“What?!” he exclaimed.
“Stop,” I said. “We’re still alive. We have phones. If we miss each other, we’ll see each other. That’s all there is to it.” I stood up and helped him to his feet, and at the door we embraced for the last time, and a week later he was photographed making out with Amanda Forsythe at Bar 66 in TriBeCa. His dead-of-leukemia American Dream sister! He’d always denied it, but I’d known he was into her the whole fifth season. She had that pale waif look. Leukemia chic.
My good-bye with Justin may have been young and awkward, but at least we both knew what was happening. Unlike what I was about to do to Rob. The two weeks he was home in Malibu, Rob and I took walks along the water together. I rolled up my jeans and followed him to the top of the bluffs. I held his hand and kissed him back. In the early evenings, when the sun started to go down, I huddled against him for warmth. I wasn’t just playing the part. In truth, it was my way of saying good-bye.
He must have sensed something in the air, something in me, a change. One morning we had coffee out on the wide balcony. It was high tide, and the sea crashed hungrily against the rock jetty that had been hurriedly constructed to protect the houses. The beach had all but disappeared, succumbing to erosion in spite of the tens of millions of dollars Rob and his neighbors had thrown into the ocean, begging it to yield. The press had been vicious—criticizing the wealthy beach-house owners for carting in sand to rebuild the beach. Even environmentalists recommended a “managed retreat,” letting the ocean slowly reclaim the mansions it so clearly desired.
“I love you, Elizabeth,” Rob said, taking both of my hands in his. “I’m sorry for what I said in New York about bringing the boys into the Studio. I believe what I believe, and I won’t be bullied by gossip and prejudice to change my mind. But I know how you feel about letting our sons make their own choices.”
He paused and licked his lips, an uncharacteristic uncertainty crawling across his brow. He glanced left and right, as if looking for cue cards. “I want to say . . . I just . . .” Was Rob Mars at a loss for words? Had he forgotten his lines? He leaned closer, his voice almost a whisper. “Okay, here’s what. Sometimes I think about what it would be like to leave. The industry, the Studio, all of it. We could retire, move far away, live a simple, normal life. It’s normal to fantasize about that.”
Had he gone off script? Was he improvising? Breaking character? Did he, like Meg, think about leaving the Studio? It seemed real. I almost believed him. I so wanted to believe him. Could MAK, his life scriptwriter, have read my mind? Or was this the real Rob, secretly desperate to escape it all? “What’s stopping us? What’s stopping us from living that fantasy?” I asked him.
A rush of hope stirred in me. I squeezed his hands. If only Rob would come offstage. If he would leave the Studio. Or back slowly away. Or just agree that we didn’t have to be part of it. If he would let go of his plans for Cap and Leo . . . wouldn’t that solve everything? He loved me and his sons more than the world. Surely, if I was clear enough and brave enough, he would have to consider it.
The waves beat at the seawall, relentless. You could move sand and you could build walls, but they were temporary solutions, stopgaps, cover-ups. Nothing would stop the ocean. Rob looked at me with eyes that showed hurt, and regret, and frustration at everything he was locked into being, and yet everything he still wanted. Eyes that finally gave me a glimpse into who he really was, and that convinced me that, as much as he was capable, he really had always loved me, and that part of him deep down knew that these were our last few moments alone.
“I can’t,” he said.
My husband, who could do anything, couldn’t do this for me. There was only one option: managed retreat. It broke my heart.
5
A lot has been written about “Lizzie’s escape,” but it’s all a collection of half-truths, best guesses, and completely made-up scenes stolen, as far as I can tell, from old episodes of Batman. Here’s what really happened.
It all went down, as everyone knows, during the Venice Film Festival, where One Cell had few contacts and Rob and I had a skeleton crew.
Tomorrow held its annual party, this time celebrating its one hundredth issue, at the Cini Foundation on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Rob knew the island well—the monastery had been used as a filming location for two of his movies (Glass Houses and The Son).
The magazine had ferries shuttling guests to the island, but Rob insisted on a private gondola for the two of us. This ended up being the less private option, since all the press—who were not allowed onto the island or into the party—had nothing to do but hover around on boats trying to get shots. They swarmed us, our poor gondolier shouting uselessly at the other boatmen in Italian. At some point all you can do is run with it, hence those gorgeous photos of us, kissing in the gondola, silhouetted in front of a spectacular sunset, looking, for all the world, like the last shot of a romance. Oh, it was the perfect final image for our storybook marriage. The only thing missing was the credits scrolling by.
Tomorrow’s Venice party was straightforward: a roomful of A-listers enjoying one another. The Venice version was more laid back than their Oscar party. Because it was smaller, there was no VIP area and guests weren’t given time slots for their arrival. It was a place where Rob and I could feel almost normal. Except that every time we tried to take a picture in the photo booth, we’d get drawn into a conversation while the photo was drying, and by the time we turned back, our picture had been stolen. The third time we tried, Rob stood blocking the little dispenser slot, arms crossed, daring anyone to sneak past.
Ordinarily, I rode out this sort of event with a mix of boredom and scorn. It was an obnoxious stew of self-congratulatory sycophants. But this time, knowing it was all about to end, I stopped watching the power plays and networking with a cynical eye. Instead, I went for it. I flirted with Matthew Brau, Rob’s agent and the head of ACE. I helped Jason See retie his bow tie. I tried to teach the live mynah bird that Celia Montbatten wore perched on her shoulder (part of the dress?) to say “Celia is divine.”
In the ladies’ room, I ran into my former American Dream costar, Wendy Jones, and gushed, “Wendy, I have something to confess. I’ve always been a little jealous of you. I know it’s silly, but, I mean, you’re so gorgeous. It’s insane. And on top of that, I have so much respect for your art. That’s all. I just wanted you to know.”
Wendy hugged me, crushing her silicone implants into my shoulder. “I totally get it. It’s always been hard for me to have women friends. So many are jealous. But I’m really a girls’ girl! Anyway, you were a really good actor, too.”
I noted her use of the past tense, but it was basically true. “Thank you,” I said, smiling. “I actually just did a part in a little movie. Parker O. Witt. But Rob’s work is much more important. I’m just happy to be able to support him.”
I floated at Rob’s side, leaning in to his shoulder and smiling as he graciously accepted praise and congratulations. Every so often I brushed lint off his lapel or fixed an unruly lock of hair.
“Hold that thought,” he said, interrupting a producer who’d come to report on the opening night ticket sales. “Let me kiss my beautiful wife.”
“Rob!” I blushed and giggled. We kissed, and then I turned to the producer. “You have to excuse us. We’ve barely had time together lately. Tonight is a bit of a reunion.”
I played my part to perfection. Rob Mars’s wife, elegant, supportive, humble, happy, in love—plastic perfection in a plastic world. At the end of the night, for my coup de grâce, I bummed a breath mint off Geoff Anciak.
The next day Rob had seven hours of nonstop interviews for The Life of Digby Dane in a conference room at the hotel. Our itinerary had me and the boys on a private tour of a glassblowing studio. On our way out, we stopped by the conference room to say good-bye to Rob. Only I knew how final that good-bye would be.
As I approa
ched, the journalists were sitting in a line of chairs outside the room. There were no cameras, and as we walked past it was quiet but for a few overeager hellos from reporters, hoping for some reason I’d pause to say anything. It was the most polite group of press I’d ever experienced, but I suppose they feared that if they pissed me off, I would put the kibosh on their time with Rob. I smiled politely as I walked past.
Saying good-bye to Rob that day was one of the greatest acting challenges of my life. It had to be the good-bye of a wife who was about to take their sons on a glassblowing excursion and would see her husband again in a few hours. But also, somehow, when Rob looked back at this moment, I wanted him to know everything I was feeling right now. Pain, love, despair. I wasn’t heartless; I didn’t want to hurt him; I knew he had deceived me because he knew no other way. And yet, I wanted him to know that he left me no choice.
He slouched comfortably in his chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up. When he saw me, he brightened, that handsome smile spreading across his face. Unknowable, he still gleamed as bright and perfect as ever. Unknown, I was lost in the shadows.
I lingered when I kissed him, tears welling in my eyes.
“What is it, Elizabeth? Are you okay?”
And then something clicked, and I knew exactly what to say to him. Emil had drafted it for Rob in the most recent delivery of scripts that I’d found on Rob’s desk back in Malibu. I didn’t know if Rob had seen the new pages yet, but I took a chance. The lines I spoke fell under the header “Last Words Before a Long Absence.”
“There’s an e. e. cummings poem I was reading—maybe you know it? ‘I carry your heart with me—I carry it in my heart.’”
I looked at Rob. His eyelids fluttered. Was it surprise?
“That’s very sweet,” Rob said. Did I detect a sadness in his voice? Had he realized that I, his wife, knew that our most intimate moments were scripted by someone who was a stranger to me? I wanted him to understand why I had left. But I also wanted him to know how much I had wanted to believe in us, so the next words I spoke were my own.
“I miss you already,” I said. “I feel like I’ve always missed you; even when we’re together I miss you. I want to climb into your heart, but you’re always just out of reach.” There it was, the truth. I hoped he would remember it. I may have been the one doing the leaving, but he had never been there in the first place.
“I love you too,” Rob said. To me, it rang hollow.
Cap, at my side, said good-bye to Rob when I did, but Leo was hiding in the thick hotel curtains, trying to start up a game of peekaboo with Jake, who was tapping his pencil on his clipboard. We were putting Rob off schedule.
“Come say good-bye to Daddy,” I said.
Leo ran to Rob and put his hands on his knee. “Daddy, will you put me to bed tonight?” It was a question he asked at some point every day. He never complained if Rob wasn’t home at bedtime, but he liked to know the plan.
Rob glanced up at me for the answer. He never knew our schedule. “Probably not tonight,” I said to Leo. There was nothing on our calendar—I should have lied and said we’d both be at the hotel—but if all went smoothly he wouldn’t see him again for a long time.
“Bye!” Leo chirped, and started pulling me toward the door.
I knelt down next to him. “Give Daddy a real hug and a kiss, okay?”
Rob would, at least, remember that it mattered to me. Whatever was ahead of us, I resolved that once we were safely gone, the first thing I was going to do was tell him that I would completely support and nurture his relationship with his sons. Little did I know that after that day we wouldn’t speak again for more than a year.
Leo climbed into Rob’s lap and kissed his cheek. Instinctively, I scanned the room to make sure none of the hotel staff were sneaking a cell phone snapshot.
There were two cars waiting for us. The one Jake had arranged was in the back of the hotel, with Lewis standing by to take us to our glassblowing appointment. Another one, under a false name, was at the side of the hotel. When the coast was clear, we ducked into the idling car, where our bodyguard/driver Max was at the wheel. He drove straight to the airport.
Fifteen minutes into the car ride, I called Lewis to tell him we were running late.
“Give me twenty, okay?”
A half hour later, just as we were boarding the plane, I called Lewis again. “Actually, I have a headache. We’re not going to go today.”
Everyone except Lewis thought we were with Lewis, heading to the glassblowing factory. This bought us an unknown amount of time. At some point Lewis would encounter Jake. And Jake would try to track us down. He would text me, and I would respond that I was in the hotel room, resting.
We boarded the plane, my heart racing. People in retreat at Fernhills had no contact with the outside world. Patricia had disappeared. Geoff’s threatening image loomed in my head. We had to pull this off, and we only had one shot. If Rob’s team realized I was trying to leave, if they stopped me before I succeeded, then they would have optics on their side. Once Rob controlled the story, his people could use their power, money, and influence to fight me for custody of the kids. The case could drag on for years, exposing our lives, dragging Cap and Leo into the kind of mess that would take years of therapy to overcome. I didn’t think Rob was capable of harming us, but he was used to getting his way. I thought of Lexy. She had tried, in her own way, to warn me.
I must have squeezed Cap’s hand too tightly. He yelped and pulled his fingers out of my grip.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I said.
“Play with Mama’s phone?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, handing him my iPhone.
“No, me!” Leo said, and the bickering began. Less screen time for the boys in New York, I resolved. In the months of planning I’d gotten lax.
Papillon—the intrepid Frenchman whose book about his escape to freedom had stayed with me—Papi never had the luxury of escaping via private plane. He braved sharks, quicksand, hurricanes, and inhospitable governments. He befriended fellow prisoners, officers, foreigners, and indigenous people at every turn, winning them over to his right to make a fresh start. He refused to let his prison sentence define him. Once he knew in his heart who he was meant to be, he gave every ounce of strength he could summon to become that person. He was an imperfect man and a hero. If Papi could do it, wearing flour sacks, with his only money shoved in a watertight container where no man could find it, then I could damn well leave my Louboutins behind forever. Suck it, Malibu, I thought. New York, here I come.
In one of his movies, my husband would have shown up at the last minute, sprinted down the runway, and shouted out his love for me, winning me back just before the plane taxied away. I watched out the window as the pilot waited to get approval for takeoff.
Then—was I being paranoid?—I thought I saw Rob’s pilot standing on the tarmac, watching me. Would representatives from the Studio be waiting when I landed in New York? Could I trust the flight attendants? I half expected Geoff himself to burst out of the cockpit like a demon. I instinctively touched my wrist, where there was a panic button with a direct line to Aurora, who was waiting for us at our new apartment in Brooklyn. Obviously involving the police at any point would be a horrible public scandal, but if I pushed that button, Aurora would get help.
This is it, I thought, as the plane touched ground in New Jersey. If the press met the plane we’d be safe . . . and they were there. Pops at the front of the herd, as planned. Before we disembarked, I went to the bathroom, where I pulled off the Truth necklace and flushed it down the toilet. It disappeared with a violent gasp. We were home free. Or so I thought.
6
I’ve never told anyone about this next part.
The press took photos of us disembarking. They would soon have a story to go alongside the pictures—my lawyers were simultaneously filing for divorce. The local driver was su
pposed to take me and the boys straight from the airport to our new apartment in Brooklyn. Max was with us, and he was an enormous man. I barely came up to his elbow. I felt safe. It wasn’t until we came out of the Lincoln Tunnel and headed north instead of south that I suspected something was wrong.
Max was in the passenger seat, his head skimming the ceiling. I tapped his shoulder.
“Max—where’s he going?” It was a little rude, given that the driver was right next to him, but I didn’t want to make a direct accusation.
“Turn around, man,” Max said. “We’re going to Brooklyn.”
Staring straight ahead, the driver said, “I have different instructions.”
I reached toward the panic button on my wrist.
“Hold on,” the driver said. I froze. “Don’t worry. You’re safe. You’ve been seen by the press—they’re right behind us—and your man Max here isn’t going down without a fight. But Geoff wanted me to tell you: You should hear what’s going to happen to your sons if you go through with this.”
I glanced down at Cap and Leo. Leo was asleep in his car seat, his mouth half open, but Cap stared up at me, perpetual furrow in his brow.
“Do you want the police?” Max asked.
“No, not yet,” I said. The police, the panic button, Max, all the safety measures we’d lined up were meant to prevent me from being held against my will. But this was different. If Geoff had something on me, I wanted to know what it was.
Twenty minutes later, Cap, Leo, and I were in a boardroom in a building facing the construction site on 17th Street. Max made sure the room had only one door before he stationed himself outside it.
There was an oval table surrounded by chairs. A small TV was perched on an AV cart at one end of the table.
In walked Geoff and five other men in suits, all business.
Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper Page 29
