Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  “Oh my God.” My agent, who had ignored me for three years, had forced Parker O. Witt’s hand. And Parker O. Witt had a pretty strong hand. This was the true power of Rob, and it wasn’t pretty. He’d traded something for this favor. An appearance at an event or in a movie. Money. Maybe just his goodwill. I had no idea what the role was worth, but whatever it was, Rob could afford it.

  So much had changed. I thought about the day I arrived on the set of American Dream. The whole cast knew that Steve Romany had given me the part without an audition and they knew why—I hadn’t been willing to leave my ill grandmother’s side. When I walked into my American Dream trailer for the first time, there was a huge flower arrangement with a note that read, “For Lizzie, who knows what’s important. We’re so glad to have you on the team. Love, Your New Cast Mates.”

  Gone were the days when I had carved my own way. I wasn’t a true artist, winning parts through sheer determination, and winning friends through loyalty and integrity. Now I was on the other side, part of the Hollywood powerhouse, where connections and status trumped talent. And trailer sizes matched egos. No wonder my fellow actors couldn’t look me in the eye. But this was the deal I had made. My father had pitched me to Rob. I’d fallen for my husband in large part for his status. And Rob was buying my happiness. When you added it all up, this was one very expensive movie role, and I was damn well going to make the most of it.

  The next day we shot the scene where Billy, on his deathbed, tells Abigail that there are two escaped slaves who need to be picked up at the train station. He asks her to get them because he can’t. This is her moment of decision. She decides to do it, risking everything.

  This was an intense scene, and I wasn’t thrilled that it was shooting so early in the schedule. I’d had no time to sink into character, much less connect with Tony, as my lover, Billy. But it had to be done.

  Billy lay on a hay bale. A makeup assistant spritzed his face to make it gleam with perspiration. He grimaced with the pain of whatever ailment was supposed to be killing him. Fake sweat ran down the side of his dirt-encrusted face, creating little dusty rivers.

  Emotions are a chemical reaction. I thought of my sister, Allison, how much I loved her, worried about her, and yet had let her go. Where was she? Was she hungry, alone? Lost, lost? I drank in the emotions connected to those thoughts—the emotions I’d spent so much time in One Cell isolating and observing. And I thought of my own fears. The fear of doing something my parents didn’t want me to do, of breaking the rules, of taking a risk, of upsetting expectations.

  I knelt next to Billy and looked into his eyes, shining with fever or the shot of bourbon I’d seen Tony down right before the cameras rolled. This was about more than the love between two people. Abigail had a choice: to continue her life of luxury or to risk everything for justice.

  “Seems to me there’s an easy road and a hard road,” I said. “A wrong road and a right one. My heart knows what is right.” I kissed Billy’s forehead, lingering in that moment, knowing that it might be the last time I saw him. Then I stood up and walked toward the barn door. Before I left, I turned around for one last look at my dying lover.

  Billy’s voice was weak. “Thank you, Mistress.”

  I imagined my sister, wasted and suffering, and let the shame and despair wash over me. “It’s the world we were handed, Billy, each of us. And it’s ours to change,” I said, and opened the door.

  Parker yelled “Cut” and the cast burst into applause. I had done it. I found exactly what I needed to expose Abigail’s pain and love and final resolution to the camera. It felt right to me, and I could see from the faces around me that when it came down to it, we all cared most about the same thing—nailing the character. I was Abigail.

  6

  For the rest of the time on the set of The Safe House, I buckled down. I made myself visible on the set. After my scenes finished shooting, I’d hang around, watching the performances and gorging myself on the ubiquitous glazed doughnut holes. Eventually, the cast started to come around to me. They saw that, though I may have rode in on my husband’s coattails, I wasn’t lingering on them. It was clear that I wanted to be there, that my whole heart was in the film, that I needed it, as much as they did.

  ACE had gotten me the part, and they had done it as a favor to Rob. I didn’t care. (Except I did feel bad about Ellia Lopez. I called ACE and demanded that they get her a lead in a feature. Which they did. Even though she wasn’t a client. She can thank Rob Mars for that one.) Once on set, I had proved myself worthy. But in the course of making The Safe House there was another change, a bigger one—and that was me.

  I came to The Safe House at a personal low, having resigned myself to the notion that I would sell my soul for the right part. In a way, I already had. When it was handed to me on a silver platter, nothing could have stopped me.

  But living that dream transformed it.

  On the set of The Safe House, I discovered that it wasn’t being a star that mattered. What I really cared about was acting, immersing myself in a character and telling a story, and, dammit, I was good at it. For the first time in a long time, I felt . . . confidence. To everyone else it may have been a subtle change, but to me it was huge. My father and I wanted the same thing, but for different reasons. He thought I was destined for stardom, but the truth was that I was satisfied with a fragment of that picture. Just the acting. That eclipsed everything else. Taking on a character, losing myself in her, and learning from her. The truths we find in art. The rest—the fame and fortune—I didn’t care about it. Rob’s power had gotten me this gig, but I was willing to fight and claw my way up to the next one.

  This epiphany was tied to another realization. It was so inevitable that all it took was a life-size puppet of a big yellow bird to snap me to my senses. It came about three weeks into the production, when Rob had returned to Scandinavia and Teacher Jana’s daughter, Jordan, who had started occasionally babysitting and working as my assistant, brought Cap and Leo to visit me for the last week of production.

  I was in my trailer, showing the boys bits of Sesame Street on YouTube. I wanted them to hear one of my old favorites, “What’s the Name of That Song?” I had just found the link when Jordan came to get them.

  “It’s your call time. Come, Cap, Leo, we’ll go to the playground,” she said.

  “Hold on a second, I just want them to hear this song,” I said.

  Jordan stood in the doorway, waiting patiently. When the song ended, she said, “Come, boys.” Leo obediently hopped off the couch and Jordan took his hand. Cap resisted momentarily—he never liked to leave me—but Jordan reminded him that there would be swings, and that was enough to persuade him.

  “Good-bye, sweeties,” I said, but they had already disappeared out the door and across the parking lot.

  I looked back at the screen. There was a related link on the sidebar: “Big Bird Learns About Death.” I clicked on it. It was an old episode of Sesame Street that I had never seen. In it Mr. Hooper, the grocer, has died. The blurb below the video told me that the episode was written when Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper, died in real life. The Children’s Television Workshop producers took the opportunity to give children viewers a gentle perspective on death.

  I watched the actors explain to Big Bird why Mr. Hooper wasn’t there with the rest of them. Big Bird has trouble understanding. His Sesame Street family tries to explain, and you can see on the actors’ faces how brokenhearted they truly are.

  Watching those actors struggle on camera with the death of their colleague moved me, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Then I was crying harder, and it was about more than poor old Mr. Hooper. An aging actor died, and his colleagues loved him, and they wanted children to know the truth about life and death and joy and regret, and so all over America, schoolchildren absorbed pieces of their grief, transforming it into something brave and true.

  I wanted my sons to learn
hard lessons in unexpected ways. My childhood hadn’t been careful or calculated. It was spontaneous games of hide-and-seek with neighborhood kids, and TV shows my parents didn’t filter, and raw emotions that came and went as I grew. I didn’t even care that much about Mr. Hooper when I was a kid, but in that moment his death was everything to me, and it felt good to weep for him, and for his fellow actors, and for the child I once was, exploring the world. I missed my parents. And it felt good to mourn life and love. It felt good to feel.

  My husband, the Studio, the invasive press. All of them told me not to indulge my emotions. I could simply decide to move past them. But was it really possible? For how long could I ignore or manipulate my own feelings? Weren’t they what made me me?

  I had always thought of myself as someone who knew what was right for me and for those around me, and followed that instinct. But I’d gotten distracted by Rob’s prestige and money and power, sucked into another role. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped being the girl who blew off a major audition for a network drama to be at Granny’s side.

  The Whole Body Principles made life black and white. They instructed us to set goals and work toward them without regard for the obstacles that emerged. But those obstacles are important. Mr. Hooper’s death stopped Sesame Street in its tracks. Abigail risked her life of affluence for what was right and true. The Studio had taught me much; it had certainly helped my acting, but maybe it wasn’t the only answer. Like Abigail, I knew in my heart what was right. I started to think that emotions weren’t just scientific equations to be studied and used at will. They weren’t a distraction to be ignored. They were spontaneous and sprawling and undefined. They were everything.

  I hired a private detective. It was time to find my sister.

  Starting that summer, Rob had an unprecedented six months off—it was the longest sustained time we’d had together since we were married. There were premieres, fund-raisers, and events at the Studio. The detective, Mike, tried to track down my sister, a task made more challenging by the critical need to keep it from the press. Meanwhile, Cap and Leo started to grow into their own people. Cap was serious, a rule follower, and still obsessed with turtles. Leo was a daredevil, climbing the stairs from the wrong side of the banister; jumping into the pool unsupervised; wanting nothing more than to be chased around the house, caught, and “tickle tortured.”

  Our assistant, Jake, seemed constantly overwhelmed, maybe because now he was handling my affairs as well as Rob’s, but perhaps because he regarded all tasks—be they drugstore runs, RSVPs, or business meetings—as equally dire. Every day he presented me with a list of issues, and I made choices. Which watches would Rob like to keep? Where would we stay in Gstaad? Which car did I want now that my lease was up? Agitated and humorless, Jake would tap his pencil nervously on the table while he waited for my answers.

  “Is the house on fire?” I’d tease him.

  “Not that I know of,” he’d say, without any acknowledgment that I was joking.

  “Do follow up on that,” I’d say.

  After The Safe House wrapped, I was determined to build on it. I wanted my next part to be a big one. Not Skye London. Not an action hero. A part that mattered to me, if no one else.

  Every afternoon the mail arrived by two. I hurried to Jake’s office to see what had come in. He would hand me a script, if there was one, ask if there was anything else, and turn right back to his computer. Scripts trickled in, and I pored over each one, considering not just the parts that Cherry liked for me, but the smaller roles, the offbeat sidekicks and spurned lovers. Meanwhile, every day at least ten scripts came in for Rob. They sat in their sky blue ACE envelopes, stacked on Jake’s desk, waiting to be unwrapped and moved to Rob’s office.

  Rob wasn’t reading scripts these days. His film schedule was already booked four years out. He was taking a well-deserved break. Every morning he dragged his sea kayak down to the water and paddled straight away from land. At this point there were so many photos out there of him as a boatman hybrid that the paparazzi practically yawned when they saw him in his wet suit. He loved the isolation and timelessness of the open sea. My explorer husband. After his morning paddle, he’d swim for a long time, heading straight west. That was followed by a ninety-minute massage from Joseph, then a nap. All this before lunch.

  Rob’s homecomings had always been a welcome treat, but having Rob around for a long stretch upset the household dynamic. This became uncomfortably clear on the night of a benefit for the Motion Picture & Television Fund. Rob and I were all dressed up, hair and makeup done, saying what was meant to be a quick good night to the boys before we left. It was bedtime, but, in classic Rob fashion, he riled them up by giving them airplane rides, swinging them in circles holding one hand and one foot. Leo loved it, squealing with glee, begging for more. Cap, always more cautious, solemnly said, “Daddy, can I have a turn, too, but not as fast?” Spinning, Cap seemed to be laughing at first, but then the pitch of his laughter changed.

  “Wait,” I said. But Rob kept going. “Stop, Rob, stop! Put him down!”

  “What?” Rob slowed, and when he finally understood that Cap was crying, Rob landed him gently and knelt down. “What’s wrong, buddy?” he asked.

  “Does your arm hurt, Cap?” I said, squatting next to Rob.

  “Daddy hurt arm,” he wept.

  “I’m sorry, bud,” Rob said. “It’ll feel better soon. Come, let’s brush your teeth.” Cap, so full of trust, quieted down as Rob led him into the bathroom. I watched as he brushed his teeth. He held his toothbrush with his left hand, which I’d never seen him do, his right arm bent protectively against his stomach. Cap’s face was utterly serious. He was trying to be brave for his daddy.

  Rob brought him back into the room and tucked him in bed. “Night-night, little man,” he said. He kissed both boys and stood up. “Ready to go?” he asked me.

  I bent and kissed Leo good night. Then I turned to Cap. “Does your arm still hurt?” I asked. He nodded silently. I turned to Rob. “I’m worried about that elbow.”

  “Don’t be,” Rob said. “He’s fine. He’s not even crying anymore.”

  “He said it still hurts.”

  “Okay,” Rob said. The muscles in his neck tightened. “What do you want to do?”

  “He needs to see a doctor,” I said.

  “Right now?” Rob said. He looked at his watch. “My speech is in forty-five minutes. Can it wait until morning?” Matthew Brau, his agent and the head of ACE, was the chairman of the charity’s board.

  “I read that you’re not supposed to swing them that way,” I said.

  “So now this is my fault?” Rob said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Okay,” Rob said. “We’ll do whatever you want to do. You want to go to the ER? Let’s go.” He started to walk toward Cap.

  “Wait.” I grabbed Rob’s shoulder. “Is it okay, with the paparazzi and everything? Should we have a doctor come here?” Neither of the boys had been to a hospital since they were born. I knew what a normal ER trip involved, but I had no idea how to handle an ER trip with one of Rob Mars’s sons.

  Rob stared at me as if I were daft. “If he’s hurt—and you think he is—we go to the ER, like everyone else. Lewis will know the closest one.”

  I was so accustomed to factoring in our fame, and the media’s response, that I didn’t know when to let it go. When did the real world eclipse privacy, optics, and controlling the story? Not when we were dating and I needed a tampon, and not when I was in labor and took the time to put on a disguise. But now, at eight p.m., with an injury my husband wouldn’t fully acknowledge, now we went full steam ahead.

  Rob scooped up Cap. “Come on, Cap, Mama wants you to see a doctor.”

  “Noooo,” Cap wailed. He was thinking shots.

  “Noooo,” Leo wailed. “I want to come with you. See the ambulance!”

 
Cap wailed through the car ride, and through our arrival at the emergency room. I was vaguely aware that we drove to a side door, and Lewis went in first—apparently, even in an emergency, there were still measures to be taken—and we were immediately led to a back room.

  We sat there for a half hour, Cap finally sleeping on my shoulder, and Rob growing increasingly impatient. At last, a nurse stuck her head in and said, “It’s going to be a while. There was a multi-motorcycle accident on the PCH. We’re really busy.”

  I could tell Rob wanted to leave. He thought Cap was fine, and he wanted to honor his commitment. “You go ahead,” I said. “I can take care of this.”

  “Are you sure?” he said. After some back-and-forth, I convinced him to leave. Four long hours later, the doctor came in, diagnosed Cap with “nursemaid’s elbow” (putting the blame squarely on the “nursemaid,” who in this case was Rob), and gently slipped the ligament back into place. Rob had never said out loud that he thought I was overreacting, but I felt slightly vindicated.

  Rob was already asleep when we got home. He woke when I came in, and after he checked on Cap, I told him that the doctor had said that he shouldn’t spin the boys around that way again, especially Cap, whose elbow was now vulnerable to reinjury.

  “You told the doctor how it happened? That I was the one spinning him?”

  I nodded.

  Rob looked irritated. “You just gotta be more careful with that stuff, Elizabeth.”

  I had to be more careful.

  Having Rob spend more time at home was all I wanted, but his presence felt like a disruption. We hadn’t established a rhythm as parents, and now he felt like an extra in my life with the boys.

  We finished all our summer travels and the boys started daycare again. One night that fall, Rob looked across at me in bed. I was reading a pile of crappy screenplays, discarding most of them after ten pages. He said, “Maybe you should look at some of my scripts? I’ve got hundreds piled up. You never know.”