by Ella Berman
* * *
• • •
When I come downstairs to find coffee, Wren is sitting at the dining table with a boy who is about eleven or twelve years old. Or he could be fourteen; I actually have no idea. Wren holds up a card with a photograph of a teenage girl on it, and he pulls the same face I do when I’m expected to know anything about technology.
“Okay, Barney, try this one next. If Amy says to you, ‘I don’t believe you,’ and she’s making this face, what do you think she really means?”
Barney studies the photograph carefully. Amy is grinning in the photo and she looks like she’s being a bitch, but I manage to refrain from joining in the conversation.
“Ummm . . .” Barney frowns and holds the card at a variety of distances as if it’s one of those Magic Eye puzzles.
“It’s okay, take as long as you need. Do you remember the first clue we look for?”
I walk into the kitchen, where Dylan is grabbing a box of water from the fridge. I guess people are drinking water from boxes in LA now.
“What’s Wren doing in there?”
“She’s a speech-language pathologist.”
“Cool.”
Dylan looks defensive. “I said it was all right to use the house for her pro bono cases.”
“Of course it is, that’s fine.”
“I wasn’t asking, Grace, you haven’t been here for over a year.”
We’re both silent while I figure out what to say next. I take a banana from the fruit bowl in the middle of the kitchen island, then realize I didn’t buy it. I did pay for the bowl, however, and the marble island. I turn the banana over in my hand and try to work out what to do next.
“Do you think your new girlfriend can teach me about nonverbal cues? Or is the catastrophically self-absorbed actress a lost cause?”
Dylan shakes his head but I can tell he’s trying not to smile.
“You’re not catastrophically self-absorbed, Grace. Humans have just never been your strong suit. It’s different. And she’s not ‘new.’”
I think of all of the questions Dylan has every right to ask of me that I know he isn’t going to because he doesn’t want to hear the answers. Dylan packs up his laptop and a camera I haven’t seen before, and puts them in his camouflage backpack.
“You still dress like a teenager,” I say.
“The kids at work call me sir,” he says, and he’s smiling slightly now.
“You’re not even twenty-four.”
“I’m working with sixteen-year-olds all day. I’m an old man,” Dylan says.
“More surfers?” When I met him, Dylan was making a film about surfers in Malibu. He spent three years following a group of kids, and then he turned it into a Sundance-winning documentary about teen suburban malaise and prescription drug abuse.
“The same ones. It’s harder. They’re hyperaware of their online presence and, like, their ‘aesthetic’ this time around.”
“And nobody has been maimed yet.” I can’t resist. He never denied that his first documentary would have been less gripping if one of the surfers hadn’t gotten into a car accident while high and lost a hand during the shoot. No pun intended. I hate puns.
Dylan stops by the door, and something flickers across his face.
“What are you doing today?” he asks.
“I’ve got an NA meeting this morning.” The lie slips out of my mouth easily, a throwback to a former version of myself. Dylan nods, relieved that I’m not going to be pouring out lines of coke in front of autistic children in his house.
As soon as he’s gone, I walk up to the pool on our roof. The water has a layer of something oily on the surface and a cluster of dead insects floating in one corner, but I get in anyway so that I can lie on my back while the winter sun explodes behind my closed eyes. I feel weightless for the first time in a while.
* * *
• • •
I arrange to meet Laurel at Gjelina, a restaurant on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. I stand in front of my untouched closet for nearly half an hour before I leave, stroking the silk dresses and cashmere sweaters that hang from the bar across the top. I pick out a rose-gold, floor-length Calvin Klein slip dress that I wore to the Met Gala on my eighteenth birthday, an evening I mainly spent hiding in the toilets to avoid the lethal combination of small talk and selfies—not because I thought I was any better than anyone there, but because I didn’t understand them.
I pull the dress on over the stained Winnie the Pooh T-shirt I’m still wearing, and then I stare at myself in the mirror until it’s time to leave. I walk to the restaurant with my skirt trailing on the ground over my Converse, picking up pine needles and dirt. Everything seems too bright.
Abbot Kinney is the same as when I left, only more. It’s a ten-minute walk from the coast and it has transformed from a local neighborhood with a few restaurants into a bourgeois, farm-to-table influencer heaven—Beverly Hills by the sea. I push past teenage girls posing with brightly colored juices outside storefronts painted pink just for them, while women with bodies like Victoria’s Secret models line up for coffee outside the minimalist spot with the amphitheater seating. There are fewer stores selling healing crystals, more stores selling $800 shirts, and men with full beards wandering aimlessly at eleven a.m. on a Friday, holding babies with names like Hudson and Juniper in slings around their necks.
When I get to the restaurant, Laurel is exactly as she always is, short black Afro, her obnoxiously skinny frame draped in layers of organic cotton. Only the crease between her eyebrows has changed. I resist the urge to reach out and touch the smooth, waxy skin.
“You need a project,” she says almost as soon as we’ve sat down. A wave of mild resentment washes over me, and I wonder if I liked having her around before because she reminds me of my mother.
The server comes over to take our order.
“Can I have the flatbread with goat cheese and caramelized onion?”
Laurel looks horrified. “What the fuck?”
It turns out it’s totally okay to drink so much that you have to be carried out the back door of a strip club, but the moment you order carbs for lunch, you’re certifiably insane.
“You know they call it a flatbread but it’s really a pizza. A pizza. Do you want me to take you to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting? I’ve heard that everyone goes to the one in Silver Lake.”
“Jesus, Laurel.”
“Okay. But let me know.”
I pour some sugar into my black coffee, but I don’t mix it because I like the warm sugary paste that collects at the bottom. Laurel is watching me closely. I forgot that this is how everyone looks at me here, as if they’re waiting for me to break.
“So should I start telling people that you’re back?”
People. She only knows people because of me.
“No.”
“Okay, no problem. You need to settle in. Do you want me to speak to Maya about starting up barre and Pilates again?”
“I don’t want to do barre or Pilates.”
“Okay, sweetie.” Laurel raises an eyebrow and looks somewhere over my shoulder like we’re on a reality TV show and I’m being unreasonable. Then she starts to flick her hand at me, pinching the air around me.
“Stop adjusting my energy,” I say irritably.
“I’m cleansing your aura. Why did you come back, Grace?”
The waitress brings my pizza over, and I inhale the scent of melted cheese. Why did I come back? I think of everything I’ve ever left behind, of the memories that come back for me just when I think I could be safe, and I feel a kick of shame somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach. I came back because I was drowning there, too, Laurel. I came back because I have nowhere else to go. I came back because I wanted to start over, but now that I’m here, it’s like I’ve forgotten how I ever pretended to be normal.
�
�Because my mom made me,” I say, but Laurel doesn’t smile.
“How was it with you guys?” she asks seamlessly, as if she remembered all along that my mom and I don’t get on.
“Okay, I guess.” I shrug. She reaches over and covers my hand with hers. She’s wearing large crystal bracelets, and they rest uncomfortably on my wrist. I resist the urge to move my hand.
“Are you on something?”
“Why is everyone asking me that?”
Laurel frowns at me. “Do you think you should go to a wellness retreat or something for a while? Or you could join that church everyone goes to? With the tattooed pastor? He wears cowboy boots.”
“What?” I say, squinting at her. “What about cowboy boots?”
“Trust me, it’s a real thing.”
“I am not joining a church,” I say slowly, “because it’s a thing. Anyway, my mom’s half-Jewish.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Laurel says. “Look, I’m just worried you’re not ready to be back in LA. People are going to want answers.”
“I don’t have any answers,” I say, and then I shrug again. “Being back here, I don’t know. I feel numb. It’s not the worst.”
“Numb isn’t good for people like me or you,” Laurel says, but she can’t quite frown in the right way because of the Botox. “Where did you go, Grace?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A good memory, this time. One of the few that I cling to as if it could slip away at any moment, as good things have the tendency to do.
Six months after I landed the role in the assassin trilogy, the studio held fan events in three key cities—New York, Beijing and London. The movie was a remake of a comic book, so there was already a network of die-hard fans that came with the territory. They seemed desperate to stake their claim on this new incarnation from the start, devouring and sharing every piece of information from the moment the franchise was announced, so the studio took advantage of it.
The London event would be my first-ever public appearance. We were warned in advance that it would be broadcast live online, and potentially picked up by TMZ and E!, as well as other media outlets. This didn’t mean a huge amount to me at the time, other than it being the driving force behind Able’s decision to put together an impromptu hair and makeup team, saving me from making any major mistakes so early on in my career.
We were given a hotel room close to the venue, and I sat in front of a large mirror as my new “glam squad” set to work. A Black Eyed Peas song played from the hotel radio, competing with the sound of the football coming from the TV my dad was watching, and I tried not to sneeze every time the woman doing my makeup dusted something over the bridge of my nose. My mom proudly stood watch next to us, instructing the makeup artist on my best features, while Esme curled up on the sofa next to my dad, watching us all over her copy of Anne of Green Gables.
“Your collarbone is a work of art,” the hairstylist said to my reflection as she brushed out my hair. My mom nodded her agreement, and I tried not to show my surprise. Up until that point I’d barely been aware that my collarbone even existed, let alone that it was something to be championed. I moved the strap of my sky-blue top to see what they were talking about, but they’d already moved on to something else.
“Have you seen her philtrum?” my mom said proudly. “It’s been like that since the day she was born.”
The makeup artist turned me around and squinted at my lips. She squealed with delight. “The most perfect cupid’s bow. You are so lucky,” she added seriously.
Philtrum. I memorized the word to look up later.
“I would just kill for the amount of collagen you still have.” She sighed then, and I tried to catch my sister’s eye in the mirror, but she was already ignoring us all, her face obstructed by her book.
My mom watched as the makeup artist ran a soft brush over my face, turning the apples of my cheeks into shimmering globes, and the hairstylist pulled my hair into braids that would wrap around my head like a crown. Afterward, I tried to remember every other compliment the women paid me, but somehow all I could recall was the five-minute conversation on how best to “approach” my nose.
The women asked me question after question as they worked, and they both laughed hysterically as if they were genuinely enthralled by each response I gave. I’d never really been able to hold an adult’s attention before, not like that anyway, and I found it unnerving until I realized what was happening: their jobs were dependent on me liking them. For the first time in my life, the adults around me had something to prove to me, and I wondered how far this extended—whether a day would come when Able and the rest of my new team needed me more than I needed them, or maybe even my parents. I didn’t do anything with the knowledge yet, just tucked it away somewhere to come back to later.
When they were finally finished, I got changed into an outfit that a stylist from Los Angeles had chosen for me: a white denim dress and sparkly trainers. I lent Esme the pink beaded bag I had been begging my parents to buy me for years, which, like most things I’ve ever owned, had lost its appeal almost as soon as it was in my possession. The makeup artist took a photo of the four of us before we left, and I smiled so widely I could feel my lips crack.
We got into a car with blacked-out windows and made stupid jokes about rerouting to McDonald’s to ease the tension that was building because none of us had any idea what to expect. We pulled up outside the venue, an old fire station, and I thought I had my nerves under control until I climbed out of the car. My stomach dropped to the floor. There was a crowd of fans outside, chanting something I couldn’t decipher, all of whom seemed to know exactly who I was already. I was too disoriented to look any of them in the eye so I rushed past without stopping to sign any comic books or pose for photos.
Once we were inside, we were immediately led past the rows of waiting competition winners and into the VIP section: a champagne bar where people from the studio and production company were hanging out, as well as a few reality TV stars and models who had been invited along for the photo op. People started to slink over to introduce themselves and I shook their hands, my palm firm in theirs, even kissing some of the women on each cheek like I’d seen my mom do. Everywhere I turned, people were either looking at me or deliberately not looking at me, and it felt as if everyone was talking about the unknown girl about to be rescued from a life of mundanity in England and dropped into the heart of Hollywood.
I had made a point of inviting my old school friends along, even though they had all stopped speaking to me as soon as I won the role, effectively freezing me out for my final months in London. I wasn’t surprised to see them in the crowd anyway, sitting in a row still wearing their identical yellow puffer jackets. I waved to them quickly as I made my way to the stage and they sat slack jawed, too impressed to even remember not to seem it.
I was miked up and then led onto the stage to sit on a couch next to the other two assassins and the actor playing our mentor in the film, a veteran action star from the nineties. I tried not to notice the number of cameras swinging in front of me and that they were manned by actual humans whose only job was to make sure that every single sound I made was caught and transmitted to God knows how many people watching from home.
Once the crowd had settled down, a famous TV personality introduced us, starting with me. I was fourteen but I looked younger (in the movie I would play a twelve-year-old), and on the whole I was still treated like a child by men like the host. It would be another year before the double entendres and winks would start, or even the questions about boyfriends, the cutesy references to puppy love and first kisses on set.
I was sitting next to the older actor, who smelled like beer, and as I looked out at the rows of expectant fans, some of them more than twice my age, I felt my confidence grow exponentially. I never once felt like I didn’t deserve to be there. I answered the host’s questions with stories I
had already fed the researcher, and I quickly worked out that even if the crowd didn’t respond to my words, all I had to do was giggle after I spoke and they would laugh along with me. I felt a strange sense of calm when they did, a warmth spreading through me that made me feel like I was finally good at something.
When the host asked me about my parents, I pointed them out in the crowd and told him that I’d just bought them a house with my first-ever paycheck.
“Wow, you’re fourteen years old, and you already bought your parents a house. How does that feel?” he said, and he was so close that I could see the makeup clinging to his wrinkles.
I paused for a moment and looked out at my parents again. My mom was smiling and my dad was leaning forward with tears in his eyes. I could see Able sitting a few seats down from them, too, his eyes trained on me. I flashed him a quick smile before turning back to the host.
“I mean, the house is in Anaheim,” I said, deadpan. “It’s kind of the armpit of California.”
The crowd roared with laughter as the host pretended to be horrified. I followed my words with another giggle and instinctively checked whether Able was pleased with my response. He nodded once and I felt invincible.
When the Q and A ended, the girls from school came running over, bubbling with excitement and asking me endless, inane questions about various things I had ascribed no importance to, like how long it had taken to braid my hair for the event, and whether the male assassin was as cute up close as he appeared onstage. While they were talking I felt a vague disappointment, as if I’d worked myself up for a battle that wasn’t worth it in the end.
