The Starlet

by Mary McNamara

  “Ah, well,” she said, opening them and smiling up at him, tracing the admirable slope of one bicep with its own small spattering of welts, “it was a lovely beast. A sweet and lovely beast, and not tame at all.”

  “You’ve no idea,” he said, pushing her onto her back. “But let’s try it my way now”—he kissed her temple, then her ear, his tongue soft and his hands busy—“for variety’s sake.”

  “We should probably eat something,” Juliette said an hour or so later, when she finally pulled herself to a sitting position and felt her head swim. “We should definitely drink something or they’ll just find our bodies tomorrow morning, dried-up husks of our former selves.”

  “There are worse ways to be found,” Devlin said, “as you know.” But he dutifully swung himself out of bed and padded off to call room service.

  “Can you imagine?” she said, almost to herself. “Putting a noose around a dead body, pulling it tight.” She shivered again and pushed the thought of Lloyd Watson from her head.

  “I wonder if Angie had any smokes in that purse,” she said, rolling to the edge of the bed and fishing over the edge. “I haven’t smoked in years but there’s something about debauchery that calls for a postcoital cigarette,” she said, finding a pack of Camels in the bottom of the bag. “The tobacco industry must love Hollywood; they’re the only people you can count on to smoke anymore.”

  She pulled a cigarette out of the pack and paused, then lifted the pack to her nose and sniffed. She detected a rose-heavy perfume and mint gum combined with the dark fragrance of the tobacco, and something else, something tantalizingly familiar. Juliette remembered how Mercy had held the bag to her face and breathed deeply, inhaling, Juliette thought with a pang, the essential elements of her mother. Curious as to what these were, Juliette did the same, catching the same scents that clung to the cigarettes, along with the talcy smell of makeup, the metallic tang of loose change, and something else, that other smell, mouth-watering and vaguely chemical, so clear to her she could almost taste it.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, dumping the contents of the purse onto the bed and examining each compact, lipstick, and aspirin vial. “Oh, my God,” she said, looking up at Devlin as he reappeared with the phone still in his hand. “This bag is, or was, totally full of cocaine. Here,” she said, holding out the now-empty purse, “you can smell it. But where is it?”

  She began undoing lip gloss and flipping through the pages of Angie’s Little Book. When she found nothing, she took the bag back, shook it, and began patting the lining. In less than a minute she found it, a small, almost invisible zippered opening along one of the seams. Gently sliding in two fingers, she pulled out three small rectangles of folded paper.

  “Bindles,” she said. “Good old-fashioned bindles. Italian Vogue or I miss my guess,” she added, examing the shiny paper. “So that’s where the drugs were coming from. From Angie. Unbelievable.” She opened the packet and, using her finger, tasted a bit of the white powder. “Nice,” she said, and for a moment she was actually tempted. The clarity of that first line, the brilliant rush of euphoria, and the heart-singing certainty it would never end—she would not mind feeling those things now. She looked up at Devlin and smiled wickedly. “Should we do a line or two, just to be sure?”

  With deft fingers, he plucked the packets from her hand and walked away; a second later, Juliette heard the toilet flush.

  “I believe we’ve both had quite enough excitement for one day,” he said.

  “That was probably a thousand dollars’ worth of drugs you just flushed,” she said.

  “Put it on my tab.”

  “I can’t believe it was Angie all along,” Juliette said. “It doesn’t make any sense. She seemed genuinely convinced that Mercy was wrecking her life with drugs. Why would you put your kid in rehab and then give her drugs while she’s working? Why would you bother paying for the services of Steve Usher with one hand,” she said “while you were feeding coke to your daughter with the other?”

  Juliette looked at the purse; she remembered how insistent Angie had been about finding Marcello, how long she had spent with him, presumably explaining exactly what she had wanted her purse to look like even though it was a simple replica of Juliette’s.

  “You’ve gotta love a woman who designs a bag with a secret pocket for drugs,” she said, thinking of the young and handsome shoemaker, with two gold earrings like a pirate. Everyone had loved him, Mercy so much that he had visited the castello twice. What else had Angie had made? Shoes and a satchel for Usher. How many secret pockets were in that satchel? she wondered. Juliette pushed away the covers and jumped out of bed.

  “First thing tomorrow,” she said, throwing herself back on the pillow, “we’re going to go see a man about a purse.”

  Chapter Twelve

  IT REALLY IS GORGEOUS here,” Devlin said as they drove back to Cerreta the next day. It was late morning and the road from Siena was empty, cutting through fields and forest like a silent gray river. The outlines of tiny ancient fortress towns peered down from forests that bulged and billowed with green; faraway hills were crested with cockscombs of cypress trees and their perfect paintbrush silhouettes. “I can see why you would come here. I can see why you would want to stay.”

  Juliette sighed. “I don’t know what I want,” she said. “It’s beautiful but it’s poisonous, too. You can get lost here, you can forget you ever did anything else but watch the clouds pass, the grapes ripen. You can convince yourself that this is enough.”

  The car bounced onto the dirt road leading to the villa. “Maybe this is enough,” Devlin said.

  She looked at him and happiness flashed through her like a bright and dangerous electric current, unleashed only by his still-wet hair, his newly shaven jaw, his arm strong and straight as he gripped the wheel. Even utterly still, Devlin radiated movement, as if this were just a brief pause before he sprang once again into action. She wanted him to turn the car around, or pull it off the road, she wanted him to kiss her as he had last night. She took a deep breath and reminded herself of who he was, who she was, and what was really happening now. There was a reason she had not turned to Dev in the horrible months after Josh left, despite his many fond invitations; she had known him twenty years and in all that time there had never been a woman who mattered to him. Even last night, she had woken to hear him murmuring into his cell phone—it was still daytime in L.A. She had fallen asleep before he returned to bed and when she had woken this morning, he had been nowhere to be found. It wasn’t until she was showered and dressed that he strolled in. He had smiled and she had smiled and neither said anything about what had occurred between them. What was there to say? Juliette thought. It had been inevitable that they would sleep together, and so they had. If she pursued the matter, or even the memory, it would only lead to trouble.

  “You don’t believe that,” she said now.

  “Don’t I?” He turned his dark eyes on her. “I have a house on a hill myself. In Ireland. Maybe I’ll show it to you someday.”

  “I’d like that,” she said quietly, and they continued the drive in silence, broken only by Devlin’s wry remark that she and Gabe might want to get “this Christ-awful road paved.”

  The courtyard was full of film equipment, but only a few interns could be seen. One was carrying baskets of basil and early tomatoes toward the kitchen, another maneuvered a wheelbarrow around the lights and ropes of electrical wires. Juliette was surprised. She hadn’t seen an intern do anything resembling farmwork since the filming started.

  “They’re shooting down near the abbey,” said the girl with the mohawk when Juliette asked. “I think it’s a dream sequence. It’s only the principles.”

  “How quickly they pick up the lingo,” Devlin murmured, amused.

  “I know,” Juliette said. “She’s a psych major from Harvard and could not have been more disapproving when the trucks first arrived. Now I think she’s dating the production manager. Well, sleeping with her, anyway. T
his is not a ‘dating’ situation. So if they’re shooting,” she mused, “then Golonski must be back, which means Joseph got sprung, which means . . . well, I don’t know what that means. Michael might know, but he’s working. Gabe might know, but I’m not sure I’m speaking to him. And Mercy, well, I wonder if she’s missing what you flushed. I wonder if she even knew it was there.”

  “Or put it there herself?”

  Juliette shook her head. “I don’t think so. She has her own bag—several, in fact. That’s why Angie’s was lying around next to mine.”

  She stood for a moment, indecisive. “I’m guessing if Mercy is down there, Usher is, too. I think I’ll search his room first.”

  “J.,” Devlin said. “I’m shocked. How your standards have fallen since you left the Pinnacle.”

  “I mean, I think I’ll take Mr. Usher some fresh towels and make certain he did not leave his briefcase or anything else of value lying about,” she amended with a laugh. “Why don’t you go see if there’s any breakfast left in the kitchen; we make a mean frittata here at Cerreta.”

  Usher hadn’t left his bag or anything at all lying around. His room in the villa was neat as a monk’s cell; the only sign that anyone was staying there were a stack of Little Books on the desk under the window and a pair of shoes peeping decorously out from under the bed. Just for grins, Juliette checked to see if the heels were hollow; they were not.

  Hearing the faint sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, Juliette backed out of Usher’s room and ran smack into Gabe carrying what looked like a pile of black sweaters.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he asked, looking from her back to Usher’s room.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked back.

  “I’m bringing Mercy a sweater, or some sweaters,” he answered, his tone going from indignant to sheepish. “She said she wanted the black one from her mother’s room but there are like five black ones so I’m bringing them all.”

  “How the mighty are fallen,” Juliette said. “Haven’t you forgotten her latte? And her cocaine?”

  “Oh, shut up,” he said wearily, then sighed. “It’s a mess down there, she’s a mess down there, and no one seems the least bit interested in anything but getting as many scenes done as they can today. Like the law is after them or something. Where have you been? O’Connor told me you had run off with Devlin. Did he come to drag you back to the Pinnacle by your hair?”

  Juliette ignored him. She wanted to shake him until every painful thing that had ever happened to the two of them fell out onto the floor and she could kick it under the bed. But he was standing there holding a pile of Mercy’s sweaters. “Did Golonski bring Joseph back from Florence?” she asked instead.

  “Yeah,” Gabe said.

  “And?”

  Gabe’s expression grew exasperated. “How should I know? I’m just the hired help. All I know is that he’s back and Carson looks like she’s going to kill someone and Mercy is cold all the time. Look,” he said, shifting his bundle from one side to the other, “I know you’re angry at me and I’m sorry about that, but I meant what I said. We need to be able to talk to each other about the past, Jules. The whole past.”

  “No,” Juliette said immediately. “Well, maybe. Sometime. Just not now.” She put her hand to her forehead. “Look, can we just . . . not pick at each other for a while?”

  For a minute Juliette thought Gabe was going to protest or argue, but in the end he just nodded. “You should come down,” he said. “They didn’t fix the abbey like they fixed the castle, but it looks pretty amazing. I’m thinking I should apply for restoration funds again. We,” he amended quickly. “We should apply.”

  “I’ll be down. I need to collect Dev.”

  Gabe opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head. “I am glad you came back, Jules,” he said. “Even if,” he added, a glint returning to his eye, “you are the world’s biggest drama queen.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” she muttered to his retreating back.

  Juliette was surprised they had chosen to shoot at the abbey, or what remained of it. Santa Lucia occupied a lovely spot, half a mile away from the castello. Among the trees, what had once been a wide lawn was now a meadow, hip-deep in wildflowers and blackberries, but it was rather difficult to get to. Few outside Cerreta knew of its existence, at the end of a faint, narrow trail that twisted up from the main road. The trail had now been violently carved into a wide path and, seeing it, Juliette was shocked, both by the sudden excavation and the fact that Gabe had allowed it. In a way it was a road that led nowhere—a fire had gutted the place in the seventeenth century, leaving only the living quarters intact. The church was nothing but a memory and a vague outline of crumbling stone amid the sunflowers and morning glories.

  As they drew nearer, they could hear the assistant director call for quiet. Locating Carson and Golonski, Juliette approached warily, casting her eye around for Usher. Behind her she felt Devlin stop abruptly. Turning to look at him, she saw his eyes move from the monitor to the scene in front of him.

  “Would you look at her,” he said with wonder and frank admiration in his voice. “Just look at the girl.”

  Mercy, in her novice’s gown and a light shawl, was balanced on one of the few whole walls of the abbey, the skirts of her gown scalloped beneath her. She was wearing a long blond wig that streamed golden ringlets over her shoulders and her face was turned so it was a three-quarter profile. Even from this distance, they could see her eyes were filled with mute and tortured adoration; on the screen they were almost overwhelming. She was beautiful, beyond beautiful, gazing at O’Connor, who, in tunic and breeches, was sitting under a tree painting her, brow furrowed in dissatisfaction as he plied his brush, oblivious, it seemed, to the intensity of devotion that transformed Mercy’s face. And indeed, when he, or the painter he played, glanced up, the look was gone, replaced by a sweet and angelic smile, a smile that would anchor a canvas for the ages, but utterly unlike the deep and love-drenched expression that had been there moments before.

  Even Carson drew a sharp breath at the moment, and with a yelp of pleasure Golonski yelled cut. Still on camera, Mercy’s smile vanished. The ethereal glow became pallor, her shoulders sagged, and she grew smaller and less substantial. It’s exactly as if, Juliette thought, someone has just turned off a light.

  As if on cue, the electricians and camera crew rushed the set, refiguring lights and moving cameras. Michael stood and stretched; his stand-in took his place on the low stool before the painting. Several of the crew helped Mercy down from the wall while her stand-in hopped up. Mercy just stood there for a moment, as if she did not know where she was. Michael was now in conversation with Golonski, but Juliette could see him glance now and then at his costar, his face a study of exhausted, irritated concern. Then Usher appeared, bearing, Juliette noted with amusement, one of the sweaters Gabe had so dutifully fetched. Untangling Mercy from her shawl, he wrapped the sweater around her—she was shivering, though the sun was shining and it was quite warm—and led her toward what could only be called a makeshift living room, a tableau of sofas and cushioned chairs positioned a few hundred yards away in the shade of some cypress trees.

  Juliette was about to head over when Carson blocked her path.

  “I thought you’d left,” she said with open hostility.

  “I did,” Juliette said sweetly, “but now I’m back.”

  At the sound of her voice, O’Connor looked sharply their way. Seeing Juliette, he smiled with obvious relief. Then his eyes flicked to Devlin, whom he offered a small, gracious, but manly nod.

  “We’re shooting here,” Carson said, taking in the exchange, “and I would appreciate it if you would stay away from the talent. You seem to have a distracting quality that we can’t afford just now.”

  Juliette’s smile did not so much as twitch.

  “Carson,” she said, “I believe you’ve met my boss, Eamonn Devlin. Dev,” she said with an introductory gesture, “
this is Bill Becker’s . . . assistant. You two no doubt have a lot to talk about. Dev knows Bill very well, don’t you, Dev?”

  “Ms. Cooper,” Dev said, clasping Carson’s hand and leaning in to kiss her on each cheek. “How lovely. And in fact, I did just see Bill day before yesterday and he seemed extraordinarily pleased with how things were going out here. It isn’t often one sees Bill Becker pleased to any degree,” he added, giving Carson a look that was both complimentary and knowing, “considering, ahem, the personalities involved. And if you are feeling any stress, it certainly does not show.” Carson’s face, which had been startled and guarded at Devlin’s appearance, softened, and her eyes took on that vaguely hypnotized glaze Juliette had seen so often around her boss. His brogue, she noticed with a swallowed laugh, had deepened considerably. Released from Carson’s attention, she edged quietly away.

  As she approached, Mercy barely acknowledged her, though Steve Usher was quite effusive, offering her food and drink, informing her that Gabe had just left a few minutes ago to tend to “something impressively farm-related,” and would she mind keeping Mercy company and an eye on his bag while he slipped off in search of the loo? She most certainly did not mind, though it was an odd, stunted silence that fell after he made his departure.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Mercy, who was running one hand obsessively up and down a chain she wore around her neck, while the other held the inevitable cigarette, although she did not appear to be smoking it. Mercy nodded. “I took your mother’s bag by mistake yesterday, in case you were looking for it.” Juliette watched her keenly but Mercy only shook her head.

  “Everyone here hates me,” she finally said, almost idly, as she smoked and fiddled with her necklace. “Even without my mother around, everyone hates me. I thought it would help, you know, her being gone. I know that sounds terrible, but I thought it would.”

  She turned a bland face toward Juliette and waited for a reaction. Juliette just stared right back and Mercy turned her attention back to her cigarette and her speech, which once again Juliette sensed she had been waiting to deliver.