“Is all this necessary?” I asked the first time we met in the under-ventilated, windowless waxing room of a hair salon that was a Buddy White–approved safe zone. How real was the danger? It was just so hard to believe One Cell would hurt me or imprison me. That sort of scheme belonged in Rob’s movies or the books I loved. True danger was on the slopes of Everest, or in a lifeboat at the whim of the tides, or outside the steep walls of a merciless prison. It was impossible to see myself in relation to any of that. Me! Lizzie Pepper from Chicago! My biggest worries were supposed to be sunspots and bad hair days. I couldn’t see Rob, even with all his gloss and movie star perfection, taking part in such a plot. Rob would never let something happen to me. But . . . would he enter a state of denial and let someone else take care of the problem? Yes. And was I a problem? I was about to be.
“People get divorced all the time. Even high-profile people. Can’t I just call a lawyer and be done with it?”
“Look, you’re not going to be tied up and carried off to Fernhills,” Meg said, “but Rob has infinite resources. He can fight you as long and hard as he wants.” This was how he would control me—with our children. If he used them, he could make me do anything he wanted, and he knew it.
As per my father, I needed to leave all at once, with a place to stay, money in the bank, and witnesses to make sure the story was told right. My departure, like every other milestone Rob and I had passed, would be a press event. For once, I wanted my private affairs in the press. The world would know that I had left; they would see us together, mother and sons, landing in New York—our home. We would control the optics; we would be out of the Studio’s reach; and Rob would have to scramble to assemble a legal team. And so we launched Operation Free Lizzie.
I’d never paid much attention to the infrastructure around me. Now I made it my business. I sent an e-mail to Cap’s drum teacher, canceling a lesson because I “thought Cap was overscheduled.” But I deliberately left it on my calendar. Then, on the afternoon of the lesson, I innocently said to Jordan, “Doesn’t he have drum class? It’s on the calendar?”
“No, we decided to cancel, remember? You told me Cap’s overbooked.”
“Oh, of course. Thank you. I completely forgot.”
Jordan was reading my e-mail. Confirmed.
I called Aurora and asked her what she thought I should get Rob for his birthday. She made a few suggestions, one of which was golf clubs.
“Hey, that’s actually a really good idea. Rob keeps saying he wants to try golf.”
A couple of days later I asked Jake if he had any ideas for presents for Rob.
“I think I heard him mention wanting to try golf,” he said.
Rob often said he thought golf was a waste of perfectly good grass. Jake was monitoring my phone. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a violation. It was Hollywood protocol that assistants listen in on calls. But Jake didn’t say, “I heard you mention golf clubs to Aurora.” Privacy was an illusion that we all upheld. By establishing a new barrier of technology around myself, I wasn’t just leaving Rob, I was reclaiming the personal space that most people take for granted.
Following my father’s instructions, Meg created what she called a “mirror” of my life. I had two phones and two computers—the new ones were in Aurora’s name. I lined up a second driver and a second nanny in New York—both of whom had been vetted by Secret Service standards and were hired by “Aurora Janevs.”
I started calling Lewis, my driver, directly, to establish a “new normal.” I also opened a bank account that our money manager didn’t have access to. I made up something about a discount at Barneys that came with new premium accounts and crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t raise a red flag.
There were light moments—Aurora showed up to one meeting in a “Run, Lizzie, Run” T-shirt—but for six weeks I had to act as if everything was normal, taking meetings, RSVPing yes for events I didn’t plan to attend, taking the boys to lunch at the Studio, all the while secretly receiving my father’s updates and instructions in coded e-mails on a disposable phone.
Eventually the boys and I moved to the Turtle Bay town house. Rob, away in Turkey, was unfazed. He liked New York, and had no idea the city was going to be the boys’ and my new, permanent home. My father contacted a friend from business school who was launching a new private school in Brooklyn. They registered both boys—under false names—for the incoming kindergarten class. My father helped the school design a private back entrance, which my corporation, Pepper Mills, paid for. I wouldn’t even have a chance to tour the campus until after I’d broken free. Meg—who was now on my undercover payroll—rented an apartment in Brooklyn Heights. She scouted out an Episcopal church that I would join the minute I could. These footholds in New York would make up for my previous intermittent presence in the city. We hoped the court would forgive my short-term residency when they saw that I planned to stay.
It felt good to be far from the One Cell stronghold; far from the city that ACE practically owned—a limitless power network that would do anything for Rob. New York felt safer. It was an illusion, of course. No matter where I was, Rob had his allies. But it comforted me to think that after it all went down, if I succeeded, our New York life would distract Cap and Leo from what for them would be the biggest change—that if all went according to plan, I would win full custody. They would see even less of their father than they already did.
It was an awful summer. I barely slept. I lost weight, and my skin broke out in hives. At times, when I was with Aurora or Meg, the detective drama felt like a game, but every night, after the boys and I Skyped with Rob, I went to the bathroom and threw up, aching for my sons, whose perfect world I was about to tear apart.
A few times I almost got caught, and sometimes I lost track of who and what I was trying to escape. Our new driver/bodyguard, Max, was a friend of Aurora’s who wasn’t on the payroll, and who had signed his life away in confidentiality agreements. One Thursday, I decided to take advantage of Lewis’s day off to check out the apartment in Brooklyn Heights that was to be our new home. I threw on a blond wig that was attached to a baseball cap (it was higher quality than it sounds), but Cap refused to wear either the Jedi mask or the fox mask I’d brought for him and Cap. (“Mama, it’s just not appropriate.” The kid was five going on sixty.) Leo ended up wearing them both.
By the time we got downtown, we were being followed. I don’t blame Max’s inexperience. I should have known it was an impossible idea. The potential repercussions of my recklessness were terrifying. If the paparazzi took pictures of us, someone on Rob’s team might notice the new car and new driver. It could blow everything. Rob. Geoff. Lewis. Jake. Liesl. Jordan. The list of people I didn’t trust was endless.
There must have been ten black SUVs surrounding us. We had to lose them. In a panic, I texted my father, who suggested I head someplace with security, where the paparazzi couldn’t follow.
Doctor’s office w underground garage? Office building? Hotel?
k, I wrote back. Then I realized I knew exactly where to go. Rob’s project. The New York Studio. I’d never been, but I knew it was on West 17th Street, just off Union Square.
We nearly drove past the construction site—I was expecting a tall building like the emerald Studio in Beverly Hills—I only knew we were in the right place when I saw the Studio’s logo on the signage posted along the rent-a-fence. Max pulled up to the gate. The guard recognized me and waved us into an unfinished parking lot. The chain-link fence slammed shut behind us. It wasn’t exactly a fortress, but it would have to do. Max pulled over to the side, avoiding the piles of construction materials. An attendant walked toward the car, then, recognizing me, gave a slight wave and went back to his post. Even in New York the One Cell staff knew the drill: They never approached us unless beckoned. I prayed nobody would notice that Max wasn’t Lewis.
We were safe. And yet we were hiding in the belly of the beast
. Max turned off the car, and, in the backseat with the boys, I hid my tears behind my sunglasses.
It was only that night, safe at home, after the boys were asleep, when I thought to wonder why the project that Rob had been working on so diligently throughout our marriage was still only an empty lot. The site had felt like a refuge because it was so unexpectedly quiet. Where was the hammering and drilling? Why weren’t there workers? I called Meg on my safe phone and asked her if she knew anything about the project.
“It was supposed to open last year,” Meg said, “but they’ve been saying it’s about to open for the last five years. And now the three Herman-Schmidt brothers, who gave nearly half a million dollars to the fund, are accusing Teddy Dillon of delaying the opening so she can keep raising money. They’ve raised a hundred million dollars for it already, more than enough for the building, and the Herman-Schmidts are suing her for not using their donation as promised.”
How was this possible? If there was one thing I’d never doubted about Rob, it was that he had a good heart. The New York expansion was the embodiment of that—his great project to change the lives of an underserved community. After all those business trips he’d made to check on the project’s progress . . . no wonder he hadn’t let me get involved. If this was true, that his efforts were an elaborate con, then I’d been played for a fool.
Before we’d left L.A., Pops, the paparazzo who basically lived outside our house, had pleaded for a big-selling image.
“Throw me a bone,” he said. “My wife is having a baby next month.”
Pops was married. Who knew?
“Let me think about it,” I’d said. Pops was a useful friend to have. His telephoto could see through walls. I knew I would need him, I just wasn’t yet sure for what.
Now I asked Aurora to meet Pops to have him look into the New York Studio. I couldn’t be the one to feed him private information about my husband. If that kind of violation was traced back to me . . . well, not only would the press have a field day but Rob would never forgive me. (These concerns fade after divorce, particularly when one finds out the extent of the lies. . . .)
The irony of asking Aurora to leak information to the press wasn’t lost on me. Meg had confessed that she’d set Aurora up as a press leak in order to subvert our friendship. Now Aurora was talking to a paparazzo at my behest. This is what happens when you see the world through the lens of paranoia (even be it by necessity). You bring nightmares to life.
The Venice Film Festival, from which I planned to make my escape, was three weeks away when Pops showed up in New York.
The morning he pushed in front of the other photographers waiting outside our town house, I couldn’t help smiling—he may have been a paparazzo, but he was my paparazzo.
I was taken aback when he scowled at me. “Thanks for nothing,” he growled. Then, seeing the bewilderment on my face, he hissed, “You may have a private jet, but coming here was a big expense for me. A worthless goose chase.”
“Later,” I hissed, and slid into the waiting car.
A few days later Aurora got the scoop for me. Pops had gone to the construction site. The building was in process. Construction delays were common—no story there. From the footprint he’d photographed, the project seemed to be exactly what Rob had described to me and the Studio had announced to the press.
“But check this out,” Aurora said. She handed me a piece of paper that looked like a tax filing. “Pops isn’t mad at you anymore. After he saw you, he went back and pulled the public records. One Cell raised one hundred forty million dollars for Studio Manhattan to date, and Pops had six different architects look at the plans. They said it can’t cost more than eighty million to build, even if they spare no expense. So where is the rest of the money?”
Sixty million dollars, unaccounted for. That was a useful tidbit. “Do you think Rob knows?”
We were in Meg’s little pad in SoHo. (When I went to meet her, I always told Cap and Leo I was going to “Aunt Christine’s apartment” in case one of them inadvertently mentioned it to Rob. If need be, it would be easy to convince Rob he’d forgotten that my mother had a sister who lived in New York.)
Now Meg, who had been doing dishes, suddenly spoke up. “If Rob has any files about the project, they’re in his office in the gym.”
Bluebeard’s chamber. It really did hold all his secrets.
Power. I cared about it now. If One Cell was using Studio Manhattan as a front to collect donations, and I had documents to prove it, it might help me negotiate the divorce somewhere down the line. I wanted a secret weapon. I guess I’d watched too many of Rob’s movies, but that night I flew back to L.A., ostensibly because Leo “missed Malibu.” Nobody raised an eyebrow. Apparently if Rob Mars’s son misses his beach house, it’s utterly unremarkable for him to be flown across the country to visit it.
In Bluebeard’s chamber late that night, I don’t know what I hoped to find. I opened the file cabinet, looking for anything about the New York project, anything fishy. Like a piece of paper that read, “Studio Manhattan is a fraud. We’re using it to bilk our practitioners out of millions of dollars.” But the files were instead filled with closing documents for houses Rob no longer owned. Old tax forms that certainly weren’t worth keeping (except for a 1985 tax filing, where Rob earned a grand total of $14,000—that one was probably worth a pretty penny on eBay).
Then, just before I gave up, I realized I had what I needed. I’d had it all along.
The end was so close, I was almost defiant when I came out of Bluebeard’s chamber for the second and last time. I turned on the hallway lights on my way back to my room and practically stormed down the hallway. It’s my house. Go ahead, tell my husband I sneaked into his private office. This ship has sailed.
4
Rob was coming home to Malibu for two weeks in August, just before we would all fly to Venice for the film festival.
I thought it would be hard to keep up appearances, but it wasn’t. We still got along really well. When he came in the front door, with his handsome smile, laden with gifts for all of us, I could see why it had been so easy to fall for him. His scripts told the story of a life that worked. The boys and I had everything we could want. On the surface, there were no dangers or threats, no harsh words or uncomfortable situations. It would have been so simple to go on as we were. To pretend this was all in my head. Because, if you thought about it, it was all in my head—in the sense that some other woman, make that thousands of other women, would be more than glad to have my life, every bit of it, no complaints, no problemo. So what if Rob’s love was an act? Didn’t the happiest of marriages sometimes require the partners to go through the motions of love?
I hated the idea of blindsiding Rob. My reasons for leaving him were, in one sense, so bizarre and abstract. A script I’d found. A mystery man’s visit to my sister. My son’s reaction to a small cut on his hand. A photo shoot I’d learned about from a phone call with a stranger. If there was a checklist for marriage, I could check everything off. Rob took care of me and our children. Check. He wanted us to be happy. Check. He worked hard, supported us, didn’t drink or do drugs, cheat or abuse. Check, check, check, check. He was kind. He was handsome. We never fought.
But the boys and I were prisoners. To make it work, we had to live in his world, follow his plans for Cap and Leo. We could only be the people he wanted us to be. And our fame was unbearably restrictive. My body felt trapped in that house, my spirit suffocating, my self lost. In some alternate universe we could have signed up for couples therapy, learned how to listen and respect each other, and pieced it back together. But I was the only one who had been torn into pieces. Rob was made of granite, a smooth, solid form, impenetrable and unyielding. A statue.
I’d broken up with Justin, my first love, when American Dream ended. We hadn’t stopped loving each other, but we couldn’t stay in Memphis for the rest of our lives (though I will fore
ver long for the balcony of the bookstore café in the center of town, where I enjoyed my last days of anonymity). Justin was heading to New York for a run in Rent, and I was off to shoot The Last Hurrah. The wrap party was a night of weepy toasts and a clip reel that showed my character growing from a naïve girl into a confident woman. Back then, I wished I felt half as grown up as Lucy McAlister looked. She was headed to St. Lucia, leaving our make-believe town of Linville and her boyfriend, Justin’s character, to fulfill her dream of teaching needy children in a tropical paradise. I was leaving to become a movie star. Oh well.
It was such an emotional drain—all those good-byes. The next morning Justin’s flight was due to leave before mine. I woke up when he flopped down on the bed next to me, ready to go.
“Don’t leave!” I exclaimed, rolling on top of him. “I’m not letting you.”
“This isn’t the end,” he said, kissing me. “We don’t have to make a big proclamation. We can just see what happens.”
It was tempting. Separating from him was the most painful thing I’d experienced. We could visit, talk on the phone, continue to love each other. But that was not my idea of a relationship.
“We’re breaking up,” I said. “Long-distance relationships are stupid.”
“Lizzie, you are a cold, cold woman,” he said.
“That’s why you’re better off without me,” I said, and then, without warning, I started bawling and couldn’t stop. Embarrassed, I hid my face in the blanket. And then I heard a funny sound and looked up. Justin was crying, too. I’d never seen him cry (except when his American Dream little sister, Sally, died of leukemia, but even then the makeup team had to supply fake tears). It was so unexpected that I was completely startled out of my own tears. I started laughing.
Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper Page 28
