by Ella Berman
On the final day of the shoot, just when I was counting down the seconds until I was free again, my publicist, Nan, showed up. It turned out that Elon was also her client, and she sat us down in his trailer to talk about the burning wreck we’d all created. Elon watched a baseball game on TV as Nan told us that the studio had suggested we construct a relationship in order to generate some early publicity for the movie. She said that it would help reduce some of the stigma around the release while also showing the studio how committed we were to the project. Obviously we wouldn’t actually have to date each other; we just needed to be spotted at key places around LA for a couple of months. Elon shrugged his consent while I slipped out of the trailer to call Nathan.
“Elon is repellent,” I said to Nathan when he answered. “This is insane.”
“You don’t have to actually date him,” Nathan said. “You barely have to talk to him.”
“Does Able know about this?” I asked. “This was never part of the plan. I’m supposed to be unattainable, not dating some man-child from Nickelodeon.”
“Elon wasn’t on Nickelodeon. And Able isn’t a part of this project,” Nathan reminded me. “He doesn’t have input in what you do or don’t do here.”
“He’ll care though,” I said, instantly pushing the image of Able breathing heavily in my ear out of my mind, just like I always did.
“Please, Nathan. This isn’t a good look for me.”
“This was why Able came up with the plan in the first place,” Nathan said grimly. “So that we could control all of this. You made your choice, Grace. You just have to live with it for a couple more months. Come on, it could be a lot worse. Millions of girls would kill to go on a date with Elon Puth.”
I watched as Elon climbed down the steps from his trailer then. He was holding his phone up in selfie mode and was filming himself talking seriously into the camera, as I’d seen him do countless times during the shoot. His videos always started with “hey, guys, so sorry for the wait,” as if his fans had been lying dormant all this time, just waiting for him to bring them back to life with tales of the offerings from craft services that day, or updates on his sleep cycle the night before.
I thought of Able again, and the realization that everything I had relinquished may have been in vain nearly winded me.
“But why didn’t he try to stop me?” I asked quietly.
* * *
• • •
My first “date” with Elon was at the ArcLight in Hollywood a couple of weeks later. We were supposed to look like any regular couple—just like you, but better of course. I didn’t actually know what people my age wore on dates, so in the end I chose a tiny red dress and an old jean jacket with some sneakers. Elon picked me up in his orange Lamborghini, and he laughed when I flinched at the sight of it.
“Pretty obnoxious, right? What did you expect?” he asked, and since it was the closest he’d ever come to self-awareness in my presence, I thawed ever so slightly toward him.
I’d suggested we go to the movie theater so that we wouldn’t have to talk to each other, but almost as soon as we sat down, Elon started to shift restlessly in his seat next to me, playing on his phone and scrolling through various flashing apps. After about half an hour, he grabbed my arm and leaned in close.
“Do you want to get out of here?”
I shrugged.
Elon led me through the lobby and out toward the car, grabbing my hand when the paparazzi crowded around us at the exit, calling both our names and shouting questions about how long we’d been dating. Elon turned and smiled at me, and his eyes were so warm and enchanting that I wondered how they’d seemed so lifeless throughout the shoot. I smiled shyly at the cameras before holding up my hands to cover my face.
“What are you doing?” Elon asked me under his breath, but I pretended not to hear him. It didn’t make sense that I’d suddenly be lapping up this kind of attention after I’d made such a point of being so private in the past. I wasn’t going to completely obliterate the image we’d so carefully curated just because I’d made one bad choice.
Elon pulled off as soon as we were inside the car, and we headed into the hills.
“Come to this party with me,” Elon said, and just when I was worried he was going to try to blur the lines of the arrangement, he added, “It will look good.”
“Whose party is it?” I asked as we drove up one of the winding canyons. I had never been to a Hollywood party without someone from my team, and even then I just dropped in to charm whoever I was instructed to charm.
“Clint Eastwood’s lawyer’s son,” he said, and he frowned when I laughed. “What?”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you were joking,” I said, and he turned away from me. I stared silently out the window as the lights of Los Angeles twinkled below us.
* * *
• • •
The party was in a white palace at the top of Benedict Canyon. Elon knew the security code of the gate, punching it in before holding it open for me. We walked around the house and straight through to the backyard, where water cascaded over terra-cotta boulders into an Olympic-sized swimming pool. A guy in white Calvin Klein briefs threw a shrieking woman into the water, and Elon grinned at me before excusing himself to find the host. People swayed in the water and whispered about me from behind their raised red cups, while I stood awkwardly alone by the sliding doors into the house.
After a few minutes, I let myself into the house and found the kitchen. I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of vodka. I’d drunk a little before but never by myself—I was too much of a control freak. As awful as it had been, however, the experience of shooting the film and spending time alone with Elon gave me a sense of independence, and I figured that now could be the time to start making a few of my own decisions. A girl wearing a shimmering white jumpsuit approached me just as I was pouring vodka into a red cup. I quickly topped it up with a splash of orange juice before she could see how much vodka I’d used. When she got closer I noticed that she had tiny crystals embedded in her eyebrows. I took a sip of my drink, wincing as it burned its way down my throat.
“You came with Elon, right?” the girl asked, and she instantly seemed too friendly for one of these parties.
“Yes,” I said, smiling politely at her. “I should maybe go look for him.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bother,” she said, laughing. “He’s probably giving someone a BJ in the guesthouse.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Didn’t you know?” she asked, and I shrugged.
“I don’t really care,” I said, and she laughed again, seemingly delighted with me. I already felt better from the alcohol, giddy almost.
“I’m Alaia,” she said at the exact moment I decided that I liked her.
“Grace.” I nodded back at her.
“You know, you look like you could use a real party,” she said after a moment, and she waggled her tiny, fluffy purse at me. “Wanna join?”
I stared at her for a minute, uncomprehending, and she grabbed my hand, smiling.
“Come with me.”
* * *
• • •
Alaia led me up the marble staircase to a bathroom on the first floor, where a rose quartz bathtub glowed beneath a window overlooking the pool. I sat on the closed toilet seat and watched with interest as Alaia portioned out two neat lines of white powder along the edge of the bathtub. She used her gold credit card to chop and press the powder until it was as fine as dust. I watched as she ran her finger along the card and then put it in her mouth. When she held the card out to me, I did the same. After that, Alaia took a metal straw out of her purse and hoovered up one of the lines in less than two seconds. When she was done she stood, pressing up the tip of her nose and inhaling sharply. The sound was surprisingly guttural, like the noise an animal might make before a fight.
Alaia gestured to the line o
n the edge of the bathtub, and I slowly eased onto my knees. I took a gulp of my drink, and it was so strong that it made my eyes water. I tried to remember how Alaia had done it as I bent over the powder with the cool straw resting lightly inside my nostril. I inhaled and felt the burn inside my nose. I thought instantly of Esme, and decided that I would call her when I left the party if it wasn’t too late.
Alaia smiled at me.
“You okay?”
“I think so,” I said, but I was already enjoying how I could really feel my brain working in my skull for the first time. It felt as if I could finally control my wayward mind, choosing exactly what I wanted to zone in and focus on with military precision. I felt an immense surge of appreciation for this stranger who had somehow known exactly what I was searching for.
“It’s fair trade,” Alaia said brightly as she leaned in toward me from her position on the edge of the tub. I looked at her uncomprehendingly. “The coke, I mean. Nobody died to get it to us.”
For some reason I found this hilarious, and when I started to laugh, she did too.
“Can we have more?” I asked, sliding back onto the floor. I felt good, clearheaded and alert, but I was also already worrying that the effects would wear off. “Since nobody died or anything.”
Alaia smiled and took the bag out from her purse again.
“Have you ever been to Burning Man?” she asked as she poured more out.
“No, have you?” I asked, running my tongue over the roof of my mouth. The ridges felt numb and foreign.
“Yes. You have to come with us this year. My friend can fly us in.”
I nodded, smiling slightly.
“That sounds fun. I’d like that,” I said. “I don’t have many friends in LA.”
Alaia looked at me quickly and then nodded, and I wondered if that had been obvious when she saw me standing alone in the kitchen.
She handed me the straw again, and I bent over to do my second line. I had only cleared half of it when I felt something catch in my throat and I straightened up to swallow. As I did, I happened to glance at Alaia, who was holding her phone at an odd angle in her lap. I stared up at her, and I could tell instantly from her expression that she had been filming me.
“Give me the phone,” I said, my voice low and rough. Alaia froze, panicked, and I grabbed it from her lap. The grainy camera was still recording when I turned it over. I realized that I had no idea how to stop it or how to delete what she had done, so I pressed some buttons on the side until the screen went black.
I turned and walked out of the bathroom. Alaia followed me as I stumbled down the stairs and out of the sliding doors to the backyard. People were staring as we passed them, but I stopped only when I reached the edge of the pool. I dropped the phone on the ground next to me and then stamped on it, hard. It crunched satisfyingly under my foot, but I still threw it into the swimming pool once I’d finished.
“That’s my phone, you freak,” Alaia said, but I just turned and walked back through the house and out the front door.
I sat on the step outside the house, watching a couple arguing on the lawn while I drank a cup of warm beer that someone had left behind. After a while, the door opened behind me and Elon walked out. He stood in front of me, shaking his head distastefully.
“Where have you been?” I muttered. “You’re a little late to save me.”
He rolled his eyes and then surprised me by sitting down next to me.
“Did you hear what Alaia did to me?” I asked, and Elon didn’t say anything for a while. I pulled away from him and stood up. “What the fuck, Elon?”
“It could have been good for the movie,” he said, shrugging.
“In what way, exactly?” I asked, and even I could hear that I was slurring badly.
“Go home, Grace,” Elon said.
“I know you’re gay,” I said. “Would that be good for the movie too? Is that why you’re hiding it?”
The couple on the lawn in front of us stopped arguing long enough to turn to stare at us, and Elon grabbed my wrist tightly. He pulled me up and dragged me further away from the house. I hoped there weren’t any photographers lurking to catch this special moment.
“It is not your choice how and when I come out,” he said, once he was sure we were out of earshot of anyone else.
“Fuck you, Elon,” I said as I slid down the side of a parked car and slumped against it. My red dress was riding up and I was sitting in the dirt, but I didn’t care.
Elon eyed me with disgust.
“You’re a terrible actress, you know,” Elon said. “You ruined that movie.”
I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t true.
“You ruined that movie,” I said, jabbing my finger at him. “I don’t need this garbage movie. You do.”
“Everyone was tiptoeing around you so that you didn’t shatter,” Elon said, and the look of revulsion in his eyes was so pure that I was silenced for a few seconds. “So what are you, bipolar?”
I stood up and shoved him hard so that he had to grab onto the wing mirror of the car to catch his balance.
“Stupid bitch,” he said before he turned around and walked away. I stood dumbly for a moment, waiting for him to come back or for someone to tell me what to do, how to get out of there. Once it was obvious that nobody was coming, I pulled out my phone and looked down at it.
I called the only number I’ve ever known by heart.
* * *
• • •
When Able pulled up outside the house, I picked myself up off the ground and climbed wordlessly into his car. He turned the engine off so that we were sitting in the dark, lit only by the streetlight outside. I felt instantly embarrassed about how I looked—overdone as if I’d somehow believed I would be treated like an adult when I got dressed earlier that evening. I noticed then how dirty my legs were against his clean cream interior, but if Able noticed, too, he didn’t say anything.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, after a moment. My eyes instantly filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“You don’t need to apologize to me,” Able said. “You never do.”
“I nearly messed it all up,” I said, needing him to understand what had happened because now that I was next to him, I wasn’t angry at him anymore. I just felt ashamed. I was riddled with guilt that I’d even taken the role in the shitty movie in the first place. Able had put his faith in me from the moment we met, and now I’d nearly thrown it all away just because I was always trying to prove something.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll handle Nan,” he said, once I’d finished telling him what happened, and as he brushed at my tears with his thumb, I thought about how kind it was of him not to say I told you so. I promised myself that I would never expose myself like that again.
“None of this is your fault. You should never have been put in this position,” he said.
“Thank you,” I whispered. Able tapped my seat belt and I fastened it before he pulled off, his headlights illuminating the dark canyon.
“You know, I actually called Mandy before you started shooting,” Able said after a moment. “To stop anything like this from happening.”
“You spoke to Mandy,” I said slowly, trying to understand. “What did you say to her?”
“I made it clear that under no circumstances was she to push you too hard.”
I thought of what Elon had said about people tiptoeing around me on set, and my cheeks began to burn. Able sensed my discomfort and his voice softened.
“I did it to protect you, Grace. I didn’t want her getting frustrated with you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked before I could stop myself. Able turned to study me, and I could see the indignation building in his face.
“Remember that I know your limits better than you do. Mandy needed to know h
ow easily you can become overwhelmed, and how that affects your processing and judgment, and how it can make you hostile to the people around you. It’s not a bad thing, it’s a part of who you are, but I knew you would never tell her if something was wrong.”
I sat very still in my seat as a warning signal went off somewhere inside my brain. I pushed it back down into the depths of my subconscious and nodded, knowing what he wanted from me.
“Thank you,” I said.
“How did you find working with someone else anyway?” Able asked casually as he pulled to a stop at the traffic lights on Crescent Heights.
“It was the worst,” I said, and Able smiled next to me. “Mandy didn’t care about any of it, and Elon . . .”
“What about Elon?”
“Elon said I was . . .” I started, but I couldn’t finish. “He said I was a horrible actor.”
Able froze, and even though he didn’t say anything for a while, I could feel his rage fill the car around us. When he did speak, his voice sounded thick with emotion.
“Look at me, Grace,” Able said, turning my face toward him. I looked at him, my eyes finally meeting his. “That person isn’t even worth the ground that you walk on. He’ll be working in a parking garage by the time he’s twenty-five. This will be the last film set he ever works on, trust me.”
I smiled slightly and Able smiled back at me, bathing me once again in his pure light. It always felt so much warmer when he looked at me, I didn’t know how I’d forgotten.
“You know I’d do anything for you, don’t you?” he asked then, changing tack and catching me off guard again. I sat up a little straighter as the traffic light turned green and he pulled off, the engine murmuring gently.
“Yes,” I said carefully.
“Well, you understand that works two ways, Grace. And now you need to earn back my trust.”
I felt a thrum of dread deep in my stomach, but when I sneaked a look at him, Able was still smiling. I wondered if I’d got everything confused in the past: maybe Able was right and my useless, burned-out mind meant I couldn’t process information like everyone else around me.
