Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  One wall of Rob’s office was a built-in bookshelf stacked with scripts sorted by categories: action, drama, rom-com, director, other. Over the next few weeks I went through the dramas systematically, pulling out stacks of fifty at a time, sorting out any that were already in production or looked dreadful. I read the first act of each, reading further only if I was interested.

  It was just after Thanksgiving—right before Rob was due to leave for a five-month shoot in Turkey—when I decided to take a break from the dramas (How many corrupt-major-institution-overturned-by-wily-male-hero scripts can one woman endure?) and started to flip through the most intriguing category—“other.” Other. It was what I wanted. Something that defied category. Something I’d never seen before. Something weird, challenging, crazy.

  As they say, be careful what you wish for.

  7

  It didn’t have a sky blue cover, but it was in script form. There were six or seven binder clips of pages, and they were all held together by a rubber band. The cover page read “First Dates.” It sounded like a romantic comedy—not what I was looking for, but the opening lines caught my eye.

  EXT. OUTSIDE HER HOME—DAY

  He rings her doorbell, transportation at the ready.

  RM

  It’s me.

  W

  What are you doing here?

  RM

  Can I steal you away?

  W

  Where are we going?

  RM

  Let me surprise you. Come downstairs. Your chariot awaits.

  W

  But I have plans! I’m supposed to get a manicure!

  RM

  Cancel. I’ll wait.

  Okay, this was weird. It sounded strangely similar to my first date with Rob. Maybe, I thought cynically, every first date where a man surprised a woman with a trip to a mysterious island started exactly the same way. Or maybe this script had given Rob the idea for our first date. But wasn’t that exactly what he’d said to me? I remembered him calling the limo a chariot. (Who could forget that?) Had he hired someone to turn our romance into a script?

  I flipped the page. Above the lines of dialogue there was a handwritten sticky note: As requested, the following are potential scenarios to initiate an overnight visit. I hope they’re effective!—Emil

  At sunset, he takes her hands in his.

  RM

  I’m having an amazing time. I can take you home whenever you want. But I want to ask you if you’re willing to stay here with me tonight.

  OPTION 1

  W

  I would love that/Maybe.

  He kisses her.

  OPTION 2

  W

  I’m not that kind of girl/Too presumptuous.

  RM

  Don’t worry, you’ll have your own room. We’re not there yet. I’m very attracted to you, but I respect you too much to proceed with anything but caution.

  W is impressed. She can’t believe he’s such a gentleman.

  RM

  You want to know what I’m really thinking?

  He kisses her.

  Now I was spooked. This was not a regular script. These were the exact lines Rob had delivered to me on our first date, and maybe to every other woman he’d dated. RM, the male lead character, was clearly Rob Mars. And W stood for “woman.” Unless it stood for my former costar Wendy Jones. Or “wacko.” What had I stumbled upon? Who was this Emil? Why was he scripting Rob’s life? My God, was speaking his own thoughts really so hard for Rob? Was it possible that my love affair with Rob Mars was all an act?

  I read on. More scenarios played out on the pages, some that hadn’t ever come to fruition: The writer was not unreasonably confident that Rob Mars would score on the first date, so I learned that the morning after theoretically amazing sex, he was to say: “Whoa. I didn’t expect this to happen tonight. But, boy, am I glad it did. You look radiant. No, don’t change anything. I want to remember you exactly like this.”

  I also learned that if for any reason Rob wanted to land a difficult fish (that would be me), he was to say, “I know a place where we can truly be alone. Well, except for one person. The pilot of my plane—and he’ll be otherwise occupied. When you’re up there, the city is transformed. All of us, our houses and cars, shrinking down into nothing, and what’s left, what’s really visible, is the natural beauty and man’s impact, great and destructive. It, well, it puts life in perspective.”

  That I’d heard. That was the Rob I’d fallen in love with.

  And after sex on the plane, which the writer didn’t even bother to pose as a hypothetical, Rob was to deliver the clincher, sweet and vulnerable.

  “You know, I’ve looked down at the world from this plane hundreds of times, and every time it clears my head. But you’ve gone and made it foggy again.”

  Yes, I remembered. There had been tears in his eyes. He had laughed at himself as he wiped them away. Rob deserved an Oscar for that one.

  My cell phone chimed. It was lunchtime. In the butler’s pantry, Rob was making a smoothie. I had no idea how to look at him. What to say? I was in shock. I sat down in the breakfast room, and our regular chef, Elsie, put fig and goat cheese salads on the table for me and Rob. He came in with two mango-colored smoothies and handed one to me. “It has chia seeds,” he said. “For omega-3.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and faked a smile. I ate as quickly as I could. I had to get out of there.

  “Everything okay, Elizabeth?” Rob said. “You seem distracted.”

  “No . . . I mean, yes, everything’s okay. I’m in the middle of a script . . .”

  “A good one?” Rob asked.

  Good? No, that wasn’t the word . . . How could he do this to me? “They’re all the same, aren’t they? A bunch of words that some writer spewed on a page. It’s all bullshit.” I’d gone too far, but my mind was reeling with confusion and rage.

  “Well, well, well.” Rob chuckled. “Someone’s turning into quite the film snob.”

  I read the rest of the document with increasing dismay. Here was how Rob was to make conversation over dinner, and here was the joke he was supposed to interject if conversation ran dry. Here was an observation he could have about the texture of the walls at the restaurant we’d gone to once. Nuggets of charm he could offer upon meeting W’s parents. Even suggestions for events still in the future, like a night spent reminiscing about our first Valentine’s Day together (“Your eyes were sparkling just like they are tonight.” Really? Had I fallen for crap like that? Gag.)

  The very last lines were the hardest to read. Again, there was a sticky note from MAK, the apparent screenwriter: Notes for if she has cold feet at wedding—Best wishes! Emil

  RM

  We’ll fix it, love. I know we can. If today isn’t perfect, we’ll get married again. I’ll marry you a hundred times.

  Those were the words Rob had said to me on the day before our wedding, on that isolated stand on Achill Island, when I’d been so upset that my parents and Aurora weren’t at the wedding. They were the words that reassured me that I was safe and loved. The words that convinced me I was doing the right thing. The words that made every other worry and doubt fade. That was one of the most important moments in our relationship—the cornerstone—and it had been a lie.

  Whenever I had doubted that I really knew my husband, I had come back to his words, the corny but heartfelt declarations of love that fell so effortlessly from his lips. They reminded me that he loved me deeply, and gave me confidence that we could weather anything. But none of it was real. I was horrified, absolutely horrified. But overshadowing the deceit and betrayal, darker and more devastating than the heartbreak, was how immeasurably sorry I felt for Rob. Was this how he always operated? On every date? In his last marriage? Was this what Lexy had been trying to warn me about in her cryptic note? What was it all for? Maybe he did love me, in his own way, but w
hoever he truly was had been completely overshadowed by the heroes he played onscreen and the PR image he’d fabricated off-screen. If I gave him the benefit of the doubt, I would say that he didn’t know who he was anymore and was too scared to find out.

  I had married a blank slate, a hollow man. Our love was an invention scripted by a stranger, the elusive Emil. And yet Rob was exactly who he seemed to be: the best actor in the world. In a way I understood him better than I ever had. But I didn’t love him. Not anymore. Not after this.

  Worst of all, in this phony romance, I had played my part, and it was a doozy. I was the clichéd princess, swept off my feet, willing and eager to accept this faux Prince Charming at face value. I could have seen. I should have known. Rob may have commissioned this false romance, but I was complicit.

  There were two days remaining before Rob left for Turkey. I’d had six months with the husband I longed to know better. Now I couldn’t bear to look at him. I climbed into bed and pretended to have a migraine until he was gone.

  8

  On Tuesdays and Thursdays breakfast for the boys was always oatmeal, prepared by me. Leo scarfed down whatever was in front of him, but Cap was particular about his oatmeal. Pancakes? French toast? A stranger could walk through the front door, serve him anything with maple syrup, and Cap would eat it up. But his oatmeal had to be all me. If Elsie so much as dared place the spoon in the bowl, Cap’s mouth shut in a straight line, and he shook his head slowly and mournfully, as if in apology for his own four-year-old irrationality. Or possibly in profound disappointment at his caregivers’ collective stupidity.

  And so, on the Tuesday morning after Rob finally left, I set about making breakfast. As usual, Elsie had everything prepped. The oatmeal was in a bowl in the refrigerator, a shield of plastic wrap stretched wrinkle-free across its mouth. Beside it was a measuring cup with exactly the right amount of milk, and three small white bowls containing brown sugar, chopped walnuts, and dried cranberries, each similarly sheathed. I poured the ingredients into the small pot Elsie had left on the stove, while Elsie busied herself disposing of the discarded plastic wrap and washing the bowls as soon as I emptied them. It was an absurd charade.

  “Daddy went on a plane,” Leo announced.

  “That’s right, sweetie. Daddy went on a trip.”

  “Is Daddy home?” he said. “Daddy’s not home. Daddy’s on a trip.”

  “Daddy went on a long plane ride to a place called Turkey,” I said. “He’ll call you on the computer tomorrow morning.”

  “Daddy is my only and my best,” Leo said, his lips quivering. Leo was his daddy’s boy, and Rob’s trips were hardest on him.

  “Daddy always comes back,” Cap said, parroting what Rob and I always said when the boys asked about their father’s frequent absences.

  “That’s right, sweetie. Mommy is here, and Daddy always comes back.” Cap always liked to know exactly what the plan was. He’d accept any new adventure—a plane trip, a boat ride, a museum visit—whatever it was, he was game, so long as he knew what to expect. His world was still so simple. Every question had an answer.

  A sob threatened to roll over me, the storm of emotion I was using all my power to hold at bay. Leo needed his father. Cap did not like change or surprises. Daddy always comes back.

  I couldn’t leave Rob. I couldn’t even begin to think about what leaving Rob would do to my sons.

  I knew what it meant to me. If I lost Rob, I lost everything. No friends, no career, and a worldwide reputation as a great man’s leavings.

  I was reared to believe in lifelong commitment, and my father had ingrained in me that we were people who did not fail. To end my marriage would be humiliating—the most public failure I could imagine.

  But all that I could stand, if it weren’t for our children.

  Throughout high school, I saw my friends’ families crash and burn, and I saw what it did to the kids. Aurora’s parents had split up when we were in eleventh grade, and I watched the ground split open beneath her. My shiny, bold friend disappeared overnight, as if the electricity had gone out. For months, instead of dragging me to parties, all she could do was let me come to her house to sit in silence while we listened to her mother keening in the next room. Slowly, over the years, the old Aurora had come back, but her relationships were brief and fraught. She didn’t trust men, and—somewhere deep inside—she didn’t believe anyone would love her.

  I knew what Aurora would tell me to do. Stay with Rob. Stay with him until the twins are grown. But I needed to hear her say it.

  Aurora. We hadn’t spoken since the baby shower, and with good reason. She had been leaking information about me to the press. When I’d stopped talking to her, the leaks—the verbatim quotes—had immediately ceased. She had reached out to me many times, trying to restore our friendship. And I had always intended to make peace with her one day. Aurora, for better or worse, would be my friend forever.

  I still didn’t understand why Aurora had sold those stories about me. She’d never copped to it, and it was out of character. But surely it had something to do with envy, and at this moment my life was hardly enviable. Now, when her discretion was more important than ever, I was willing to risk it. I would swear Aurora to secrecy, and I felt sure she wouldn’t betray me again. Because when it came down to it, Aurora was the person who knew me best in the world.

  That Tuesday I went through the motions of my day as if my world hadn’t been rocked. The boys and I ate oatmeal. I pretended to read the newspaper while Cap pretended to read books about a puppy named Biscuit and Leo built cars out of LEGOs. Then I helped them change into their bathing suits and we walked out to the pool for their swim lesson. Cap and I sat at the steps, playing with squirt toys while Dom, the swim teacher, supported Leo’s belly, chanting, “Paddle, paddle, paddle, kick, kick, kick.” He was a nursing student slash wannabe actor, and he looked like a Roman statue come to life.

  The water flickered in the afternoon light. Leo floated on his back, arms and legs straight out like a starfish. He was still fearless.

  That night, after Cap and Leo went to bed, I called Aurora. I didn’t plan what I would say, and I didn’t need to. Aurora was a gushing font of apologies and forgiveness.

  “I get it, Lizzie. I mean, I can’t believe I missed your wedding, holy crap, you were supposed to hand me the bouquet, but I totally get it. You’re, like, on a different planet. (Get it: planet Mars?) And I’m a goddamned blister. But I’ll try, okay? I’ve been trying to tell you that. But you needed space, I know. And you have twins. I’m supposed to be, like, their godmother and I’ve never even—”

  “Oh my God, Aurora, give me a chance to say I’m sorry!” I said. “I’d love for you to meet Cap and Leo. But first I want to just catch up.”

  I knew Aurora wasn’t sucking up to me. I assumed that she, like me, wanted our old friendship back. But I had no idea that she, like me, had a more specific agenda for our reunion.

  Three days later, when I walked into the Polo Lounge expecting to pour out my heart to Aurora, I didn’t find her alone. She had a stranger with her, a guy who looked like a former football player, with colorless hair, ruddy cheeks, and kind-looking blue eyes. At first I thought she was going to introduce him as her fiancé. Why else would she bring a stranger to our lunch?

  “You don’t have to say anything, Lizzie, just listen,” she said.

  Then the man introduced himself. “My name is Buddy White,” he said. The name was familiar, but at first I couldn’t place it. “I used to be part of One Cell’s leadership. I believe you know my stepbrother, Geoff.”

  That Buddy White. The one I’d been warned about.

  “The Studio isn’t what it seems,” he said. “They are watching you, and your life isn’t your own.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I turned to Aurora. “I wanted us to talk.”

  “Wait, Lizzie. Please. This is importa
nt,” Aurora said.

  “Let me just tell you what my experience was,” Buddy said. “I joined the Studio when I was at my lowest low. Broke, strung-out, another lost bum. A One Cell practitioner, Liz Forsyth, walked up to me on a street corner, and the rest is history. I used to say, ‘I came for the free coffee and stayed for the direct path to self-knowledge.’ One Cell saved my life, and I’ll always be grateful for that.

  “It was the first time I’d been drug-free in twenty years, and I was ready to make something of myself. I became a Core Leader, and I introduced Geoff to the Studio. My goofy stepbrother took to the Studio like a fish to water. He started working right alongside Teddy Dillon. But before long, Teddy lost control to Geoff. Her vision—the Practice I’d so respected—became the hook. Behind the scenes, Geoff started leading the Studio in the wrong direction. The push to raise money—and attract celebrities—was more important than the Practice. Volunteers worked long hours and then were going into debt for the classes they took.

  “My wife, Eva—we met at the Studio. She was a Core Leader like me. She was the best of the best, Geoff’s darling. All the celebrities flocked to her sessions. We were doing okay, a happy couple, until we decided we wanted a baby. Eva was having trouble getting pregnant. We wanted to try IVF, but we had no medical insurance and no savings. The Studio wouldn’t help, so Eva decided she would branch out, open her own Studio, so she could get paid for her work.

  “I thought the Studio was trying to help. Eva was sent to Fernhills for a sixty-day silent retreat, and we were told that after she finished, they would help us get on our feet, start an independent business. Well, I wasn’t supposed to contact Eva while she was at Fernhills. And then, when the sixty days were up, I was told she wanted nothing to do with me.”

  Buddy glanced over his shoulder as if worried that someone was listening. “It wasn’t until I myself left the Practice that I found out Eva had been trying to reach me. For years. What happened to her at Fernhills—and she’s not the only one—I could tell you stories.”