But since when are studios the only route to distribution these days? Brian Trucker, Francis’ media guru, gave this follow-up after the announcement this morning in New York: “Reality-drama is a genre that’s gaining traction with the unplugged demographic who’ve been turning theaters into ghost towns; it’s live, it’s interactive, and it’s so cutting-edge no one can turn away.”
But that cutting-edge could spell trouble. Geoffrey Morgenthau, DA for Manhattan, after announcing his office would not be filing assault charges against Stephanie Coombs, the actress who plays Catherine the Great in the drama, issued this warning: “If Francis films real sex or real assault on the set, he’ll be prosecuted.”
Over The Top, a website that reports on the body count of the show, just added another category this week: Underage sex. And first up is none other than that mesmerizing virgin saint, Cease de Menich, who appeared on You Tube with Craig Sterling this morning… “It sure looks like sex to me,” the anonymous creator of OTT said.
I call Nina as Yousef slows behind a bus on Seventh Avenue.
“How did Francis take the news?” she asks.
“I didn’t have to tell him. The producers have pulled out. There won’t be any show. Francis announced it this morning at the Plaza…” I wonder what to say next. Nina’s seen the video of Craig and me. But something worse is coming, and I need to tell her before it starts to stream online for all the world to see. Even if the show is over, Francis still wants to share another made-up story about those photographs of my brother the coroner took.
Nina’s already seen those. We’ve put it behind us.
Yes, but I think there’s another story out there; more lies that will get me into trouble. I picture the last scene of our all-too-real family drama—Detective Brown at our door and Nina on the phone with the lawyer. Nina, alone in Tudor City with nothing but photographs and our strange history. Nina, the woman who had risked everything to save us both, but there’s no one to help her except a saint who makes no sense to me.
Yousef pulls up to the light on 51st Street. “Why can’t you take Lexington?” I shout, as I pull up more horrible headlines.
A VIRGIN’S UNSEEMLY PAST: CEASE DE MENICH EXPOSED
I’ve got to get back before Nina reads this.
“We don’t have saints like you do, Cease. But I think we have the same God.”
“What?” I’d never really noticed those prayer beads hanging from his rearview mirror. I follow his gaze downtown as we turn, see a look of hurt flit across his face as he looks to the big tower rising on the tip of the island.
“Some people think we’re monsters. But how can monsters have a God?”
“They can’t,” I say. I catch the flash of his gold tooth as he smiles. I look down at the floor. “I feel like a monster for something I did, Yousef.”
His eyes study me in the mirror. “But you’re not a monster, Miss Cease. Because you have a God.” I wonder if Yousef’s God would be easier to confess to.
When I get home Nina’s kneeling at her prie-dieu. The sunset climbs the cloister’s brick walls. I dump all my things on the bed. I got Yousef to stop at the Gristedes, where I picked up leeks and a parsnip and the rest of the ingredients to make vichyssoise, Nina’s favorite soup.
I blow by her, rush to the kitchen. “Nina. I’m making dinner. I hope you had a good day.” It comes out perfunctory. I try to recall what goodbyes I gave to Francis and Craig, then realize I hadn’t said goodbye to anyone. All I know for sure is that Francis is still a sick fuck, and if Nina reads these articles about me, she’ll be angry…hurt too, but mostly angry. She stands slowly and goes over to her roll-top desk. She turns on the laptop.
“Nina. The Wi-Fi’s off. I just tried my tablet.” I race over and close the top.
“It worked earlier,” she says. “I’m trying to see if they’re having that Paulist retreat this year. I thought it might be a fun way for us to spend a weekend—”
“Yes. I’d love to, but let me check for you.”
She wipes her forehead with her bathrobe sleeve, backs away from the desk, looks out the courtyard. “How did Francis take the news?” She’s tired. She doesn’t remember what I said when I called.
“I didn’t tell him. I didn’t have to. The producers have pulled out and there won’t be a reality show after all.”
“Serves him right.” She reaches for the laptop. “Do you want me to check and see what the blogs are saying?”
“No. Nina, the production assistant’s going to call on the landline, and that might disrupt the connection.” This isn’t a lie. But it’s not the whole truth, either. Nina follows the old wires coated with paint that run along the baseboard and disappear behind the armoire. She shakes her head as I start the broth.
“Maybe there’s some news on Rumor Has It.” She rises, reaches for the laptop.
“NO…Wait. Nina, let’s talk first.” I know the only drama that matters now—the only drama that ever mattered—lies right here, right now, between us—
I look over the treetops dusted with snow. Nina takes a seat at her roll-top desk, swivels to me and gives me an inscrutable look like I’m at a final callback and she’s a director who can’t reveal how she feels. I close my eyes, but can’t dismiss Claude’s face, his advice…and Jeanne, whoever she really is—her words have gotten under my skin.
I can see him in your eyes. When did Claude say that? What could he see?
I run to the window overlooking the giant monolith. I take a deep breath—it’s my shame that got me here, according to Jeanne. How to overcome that shame is the message I must share with all my fans online. But I can’t do that until I tell my Nina everything.
“Nina. Tell me again. Why did Jeanne give an auto-da-fe?” I blurt it out like it’s an ingredient for the soup I forgot to pick up. “I mean, she didn’t do anything wrong. Why did she have to confess?”
Nina places her hands together beneath her chin. I study the azure Hermes scarf she’s tucked into her baggy sweater. “I think the only way you’re going to understand what she did in the final act of her life is by understanding the nature of tragedy. You’ve studied tragedy, my precious; now tell me what happens when a tragic figure accepts her fate.”
“She dies. She’s killed.”
“No. Before that.”
I think of my final speech as Juliet. “She proclaims her love?”
“Or her faith.”
“But how can you have faith when all the people around you are so bad? And if she had all that faith, why didn’t God save her?”
Nina rises, slowly walks to me, stops only inches from my face. I look down at a tuft of her silver hair that she missed with the brush. The bolt of grief in my chest shifts. Something’s changed between us—I know she’s not coming over to give me a hug, to dry my tears, to rescue me from another of my pathetic meltdowns.
“My precious Cease. You must never forget when Jeanne spoke her last words she wasn’t talking to the British army or the clergy who tormented her. She was talking to God.”
“I think I get it, Nina.” I don’t go for a hug. I’m trapped in her steady gaze, reminding myself that behind all the roles she’s played—the nurturing stage-mom, the taskmaster, the therapist—there’s another role I haven’t even noticed until now. She’s a woman, and if I’m ever going to be free of this grief, I’ve got to cross over into that world. “But how can you love someone…something like that?”
“Jeanne loved God without conditions, without promises. That’s how she became a saint.” Nina’s behind me now. I feel her wrinkled hands gently caress my neck. Her long fingers reach up to my temples… The doorbell rings. Nina studies me as I turn for the door; her stoic mask slips a little and I see the desperation, but it’s just Elise’s mom who wants to know if she can do a selfie with me.
I smell something. Is it from one of those unlocked windows and doors of memory? No. I forgot to turn off the soup. I rush into the kitchen, and the Le Creuset pot is black and burning
. I try to salvage what’s left of the vegetables; put more water in…when I come back Nina’s at her prie-dieu. I feel the words rush from my lips as if I’m terrified of being stranded on the fragile bridge we’ve slowly constructed between us.
“How do you pray, Nina?”
“It’s easy.” Her face relaxes as if she’s been waiting for that question since the first script arrived at our door. “All you have to do is feel like you’re becoming a child.” Then she makes a serious face. “Cease. You never got the childhood you deserved. Maybe prayer can help you get some of it back.” She begins to rise and I rush over. Nina’s too big to have me beside her on that rickety old thing. I kneel on the wooden floor beside her. I look down at the cloisters. Old man Greenberg sits on the bench below, while his dachshund sniffs at his feet.
What am I supposed to feel?
Nothing. All those times I bowed my head at grace before meals…all those times I tried to pray on the battlefield after nursing another boy and all I felt was rage…the promises I’d made before they closed the lid on my brother’s coffin. Those were lines I delivered from a script.
How do I feel nothing?
It’s so easy, it’s hard. Let go of everything I think is important…
I flex my calves, try to read the expression on Nina’s face; hope-filled, serene, but mysterious, too—it tells me I’m just getting my feet wet. I have to dive deeper. Behind this bolt of grief there’s a buried chest that holds the secrets to my deepest longing. I bow my head again, but all I see is red. All I feel is the rage I felt after punching my way to another bloody victory on the battlefield. I rise and step back.
Nina turns and takes my hands, places them gently on the old wood pew. “Jeanne’s not done with you yet.”
FRANCIS WILL GO LIVE WITH REALITY-DRAMA
ON WEB TV
Nina’s laptop casts a votive glow over the snow-banked window. We shake our heads. Chromecast, Roku, AppleTV, Hulu—it all sounds like an alphabet-soup of technology—but the bottom line is right there on her screen. After an advertising blitz on all the major networks orchestrated by a team of web experts, Francis will debut this series—History’s Superheroes: A Teenage Reality-Drama—on the web.
“Cease. Is the article trying to say you’ll be going live and no one will be able to yell cut?”
“I guess. Like being on the stage,” I say. The pride I feel over my stage training sinks suddenly as I realize the size of the audience that may be watching.
“Live,” Nina repeats. “Live TV. Like The Ed Sullivan Show?”
“Pretty much.”
Only this isn’t going to be a couple hundred people that love off-Broadway. This will be the world…
I pull up FANSCAN on my tablet. The numbers are incomprehensible. What started as a campfire whipped up by a crazy director now rages across California. Preteen…teen…adult. They’re saying it’ll be the only digital web broadcast that captures all three demographics. It’s not just New York. It’s not just California. Look at the Midwest.” The headlines in the trades, a blur—like all those billboards announcing the next star whizzing by on the subway I’d take heading to the next audition, the next rejection—only the girl they’re announcing is me:
IS CEASE de MENICH THE DARK HORSE WHO’LL TAKE THE PODIUM TOMORROW?
IS A SAINT ALL WE HAVE LEFT TO KEEP US FROM OUR OWN DEPRAVITY?
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS GIRL WHO’S TRYING TO PLAY A SAINT?
THE FINAL THREE: A SEX POT, AN ICE PRINCESS, AND A VIRGIN. I VOTE FOR THE VIRGIN.
The last headline—a hand-wringing editorial from the NY Times—goes on to lay the guilt for Francis’ sick brainchild squarely at the feet of the adults who’ve taken over as the leading demographic for the show in every region FANSCAN tracks.
“Stephanie’s still on top,” Nina says, reading my confidence. “But Vegas has a soft spot for the virgin.”
“What?”
“According to this,” Nina points to a site We’ve Got You Covered, “they’re taking bets on which girl will have sex first. Which girl or boy will be killed first, and who’ll Craig will choose for the podium.” Nina reads what the online viewers are writing in the chatrooms, and it’s not too consoling:
—Serves them right…if they really want to win let them fight to the death.
—Looks like we’re going to get a whole lot more than just Susan’s breasts.
—Is there a rating system for a show that goes live online?
—Not any more…not in the age of reality-drama.
“Is there?” Nina asks, helplessly.
“Is there, what?”
“A rating system. Censors. Anyone who can stop this?” We both know there is—
The door buzzer rings and we both jump in our seats.
Close your eyes, Cease. Picture the jailer coming to take Jeanne down the stone steps of the castle to the all those torch-lit faces of the mob. They’re coming for you.
I jerk my head away from the light—look strangely at the oversized furniture in the cramped room and try to imagine my Nina here alone in this apartment without anyone, without the two children she saved, without a sister or a husband.
Alone…
Who can stop this?
We can.
But it’s Elise Moschenbach again, dropping off some of the baked Alaska she made for her cooking class.
I check my email and open a message from Claude.
Cease,
I’m in the hospital—where you’re going to wind up if you go through with this. Francis requested the same costume for you, Eve, and Stephanie—a white, Mylar jumpsuit with chest pockets and lapels, so whatever “dramatic” scenes he’s sent, they’re probably bogus…he wants white so all the real blood will stand out when you fight the others.
Please don’t go…You can give your big speech online to all your fans. Trust me, Cease. You can go back to the stage and still have a decent career…once the soundstage doors are closed and locked, no one will be able to help you…none of you will get out alive.
I won’t watch. I won’t vote. I want to watch you grow. You’re not Jeanne d’Arc. You’re a girl who’s becoming a woman against some terrible odds.
Be Safe.
Claude
Nina sits in my place at the dining room table, her thumb and forefinger gently cupping her chin, her eyes dreamily focused on the treetops glistening with snow. I’m at her roll-top desk reading the final scene.
“Susan and Brad are on the battlefield. Susan offers herself to Brad. Then I fight Susan. Since we’re live, the votes will be broadcast in real time on the electronic board.” I study the brass tacks on the prie-dieu’s ancient wood. “Once she has sex with Brad—and she will have sex with him—her numbers will go through the roof and she’ll know the only way she can stay on top is by killing me.”
“Susan will be arrested as soon as she’s finished with Brad,” Nina says, confidently.
“Not according to what the lawyers are saying on the news. They need an eyewitness on the set to prove the sex and the violence are real.”
“It’s live, Cease. The lawyers can see it along with everyone else.”
“Francis will just say it was photo-shopped in real time.”
“And just what’s he going to do with Susan’s body after you kill her?”
“I think we already know the answer to that, Nina. It’s the reason Detective
Brown was at our door. Maybe it’s the only reason I got the part in the first place. Francis will tell the press I’m a disturbed, fame-hungry girl who killed my own brother.”
“So,” Nina says, “they’ll have an eyewitness?”
“No. They already tried that, last night, according to the article. The judge won’t grant it.” Nina’s face is a disturbing mix of anger and regret. “Francis has some rich and powerful friends who want to see this all play out.”
“If Susan picks up a weapon, you can disarm her—scream bloody murder until the police come.”
> “Sure, and then I’ll just leave the set,” I say limply. She turns back to the empty space at our dining room table. “I’d be safe. But that’s not my character.”
“Who can stop this?” Her question’s broken by the clack of radiators. We both know the answer…
We can. But we can’t. Or, at least, I can’t and Nina knows the reason why.
“I can stop this, Nina—once and for all, but only by giving a speech for the entire world to hear.”
“The world doesn’t need another martyr, child. Jeanne wants you—”
“Jeanne wants me to stand up for myself. Jeanne wants to see a heartbroken girl become a woman for all the world to see…and not in the way the sick-fucks think a girl becomes a woman. Jeanne wants me to tell the world how sick we’ve become, the same way she told the clergy in her day.” The radiators cease clacking. I could run to my Nina’s arms, and she’d probably take me. I could run to my room, cry on the bed for all the things I’ve done wrong. I could go to the window overlooking the monolith and beg all those translators to find me the right words for what I’m feeling now.
Jeanne,
What’s going to happen tomorrow in my scene with Craig? Claude warned me about a set-up. Will I die?
C,
I can’t promise you how this tragedy is going to end, Cease. Don’t think the situation is out of your control. Fate is what the world uses to keep people from the freedom they’ll get if only they let go and believe… There’s something you missed, something your brother was trying to get you to see. Don’t search for any crazy patterns the way James did. I can’t warn you strongly enough; only God knows why things happen. I want you to see another ancestor you had who inherited your gift, who played the game. Go to the year 1914. Can you find the boy with the surname Hapsburg? His father is a clerk in the court of Archduke Ferdinand.
J,
Yes. His name is Helmut. There’s a line connecting him to Maximilian. Were they brothers?
C,
Yes, and they played the game. The boy is eight years old and is absolutely mesmerizing to the general public; some say that he’s a savant. His father isn’t of royal blood and, desperate to get a seat at court, he brings the boy in to meet the duke. Ferdinand is captivated by Helmut. No big deal, right? Now check the note your brother made at the bottom of the page. Can you see the date James wrote?
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