Dan was at the kitchen table on his laptop. It was Friday night in New York and he had dinner plans with Sharoz and their lawyer. If he didn’t leave soon, he would be late. But he was surfing. He browsed through his usual liberal news sites, pretending he wasn’t looking for anything in particular, and then he typed “Maddy Freed.”
Dozens of items popped up from entertainment and gossip sites describing her as Steven Weller’s new girlfriend. He clicked on “Images.” Rows and rows of photos appeared. Maddy in a glamorous dress, standing close to Weller. There was one where she was looking at him, not the cameras, and her eyes were so adoring Dan closed his laptop. His mother in Silver Spring would see these. And all his friends. People would think they’d split up. He would have to explain that it was a misunderstanding, that she was there on business.
Maybe he should have told her not to go. But she never would have listened. She wanted to meet Walter Juhasz. And maybe she would.
Weller was gay. Not a sexual threat. He was a master of this. Clearly, he’d been doing it all his working life.
Dan dialed Maddy’s cell, even though it was two A.M. in Berlin. “There are pictures of you on the Internet,” he said. “A lot of them.”
“Oh God,” she said. She had come home from the party and was hanging the Marchesa in her hotel-room closet. “I haven’t gone online yet, but I should have expected it. These journalists have been calling me, and you wouldn’t believe how many photographers there were. Did they print anything about I Used to Know Her?”
“No. They just call you an actress. These articles say you’re Steven’s girlfriend.”
“Seriously?” She kicked off the heels, lay on the bed, and massaged her aching feet. “But I never said that. I specifically said—I mean—I told the reporters I had just met him. I told them about you, but then I got interrupted and—I didn’t have time to explain.”
“It’s fine, Mad,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me he’s not your boyfriend.”
Dan squinted at one of the photos on his screen, blew it up as big as it would go. His girlfriend was not falling for Steven Weller. What Dan had with her was deep and important, the intimacy they had built. The look in her eye wasn’t love. It was intoxication: the cameras, the attention.
He had to think like a director. These photos were golden for I Used to Know Her. The shots would run in the American tabloids, and the tabloids were more influential to the entertainment industry than every film festival combined. No matter how much that fact bothered him. What piqued audiences was backstory. And a romance, even a fake one, was just that.
Since Dan had signed with the OTA agent Jon Starr, he’d been reading scripts for directing jobs. He wanted to keep working, maintain momentum from the acquisition. Maddy was momentum. “This is exactly the kind of publicity we need going into our release,” he said on the phone. “We couldn’t have planned it better if we’d tried.”
“But we didn’t plan anything. I told you, I’m here to meet Juhasz. It was Bridget’s idea for me to go on the red carpet, like an introduction to the media. The handholding thing just happened. He pulled me onto the line, and they—they drew their own conclusions. It’s a sexist world. People expect any woman who’s in public with a movie star to be sleeping with him.”
“Where’d you get the dress?”
“Bridget sent it. It’s her job to advance my career. You’re reading this all wrong. You don’t know anything about it.”
“Are you saying he tried something?”
Her mind flashed back to the slow-dancing at the club. But Steven hadn’t tried anything; she’d been the drunk one. She’d asked him a tactless question. “Of course not. He’s been a total gentleman.”
“I told you that he’s gay.”
Maddy stood with the phone and went to the window. There was a couple fighting below, in front of one of the luxury shops on the Kurfürstendamm.
“I don’t care if he’s gay, and you shouldn’t, either,” she said. “It isn’t relevant. Grow up.”
“It is relevant, because if I thought the guy was going to make a move, I wouldn’t have wanted you to go. I’m not worried. Just have fun. Play it out a little. Look at Steven like you’re into him. It’ll be easy. Think about it as a role. You’re an actress.”
6
The next day Maddy slept till one in the afternoon. After ordering room service, she finished watching Body Blow, taking notes. All of Juhasz’s work dealt with outsiders who could not figure out how to fit into society. Ruth’s Kiss, about a young waitress in Los Angeles who slowly becomes unhinged, was a great example; at first Ruth just seems a little lonely, and soon it becomes clear she’s insane. In Juhasz’s films, madness could afflict anyone, given the right set of circumstances.
Maddy decided to go for a walk and get a coffee. On Kurfürstendamm, she passed the designer shops and department stores, the theaters and cinemas. At a newsstand piled high with magazines she was startled to spot a photo of herself and Steven. The magazine was called Bundt. His arm was around her waist and she was staring at him. The caption read, “Steven Weller: Er ist seit Jahren in Maddy Freed verliebt!” The only piece of it she could translate was verliebt; she knew liebe was love.
She lowered her head so the newsman wouldn’t see her and hurried along to a café. She drank her coffee quickly, feeling exposed. She kept seeing her gaze in the photo. It was as though it had been Photoshopped; she looked like a woman in love.
If Steven was gay and using her as arm candy, then he was either a master seducer or a deeply gifted actor. When he’d touched her on the red carpet, he had made her feel that he liked her. And then he’d danced with her at the club, his body hot and near.
That evening at five, a quirky heist film by an Austin, Texas, director would be premiering. Steven and Bridget had said they were planning to go, and Maddy had been looking forward to it. Now, after seeing the tabloid, she felt it might be better to stay home.
That morning, her cell phone had rung several dozen times, all reporters, so she turned it off until Bridget could change it for her. At the premiere, they would be there again, flocking around her. If she mentioned Dan, who knew if they would print it?
She went to the VIP restaurant in the penthouse, which Bridget had told her about, and ordered a late lunch. It was a totally private area with wraparound windows. After lunch, she started watching another Juhasz film, and then four o’clock came, and four-thirty, and there was no call from Bridget. Wanting to make dinner plans and not sure what was expected of her, she dialed Bridget’s cell. “Are we seeing that movie?” she asked.
“Oh my goodness, I forgot to call you,” Bridget said. “I’ve been running around like a chicken without a head. We’re not going. Steven’s in London.”
“What? When did he go?”
“This morning. He went to meet Walter about the script.”
“But you said Walter was coming here.”
“He is. They’ll come back together. Either Tuesday or Wednesday.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, did you want to see the movie with me?”