Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (11 page)

“No, he’s right.” To my utter embarrassment, Rob was standing in the doorway. I looked from my father to my boyfriend.

“I’m sorry, Rob. My dad is overly ambitious on my behalf. I would never use our connection to promote myself!”

Rob laughed. “I know you wouldn’t. And that’s what makes you special. But now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, maybe you should.”

Dad nodded. “The press is all over you,” he said. “You might as well control the story.” Wow, three hours into their first meeting and the two of them were really in sync.

Rob added, “Hollywood is shallow. Landing the best parts is all about optics.”

“Optics, what’s that?”

“You really are Lucy McAlister from Tennessee,” Rob teased.

“Enlighten me, please!”

“Optics just means how things look to the general public. Everything
you feel and want is completely distinct from the image you put out in the world.”

What he was saying reminded me of something Meg had told me—one of the Whole Body Principles was to separate the self from the perception of self.

“Rob’s cartop performance was a disaster, but people are still rooting for you. They want it to be true love,” Dad said.

“And luckily, it is.” Rob smiled. My boyfriend had just told my father he loved me, but this was hardly how I’d envisioned it going down.

“Oh my God, you two are lunatics. My career is just fine, thank you very much.” My mother came into the kitchen and started doing the dishes.

I put the drinks on a tray and carried them out to the porch. My father and Rob followed, and we all sat down on the cushioned indoor/outdoor wicker furniture.

Rob squeezed next to me on the love seat. “Babe, you are very talented. You should have your choice of roles.”

“But I
like
indie movies with offbeat scripts and quirky heroines. Do I really want to play a spandex superhero? Look at you—you haven’t done a single franchise.”

“I’ve been very lucky, but my career is the exception. The reality is, once you have a series, you can ride it for years. It doesn’t keep you from doing what you love—it helps make that happen.”

“I don’t know what I was worried about,” I said. “You two are getting along like a house on fire. What exactly are you proposing?”

My father cleared his throat. He was in his element now. Corporate tycoon by day, quietly determined manager of his daughter’s career by night. I should have known that he would like Rob for my career, and that was all he needed. My father had come to the dinner already knowing what he wanted, and my father always got what he wanted.
I always win.

My mother, obviously too curious about our conversation to finish the dishes, poked her head out. “Are these men plotting for you to take over the world?” she chirped.

“Just Hollywood,” said my father. He said it lightly, but his eyes were dead serious.

By the time we returned to L.A., it had all been arranged. I would switch to Rob’s agency, ACE, and my new agents would line up the lead in a franchise, pronto.

I wasn’t exploiting my famous boyfriend if he wanted me to do it . . . right? And, according to the two men in my life, whatever huge movie this was would propel me into the stratosphere, where I would float alongside Rob, orbited by brilliant scripts and important directors. It would be a dream come true, just not exactly how I’d envisioned it coming to pass.

T
wo weeks later, in the middle of September, Rob and I went to St. Maarten. He told me he had a meeting and wanted to make it into a vacation, but I would soon find out that was a lie. The first clue that something was going down was when our car from the airport took us straight to a yacht club at the water’s edge. Rob led me out of the car, leaving our luggage to the driver, and straight up the dock, where we boarded a yacht—a large one, or, as I would later learn it was called, a super-yacht.

The sun was just beginning to set, the water a dazzling gold. There was not a soul in sight—either by chance or design. By this point I expected the latter. As we boarded, I vaguely registered that the boat was named the
Queen Elizabeth
, but I didn’t think twice about it. Sure, it’s my name, but a) it’s pretty common and in fact seemed like a completely unoriginal name for a yacht; and b) I still wasn’t really used to being anyone but “Lizzie.”

I’m not the kind of girl who’s had a fantasy of what her engagement night would be like since she was young. But I’m no dummy. I’ve seen and acted in my share of romance movies, and the minute I stepped on deck I saw that the mood had been set. Rob had spared no expense. This was to be our big night.

Music played, classical piano. The floor was scattered with blue rose petals, which I would find out had been flown in that morning from Japan, by private jet. Dozens of white candles had been artistically placed around the cabin, wafting scent. I noticed how good they smelled, although I didn’t yet know that I was experiencing a designer scent that had been developed exclusively for us and this moment.

“Wait here,” Rob said, and hurried up the steps to the upper deck. A few minutes later he called out, “All ready!” and I tiptoed forward. The sky was wide and glorious, streaked with red and orange. And looking perfectly cast for this backdrop was the man who stood in front of it. My gorgeous, movie star, would-be husband.

He stood there, wearing the same boyish smile he had in the poster on Aurora’s bedroom door.

In Rob’s hands was a box, and in the box was a custom Walford Diamond engagement ring, a rock that probably cost more than my first apartment. My heart was fluttering. This moment! It was happening before I’d even had time to wonder if or hope that it would happen.

Rob got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Women’s hearts broke around the world.

I said yes. You don’t say no to Rob Mars.

The night Rob Mars asked me to marry him was every girl’s fantasy. It wasn’t exaggerating to say that he was the most eligible bachelor in the world. You can see it all in the photographs splashed across every magazine the following week: The shock on my face as I step out onto the deck. The hint of nervousness as he kneels in front of me with a ring. Our arms entwined, sipping champagne afterward. The photographs say it all: Here’s a couple who’s truly in love, perfectly happy with each other,
isolated from the rest of the world in a moment of pure intimacy. But nobody stops to wonder:
Who took those photographs?

I said yes to Rob, dropping to my knees next to him. “Wait, we were better before,” I said, standing up again. We were exactly the same height when he was kneeling. We kissed, laughed, kissed again. “Oh my God,” I said. “Really? Really?” I was still processing, but Rob was a man with a plan.

“Hold that thought,” he said, and pulled out his phone. I assumed he was calling his parents, but all he said was “We’re ready for you.”

Then he explained. We were going to sell photos of our engagement to
Rounder
and donate the proceeds to One Cell’s youth education fund. No sooner had he finished explaining than people started filing up on deck. Rob’s event planner, a photographer, two assistants, hair and makeup people for me and Rob, and a magazine writer. Where had they come from? They must have been hiding in one of the staterooms. I wasn’t ready—I’d barely caught my breath—but I could see why he wanted it done right away. Then they’d be gone and we’d be alone again to bask in the excitement and mystery of our future. Also, as his event planner pointed out to me, we only had fifty minutes until we lost our light. Of course, it had all been perfectly timed for sunset. Not the actual engagement—the reenactment.

They scurried me back downstairs to prep me to arrive on the upper deck, have the question popped, and be surprised and elated all over again. It was like an acting exercise.

At least I have no trouble remembering the details of my engagement—I did at least five takes of it before they were sure they had what they needed. If I remember correctly, the magazine donated $100,000 to One Cell in honor of our engagement, so it was all for a good cause. And then I called my parents to tell them the exciting news.

I thought of myself as a cynic, yet when it came to love I seemed to be stuck in teen movie fantasyland. After all, my first kiss was for
American Dream
, perfectly lit. My first love was my onscreen prom date, a heartthrob who’d literally been cast for our chemistry. My first heartbreak played like an end-of-series finale, both of us, still in love, compelled to go our separate ways. After Justin, the perfectly cast love interest, there was Johnny, a classic bad boy through and through. Most girls have four years of college to lie on a dorm bed, hash through obsessions and drunken encounters, and get these clichés out of their system. Then they have their twenties for a series of near misses as they tiptoe toward the mundane realities of long-term relationships. But I went straight from youthful romance to a fairy-tale prince. Roses and diamonds, mansions and islands, Rob was everything but the shining armor: a movie star, a hunk, the catch of the century, an icon. I didn’t care about his fame and success, I didn’t care about money and power. And I certainly didn’t go for the diamonds and roses. Rob was king of the great, romantic gesture—but I always saw the role of Prince Charming as a nervous habit of his, something to fall back on when he felt something he had no idea how to express. Contrived as our engagement was, it came from his bundled-up heart. I didn’t need Captain Joe, the hero of Rob’s classic movie. I loved Rob for what was underneath it all, for the frog I could extract from all that princelyness.

After I said yes, we called our parents, and I called Aurora.

“You won, Pepper! You won the gold medal in the Love Olympics!” she exclaimed. And then: “But the most important thing is that he loves you. I saw how he looks at you. Oh my God, I’m Rob Mars’s maid of honor!”

“Oh yeah—you’ll be my maid of honor, won’t you?” I said.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

My parents feigned surprise until my father admitted that Rob had asked him for my hand when we were in Chicago.

“He didn’t!” I punched Rob’s arm.

“I told him you were a grown woman, but that he had my blessing.”

I knew my father too well to believe that. He could blather on about my independence and maturity, but no question he was pleased Rob had asked. And delighted to bestow his blessing on a man of such . . . achievement.

After the phone calls came the part of the evening that was just for us, the part that wasn’t in the magazines.

At Rob’s cue, the
Queen Elizabeth
headed out into the lagoon. Champagne and a plate of spicy shrimp appeared.

“By the way,” Rob said, “I hope you like this boat. It’s your engagement present.” Hence her name: I was marrying the king, and that made me Queen Elizabeth.

I could only shake my head. “You sure you want to do this?” I said. “Why buy the cow . . . ?”

Rob burst out laughing, pulling me into his arms. “I want the cow. It’s the best damned cow I’ve ever seen.”

The waitstaff started bringing us food. Local specialties—some of the freshest fish I’ve ever had—though I also had the sensation that everything—dinner, the champagne, dessert, the view, the waiters—everything tasted better, looked more beautiful, and felt delightful simply because I was in love.

After dinner we stood together, alone, at the prow of the boat. The pink-and-gold sunset had faded, and the sky was dark, full of stars. The captain cut the engines and we floated quietly, the scattered lights of the island
illuminating the harbor. I watched Rob looking out at the view. He took a breath, as if to speak, and I put a finger to his mouth.

“Wait,” I said. “Don’t do it.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t yell how much you love me.”

“I’m going to marry you, Elizabeth, and I’m so proud I might explode.”

“Okay,” I said, “I get it. But this is not
Titanic.
Just keep it small.”

He leaned forward and whispered in my ear in the tiniest, truest voice. “I love you. You are my heart and soul. I will love you forever.”

I turned my head and whispered in his ear, “Me too.”

The next day, the whole world found out. Pictures of our engagement showed us on the
Queen Elizabeth
, at the beginning of the night. Rob and I looked really happy and perfect. How could we not? The Caribbean. The roses, the candlelight, the glorious sunset, the big ol’ Walford Diamond ring: It was Celebrity Wedding Package Deluxe. And, just like that, in an instant, all the bad press was over. All the flubs and missteps of the past months; all the vitriol and schadenfreude and snark; all the cynicism about our relationship just melted away. It didn’t matter that, to us, they were photo-ops for charity. The media ate it up. We were “the ‘It’ couple of Hollywood.” America’s Girl Next Door and
People
’s Sexiest Bachelor of the Year. A match made in Hollywood heaven. It turned out that this was what they’d wanted all along—the perfect movie romance—me and Rob, holding hands under a rainbow, ready to start our lives together.