23
Stevie
Marty introduced her to Xander Jakobson over lunch at The Ivy. At thirty-two, Xander was a young writer/director who had made his name in a popular US sitcom about doctors. He was very dark, Jewish, and had a serious, searching stare that made him look as if he was about to ask some examining question of the person at the end of it.
Xander’s new movie was a sharp, satirical spin on life on the Vegas Strip. Stevie was in talks for the lead role: a showgirl with a troubled past who receives an irresistible offer from a mysterious stranger. The script attracted her straight away: it was clever, daring and empowering. Xander had managed to get inside the female head seamlessly, every word, every feeling, rang true. The showgirl’s character combined everything that Stevie recognised from her own experiences of falling in love with the wrong man. She knew it would echo through the hearts of women
everywhere. According to Marty, it signalled a breakthrough project for both of them.
The following Friday, her agent called with news that she had the part.
‘You’re going to
Vegas
?’ Ben Reiner whined. These days he barely left the apartment, slumping into evidence mid-afternoon following a heavy night in which he’d drunk what little money he had, or having spent a morning in a marathon session with a box of tissues and his repulsive downloads—sometimes both. Stevie could no longer stand him.
‘Yes,’ she answered tersely. ‘And it’s probably for the best.’
‘Who’s gonna get the food in?’ he muttered, yanking open the fridge and surveying its scant contents.
‘You could buy stuff,’ she said. ‘It’s not that difficult.’
‘We’re not all rolling in it,’ he retorted snappily.
Stevie knew her own career was highlighting a bitter contrast with Ben’s, but it seemed she couldn’t win. If she were sitting in the LA apartment all day, out of work, sure, it might make him feel better. But who, then, would pay all the bills and provide him with endless pizza takeaway and Oreo cookies? All he seemed to do was hole up with the blinds drawn, watching DVDs and eating Ben & Jerry’s. It was like he had a permanent bout of PMT.
Vegas was a welcome alternative.
The cast and their entourage were being put up in the Desert Jewel Hotel, a monster enterprise on the North Strip. Stevie was met by Wanda Gerund, her PR, a glossy brunette with all the chat and charm of an exemplary publicist, but with Rottweiler tenacity.
‘We’ve promised the press a photo op this afternoon,’ Wanda said once they were up in Stevie’s suite. ‘Save us all the pleasure of them trailing you about on-set.’
Stevie was too busy absorbing her surroundings. It was her first time in Sin City and the awesomeness of it surpassed her expectations. She’d never seen anything like it. People claimed the old glamour had faded, and that nowadays it was less the mob and more Mickey Mouse, but no one could deny the sheer
ambition
of it. With its kitsch cabarets, novelty hotels and the relentless drum of the casinos, it was the sort of place she ought to have felt uncomfortable. Certainly where the shy girl who’d arrived in New York last year would have felt uncomfortable. Now here she was, amid the opulence,
part
of it, an actress with her own publicist. It was mad.
‘This is unbelievable,’ she murmured as she checked out the enormous silky-gold bed, fully stocked bar and lavish bathroom complete with Jacuzzi and steam.
‘Yeah.’ Wanda was punching digits into her BlackBerry. She’d seen it all before, found it rather hideous, actually. ‘Welcome to Vegas.’
Under Xander’s direction, filming turned out to be the best experience of Stevie’s life. They were shooting in a purpose-built auditorium that in reality felt a little like a project put together with scissors and sticky-back plastic, but on camera got elevated to the calibre of Vegas’s finest theatres. Stevie’s was a varied part: she’d be singing one minute and crying the next. She’d go from dancing in sequins to spilling vitriol in a conversation with her estranged mother; from pulling off a jubilant performance to going backstage and finding her best friend with a needle in her
arm; from falling in love to falling into dark despair. She was mesmerising, able to embody the role without reservation. Cast and crew were impressed by her humility, her beauty, and an aptitude, despite her early misgivings, that was God-given.
Xander demanded total focus from his actors. Stevie caught on quick that he was a perfectionist, but he was also fair. He was uncompromising in his vision, particularly in regard to her character’s love affair, and every last detail was considered and approved. She decided this script had been a long time in the making, and it revealed something of Xander himself, though she didn’t know him well enough to tell what that was.
In any case, his methods commanded respect. People worked hard for him. There was a sense of pulling together for a shared cause, something she hadn’t experienced in her debut.
A week into shooting, Xander pulled Stevie to one side. They were in the middle of getting her pivotal love scene in the can.
‘How do you feel about top-half nudity?’ he asked, straight to the point.
It wasn’t the fact that nudity hadn’t been addressed in Stevie’s contract, nor was it the fact she might have a problem with it. All she could think about was how it might feel getting naked in front of someone on whom, she realised now—with a curious mix of surprise and relief—she had a monolithic crush.
‘Well, I …’ She wasn’t sure what to say.
‘The scene isn’t working as it’s written,’ explained Xander, brows gathered in concentration, tapping his bundle of notes with a pen. ‘It’s unnatural. I’m concerned
we’re forcing the modesty.’ He glanced up at her. ‘That said, you’ve no obligation. The last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable. It’s your role and your call—I only want your view.’
She nodded. ‘I don’t have an issue with it.’ And she didn’t: nothing about Xander’s script or style of working was gratuitous, and this was no different. The scene hadn’t been working for her either—it was a passionate, obsessive moment between two soul mates, and, while in theory it worked without exposing skin, in practice it felt contrived.
‘If I speak to Tyler, would you be happy to try it out, see how it fits?’ Tyler was her male lead. In real life he was gay as Christmas. ‘If you feel unhappy at any point, shout out.’
Xander was right. The scene was shot in one and Stevie was pleased with the wrap. Privately she blushed when she saw it. Tyler’s fervent kissing, his hand unclasping the neck of her dress, the material falling to reveal her breast … and then cut. She wasn’t embarrassed because of the eroticism—in fact she found love scenes straightforward. She was embarrassed because to her it was plain that the ecstasy on her face was from imagining Xander Jakobson was caught in the moment with her; what he might have felt or thought when she was exposed like that. It was the first time since leaving London that she had wanted to get to know a man—really get to know him, because he interested her. It was different from before. Xander was considerate and smart and sincere. He was down the line.
‘You’re brilliant,’ Xander told her afterwards. ‘It’s rare I see talent like yours. Honestly,’ he added when she brushed the compliment off. ‘It’s easy to see why Marty snapped you up.’
‘That’s kind.’
‘Only stating a fact.’ He was wearing a baseball cap, which he now took off, ruffling his hair, which was messy and sticking up at a strange angle at the back.
‘Weird to think how it happened,’ she said. ‘I never imagined any of this when I moved.’
‘So I read. Desk job in London, right?’
Stevie flinched at the reference. ‘Yeah. Long time ago.’ She tried a smile. Xander was regarding her fixedly, so she added, ‘Well, I guess not. Just seems that way.’
‘Life changes quickly, huh?’
‘You could say that.’
Did Xander have a girlfriend? She wasn’t sure. He hadn’t mentioned one, but then that didn’t mean anything. Someone like him must have a girlfriend.
‘Are you going to the Fashion Awards tomorrow?’ she asked, grappling for something to say. Frontline Fashion was a charity gala in aid of American troops based abroad. This year Vegas was host city and all the big names in town would be there.
Xander’s demeanour instantly changed. He stiffened and looked away. ‘No.’
Stevie felt like a teenager who didn’t see the point of attending a party unless her crush was going to be there. She tried to hide her disappointment. ‘Oh. OK.’
Xander must have sensed that he’d come across rude, because he elaborated, ‘I don’t go in for that kind of thing.’
‘Celebrity parties?’ It figured.
‘Some.’ His body language was utterly new. Gone was the easy confidence. He appeared nervous, jumpy. ‘It depends who’s going.’
Stevie made a dick of herself by misunderstanding. ‘I’m going.’ It sounded horribly, pointlessly, flirtatious.
Luckily, he smiled, but there was little humour in it. ‘You’re not who I’m worried about.’
‘Oh?’
Xander thought twice before speaking. ‘Old adversaries,’ he said, and the words seemed weighty, laced in shadow, as though they’d been left a long time in the dark. ‘It’s boring.’
Stevie frowned. ‘I’m sure it’s not.’
‘The guy running it—we, er, don’t see eye to eye. Long story.’
She recalled seeing a picture of him once. Cool eyes, a sharp suit. She had read about him in a magazine, his surname as synonymous with the fashion world as Versace, Armani, Lacroix.
Moreau
. Since his parents were killed, he had become the reluctant face.
What history could Xander possibly share with JB Moreau? It was too soon to pry.
‘I’ll have to be careful, then, won’t I?’ she teased.
He didn’t return her smile. ‘You will.’
24
Lori
‘I’d like you to meet Lori Garcia …
’
Shocked and flustered, caught off-guard, Lori had been unable to form the words she’d envisaged herself saying a thousand times. Even if she had, what would have been the point?
JB Moreau had pretended not to know her. He had met her gaze and extended his hand, those still blue eyes regarding her without a hint of recognition. Blankly, she had accepted it, thrown off course by the unexpectedness of a coincidence she could not understand.
‘Lori’s the girl I found in Spain. We’ve taken her picture, she’s a natural.’
If he was surprised, he hadn’t shown it. If he remembered, he’d given nothing away.
Lori’s mouth had gone dry. Her throat had closed up.
‘It’s a pleasure,’
he’d said.
‘I hope we’ve been looking after you.’
Dazed, she’d nodded. Later, she would wish she hadn’t, for the moment she consented to their introduction it became impossible to claim what had passed before.
JB’s skin had been dry and cool. Her own hot. As their hands had connected, she’d recalled his touch that day in the car, how unbridled they had been, all over each other, the temptation they had been powerless to resist. She knew he’d felt it too: if she knew anything, it was that.
How she had wanted to blurt,
‘It’s me, don’t you remember?’
Instead, just a burning humiliation, like a child in trouble though they didn’t understand why.
Lori could not make sense of it. She got that he was an important man, more so than she could have anticipated, and that with Desideria standing right there it was never going to be an impassioned reunion—after all, the nature of their first meeting was hardly something he’d be prepared to advertise. Yet, even now, weeks down the line, he had made no attempt to see her. Seeking him out through La Lumière was impossible. His army of personnel—mostly, to her agony, long-limbed women with possessive, mistrustful eyes—made sure of that. Besides, it would make her feel like some kind of stalker, a kid with a crush, a desperate admirer. It wasn’t as if she were the only girl at the agency fixated with Moreau. Everyone was.
Didn’t she deserve an explanation? He had entered her life—the circumstances of which, now she knew his identity, were more perplexing than ever—and left it in pieces. She had tried everything she could to explain his dismissal, clinging on to the vain hope that he would eventually make contact and extinguish the misery of her pining. He didn’t.
Lori’s appetite vanished. She wasn’t sleeping. At night, in her apartment, she would stay awake for hours trying to
picture his face, trying so hard that the details imploded and JB Moreau morphed in her uncertain half-dreams into Rico, her sisters, Desideria, sometimes even herself. When sleep finally claimed her, it would be just for a short while. Woken by desire, she would battle the gnawing ache in her gut—all types of hunger, physical and emotional and sexual—until she gave in, and, thinking of him, would pleasure herself, vowing it to be the last time, ashamed at her craving, addicted to the fleeting relief but frustrated by its impermanence. The only cure for her sickness, for that was what it was, was the man himself.
In darker hours, she became convinced this was her reckoning. It was what she deserved for wronging the man she ought to have stood by. Rico Marquez was languishing in a prison cell because she had refused him help. She, who was supposed to love and uphold him, had run that day and not once looked back. Selfishness, her desire for another man, had overtaken what a small, scared part of her still labelled her duty. She found she was unable to remove the ring her boyfriend had given her, as though it would make her jinxed: a final rejection of her responsibilities.
It’s a promise …
It could not go on. She had to find answers—and, if JB Moreau was not prepared to give them, she would have to uncover them herself.
Desideria wanted her in Vegas for a party the agency had organised. It would be a chance for Lori to meet the industry’s notables as well as get a feel for the lifestyle she was set to embrace.
‘Learn to adore your celebrity,’ said Desideria. ‘Because
it might not be tonight, it might not be tomorrow, but sometime soon it’ll happen.’