He chuckled and cast his eyes down, as if he were a bashful fan and I was the celebrity. This guy could not possibly be for real.
But it was hard to hang on to my cynicism given that my arm, the one attached to the hand he’d been holding, had started tingling and vibrating, as if I’d had an orgasm. Hell, maybe I was still having one.
I yanked my hand away and rubbed it as if it had been scorched.
I will not be attracted to Hugo Fielding, I will not be attracted to Hugo Fielding, I will not be attracted to Hugo Fielding.
Stella was wedged into the corner of the booth. Kelsey slid in beside her on the short end, while Hugo resumed his place on her other side. The only spot for me to sit was beside him.
“So, ladies,” Stella said when we were all settled. “Wasn’t I right? Isn’t Hugo amaaaaazing?”
Hugo, who was of course sitting right there, said, “Now Stella, darling. What are they supposed to say to that?”
“Of course we think you’re great,” Kelsey said. “We are so thrilled that you’re considering doing our show.”
Hugo smiled, then turned to me. I smiled back, mainly to keep my lips from moving.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to think I’m very amazing,” he said, “when I tell you I have to pass on taking a role in Younger.”
My heart swelled in relief and at the same time sank in disappointment. Was it possible to feel like you’d won and lost at the same time?
“Hugo!” Stella said. This obviously came as a surprise to her. “I can’t accept your rejection.”
“No no no, it’s not a rejection,” he said. The native British accent he used in only some of his film roles grew stronger as his voice became more excited. “It’s exactly because I love the book so much that I’ve got to turn it down.”
He focused on me.
“I think it’s a mistake to replace Josh, the younger guy, with an older man,” he told me almost mournfully. “This is a meditation on age in America, so thematically it feels very wrong.”
“Thank you,” I said. I was about to add that I agreed with him, but I was aware of Kelsey’s eyes on me across the table and thought I’d better leave it at that.
“Also, I could never forgive myself for replacing Mrs. Whitney,” he said. “I am totally in love with that character.”
I smiled. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear that,” I told him.
“So there’s a real Mrs. Whitney?” he said.
“She owns the company that published this book. Using her real name was a little inside joke. She loved it.”
“I regret that I won’t get to meet her,” Hugo said. “A woman who started a company when she did and still runs it, that’s an amazing person. You must love working with her.”
“I do,” I said.
He leaned back in his seat and addressed the table. “I can’t bear to think of her character not being in the show,” Hugo said. “I’d hate myself if I replaced her.”
“What if you didn’t replace her? What if you were both there?” Kelsey said.
“Maybe she and I work shoulder to shoulder, running the company together,” Hugo said, considering. “Though frankly, I don’t think the book needs another character. It’s perfect the way it is.”
“TV soaks up a lot of story,” Kelsey said, growing animated. “What if we added an older man character and kept the Josh character? That would add a romantic-triangle element, which viewers love.”
“Hugo can’t share top billing,” Stella said. “He’d clearly have the bigger role and be the star.” She waited a beat before adding, “I mean, the male star.”
Hugo laughed and patted her shoulder fondly. “There’s only one star of this show,” he said, “and only one author of the book. Liza’s the one who created these characters and this world. It’s ultimately her decision whether we kill off some characters and stick in new ones.”
“It’s hard for me to see it any way other than the way it happened,” I admitted, “which is that I was with a younger guy who actually was named Josh. He played a big part in my not just looking like a younger person but living a younger life.”
“That’s what I suspected,” said Hugo. “I have to know: Did you and Josh end up getting back together when he came home from Japan?”
I was genuinely impressed that he’d read the book carefully enough to not only remember that detail but also have such well-formed opinions about the characters and the plot.
“Several months later, yeah,” I said. “We lived together for two years, but we’re not together now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Hugo said. “It seemed like, at a very deep level, that relationship went way beyond age. Alice and Josh were perfect for each other.”
“But it was age that ultimately broke us up,” I admitted. “I wouldn’t date a younger man again.”
“See, that’s why you have to be in it, so Liza can end up with you,” said Stella, slapping Hugo’s arm the way eight-year-old girls hit boys they like.
“Alice,” I said.
Everyone stared at me.
“The character’s name is Alice,” I clarified.
“Maybe I’ll just call her Aliza,” said Stella, giggling. “Come on, Hugo, you’ve got to do it.”
Hugo did not look at Stella but was totally focused on me. Somehow, he’d shifted me back along the banquette so that he and I were sitting separately from Stella and Kelsey. He was leaning toward me. It was all I could do to keep myself from meeting him halfway.
“Perhaps you and I should get together, Liza,” he said, “and see if we can come up with an idea that excites us both.”
“That’s a great idea,” said Kelsey.
“That might work,” I said.
I will not have sex with Hugo Fielding, I will not have sex with Hugo Fielding, I will not have sex with Hugo Fielding.
“Hey, I don’t want to be left out of all the fun,” Stella said.
“I’d like to be in on those discussions too,” said Kelsey. “Maybe we can all meet at Whipple Studios.”
“This is just between me and Liza,” Hugo said. He wasn’t touching me, but he was so close I could feel the heat of his skin. “If we talk and Liza wants me in the show, I’ll do it.”
* * *
By the time we made it back from lunch, it was after office hours in New York. I retreated to the guesthouse and FaceTimed Maggie. I caught her with Caitlin, walking down a city street that looked bleak and unfamiliar.
“Where are you guys?” I asked.
“Some neighborhood in Brooklyn that’s not on any maps,” Maggie said.
“Thrillist says it’s one of the ten neighborhoods ready to pop,” said Caitlin. “You can still get a house here for under two million.”
Maggie jumped and clutched her hand to her throat.
“Is that a rat?” she said.
“What are you doing there?” I asked.
“Looking at a house,” said Caitlin. “I think we turn left here.”
“Where’s Ravi?” I said.
As if Ravi could ward off the rats.
“Working, of course,” said Caitlin. “And I’m working all kinds of crazy hours, so I have to take advantage of free time when I get it.”
“Let’s cross to the other side,” said Maggie. “I don’t like the look of those guys.”
I willed my breathing and my blood pressure to stay calm.
“How’s the script coming?” asked Caitlin.
I couldn’t tell her that not only hadn’t we started writing the script, but we hadn’t yet decided who the characters were going to be and that even Caitlin’s fictional existence was suddenly up in the air.
“Interesting,” I said, fully aware that as an answer it did not really make sense. “So today we had lunch with Hugo Fielding.”
Maggie let out a scream, then waved her hand apologetically.
“Sorry, Officer,” she called. “I’m fine. So what was he like?”
“Nice,”
I said. “Not what I expected.”
“Who’s Hugo Fielding?” said Caitlin.
“He’s that gorgeous British dude who starred in all the romantic comedies back in the nineties,” Maggie informed her. “He dated Meg Ryan, Renée Zellweger…”
“How old is this guy?” said Caitlin.
“A little older than me,” I said. “I’m sure you’d recognize him.”
“So you’re there hanging out with movie stars?” Caitlin asked. “I thought it was nonstop work work work.”
“It is, but it turns out television work involves a lot of hanging out,” I said. “I’ll be back in two or three more weeks at the most.”
“You’ve already been there two weeks,” said Caitlin.
She was noticeably bigger in just those few weeks, and seemed to be walking more unsteadily. But I reminded myself that worrying about her out loud was not helpful.
“Will you still be in LA when I go out for my Hauser and Wirth opening?” said Maggie.
That was her first major West Coast art show, on the twenty-fifth, I remembered. Although it had been in my calendar forever, I’d never expected I would actually be able to attend.
“I might be,” I admitted.
“If you are, will you introduce me to Hugo Fielding?”
“I’ll see,” I said.
“I miss you, Mom,” said my daughter.
“Me too, sweetheart,” I said.
I wished I were the one walking down the street in New York with my daughter, watching her belly grow bigger and taking every step of this journey to motherhood by her side. On the other hand, I was so excited to be in LA, learning about the TV business, meeting Hugo and even Stella and getting a glimpse into Kelsey’s world.
It still felt exactly as it had when Caitlin was small and I had wanted to go back to work but I also had wanted to be with her. Both parts of my life exerted such powerful pulls, yet every choice required a serious sacrifice. You couldn’t get anything without giving up a lot, which meant that all pleasure was underscored by pain.
This was the first time, I realized, that I’d made my Sophie’s choice in favor of myself rather than my child, that I’d picked what I wanted over what my daughter wanted. I thought back to the talk Maggie and I had after I’d seen Josh, about her telling me I had to start living the life I wanted and that if I didn’t, I had only myself to blame. I’d come to California because I wanted to. Now I owed it to myself, and to Caitlin too, to own my choice and make the most of being here. Living in ambivalence, dwelling on the loss, not only undercut but dishonored the gain.
ten
Hugo texted me an invitation to meet and talk about the show at his house in Rustic Canyon.
“Where’s Rustic Canyon?” I asked Kelsey.
“Santa Monica. It’s in the hills, but by the beach. It’s where rich people go when they don’t want anyone to find them. What’s in Rustic Canyon?”
“Hugo Fielding.”
“Do not go to Hugo Fielding’s house,” Kelsey said. “You don’t want to get into a position where this could be mistaken for a date. It would be unprofessional, given that we’re talking about working together.”
“James Bond is not interested in dating me.”
“He’s dated every woman he’s ever worked with!” she said. “Never date an actor. They’re professional fakes.”
At Kelsey’s suggestion, instead of meeting Hugo at his house, I made a reservation for lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I wore jeans, sandals, and a crisp white shirt, remembering how casually Hugo had dressed when we’d met at the studio dining room. But following the maître d’ around the gorgeous patio, lush with bougainvillea and dotted with round metal tables laid with formal white cloths, I felt underdressed. It wasn’t that my clothes were too informal, but that they simply didn’t feel as good as what everybody else seemed to be wearing: They were too tight, too loose, too faded, too bright, too old, too new, too me. Would I ever be mature enough to feel comfortable in my own skin?
Hugo was not on the patio, and I was about to sit down to wait when the maître d’ asked me to describe the person I was meeting.
“Ah,” he said, when I told him it was Hugo. “Follow me.”
He led me back inside, where I found Hugo seated in a dark round booth in a far corner.
“I thought we’d sit outside,” I said.
“It’s so bright out there.”
I hesitated. “The weather is gorgeous.”
“The weather here is always gorgeous,” he said.
I kept hesitating. The maître d’ had vanished. It wasn’t being inside that bothered me so much as sitting next to him in that intimate, shadowy booth.
“I thought we were here to talk about the show,” I said.
“And your book,” he said. “I think we’ll be more comfortable in here.”
I finally relented, but instead of sliding into the booth, I took the chair on the outside of the table, facing him.
He leaned toward me, hands clasped on the shiny wood, smile on his face. “I’m so curious what it was like for you pretending to be a different person,” he said. “I mean, we do it on set, but that’s a controlled environment and we have a script, we’re playing a character. How did you pull it off twenty-four seven in your real life?”
“It wasn’t twenty-four seven,” I said. “I was living with my friend Maggie then, and she always knew who I really was. And I wasn’t pretending to be a different person, I was just pretending to be younger.”
Suddenly there was a young woman at our table, someone who, judging from her outfit, had been working behind the bar.
“I could get fired for this,” she said, sotto voce, “but it’s my mom’s birthday and you are her absolute favorite and she would just die if I could take a picture with you.”
“Let’s FaceTime her,” Hugo said.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, scoot in. What’s her name?”
I’d expected him to be a little churlish, given that Mom was the fan, not the hot bartender, but if that was true, he didn’t show it at all. He took the phone, and when Mom answered, he said, “Hey, Debbie, it’s Hugo. I wanted to call and say happy birthday.”
There was squealing and oh-my-Godding as Hugo and the bartender both assured Debbie that this was real. When the maître d’ came over to intervene, Hugo said the whole thing was his idea.
“That kind of thing happen a lot?” I asked when we were alone again.
He shrugged. “It’s sweet, really, for people to care enough to connect with you. It seems kind of affected to act like you don’t want to be recognized. I mean, then why did you become a movie star?”
He paused. He apparently hadn’t shaved that morning; his stubble was so thick.
“That said,” he continued, “if you want to get some actual work done, it is sometimes more comfortable to meet at my house. Thus the initial invitation. And my vampire-like refusal to sit on the patio.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand. I’ve never had that problem.”
“No, you’ve always been free to be yourself,” he said. He sat there for a long minute then, just looking at me. I knew that look; most women did. It was the look of a boy who liked a girl.
“Tell me this,” he said, still looking at me fondly, “when you were pretending to be young, did you sometimes forget and genuinely feel young?”
I flashed instantly on Josh, the man who mistook me for younger, who sparked the whole idea of my faking my age.
But the thing was, Josh’s feelings for me weren’t fake. He genuinely saw me as someone his age. And that more than anything else was what I got from him. What I craved. That feeling of being seen and admired and accepted as someone young. Because then, I truly felt young.
“With Josh,” I said. “And with Kelsey, too, at the beginning. They accepted me as young, which made them treat me as young, which made me feel young, really young, all the good stuff and the bad stuff too.”
“I used to feel that way when I dated younger women,” he said. “It wasn’t about them being young. It was about them making me feel young. If they liked me, that must mean I was as youthful and attractive as they were.”
It was like a piano fell on my chest. That was exactly it. Why I’d been so compelled to flirt with Josh, to lead him on, while at the same time holding back. If he liked me, if he admired me, if he wanted me again, that meant I still looked young; I could still live as young as I had before. I could still pretend the fiction was real.
“But you don’t feel that way anymore?” I said to Hugo.
“One night I was sitting in a booth with one of them, having a great time, and then I caught sight of myself purely by accident in the mirror, and I was horrified. It was like Beauty and the Beast. I realized how much I’d been deluding myself, and how out of touch I was with my own life.”
“You got all that from one glance in the mirror?”
“Come here,” he said, gesturing for me to join him in the booth.
I slid in beside him on the round red leather bench. He pointed at the wall.
“Look in there,” he said. “What do you see?”
The wall had been at my back before, but even if I had been looking straight at it, I might not have noticed that it was a mirror. Black streaked gold, it seemed at first only to be as reflective as a slick of oil, but then as your eyes adjusted, you could see that it was more like a lake, the water so deep it appeared black. Hugo and I were reflected there like two ghostly figures, apparitions.
“It’s us,” I said.
“That’s right, us,” he agreed. “That’s what I expected to see that night when I was out with her, two people who looked like they belonged together. Like you and me.”
I felt my cheeks go warm at hearing him say that he and I looked like we belonged together, but instead of responding, I moved back to my chair on the other side of the table. “And instead you saw…”
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