by Tess Little
I grabbed the handset away from him. We struggled over it for a few seconds. I was pulling with both of my hands, all of my strength. I could hear the muffled tones of the concierge, asking Richard if everything was all right, and then in one swipe Richard had regained control, had ripped it from my grasp.
He slammed it down on the receiver. Picked it up. Swung his arm back. I could hear the dial tone, see the sweat on his brow. And then he struck me across the face.
I fell against the wall. Held my cheekbone in both shaking hands.
“Sorry,” I heard Richard say mildly, “I believe we just lost connection.”
The telephone was plastic, but it had felt like a metal bat. The pain throbbed through my skull.
He laughed. “No, no, I didn’t want to order anything, I was just wondering whether there are any plasters in the room? Oh, there’s a…? Perfect. Yes, a shaving nick. Okay, brilliant, thanks. Thank you, you too. Good night.”
He opened the bedside drawer, found a first-aid kit. Tossed it toward me. Not violently—a schoolboy throw, like he wanted me to catch it. I held still. Let it hit me on the leg and fall to the floor.
Richard sighed. “I don’t appreciate you telling me what to do, Elspeth.”
He stood up, retied his bathrobe. “And I don’t appreciate you crying. Trying to make it all about you. I’m the hurt one. Sedgwick. Fucking hell, Elspeth.” Richard shook his head, then walked toward the bathroom. Before he reached the door, he turned to say, “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Regret what?” I asked, in spite of myself.
“What do you think? The wedding, this whole fucking thing. Please, don’t make me regret it.”
* * *
—
“I know I seem laid-back,” Kei said, “but when I started it was tough. Racist shit, sexist shit. You’re sent to costume on your first day. People don’t want you carrying equipment. Some guy, your junior, explaining video codecs to you. So you work twice as hard to prove yourself. And when you finally get the respect, the jobs you deserve, you have to be twice as thankful.”
My chest was tightening. I opened the window to inhale the night air. We had driven through the town of Mojave, and now there was nothing but flat on either side of the road—the expansive, blackening sky.
“That’s how it was when I started working with Richard. Twice as grateful. It was the first time someone thought I could lead, my first feature as DP. And it was so exciting. Here was the guy who had directed Anatomy, one of my all-time favorites. Someone who worked across a range of genres, who defied genres. A risk-taker. An artist. One Hundred Years was my dream job.”
Kei told me they had worked well in the beginning. Occasional clashes but nothing unusual—they were a team. When an argument escalated, she reassured herself: It could lead to unexpected results, better work. I knew the feeling well.
“But Dominus was different, Elspeth,” Kei said. “I thought I was going to quit. Not just the film but everything. My career.”
She paused while we overtook a freight train on the tracks beside us, waited for its roar to fall behind.
“I don’t know what it was,” she said. “Richard got more erratic, controlling. On the first day shooting the museum scene, he refused to break for lunch. Seven hours in, the cast was exhausted, so I told him we needed to stop. Not till it’s done properly, he said. Production didn’t bat an eyelid. But the crew had already worked two hours before shooting; it was ridiculous. So I put my foot down. And we argued. Suddenly he said, Okay, then—break. I was about to head over with the others when he yanked me, literally, grabbed my shoulder. Not you.”
Kei cleared her throat. “He said we’d had to shoot for so long because of my mistakes, which was bullshit.” She looked at me. “And I told him that. So he started pulling crew members. Asked them to critique me. Cam ops, ACs, right down to the fucking PAs. The way he did it—it’s like they’d be fired if they didn’t do what he said. And they knew Richard could make sure I never worked again. That if they stuck with me, they’d be on a sinking ship. Just like that”—she clicked her fingers—“Richard tipped the balance. One by one, my crew tore me apart.” Her voice split. “And it broke me, I’m broken. To have heard those things from my team…”
She composed herself. “I was their boss.” Kei smacked her wheel. “I was the one who hired them. I was the one beside them in the trenches, day after day. I can’t explain it, but—in my job, loyalty is crucial. I worked hard to build that, my whole career. And he smashed it down in one hit. Done. I couldn’t bear to be on that set. Every morning, I wasn’t sure if I would make it in. I’d sit outside in my car till the last minute.”
I did not know what to say. We sat with her words, the sound of the asphalt.
She eventually asked, “Do you mind if I smoke in here?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Do you want me to—”
“Nah.” Kei cracked a smile, took a rolled cigarette from her shirt pocket, and lit it.
It went on, she told me, her voice emotionless. Again, in the dailies, Richard tore her down. The same thing happened the next day, and the next. Her anxiety slowly consumed her: She stopped sleeping, eating, her hair fell out. Richard knew how to belittle. He made an example of her.
“You know all the cast and crew signed NDAs on his last two films?” Kei laughed, hollow. “He always told agents it was to protect his ‘creative process.’ Bullshit.”
She paused and hunched over the wheel to relight her stub. Sat back again. “Funny thing is, it would have gone without saying. He would sue. Spread rumors. Yeah, I’d heard of careers he’d ended before. Richard joked about it constantly, even before Dominus. Whenever we argued. Get it right, Kei. Don’t make me regret hiring you.”
She threw the glowing nub out the window. Placed another cigarette between her lips. Immediately took it out again to talk. “He was…he…I cannot tell you how much I loathe him.”
Kei sighed. Lit the cigarette. Shook her head. “I hate myself more. I should’ve quit. When I think about that party…I felt like I had to go. I made Sabine come with me because I was a coward. I was always a fucking coward, and he knew how to— And I was smiling. I joked with him. I held up my glass and I toasted his health. But he was always like that. After the project was done, he’d become my best fucking friend. And I would stand next to him in the press photos and I would smile, I would…
“It became this joke. Richard, oh yeah, he can be difficult. Like it’s normal to scream at a colleague. Like it’s normal to keep someone up all night with meetings. Like it’s normal to shut down an entire set because the DP didn’t get the shot he wanted. Like it’s a work habit. A character quirk. Artistic process.”
The car picked up speed.
“Fuck that,” Kei said. “Fuck them. Fuck him.”
* * *
—
Richard and I spent the night in tormenting, cyclical arguments, our silences stretching longer between. Sometime after the sun had risen, I finally heard his breathing deepen. I went to the bathroom. I stuffed a towel into my mouth. I sat on the marble floor, let it chill my legs. And I sobbed and sobbed, until I could return to bed empty.
There were silver trays awaiting when I woke later that morning.
“I didn’t know what you wanted,” Richard said, “so I ordered everything. Full English, Continental, berries and yogurt. All the juices; take your pick. But I ordered a pot of coffee instead of tea—that much I knew.”
He smiled lovingly. Dragged two armchairs to the food cart, began to arrange the silverware.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, confused. The Band-Aid was itching my cheek.
He dropped a teaspoon, paused.
“It was inconsiderate,” I said. “I know, and I shouldn’t have taken you there.” I did not dare repeat the name: Sedgwick.
Richard was still mo
tionless.
And so I added, “I’m looking forward to our last day in London.”
He picked up the spoon. “Forget it, darling. Your food’s getting cold. Orange or grapefruit?”
The Wallace Collection, Liberty; I was careful that day. I marveled at it all, thanked him for it all, just as he had wanted. My diligent husband—my best performance. Sumptuous oil paintings, sparkling jewels. I was surrounded by beauty and sickened by everything he had given me: the world I did not deserve.
Guilty as he buttered a croissant for me, layered it with jam.
Guilty as he held open doors for me, took me by the hand.
Guilty as he led me to fine jewelry, latched a necklace to my throat.
* * *
—
We had been driving for nearly two hours—I had no idea where we were. My eyes were peeled open and I could feel goosebumps prickling both arms. I was past fatigue. At some point Kei had taken an exit off the highway and we were alone, slicing through the land, road barely visible. Nothing but the stars and shadows, a ship in the night.
When I first arrived in L.A. with Tanya, I couldn’t drive. And so when I got my Anatomy paycheck, the very first things I wanted were driving lessons, a license, and a car. I had always dreamed of that freedom. But Richard did not understand. Why would you want to waste that money? Just use the driver. You know I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. It took me years to change his mind, to grant me that small victory.
I had barely said a word since Kei began her story.
As the night cold crept into my limbs, she explained her reason for coming to me. She had an interview scheduled with a journalist in a few days’ time. She wanted to speak to me first because she felt like we had become friends, but also, Kei said, she had a favor to ask. Could I tell Lillie? Kei knew that Richard had been careful around his daughter. She admitted that sometimes while shooting Dominus, she had brought up difficulties and objections in front of Lillie, because she knew Richard would control himself.
“But Lillie needs to know before the interview is published,” Kei said. “I want to give her time to deal with it, before I go forward. Can you—would you be the person to tell her?”
Her voice was small and anxious; I think my decisiveness took us both aback.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
Kei exhaled shakily. “I didn’t—I thought you would be hostile. That you wouldn’t believe me. Maybe you’d try to talk me down to protect Lillie.”
But I was not the same woman who had written that press statement all those months ago. Nor was Lillie the same girl.
I did not say this aloud. I slid my hands beneath my thighs to warm them. Watched a solitary house glide by in the distance: porch lights, curtains closed.
“When I was at my worst,” Kei said, “I told myself: Just get through it.” She sniffed. “The shooting stretched on, we went way over schedule, and every day I woke up and said to myself: Get through it. End with Richard happy. Then you can move on. Finish this project and you can find another.”
I thought about the scenes I filmed for Anatomy, the strength it took to return to that set. Every day, numb; every night, paralyzed.
I thought about that second escape from L.A., my gym bag and the credit cards. That push driving each step forward, each step away from the house. Lillie beside me in the taxi, only concerned with her choice of candy for the flight—it had always been her treat, whenever we traveled together. She hadn’t known it would be the last flight for a while. She hadn’t known that on her return, two years later, she would be traveling alone. Little red knapsack and buckled shoes.
“But I’ve realized something.” Kei spoke slowly, as though thinking it through for the first time. I watched her hands on the wheel, the muscles in her forearms. “I don’t know what would have happened if Richard was still alive. Maybe having broken my spine, made me passive, he’d want to keep me around. I mean, if he did want me for his next project and I refused, maybe he’d have spread rumors—and, with that NDA, I couldn’t have contradicted them. I don’t know. I don’t know that Dominus would have been the end of it.”
Dad wouldn’t do those things, would he?
You would know if he was like that, wouldn’t you?
Dad never did any of those things to you, did he?
“It’s not about the fact that he’s gone,” Kei interrupted my thoughts. “I think Montana Entertainment might have been involved in the NDAs, and, look, I’m not stupid, I know that telling this story will make me look suspicious, even if I didn’t outright lie during the investigation.”
We glanced at each other. Then back at the road, the nothing.
“What it’s about, Elspeth,” Kei said firmly, “is everything I went through. It was hell. And I’m not content to have gone through hell without changing something. No. I look back now at how he treated me in the beginning, and I can see that even those smaller threats, the arguments, were unacceptable.”
Richard’s disappointment, my never-ending guilt.
“I can see that the way he treated other crew members, the cast, I can see it for what it was. It was wrong.”
The prop pistol, the game.
(Can you feel?)
(Good girl.)
“And people need to know that. They need to see him for who he was. He was manipulative. He was abusive. He—”
And that was when I said: “I know.”
* * *
—
I had spoken those two words louder than intended. They lingered in the car, killed everything else. I held my breath, waited for the probing questions, but when I looked over to Kei—how tired and sad she was at the wheel—I knew there would be none.
She nodded once, and then again. She understood.
I didn’t feel lighter, having unburdened, but I did feel softer somehow. As though I had been bracing every muscle for years, preparing for an unknown impact. And it had not come, and I had realized it would not come, and I could rest at last. Part of me wondered whether this was the time to go on—let all the memories loose. Another part still cradled the shame. In the end, neither compelled me. Kei had heard the crack in my voice. She didn’t require a detailed retelling; she didn’t need to hear my justifications for staying with Richard, my guilt for not leaving earlier, or my excuses for keeping silent. She had heard it all in that hairline fracture of the second vowel. She would know what it meant, and that felt like enough for me, for now.
As we drove on, I let my mind drift to the party: that conversation Kei and I had shared on the couch. Was it Richard’s murder that had changed everything, or was it all in motion already that night?
I rested my head back and drank the dark air: crisp, sweet. The earth and dust were lifting to life, almost herbal with the brush.
“He always enjoyed throwing people together,” I said, as the thought unfolded. “I think he wanted to know what they—what we—were made of.” I smudged my finger along the rubber groove under the window. “Like how, when you hold two familiar colors against each other, they seem different, unexpected. Richard wanted that. The clashing, complementary, but I think…I don’t think he ever wanted this. He would have hated this. Us talking together. Our honesty. He preferred it when people were pretending not to be themselves. Yet here we are. Despite everything.”
I smiled at Kei.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”
We pulled off the road. The rocks crunched beneath us; Kei cut the engine. My eardrums rang for a few seconds.
“If you don’t want to talk about him,” I said, “that’s fine. I just thought, I was just thinking that—”
Kei covered her eyes, shook her head.
“Is it the interview?” I asked. “Are you nervous?”
She didn’t answer.
“I can drive if you want
.”
“Elspeth, please, give me a second.”
I waited, listening to her staggered breaths, unable to diagnose my mistake.
Kei lifted her head. “I’m going to stretch my legs. I’ll just be five minutes.”
“Is that safe? Should you leave the car?”
“Five minutes.”
She walked into the night till she was the size of my thumb.
I didn’t understand how everything had changed so quickly. Maybe the emotions were just catching up with her. Maybe it was only with my confession that she had truly realized what her interview would mean: the other people she would be carrying.
I watched as Kei took her hands out of her pockets. Crouched down. Covered her face again.
The winds were whipping across the flatlands, rolling gently, then lashing out. It created a strange sound, a whistling, but not against anything—there were no buildings, no mountains, not even rock formations, for miles. Just currents of air, smashing against one another like waves, occasionally rushing through my window. They died down for a moment, and I could hear a lonely bird calling in the distance. Then Kei’s overshirt flapped as the wind lifted again—she stood up and wrapped it tight around her, walked back to the car.
I rolled the window closed. Kei shut her door, and we were sealed from the world.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said.
She turned the key. “But I’m going back and I’m going to drive us. I need to do it myself; I can’t be a passenger. It’s my decision—do you understand?”
She stared at me, intense.
I didn’t understand what she was saying or the sharpness in her voice, but I said, “Yes, of course.”
Kei nodded, then hauled the car around.
Again we sat in silence, with only the sound of the road. But this was different from the drive here: There was something ugly between us. I held myself stiff.
“I wasn’t planning to say anything about this,” Kei began. I struggled to hear her over the engine. “They would—I don’t know what they’d do to me if they knew. But it always felt wrong to lie to you.”
