Authors: Harriet Evans
I swallowed, as the noise of the bar and my own fatigue hit me in another wave. Don said softly, ‘Hey, kid, it’s OK. I’m just warning you. Don’t become another Dana. You’re on top of the world now, but they’ll still spit you out if you get to be too much trouble.’
I nodded.
‘Don’t let them make you do anything you don’t want to do. You promise me, Rose?’ And again he looked over at Gilbert.
‘I promise,’ I said, not really sure what he was talking about, but knowing he was telling me the truth. His lean body moved closer to mine; I watched the grazing of nut-brown shadowing his jaw, the tight expression in his eyes. ‘I’m OK, really.’
‘I know you are.’ He squeezed my arm. ‘We’ll talk about my script. I’ll come find you at the studio,’ he said, and I wanted to say ‘When?’
But Gilbert approached, with his arm round one of his friends, his third or fourth cocktail in hand. Danny Paige was tapping a rhythm out on the bar, someone was singing, the moon was shining outside and inside, tiny shafts of light spun from the crystal chandelier above us. The bird was still dangling from my arm, untended, unloved. I excused myself from Gilbert and went to the powder room. Alone in front of the mirror, I stared at my reflection for a long time, to try and see how Don thought I’d changed. I didn’t know why it mattered to me so much that he thought I had.
IF YOU WANT to see how much of a blood sport Hollywood really is, go to an awards ceremony. You have no idea how the entertainment business really works until you’ve seen some doddery old children’s actor pushed out of the way because Selena Gomez is coming through and her manager and publicist are screaming at the E! producer to get her in front of Seacrest,
now
. If Marilyn Monroe was suddenly reincarnated with Jesus and Elvis on each arm on a red carpet somewhere at the same time as the arrival of a cast member from
Twilight,
I’m telling you, the three of them would all be asked to move along.
I’ve only ever gone to these things when I’ve been famous, and so you’d think I’d enjoy them. And at first, I did. Hollywood loves to think it’s a friendly community, so you wave at people you recognise and hug that girl from the sitcom who spent three months with you in Louisiana shooting a picture and who was your best friend for all that time but then you never saw again. You exclaim at how beautiful they look and examine their dresses so there’s a friendly shot in the magazines of you with some other star both looking like nice people.
But it’s business, like everything else here. You’re promoting the brand of you and your newest film. You’re like a mannequin with ten pre-recorded sentences, there to be studied and commented upon, while behind you a crazy woman with an earpiece and a clipboard shouts at your neck, ‘This is NBC. This is CBS. This is E!’ You say things like:
‘Hi, everyone! Thanks for voting for me! I’m really nervous!’
‘Oh, your dress is so cute too!’
Or the deep-breath one, which you have to rehearse beforehand with your stylist and manager, because God forbid you get someone’s name wrong:
‘Oh, thank you! I love this dress too, she [insert name of dress designer] is such a total genius, and my shoes are from [insert name of shoe designer], my bag is from [insert name of bag designer] and these cute earrings are from [insert name of jeweller].’
The other thing you don’t see is the queue. The UP! Kidz Challenge Awards is at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown LA, and a line of black limos or SUVs, all blacked-out windows and silver fenders, drivers in suits and shades, snakes down four faceless blocks. Inside each one is a star, waiting for his or her special moment on the carpet.
It’s humid tonight and the air con in the SUV is on max to keep me cool, which is making me sweat even more. A huge screaming cheer goes up from the crowd in the bleachers ahead of me and I peer out of the blackened windows, trying to see where we are in the queue. I hate this bit. At first, when I was over here promoting
I Do I Do
, I used to love imagining who was in the car in front of me. It could be Brad Pitt! Or Julia Roberts! These days I know it’s as likely to be some reality star with fake boobs who has 2 million Twitter followers and probably makes more money than most film stars. As the screams get louder I barely even look up from my phone. I’m waiting to hear from George, as ever. I don’t know where he is.
‘Did you meet Patrick Drew yet?’
I shake my head, fanning myself. ‘No.’
Opposite me sits my manager Tommy Wiley, frantically chewing gum, sunglasses on.
‘I haven’t seen you for weeks,’ he’s complaining. ‘This is how I communicate with you, these days? I ride with you to an awards ceremony? I’m like your security guy now?’
‘I’ve been … busy.’
‘Busy my ass.’ Tommy shakes his head. ‘Artie told me. You won’t commit to a new project, you won’t return his calls. What you been up to, for fuck’s sake, Sophie? He’s tearing his hair out trying to get something lined up for you.’ Tommy smiles. He likes it when Artie’s annoyed. ‘Poor guy.’
Under Californian law managers can’t negotiate contracts and agents can’t be producers on films. So Artie finds the scripts and the talent, inks the deal, talks to my lawyers, has the lunches to scout out the next hot project, and Tommy – well, he’s everything else. He has fewer clients, and I’m his priority at all times – I can call him day or night. He reads all my scripts and has a say in everything I do, but he also brings me business outside of the films. He takes care of the stylists and the journalists and the studios who want three extra days’ publicity off me, the airline that wants a fee in cash to stop me being papped on the way out of the plane, and the gay star who has his staff audition girlfriends for a million-dollar fee. Oh, yes, those stories are true.
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 hate 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.