Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  “I know I have infinite options. That’s part of the problem. I’m just not sure . . .”

  “Okay, so we’ll think about it. There’s no rush.” Rob’s voice was soft and comforting, but I saw his neck tighten. He couldn’t stand dithering. For some reason Lexy Hartfield, Rob’s ex-wife, popped into my head. After their marriage she had vanished from the industry. Lexy, the great beauty and widely respected actor, gave it all up, never to return, not even after the divorce. But why? She had no children to occupy her, no new career to my knowledge. I remembered the note she’d sent me when Rob and I got engaged. “This above all: to thine own self be true.” Had she quit acting in order to be true to herself? Or was it the other way around? Was she warning me not to follow her path?

  Now, without a word, Rob took the tangled marionette away from me. He pulled out a nail clipper and, with one swift gesture, severed all the strings. He handed the incapacitated toy back to Cap, whose stunned silence made me realize how very loud and constant his wails had been.

  “I don’t want to change anything,” I said. “Only—I guess it’s that I’m lonely. I wish you didn’t have to travel so much.”

  “I miss you too, Elizabeth,” Rob said, and he held me.

  But I didn’t miss him. Not exactly. Along with my shaken identity, I felt a hollowness. His absence, yes, but I wasn’t sure it had anything to do with his travel. What I longed for was the feeling I’d had in those first few months, when we were discovering each other and falling in love. Now we had been married for almost two years, and it still felt like the beginning, but in the wrong way.

  I thought of Rob on the beach in Malibu, his shirt soaked from his run and hair sticking out in short points from his forehead. Rob in the middle of the night, his arm, heavy with sleep, wrapped around my waist. His boyish grin as he spun me into a kiss. In that first year of our relationship, Rob was always at my side. Thousands of pictures were taken of us together, and in all of them we both look radiant. We were eager and giddy. We wanted to please each other. We were in love. Our conversation overflowed with stories from the past, recounting the day in process, and planning how we would live together this week, this year, forever. Life was full and felt full.

  But our love hadn’t matured. It was still smooth, like a baby’s skin, and when something is smooth, it has less surface area. There are no wrinkles, no scars, no accidents, no cracks and crevices for the character of life, no mud slides or earthquakes to generate the silt to preserve the fossils and save precious moments of time for future examination. We never fought, not even a middle-of-the-night squabble over the covers. A tentative, hopeful unfamiliarity hung over us. We were still polite.

  Where was Rob? Where was the person who wakes up in a bad mood for no reason at all? Where was the man who leaves his jeans on a chair, just once, instead of hanging them over his valet stand without a wrinkle? And what about my part in this? Why didn’t I tell him that I used to love to sleep in on Sundays, or read the paper in bed with a coffee until noon? Why didn’t I tease him for the neck twitch that told me he was against something even when he refused to admit it? Why did Meg still seem to know him better than I did? Why didn’t I tell him how much I wanted to know what was behind Bluebeard’s door?

  Our love was an absence, a clean white room with fresh paint and hospital corners and hinges that open without the slightest noise. Our love was, in Rob’s words, “great.”

  I didn’t fault Rob. Never once had he tried to make me into someone I was not. If I’d said, “Today I want to dress in a clown costume and ride a double-decker bus around the city,” his eyes would have crinkled with pleasure. He would have made it happen. Rob wanted me, us, everyone, to embrace their wacky, unique selves. He wanted me to have a dream and act on it. He unrolled the world like a carpet at my feet, but I didn’t know which shoes I wanted to wear. I started to feel lost, as if the longer I lived in that over-accommodating world, the more I became a doll—a placid Stepford doll with no complaints, no desires unfulfilled, and nothing to say. Being a wife and mother should have been enough. It could have been, if Rob and I were in it together, if our relationship had been what I expected (and what, for that matter, the public wanted it to be). I didn’t want to admit it; I couldn’t after taking such a stand. But maybe my father was right. I had sacrificed my career, and for what?

  I had the world at my fingertips. I had a beautiful family. I could buy a house and live anywhere on Earth. But it was all on the surface. I had no idea how to find or fix what lay beneath.

  3

  Something had to change. I knew that at the back of my mind, but it huddled there like the rest of the to-dos I never seemed to check off my list. The children’s day-to-day needs and milestones constantly stole my attention, and time passed, slow days that transformed quickly to months.

  The year Cap and Leo turned three, we had the Christmas party at which Rob, late returning to L.A., famously arrived by helicopter, landing in the middle of our lawn in Brentwood, surprising us all, and decapitating the piñata. When Rob left, we returned to Malibu, where the house had settled back into its regular mode: quiet, empty, waiting for its lord and master to return, the sense of unmet expectations broken only by the sound of two pairs of feet trotting up and down the stairs, never going in the same direction.

  I’d taken to running every day, two miles down and back on the narrow ridge of dunes in front of our house. But that January morning it was cold and foggy so, for the first time in a long time, I dragged myself to the gym for a run on the treadmill.

  I walked in the door and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was Meg, exiting Bluebeard’s chamber as if she did it every day. She started when she saw me, and I watched, dumbstruck, as she hurriedly locked the door behind her.

  “What . . . what the fuck?” I sputtered. Meg was my friend.

  “I—I’m sorry,” Meg said. Then she was silent. We stared at each other.

  “What were you doing in there?” I asked. My first assumption was that she’d gone in without permission. What else would I think? The locked door was a frustration she was supposed to share with me. In fact, she and I had often joked about what Rob might be keeping in there. I specifically remembered her hypothesizing that it was chock-full of his taxidermy collection, a secret sexual fetish he hid from the world.

  “It’s something Rob asked me to do. Nothing important. Paperwork.” Meg was a terrible liar.

  “You have got to be kidding me! Tell me right now what you were doing. I insist.”

  Meg’s cheeks were red. I’d never seen her so flustered. “Please believe me—I’m just following Rob’s instructions—”

  “And now I’d like you to follow my instructions. Tell me exactly what you were doing in that room.” I’d never before spoken harshly to her.

  “You’re putting me in a difficult position,” Meg stammered. “It’s . . . it’s complicated.”

  We were at an impasse, and an image flashed in my mind—a photograph I’d seen just weeks earlier.

  Leo had come trotting up to me with that week’s issue of Starlight. “Mama, I see you, Mama,” he said, and pointed at a picture. But the woman in the picture wasn’t me—it was Meg. I understood Leo’s confusion. The photo showed Meg standing next to Rob, both of them dressed for a black-tie affair. They were in London, on a trip they had taken six months earlier. The headline read “Lizzie in the Lurch?” And below that: “Rob Runs Around with Lizzie’s One Cell Bodyguard.” I’d sighed. This was to be expected. Every movie Rob did generated new press. Rumors flew about him and Wendy Jones on the set, then him and Siena Wolf on the set, then him and Katie Mulligan on the set, but I didn’t believe them or care. This time, I’d not only been aware that Rob was taking Meg to the Directors’ Gala—it was my idea! I’d thought it would be fun for her and nice for him to have company other than his Lotus rep, who had the personality of a goldfish.

  “That’s no
t Mommy,” I said brightly. “That’s Mommy’s friend Meg. You know Meg. The one who chases you around the dining table.”

  But when I looked closely at the picture, I saw that Rob was laughing, clearly in response to something Meg had just said. He was laughing so hard that his eyes squinted into horizontal crescents, his nose wrinkled, and his mouth contorted. His face looked almost ugly, or as close to not handsome as Rob Mars could get.

  I couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed that hard with me.

  Then I thought of Meg, who had seen Rob through his 100 and had watched his transformation at the Studio; Meg and Rob, together on the beach that Christmas I was pregnant; Meg tipsy and hanging on Rob’s arm the night I went into labor. Meg in Starlight, making my husband laugh, somehow closer to him than I was after three years of marriage. And now it turned out that she had access to my husband’s private room, the single room he wouldn’t let me, his wife, enter.

  At this point, Meg was my closest confidante. She’d introduced me to the Studio. She’d helped me plan my wedding. She’d watched me nurse my sons. She knew every doubt or hope I’d had. I had been so eager for a friend, so eager to trust her. Meg had guided me, influenced me, maybe even manipulated me. The whole time I was opening up to her, she’d been keeping the secret of Bluebeard’s chamber from me.

  All of these people, all working for us and acting like our friends.

  I found new respect for Lala, who didn’t disguise her distaste for me in the least.

  Meg and I stood staring at each other in the gym, neither side willing to back down, the locked door next to her at once ordinary and throbbing with mystery. Then I noticed her neck. On it was the Truth necklace she’d been wearing since I met her, but only now did I notice that it had four beads—one tiger’s eye, two peridot, one black as charcoal. They were the exact same beads that Rob wore. I’d been wrong to trust her. “It’s complicated, is it?” I said to her. “Let me simplify it for you. You’re fired.”

  “Lizzie, no. Please don’t do this. I’m your friend.” Meg’s face was white.

  “No, you’re my bodyguard.”

  “I—I haven’t been perfect, I’ll admit that. I can’t explain right now, but I would never do anything to hurt you. You have to believe me.”

  But I couldn’t and didn’t. “Leave,” I said.

  “Please trust me. I’ll prove it to you. I’ll find a way,” Meg said. But the next morning she was gone, and that was my answer.

  Firing Meg felt surprisingly empowering. So the next day I fired Lala. That witch.

  After the domestic bloodbath, I decided to confront Rob about Bluebeard’s chamber. He’d told me it was his private office, and I’d accepted that, but now that I knew he’d given Meg access, I was justifiably angry. I would insist that he unlock the door for me, too. I left a message on his cell: “Please call me as soon as you can. There’s something we need to discuss.”

  Rob and I had never had a disagreement, not really. I couldn’t even imagine him losing his temper. He was so cool and logical. So I would be the same. Respectful, but firm. Before he called back, I played out the conversation in my mind. First, I would acknowledge his need for privacy. Next, I would tell him it was inappropriate for the staff to have access to parts of our house when I didn’t. That seemed right. Fair. Indisputable.

  But then I realized where I’d gone wrong. In the best-case scenario, Rob would concede that I was right. It would go something like this: He’d say, “Sure, I didn’t know it was such a big deal to you. Go ahead and look. There’s nothing there.”

  I would respond, “Thank you. Where’s the key?”

  And he would say, “Meg can let you in.”

  Then I would have no choice but to admit that I’d rashly fired Meg, one of his oldest friends, the woman who made him laugh so heartily, because I saw her coming out of that room. And when I told him that, Rob would see me for the petty, jealous housewife I’d become.

  I absolutely had to tell Rob that I’d let Meg go. There was no way around that. But I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by revealing the real reason. Bluebeard’s chamber would have to wait.

  “It was impulsive,” I told him when he called back. “I’m just not used to all this staff. Besides, I can take care of myself!”

  “Whatever works for you is fine with me,” Rob said. “The whole point is to make your life easier. You and the boys are all I need.” But I couldn’t let go of the thought that he needed us . . . and whatever was in his lair.

  I don’t know how much time went by after that. Weeks, maybe months, before the package arrived.

  It didn’t come with the regular mail. It was FedExed—a box from Neiman Marcus. I hadn’t actually ordered anything from Neiman Marcus, but I did so frequently enough that nobody, including me, thought twice when the box came in along with some others.

  Jake, Rob’s assistant, had been helping me out with administrative tasks ever since Meg left. As usual, he had sliced open the box, but left the contents, obscured by tissue, undisturbed. Inside, below a hideous purple T-shirt that was exactly not my color, were a note and a key. I unfolded the note. All it said was “I promised you proof.”

  Meg. I fingered the key. It could open only one door: Bluebeard’s chamber.

  The key presented a quandary. If it fit, it promised to reveal Rob’s secrets, whatever they might be. Meg, in sending it to me, was betraying Rob’s confidence and, perhaps, proving her loyalty to me.

  Or was it a trick? Was she tempting me to invade Rob’s privacy? Was it a test of my loyalty to my husband? To use the key meant trusting Meg over Rob. It meant breaking my promise to my husband. It meant letting my curiosity trump my principles. To use the key was wrong. I went into my closet and slipped it into a secret pocket in the front flap of one of my Chanel chain bags. (Oh, Coco, you knew the secrets a lady must keep, didn’t you?)

  But to not open that door! Why should my husband have secrets from me? Why should my now-former assistant have access to a room that I myself had never entered? What was inside? I deserved the answers to these questions.

  I lasted all of forty-eight hours. Then I decided to use the key.

  4

  I waited until three in the morning. Even without Meg and Lala we still had at least five staff living in the house—I wasn’t entirely sure of the numbers. And out in the security booth there was twenty-four-hour monitoring. All night a guy watched a rotating scan of the halls, entrances, and exits. It was my house—the absurdity of hiding from the security staff wasn’t lost on me. Nonetheless, I calculated how to get to the gym without being caught by the cameras. I put on workout clothes just in case I was busted. I had a right to work out at any time of the night I wanted. Again: my house.

  I took a long route to the gym, avoiding the cameras trained on the front door by going up to the second floor, peeking in on the boys, then coming down the back stairs. Once in the gym, I took some jabs at the punching bag. Hitting the bag gave me an unexpected surge of confidence, so I went at it some more, until I hurt my hand. Leave it to me to overdo it in the gym in the middle of the night when trying to expose my husband’s secrets.

  Finally, when it was clear that nobody cared what I was doing, I put the key in the doorknob lock of Bluebeard’s chamber. It slid in easily. I turned the knob, and the door opened. With a furtive (and useless) glance behind me, I crept into the room, feeling silly for sneaking around my own house like a thief, and turned on the lights.

  The room was an office. Just an office. Unglamorous, with a slightly stale smell. Unlike our proper offices in the house, which had been done by a designer, this one looked like an out-of-date Staples showroom, with several metal file cabinets and a simple desk with a clunky cordless phone on it. A fax machine dominated half the desk. In a way the spartan room was reassuring. There were no skeletons; it was clearly no love den; and it was utterly impossible to imagine Rob
spending any real amount of time here. My husband definitely wasn’t hosting drum-banging male re-wilding sessions in the small, unappealing room off our gym. (Oh yeah, there was that rumor about One Cell, too—sorry, no dice.)

  What caught my eye was a poster-size photo that was mounted on foam board and hanging, unframed, on the wall above the desk. It was an image of two young boys standing in the middle of a road. They faced away from the camera, holding hands, looking toward an orange sunset.

  I took the picture down to get a closer look. Though it was taken straight into the sun, and the figures were only silhouettes, I could tell it was Cap and Leo. The image was expertly lit, the boys perfectly haloed. It had obviously been professionally done. Across the top of the poster, in cursive, read, “A world of opportunity lies ahead . . .”

  The photo was obviously a present for me. For all the jewels and cars and trips, this time Rob had hit it out of the park. He knew exactly what I wanted, what was most important to both of us. I bit my lip, feeling bad for having doubted him. My unchecked suspicion, this midnight sleuthing expedition, a key from a supposed rival, and all that was behind the mystery door was a mundane office where my husband was hiding nothing but his love for our family. This must have been what Meg wanted me to see—that whatever secrets Rob kept from me were completely innocent. As was she. Clearly I’d been watching too many crime shows on cable.

  Hard as it was to feel truly close to Rob these days, when I looked at his gestures, his words, the way he’d acted with me from the very beginning, I knew that deep down we loved each other and could make it work.

  Feeling ashamed, I went to hang the picture back on the wall. It slid down, missing the hook. I tried again, no luck. I turned it over to see where the wire was. On the back of the picture was a phone number. Mommy Brain hadn’t taken my memorization skills away from me. As soon as I registered the number, I knew it by heart. I hooked the photo back up on the wall.