“Jeanne was never a saint in this life. She was a girl with all the same troubles girls have…Your objective is simple, young lady. How will you become a woman without the sex?”
“That’s not simple, Claude. Have you watched the trailers? Eve’s fucking boys on camera. Stephanie’s slicing up grown men. I don’t stand a chance with a wimpy choice like that.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy. What was the last piece of advice I gave you, when we first met?”
Take a risk? Be myself…no. It was what I’ve been trying to forget since I picked up that crazy genealogy. Since I started talking to a crazy saint…
Confess.
“Why not, at least, some jewelry?” I say, and nervously search his bureaus for accessories. I don’t want to remember his last piece of advice.
It had something to do with his seeing a boy in my eyes…confessing.
I’m still trying to believe that my meeting with Esme was part of a scene we were only rehearsing. Claude gets up, pulls out a drawer, and takes out a band of golden steel he fits to my right forearm. It looks like a piece of real armor I’d seen as I paged through the glossaries of 15th century warfare.
“Do you lead with your left?” he asks, sounding like the fightmaster who’s been noticeably absent since all our fights became real.
“Yes. Why?” This scene isn’t supposed to be—”
“Push comes to shove is the nature of this business—and you…” his tired, rheumy eyes lock into mine in a desperate, powerful gaze—“young women are both highly competitive.” I nod. It’s the nature of the beast. Claude lets me kiss him on the forehead. He rubs my cheeks with trembling hands.
“Trust your character, Cease,” he says, “I sense you two have got some chemistry.”
Plastic cups rattle across the empty parking lot of the Byrne Arena, a sports stadium. The sky’s clear, below freezing with the wind chill, as I race across the wasteland to the giant warehouse Francis constructed for Craig Sterling’s first scene, I turn and see Susan walking toward me. She’s wearing the full-length navy blue down parka I saw in the window of Bergdorffs that goes for fifteen thousand dollars. She’s got on a pair of thigh high suede boots that make my dirty Uggs look, well ugly. She’s carrying her script in the crook of her arm just the way Serena Van der Ebb used to hold that bottle of cranberry juice as she waltzed down Madison Avenue; another vampire announcing her conquest, another boy sucked dry.
“What a surprise seeing you here, little miss virgin.” It isn’t a surprise. I saw Eve’s fat, stupid head in her trailer window as I was searching for Claude’ double-wide. She won the most votes and will appear with Craig first. I’m not allowed on the set except to get dressed for my scene tomorrow.
“Craig’s gonna be quite a mouthful today.” She daubs her lips with some Este Lauder gloss, puckers them in a way that would tell even Petit Fleur what a mouthful means. “They say he’s pretty hung,” she says, “but, I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that, little miss virgin.”
I study the fur lining of her hood and feel like a wolf that’s been dumped from the pack.
“Why don’t you go back to your mommy? Susan shouts over the gusts that buffet the corralled trailers. My bare fingers are numb as she holds a gloved hand up to her open mouth in mock surprise, ”Oh—but she’s dead. Boo-Hoo. And from what I read, she was a nasty little stage-mom.” That scene she holds in the crook of her arm feels as if it contains the darkest secrets of my life.
“So I guess you should run home to your brother.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Susan. Shut your fucking mouth or I’m going to make you eat that script.” She takes a step toward me. “Oh, but he’s gone, too. I’m sorry. What did you do to him? Probably the same thing you did to that girl who’s missing—”
“You fucking bitch. I’m going to kill you.” I leap off the top of the metal steps, slip, hit my head on the railing, and go down at her feet. Susan takes a step back, winds up with a kick to my head, but I’m on my feet and swinging wildly. She ducks. I feel an arm around my neck and figure it’s a grip pulling me away but when I turn, it’s Stephanie.
“That’s enough. We’re supposed to be professionals. You’re better than this Jeanne.” I can’t believe Great Cate is standing up for me. Susan steps back, brushes off her parka, as a PA opens the door. Cate has her arm around me as Susan brushes by us. She turns at the top of the steps.
“I look forward to saying goodbye to both of you from the podium.”
“Fucking bitch.” I hiss.
“Come back to my trailer, Cease. I’ve wanted to tell you how much I like your work,” Stephanie says. I follow her through the parking lot to her trailer. “Who woulda thought a couple of classically-trained actresses like us would have to dumb-down Greek tragedy for that over-the-top lard, Francis.”
Was Stephanie calling God a lard? Why was she referring to Greek tragedy. I remember the riddle from Oedipus that a character quizzed me on. Did Stephanie know about my family? Had Francis been talking to her about me?
She gives me a disarming look after opening her trailer door; innocent, waif-like drawing me in…I’d seen it before. It was the look she gave those ex-cons before slicing them up in the alley. Her bed’s just as messy as mine. She’s got heaps of underwear and socks atop a faux leopard-skin comforter.
“Isn’t it gorgeous,” she says as she catches me looking at her sweater. She takes it off. I steal a glance at the photos next to her computer; a shot of her holding a diploma beside an ivy-covered wall—another of a chocolate lab beaming into the camera.
“That’s Chuckles,” she says as takes off her bra, grabs a sweatshirt that hangs on her chair. “Sit down, Cease. I never got a chance to tell you how much I like your work.”
“Thank you,” I say, skeptically. “Coombs. Is that an Irish name?”
“English, on my mother’s side. But my father’s Russian.” I see a photo in a gold frame at the top of a dresser; man in middle age. Handsome…looks a bit like Cary Grant.
“Is that your father?”
Stephanie nods. “He taught me everything I needed to make it on the stage.” She turns as if she’s just forgotten something, but I can see what she’s trying to hide.
“Will he come to the finale to watch the winner?”
“He’s dead. Cancer.”
I bet he is dead. But it probably wasn’t cancer. You probably sucked him dry.
“Russian? Just like Catherine the Great,” I say, trying to see if she could make the same connection I’d found; a Russian tsarina, an American suffragette, and a French girl who lived in the Middle Ages. “Funny, these characters the producers decided on. Such…weird…random…choices,” I say, drawing each word out slowly.
Stephanie fishes for another bra from beneath the pile of clothes. “Yes. But we both know those choices weren’t random. I know your secret, Cease. I can see him in your eyes.” Stephanie takes a step and we’re nose-to-nose. Her hand touches my forearm, reassuringly. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“What secret is that, Stephanie?” I say, trying to sound cool, figuring she’s no different than all those rich bitches with all their malicious gossip. She probably had a PI look into my past the same way Craig did.
“That secret to your charisma—the way you transform yourself. You didn’t think you were the only one who’d inherited the secret?” And then she bows her head and I hear the click again and her whole face lights up.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I step back. She blocks the door.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your brother James,” she says. It doesn’t come out as a taunt, but I cringe. Cate makes a slow arc toward me with her outstretched arm. “He activated the secret in you, didn’t he?” she asks.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” she begins in a way I try to dismiss as a line only Eve would try, “but I’ve been told you’re going to be court-martialed for killing a boy you love.” Her eyes, like tractor be
ams, draw me in. “Art imitates life, don’t you think?”
“It’s not supposed to,” I say, feeling it’s stupid to play coy with her. “At least not like this. I think the truth is one big lie, and art is all we have to get by on.”
“Did James tell you that? He must’ve been brilliant. You sure got the moves to prove it.”
Stop talking about my brother.
“Where did you learn to play the game?”I ask.
“My mother taught me the secret.” I know this is a lie. I steal a glance at the photo of her father.
“That’s great. I have to be getting back.” She blocks the door. I search for a weak spot in her stance, can’t find one. It’s not that she’s perfect. It’s just that she doesn’t make any mistakes.
“You’re scared. I understand. Eve’s trying to destroy you. I know some of the things she said about your family. But you don’t have to worry about her. She hasn’t got the gift.”
No. She wasn’t like Eve. Stephanie’s smarter than Eve and more talented, and that scares me.
“What do you want, Stephanie?”
“The same thing you want—to stand in the spotlight. To feel every ounce of reward you get for learning to play the game as well as we have.” I wonder what her ancestors had been like.
You don’t have to wonder, Cease. Your Nina showed you.
“Even if it destroys you?” I step sideways toward her bed. “Fame has a way of making you do the strangest things to people you love.”
“Yes. And that’s why I want to talk to you. I can see how you’re hurting. You blame yourself for being strong; that’s normal, given a girl from your—” she gently touches her forefinger to her lips as if she’s searching, as if she’s mocking me— “circumstances.”
I study her face and remember that line from Shakespeare—some are born to greatness, some achieve it, some have it thrust upon them. I can tell Stephanie was born to it. I think Stephanie must know exactly what I’m thinking, and it gives me the creeps. It makes me recall the way my mother used to tell me she could read my mind.
“Francis is trying to destroy you,” she says. “He wants you to have a full meltdown for the entire world to see.” She’s right about that. I feel it more and more with each new scene, with each step we take to the final round, to the podium. But I know Francis isn’t behind it, and not his writers either. Does Stephanie know this? “And let’s face it; this show could ruin us both, unless we’re careful.” She’s right about that, too.
I turn my head to face the portrait of her father, and wait until she catches my eyes. “What do you propose?” I ask.
“Let me have Craig.”
“And just what do I get?”
“I’ll demand that they let you live.”
“You can’t promise that. You’ve no control over the script, and the final judges will be the viewers.”
“I can convince Francis. He owes me. I know some of the problems he’s having with the producers.” She’s starting to sound like Serena now.
“Let me think about it.”
“You don’t have much time.” She backs away from the door. “But know this. I’m not here to hurt you, at least not in real life.”
Attack, Cease. This may be your only chance.
“Stephanie. We both know everything’s real now; those men in the alley; that dead boy.”
“Does that scare you, Cease?” Stephanie says, sotto voce. “Maybe you should get out while you still can.”
“I’m sure your father would be so proud of you,” I say. I pause long and hard on father, so she knows I know her secret.
“I’m sure he was a delicate boy,” Stephanie says in a taunting whisper. Then she lets out a big sigh. “God, how this business can destroy the sensitive soul.”
“Don’t talk about my brother again,” I warn.
“Don’t talk about my father again.”
We square off. Neither of us blinks.
“Funny how it’s all becoming so real. You’re right, Cease. Soon there’ll be more real blood, real sex,” she says, in a singsong stage whisper I know has a not-so-funny punch line. “That detective who’s been asking questions about your…family stopped by and asked me what it was like working with you. I said you were a real Method actor and had a lot of your own material to work with…” She trails off, but her eyes tell me she’s not done. I don’t have a comeback. Our shoulders brush as I take a step to the door.
“Maybe you’re right, Cease,” she says. “Art might be the only thing you have left to clear your name.”
I nod and head back out into the not-so-real world.
I race back to my trailer, try on Claude’s outfit and look in the mirror. Yes, I get it. I’m a girl fighting her way into womanhood, only I can’t use sex as one of my weapons. I check my email. I turn on my tablet. The Wi-Fi icon in the uppermost corner of my tablet has a cross through it. Francis has shut down the Wi-Fi. No need to collect electronics. No landlines on the premises. But at my feet I find an envelope I’d missed when I’d opened the door. It contains an article from RHI.
WHAT’S SAINT DE MENICH TRYING TO HIDE?
Joan of Arc may have been perfect, but the character who plays her has got some skeletons in her closet. Cease de Menich is tough and smart and knows how to put a bad boy in his place, but she’s got some serious issues, according to our source. Francis MacDonald dismissed her last week only to get a huge rebuke from the 11-to-16-year-old age group that was the original fan base for the show—she’s a real-life superhero to them, the girl who’ll walk the red carpet beside a hunk, maybe Craig Sterling the Latin hunk who needs to make a crossover with a mainstream audience.
“I think she’s the dark horse that could take the podium,” Francis admitted after he released the results from the focus group his team is using to position the drama for its spring release. “But we’ve some questions about her behavior with another teen on the night of…specifically, there’s a missing person report for a girl who left the actress’s apartment and has not been seen since.”
Cease de Menich doesn’t have a rosy past. She survived a car crash that killed her mother. And her brother committed suicide as she was going through the final callbacks for the show. Nina de Menich, her guardian, said neither she nor her niece give interviews and that all questions should be directed to her publicist.
“There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” said Jenny Goode, Cease’s publicist, “but in this case, I’m putting my foot down. The visit that Francis is referring to took place four and a half months ago. Doesn’t it seem odd that it’s getting reported now?”
That may well be. But Cease’s relationship with her brother wasn’t exactly rosy either, at least according to emails we’ve been getting from James de Menich’s former classmates at the Dayton School. And a detective has informed us privately that her brother’s cause of death is under review.
A knock on the door. A security guard with a wimpy mustache and a missing brass button on his uniform informs me that I’m to accompany him off the set. He walks me across the parking lot to Yousef.
Yousef gets on the turnpike, and I get a call from Nina. “I think I made a breakthrough, Nina,” I say. “I know how I can beat—”
“A detective called,” she says. “Are you coming home?” Her voice is strange, unforgiving.
“What did he say? Don’t worry, Nina. Francis is just trying to—”
“NO. No more talk.” I can practically hear those cracked, leather shoes slamming the hardwood floor. “I was foolish to think this role would help you. You’re off the show.”
“You mean I’m going to quit…give up?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. You are to come directly home.”
“Fine. I’m going to give up, like the rest of my family,” I say, and wait for her to reconsider.
“Come right home now, young lady. Do not talk to Esme or anyone else who calls.” She hangs up before I can demand an explanation.
Crai
g calls a few minutes later. “Hi. Cease. I need to talk to you.”
“Sorry, Craig. I’ve got to go right home, and I’m not allowed back on the set anyway.”
“I’m not on the set. I’m at my apartment in Chelsea. I need to see you.”
“What about, Craig?”
“I can’t talk about it over the phone. I’ve got a penthouse in the Baker Building, across the street from Barneys.”
“I’m not allowed…” I stop. It sounds so stupid to say I’m not allowed to visit him after everything I’ve been through. I could obey my Nina, or I could say goodbye to Craig, which is what I’m going to have to do anyway. Chelsea. It’s right on the way home, anyway. Nina will be waiting for me at the door, and then the hand-wringing will begin. All the people I’ve let down; Claude, Nina, but worst of all I’ve let down all the boys and girls writing me online.
“OK,” I say. “But only a few minutes. I’ve got to get home.” He gives me the address on Eighth Avenue. A half hour later, a doorman announces me. It’s a private elevator. I knock on a single oak door and Craig lets me in. He’s wearing only a V-neck cashmere sweater and frayed slacks without shoes. I feel guilty I’m not headed right home, but Craig’s arm on my shoulder makes me feel that I’m meant to be here, and maybe he can advise me on what to say to Nina to stay on the show.
My head swims as he takes me to the giant windows overlooking Eighth Avenue. A mauve-colored couch. A flat-screen TV that looks like it came from Craig’s trailer. Through the window I see storm clouds over rusted trestles of abandoned elevated trains. Something feels wrong, though; his hand is on my shoulder, drawing me in. I study the triangle patch of hair that peeks out from the V-neck sweater.
“I’ve been thinking of you a lot, Cease.” I let out a sigh and gently brush his hand off me.
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