The Starlet

by Mary McNamara

  “Well, we’ll ask him all about it at dinner,” Juliette said, leaning down and tugging Mercy out of bed. “Now get up.”

  “Don’t,” Mercy said, grasping Juliette’s arm. “Seriously. Don’t say anything about Lloyd at dinner. You have to promise. Seriously. It’s just . . . it’s a very touchy subject with everyone. I was just”—she smiled that bright angelic smile—“trying out Gabe’s theory. With a person I trust.”

  “Okay,” Juliette said, startled by the girl’s intensity, and her grip. “Okay,” she repeated, peeling Mercy’s fingers off her arm. “But I don’t think you should say things like that. It makes it sound like Michael is somehow profiting from Lloyd’s death, when I think he was just trying to help out a friend.”

  “Why does having him here rattle you so much anyway?” Mercy asked. “Do you want to sleep with him? Do you not want to sleep with him?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with sleeping with him.” Juliette’s voice was much louder than she intended it to be. “It’s just there are things in your life, or my life anyway, that need to be kept separate, and it suddenly feels so . . . crowded here. He makes it, me . . . I just feel crowded.”

  A look of pity crossed Mercy’s face.

  “You can’t amputate the past, you know,” she said. “Even if you think you have, it still aches, like a ghost limb.”

  Standing in the living room, Juliette once again felt tricked, by this young woman’s green-golden eyes, by her throaty voice, by her ability to seem one sort of person and then be quite another. Right now she was looking at Juliette as if she knew precisely the slippery mixture of pleasure and fury Juliette felt having Michael here, watching him be seduced by the dreamy landscape of her childhood, her poor, knotted-up, long-neglected childhood. She wanted to be alone with him, but she knew then he would ask her questions, like Mercy had asked her questions, and she didn’t want to answer any of them, not even the easy ones. She had tried to amputate the past for good reason. There was nothing but pain in the past, pain and loss and cold unforgiving confusion, and even so, it had chased her through most of her life, through her drug-addled twenties, through her marriage, then her divorce. And Michael O’Connor was certainly not the solution she was looking for, no matter what she had felt, or thought he had felt, those months ago. She needed a new sense of stability, some sort of systematic plan, and he would bring her nothing but constant disruption and confusion. Only in the steady, complicated waltz of work had she found security. Safety.

  Suddenly Juliette missed the Pinnacle so deeply she could have wept. She missed the smell of the inexhaustible bouquets of lilies, the hush of the lobby, the scent of good coffee, and the murmur of voices and laughter rising like a mist from the bar. She missed the logic of it all and the people who made it work so smoothly, who met any crisis, any request, with an unflappable mien and simple step-by-step solutions. Another room would be prepared, another seamstress brought in, another bottle, gown, nanny, impossible-to-get ticket would be procured. But more than that, she missed Devlin. Who always seemed to know what to do and never, ever asked her one single question about her past. Because he didn’t much care. God, what she would give to have Devlin here, to see him come sauntering in this room right now, explaining how all this was going to work. Then she would know she hadn’t made an enormous mistake by not just throwing Carson out on her ear.

  Before Juliette could even attempt to put any of this into words, Angie appeared in the doorway with a male figure in tow.

  “Mercy, Mercy, look,” she said, sounding positively giddy. “Look who’s come to see us through all this insanity!”

  For a moment Juliette felt her heart lift; like Gabe, she had wished for something and here it was. But instead of Devlin’s familiar dark hair, she saw a head of wispy blond baldness, an aggressively mahogany tan, the gleam of a self-satisfied smile, and a lot of white linen.

  “Steve! Steve Usher,” Angie said, as if announcing the Second Coming of Christ. “All the way from Malibu!”

  • • •

  Halfway through dinner, Juliette had to admit that Usher, despite his rather plummy British accent and rock-star swagger, might not be as terrible as she had previously thought. He was certainly not as terrible as Gabe thought.

  “Are you kidding me?” Gabe had hissed into her ear as she slid into her seat once the necessary introductions were made. “We have to sit here and listen to this charlatan? This was not part of the deal.” Juliette just shook her head, while Angie chattered on about how Steve had so generously agreed to visit because he had meant to come when they were in Rome but then Lloyd had died.

  “I was on my way to London, so I thought I’d stop by and see if I could be of any use . . .”

  “He needs a new travel agent. On what map is Italy located between Los Angeles and London?” Gabe hissed again, wedging himself between Juliette and Mercy, almost directly across from Usher.

  “It being such a sad thing, such a difficult time,” Usher continued just as if he hadn’t heard Gabe, which was physically impossible, “for all of us.” He reached over and patted Mercy’s hand. She drew it away and stared at him as if he were speaking another language. “I will be leading an early morning meditation, if anyone is interested. And, of course, I brought a few copies of my Little Book.” He produced a copy from the frayed woven wool satchel he had slung around his shoulders and held it up as if he were an author being interviewed on a morning talk show. “And some of my herbal Work Through It packs—they’ve become quite a hit on sets back in L.A., you know, all organic, of course, and I’ll throw in a copy of the solo album if you need a laugh. God knows I’ve got enough of those left to build my own villa. Nothing like a healthy dose of public humiliation to keep you sober.” He smiled winningly as he laid the book and the box of herbal supplements down on the table.

  Glancing down the table, Juliette could see the smug smile on Carson’s face. Michael was seated beside her and she had her arm draped around the back of his chair. He seemed to be laughing to himself, though Juliette could not tell if the source of his amusement was Usher or the strange and tense group eating pear and gorgonzola pizza together under a purple sky. Ben Golonski was there, sporting a carefully groomed five-day stubble and baseball cap. He was holding forth on balsamic vinegars and the many things he had learned about wine-making from his good friend Francis Ford Coppola.

  “There’s nothing you can do here that you can’t do in Sonoma,” he said airily. “Regionalism is dead.”

  For a moment Juliette was extremely grateful for the presence of Steve Usher; if Gabe had heard Golonski, who clearly knew nothing about any of the subjects he was discussing, blood would have been spilled.

  Next to the director a slight pale man was wolfing down his food and continually looking at his watch; this could only be the writer, Juliette thought. What was his name? Joseph something? Something Joseph? Devlin had said something about him, that he had almost come to blows with Golonski when Michael was brought in because the star’s age and large personality had required the rewriting of key scenes. The writer had been pushing Brad Pitt. Watching Joseph devour an entire pizza, folding the pieces over New York style, which was a very messy way to eat the thin-crust Italian version, she had to admit he did not seem happy. When he wasn’t eating, he was venting loud frustrated sighs.

  It was just the sort of situation that Michael reveled in, a sort of Hollywood-living-up-to-its-reputation moment. Sitting between Carson and the production manager, O’Connor was busy reminiscing about the various gangsters he had played over the years, and the mobsters he had befriended so he could learn their ways.

  “This one guy was missing three fingers and an ear and walked with a horrible limp,” he said. “He had been kneecapped but his capo kept him around, treated him like a lapdog, as a reminder of what could happen if you didn’t follow orders to the letter.”

  As he recounted a conversation he’d had recently with “Marty and Jack,” Juliette almost laughed. On
the one hand, he was clearly offering the table a performance; on the other, he was very much in his element. She accidentally caught his eye as she thought this and he smiled what seemed like a Juliette-specific smile, as if the two of them were complicit in the orchestration and enjoyment of the scene around them. Despite herself, she felt vital pieces of her internal construction begin to soften and wobble. Down the table, Angie and even Mercy were laughing. Juliette wrenched her gaze away from O’Connor to hear Usher mid-anecdote.

  “So there I was,” he was saying. “No knickers to speak of, and the camera’s rolling. Thank God I play the guitar. If I had just been on vocals I don’t see how Her Majesty could have ever invited me back.

  “What a gorgeous place this is,” he said when the laughter had died down. “I mean, simply amazing. I am amazed. And Angie tells me it belongs to your family.” He looked inquiringly at Juliette.

  “I do wish we could somehow get Steve into one of those wonderful little villas down among the vineyards,” Angie said. “Away from all the craziness.” She motioned away from the patio to where the set work was still proceeding. “I think it would be best for Mercy if she had a place she could go, some quieter place to talk, or whatever it is Steve feels she needs to do.”

  “Mother,” said Mercy. “I am sitting right here. The woman who is paying for Steve and pretty much every other plan you come up with. Right here.”

  “Those villas,” said Gabe, not allowing her to launch whatever remonstration she had in mind, “are farmhouses. Villas were for the rich; farmhouses, on the other hand, housed as many as six families at a time, families who worked this land for subsistence wages. Nowadays, if you believe all the inns and bed-and-breakfasts, it would seem there were only landowners and no workers in Tuscany. This is the villa, where the aristocracy, the historical equivalent of the rock stars, lived. So I’m sure Mr. Usher will be far more comfortable here, though Siena remains quite convenient for any and all who find their rooms less than satisfactory.”

  Silence rang around the patio as everyone stared at Gabe. Juliette hooked her feet around her chair so she would not kick him, but Gabe calmly helped himself to more pizza. Watching him, Mercy laughed in delight and he looked up, startled, and smiled.

  “Your new well,” Carson said into the seemingly interminable pause. “They’ll begin work tomorrow. As we agreed. And Steve will be staying with us as long as he can, for the duration of the shoot, I hope. His presence alleviates so many concerns.” She smiled brightly at Mercy.

  “We should probably have a little ceremony before they start,” Juliette said quickly, to change the subject. “Or else Saint Bernardine might curse us or something. Right? Saint Bernardine is the monk who found the well. He was preaching to a bunch of the tenants . . . well, you should tell them, Gabe. Tell the story of the well.”

  “Tell us,” Mercy said quickly. For a moment it was almost painful to see how much she wanted everything to work out. “Tell us about the well. And Saint whatever his name is. Please, Gabe,” she said, pitching her voice low and irresistible. Juliette saw a glance pass between Steve and Angie.

  For a moment Gabe wavered between his irritation and Mercy’s eager smile. The smile won. “Saint Bernardine was a monk who lived in Siena during the Middle Ages,” he said with a sigh, beginning what was obviously an oft-told story. “He was a bit of a celebrity himself, actually, a man of rare rhetorical gift, and as his fame grew, whenever he chose to preach, hundreds, sometimes thousands would gather. Even so, Bernardine was a bit of a wet blanket; he was a great moralist, no surprise given his job description, but he was also a teetotaler, which was a bit unusual for an Italian, even an Italian monk.”

  At this, everyone laughed, and Juliette smiled, remembering all the stories he used to tell her when they were children, walking through the woods or picking grapes or sitting hidden behind one stone wall or another. Stories from history and stories from his own wild imagination.

  “One day he announced he would preach at Cerreta and all the tenants, some four or five hundred, showed up. You know that little pull-out in the road on the way up? That’s where he stood, with all the peasants on the hill surrounding him. On this day, he chose to preach about the evils of alcohol, of wine in particular, how it ruined men’s health, their families, their ability to work, how it interrupted their relationship with God.”

  Gabe pointedly ignored Usher, who glanced around the table and twitched his mouth knowingly, leaning back a bit as if acknowledging that Gabe was telling this particular tale in honor of him and his work at Resurrection.

  “Now, as much as everyone loved the monk, this didn’t go over so well with a crowd of people who had little pleasure in their lives besides the wine they drank at lunch and dinner . . . and breakfast and before siesta and . . .” More laughter. “So, finally, one fellow spoke up and told the monk that it was easy to speak of such things, but here at Cerreta there was very little water, only a small stream. It was a lot of work to tote the water back to the houses, and when they did, it was brackish and unhealthy. They drank so much wine, the man explained, because they had no water.

  “The monk considered this for a moment and said, ‘I understand your life is hard, my brother, and I will do what I can to aid you.’ And he climbed the hill into the crowd of peasants, and after walking a hundred yards or so from the road he picked up his staff and smote the ground. Once, twice, three times. And from the place he struck, a spring appeared, bubbling, then gushing with clear, clean, cold water. And that is where our well is now and where everyone who lived at Cerreta has gotten their water ever since.” He paused for a moment. “It must be said that as impressed as those peasants were by the miracle they witnessed, the winery continued to flourish. But the Cerreta farmers became well known for their personal cleanliness.”

  “That’s a great story,” Golonski said loudly amid the laughter. “An unbelievably great story. So authentic. I love that story.” He took a big swallow of wine. “We should work that into the script. Can we work that into the script? Have, I don’t know, the well stand for the girl’s untapped sexuality. Maybe some little priest could tell it. Or a tour guide. We could just use that guy,” he said, lowering his voice, but not enough. “He’s like a tour guide, isn’t he?”

  With a small wry smile, Steve Usher came to the rescue. He raised his glass of water in a toast. “Salut,” he said. “To a Tuscan oasis with a long history of sobriety. Which is even stranger than finding sobriety in Malibu.” And he laughed so self-deprecatingly that even Gabe had to join in.

  “To Saint Bernardine,” Gabe said. “I hope he takes the new well in the spirit in which it’s dug—desperation.”

  “Steve Usher is here because he very kindly offered to be here,” said Carson, when Juliette caught up with her after dinner. There were several other people she would rather be talking to, and at least a dozen other things she would prefer doing. But in answer to Mercy’s look of anguished defiance, Juliette felt obligated to find out if Steve had been Angie’s idea or Carson’s. Now she and Carson were walking quickly down the villa steps, heading toward the carriage house, where, to Juliette’s alarm, a shower of sparks indicated the work of a blowtorch.

  “Somehow,” Carson added pointedly, one eye firmly on her iPhone in a gesture Juliette found unnervingly familiar, “news of Mercy’s latest exploits made it back to L.A. and our friends at the insurance company. Who yesterday threatened to nullify Mercy’s policy under some pertinent clause or other that requires she not ingest so many drugs that she actually kills herself. They want some sort of safeguard, beyond the obviously ineffectual efforts of her mother, because they’re the ones who have to pay if Mercy wigs out. Which they would rather not do, having already written a sizable check for the production costs incurred by Lloyd’s death. So Steve Usher is here and here he will stay, at Mercy’s own expense, or this will be the last movie she ever makes.”

  “Okay,” Juliette said, at once filled with admiration for Carson’s efficient
understanding of a rather alarming and complex situation, and repulsed by that admiration because she found Carson so deeply unlikable. “I understand your—their—need for that kind of reassurance. But Steve Usher? Don’t you think that may wind up making the situation worse? Mercy doesn’t seem very happy about having him thrust on her.” Juliette met Carson stride for stride and tried not to obsess about the blowtorch, which was really sparking now. “I think perhaps—”

  “You think perhaps what?” Carson stopped and faced her. “You think now that she’s here among the lavender and the grapes she’ll be happy? You think if she’s happy she won’t take drugs, drink herself insensible, and fuck whatever happens to pass her door? Because that’s just stupid, and you don’t look stupid. The only thing that girl has to be unhappy about is the fact that she’s a drug addict who continually refuses to get help even when that help is ‘thrust on her.’”

  In obvious disgust, Carson began walking again and Juliette grudgingly noted her ability to quickly navigate the rocky ground while wearing four-inch heels. “She should be grateful Usher’s taking the trouble. Frankly, she should be grateful you’re taking the trouble. But she isn’t. I can guarantee that. When something good happens to women like Mercy, they think they deserve it and just a little bit more, and when something bad happens, they think everyone is out to get them. You may have the time and inclination to cope with personalities like that, but I sure as hell don’t.”

  “Then you, my dear, are very much in the wrong business.” Michael’s voice glimmered out of the darkness just three beats before he appeared. He approached Carson before she could reach the ring of light spilling from what was now the set, positioning himself between the two women. “Because you’ve just described almost every actor, director, screenwriter, and producer I have ever met. Including myself. Especially myself.”