As much as she hated exercise, Sabrina couldn’t seem to shake the deep well of happiness that overflowed inside her. The irony was, for once she had plenty to bitch about if she wanted to. Three weeks ago – two weeks after their triumphant showing at Sundance – Dorian Rasmirez had broken the news to her and the rest of the cast that
Wuthering Heights
was not going to get a general theatre release. The movie that had consumed the last year of Sabrina’s life, and for which she’d been paid nothing but the promise of a career comeback, would never be seen by a moviegoing audience. Just like that, Sabrina’s come
back
had turned into a come
down
, and there was nothing she could do about it. Six months ago, this was exactly the sort of disappointment that would have sent Sabrina straight off the deep end, back into drugs and partying and all the self-destructive behaviour that had fucked her up so spectacularly in the past. But now – now that she was with Viorel, now that she was in love – it was amazing how easily she found herself able to shrug it off.
Sure, it was a shame
Wuthering Heights
wouldn’t make it. It was good.
She
was good. It would have been gratifying to have her performance recognized, to have an audience beyond the Sundance critics see what she was capable of as an actress. But there would be other opportunites. And even if there weren’t, she had more important things to think about now. Namely, herself in the leading role of her life, as Mrs Viorel Hudson.
I’m going to be a wife
, she told herself joyfully.
We’re going to be together forever, the most happily married couple in Hollywood.
She’d even begun to think about the possibility of children – not now perhaps, but a few years down the line: a troupe of perfect little Vios. As a teenager, Sabrina had made a private vow to herself that she would never become a mother. The thought of repeating her own mother’s mistakes was too terrifying, and the practical demands of a baby far too distracting from her all-important career, her relentless pursuit of fame. But now she felt differently. With Viorel’s love at home, she no longer needed the love of an adoring, faceless public with the same desperate violence that she had before.
Wuthering Heights
would be a commercial failure, but it remained the movie that had completely changed Sabrina’s life. For that she would be forever grateful.
‘Are we done?’ Hauling herself up to a sitting position after the final crunch, she looked at her trainer pleadingly.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Done,’ he said. ‘Except for stretches.’
On a sun-lounger at the far end of the roof terrace, Sabrina’s cellphone buzzed loudly. ‘Saved by the bell,’ she grinned. Ignoring Diego’s look of disapproval, she ran over to answer it. It was Ed Steiner, but he was talking so fast and so breathlessly that at first Sabrina couldn’t make out a word of what he was saying.
‘Slow down,’ she said, holding the phone a few inches from her ear, ‘and stop yelling. I can’t understand you.’
After a couple of attempts, Ed finally calmed himself enough to string a coherent sentence together. ‘The Academy released their nominations this morning,’ he panted.
‘That’s it?’ laughed Sabrina. ‘That’s what you called to tell me? Jesus, Ed, I know it’s nomination day. I live in LA and I have a TV. Who cares?’
‘You do, sweetheart,’ said Ed. ‘
Wuthering Heights
got four nods.
Four!
’
Sabrina hesitated. This had to be a leg-pull. But Ed wasn’t the practical joking type. ‘It can’t have,’ she said sensibly. ‘You must have made a mistake.’
‘No mistake. Four nominations, including Best Picture and
you
for Best Actress.’
Sabrina’s heart started to race. ‘But … but … Harry Greene held our distributor to ransom.’
‘I know.’
‘But Ed, we’re going straight to DVD. Nobody’s even seen the movie.’
‘The Academy saw it. And it
did
get a theatre release, so technically it qualifies.’
‘You mean Sundance? That was nothing!’
Ed Steiner laughed. ‘Well, I guess it was enough for the critics. Look, trust me, I was as bowled over as you are. Who knows how it happened? We all thought the movie was as dead as a dodo’s dick. Maybe someone close to Oscar got pissed at being dictated to by Harry Greene? Or maybe it’s the Chinese Year of the Period Drama.
Celeste
’s also up for Best Picture.’
‘Who am I up against?’ said Sabrina on autopilot, her ambition kicking in as she began to realize this was actually happening.
‘Annie Hathaway, Emily Blunt for
Mad Dogs,
Laura Linney for that spy movie, and some Belgian chick I never heard of. The picture’s up against the Pixar Frog movie, Eastwood’s war film,
Celeste
and some obscure French shit that Woody Allen co-produced.’
‘
Embouteillage
,’ said Sabrina absently.
‘Yeah, whatever. But can you believe it?’ Sabrina had never heard Ed this excited. ‘We are back from the dead, sweetheart! We are fucking Lazarus!’
Sabrina looked up and saw that her trainer had packed up and left, leaving her alone on the rooftop of Vio’s apartment in blissful shock. She couldn’t wait to tell Viorel. He’d had a casting this morning but should be on his way back by now. For a split second it crossed her mind that he might be jealous, upset that she had been nominated rather than him. But she quickly dismissed the idea. Vio wasn’t like that.
‘What did Dorian say?’ she asked Ed. ‘He must be over the moon. Has he made a statement?’
‘Ah,’ said Ed. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me. Dorian’s been AWOL for the last two weeks apparently.’
‘What do you mean “AWOL”?’
‘He packed up his LA apartment and took off. No one knows where the hell he is. His agent called me twenty minutes ago. Asked me to ask you and Hudson if either of you’d heard from him.’
‘Sorry,’ said Sabrina. ‘I’m sure he’ll call soon though. If his agent can’t reach him, he’ll see it on the news.’
She imagined Dorian’s shock and delight and felt a rush of affection and happiness for her director.
He’s such a good man. He deserves this more than any of us.
It seemed as if the curse of
Wuthering Heights
was well and truly broken. Everybody’s luck was finally changing.
‘How is this possible? HOW the FUCK is this happening?’
Harry Greene paced around Mike Hartz’s office like a caged tiger, banging his fist on the walls so that his rage could be heard reverberating down Sony Pictures’ corridors.
‘You told me you would kill that movie. And now it’s up for a fucking Oscar? Oh, excuse me, my mistake,
four
fucking Oscars? Including Best fucking PICTURE? For that schmaltzy pile of crap?’
‘With respect, Harry,’ Mike Hartz swallowed hard, ‘we don’t have any influence over the Academy. It’s extremely rare for something like this to happen, especially at such a late stage. A fluke, if you will.’
‘If I
will
?’ Harry Greene erupted, his face reddening like an engorged baboon’s backside. ‘I FUCKING
WON’T
, Mike, you supercilious son of a bitch. You told me you would bury Rasmirez. With what? A giant pile of Academy fucking Awards?’
‘Harry, be reasonable. The fact that
Wuthering Heights
has been nominated doesn’t mean it stands a hope in hell of actually winning. Rasmirez doesn’t have a buck for a coffee, never mind funding for a serious Oscar campaign.
Celeste
will take Best Picture.’
‘It had better,’ Harry muttered murderously. ‘Because if it doesn’t, I swear to God I will take
Fraternity IV
back and burn it before I’d let you assholes release it.’
Mike cleared his throat nervously. ‘I must remind you that you are under contract. If you—’
He didn’t get any further. Lunging across the desk, Harry grabbed the terrified producer by the lapels. ‘If you ever,
ever
, say the word “contract” to me again, I will shred the fucking contract and ram the pieces down your throat until you choke to death, you useless, corporate fuck. Do you understand? I will slice off your balls and use them for earrings.’
Outside in the lobby, Mike Hartz’s secretary Linda listened to her boss being eviscerated by Harry Greene and felt a small, illicit rush of pleasure. Mike was a bully, greedy, sexist and vile. All his staff loathed him.
Linda Googled the odds on Dorian Rasmirez beating Harry Greene to take home Best Picture.
A hundred to one.
Not encouraging. But then this was Hollywood.
Anything could happen.
Viorel waited at the traffic lights at Doheny and Sunset, oblivious to the stares of the tourists on the pavement. Normally, he enjoyed the attention, although he was never totally sure whether people were ogling him or his Bugatti, the slick, matt-black Batmobile of every small boy’s dreams. But today, he didn’t care. Nothing could lift his spirits, not the street audience, not the blazing LA sunshine overhead, not the knowledge that this morning’s audition had gone as close to perfectly as he could have wished. All he could think about was the tape playing over and over in his head:
I have to tell her.
I have to break things off with Sabrina.
He’d been meaning to do it for weeks now, but every time she looked up at him with that adoring, trusting, beautiful face of hers, his nerve failed him. He despised himself for his own weakness, for allowing things to go as far between them as they had. But it was so hard, what with the press making such a huge deal about their relationship, and how his love had ‘saved’ Sabrina. Viorel enjoyed being a saviour. It had a better ring to it than ‘heartbreaking asshole’. The pressure of knowing that the whole of America was debating the details of a wedding you knew in your heart you would never have – would the service be outdoors, would they do a magazine deal, would Sabrina go traditional with the dress or opt for something edgier? – crushed him like a dead weight, and sapped all of the courage out of him like a giant mosquito gorging on his blood. But nothing compared to the pain he was about to cause Sabrina.
Poor kid.
The irony was that he cared about her far more deeply now than he had when they’d first got together. Back then it had been purely sexual, a pride thing as much as anything else. He had to have her, to conquer her, to make her his own. But now that he knew her, now that he had seen her vulnerability and sweetness, all the sexual impetus was gone. She was as beautiful and desirable as she had ever been, but it was no good. Viorel wasn’t in love with her. He could never be the husband that she needed him to be, and he was terrified of what she would do when he told her.
The lights finally changed and he sped west on Sunset, past the grand mansions of Beverly Hills and the kitsch pink magnificence of the famous Beverly Hills Hotel. For once the traffic was actually moving. Lost in his own thoughts, Viorel drove on through Holmby Hills, past the Playboy Mansion and the East and West gates of Bel Air and on into the suburban tranquillity of Brentwood, unaware of anything except the heaviness in his heart. He
had
to do it today. If he didn’t he’d be well on his way to a nervous breakdown.
Turning left onto Ocean, as the condos of Santa Monica gave way to the ramshackle Twenties cottages of Venice, he tried out opening phrases.
‘
We need to talk.
’
‘
I don’t think things are working out.
’
‘
I don’t think I’m right for you.
’
Jesus. It was all so clichéd, so trite, like a bad episode of
In Treatment
. But could there ever be a right set of words to tell someone who expected to marry you that you weren’t in love with them after all?
As so often recently, Viorel found his thoughts turning to Tish Crewe. Tish would know what to say, how to let Sabrina down gently. She was so wise about stuff like that. He wished their relationship was at a point where he could call and ask her for advice, but after their last disastrous phone conversation, he was by no means sure that he and Tish would ever speak again. The thought depressed him still further.
Turning into the back alley behind Navy, Viorel saw that the entrance to his parking garage was blocked with a throng of paparazzi. Ever since Sabrina moved in, a small group of die-hard paps had taken to hanging around the apartment daily, an intrusion into his privacy that Vio violently resented. It was tough for them to get any kind of a decent shot, though, thanks to the apartment’s fortress-like walls and high metal gates, and most had given up the stakeout. A group this large – fourteen or fifteen photographers all jostling for position around the garage – was distinctly unusual. As the Bugatti pulled closer and the garage door opened, they descended on Viorel like locusts, shouting his name as their flashbulbs popped.
‘Congratulations!’
‘Have you talked to Sabrina yet? Is she home?’
‘Were you surprised by the news?’
Vio said nothing, driving inside with his Ray-Bans still on and his Lakers cap pulled low over his face. He could still hear the cameras and the muffled shouts as the electric doors wheeshed shut behind him.
What the fuck was going on?
He took the lift up to the apartment. The second the doors opened, a naked Sabrina, still wet from the shower, leaped into his arms and started showering him with kisses.
‘Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!’ she squealed, grinning from ear to ear like a kid on Christmas morning. ‘Did you hear?’
‘No. Hear what?’ Vio laughed awkwardly. Her slippery, naked skin was sending unwanted, automated messages to his dick, which was the last thing he needed right now. Setting her down on the floor, he opened the hall closet and pulled out a towel. ‘Here.’ He wrapped her in it. ‘Don’t die of cold.’
‘I won’t die of cold,’ she beamed. ‘I might die of excitement though. And
you
might die of shock.
Wuthering Heights
got four nominations today.’