Juliette stared at him.
“Is this some sort of conspiracy?” she asked. “Is this why Mercy showed up? Why all of you showed up?”
“No,” Michael said quickly, even as Carson shrugged and looked away. “No, not at all. This is the first time I’ve even heard it discussed. I didn’t even know this place existed until this morning, when Angie told me where Mercy had gone. I mean, I knew you were staying somewhere nearby, but I didn’t know it was a place like this and I certainly didn’t know it was yours. We’re not trying to bully you,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If you really think it’s a bad idea—”
“Look,” said Carson, turning her attention back to Juliette. “What do you need to make this work for you? This place is lovely but it’s obviously falling to pieces, and that Gabe guy is adorable but doesn’t look like he’s exactly a business ace. So I’m sure that whatever we might break, we can fix to everyone’s satisfaction and general improvement. We’re not talking about the rest of your life, we’re talking three weeks and a high-profile motion picture. This is a bed-and-breakfast, right? We’ll add the name of the place in the credits; you’ll have business coming out of your ears. You got a learning center? We’ll set up a foundation, have Condé Nast do a big spread before the movie opens. Meanwhile, I have a budget and a boss who can actually say your name without screaming, which puts you on a list with about two other people. What I don’t have is any time to waste dicking around over the imposition of renting out your moldering farm for a big bad movie shoot. So you tell me what you need and let’s get the fuck on with it.”
At first Gabe just laughed. Juliette found him still on the porch, deep in conversation with Mercy, who was seated on the top step with her legs drawn up under her chin, looking ten years old. Gabe was doing most of the talking, much of it with his hands. Mercy still looked drawn, though not as pale as she had when she showed up in Juliette’s living room. She was nodding, but with the sort of frown that precedes an objection; whatever Gabe was saying so intensely in her ear, Mercy wasn’t quite buying.
“But it’s not as simple as you make it sound,” she was saying as Juliette approached. “Juliette, explain to your cousin why it isn’t always possible to tell the truth in every situation. Tell him about the mythical land we call Hollywood.”
“Oh, come on,” Gabriel said. “Don’t make me sound stupid. I was just talking about my personal experience with keeping secrets. How quickly they fester and eat right through your soul, take over your life—”
“Well, yes,” Juliette interrupted, not liking the direction of this conversation at all, but wanting to agree with Gabe enough to keep him from becoming angry, or angrier than he was going to be when she presented her news. “I think when you keep something secret, it can make it seem worse than it really is. But that doesn’t mean you have to go around telling everyone every single thing.”
“Sometimes things only get worse when you tell the truth,” Mercy said.
“Things never get worse when you tell the truth,” Gabriel said. “Sometimes there are consequences, which might seem worse, at first. But they aren’t really. Not in the long run.”
Mercy grinned wickedly as she interrupted him. “Okay, so you tell the truth. Why do you live here all on your own? Why aren’t you married and raising adorably eco-friendly bilingual children?” she asked. “Because I’d totally marry you, if I weren’t, you know, me.”
For once Gabe was brought up short. Though Mercy was clearly teasing, she also wanted an answer. Juliette could see his thumb worrying the ring he wore on the middle finger of his left hand; it was one of Gabe’s few tells. Despite herself, she, too, waited for the answer.
“Well, that’s no secret,” he said, meeting Mercy’s eyes straight on. “I’m totally fucked up. Just ask Juliette. Some damage is permanent.”
“You know,” Juliette said quickly, “it’s way too early in the morning to be discussing the meaning of life, Gabriel. Especially when we need to talk about other things.” With a small jerk of her head, she motioned Gabe off the porch. Gabe raised his eyebrows but otherwise did not move, observing her with that benign expectation that Juliette found so infuriating. “Okay. Carson wants to shoot here. For three weeks. And I think we should let her.” Though she spoke with some measure of defiance, Juliette took a step backward, anticipating a certain amount of rage.
That was when Gabe started laughing. Juliette explained that this was his chance to fix everything and make enough money to get out of debt and he laughed even harder.
“What is so funny?” Mercy asked, as he wiped his eyes and leaned against the stone wall. “It’s perfect. It’s a totally perfect idea. I should know, I was the one who suggested it to Carson.”
“See, this is the thing about God,” Gabe said, when he was finally able to draw breath. “He has such a great sense of humor. Not to mention timing. I mean, what can I say? It’s a total nightmare from hell, but I put it out there, didn’t I? I finally broke down and asked the universe, not to mention my crazy cousin, for help, and then, bam, in a matter of hours, help is at my door. But it couldn’t be some nice quiet millionaire with a degree in Italian history or Al Gore looking to fund a little piece of sustainability, or even our long-lost Giotto.” Gabe was laughing so hard again it was difficult to quite understand him. “No, it’s a three-ring blockbuster circus with a carbon footprint bigger than King Kong’s.”
“It’s not that bad,” Mercy said earnestly. “We do have recycling bins. And the golf carts are electric. I think.”
At this Gabe went off in another gale of hysteria, while Juliette shifted from one foot to another and tried not to roll her eyes.
It took an hour or so to hammer out the terms, by which time Gabe wasn’t laughing anymore. In exchange for allowing the film crew to use Cerreta for not more than three weeks, Carson would pay to repair any harm to the landscape or buildings done during shooting, also for a new well to be dug and the generator to be replaced. To create the interior sets, the production company would renovate two of the more dilapidated farmhouses, the villa’s cellar, and the third floor of the tower. Bill Becker would also personally make a large onetime donation to the newly created Cerreta Foundation (which had the benefit of being tax deductible).
After signing a makeshift contract in the study of the villa, he and Juliette stepped out onto the patio outside the front door. From here the front half of the estate spread out before them, an explosion of forest and field and meadow and the rich red earth of the vineyards. Surveying so much beauty, even Juliette quailed for a moment; what would it all look like three weeks from now?
“Promise me one thing,” Gabe said quietly, putting his hand on Juliette’s wrist. “Promise me you aren’t doing this, we aren’t doing this, just so you can have some sort of Italian idyll with Mr. Movie Star over there.” He jerked his chin to where Michael and Carson were huddled in conversation with each other and their respective cell phones.
Taken completely by surprise, Juliette yanked her arm away. “Jesus, Gabe,” she said irritably. “I just solved all your money woes and that’s what you have to say? You promise me you won’t sleep with Mercy, then hound her into taking a blood oath on the Big Book.”
“Seriously, Jules,” Gabe said, “don’t go from one needy narcissist to another. Sleep with him if you want, but don’t go falling in love with him. He’s not . . . real. Or rather, he’s too real, in that endless-pit-of-perpetual-need way you seem to like so much.” Gabe sighed. “He’s just like Josh, only with more money and slightly better packaging. Okay,” he added with irritable envy, “much better packaging.”
She followed her cousin’s gaze to the fattoria, where Michael stood talking to Carson. The producer was smiling and for once showed no signs of needing to be anywhere else, despite the keys in her hand, and it was easy to see why. O’Connor’s eyes were on hers, shining above that white and ready smile that made whoever it was directed toward feel like the wittiest, smartest, and/or
most beautiful person in the world. Even at a hundred paces, he gleamed with self-confidence. Certainly Carson’s face was as happy as Juliette had seen it, gazing up into his and clearly willing to do so unto all eternity. For a moment Juliette hated him. As if he felt her eyes on him, Michael turned and looked straight at Juliette, his left eyebrow raising itself suggestively.
Startled and feeling she had been somehow caught, Juliette stepped back and redirected her gaze to the view.
“What are you going to tell your interns?” she asked. “And the guests?”
It was Gabe’s turn to shrug. “Nothing,” he said. “I think it will be fairly self-explanatory. I’m sure everyone will be very excited,” he said with mock enthusiasm, “to be part of such a fabulous project. Look at them,” he added, unable to contain his disgust as a group of dusty students, recently returned from moving a group of pigs from one field to another, surrounded O’Connor with shy smiles, extended hands, and questioning glances. “You just can’t get good help anymore.”
Chapter Seven
IF JULIETTE HAD SAID yes to Carson’s plan in the hopes of spending time with Michael, a thing she certainly wasn’t about to admit even to herself, she soon realized how ridiculous that would have been. Within moments of getting a final okay from Becker, Cerreta exploded into activity. By noon, the dirt road that led to the castello was an ever-shifting river of dust and exhaust as trucks and cars and trailers crept their way along the bumps and curves, following hastily made signs to the courtyard, a logging road, and a lower field that Gabe had let run to grass and wildflowers. Michael and Mercy vanished into a conference with Golonski, who had commandeered the villa’s library. Juliette, meanwhile, was trying to figure out where everyone would sleep and how they could feed them. The carpentry crew produced bunk beds seemingly out of thin air and Casa Torre soon looked like a dormitory for the camera crew and electricians. Still, sheets had to be found, blankets and towels, and Juliette was on the phone to the local laundry service and a cleaning crew. Craft services moved into the kitchen, much to the consternation of Cerreta’s presiding chef, Rosa, bringing with them boxes and bushels of nonorganic food and a list of food preferences and allergies from Angie and Mercy. Juliette took one look and tore it up, step one in negotiating a truce between the two kitchen staffs.
All day long, men and women in cargo pants, belted with pliers and box cutters and every color of electrical tape imaginable, heaved and carried, carted and rolled the copious and wildly diverse equipment required to make a movie. The first scene was to be shot outside the carriage house, which would be dressed with flowerpots and window boxes to look like the exterior of a painter’s studio. The archway that connected it to the villa became an alley leading back to a street. Lights sprang up like a grove of young trees, the dirt of the courtyard soon crawled with thick black wires, while the set designer and her decorators picked through flatbeds of hedge bushes and flowerpots, rose trees, and even a selection of young willows.
“What’s with all the colored paper I keep finding everywhere?” Gabe asked, shoving an eggshell-blue sheaf into a recycling bin. “Are they doing finger-paint therapy or something?”
“That’s for the rewrites,” Juliette said. “Every time the writer changes something, they pass out pages of a different color so no one gets confused. You can tell how rough a shoot has been by how many colors there are in the final working script.”
“Great,” Gabe grumbled. “Now we have to worry about dyes as well as wood pulp. Um, are we still supposed to be in Italy here?” he asked as he watched with horrified fascination as the set dressers moved plants this way and that. “Because there are no gardenias in Italy. Excuse me?” he called to the woman in black who seemed to be in charge. “No gardenias. In Italy.”
“Where is the production manager?” Juliette asked an electrician who was about to climb a ladder. The young woman pointed to a man in a red flannel shirt. Juliette grabbed Gabe and together they walked toward him.
“Hi,” she said. “This is the man who owns this place and he is a great resource when it comes to knowing what sort of plants are indigenous to the area, or what sort of stone or paint, or just about anything. And he’s more than happy to help.”
“Great,” the production manager said, “perfect. Because we have no fucking clue what the director wants here, and frankly I don’t think he does, either. So anything you can do to help us not look like complete idiots would be greatly appreciated.”
Gabe shot her a vindictive look, but as she left, Juliette noted with amusement that he was already explaining something with considerable animation to a small crowd of people.
By the time the sun went down, Juliette was tired like she hadn’t been tired since Oscar night at the Pinnacle. She and Gabe had arranged for Rosa and the interns to orchestrate the making and baking of fifty pizzas in the wood-fire oven that stood in the corner of the courtyard beside the entrance to the winepress and the cellar. Glazed with sweat, Juliette headed back to Casa Padua to change. There she found Angie working an iPhone beside a stack of Louis Vuitton luggage on the front porch. “I wasn’t sure which room was mine,” said Angie, finally looking up. “Mercy said she doesn’t want to share, and so I thought I’d give you a chance to move your things first . . .” She gave Juliette a winning smile.
“You’re not staying here, Angie,” Juliette said wearily, pushing past her. “Mercy can, I guess, if she wants, but you have a lovely room in the villa. Just down the hall from Mr. O’Connor. With its very own bathroom.” She pulled out a walkie-talkie someone had given her and barked into it. “Can someone come get Angie Talbot’s luggage and take it to the villa?”
Behind her, Angie began spluttering her objections, but Juliette was just too tired to listen. “I’m sure you will be much more comfortable over there,” she said firmly, stepping into the blissful silence of her own room and closing the door.
By the time Juliette had finished showering, Angie and her luggage were gone, replaced by Mercy, who sat cross-legged on Juliette’s bed, poring over a script.
“You must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself,” Juliette said, as she towel-dried her hair. Mercy looked up at her, startled. “I mean, it’s not every star who can get a whole film production to follow her to the location of her choosing. That’s got to move you up the power lists a few notches.”
Mercy shrugged. “It’s not about feeling pleased with myself,” she said. “I just feel safer here. With you and Gabe around. He’s bound and determined to save me,” she added with a small grin, “from whatever it is he thinks I need saving from.”
“From yourself,” Juliette said, opening drawers and preparing to get dressed. “Gabe believes that sobriety is the cure for all ills.”
“Don’t you?”
It was Juliette’s turn to shrug. “It depends. I don’t think being strung out or loaded all the time makes life any easier, but I think drinking and drugging are usually symptoms of something else, and if you don’t fix that . . .”
“Is that what you did?”
Juliette stared at herself in the mirror and tried to remember those early days, when she had shaken and sweated and puked for ten solid days, emerging with the knowledge that no matter what else happened in her life, she would never ever go through such a thing again. She remembered how she had thrown herself into the frantic but still stately dance of life at the Plaza, where the general manager had, for reasons she still did not understand, created a job for her. How ensuring the comfort of guests and the efficiency of the staff became a wonderfully exhausting problem to solve, her own personal endless algebraic equation. That was what got her high now, doing the sorts of things she had just done today.
“Something like that,” she said.
“Gabe says you’re only as sick as your secrets,” Mercy said, lying back onto the pillows.
Juliette snorted. “He would know. He’s had some pretty sick secrets.”
“Me, too,” Mercy said sadly. “But most sec
rets usually aren’t just yours. They usually involve other people.”
“I don’t think Gabe means you share them with, like, Katie Couric,” Juliette said. “And I don’t think he means things like ‘I slept with Lloyd.’ I think the idea is to tell a trustworthy person the things that keep you up at night, and yes”—she ran a brush through her wet hair—“I do think saying things out loud can make them seem less terrible.”
“My mother thinks I should sleep with Michael,” Mercy said in what was clearly a diversionary tactic. She watched the reflection of Juliette’s face from the mirror above the dresser. “She thinks it’s time I had a relationship with an older man. That it would make me seem more serious, more settled. Like he’s settled. Settled like Henry VIII. He’s been married, what, five times?”
“Four,” Juliette said, rummaging around for earrings, not daring to meet Mercy’s eyes.
“My mother doesn’t even know Michael O’Connor except from his movies, but she thinks I should sleep with him. She thinks it would play well in the press, distract everyone from Lloyd’s death. Don’t you have any cigarettes in here? Like for guests?”
“No, I don’t,” Juliette said. “And you can’t smoke in my bedroom. Go sit on the porch or drape yourself on the stairs if you have to smoke. Get up anyway, it’s almost time for dinner. Or are you back on your starlet skeletalization program?”
“Don’t worry,” Mercy said, not budging. “I’m not going to. Sleep with Michael. I don’t trust him, for one thing. Don’t you think it was weird how quickly Carson and Becker were able to get him for this role, how he just happened to be immediately available? He and Lloyd did not get along, you know. Lloyd thinks—thought—he was a washed-up old diva, ever since they were in that big espionage picture together. You know, the one with Clooney and that British woman who looks kinda like a man?”
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