Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper

by Hilary Liftin

  My father wasn’t joking around. “You’ll need an apartment in Manhattan—for later, not for now. We’ll do that in Aurora’s name. She’ll be your stand-in. Everything we don’t want Rob’s people to trace will be in her name.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pepper. I’ve always wanted my very own New York apartment,” Aurora said. My father didn’t even pretend to be amused. Those two never hit it off.

  My father turned to the next page of his yellow pad. “This is a serious matter. Rob and his people are not going to let the boys go without a fight. The Studio has an image to maintain, and losing the sons of such a high-profile supporter doesn’t look good. We need someone who knows how that place works.” He looked up at me questioningly.

  “Buddy White?” Aurora suggested. I’d known he would come up eventually. But he was a stranger to me. I had a better idea. There was one person I might be able to trust. She had kept secrets from me, she had envied me, and she had most likely worked against me. But, in the end, after I’d accused her of false friendship and banished her from my life, she’d sent me the key to Bluebeard’s chamber. I had to believe in that gesture, to trust that that one, small piece of metal meant more than everything that had come before. Because nobody knew the inner workings of the Studio better than Meg.

  But when I said Meg’s name, Aurora pursed her lips. “Do you know where Meg is?”

  “Back at the Studio?”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Aurora said. “Buddy says that she disappeared after she left your house.”

  This was one of the popular rumors about the Studio—that, like Patricia, people who caused problems for the organization got locked away in work camps. I knew that people went to Fernhills for silent retreats. It had been described to me as an intense renewal program, one that people freely chose to undertake. (It included a severe fasting program that yielded enviable results. I always cringed when my fellow actors decided they needed to go to Fernhills right before the award season.) Also, Geoff, in more than one lecture, had talked about the forces that had it in for the Studio. “These accusations people make about us—that we’re a cult. That we abuse our practitioners! That you are here against your will! Is this your experience?”

  “No!” the audience would shout.

  Then again, there was the story Buddy White had started to tell me about his wife. She went to Fernhills for a silent retreat, and he didn’t hear from her again for years.

  Meg had tried to prove her loyalty to me. There was never any affair between her and Rob. I had known that for longer than I realized. I should have believed Meg from the start, but, in true One Cell fashion, I didn’t trust my emotions. Now I needed her to help me escape. I needed her, but first we had to find her. If she had gone into a silent retreat, it might be impossible.

  We agreed that we would proceed slowly and deliberately. To rush would be to risk everything. I knew what the worst-case scenario was—losing my sons forever. We all left the meeting with action items. My father was rounding up a legal team; Aurora was establishing accounts; and the boys and I took a weekend trip to New York, making sure we were photographed coming out of the Turtle Bay town house. This time, when the paparazzi asked me what we were doing in town, I said, “Well, I’ve always loved New York. We’ve been bicoastal for a while now.” I’d learned from the best of them: optics.

  2

  Back in L.A., my next task was a long shot, but all I had were long shots. I took Cap and Leo to lunch at the Studio. I hadn’t been there for three months, not since I’d called the number on the poster and pulled the boys out of daycare. Now that I was so disillusioned with One Cell, entering the Studio’s gates was surreal, like I was on the set of a movie. Were these people innocent, or were they all extras, cogs in a conspiracy of which I was victim? Either way, I had to act as if things had never been better. If I were going to escape, or even assemble the information I needed to escape, I had to make it seem like the furthest thing from my mind.

  We sat at my favorite table in the back corner of the courtyard. I knew who the waiter would be—Warren, an old friend of Meg’s, the one she had kissed hello the first day I met her.

  He put down my chef’s salad and two orders of mac and cheese for the boys. As casually as I could, I said, “So, have you heard from Meg?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you mean.”

  I hadn’t expected that response. He totally knew Meg. He knew that I knew that he knew Meg. Everyone knew Meg. “Meg? My former assistant? Your old friend?”

  He shook his head. “You must be mixing me up with someone else.”

  No, I wasn’t. I’d seen the two of them chat hundreds of times. “But, Warren, you know I—”

  He was emphatic now. “Nope. Sorry.” Then I knew. Meg had done something wrong, and now, in the eyes of the Studio, she didn’t exist.

  Warren hurried away from the table. Instead of eating his food, Cap looked up at me, his dark eyes steady. “Mama, that man is Auntie Meg’s friend. I remember.”

  I faked a chuckle. “He is being so silly, isn’t he?”

  Cap stared at me, and for a minute I thought he was going to say, “Well, it’s not very funny, is it?” But instead he picked up his fork and began to eat. I had less than a minute before this child would understand everything that was going on around him. No doubt he had already seen too much.

  I’d given up on getting Warren’s help, but when he brought me the check to sign, there was an extra scrap of paper along with it. One word was scrawled on it: “Fernhills.” Two pieces of information. One, Meg was at Fernhills, and two, clearly the powers-that-be didn’t want me to find out.

  In a normal world, I could just go to Fernhills myself and ask to see Meg. Just because Warren was scared didn’t mean I had to be. I was a grown-up. A public figure. This was America, for God’s sake. I could look for my friend if I wanted to.

  Except that I couldn’t. I couldn’t walk out the front door of my house without being attacked by paparazzi; I couldn’t fly commercial under any circumstances; I couldn’t take our jet up north without my husband asking why; and I couldn’t saunter into Fernhills without all of One Cell speculating as to what I was doing there. I would have to rely on Buddy White after all.

  That night I texted Aurora: so great to c u yesterday! can we do another Fabulous Hike soon?

  As we had discussed, Aurora knew exactly what I was telling her: Meg was in Fernhills.

  Buddy White did the heavy lifting. He and his crew helped Meg leave. I heard about it afterward from Aurora (on a prepaid phone, of course). Apparently the Studio never stopped anyone from walking out the front gates. Nor did they withhold mail. The challenge was making contact with Meg, who was voluntarily staying in a yurt with no phones and no access to the outside world. Buddy knew that in order to achieve psychic balance, the Studio would recommend that Meg stay on-site, in silence, with minimal food consumption. This was news to me—the Practice was more extreme than I’d ever known. So many rumors had proved untrue, but where there was smoke, there was fire. Although technically Meg could walk away, or receive or make a phone call, doing so would mean going against the ideals she’d upheld for most of her life.

  They didn’t know if anyone was reading her mail, so Buddy reached her by sending her friendly letters from a made-up clothing company, “Linus B.,” which she’d supposedly “helped” when she worked for me. The idea was that Meg would know these were fake, and, if she wanted to leave but didn’t know how, she would pay close attention to the subtext of the letters, which told her things like “Your friends here at Linus B. can’t wait to see you again” without giving anything away.

  After several of these letters, Linus B. sent Meg a thank-you gift. A token of appreciation for all her “hard work.” It was a black cotton motorcycle jacket, with numerous pockets and angled zippers. (My friend Saskia made it, actually. Trust me, it was very
of the moment.) Inside a hidden pocket of a pocket was a tiny scrap of paper with nothing on it but a date and time. It was left to Meg to decide to walk out the front gate at that time. If she wanted to leave, she would most likely take up jogging. Or feign an interest in wildflowers. Or photography. What the escape relied on, more than anything, was Meg’s determination. The only chains that bound her were psychological. She had to want to break from the Studio. Meg had to be willing to leave behind the only people and places she had ever known.

  Nobody had a clue whether this was what Meg actually wanted until the date of the planned escape, when Buddy’s friend drove his food delivery truck to the first intersection outside the entrance to Fernhills. He was prepared to wait there all night, but he’d been there only an hour when Meg, barefoot and wearing Studio robes, walked right up to the truck and asked for a ride. Like my hero Papillon, the amazing convict who escaped Devil’s Island, Meg had broken free by almost literally riding out on a bundle of coconuts.

  Two weeks after Meg walked away from Fernhills, she, Aurora, and I met at the Sofitel, where Meg had checked in under a false name. I reimbursed her for the hotel bill in cash. We didn’t want my business manager to start asking questions. I told Jordan that a Reiki master Saskia adored was in town, working out of a room at the Sofitel. It was an excuse I could employ once a week if need be. I relied on the fact that much as I didn’t want to raise any alarms, Jordan didn’t want me to feel watched. And so our chess game went.

  Aurora had counseled me not to talk to Meg about Fernhills unless she brought it up, and when I saw Meg it was clear to me that this was good advice. She looked different. She was tan, that weathered brown that comes from the real sun instead of a spray-on expert. Her eyes were sunken and sad, and she was very, very thin, her size 00 jeans sagging in the ass. We drank seltzer out of the minibar, and she started talking.

  “I don’t want you to think our friendship was a lie,” she began. “In the beginning, it was exactly what we both thought. I was helping you get to know the Studio. I got paid, but only the same amount I’d always been paid for working as a volunteer at One Cell—less than minimum wage.” Meg’s words were halting, as if weighed down.

  “I’d known Rob for years, but I’d never seen his life up close. The houses, the travel, the food, the clothes—all of it was foreign to me. I grew up believing creature comforts were irrelevant. The core purpose was what mattered. But you were my age, and seeing you live that way—I found myself swept up in it. Dressing up, going to events, borrowing your clothes . . . I’d never even had a glass of wine before.”

  “Wine is really good,” I said.

  “Tell me about it,” she said, smiling for the first time. She continued: “Then Rob had me coordinate an ad campaign for the Studio—the boys are part of it—”

  “I know about it,” I said. “I used the key.”

  “I tried to say no, that I wasn’t comfortable keeping a secret from you, but he insisted that he’d surprise you with the news when the time was right. He said you’d be thrilled. I was pretty sure that wasn’t true, and I tried to argue with him, but Geoff told me to mind my own business and do my job.”

  “I’m sorry. You were in an impossible position. I should have trusted you,” I said.

  “No, you did the right thing. I was being asked to do things that felt wrong. I tried not to let my emotions get in the way, but they did.” She turned to Aurora. “Geoff thought you were a bad influence, and I was instructed to take your place. I’m so sorry.”

  “See?” Aurora said. “This shit is hard core.”

  Meg went on, “Anyway, you know what happened next. You saw me coming out of Rob’s private office—”

  “Bluebeard’s chamber.”

  “Yes, and it made perfect sense that you fired me after that. I went back to the Studio and tried to clear my head.”

  “But you sent me the key! That must have meant you disagreed with Geoff—or at least with what Rob was planning.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. I grew up at One Cell. It was my life. I just couldn’t admit that I was on the wrong side. After you fired me, I guess Geoff thought I would want revenge. Or maybe he just thought I would do anything he asked me to do. So he . . .” Meg paused. This was obviously hard for her. “It’s . . . it’s about your sister, Lizzie.”

  “Allison?”

  Meg took a deep breath, then spoke quickly, as if she were eager to get what she was saying off her chest. “Geoff ordered me to pay your sister a visit. He told me we were reaching out to help her. But he also wanted me to take pictures. I think you know the rest?”

  I put my face in my hands. It was as I had feared. Geoff had used my deepest secrets against me. My poor sister had had no idea what she was getting herself into.

  “What happened then?” Aurora asked.

  “I said no,” Meg said. “I refused, but someone must have done it. I can name fifty people off the top of my head who would do anything to get in Geoff’s good graces.”

  The Altoid tin that Cap had found in the cabin. “Actually, I think Geoff himself went,” I said. “But for what? What does exposing Allison do for him?”

  “Power,” Meg said. Power. Such a strange concept. I’d never thought about wanting power, being motivated by it, having it, before I met Rob. Meg went on. “Whatever he got from Allison, he’ll use to control you.” She looked out the window, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had been born into this community, believed in its mission, and she was braver than anyone I’d ever met for letting it go.

  Geoff wanted me to stay with Rob, but why? Meg explained that it was in the Studio’s interest for Rob to have a model marriage, and to keep it. It was all about image. Rob, as One Cell’s most visible advocate, should appear to have it all. Above all, it was what Rob wanted. I chewed over that one for a bit. Was our marriage really what Rob wanted? But I could see it. Rob wanted a family, with children, the same way he wanted nice houses and fancy cars. “Wife” was one of the items he wanted to cross off on his list of goals sought and obtained. Maybe, if I wasn’t being cynical, he did feel something for me, even if he didn’t trust himself to express it. Without a doubt, he loved Cap and Leo.

  “When I drew the line at meeting with your sister, Geoff sent me to Fernhills. For Inner Conflict resolution.” A year earlier, Geoff had diagnosed me with Inner Conflict. I suppose it was only my status that kept me from being sent to reform at Fernhills, as Meg had been.

  “Is that like prison?” Aurora said. “Buddy told me about it.”

  “It’s intense,” Meg said. “We were in a yurt—a big one—twenty-four/seven. They kept it quite dark, and we tried not to talk. During the day we practiced and fasted—just water and some sardines if we were desperate. At night we processed the guided motivation CDs that the Studio sells. Sometimes a crew of us was sent out to work on buildings. The isolation is interesting at first, and some people say it really helps them focus and renew their commitment to the Studio. But after a while I hated it. I lost track of time. And there wasn’t much opportunity to rest. I couldn’t focus in my practice. All I could think about was food and sleep. I was barely a person.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Just over six months,” Meg said, “but there are some people who’ve been there for years.”

  “So Buddy was right. It’s really true. People are held against their will. That’s completely illegal,” Aurora said. “We can shut them down.”

  “Except it wasn’t against anyone’s will,” Meg said. “I wasn’t kept prisoner. I chose to be there. I had a lot to figure out. I didn’t belong in your world, and I couldn’t obey Geoff anymore. I didn’t know what to believe. I wanted to be there . . . until I didn’t. I was lucky Buddy’s guys showed up when I was on work detail. At that point I didn’t think I could stand another minute.”

  “Is Patricia in Fernhills?” Budd
y and the other active ex-members had made a big deal of her disappearance, but Geoff liked to say “She still pays her taxes. Guess she has a right to privacy like anyone else.”

  “There was definitely no sign of Patty.” I thought of Patricia often now. She had, I thought, tried to warn me that there was a dark side to the world I was entering. Now that odd, stiff woman was lost to it. Patricia’s whereabouts were a mystery I would never solve.

  Meg was very clear about one thing. If I was going to escape my marriage, we would have to blindside everyone—including Rob. Meg didn’t know what might happen if I threatened to leave.

  “Lexy let her intentions slip, and look where she is now. We don’t want to find out what happens if you cross him. We know for sure that One Cell doesn’t want you to leave. That’s what Geoff’s meeting with Allison was all about.”

  Meg spoke with conviction. She said that Cap, Leo, and I had to physically escape. Our departure had to be so secret, sudden, and public that neither Rob nor One Cell could stop me.

  “Also,” Meg said, “if you do get out, don’t expect to keep working as an actress.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Aurora. “I’m sure the Studio is all-powerful, but Lizzie is a great actress, and she’s totally famous. She’ll always have work.”

  “Not when ACE turns on her. They’ll squash your career, if that’s what Rob wants. Both ACE and One Cell will do anything for Rob. Once you move forward with this, you can’t change your mind.”

  The Safe House might never see the light of day. ACE had the power to kill it. Hell, movies fell out of production because an executive had a headache on the wrong day. “I’ll risk it,” I said. It wasn’t a hard decision. My boys were more important.

  3

  My father issued directives from Chicago, and Aurora, Meg, and I sprang into action, setting up the logistics of my exit. We had three months to get everything in order before the Venice Film Festival, where I would make my escape.