The Movie (55 page)

‘No. I spoke to Sam earlier this morning,’ Eleanor said. ‘He’s moved into the Bel-Air. He seems really upset.’

‘Yeah? There’s a lot of that going around,’ loxana replied, but Eleanor thought she detected a touch of confusion beneath the flippancy.

‘Ioxana. Listen to me,’ Eleanor Marshall began. Her heart was thumping against her chest; she had to convince this girl, she just had to. It would require a huge act of courage on Roxana’s part, even a little selflessness, not

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qualities most people would associate with her right now. But Eleanor had to back her instincts, she knew that. She had given everything she had fighting for this movie. She wasn’t about to give up now. ‘I didn’t come over here today to shout at you, or demand information, or to get you to sign something. What happened to our stock was not your fault. Nobody said you had to confess your sins to us before you got to act in our movie. But I am here to ask for your help.’ 1koxana leaned back against the door, watching her with narrowed eyes.

She’s learned to trust nobody, Eleanor thought. Why? What happened to her, all those years ago?

‘What do you want?’ 1Koxana asked warily.

‘I want you to go back to Mah6 and shoot the end of See the Lights.’

She hell her breath. There, it was out. This was the moment of truth; iflkoxana wanted to shriek, or yell, or

order her out of the house, it was all over.

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Why?’ 1koxana asked, looking at her steadily. ‘Because if we get this thing finished, it’s going to be an incredible movie. Fred Florescu showed me some of the footage. When you were actually acting, 1koxana, and not trying to screw up everybody else’s performance, you were brilliant. 1keally talented.. And in the love scenes with Zach, you just set the screen on fire. I think if we ever get this fdm out to the theatres, and people can see it, the world will agree with me.’

‘And why should I do this?’

‘Do it for yourself,’ Eleanor said. ‘I could tell you to do it for me, or Zach, or Fred, but I won’t. You should understand that I know about your cooperation with David Tauber andJake Keller, and I really don’t care. That’s all in the past. The only thing that matters to me is. this movie, getting it completed and released, and for that I

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know I need you. But what you get out of this is some self respect. You told me when I arrived that you weren’t gonna run from anybody. So don’t! Make this movie! You wanted the world to see you as an actress, you came to LA, you forced us to cast you - God knows what you did, but you ended up cast -‘

loxana gave her the briefest flicker of a smile.

‘ - and you made most of a great movie. They all expect you to crawl away and die, loxana. Now, I’m not going to stand here and tell you that what you did was OK. It wasn’t. And if that’s what you have to hear, I’ll get out of your house right now, because I won’t say it. But I will tell you.that I know we don’t know the whole story. You were a fourteen-year-old American girl, so why were you in Paris? And how does a teenage hooker get to run an upmarket brothel in two years? It doesn’t make seine. But what I do get from your story is a fierce need for independence - you came back to the States, you took your final year of high school privately, you got a new identity and a new career and then you climbed higher in that field than anybody had done before. I’m not asking you to tell me anything, R.oxana. I don’t judge you, because I don’t know you. But what I am asking you is to show them a little of that independence now. You

couldn’t be broken before; don’t let this break you now.’ loxana Felix burst into tears.

‘Hey.’ Eleanor mo,ved forward and took the sobbing girl

in her arms, stroking her hair, cradling her as she wept. ‘It’s

all right now, honey. It’s going to be all right.’

It was night over Mah by the time they arrived, the stars glittering above the Anse Polite beach, dancing rund a huge harvest moon hanging low and orange in the dear sky. The taxi drove straight past the hotel and pulled up two miles further along the shore, at an anonymous looking ocean-side diner which seemed to be closed.

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Eleanor paid the driver and helped P,.oxana out of the cab, checking the caf for a single light in the downstairs window. It was on; that meant Florescu was waiting inside with Zach, Megan, Seth, Mary, R.obert, Jack and the rest of the cast.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ she asked. ‘You know you don’t have to tell them anything. I can go up there and simply announce that you have returned to complete the film. Nobody will harass you. I can talk to Fred and make sure of that.’

P..oxana shook her head, her long black hair shining in the moonlight. ‘No. I don’t want to hide this any more. iF i can speak to those guys, maybe they’ll understand the way

you did, and they’ll forgive me for the way I was before.’ ‘You’re a very brave woman,’ Eleanor told her. ‘So are you,’ P,.oxana said simply.

Eleanor offered her her arm, and the two of them walked into the tiny shack togethe;. The wooden door opened into a warm, sweet-smelling room, lit by three oil lamps. Fred and the others were sitting round a long tresde table, eating something that smelt like spiced lobster, and drinking long glasses of the local bacca sugar-cane liquor. The conversation was loud and raucous, but as soon as they walked into the room it went totally quiet. Eleanor felt P,.oxana stiffen a little beside her; thirty pair of eyes were staring at her in complete hock.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Eleanor said. ‘I asked Fred to book this place for your meal tonight because I wanted someplace private for P,.oxana to speak to you. i realize this may come as a surprise, but P,.oxana has decided that she wants to come back out here and finish offthis movie. You will have read the recent stories about her in the press. They are true, but P,.oxana has something to add to them. It took great strength for her to decide to tell you the things. she is about to say. I want you to listen to her quietly.’

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She squeezed the younger girl’s hand, and then walked across to the table and sat down next to Fred Florescu.

Poxana took a deep breath as she stood there in the soft light of the lamps, looking at the actors she’d been screwing over as they sat in front of her, watching her curiously. There was no sympathy in their faces, just a neutral interest.

But I’m not asking them for sympathy, she told herself. Just understanding.

‘My name is loxana Felix,’ she said. ‘Legally. I had it changed by deed poll when I was nineteen years old. But I was born Heather Piper in Kansas City, twenty-four years ago. My father worked in construction and my mother had a part-time job working in the local supermarket checkout. We were poor, but I don’t remember much about it. I was four when they were killed in a car crash. They didn’t leave much, so I wound up in an orphanage, because my momma had no relatives, and my father’s brother didn’t want me.’ Her voice was dry, emotiouless. ‘I stayed in that home until I was eleven. Then I was adopted, by a retired jdge named Eli Woods and his wife. It’s unusual for kids to get adopted that late, you understand. Most couples want babies. But I was real pretty by the time I was eleven, and I sooh realized why the judge had chosen me. Two days before my twelfth birthday, Eli came into the bathroom when I was drying myself. That night he came into my bedroom and raped me’

She paused, swallowed hard, and then continued. ‘He raped me for two years, and he told me all the things they all say-nobody will believe you, you led me on, it’s your fault. I told his wife, and she slipped me around the face and called me a good-for-nothing welfare slut and a dirty little liar. A year later, when I was thirteen, I walked into town and spoke to a’police oglcer. He said he would file a complaint. But that evening Eli came to my room. and he

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beat me until he drew blood. Then he broke my little finger.’

The tears were coming now, she couldn’t stop them; they rolled out of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, so she couldn’t even see the faces of her small audience, staring at her, horrified. She ploughed on. ‘As soon as it was healed, I stole his credit cards and his wallet and his wife’s jewels, pawned the money and skipped town. I took my passport and booked a one-way ticket to Paris; told them Judge Woods was sending me on an educational trip. I don’t know why I picked Pads. It just seemed so far away, and I was very good at French. He didn’t speak French. Maybe I thought he’d have trouble tracking me down. So I got there, and I started hooking. I hated myself, but I was good at sex and it seemed like the fastest way to make a lot of money. Eli had power in that town because of his money. And I didn’t trust anybody, I wanted enough cash of my own. I guess I was better-looking, more promiscuous than the other girls, because I made a lot of money very fast. I was offthe streets in two months, graduated.to a call girl serving rich businessmen, discreedy, at fancy hotels. That’s where I met a couple of other girls doing the same thing. One of them wanted to leave her pimp, because he’d been hitting her. I told her she should come and work for me, because I’d never hit her. I was only fifteen, but I looked older. I was already cold, hard, ruthless-the person you’re used to. By the time I was sixteen I’d rented my own small house for my girls on the Champs-Elys6es. We were successful; a lot of the call girls working for me became models, got new names, married out of the life. I thought I could do that; I was eighteen years old, and I had nearly a million dollars in savings and deposit bonds. A real entrepreneur.’

She stifled a sob. ‘So, I got a new passport, moved to Califorma, picked the most conservative private school I could find-a Catholic convent-and contacted the model’

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agencies. A scout had already tried tn me in France,

but I wanted to start fresh, back ho˘, where nobody

knew me. I wanted to be the biggest, richest, most famous

woman in the whole world. I was detemfined I’d never

love anyone and never trust anyone, because .nobody had

ever loved me. And you know the rest. So, I’ve been a

bitch to you, and I realize it. I’m not asking you guys for

‘

anything, I just want you to understand why, so we can

finish this film. Because Eleanor persuaded me to do

something with my life, so at least when all this is over I can

walk away with my head held up.’

P,.oxana sank onto the nearest chair and dashed her hand

across hr eyes, trying to brush a few of the tears away.

For a, moment or two there was a stunned silence, the

only noise in the dim room loxana’s soft weeping and the

‘

breaking waves on the beach outside. Finally Fred Florescu

cleared his throat.

‘loxana, I can’t pretend that we know what you went

through. I don’t think anybody who hasn’t undergone the

kind of horrors you endured could ever begin to imagine

what that must have been like. But I know I speak for

verybody in this room when I say that I totally admire

your courage in being able to tell us what happened to you.

However you behaved doesn’t matter in the least. So you

were a little cold, so what? I think you had every right to be

mistrustful. But I hope you’ll trust me now when I tell you that you are a truly fine actress, and you’re somebody I’m

proud to be making this movie with,’ he said gently, and

the whole cast began to applaud.

The sun was sinking over Beverly Hills when Tom Goldman arrived home. He parked his car in the garage and sat slumped in the front seat, his eyes stating into space, wondering how in God’s name he was going to explain this to Jordan. The loss of most of his fortune would be the first blow: he realized his wife had expensive tastes,.and he

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was about to tell her that they had .to cut back drastically. Sell this house, for example, her favourite toy. But Lisa Weintraub, his accountant, had been totally clear: he could no longer afford to service the four-million-dollar mortgage on his five-million-dollar house. So, goodbye Beverly Hills, hello Laurel Canyon. He could live with that, but the question was, could Jordan? And there would be no more of those goddamned stupid parties she seemed to live for, either. With his new net worth of a million and a half, which had to cover a new house and a new baby, there was no way he could go for the caviar dinners and the Chanel suits any more. It was only after fitting down with Lisa and going through the household accounts that Tom realized just how much money Jordan had been spending on clothes. An original Chanel couture suit cost $2o,ooo dollars a pop. Twenty thousand dollars! And Jordan owned

Now he was going to have to go in there and tell her it had to stop. Not only were the big spending days over forever, she was going to have to sell most ofherjewellery. He’d spent over three-quarters of a million on rocks for her since their marriage, and they needed the money. She was going to hate that. She was going to hate everything about this conversation.

Oh well, Goldman thought wearily. She has her baby on the way. Once it arrives, maybe she won’t be interested in the social scene anymore-because we sure as hell aren’t gorma be hiring a nanny now.

The baby. Body-blow numbei two. He had to confess to his wife that he’d cheated on her, and that he was having another child by another woman.

Tom rubbed his fingers across his temple, feeling every second of his forty-five years. How in God’s name had he screwed up his life this badly? he wondered helplessly. As long as he lived, he would never forget the torrent of emotions that had raged through him when Eleanor

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dropped her bombshell. Astonishment. Exhilaration, for a fraction of a second. And finally, the searing, overwhelming, hopeless waves of regret.

Seeing Eleanor so decisive, so calm, so controlled under pressure had underscored a truth he now realized he had always known-he was in love with Eleanor Marshall, and he probably always had been, from the day that bright, gawky graduate crashed into him outside the studio cafeteria fifteen years ago right up to that moment when she told him she was carrying his child. If he was honest, the appalling jealousy that had racked him at her wedding was the first real signal he was in trouble - Christ, had she ever looked so radiantly lovely as she did that day? Or was it before that? In New York, when he had found such total release in her arms, when he had sired the child that she had carried ever since? Too late, Goldman understood everything: the flame that Eleanor had borne for him in silence for so long, and the pain she must have gone through when Jordan turned up in the lobby of the Victrix; even at the time, he had been embarrassed that Eleanor had to hear it like that, but only now did he understand the full depths of what she had gone through, It explained her weakness, her loss of control at work when she returned to LA - weakness thatJake Keller had exploited.