Starlet's Web (The Starlet Series, #1) (17 page)

“Yeah, of course.”

She continued, “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want? I'm not sure if your actions today will burn bridges. I know in my field, I'd be nuked.”

“Yes, I'm sure.” Nuke them, I thought to myself.

We exited the elevator into Martin's office. There sitting in the lobby was Mom.

“Mom,” I gasped. “Thank you for coming. How did you…?”

“I told them I had a family emergency and will fly back tonight. I need to speak with you, Marie.”

“They're gonna think I tried to kill myself!” I blurted. “What did you tell them, Mom?”

“I don't need to give explanations. Remember, dear, you're never required to explain. You must guard your privacy.”

Mom didn't miss work. She was the consummate professional. She never took a sick day or was late for work. She even worked on the set of
A Single Rose
up to the day I was born.

She was nine months pregnant, filming the final confrontation scene in which the cruel U.S. Cavalry colonel seeks forgiveness from Rose for killing her Arapaho Indian husband.  In the scene, Rose sits at the kitchen table in her one-bedroom cabin, obviously pregnant with her Caucasian-Native American baby. The town mayor, honorable sheriff, and despicable colonel sit at the table with her. Midwives are fussing in the kitchen behind them. Rose diplomatically accepts the colonel's apology and stands up to pour him some coffee. Rose's water breaks, fluid pools on the floor, and the midwives rush Rose to the bedroom. While hearing the labor pains from the closed door of the bedroom, the mayor and sheriff threaten the colonel and vow that they will not tolerate any harm coming to Rose or to her child and that the U.S. Cavalry has made a monstrous error in killing innocent American Indians and are criminal in their relocation of the Indians onto reservations.

The scene was a powerful ending to a wonderful film saga and a great transition into the TV series. The astonishing part of the scene to me was that Mom's water did break when she got up from the table and the amniotic fluid really pooled on the floor. She did walk to the other “room” of the set. When the bedroom door closed, she and Dad left for the Beverly Hills Hospital where I was born.

I glanced at Mom, afraid that she would not forgive me for quitting a promising acting career that she so painstakingly set up for me. Although I had an Oscar for Best Actress, there was no way I could fool her for a moment. Mom led me to Martin's office and closed the door.

“I know your knees will buckle, so sit with me on the floor here.” We both dropped to the ground. She sat crossed-legged across from me and held my hands, resting the weight of our hands on our calves in front of us.

“Please don't walk away from your career, your future. I've left you alone too much while I've been working. You need more support. I can give you that support. I'll take on fewer projects. I'll do more projects with you or within the same area. Perhaps my sister can visit more often, maybe once a week.” She waited for me to fill in the silence with my babbling. I was not going to babble or show weakness. I did not feel weak.

She continued, “Perhaps you need more breaks. You've been going non-stop since you've been thirteen. You're probably suffering from exhaustion. Two men took advantage of you. One tried to rape you. One pressured you. Social media skewered you. You and Evan had to live a lie. That's a ton to deal with. I'll be done filming in May, and we can both go to Montana together. You can bring Manny if you'd like. I know he makes you happy. Just please continue acting. You're so talented.”

She wept. I could tell from the puffiness of her eyes that she had cried all night. She wasn't wearing any makeup—she never did off set—but she appeared strained. I sensed another feeling from looking into her wet eyes and strained face. She seemed guilty, very guilty. I figured that she thought me being alone so much caused me to abandon my career.

“Mom, this isn't your fault. I'm not lonely,” I lied. “I rarely have time to even think. When I'm not working, I'm studying. I love to study. But I don't love to work. I hate acting, Mom.” I eyed her but could tell she was not convinced. She thought I was emotionally traumatized and exhausted from working so much.

Mom disagreed. “Darling, it's very important you tell the truth right now. Tell me honestly what you're thinking. You love to work. You hate promotions and being the center of attention. You hate being so isolated. You hate that your fans turned on you. You hate that you have no one to trust. You worry that your love with Manuel won't last because you think everyone gets divorced. You worry about being alone and want to go hide somewhere with Manny where he can never leave you.”

“Okay. True. I love shooting a project. That's one-fourth of the work. I hate the rest of the job.” I tried to explain, “I hate having to kiss a guy on the set, pretend to love him, to entertain imaginations. I hate the lifestyle. I hate not having real relationships with people. I hate being guarded with everyone but Manuel, you, dad and Celia.”

She interrupted, “You are not the characters you play. You're a great actor. You just need to have more confidence in yourself. You need to ignore the media and deal with what happened with Matthew and Byron. Did something happen between you and Evan, too?”

I shook my head. “No, Evan is a gentleman. He's perfect, actually.”

She interrupted, “Then why did you push him away when you were dating?”

“Because I love Manuel.”

“So now you have Manuel and can act. The threat from your co-stars is gone.”

“No. It's not just guy confusion. I have been Muse, Juliet, Virginia and others. I'm so close to Muse that I'm not acting, instead I'm being myself while I'm saying someone else's words. Juliet's pain and Virginia's despair surface all the time. So who am I?” I trailed off; this was going nowhere. She did not understand me. “This is about being an actor.”

“You're a truly gifted actor,” she interrupted.

“Being around you as a kid, I learned to memorize scripts just like you. I learned to study expressions and read emotions just like you. You were my outstanding teacher and I was your eager student.”

“Marie, you're not just good at your script. You're unique and fearless. You give of yourself completely and shine. Your spirit expresses complexity and depth, power, like no other actor because no other actor has your wisdom and innocence. You're pure.”

“But I don't know who I am. Am I Lia? Marie? Muse? I realized that I can play the role of Muse because I'm not acting. I act when I have to do an industry event. But when playing Muse, I don't have a self, a strong voice.”

“Darling, Muse is so much like you because it was written for you. You're a tremendously gifted actor. The moment I saw your raw performance on set during
Left to Die,
how you nailed it on the first take, I knew you'd be phenomenal.”

“Mom, you have to understand. I wasn't acting in the rape scene. Those were my real feelings. I felt trapped, embarrassed, and confused. I hated all of you for watching me experience my first kiss. I hated Rex on top of me, touching me, and arousing me. I felt betrayed by the adults in the room who all thought that filming a rape scene with a completely innocent just-turned-fourteen-year-old girl was a good idea. I felt like you all condoned a forty-year-old man making out with a child. It was irresponsible and disgusting.” Mom looked shocked. I continued, “I hated the film and have never watched the whole thing. I hid in the restroom during the premiere and got drunk on champagne at the party.”

“Of course you were nervous at your first premiere,” she tried to explain. But I hated the film for what it stood for, not for how embarrassed I was at the event.

“I hated that Hollywood took a horrible true story of what happened to an eight-year-old, twisted it, and then had a fourteen-year-old demonstrate the feelings a victim would have when getting raped by a monster. Hollywood can be a monster, too.”

Mom was surprised I felt this way. She was proud of the film. I was ashamed of it. She was speechless.

“I've thought about who I want to be. I'm not sure right now how to do it, but I know I want to have a family, kids, and, hopefully, Manuel as my loving husband. I don't care about material things. I have $25 million dollars today and don't want to buy anything because my needs are simple. I'm simple. I'm sorry, Mom. I don't want this life.”

She was shaking her head back and forth. “No, it's such a waste. No, it was all for nothing.” She started to tremble, “I'm so sorry. What have I done to you? I'm sorry. You know I love you and just wanted so much for you.”

Feeling self-conscious, I wanted to take all my words back. I bit my lip.

I witnessed Mom go through a lot, but this was deeper than just me quitting. I thought that maybe she reacted so strongly, was so physically fragile, because she thought she had failed, too. I had never thought of her as living vicariously through me, but what else explained her intense, physical reaction? Why did she have such agonizing guilt?

Mom took a big breath in, showing a new resolve on her face. She wiped her tears with her sleeve. Trying to smile at me, she put her hands on my shoulders.

“Marie, I've messed things up for you. I'm sorry. I want you to be happy. I lost your dad over my career. Ambition for myself and for you overpowered me. I made some horrible decisions.”

There was the guilt again. Mom was being uncharacteristically dramatic. I thought she was overreacting. I was not ending my life. I was not on my deathbed. I was just freeing myself of the ties that bound me to the studio and my agent and saying no thanks to a lot of money. I still had several years of commitments to go.

Mom's eyes watered again. “I don't want to lose you, darling. I'm so sorry.” She controlled her trembling voice. “Please. I want to help you find the life that you want to live, become the person you want to be.”

“It's okay, Mom. It's okay,” I reassured her. The guilt in her eyes freaked me out. “Thank you for understanding. I know this is hard for you because you've done so much to set me up for success in Hollywood, and it kills me that I can't appreciate it as I should. I feel like I'm letting you and everyone down. I'm sorry.”

“No, I've let
you
down, my dear.” A waterfall of tears burst from her.

I didn't know what to do. I saw her go to pieces over Dad. She was going to pieces over this. It was too much. I felt like a horrible, ungrateful daughter. But I was sure of my course. This was what I wanted. She was not going to guilt me out of my decision.

There seemed something so deep in her reaction then, something I couldn't identify. She was telling me something. There was more.

“Mom, are you okay? Is there more? Something I'm not getting? You can tell me, Mom. What is it?” She could not look me in the eye. “What are you hiding from me?”

She snapped out of it, quickly composing her face. She wiped her eyes and cheeks again. That quickly she was herself, just like Byron between takes. It reminded me of how I got it together for my Oscar acceptance speech. I wondered if she puked after composing herself in public, too.

“No, dear, you know I love you to pieces. Your happiness means everything to me. So I'm ready to make this right. Let's do this. Martin can be a tricky bastard, he represents you but his loyalties are with Leonard and the studio. Always remember that the snake and the mouse are co-dependent, intertwined in this industry.”

She let go of one of my hands, pushed herself off the floor, and then helped me off the floor, too. She gave me a warm embrace, held my hand, and silently walked me into the conference room where Celia and four lawyers waited for us.

I tried to concentrate during the meeting with the lawyers, but I was confused as the adults worked through the specifics. It was great that Mom and Celia were there. Martin definitely was tricky but the ladies both worked together to be very thorough. I felt sorry for young actors who make these deals without having veteran industry parents. Most leaned on the expertise of their agents, but the agents had an inevitable conflict of interest. I was glad I had Mom.

I was mentally exhausted when the meeting was adjourned. We all shook hands with the lawyers and left together in the elevator.

Mom and Celia hugged.

“I've missed you, Michelle. How did your date go last week?”

“It was awful, Darling, the worst!” Mom laughed.

“I'm sorry to hear that. He seemed like a prick, though. Was I right about him?”

“Celia, you nailed him. You're a perfect profiler. He didn't even wait to get to the restaurant. He wanted to do it in the car.” Mom laughed. “My driver, Saul, and I had coffee. I'm glad you suggested I hire a bodyguard/driver. Saul's nice. He has four kids, so it was fun hearing his stories.”

“Mom, you have more bodyguards?” I asked as we walked to our car.

“The economy tanked. A lot of men have lost a lot of money. I'm an eligible bachelorette now so I've been rejecting a lot of aggressive men lately. Renee has a new lover every month. Celia suggested I find a Saul to protect me and be my driver, like your Sashi.”