.’
He wants to show me something, he tells me, as we’re drinking hemp milk lattes from the vegan place on the corner. A deliberately ridiculous order, because Clark asked what I wanted and I replied, ‘Surprise me,’ and he did.
‘So where are we going?’
‘That’s another surprise. Put your helmet on.’
I spend forty full minutes holding on to Clark tighter than I need to as the freeway whips past us, somehow unafraid. He pulls in to the parking lot of a sleek, glass-fronted apartment building in Studio City, and leads me into its chic lobby where a suited man at reception greets Clark by name, and directs us towards a private elevator to the twelfth floor.
‘Do you want me to write another feature for Nest about your new bachelor pad?’ I joke as we step into an immaculate open-plan apartment, all marble and metal and light oak, with a view of the Hollywood Hills beyond sliding glass doors onto a generous terrace. It looks as though nobody has ever lived
here, and in fact it’s hard to imagine anybody living here.
‘I think I mentioned that I own a few properties around the city,’ Clark says, guiding me over to look at the kitchen, with its gleaming island and built-in appliances. ‘Right now I have a couple in Beverly Hills, a beach house in Malibu, a place in Calabasas, and this apartment. I flip a lot of them, or rent them out through my property guy, and this one’s just sitting empty.’
‘Wait—’ I suddenly realize what he’s suggesting as we’re walking towards the master bedroom, and turn to stop him on the threshold.
‘I know you need to be near green space for your running, and it’s less than a ten-minute walk from here to Fryman Canyon. Some of the best views in the city, and a great, hilly trail. You can walk to most everything you need in this neighbourhood, just like your current place. There’s a second bedroom, which is a nice perk if you ever have family or friends visit from back home, and a nook off the living area that you could use as a study.’
He’s really thought this through.
‘Plus, doesn’t your friend’s show shoot at the CBS lot?’
‘Yeah,’ I say in surprise, ‘Undead? How did you know?’
‘A buddy of mine’s one of the producers. They’re right in this neighbourhood, as I’m sure you know, so you’ll have easy access for visits.’
I imagine how Tom would react if he knew Clark Conrad wants to install me in an apartment down the street from his workplace. We haven’t spoken since that day on set.
‘Clark, this place is amazing, but I can’t just—’
‘It’s just sitting empty. Look, in all honesty I could use someone to be here, deal with any maintenance things that come up, maybe take packages, dress the place up a little. You’d be doing me a favour.’
This makes no sense, of course; this is the kind of building where maintenance issues are dealt with by staff and packages are accepted by a doorman, but Clark’s not-so-smooth desperation to convince me is endearing. What’s also going unspoken here is that Studio City couldn’t be much closer to Clark’s house, a ten-minute drive north of Laurel Canyon. He wants me nearby, and it’s the warmth of this realization that makes me give in to the temptation that was already keen.