by Emily Beyda
“Oh, you!” she says. “Stop! Don’t I get enough of that nonsense already?” Her voice is light, like she’s joking, but the corners of her mouth stay tight.
It’s the same as the tapes from yesterday, just a little too private. Invasive, somehow. Wrong. I can feel the tautness in Max’s legs, how his whole body is tilted just slightly toward mine. My bruises pulse. I turn toward him, tilt my head, give him that same small smile. I look right into his eyes.
“Don’t I get enough of that nonsense already?” I say, Rosanna’s voice pouring flawless from my throat. It’s all a game. A game I am getting better and better at playing.
Max smiles. Leans forward. Slips in another disk. I lean close to his silent body in the dark.
* * *
—
For weeks, we sit together in my small dark room and watch Rosanna. As the nights pass, we move closer and closer until our bodies almost touch—almost, but not quite. If I move toward Max, he says nothing to stop me. He never moves closer to me. My face slowly begins to heal. When I catch a sideways glimpse of my reflection in the shadowy mirror of the window, it is almost as though I see Rosanna looking back at me, beautiful. I feel a tenderness toward myself that is like nothing I have ever known. I rub my ointments on my scars every night before I go to bed. I can no longer tell where I am numb.
Every night we stay up late, drinking Diet Coke and smoking cigarettes, binge watching Rosanna’s life like it’s reality TV. Slowly Max starts staying over again, with no medical excuse this time. When he is there, I sleep through the night. Something about his presence, another breathing body in that silent room, comforts me. In the mornings I hang my hand down over the edge of the bed, my fingertips brushing his shoulder, hunched under the crumpled blanket of his suit, his face smoothed calm by sleep, soft, open, like the face of a child. When he starts to stir, I clamp my eyes shut so I can listen to him moving around the kitchen. I like to have him wake me up, sitting on the edge of the mattress, coffee in hand, to talk with him a little before I do my exercises. I like to watch him taking care of me.
We move from topic to topic: business meetings (the camera up high over one end of the boardroom table; “it’s not acceptable,” Rosanna says, a blond man, her agent, subservient, nodding back), lunches with friends (Marie, her best friend, most often, and a few times martinis with a suavely handsome man whom I recognize from the cards as a professional acquaintance; she calls him Leo and smiles up at him from under her eyelashes), interviews (on talk shows, red carpets, backstage, the same few faces over and over, as familiar as old friends). The moments I like best are Rosanna at home by herself, having conversations with people offscreen, watching television, brushing her hair. Making salads alone in her enormous kitchen, talking on the phone. Max likes everything the same, all of it Rosanna, a proof of our dedication to her work. I don’t ask Max any more questions. I take the footage as it comes.
We watch until we get hungry. Really, Max gets hungry, and he tells me when it’s time for me to eat. One meal a day is almost too much. I’m used to so much less, am sleek, efficient, slimmed down. I drink chia seeds and water until I stop flinching as they slide viscous down my throat. I have found I cannot trust the feelings in my body. I listen to Max when he tells me what I should consume. I don’t know what my body needs. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. Sometimes I make us lunch, standing at the open counter of our tiny kitchenette, watching Rosanna prep the same meals on talk shows or in her own much larger kitchen, my body in sync with hers, trying to move so smoothly that if Max looks at me it will be as though the screen is a mirror. But he never looks, his eyes focused on the screen. I stare hard at Rosanna’s smiling face. I chop hard with my own sharp knife. Max leaves me and returns with Rosanna’s favorite dishes from Rosanna’s favorite restaurants, full sets of cutlery and glassware and plates. I watch Rosanna eating oysters, the way that she twirls spaghetti in a soup spoon, how, when someone makes a joke, she puts down her fork, laughs, picks it up again. I practice ordering. “A carafe,” I say, or “No anchovies.” Rosanna has a voice she uses to speak to waiters—friendly, neutral, flat. Max watches me as I watch Rosanna watching shows, syncing up the images so we see the same moments of the same sitcoms at the same time. I laugh with her, paint my toenails, swear under my breath when we smear the polish. Sometimes I angle my body so I can’t see her. But I can always feel her, the two of us together in one smooth sweep, synchronized swimmers moving silent through dark water. My body has taken on a new gravity, a thrillingly substantial weight. For the first time in a long time, I feel that I am present in the world.
* * *
—
“What was it like growing up in a show business family?” the interviewer asks Rosanna, Max asks me, their voices clumsily layered. It isn’t like that when Rosanna and I speak. When we speak, we sound the same. One voice, not two. We pause, and I turn away from her toward an imaginary camera, smiling.
“Well, Dad was a real character. I remember one time when I decided to put on a circus for my parents’ friends during one of their famous dinner parties. It was going to be the greatest show on earth. I wanted to show them that I was a real professional. I got my nanny to help us assemble a costume. I was a ballet dancer for the first act, then a lion, when I would pull my tutu up around my face.”
Another glance to the audience, small smile. Picture me, isn’t that charming?
“I crept downstairs ready to show off. I came onto my makeshift stage and started doing a magic trick I had been practicing all week. I was so proud of myself! But one of the guests, I think it must have been my aunt Clementine, she took these things so seriously, yelled that she could see what I was doing. Performing was important to them. It was important that I got things right.”
The interviewer, a middle-aged woman with a blond swoop of thinning hair laughs. “She really called you out!”
Rosanna laughs, too. I lean my head back as she leans hers, put my hand on Max’s knee the way she touches the interviewer. I try not to notice that he flinches.
“She did! And I of course was shattered. I thought I was so smooth.”
“No,” says Max, pausing the tape, “not like that. That last bit needs to be more of a private aside, like you’re thinking out loud.”
Hand on the knee again. “I thought I was so smooth!”
“Almost. ‘She really called you out!’ ”
“She did! And I of course was shattered. I thought I was so smooth.”
I want to look to Max for approval. I don’t. I look straight out toward where the camera would be, into Rosanna’s eyes. I want to know what she knows. I want to feel what she feels. I keep talking, my sore jaw smiling wide. My arms are exhausted, but my hands, like her hands, float effortlessly through the air.
“So Daddy leaps up from the table and starts directing. He tells me my blocking’s all wrong! He puts me up on a chair, says, ‘Action!’ and I go through the whole act without a hitch, to thunderous applause, of course. I was so pleased with myself! I thought I was a star.”
“There should be a little anger leaking, though. You’re trying to make it sound like a funny story. But it’s not funny to you.”
“I go through the whole act without a hitch, to thunderous applause, of course. I was so pleased with myself. I thought I was a star.”
“Clementine wasn’t really your aunt. Your father was with her when your mother died. A few months later, they were married. You were sent away to school.”
“I started doing a magic trick, and one of the guests, I think it must have been my aunt Clementine, yelled that she could see what I was doing.”
“She really called you out!”
“She did! And I of course was shattered.”
Max nods once. “Better.”
* * *
—
There is one scene Max gets stuck on. It opens with Rosanna
sitting in her living room on her milk-white sofa, her body language telegraphing exhaustion. When she speaks, her voice is tense. It is one of the few times in all that footage that she allows herself to get angry.
“You’re making this into a bigger deal than it has to be,” I say, says Rosanna, turning the page of our book. I try to look over the pacing man’s shoulder, but she is obscured by his body, which is in turn obscured by the angle of the camera. All I can see are her hands, turning the pages with a violent flick of the wrist.
“Oh, so it’s not a big deal?” the man says with Max. Their voices sound so similar it’s as if one person is speaking. That’s right, I think, that’s just what I should sound like. I answer, trying to sync my voice exactly with hers, pitching down my tone slightly until it purrs in my throat, a radiator hum.
“It’s not a big deal! A few months. Three at most. You can fly out and see me anytime you like. I have to work. Three months is nothing.”
The man’s body shifts, just a little, and I catch a glimpse of Rosanna’s face. It’s totally neutral. She seems profoundly uninterested in this conversation, her mind somewhere far away. She turns, I turn, another page, looking. The man sits down, disappearing from the frame. Rosanna’s eyes stay on the page.
“Rosanna,” he says, “it’s always a few months with you. A few months in Paris, a few in New York, you’re always disappearing. How long has it been since we slept under the same roof for more than a week?”
“It’s not like you’re sleeping alone,” we say, turning a page, our face neutral, our voice flat. Pause. Rewind.
“Again,” says Max. “Less angry, more sad.”
“It’s not like you’re sleeping alone.”
* * *
—
And then on the same tape, the next scene, a brief snatch of empty darkness. Rosanna lies still in bed, her hair pushed across her face, disheveled with sleep. She stirs when she hears him coming.
“I’m sorry,” she says. This is her private voice, soft and low in her chest, the words planted deep. I think I understand why Max keeps returning to this moment. It is my only chance to know this part of her.
“I’m sorry about before. I’ll be nice. You know how nice I can be when I want to. Don’t leave. I love you. I love you so much.”
She keeps her eyes closed. Her skin is pale and glossed with sweat. She looks like she is dying. I lie down on the futon and shut my eyes. Max brushes his cold hand across my forehead.
“Don’t leave. I love you. I love you so much,” I say.
“Again,” says Max.
He pauses the tape, rewinds. Rosanna and I speak as one.
“Don’t leave. I love you. I love you so much.”
Pause. Rewind. Play.
“I love you. I love you so much.”
Rewind.
“I love you so much.”
Rewind.
“I love you so much.”
Rewind.
“I love you so much.”
Max sits beside me, silent, in the dark.
We are sitting on the couch watching videos when someone knocks on the door. Rosanna is in front of a live audience, laughing, so at first I do not register the sound as coming from my side of our shared reality. It blends in with the applause, the shouts of the crowd. But then it comes again. Three deliberate knocks. My brain skitters to a halt, turns over a few times, a hollow knocking against the inside of my own skull. And then I realize what it means. Rosanna wouldn’t have to knock. There is someone here who shouldn’t be. A stranger. For a moment, I am not sure whether or not I want to be discovered. There’s this long instant where I don’t look at Max and he doesn’t look at me and I shrink back against the cushions and think about what it would be like to fling the door open, announce myself to whatever has come knocking. But no, not now. It’s too late for any of that. I force my body to move. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to hide. Leaping up, I turn the television off and lie flat on the ground to avoid anyone’s seeing me through the window. I grab Max’s hand, try to pull him down with me, to wiggle my body under the narrow space of the futon’s frame, but he laughs, laughs! Like this is nothing. Like our door is an ordinary door in an ordinary building full of ordinary people. Like we live in the sort of place where neighbors drop by for visits. Like any of this is normal. He laughs at me for following the rules of the reality he has created for me. Hatred passes through me, sharp and hot.
“So nervous,” he says. “I promise it isn’t the feds!”
He knew this was coming. He has invited someone into my space without asking, without so much as giving me a warning.
“I can’t do this,” I say. I whisper, trying to pull him down to the floor with me. “I don’t care who it is, tell them to go away. I’m sick. I’m not ready, Max, I can’t.”
He crouches beside me, gathering me up in his arms, gently guiding me to my feet. “Yes, you can,” he says. “You can, and you have to.”
For months it has felt as though the world outside has quietly come to an end, the two of us the only survivors, alone together in this tiny apartment. Of course I know this isn’t true. There are signs of life everywhere: passing cars, barking dogs, people walking in the street. The world keeps going on without us, however improbable that seems. Max has spoken about the things that will happen when I venture out, how I will start small, lunches with Max in Rosanna’s favorite restaurants, long walks on the beach. Plans are being made; a scaffolding is in place. I thought my life outside this room would begin gradually. I thought there would be preparation, long hours of practicing, rules. But here it is, my new life starting. An ordinary day. A knock on the door.
Max walks past me. He opens the door. And then there is a woman, first in the hallway and then in the room, our room, mine, striding over the threshold without pausing, like it’s nothing, like there’s no barrier there, no border to cross. The door is just another door to her. She stops and kisses Max, once, twice, lingering a little too long, and she’s beautiful, taller than me, impossibly slim, her red hair shining in soft waves around her milk-white heart-shaped face. I hate her. I hate her being here. I want to move toward her, push her out the door, and lock it behind her, keeping Max inside, here, with me. Instead, I move closer to Max, hiding my still flawed self, my cellulite, my scars, behind his familiar bulk.
“So good to see you!” the woman says, moving forward, and I shrink back from her body, farther toward the wall. All I can do is look at her. She is so loud, chatting, unpacking her cases with a zipping tear of Velcro noise, clicking her heels across the floor, rupturing the quiet. The air is suddenly full of her smell, the strong punch of soap and deodorant and perfume, mint from the gum she is chewing, the animal presence of an unfamiliar body, so unafraid of taking up space that the world seems to contract around her. In this way, she is more like Rosanna than I am, moving so casually, unpacking two pairs of scissors, a comb, a brush, draping a sheet over the wooden chair that stands by the window, laying out a towel for her bottles, shampoo, conditioner, pomade, gel, opening the window and leaning out for a moment, looking up and down the street. The way she angles her body out into space suggests a casual relationship to the outside world. The fresh air is not precious to her. I hate her more and more.
“And you, Holly,” says Max. “Thank you for coming. It’s been too long.”
“Whose fault is that?” says the woman, laughing, putting one hand on his arm. “I kid, Max, I kid. I know how busy we both are. And you look good! Although those edges aren’t mine. Are you stepping out on me?”
A light laugh, she touches his arm again. I want to swat her hand away.
“Never!” he says. “I’m a one-woman man.”
It’s weird to hear him talking this way, so flirtatious, unserious, relaxed. She laughs again.
“Sure,” she says. “Like I haven’t heard that one be
fore.”
I notice that she still hasn’t looked at me. What has he told her? Has she been warned?
“Anyway,” she says, “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting! Traffic can be murder on this side of town. Beachwood on a Friday afternoon, all those tourists jumping out of their cars in the middle of the street to take pictures of the Hollywood Sign—my god, Max, what were you thinking? It’s a good thing I like you.”
Holly finally cranes her neck around him to look at me. “So this must be my mysterious client!” she says. “Don’t worry, Max told me discretion is paramount. I’m here to help. This haircut isn’t going in my portfolio. Although look at those snarls, hon—you’d make a great before and after.”
I put one hand up to check, gently patting the side of my head. She’s right, it’s a mess, full of split ends, matted with sweat. I haven’t been taking care of myself. I haven’t remembered to. My hair seems almost incidental in the face of so much dramatic physical change. I attempt a smile, but my fingers stick in the thick knots and I am filled with a powerful shame.
“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”
It has been so long since I’ve been in the presence of another person that I’ve forgotten how to behave. Surely there is a script here, words I’m supposed to say, motions I’m supposed to go through, but my mind feels fuzzy, my thoughts a disoriented blur. All I can think is that something is not right. That her presence is an intrusion, a violation, like the doctor sliding his fingers under my skin. A reminder that my body is not my own. I keep my widest smile plastered on my face. I am dimly aware that I must look crazy, but I can’t stop, can’t stop smiling. It’s the only thing I remember how to do.
She is closer to me now, and I inch my way up the couch toward Max, who laughs meanly.
“Where are you going?” he says, grabbing my arm and making me stand up beside him. I try to subtly pull him back with me into the small safe space of the kitchen where we can stand close together and hide, his body protecting me from her. This woman means me harm, I am sure of it.