The Starlet

by Mary McNamara

  “Right,” Carson said, and with an exhalation of exasperation abandoned her attempt to charm Juliette. “Because that’s something I’d certainly authorize, something I want to have to explain to the insurance company. Fuck me. You know what, though,” she added with a bitter laugh, “if I thought that would work, I would do just that. A shot in the ass is just what that girl needs. Mercy Talbot has been an actress for the better part of a decade now and she knows exactly how it works. She’s caused more than enough trouble already. So you do what you need to do, honey, but she’s working today. All day.” At that moment Golonski raised his head and gestured; without a word, Carson stalked off.

  “Wow,” said Juliette. “I can’t imagine why Lloyd was having trouble sleeping. Who in God’s name is she? Why have I never seen her before? Or heard of her? She’s a nightmare. Is she Bill Becker’s love child? Or did she just spring full-grown from his head like Athena from Zeus?”

  O’Connor chuckled. “She’s like two years out of NYU film school,” he said. “Masters program. I think her father knows Becker or something. She’s actually not that bad. You can’t afford to be nice when you’re running a freak show like this. She talks tough because if she doesn’t, everyone will roll right over her. She’s actually a lot like you, Juliette. She knows how to do her job.”

  “When I start sounding like some summer stock actress channeling Helen Mirren,” Juliette retorted, “you have my permission to shoot me in the head. She is very pretty, though,” she added, “which certainly must help.”

  “In many ways,” O’Connor agreed benignly. “Ah, here’s Mercy,” he added. From one corner of the Campo, Mercy approached, stylists and wardrobe assistants following her like a royal entourage. She scanned the crowd and gave Juliette a small but definitely happy smile. “Upright and seemingly functional. You are a miracle worker, my Juliette. Take a seat if you like and pray we get through the next twelve hours alive.”

  • • •

  The cast and crew may have, but Juliette did not. She hung in for eight, partly because she wanted to keep an eye on Mercy, partly because every hour or so Michael would dart over and promise that he’d be on break soon so they could grab coffee, and partly because when the scenes were being run, it was fascinating to watch. Though she had spent many, many hours with him while he was ill, she had never seen O’Connor work.

  As the hours passed, however, it became much less fascinating, and by the time the sun sank, Juliette was so exhausted from just watching the filming that she worried she would not be able to find her car, much less drive it home. Hour after hour, take after take, scene after scene, the action moved from the Campo to two separate side streets; there were costume changes and lighting changes as the story passed from day to night and back. Some scenes were shot repeatedly from every conceivable angle, while others blurred by in one take or two. At one point new pages of dialogue were passed around, fresh from the writer, who was holed away somewhere, still frantically trying to adjust the script for a lead who was at least twenty years older than the character had originally been conceived.

  Juliette had been on movie sets before, but she had never seen anything like this level of intensity, this pressure to produce. Beyond an occasional wave, she didn’t get to speak to Mercy again. No matter what he promised, whenever there was a break, Michael was instantly surrounded, by makeup people, the lighting people, the cinematographer, the director, everyone fussing and talking and generally acting as if the city were under siege and he the only hope of defense.

  Still, whatever Ben Golonski felt about Mercy or this film, he seemed, at least from a distance, to treat her with unfailing patience and admiration. He had good reason. Watching the action unfold on the monitors in increments of two minutes or five, Juliette was struck by just how good Mercy was. Her role, as far as Juliette could tell, was actually two women: a modern-day art historian full of secrets and feisty one-liners, and the beatific young sixteenth century nun who haunted the dreams of O’Connor’s jaded and celebrated but still struggling painter. He, too, had double duty, playing the painter and also a modern American detective investigating a series of murders staged to look like famous paintings. Both created characters that were easily differentiated yet also subtly related, but with Mercy the shift bordered on the miraculous. Her art historian had a hopeful cynicism that Juliette recognized as completely modern, while her novice was a luminous blank slate, a woman who somehow shone with a clear light that seemed to come through her rather than from her.

  When Golonski yelled cut, Mercy occasionally staggered to her chair, angrily pushing aside the hands that inevitably reached out to adjust her hair, her costume. Her mother was never more than two feet away, handing Mercy various pills that she fished from a black leather satchel, or urging her to use the inhaler. Whether because she was exhausted by the work or Angie’s ministrations, Mercy came close to tears on a few occasions and had to be coaxed back into frame. But as soon as the cameras were rolling, she was a wonder to watch. If anyone was slowing down filming, it was Michael; more than a few times, he asked for another take, demanding it if Golonski tried to demur, pushing himself, and Mercy, to try it another way.

  But even so, the only real tension Juliette saw was that of a group of people working very hard to get things right.

  “See?” said Carson, appearing behind Juliette’s chair after one particularly long scene during which the chemistry between Mercy and Michael, in their Renaissance roles, was almost unbearable to watch. “See what she is capable of if she just acts like a grown-up and focuses on her art? Sometimes it doesn’t seem right that all that talent got put in such a messed-up package.”

  “Maybe talent like that has a hard time staying in any package,” Juliette said. “Maybe if she knew people would love her even if she didn’t make them millions of dollars she wouldn’t be so messed up.”

  Carson made a sound like spitting. “That’s the only reason she gets away with being who she is, Juliette,” she said. “But she’s doing great today. I mean, look at them.” She motioned to the monitor, where Michael and Mercy were consulting with the director, watching each other’s faces and nodding as he spoke. “It’s like the age difference doesn’t exist. Kindred spirits, maybe, though I’d much rather deal with his issues than hers.” Carson caught herself, as if she had forgotten who Juliette was. “Thank you, by the way, for whatever you said to Mercy. It obviously had a huge impact. If every day could go this smoothly, we’d be just fine.”

  “I didn’t say much of anything,” Juliette answered. “And you need to be careful; she isn’t as sturdy as she seems.”

  “She’s fine,” Carson said dismissively. “She just needs someone to set some boundaries for her. That’s the trouble with becoming rich and famous when you’re a child.” Her eyes narrowed. “You think the world revolves around you.”

  Juliette could barely suppress a laugh. Hearing such a sentiment from a beautiful woman who could not be much older than Mercy but was overseeing a multimillion-dollar film set bordered on the ridiculous. But Juliette knew from long experience that in Hollywood no matter how lauded or successful you were, there was always someone who seemed to have the better deal, the easier life, the less-deserved fame. Envy drove the Industry, even more than ambition.

  As the sun sank behind the hills and towers, shadows filled the city, rising from the corners until the streets were silent rivers of chilly darkness. Soon the moon rose high and bright and Juliette thought if she had to sit or stand still for one more minute she would scream or pass out. After attempting, in vain, to have a moment with Mercy, who seemed to have disappeared somewhere that was not her trailer, Juliette contented herself with waving to Michael and pointing to her watch. He blew her a kiss and turned back to his conversation. It was all very anticlimactic, she thought, as she followed the winding streets back toward Porta San Marco. Light shone from lamps anchored on buildings that lined each street, the iron arms decorated with the symbols of Siena’s sixteen
neighborhoods—the snail and the porcupine, the elephant with its tower, the unicorn. She followed the jaguar until it gave way to the giraffe. The night above her was blue-black and a mist rose from the cobblestones, turned archways and doorways into tableaux, possible scenes of romance, or murder.

  The danger of Hollywood, she thought, was that if you spent too much time around it, everything seemed like a movie.

  When she returned to Cerreta, she was surprised to find Gabriel sitting on the low stone wall outside the Casa Padua, playing his guitar, all alone except for two young cats batting at shadows in the grass at his feet. It looked as if he were waiting for her.

  “So, cuz, how was it being back?” he asked as Juliette got out of her car.

  “In Siena?”

  “In Hollywood. Back among the corrupt and restless hearts of the entertainment industry.” He punctuated every other word with a hard dramatic chord.

  “It was weird,” she said, choosing not to be provoked. “I don’t know what I was doing there, exactly. Michael is back to being a full-time movie star, which is good, I guess. He looked like the chemo worked anyway. But the shoot’s a nightmare, and you cannot believe the bitch of a producer they have on set. It’s understandable that he’s worried Mercy is going to screw up.”

  Gabe tilted his head to one side and blinked with great exaggeration as his fingers plucked an overly melancholy tune. Juliette had to laugh.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “It wasn’t the romantic reunion I had hoped for, but I have experienced disappointment once or twice before in my young life. Anyway, Mercy’s a mess again but she won’t admit it, and no one really cares as long as she keeps doing what she does.”

  “Your Mr. O’Connor cares. At least enough to call you. Or was that just a ruse to see you again?”

  “Hardly. He cares, I guess, but mostly because he doesn’t want to have to deal with it. I don’t know, maybe he really does; the two of them are two of a kind in a way. And I have to say, watching them do what they do, that part, really was amazing,” Juliette said, gazing up at the stars, leaning against the wall and into the fragrance-stirred silence. “To see her go from fucked-up kid to this sort of luminous presence in a matter of moments. She really is something to watch. And the camera loves her.”

  “If no one else does,” Gabriel finished with a playful twang. He paused a moment; Juliette expected him to make some sobriety-related pronouncement about Mercy, but surprisingly, he didn’t seem to be interested in Mercy at all. “I was thinking, Jules,” he said, carefully leaning the guitar against the wall as if finally getting down to business.

  “Never a good idea, Gabe.”

  “No seriously, I was thinking that you should stay. Stay here. Be part of here for a while, not just a visitor, not just some absentee landlord.”

  “Hey,” Juliette protested, pulling herself up onto the wall and shoving him with her shoulder.

  “No, I mean it. You shouldn’t go back to that place, those people. You’re too susceptible to soul-sucking narcissists. Well, you are,” he said, as she began to object. “Look at who you married. The tortured writer who couldn’t lower himself to ever get a job, who had no problem living off you for years, and then the moment things turn around . . .” Juliette shoved him again. “Okay, I’m sorry he’s dead. A little sorry. And God knows you come by it naturally enough, your endless need to fix things. All right, all right, don’t raise the drawbridge, I’m not going to talk about the past. At least not right now. But you know Hollywood was never your dream. It was Josh’s. Even your job, which I know you’re very good at, was an accident.”

  “A lucky accident.”

  “Well, yes, sure, for a strung-out junkie thief to wind up with a career in luxury hotel management may indeed be the ultimate definition of ‘lucky accident.’ But is it really the life you dreamed of? Meeting the needs of a bunch of overly entitled, marginally talented basket cases?”

  “It’s not always like that,” Juliette protested. “Some of our guests are very talented and some of them are even nice.”

  “Okay, okay,” Gabe said. “But the work, Jules, is it the work you want to be doing? Glorified child care?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Gabe,” she said with a sigh, hitching herself up onto the wall beside him, feeling the tension of her shoulders release as she arched her back, as the smell of grass and warm stone, of rosemary and apple blossom, filled every breath she took, erased all the emotional frenzy of the movie set. All those people scurrying around like ants, the anxiety and the pressure, the forest of equipment, the countless crew. They were probably still at it, and for what? A movie that would play in theaters for a couple of weeks. It was absurd when you thought about it, such a long-odds business. Even when a film was successful, it was often forgotten in a year. Only one in a million made any lasting impact on people’s imaginations; Casablanca was still more famous than most films made in the last fifty years.

  But here, at Cerreta, was something that did not change, that was not ephermeral. Across the courtyard, the villa stood as it always had, glimmering pale in the darkness, a few squares of light running along its top floor where guests were reading or making love or poring over travel guides. She could hear the gentle clash of dishes being washed in the students’ quarters, hear their voices raised in song and laughter as the wine took hold. Behind her lay the fields and vineyards, the endless swell of forests, the green and golden allure of Tuscany, with its hill towns and bell towers, its storybook streets and hidden piazzas, a place at once under siege, by tourism and the modern world, and unassailable. She did admire Gabe. At least he was taking a stand, trying to create, if not a utopia then some sort of testament to a different way of living, a different way of treating the beautiful and moving and miraculous. Beauty is so dangerous, Juliette thought, because desire is so dangerous. So many trampling feet, so many grasping hands, and soon the very thing that drew them was broken, obliterated. For a moment she could see Mercy as she stood on the wall of the Castle That Only God Knows with the iris in her hand, lovely and unknowable, saying things that sounded so significant because she made them sound that way.

  “We need you,” Gabe was saying beside her. “I need you. Cerreta needs you. It’s home. You know it is, Jules, the closest thing either of us have to home.”

  “You’re doing fine without me,” she said, shivering at the sound of the word “home.” It made her think of closed doors, dangerous silences. Home had never really worked out for her. “You’re doing better without me. I’d just try to make it like the Pinnacle, get rich people to come, and you’d hate that.”

  “I would,” Gabe admitted. “But”—he paused, and the pause was so unlike him that Juliette was instantly uneasy—“maybe we could figure out something that was not quite so drastic. Something midway between the Pinnacle and the pitiful, which, I have to admit, is what we’ve got right now, at least financially. We need to do something. Or we will lose the place.” The last sentence came out of nowhere and hung in the air with no need of dramatic guitar accompaniment.

  “What are you talking about?” Juliette demanded, though she knew she was just buying time. Gabriel never lied, and he rarely exaggerated; his tone was calm but final. He meant precisely what he said. “I just gave you a half a million dollars to settle the taxes. How could we lose it? Who would we lose it to?”

  Gabe shrugged. “You gave me four hundred fifty thousand dollars,” he said. “Which is about three hundred thousand euros. Which settled the taxes. But there are loans, Jules, outstanding bills, some going back to when our parents were alive. Our folks, they weren’t exactly cut out for business, none of them, as you well know,” he said bitterly. “Sometimes I wonder if they were ever really serious at all. It was all about the wine and the sun and the drama, their twisted version of romance—”

  Juliette held up her hand. “Enough,” she said. “Just tell me what we need.”

  Gabriel shrugged again and said bluntly, “We’re about two hundred gr
and in the hole, to various banks and tradesmen. We need a new generator, like yesterday, and I am beginning to think we’re going to need a new well—four hundred years is a lot to ask, even with the blessings of Saint Bernardine.”

  “Shit, Gabe,” Juliette said incredulously. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?

  “I did tell you some of it, like the taxes part,” he said. “And I’ve emailed you some of the information over the last year. But mainly I just thought if I kept paying things down one day at a time, I could stay afloat. But the diving dollar is killing us, the villa’s practically empty, in case you hadn’t noticed. I never envisioned this place being some huge moneymaker; I just want it to be self-sustaining.”

  “Yeah, well,” Juliette snapped, “you’ll have to sell a lot of honey and olive oil to get on top of a debt like that.”

  “Just so you know, olive oil is a huge money pit,” Gabe said. “I’d give it up but the trees look so nice and the guests expect an olive grove.”

  “What about selling some of the property?” she asked. “Most of it’s woods now anyway; you could cut the acreage in half and still have a nice little agriturismo.”

  “We can’t,” Gabe said miserably. “Remember when I applied to become a national reserve? I thought it would help us preserve the integrity of the landscape, which it does, but it also means you can’t sell it to anyone but the government, and they have no reason to buy it now, since there is no threat of development.”

  Juliette groaned. Although she had never loved Cerreta the way Gabe had, neither did she want to lose it, and certainly not to financial default. For all her knowledge about what it took to run a hotel, she had somehow managed to assume that even if Cerreta was not profitable, it would still limp along as it always had. In the hands of the banks or local developers it would soon be turned into some sort of historical tourist trap, with pottery depicting the inevitable cypress trees and Tuscany refrigerator magnets for sale in the villa and overheated Americans flipping through Lonely Planet guidebooks and wolfing down gelato.