Off the Record

by Camryn Garrett

  “Listen,” I start, taking a deep breath. “This is—well, it’s going to sound really random, but have you heard any bad things about Roy Lennox? Like, there are some allegations that—”

  “No.”

  I glance up. His eyes are wide, his lips pressed into a straight line, jaw twitching. It’s like he’s seen a ghost. Penny definitely wasn’t lying.

  Something about the speed of his reply irritates me. I have the sinking, horrible feeling that Marius knows what Lennox has done and wants to ignore it so he can work with a great director. That’s what Tallulah wanted, too, but she had to deal with weeks of sexual harassment.

  “No, what?” I ask. The hard edge makes his eyebrows rise. “No, like you haven’t heard about it?”

  “No, like I don’t want to talk about it.” He swallows. It’s no longer endearing. “We’re supposed to talk about the movie.”

  I can barely contain my anger.

  “Really?” I snap. “Is that what we’ve been doing? Only talking about the movie?”

  “I just—” He bites his lip, eyes darting to the recorder in my hand. “We haven’t even started filming the new project and I don’t want to say the wrong thing. It’s not worth it to upset everyone over a rumor.”

  I stare at him. I’m angry and disappointed, but what was I expecting? That he would denounce Roy Lennox and pull out of the movie? The internet hardly has any mentions of the allegations. Tallulah’s and Penny’s stories are only told in whispers. Maybe it’s not fair to expect so much from him. But there’s no doubt in my mind now that he knows more than he’s letting on. Otherwise, why would he get so worked up?

  I’m angry Marius is able to be so apathetic about this while Penny never had that choice. I’m angry we’re just standing outside a movie theater while Tallulah was crying yesterday. I’m angry about everything, and it’s so hard to hold back.

  “We should go inside,” he mumbles, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  I follow in silence. I don’t really feel like making an effort to fill it. After all, I don’t have to like him. I just have to write this profile. The only reason I’m here is to get more details to pad out the story, but I have no idea how to do that while we’re watching a movie. I have half a mind to leave.

  At the box office, I pay for my ticket. He doesn’t stop me. The hall leading to our theater is filled with old posters. I stop and stare. There’s one for North by Northwest, the iconic scene of Cary Grant running away from a plane. When I told my English teacher how much I loved Hitchcock movies like Psycho and Rear Window, she told me about how he was a jerk to the women he worked with, controlling what they wore and how they acted off-screen. I haven’t watched any of them since.

  I never know how to separate the shitty things a person has done from their work. I wish we could have real heroes, perfect people who never hurt others. Einstein was a jerk to his wife. Charles Dickens cheated on his. Martin Luther King Jr. cheated on Coretta when he was on the road, and Frederick Douglass left his wife for a younger white woman. Maybe I find it all disappointing because I put too much faith in people I don’t know.

  I can accept whatever happened with MLK and Frederick Douglass because they were freedom fighters. They did so much good that I can deal with the bad. But I don’t know if I can do the same with someone like Woody Allen. And why should I? MLK was MLK. Woody Allen only makes movies with white people in them.

  It doesn’t feel right to support the work of people who have hurt others. I don’t want to watch Lennox’s movies after hearing how he treated so many women. But almost everyone has done something horrible. So what’s left? Alice used to nag me about my faves being problematic, and it’s true. Kylo Ren could very well be a characterization of white male fragility, and a lot of rap music either doesn’t mention women or treats them like objects.

  But people like Lennox and Woody Allen and Roman Polanski—the things they’ve done are more than just problematic. Sexually abusing someone is different from cheating on a wife or rapping sexist lyrics. Sexual assault is a gigantic display of power. It’s someone’s way of saying, I’m doing this to you because we both know you can’t do anything to stop it.

  How do I fight against that? I don’t know if I can. Survivors are all around, and their pain is real, so vivid that I can’t pretend it isn’t there.

  “The theater,” Marius says, startling me out of my thoughts. “It’s this one.”

  I glance down at my ticket. It’s a Wonderful Life. Perfect for the holiday season, I guess, but I wouldn’t know.

  “Wow,” I mutter. “Never seen this before.”

  I really like Jimmy Stewart. Wonder if he was regular problematic, like a normal person, or if he harassed or assaulted someone when he was still alive. I sure hope not. I hope there are people who made good art and tried their best to be good people. It’s just getting harder and harder to believe.

  “Never?” He blinks. “Everyone has seen It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  “I think I started it once, but I fell asleep before the ending.”

  “Well”—Marius’s voice is soft—“it’s amazing.”

  After a few minutes, the movie starts. Everything is in black-and-white. Jimmy’s character speaks with the old-timey accent I find charming. Thirty minutes into the movie, things start going wrong for him. I flick Marius’s shoulder.

  “I hate you,” I hiss. “This is supposed to be happy.”

  “It will be.”

  And it is, at the end, so much so that it’s almost overwhelming. Jimmy’s character has his wife and his family and the entire community around him, loving him. He wanted to die and now everything is better than he ever thought.

  I can’t believe I’m crying. But I get it. I get being completely overwhelmed with life and all of its issues. Being in New York for the holidays should be happy, but it isn’t. This world feels too big for me to handle on my own. I guess I have my family, but I don’t know if they can handle something as big as this.

  I wish everyone in Hollywood would show up, like at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, and figure out a way to make sure no one would see Lennox ever again. But wishes don’t always come true.

  Marius doesn’t say anything as we step outside the theater, even though I’m sure he saw me blinking back tears. I realize that I don’t know if he’s talkative in general or if he’s just been talking because I’m supposed to be writing about him.

  I stop at a poster for The Princess Bride. It looks like it came straight out of the eighties, with faded colors and wrinkled edges clear through the frame.

  “You think they’ve had this since it came out?”

  “Maybe. This place has been around forever.” Marius glances up. “It’s a great movie.”

  “My parents love it,” I say. “I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it.”

  I want to reach up to touch it, just to remember it’s real. The Princess Bride is one of the first movies that was really fun for me.

  “I love happy endings,” I say. I don’t know if I’m talking to him or myself.

  “My mom doesn’t.” Marius makes a soft sound. “She thinks they’re contrived and unrealistic. I think she likes stories that seem more real than anything.”

  “I want to believe happy endings can happen in real life,” I say. “I don’t know. Life is just so messy. But I think I can deal with all the torture and sadness as long as it’s okay by the end.”

  I glance at him. I don’t smile, exactly, but my mouth softens. He doesn’t seem like an adult who has everything together. I know I’m not.

  “I understand.” His voice is quiet. “But even if there isn’t a happy ending, things get better after the movie is over. We just don’t see it. That’s what I think, anyway.”

  “Yeah, but I need to know. I can’t just assume.”

  “Yeah.” He
nods once. “I get that. Sometimes things don’t get better.”

  “I know,” I say. “I just don’t like being reminded of that. There are already so many negative aspects of life.”

  “But they’re what make experiences real,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s sort of what makes life real. Otherwise you’d be dreaming all the time.”

  “Well.” I pause. “Maybe I wish I could dream all the time.”

  “Yeah.” He bites his lip. “Me too.”

  @JosieTheJournalist: no one listens to women except other women and that’s why you have to look out for all women, not just the ones like you, thank you for coming to my TED Talk

  “The front desk called.”

  I glance up, shutting the door to the hotel room behind me. What now?

  “There’s someone who wants to see you,” Alice continues, barely looking up from her laptop. “But apparently, she isn’t just any old someone. Charlotte Hart has a private room set up for you at some fancy hotel restaurant down the street.”

  My eyes go wide. Charlotte Hart hasn’t won any Oscars, but she’s still really big, running this lifestyle brand ever since she had kids. Her only good roles are from the nineties, but she’s still Charlotte Hart. Her name is gold. I never figured anyone that big would speak to me. Anytime I hear a story about her in the news, it’s from some big reporter.

  “I thought,” Alice says, very slowly, “that you were interviewing this Marius kid?”

  “Um.” I take a deep breath. “I mean, I still am.”

  “Nuh-uh.” She shuts her laptop. “Talk. Now.”

  So I sit down on my bed and tell her everything that’s happened since Atlanta, leaving out all the names. When I’m done, Alice blinks rapidly, like her brain can’t compute.

  “Wow.” She shakes her head. “Josie, I…”

  “You can’t tell Mom,” I say. “She’d make me go back home.”

  “I mean…” She bites her lip. “Do you think anything will come out of it?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, which is the truth. “I really, really hope so.”

  “I…” She nods, slow. “I really don’t know what to say.”

  When people say that, they usually have something in mind. Alice just sits in silence. It makes me fidget. I can’t tell if she’s freaked out or worried or uncomfortable. Maybe it’s a combination of all three.

  “You’d better head down there,” Alice says, pointing at the clock. “She called, like, thirty minutes ago, and I’ve heard she doesn’t like to be kept waiting by commoners like us.”

  Her joke doesn’t make me laugh. If anything, it makes the knots in my stomach tighten.

  “Wait,” I say. “I can’t go by myself. I don’t even know the place. Do you wanna come?”

  “Me?” Alice blinks like she’s shocked. “Aren’t you going to talk about, like, some really personal shit?”

  We definitely will, but I’d feel more confident with my older sister by my side.

  “Yeah,” I say carefully. “But I think it’ll be okay. And you’ll get to meet someone famous. Please?”

  “Like anyone would want to meet her.” She scoffs but, thankfully, pushes herself off of the bed. “She might kick us out when we say we can’t afford a three-hundred-dollar meal. Prepare yourself.”

  * * *

  Charlotte Hart doesn’t admonish us for ordering the cheapest options on the menu. I don’t even think she notices. A lawyer sits to her left and a publicist sits to her right. Both are dressed in gray suits and both are white women.

  Honestly, I’m not even sure why she called me. I don’t know what they could possibly let me print.

  “Can I record this?” I ask. My hand is shaking. “Just for accuracy.”

  “No,” the publicist says.

  “Well,” the lawyer says, cocking her head to the side. “It could be useful.”

  “For who, Jane?” the publicist asks. “Certainly not me.”

  “Stop,” Charlotte Hart says, swishing her long dark hair over her shoulders. She didn’t even raise her voice and they stop immediately. “I have to be home when the kids get back. They’re never alone with the nanny for too long.”

  She turns to me. I swallow, but my throat is still dry. Alice grips my wrist. I shake her off.

  “I hope you understand,” she says. “Tallulah assured me this wouldn’t take up too much time.”

  I blink in surprise. I wasn’t expecting Tallulah to bring this up with someone like Charlotte Hart. That must’ve taken real guts.

  “It definitely won’t,” I say, holding up the recorder. “So…do you mind?”

  “Of course not.” She waves a hand. “What do you want to know?”

  Her elbows are on the table. I…I figured she’d be more tightly wound when preparing to talk about something like this. Maybe it’s not the same for everyone. Or maybe she’s just a good actress.

  “What happened when you first worked with him?” I ask, opening my notebook. “On Force of the Nation?”

  I make a calculated choice not to say his name, but the way her face tightens, I can tell she knows who I mean. Charlotte Hart taps her well-manicured pale pink fingernails on the table, pursing her lips. She doesn’t seem real.

  “Things were normal in the beginning. He was friends with my father, so I’d met him at family dinners and events,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “I told him about how nervous I was to be on his set, so he took me out to dinner. That’s when he offered to father my children.”

  She pauses, taking a sip of water.

  “I suppose he thought it sounded romantic. At first, I figured it was a joke and brushed it off. I wanted to focus on honing my craft.”

  Alice sighs and I stomp on her foot. My sister might find Charlotte annoying, but there’s something graceful about the way she speaks and moves—even just the way she lifts her glass.

  “But there were glances I noticed,” Charlotte continues. “Things I tried to ignore. Toward the end of the shoot, he said I’d have to sleep with him to get my paycheck.”

  My eyes widen. I want to say something, but calling him a fucking asshole doesn’t seem like an appropriate move around her publicist and lawyer. By the time Charlotte did Touch of the Heart, she was a household name. He harassed Julia and Charlotte on the same fucking set. Roy Lennox preyed on all sorts of women, regardless of whether or not they were already famous.

  “That’s pretty much it.” She reaches for her water, and her hand is shaking. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make sure other girls don’t work with him.”

  “Did you sign an NDA?”

  “Don’t answer that,” the lawyer says.

  “Okay,” I say. “Did you tell anyone else? Like friends or family?”

  “Charlotte.” Her publicist leans over. “You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

  I glance at Alice, who presses her lips together. This feels like a police interrogation—one where I’m the cop Charlotte needs protection from.

  “It’s fine,” Charlotte says. “I told my brother. He was the only one.”

  I nod, jotting it down in my notebook. “And—”

  “I’m afraid that’s all the time Charlotte has today,” the lawyer says, already getting to her feet. “She’s a very busy woman.”

  “Uh—okay.” I blink. “And you’re comfortable with your name being printed?”

  “Well, yes.” Charlotte looks straight into my eyes. “If it’s going to help other women, I don’t mind taking the risk.”

  It’s a much smaller risk for someone like her than someone like Penny, who is still trying to be taken seriously, but that’s not Charlotte Hart’s fault. It’s not her fault, or Tallulah’s, or Julia’s, or Penny’s. It’s not even just Lennox’s fault. Th
ere are people who know what he does, people who choose to keep their mouths shut. People who let him continue.

  “Thank you.” My voice wavers, so I clear my throat. “Thank you so much.”

  @JosieTheJournalist: brb i dead

  “What do you think about working with problematic people?”

  It’s Friday and we’re sitting in the back of Marius’s favorite café. I hope I don’t sound as confrontational as I did when we last met. With time to think it over, I’ve realized that I’m presenting an inaccurate version of Marius in the profile. My story makes him sound like a talented young actor who got lucky.

  It’s just surface level. It’s not real. Maybe talking about this again, approaching it from a different angle, will help me move forward with the piece.

  “Problematic?” The dim lighting does nothing to hide Marius’s tense shoulders. “What do you mean by that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Like, if you know the director of a movie did something horrible, are you still gonna watch it and love it and call it your favorite?”

  “Wow,” he says, breathing out. “That’s a big question.”

  “I know,” I say. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Like how I used to really love Tina Fey before I realized she makes weird racist jokes in almost all of her work. It’s hard, because I’m sure I could find out something bad about everyone.”

  “Yeah, that is where it gets hard.” He runs a hand through his hair, glancing down at the recorder between the two of us. “It’s like Hitchcock did a lot of shitty things—”

  “Yup.”

  “And I don’t know.” He forces out a sigh. “I’m gonna sound like a jerk, but I don’t stop watching movies or TV shows just because some producer or some actor screws up.”

  I close my eyes. Force myself to count to ten.

  “Okay,” I say. “What’s your definition of bad?”

  “That’s the thing,” he says. “I don’t know what my definition of bad is anymore. I used to think, like, if someone got drunk and said something stupid, I wouldn’t hold it against them. Or, like, if someone called something gay in 2003, I wouldn’t boycott their work.”