Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper Read online

  “Fine. He’s gay. He’s also twenty years older than I am. I’m just going out with him. If he ever actually calls. And even if he does, it might not be a date—certainly not if he’s gay—so who cares?”

  “It is a date. I’m just saying be careful. You don’t want to be a beard like his last wife.” Rob had been married to Lexy Hartfield for fifteen years. Lexy Hartfield! How could I compete with her? The long, dark hair, full lips, almond eyes, and curves that made me look like a schoolboy. If Lexy was Rob’s type, then I certainly wasn’t. She was drop-dead gorgeous, famous for never wearing makeup or styling her hair except on set. Without the fancy dresses and professional makeup, I’m a plain Jane. (See, for evidence, any paparazzi shot of me from the past year, along with the accompanying snarky, derogatory caption.) And, if anything, I’ve been encouraged to play up my plainness and sensibility. Because, as my publicist never fails to remind me, I am famous for my girl-next-door character, my girl-next-door upbringing, and my girl-next-door looks. Apparently I’m famous for how undeserving of fame I am. Furthermore, Lexy was a daredevil, said to have performed all her own stunts in the action movies that made her a star. She could have any man in the world. There was no way she was a beard. Yeah, now that I thought about Lexy, I realized there was no way Rob would go for me. Easy come, easy go.

  I lit a cigarette and leaned out the window to exhale. My parents were visiting the next day, and my mother had a nose like a bloodhound.

  2

  As always, Aurora was right. The call came without warning. But what she failed to anticipate was that it would come at seven a.m., at least two hours before what I consider to be daybreak. My phone vibrated on my bedside table as I groped for it in the dark room.

  “Elizabeth. It’s me.”

  Me. Because he knew I would know.

  “Hey,” I whispered, hoping my half-awake croak would pass for sexy.

  “Can I steal you away?” This guy had spent too much time reading scripts.

  “Um, what did you have in mind?”

  “Let me surprise you. Come downstairs. Your chariot awaits.”

  Downstairs? He was downstairs? “I’m . . . I’m just waking up. And if this surprise is going to run past eleven, I have a few things to cancel.”

  “Cancel,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

  I peeked around the edge of my curtains. There he was, on the street ten flights below, leaning against a lamppost. He saw me at the window and waved. Crap. Did every moment in his life seem like it came straight out of a movie? He gestured to a limo parked outside my front door. My “chariot.”

  “Be right down,” I said into the phone.

  Ten minutes later I slid into the backseat of the limo. It took me a second to process that I was the only passenger. Where was Rob? “Wait!” I said to the driver. I thought there was some mistake. Maybe I’d hopped into a limo someone in my building had summoned for a trip to the airport.

  “It’s okay,” the driver said. (His name, I would later know, was Lewis.) “He wanted me to give you this.” He handed me an envelope and we started speeding toward the highway.

  “Elizabeth,” the neatly written note read, “I’m sorry it has to be like this, but it will be much better for both of us if we aren’t seen together. Yet. Now please look out the passenger-side window.”

  I turned to my right and there, driving in the lane next to us, was another black Escalade with Rob sticking his head out the back window. He gave me a thumbs-up, a questioning look on his face. I smiled gamely and returned the thumbs-up. What choice did I have? I couldn’t turn back now. I grounded myself by composing a text to Aurora in my head. i am living your fantasy. Rob’s car pulled ahead of mine, and he stuck his arms out toward me, as if we were being tragically torn from each other. I couldn’t suppress an internal swoon.

  I still had no idea of our destination, but it dawned on me that Rob was right to arrange for us to travel separately. Nobody was following us. Nobody had whipped out their phones to take pictures. Nobody wanted an autograph. We were free. This was a feat. The tabloids had barely gotten over my embarrassingly public breakup with Johnny Flaim. (“Lizzie’s Flaim Out”—which tabloid hadn’t had that headline at the ready?) The moment they caught me with someone new, they would have a field day. No, I realized, I would no longer be the lead. I may have been a star, but Rob was the sun. The headline this date would have generated wouldn’t have started with me. It began and ended with Rob Mars.

  An hour later we arrived at a harbor, still and gray in the morning fog. I was getting hungry and hoped we were there for a romantic breakfast at some restaurant by the shore followed by a quick ride back home so I could spend the rest of the day by myself squealing loudly into my pillow, but instead we thanked our respective drivers and Rob led me down the docks to a waiting yacht. I’ve been on yachts before—mostly for parties—and it wouldn’t have surprised me if Rob owned this one. A captain greeted us, and we climbed aboard. Rob led me to the upper deck. I caught a glimpse of the living room as we passed the main deck. It was stark and formal: black enamel paneling and white leather furniture. Up on the top deck, a bottle of champagne was chilling in a bucket. I mentally texted Aurora: definitely a date.

  Rob poured me a glass of champagne, but instead of serving himself one, the captain came out and handed him a jugful of something green and foamy. I raised an eyebrow.

  “I don’t drink much,” he said. “This gives me incredible energy.”

  Something about the preplanned champagne for me, green smoothie for him was disconcerting. What exactly was I doing here? “Are you trying to get me drunk?” I said.

  He put down his glass. “Elizabeth, that is the last thing I would do. I want to know you. The real you.”

  “Okay, well, then I have to tell you. The real me thinks saying things like ‘the real you’ are kind of cheesy.”

  He froze and looked almost hurt. Then he stared deeply into my eyes and said, “Guilty as charged.” His face broke into a smile, and suddenly Rob Mars the movie star and Rob Mars the person simultaneously merged and separated. His expressions, his smile, his manner—all were familiar to me from his movies. No actor can transform himself entirely. But in that moment I also had a flash of recognizing the divide between who he was and what he brought of himself to his characters. I saw that—right now, at least—he was not acting for me. Then, for the first time, I allowed myself a tiny, internal “wow.”

  He lifted his green jug to my crystal glass. “Requesting permission to be cheesy?”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Granted.”

  I had assumed we were alone on board except for the captain, but we hadn’t traveled far from shore when another man came out onto the deck. He wore jeans and a light yellow cashmere sweater. He looked sort of beige and featureless, like a soulless Wall Street guy on his day off, nondescript except that one of his pale eyes had a patch of brown in it. He was sucking vigorously on a mint, which I could smell as he approached. He stopped sucking, smiled politely, and then quickly, as if it were a tic, flipped the mint in his mouth with his tongue.

  “Elizabeth, you remember Geoff from our meeting,” Rob said.

  “Of course I do.” I didn’t. Clearly I’d been otherwise focused or I would have remembered the mint-sucking. As I watched, the stranger opened an Altoid tin and popped two new mints in his mouth. The guy was chain-mint-sucking.

  Was Geoff one of Rob’s agents? Maybe this wasn’t a date after all.

  “Welcome aboard,” Geoff said. “I won’t disturb you, but I wanted you to know how happy we are to have you as our guest.”

  Apparently this man was my host. I automatically thanked him and complimented the boat. Then Rob touched my chin and turned it in the direction we were heading. Rising before us was an island. It was lush and green, and appeared deserted except for one enormous white stone building, which cascaded like a snowcap down the
highest peak of the island.

  “This is Century Island,” Rob said. “Geoff is kind enough to let me use it.” If anyone would own an entire island, just miles off the shore of L.A., it would be Rob Mars or one of his associates. Was it even on maps?

  “I’ve never brought a guest here before,” Rob went on. “You’re the first.”

  I liked the sound of that.

  On the island, Rob and I followed an old, rough boardwalk that clung to the rocks. We came to an overlook that jutted out over the rough water below.

  “Let’s sit,” Rob said.

  “Is it safe?” I asked.

  “Trust me,” he said, and led me forward. Sitting side-by-side on a driftwood log (too perfect!), we were mostly quiet. I reminded myself not to romanticize the whole thing. I was on a fantasy island date with a fantasy man. I wasn’t about to be seduced by all this perfection. Besides, not everything was perfect. I was freezing. Then, out of nowhere, a massive wave crashed spectacularly against the rocks, nearly sweeping us out to sea. I screamed and jumped to my feet.

  “You’re drenched! I’m so sorry,” Rob said, wrapping his coat around me.

  “I’m totally fine,” I said, but as we headed back off the promontory, I slipped on the now-wet rocks.

  “I gotcha,” Rob said, catching me with a strong grasp. He put a sturdy arm around my waist and guided me to safety. There was a reason Rob had been cast as Jesus. He radiated supreme confidence, as if he understood the world on another level. Life, death—he walked the line without recklessness or doubt. He expected my trust, and I gave it. I leaned against him, sinking closer to this increasingly familiar stranger. Cautious though I was, and far out of my comfort zone, I suddenly felt brave, safe, or both. I had just walked out onto a cliff with this man. Where else would I follow him?

  Looking back on it now, I still remember that feeling and what it triggered in me. I was a girl who’d always done what was right and best. My parents had the greatest faith and confidence in me, and I lived up to that. I was their wonder child, achieving their dreams for me without even trying. Now here was a man who opened my world in just the way I was ready for it to be opened, at just the right time. I was practically handed to him on a silver platter. As it turned out, this was true in more ways than I knew.

  After a while, we climbed the road up to the fortress. Rob had called it “the Lodge,” which was like calling Versailles “the Country House.” Thankfully I was wearing flats (Aurora had nailed that one). “Welcome,” Rob said, opening the oversize front door.

  We were standing in a great room, all white, surrounded by glass walls showcasing the panoramic view. Lounge-y couches faced outward, and the centerpiece of the room, on the inside wall, was an unusual, vast stone fireplace. A massive fire blazed, though not a soul was in sight to credit with having built it. I held my hands out toward the heat, trying to stop shivering.

  “This fireplace is cut into the mountaintop. See?” Rob thumped his palm on it. “It was my idea. One solid piece of rock.” Then he interrupted himself. “I’m a jerk. What you need is a hot shower.”

  Rob led me downstairs to a bedroom. The floors were polished concrete, smooth and shiny as an ice rink. One wall was the rough rock of the mountain; the rest were glass. The room jutted out over the uninhabited wilderness of the island. All the furniture was white and gray, and on the dresser was a steel vase, cut in jagged lines echoing the mountain vibe. In it were a dozen perfect roses.

  “There’s a bathroom in there,” Rob said. “Take your time.”

  When I emerged from the shower, my wet clothes had disappeared from the bed and a white robe, which seemed to have been pre-warmed, was spread in their place. I put it on, took a picture of myself in the mirror, and forwarded it to Aurora with a text: am at crazy private island with boy wonder. more later. I rejoined Rob on a monolithic balcony that overlooked the harbor, where the yacht was docked next to another, smaller boat, so far down they looked like bathtub toys. Rob handed me a glass of water and took my hand. We sat watching the sun move across the sky, and my phone started chiming. Text after text, streaming in from Aurora. I slid my hand into the robe pocket and shut her down. Poor Aurora. I was torturing her.

  It suddenly occurred to me that I was starving. It was after noon by then and we hadn’t had a bite all day. As if someone had read my mind, a waiter appeared with a towering tray of food and gracefully slid it onto a table. I started to thank the man, but he disappeared before I could say a word.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rob said. “I want to pretend it’s just us.” There was clearly a staff up here—a chef, this waiter, someone who kept everything spotless and warmed bathrobes for guests—but from the utter silence you never would have known it.

  The tray before me was spread with delicacies. On one side was a block of ice, carved with rocky edges and a flat top. Was I wrong, or did a narrow path winding up the side look exactly like the path we had climbed to get here? On the peak, exactly where the Lodge would be, was an architectural arrangement of sashimi and an artistic smear of wasabi. I raised my eyebrow. “We’re supposed to eat the Lodge?”

  Rob deftly picked up a bite of yellowtail with his chopsticks and popped it in his mouth. “I just ate your bedroom. Now where are you gonna go?”

  On the warm side of the tray were small bowls of miso soup, tender bites of lobster somehow cooked with foie gras, and squid tempura. It was so over the top that it came all the way around again and tasted like comfort food.

  For the first time that day, Rob and I sat face-to-face and talked. We covered unexceptional first-date ground—the annual ice-cream socials in his hometown (Hudson, Ohio), my frustration with this phase of my career, and our favorite places in the world. But what stood out to me was how easily the conversation flowed. He did more of the questioning, to be sure, and I did more of the talking. Here was a man who could have any girl he wanted. If I wasn’t right for him I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. On the contrary, I did everything I could to emphasize the ways we didn’t match. Where he was supremely confident and unflappable, I was overly cautious; a bit cynical; serious, but sometimes brazen. He persisted nonetheless. In a way, weirdly, that was what convinced me we belonged together.

  A few hours later another boat arrived at the island. We watched its passengers disembark from above, and Rob pointed out his brother, Scotty; Scotty’s gorgeous pregnant wife; and Geoff’s girlfriend, Patricia.

  “I’m wearing a robe. They’re going to make assumptions,” I said.

  “Your clothes are probably ready. Let’s check your room.”

  Indeed my clothes were back on the bed, now dried and folded—maybe ironed, from the look of them. Somewhere in this fortress was a roomful of Oompa Loompas cooking, washing, ironing, and God knows what else. I wondered just how carefully they were watching me. Before I went into the bathroom, I took one of the red roses out of the vase on the dresser. I broke it halfway up its stem and left it on the table. When I came out of the bathroom, two minutes later, there were a dozen perfect roses once again in the vase. There was no sign of that broken rose. No sign, in fact, that I’d been there at all.

  By the time I returned to Rob, the new guests were sipping cocktails in the great room. Rob introduced his older brother as “the handsome Mars.” Apparently when they were growing up Scotty had been the high school’s star football player, a top student, the pride of the family. Even now, having taken a backseat to his movie star brother, Scotty radiated charm and self-confidence.

  “I never watched your show; I must be the only one,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t worry!” I said. “It’s actually refreshing not to be confused with my character. People are constantly telling me that I shouldn’t have set the family house on fire. I’m, like, ‘It’s a TV show.’”

  “Didn’t I hear something about how you got the part? Something about how you didn’t have to auditio
n?”

  “It wasn’t like that exactly,” I said.

  Rob jumped in to tell the story, which had been reported in practically every feature ever written about me. He’d obviously read up on me, and he wasn’t afraid to show it. “She turned down the audition for American Dream because her grandmother was dying.”

  The media constantly reported that I skipped the audition to be at my grandmother’s deathbed. It was a better story, but it wasn’t accurate. “Actually, she was just in the hospital,” I said. “It was a massive stroke, and nobody thought she’d make it. But the doctors didn’t know Granny.”

  Rob went on, “She wasn’t about to leave her grandmother for some lousy lead in a network series. The showrunner, Steve Romany, gave her the part of Lucy McAlister anyway. Sight unseen.”

  “Actually, we’d met before,” I explained. “And my mom sent him a tape of my high school play.”

  “Now I remember,” Scotty said approvingly. “How honorable of you to set aside your dreams for your family.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I hope I haven’t changed.”

  “Not if everything Rob has told me about you is true,” he said.

  I raised an eyebrow. Rob jumped in. “You embarrassing me already, dude?”

  “Apparently he’s heard all about me,” I teased.

  “Don’t butt in,” Scotty said to Rob. “We’re getting along just fine without you.” Rob threw up his hands and backed away in mock surrender.

  Then, just to me, Scotty said, “I really want Robby to find someone. It’s been six years since he and Lexy split up, and it’s so hard for him to meet people.”