Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  “So can we go for a swim?”

  He glanced up at the hills to the right of the window, and I knew he was evaluating the security issues.

  “Not until tomorrow.”

  I remember feeling light-headed when our car dropped us at La Croisette, the shop-lined boulevard that runs along the waterfront in Cannes. Rob and I loved each other, and there was no reason to hide a moment longer. We started to walk down the street together, and for a few precious moments I had what I wanted: I was strolling in a charming French village with my lover on my arm. Just an anonymous couple being quiet and boring and happy.

  How many minutes passed? Three? Maybe five? I don’t think we had time to say a word about the weather (which was gorgeous) or to glance in a shopwindow. All I remember is Rob bending down and whispering in my ear. “Brace yourself,” he said, “it all starts now,” and tucked my arm firmly under his elbow.

  The landscape around us, a moment earlier shaped by the white rectangles of buildings, triangles of blue sky, the long slope of the beach, and the graceful lines of palm trees towering over the boulevard, was suddenly a seething block of bodies, each face obscured by what looked like a gas mask. Cameras. The paparazzi had found us.

  “Lizzie! Rob! Over here, over here!” I slid my hand down Rob’s arm, finding his fingertips. I thought we would stand there for a moment, posing and smiling, but Rob suddenly strode forward, directly toward the crowd. I scurried to keep up with him. The flashes came continuously now, and I forced a smile. Why wasn’t Rob pausing? I wanted us to pose for the photos and be done. But instead we hurried down the street.

  Revealing our relationship on the red carpet had one benefit that was now all too clear. The red carpet was always lined with rope to hold the paparazzi back. Now, with no such restraints, the men in the front of the swarm surged forward, planting themselves maybe five feet in front of us to get their shots. But the photographers behind them continued to push forward. The front cameramen struggled to stay standing, and for a moment it seemed like the mob would bear down on us. Rob stopped abruptly, putting his arm around me protectively. I huddled into him, anticipating the crush. We didn’t think this through, I thought. I shouldn’t have interfered. We should have stuck to the original plan. Then, from nowhere, two huge men appeared in front of us, arms spread wide: a barricade.

  “Back, everyone, back. You’ll get your shots.” The crowd responded instantly, seemingly as relieved as we were that by some miracle these two bodyguards had taken control. A radius emerged around us; the sky reappeared; I realized that I’d been holding my breath, and exhaled deeply.

  Half a block farther, Rob took me around the shoulder, gave me a tight half hug, and whispered, “This way!” He steered me in a sharp right turn, and there, idling next to us, was a limo with an open door. Our car. The “miracle” bodyguards slid in after us. The door slammed, and everything was quiet. I leaned back into the leather seat. Rob winked at me and smiled. “Perfect, Elizabeth!” He held up a hand for a high five. I’d been wrong. Rob knew this turf far better than I. He had made sure that the casual appearance I’d asked for was as planned as the red carpet would have been. It was choreographed down to the minute. I just hadn’t been in on it. But instead of feeling belittled or betrayed, all I felt was gratitude. It was as if the karmic universe had said, “Let’s let Lizzie get her way just enough to see that she was wrong, and she won’t question us again.” And it worked.

  Sitting in the car, I knew that even as we caught our breath the photos of us were traveling through virtual space, being sold and distributed to news outlets across the globe. With every passing second, websites, blogs, producers, former costars, family, friends, the bizarre but undeniable universe of hundreds, no thousands, of people who cared that Rob and I were an item was expanding. For once I was kind of excited. Sure, I hated the paparazzi. It was no fun being photographed with a wardrobe malfunction at the beach, and it had been unpleasant to see the pictures of me and Johnny in a fight at the Red Sox game. (Why must my face get so blotchy whenever I cry?) But I was happy to be with Rob, and, now that I thought of it, I didn’t yet have any pictures of us as a couple. I wanted to see what we looked like together. I might even want copies!

  When we got home, Rob and I hung out by the pool. (According to our respective reps, if the paparazzi found us now it didn’t matter so much. Because we’d controlled the news release. Or something like that.) Anyway, I couldn’t really relax. I kept reloading TMZ on my phone. So sue me for caring. Aurora and I were texting: any minute, I told her.

  calling my mother the minute it’s out, she wrote back. Then another text came in from Aurora. don’t sweat it, pepper. the web people are lowest common denominator. Uh-oh. I tapped a search into my phone: lizzie pepper rob.

  Search results immediately came up on my phone. Lots of them.

  Lizzie Aims High, Shoots for Mars

  Lizzie Pepper Cast as Rob Mars Costar: It’s All an Act

  Liz and Rob: Love or Money?

  Rob’s Tin Lizzie: Fake Love at Last

  What the hell was this? I looked up at Rob. He was reading a newspaper, so nonchalant.

  “Babe?” I said. “It’s out.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “I haven’t looked yet . . . but I think they’re saying we’re a sham.”

  “Yeah, because I’m gay, right?”

  “It’s so . . . mean.”

  Rob put down his paper. He smiled and my heart took a roller-coaster dip. I couldn’t help smiling back. He came over and sat straddling the foot of my chaise, facing me. He set my feet on top of his thighs. “Who cares what they say? We have each other.”

  He leaned forward and gave me a long, deep kiss. My phone dropped out of my hand to the patio. I started to pick it up. “To hell with that,” he said, pulling me back toward him.

  I left the phone where it fell. Still, we went inside to have sex. We weren’t idiots.

  Later I read the articles. They were worse than I’d anticipated. The tabloids had indeed decided that our relationship was all an act. A business deal. We didn’t love each other. Rob was gay. I was a status climber. Depending which “news” outlet you read, our “love” was orchestrated by One Cell Studio to prove that Rob, their best-known practitioner, was straight; or the relationship was a ploy for him to promote Firing Squad and for me to promote myself in general. Running alongside the ludicrous stories were the photos of us taken on La Croisette a few hours earlier. Rob looked like the tall, confident, handsome movie star that he was. I hurried two steps behind him at the end of his arm, like a child. My eyes were cast slightly downward, a dazed half-smile on my face. I looked like one of the Manson girls.

  Rob didn’t care about any of it. I wished the faceless people behind the tabloids and everyone who believed their crap could see how little he cared.

  “When they don’t have news, they invent it, Elizabeth. I don’t blame them. It’s a crappy job, but if they don’t do it, someone else will.”

  It was a perfect response. I respected him for this attitude, but I didn’t have such thick skin. The only bad press I’d ever gotten was when Johnny and I had that fight at the ball game, and when we split up. And even then I had to admit that they’d pretty much gotten it right. He was sometimes drunk and I was always miserable. We were breaking up and, unfortunately, everyone knew it. But this was the first time I’d had to read straight-out lies about myself, lies that made me sound like someone I was not.

  My father was outraged. “I thought Rob’s people were pros,” he said on the phone that night. “I thought Geoff knew how to handle this.” Though I’d spoken to my father about my relationship with Rob, I’d never had reason to mention Geoff, the chronic mint sucker. How my dad knew that Geoff existed, much less that he might be involved in Rob’s PR, was a mystery to me. But my dad hadn’t built the biggest corporate consulting business in Chicago by twiddling h
is thumbs. Leave it to Dad to suss out the key relationships in my romance. No doubt he was worried that I was in over my head—and I certainly was.

  My father wanted to know how we were going to spin this back down to earth. But when I asked my publicist, she just said, “There’s no point in trying. This is what you get for dating Rob Mars. Take it or leave him.”

  Two weeks later, back in L.A., the press still hadn’t let up. Every time we left the house, we were photographed. The photos were accompanied by the same negative rumors. Rob didn’t care, but I felt like there was a shadow over our relationship and, for that matter, my image. I didn’t want to be seen as a fame whore. People should know that what we had was real. This was love.

  So that is what brought us to the infamous “Love of My Life” serenade on top of the car. Sigh.

  Everyone already knows what happened, and I realize now how it looked to the world, but if you will, please try to see it all through my eyes: Rob and I were on our way home from a charity luncheon at Geoff and Patricia’s in Beverly Hills. The paparazzi had followed us there, and now they were following us back home. Earlier that day, Rounder had released a particularly offensive article, listing the professional pros that being in a relationship with Rob offered me. They labeled me “career-climber Lizzie.” I was quiet on the way home, and Rob knew why.

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything,” he said for the umpteenth time.

  “I know. You’re right. But I still care.”

  “Pull over,” Rob suddenly said to Lewis, the driver. We were on Beverly Drive, in the heart of Beverly Hills. The sidewalks were thick with pedestrians, an anonymous mix of locals and tourists. Lewis swerved sharply to the curb, and there was nearly a paparazzi pileup behind us. They slammed on their brakes, stopping in a cluster around us.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m going to tell them the truth. I love you. Plain and simple.” Rob threw the car door open. The cameramen were out of their cars at once, pushing closer, an eager, confused mass.

  “Rob—stop!” I said, but he was determined.

  “Come,” Rob said, and took my arm, pulling me out after him. He lifted me up to sit on the hood of the car.

  A crowd instantly gathered on the sidewalk, cell phones raised in salute, and the moment Rob climbed up to stand on the hood in front of me, they went wild. Like every girl who was a teenager when Great and True came out, I knew Rob’s “Love of My Life” scene. His serenade of Lexy Hartfield in the bed of the pickup truck was the moment preserved in the poster that Aurora had on her bedroom door, the scene that had won the hearts of girls across America. It had been replayed on entertainment TV ad nauseam when he and Lexy got married. And now it was happening to me.

  Rob started crooning “Love of My Life.”

  “Oh my God, stop! You ridiculous person.” I stood up next to him and rose on my toes to kiss him, not a little bit desperate to shut him up.

  He put an arm around me and we faced the crowd. He said, “Let me introduce the love of my life, Elizabeth Pepper!”

  And just like that, I was christened with a new, sophisticated brand. Lizzie Pepper, girl next door, was all grown up and worthy of Rob Mars. Henceforth, I was to be Elizabeth Pepper. Frankly, I had no idea people would make such a big deal about it. My real name had always been Elizabeth. It was on all my credit cards and checkbooks. It felt a bit too formal and un-me—Aurora teased me for it—but Rob liked it, and I thought I’d get used to it. I was a woman now, even if I didn’t exactly feel like one.

  Rob leaned down and whispered in my ear, “I love you.” You saw that happen on YouTube, but what you didn’t know was that it was the first time he had told me he loved me. I mean, he’d talked about his love for me, as in “I don’t mind having people see that we love each other,” but this was the first time he had said those three words, simple and direct. Leave it to Rob to save it for a dramatic moment.

  We pulled apart and paused for a moment, looking into each other’s eyes. I saw my sweet Rob, willing, wanting to give me the world. He loved me with all his heart, and those grand gestures were the only way he knew to express it. Swept up in the moment, I forgot the pedestrians, the paparazzi, the slightly precarious car hood. All I wanted was to show Rob that he didn’t need to try half this hard. I took his hand and pressed it to my heart. How did I think people would respond? Well, if I’d thought about it, I would have assumed that everyone would recognize the love that connected us.

  And so it was awful when the world decided that what they were seeing was the exact opposite.

  So much for countering the negative response to our Cannes debut. Instead, the press was brutal. Poor Rob, he bore the brunt of it. People didn’t believe it was a spontaneous act of love. They called him a manufactured brand, a robot attempting to play the role of a man in love. The YouTube meme, the talk show sketches, the political cartoon showing the president sitting on a car while the House speaker sings to him. For the life of me, I could not see what they thought was so bizarre. Rob shrugged it off. “We can’t win,” he said. “Next week they’ll love us again.”

  Needless to say, my father, who called us the very next day, was apoplectic. He raged at Rob, who stayed on the phone with him, serious and focused, saying, “Yes, sir,” every so often until my father had exhausted himself. Not the best first impression a boyfriend’s ever given my dad, but (thanks to Johnny) far from the worst. Afterward, Rob told me that, with all due respect, my father would forget it as quickly as everyone else.

  “Ha,” I said. “You don’t know my father.”

  As I’ve said, Rob has pretty thick skin. But I don’t. Having people be so merciless toward us, something changed in me. One night I was sitting at the kitchen counter with my laptop, reading the comments on a particularly scathing Glam piece (“Lizzie Pepper Drops Name and Personality”), when Rob came up to me, closed the laptop, and took it to the study.

  “Hey!” I followed him. Sure, it was a waste of time, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to confiscate my computer like I was a naughty child.

  “It’s enough,” Rob said. “As soon as you let go, you’ll realize how little it matters.” He took my hand and kissed every finger. As he did, he spoke, saying one word between each kiss, “I have you. You have me. Our love is everything.”

  That was the moment of decision for me. I had watched carefully as Rob rode out every aspect of the debacle with aplomb. He was so inscrutable. He seemed above it all, immune to public opinion, free of any self-doubt. At times he really did seem like the too-perfect robot the vicious press had labeled him. Was he for real? It was time for me to make up my mind. Would I trust this man? Would I take him at face value? Was his calm reserve an empty shell, as the media would have it, or was it really possible that this wasn’t all an act, that he was the same strong, confident prince all the way to the core?

  I chose to have faith in Rob. While the rest of society was full of mean-spirited judgment, Rob just kept right on loving me. In my prior relationships, I’d been the stable one, the rational one, the decision maker. Compared to Rob, I was the inexperienced child who had so much to learn. It felt like a load off my shoulders.

  His certainty anchored me, and yet he wasn’t too good to be true. Rob wasn’t a perfect lover, smooth and cinematic. He was sweaty and trembling and questioning and vulnerable. There was a deeper Rob, I needed to believe, one he still hadn’t let me fully see. I caught glimpses of it in our most intimate moments. Our bed felt like a little boat on a stormy sea, where it was us against the elements. If we had to cling to our vessel, isolating ourselves from public opinion and judgment, waiting for a change in tides, or charting a course to foreign lands, so be it.

  “You’re right,” I said. “We don’t need Hollywood. We make a perfect universe of two.”

  The next weekend, I moved in with Rob.

  6

  The
only work I had managed to line up for the summer was an appearance on Apartment 3J. Guest-starring on such a popular sitcom was a stopgap. It was taking far too long for me to get a movie, and meanwhile the media was trashing me. A guest appearance would bolster my image in the gap before Man of Her Dreams was released in November.

  The part wasn’t hysterically funny, but at least it had some depth. I was playing Benji’s long-lost high school girlfriend—his first love—so I essentially got to play two characters: a hopelessly-in-love teenager in his flashbacks to high school, and a current-day woman who’d outgrown puppy love. I was psyched to work with Colin Anthony (who played Benji). He carried that show, as far as I was concerned.

  The first day of rehearsals went well, when we played our googly-eyed high school selves. But the next day we were working on the second act, when he tracked me down at my law firm and I had to spurn him. For some reason I wasn’t nailing the character. The director kept telling me to warm her up. “How can I ‘warm up’ rejecting him?!” I wanted to shout back, but instead I just smiled and thanked him for the thought and then kept doing it the only way that made sense to me.

  That Thursday night we started shooting before a live audience, and I still had no plan for how to fix my performance in the second act. Then, after the first-act break, I heard a buzz on the set. Rob had appeared to surprise me, a huge grin on his face. We slipped into my dressing room, and I wolfed down some craft services mac and cheese.

  Rob asked me how it was going. I told him I couldn’t find the balance between outgrowing my relationship with Benji and being a cold bitch.

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  “Totally,” I said.

  “But what about Justin?” My American Dream boyfriend, both in the show and off camera, as everyone knows.