I look out of the window and shiver involuntarily. The air con is on max; it’s freezing in here, and yet I’m still sweating in my pink silk dress.
‘I want to do that Shakespeare movie,’ I say. He growls.
‘Not this again. I’m telling ya, Artie’s right. For once! The guy is right. It ain’t for you.’
I take a deep breath. ‘Look, they reworked the script pretty quickly. We had the wrong version anyway. I met with Tammy Gutenberg, the writer. She only put in the crappy romp-through-history bit with Jane Austen and Nelson because the studio she was attached to made her. The new draft is great. Really great.’
One of the reasons why I don’t want to commit to anything yet is because of Tammy’s sending me this new draft. I read it and loved it. I loved how smart and funny and moving it was, how it deals with Shakespeare in an interesting way without making you feel dumb, how the modern story about Annie, the girl who works at the museum who is also young Anne Hathaway when she goes back to the past, is interesting and sparky, how it pokes fun at tourists without being mean. And the stuff after she bangs her head and wakes up in Shakespeare’s time … it shouldn’t work, but she pulls it off. It’s done totally confidently, so you buy it without knowing whether it’s real or not. Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare are a really lovely couple, and the scenes with the older, solitary, Anne Hathaway musing on their relationship and her life after her husband’s death are beautiful. A plum part for an older actress. And there’s a delicious bit at the end in the present day and Annie’s just woken up and is struggling to answer some punctilious question from an American tourist and Alec Mitford playing a modern-day bloke walks through the door of the museum and says, ‘Hello, I’m the new manager,’ and their eyes meet and he smiles like he knows he’s met her before …
I’m not questioning how two hot people come to be working at a tiny museum in the depths of the English countryside. When I mentioned it to Tammy, over lunch at Chateau Marmont, she laughed and said, ‘You need some suspension of disbelief in a film. Come on, Sophie. You ever seen ET? Exactly.’
I adored Tammy; she bowled me over, in fact. I’d forgotten there are people like this who work in movies. Lots of people probably, but you get past a point where you ever meet them. One, she remembered everything about our time back in Venice Beach – I was obsessed with frappe lattes (I know – so 2005). Two, she was really funny about all the guys we hung out with – I slept with way more of them than I should have, including Sara’s ex, Bryan the hairdresser guy, but she also reminded me about Jules the performance artist who lived on the beach and played the banjo, and Troy who was basically a high-school frat boy who thought he wanted to be an actor because he was, in the words of Zoolander, really, really ridiculously good-looking but basically had meat for brains.
‘Whatever happened to him?’ I’d asked Tammy.
‘He went to work at Goldman.’ She’d rolled her eyes, stuck her tongue in her cheek, and that’s when I realised I loved her.
The other thing I loved about her was that she ate her food. She ordered chicken and lentils and had a pudding. Didn’t talk about it, just ate it. And had a glass of wine.
‘I don’t understand why you can’t commit to this,’ she’d said. ‘It’s not a big deal. It’s not Ingmar Bergman. It’s just a romcom – it’s what you do.’
Afterwards I left and drove home, and I didn’t know the answer. It was so simple. This is the kind of movie I’m good at; why am I not doing it? Because other people have vested interests in me and the money I can make them, that’s why.
‘You met a writer?’
‘It’s not that big a deal, Tommy.’ I pat my hot face.
‘It is for you. You don’t like that stuff. Let me deal with the producers and the writers.’ Tommy’s jaw works even faster. ‘Who the fuck is she anyway?’
‘I knew her back in the day,’ I say. ‘Listen, Tommy, I want to do this movie. I’m serious. You and Artie’ll just have to find a way to fit it in after The Bachelorette Party.’
‘I looked into it, you know I did. The timings don’t work. It’s being filmed in England. This summer. You—’
‘The schedule is fluid while they wait for the last piece of funding to fall into place,’ I interrupt him. ‘And—’ I’m saving the best for last. ‘Alec Mitford is confirmed as Shakespeare. So there.’
Alec Mitford is box office gold at the moment. His last film, with Meryl Streep and Judi Dench, was number one for five weeks, knocked some comic book off the top. He’s a professional Englishman who plays smooth cool posh guys, although I happen to know he grew up in Swindon not far from me.
Oh, Alec. Actually … I knew him back in London, the summer I moved down when I got the job on South Street People. We had a … thing. He still makes me blush.
Tommy can’t help but look impressed. ‘OK then. Well, that’s something. Alec Mitford, huh? So that’s what you’ve been working on, these last few weeks.’
‘Sure.’ I shrug, like that’s the explanation for it all, and I look into the mirror next to me, pretending to fiddle with one of the (loaned) diamond drop earrings that flash and dazzle even in the dim inside light. I don’t tell him about the emails I’ve been sending about Eve Noel. Tina has found her UK agent, a tiny agency that barely has a website. They won’t confirm anything about her. They just say they represent her. I’ve written them three emails now. I’ll wear them down, I know I will. But Tommy does not need to know that, nor Artie; this is not part of their plan for me. Besides, I like the secrecy in my life at the moment. I don’t tell Tommy about George, either, the fact that I sneak over to his house every other night, and what we’ve been doing. I’m not sure I like thinking about it too much during the daytime, but for these last few weeks of hiatus while all I’ve had on my mind is my weight, and who’s been sending me these white roses, it’s good to forget all about it at night.
Two more white roses have arrived, you see. Both taped to the gate. Each one a week apart, after the first one. The CCTV didn’t cover the actual gate, just the path down to it. It’s been changed but we can’t see who put them there. I’m trying to play it down. I’ve told myself it’s just an over-enthusiastic fan. Someone a little bit too keen.
It’s strange though, I know it’s more than that. I just do.
There’s a loud banging and I jump. Someone knocking on the window, a guy in black with an earpiece. I wriggle in my pink dress, putting my fingers in my armpits. Tommy looks at me suspiciously. ‘You get them Botoxed?’ he says. ‘We don’t want slime.’
‘Relax,’ I say.
‘Sophie,’ says T.J., his voice a robotic static through the speaker. ‘I have a message from Ashley. Patrick Drew’s car is just ahead of ours. She says he’ll escort you up the carpet.’
‘I’ll see you the other side,’ Tommy says, putting down his BlackBerry and staring at me intently. ‘We’ll talk about this. All of this.’ He waggles his fingers at me, then reaches into his pocket for another piece of gum. ‘Get out there and make nice. Enjoy Patrick. He’s cute.’
I pull at my fringe, nod, and turn to Tommy. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine,’ I say.
The rushing sound is louder; the door is opened, and I step out onto the pavement, one glittering, designer-clad foot at a time, from the cool AC into the swampy evening air. It’s really muggy. I think there’s a storm coming. The roaring gets louder; I look up towards the bleachers full of ‘fans’ lining the carpet, as if I’m totally surprised, and smile my most engaging smile, waving enthusiastically. They scream back. It’s two types, it always is. Middle-aged, large women with tight perms and T-shirts that proclaim their devotion to various film stars or God; and teenage girls, all braces, hysteria and long, flicky hair. They scream when you smile, but just occasionally, there’ll be one who doesn’t respond, a blank glaring face watching you with open dislike, and you can’t show that you’ve seen them, that you want to go over to the bleachers and point at them, ask them, ‘What’s wrong? Do you hat
e me? Why?’
I think about the roses; the white perfection of them, the fact that someone’s hand put them there, laid the first one on the bed, taped the others to the metal gates. Is it one of these faces in the crowd? I shiver in the heat. There must be around a hundred cameras cocked like guns, firing in my face. People scream my name.
‘Hey!’ Someone pushes me from behind. ‘Hey, girl!’
I jump, then look round. ‘Hi, Patrick,’ I say, smiling mechanically and kissing him on the cheek. ‘It’s good to meet you.’
Patrick Drew grins, takes off his baseball cap and nods enthusiastically. His long shaggy hair bobs in front of his eyes. He is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Sure, the T-shirt isn’t crumpled but … that’s it. We were sent twenty-eight dresses, I had seven different meetings with DeShantay, and today I spent four hours getting ready.
‘You look pretty,’ he says. ‘Wow, that dress must be hot.’
The pink dress with the cap sleeves is indeed hot. I stare at him, hating him.
‘OK then,’ he says. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ I say.
‘Let’s do it!’ As he kisses me, the people in the crowd nearest us roar their approval, like they’re witnessing our romance. Oh, fuck off, I want to snarl at them. This guy is an idiot. Then I feel guilty: we’re doing this for them, so they’ll go see a film that hasn’t even started shooting. I put my arm round him, like we’ve known each other for years.
‘See you later, P,’ someone says.
‘J-Man! See you. Dudehead, Billy – catch you afterwards, yeah?’
‘Yeah, man,’ they call out. I don’t know when it became obligatory to have an entourage if you’re a male star, but these days there have to be at least three dufusy-guys with you at all times, otherwise you’re nothing in Hollywood.
‘Bye, fellas!’ Patrick shouts happily. ‘Cool! Good guys, crazy guys. What a trip!’
How can you be this up all the time? I wonder. Is he on something? Perhaps he’s a Scientologist. I bet he is.
The crowd roars as we move and the photographers scuttle along beside us, crab-like at our feet. I remind myself of what Mum used to say to me as she pushed me into an audition. This is your dream, isn’t it? You like this. Enjoy the moment.
‘Sophie!’ I spin around; stupid of me to turn and look when someone calls my name but I’m rattled, I don’t know why – this is full on.
‘You OK?’ Patrick says. I smile brightly at him.
‘I’m totally fine!’ I tell him.
Perspiration starts to build on my back, on my neck. I keep my armpits closely wedged by my side.
‘Man, you totally are beautiful, you know?’ He shakes his head. ‘Everyone says it, I mean, I know it, I’ve seen you in pictures, obviously. But wow … yeah, you really are.’
I think it’s a line, but he says it like it’s a fact, not as a compliment, nodding his head.
‘Well, I’m really looking forward to working with you,’ I say inanely.
‘Me too. You’re the queen of this kind of shit!’ he says, with a kind of goofy smile. It’s gonna be great. You know George, right?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know George.’
Behind us, Ashley shouts, ‘Guys, this is Cally Colherne, E! news.’
‘Hi, Cally!’ I say. ‘It’s so great to see you!’
Cally bares her white, white teeth at us and sticks a bright green mike under our noses. ‘Hi, guys! Now, I hear you guys are just starting shooting a film together. That’s so cool!’
Patrick answers. ‘Yeah, Cally. It’s …’
Smile plastered on my face, I let my mind drift as I go onto autopilot. I wonder where George is.
We move on, stopping at each reporter, answering questions about the movie, about working with each other, and we don’t say, ‘We just met two minutes ago, I’ve no idea what his favourite ice-cream is,’ we say, ‘Hey, you love cookies and cream, I know you do!’ like we’re old friends in this big, shiny community of stars.
After about ten minutes I steal a glance at Patrick, as the intensity of the screams coming from the other end of the carpet indicate someone much bigger than us has arrived. He’s kind of cute, I have to admit it. He has big brown eyes, a huge sweet smile and this funny floppy hair and gangly limbs that almost seem to take him by surprise. He turns and catches me looking at him, and I feel myself blush with embarrassment. Maybe Tommy was right – I should have taken Botox armpit action.
Patrick talks incessantly, when we’re not being interviewed. How he just got a new dog. How he met Dennis Hopper before he died which was so cool because Easy Rider is his favourite film. How there’s this great new restaurant out on the highway next to the ocean that does unreal shrimp. He keeps asking me questions, but I answer in monosyllables, barely listening. I just want to get inside. As we’re reaching the end of the queue, he stops in front of a dinner-jacketed security guard, who nods and wave us through. ‘I think we could go further with the script and what we guys do,’ he says. And he looks across at me and smiles. ‘You’ve never done anything like that, neither have I.’
I am instantly wary, as that always, always means the girl has to go naked, probably full-frontal. Or do something disgusting. Going further, pushing boundaries, mixing it up – it’s all bullshit shorthand for: more girl nudity and if the girl complains, she’s a humourless bitch who doesn’t get comedy.
I know some cameras are still trained on us, so I keep my hands by my sides and say carefully, pretending to smile, ‘Have you spoken to George about it? What does he think?’
‘George is totally up for it.’ Patrick claps his hands and rubs them together happily. ‘It’s going to be so cool! You’re so talented. You’ll love it. I’m convinced you’ll get it.’
I know he’s trying to butter me up to do something disgusting on film and I’m not doing it. I feel flustered, cross that Patrick and George have already discussed this.
‘That’s kind,’ I say, buying time.
Patrick Drew nods enthusiastically, his broad grin even wider. ‘It’s not kind, Soph! You rock! You can really act, you know? I saw it and I was like— Hey, dude! You fucking rock, man! That beard is for real! It suits you longer! How are you!’
‘Er—’ I begin, then I turn around. George is standing behind us. The cameras click again; George is famous, the kind of director you might recognise on the street. Mainly that’s because he was married to Billie Gorky the year she won an Oscar, but also because he looks like an important person.
His hand is on my bare skin, where the dress is cut out at the back. ‘Hey, guys,’ he says, kissing us both. His brown, tanned arms, thick with black hairs, envelop us both. His cool grey eyes, flinty under the beetling black brows, meet mine. ‘Look!’ he says, in his rich, husky voice, to the reporters and the crowd behind them. ‘The stars of The Bachelorette Party! We’re going to have so much fun making this picture. Summer 2013, OK?’
And I am so flustered – from seeing him, from the heat, from the whole damn thing – that I raise my arm and wave. The camera shutters click madly, like a swarm of crickets chattering together. As I’m doing it, I realise it’s a mistake, and then I make a second one.
I look down.
Sure enough, the armpit is dark rose pink, and that’s the picture that changes everything. Not a photo of me stepping out of the car in my beautiful borrowed diamond earrings and hair that took an hour to style. Not me and Patrick with our arms round each other, laughing like we’re old friends or young lovers. No, the picture that runs on the front of Us Weekly, as the headline in TMZ, E! and every gossip website in the States, back home in the UK, on the front of Heat the following week, that’s re-Tweeted by everyone, is of me looking down in horror at the sweat stain under my arm, my face contorted into a twist of panic. SOPHIE’S STINKY SURPRISE! screams a tabloid the next day, like I’ve lost control of my bowels in front of the Queen, not just got a bit sweaty in the 90-degree heat of a muggy LA. You’re not allowed t
o sweat if you’re a star. It was only me who did, not those other stars gliding by, untouchable, beautiful, perfect, glittering in the golden evening light.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A WEEK AFTER Armpitgate, tired of the uncertainty, annoyed by everything else, I ask George to stay over, and he says yes. I can hardly believe it. I think he’s being nice to me because I want him more and more at the moment, I can’t stop myself, and of course – duh – he loves that. Like every time we fuck it pushes everything further away. He’s also being nice to me because he wants me to do something for him. I’m not stupid, though I think he thinks I am. But mainly I think he’s being nice to me because Armpitgate is bigger than anyone could have realised. In fact, it’s a total disaster.
But it’s a mistake, having him in my pretty white house. He’s like John Huston; I should have killed a bear and had it mounted on the wall to make him feel at home. He’s too big and hairy and … there, in my space. He arrives late, after dinner with some old buddies (I’m never asked, and I don’t want to go anyway), and he stinks of cigars and meat grease: I can smell it on his skin. I lie there watching him take his black silk shirt off and suddenly I wish he wasn’t here. I don’t know why.
So we don’t have sex and I can tell he’s pissed about it. He paws at me a few times and kisses my neck, says, ‘C’mon baby, c’mon.’ But I yawn, tell him I’m tired, I have an early start. I keep seeing the video camera by the side of the bed. I notice it more than I do in his room. It looks out of place.
‘That’s a shame,’ he says eventually. He lies in the white bed, naked, playing with himself. I think he’s going to go next door and jerk off in a minute.
I watch him, my arms crossed. ‘George, Patrick said something at the awards about a nude scene. Did you discuss it with him?’
The hand under the sheet stops moving. ‘What? No.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I’m not lying to you, Sophie. I wouldn’t discuss stuff like that with Patrick Drew. He’s a pansy. He’d never agree. I thought you’d be totally into it though.’
Not Without You Page 10