Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  I knew they meant well, but I couldn’t stop crying.

  When I calmed down, I felt ashamed. “I know emotions are a chemical reaction . . .”

  “No, love! Don’t do that to yourself,” Rob said. “Emotions don’t govern us, but for Pete’s sake, we still have them. It breaks my heart that I can’t give you a simpler life, Elizabeth. And our children, too.” He looked like he was going to cry.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “Your success is a blessing. We have to take the bad with the good.” He was the only person who loved the fluttering beings inside me as much as I did. They were a double miracle, a great treasure whose worth was only ours to appreciate. Our love for them was something we would share forever, no matter what. Rob held me for a long time as we mourned the childhoods that didn’t yet, and would never, exist.

  A few days later the tabloids gleefully reported news of my home examination room as yet another wild extravagance. What nobody knew was that for me it represented my first failure as a parent. We had everything money could buy, but we couldn’t offer our future children the most fundamental gift: freedom.

  For a while the door to that room stayed shut tight, a silent symbol of the privacy our unborn children would never know and Rob’s futile efforts to compensate. Then, when enough time had passed, I had Meg donate the whole setup to a hospital.

  7

  The fetuses and I were physically fine, but after the fall something had changed in me. I didn’t trust the outside world. My babies weren’t safe. And keeping them safe trumped giving them a childhood like mine. I let go of that dream. The boundaries of my world tightened even further, to the people and places where Rob and I fit best. Even so, I wasn’t myself. Every time I had to leave the house, I was anxious for the two days prior, and when Lewis brought me back home, I spent the first half hour sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead. Rob was so impossibly calm and understanding that finally one morning I confronted him about it.

  “You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I mean, I know I’m crazy. Do you think it will go away when the babies are born?”

  Rob, who was in the middle of getting ready for a meeting, came out of his (now restored) dressing room and sat down on the bed next to me. He put a hand on my belly.

  “I don’t think you’re crazy. In fact, I think this is a perfectly rational way to react to what happened to you. It was very scary and upsetting.”

  “But you would never do this. Nothing fazes you.”

  “Maybe that’s true now—although I haven’t ever been pregnant, so who can say—but you should have seen me after The Son came out.” Rob lay down on his side, facing me, moving his hand in slow circles on my belly as he spoke. I knew, as everyone did, that in addition to the fans who had convinced themselves that he actually was the Son of God, others had protested the movie, citing various blasphemies, specifically the steamy moment with Mary Magdalene and, of course, the graphic castration scene (even I can’t really believe they went with that). The fanatics and the protestors had set up opposing camps outside his house in the Hollywood Hills. “It happened overnight. And maybe I should have been grateful for the notoriety at that point in my career, but I couldn’t handle it. People wanted something from me that I couldn’t give. They asked for prayers. They begged me to heal them. They wanted my blessing. I had no idea how to live up to that. I could only fail those people.”

  “I so can’t picture that. You! You’re like a rock.”

  “I didn’t leave my house—my little bungalow up in the hills—the street was so narrow it was like a one-way dead end. I didn’t go outside for two solid months. Ordered food. Sent Lexy out for everything else. I literally didn’t step out the door until Christmas, when I had to go home because my folks were expecting me.”

  “Christmas, huh? Sounds like the worst time to venture out in that crowd.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  There was no doubt in my mind that he was telling the truth, but I couldn’t reconcile the situation Rob was describing with the man in front of me. “But how . . . how did you change? You just got used to being seen as the Messiah?”

  “Not at all,” Rob said. “How do you get used to that? One Cell got me through. I did my 100.”

  And there it was again. The miraculous, life-changing 100 I’d been hearing so much—and yet so little—about. Every time I felt lost, or worried, or unsure of my place in Rob’s world, the answer seemed to lie deeper in the Studio. I wanted Rob’s strength. And I wanted to understand what lay below it. The 100 promised both.

  I joined a Core Group, all twelve of us committing to take turns doing our 100-but-really-a-lot-more questions together. I was the seventh to take my turn. Over the first six sessions, I’d listened to each one go through what I was about to experience, and I knew what I was in for. Every secret I’d ever kept would be laid bare. I’d seen people lie, posture, perform. I’d seen them weep, give up, and plunge into darkness. And, unfailingly, I’d seen them pull themselves back together in an amazing exhibition of the human spirit. When I asked Rob about his 100, he couldn’t articulate what it had been like for him. He shook his head and laughed, as if it was too amazing and complicated to even describe.

  “You just have to experience it yourself. That’s the whole point of it. I could never do justice to my experience. You’ll see. You’ll totally get it. God, you’ll rock it, Elizabeth. You were made for the 100.”

  The Core Group met at the Studio, in a windowless practice room with a neatly swept dirt floor at the edge of which were white folding chairs. One could wear one of the Studio robes, or any loose, comfortable clothes. I came in sweats and a T-shirt, with no jewelry and no scented products. Frankly, it was my everyday maternity garb anyway. We started at noon. Most people’s 100s ran at least twelve hours, past midnight.

  In these sessions, the 100 took the place of the guided meditation. After our silent standing meditation, I stayed in the center of the room, while the rest of my group sat in folding chairs. I stood in the dirt in the grounded position I had learned to hold, though never for such a sustained period. The leader, Mary, always began with the same straightforward questions, only now they were directed toward me: When was I born, where, to whom? What were my first memories of walking, talking, eating, playing? How was I educated? What teachers did I remember, what friends, what hobbies and interests? The questions went on and on and got increasingly specific and personal. What was my first job? What did I learn from it? Describe the circumstances. When did I have my first kiss? Who was it? Describe the circumstances. When did I lose my virginity? Did I have shame associated with sex? Describe the circumstances. Had I had oral sex, anal sex, homosexual sex or sexual fantasies, sex or sexual fantasies involving animals? Describe the circumstances.

  At first I was on edge, choosing my words as carefully as if this were an interview with Glam, but as the afternoon wore on, without food or drink, holding my position as best I could, I just responded as clearly as I could. The questions veered abruptly from stuff I would expect on a medical intake form to odd probing into my sex life. Knowing that everyone went through the same process, and I had nothing to be ashamed of, I answered honestly. Mary listened carefully, a kind, understanding expression fixed on her face.

  Two lines of questioning caught me off guard. The first concerned Aurora. Mary had asked me a number of questions about my family and friends, and delved into whether and how they supported or interfered with my core goals. I had expected all of this.

  Then she said, “Who is Buddy White?”

  “I don’t know a Buddy White,” I said.

  “Buddy White is Geoff’s stepbrother. He has been in contact with your friend Aurora. Has he tried to meet with you?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Buddy White is no friend to the Studio. Many of the lies in the press can be traced directly to Buddy White. Your friend—Aurora—she may not
be aware of his intentions.”

  “I’m sure she isn’t.”

  “Her association with Buddy White worries us. We want you to know the risks involved.” Then Mary told me how this man fed lies about celebrity practitioners to the press in an effort to discredit the Studio. He was a privacy risk, and she wanted to make sure I knew not to meet with him. Also, she warned me, if Aurora believed what he said, I might want to distance myself from her.

  Aurora had expressed concerns about the “cult.” I could see her buying into this guy’s lies, and if he convinced her that I was in danger, I could even see her being indiscreet. I made a mental note to set Aurora straight, as soon as possible.

  That was an unexpected sidebar to the 100, but it was completely eclipsed by the personal revelation that awaited me.

  I had no idea how much time had passed. There was no clock in the room and I wasn’t wearing a watch, but my stomach was grumbling and more than anything I wanted to sit. I longed to sit. I paced and stretched, as I’d seen others in my group do. They shouted out encouragement, as if I were in the last leg of a marathon. It was probably around dinnertime when Mary asked a question I never anticipated.

  “You told me you have no siblings, but you have a sister. Describe the circumstances.”

  I froze. This question had come from her list like all the rest, but nobody knew about my sister. Nobody. Not Aurora. Not even Rob. In fact, my sister’s existence was the only secret I’d kept from my fiancé. A dark corner of my past that I didn’t know how to explain. So how did Mary—how did One Cell—know? All my life I had consistently answered no to the question of whether I had siblings, in every interview and to every friend in every context since she’d left our family for good. I told myself it wasn’t an out-and-out lie, since my parents had adopted Allison as a newborn, and she had left when I was still so young. But it was a lie, because her origins had never mattered to me. Allison was and always had been my sister.

  Unsettled, I stammered, “How did you . . . ? I didn’t—”

  “Please focus on the question. We all have secrets. This is a safe space. You’ll be amazed at how it feels to let it go.”

  I returned to the center of the room and stood completely still. I took a deep breath. The words came out as if I’d been chanting them in my head forever, and maybe I had. An unspoken secret pokes relentlessly at the conscience, demanding to be revealed. “I have an older sister, at least I did. Her name is Allison. I don’t know where she is. She might be homeless. Or dead.” There. I’d said it.

  The faces of my Core Group didn’t change. We had heard far worse—a man who admitted to beating his wife in an alcoholic rage, a girl who described the thrill of cutting herself in excruciating detail; this room had heard the greatest joys and sadness of all our lives.

  Allison. At this point some of her story has already been in the press, but this is the truth from my perspective. I’m telling it the way I know it.

  My older sister, Allison, had always been troubled. Born to parents who had their own personal struggles, my parents thought by giving her a good home and an education, they could break the cycle. But Allison needed something different, and my parents were utterly overwhelmed by the challenges she presented. School and Allison did not mix—she probably had undiagnosed ADHD—and she avoided it at all costs. She ran away from home many times, but she left for good when she was fifteen and I was four years old. I hadn’t seen her since. My memories of her had broken into pieces, and I remembered them with an ’80s Instagram filter. The corner of a patchwork quilt that resurfaced in my mind whenever I heard someone say the name “Allison.” A flash of her angelic curls as she twisted her head to refuse a spoonful of medicine. Her hand, holding up a missing puzzle piece that she’d either taken from me or found for me. My sister, silhouetted in the doorway, her white-blond hair a wild mess, beautiful and scary. And then, this moment: my mother carrying me out of my bed in the middle of the night and putting me in the backseat of our car, wrapped in that same patchwork quilt. I fell asleep, and slept for what felt like hours until the car stopped. The engine was still running, but cold air came through the crack of the door and chilled my cheek. I opened my eyes.

  “You stay here. I’ll be right back,” my mother said, probably thinking I would fall back asleep, and she went out into the cool night.

  Curious, I watched her walk up the path to a cabin—my uncle’s summer cabin, the windows of which were lit with a sour yellow light. The front door opened then closed behind her. Suddenly I felt very alone. I’d been told to stay in the car, and I always did what I was told, but I’d never been left alone in a cold car on a dark night before. I quietly opened the door and followed my mother.

  Then—the blur of my mother pleading with my sister. A voice of desperation I’d never heard from my perky, unflappable mother. Allison’s eyes, hooded and unfriendly, my mother imploring, giving up. My mother seeing me, scooping me up, and hurrying back to the car. And, finally, my mother driving us home—just the two of us—with tears silently streaming down the side of her face.

  That was the last time I’d seen my sister.

  Soon after that we moved from Lincoln Park to Highland Park. A different house, a different school, a neighborhood where nobody knew there was an older child. Nobody remembered the late nights with Allison pounding on the door, and the horrible night my parents called the police on her because the school psychiatrist had told them to try “scaring her straight.” Ostensibly, the move was for my father’s job, but to me it felt like it was our turn to run away.

  After she was gone, my parents avoided talking about Allison’s existence—or maybe they thought I was too young to handle it. But when I was a teenager I started asking questions. I wanted to know why they had given up on their daughter. My father said, “We never gave up on her. She gave up on us. At some point we had to protect ourselves. We had to protect you.” The only time I brought it up with my mother, she burst into tears and fled the room. And then I became a star, and my parents devoted themselves to my success. And the more I succeeded, the smaller the shadow of sorrow in our house became, until it seemed like we’d buried it forever.

  I never told a soul—and, amazingly, the press had never found her out. On American Dream, I never corrected the journalists who asked me about growing up an only child. In a very real way, I had. But by omitting her from my bio, I had unwittingly made Allison into an even bigger secret. If she were discovered now, the story wouldn’t just be about why she had left and what had become of her. It would be about my lies and how I hid my own sister’s existence.

  Allison had been a secret for most of my life, but I had spent weeks listening to my fellow practitioners do their best to be honest about their mistakes, flaws, and darkest desires. I had just endured hours breaking down my own life for them, trying to explain who I was and why. My defenses were exhausted. The artifice was gone.

  “If she’s still alive, she is still my sister,” I told them. “I love her, but I’ve hidden her existence because she’s a question I can’t answer.”

  I told them how conflicted I’d always been about Allison—missing her, wanting to somehow rescue her, but benefiting from her absence, flourishing as my parents’ only, perfect child. I was the daughter who exceeded my parents’ expectations, and yet my mother had never shown half the worry or any of the heartbreak I saw her devote to my sister. When Allison left, a fissure formed between my parents, and I stepped forward to fill the gap. I was trapped there, and if I pulled away, I feared what was left of our family would collapse.

  I peeled back the layers: The guilt I felt for the success I enjoyed. The cowardice and compliance that made me follow my parents’ lead. The fear that I would be discovered, and the shallow attachment to protecting my own image. The need to be perfect, always, because the family couldn’t bear another failure. My sorry attempt to help others—but not my sister—by working with the
rehab center LifeHeartTruth.

  It was out. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I felt relief.

  Then something happened that hadn’t occurred in any of the other 100s. My Core Group started to clap. This applause was different from all the other applause I’d received in my life. It wasn’t for a performance or an achievement. It was just for me being me.

  My 100 was over. My Core Group joined me on the floor, and as we went through the poses, I felt light as air. I looked around the room. Any one of them might sell what I had revealed, but I didn’t think they would. I trusted them, and that was a feeling I hadn’t had in a very long time. But also—what if? What if the truth about my sister did come out for all the world to know? In that moment, for the first time, I felt brave and strong enough to face the consequences. This was the breakthrough I’d hoped for.

  And yet I had no idea how soon this confession would come back to haunt me. And even if I’d known that, I couldn’t begin to imagine how much damage it could do.

  My 100 ended after midnight. Lewis drove me home. Rob had waited up for me, reading a pile of sky blue–bound ACE scripts in bed. He put his reading down when I came in.

  “Well?” he said.

  Then, at last, I told Rob about Allison. Out of nervousness, I busied myself with getting ready for bed as I talked, but I hadn’t gotten far when Rob beckoned me to him.

  “Come here.” He was lying on the bed. I sat down next to him. “Whatever you tell me is okay. You can’t scare me off now. I’m in. Whatever challenges are ahead, we’ll face them together.”

  I needed to hear that. Tears rolled down my face as I told him, “My success eclipsed Allison entirely. She’s alone in the world, and I’ve always felt like it was my fault.”

  Rob stroked my hair. “You were a young girl,” he said. “You can make your own choices now.”