Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (30 page)

I hung up.

I already knew that my little boys would never roller-skate down the block or tug my hand in the supermarket, pleading for sweets. They would never make a friend or have a teacher who didn’t already have an opinion about their parents, or at least know that they were rich beyond belief. They would never have anonymity or feel normal. These losses weren’t Rob’s fault, and I had already come to terms with them. They were stuck with who we were and the bizarre corner of the planet that we called home. In theory, the amazing opportunities we could offer made it worthwhile.

But that one image captured all the differences in how my husband and I saw their future.

Later, when Aurora saw the posters, she would say that Rob was exploiting our children, using them, literally, as poster children for his
cause. But that wasn’t how I saw it at all. Rob would never put our boys’ faces on an advertisement. He was as protective as I of their privacy. On its surface, the poster itself did no harm. Nobody would recognize them. They might not even recognize themselves.

The problem was more complex, and it was between me and Rob. It was perfectly natural to him to offer his children for the photo, the way someone might allow an image of their kids at play to be used in a neighborhood bulletin. One Cell was deeply significant to him. But I did not feel the same way. The Studio was not my community. I could not commit them to that world.

We all make choices for our children, and I was particularly careful about mine. Allison was adopted and maybe she was born to be troubled, but the pressure to live up to the Pepper name had driven her to escape our world entirely. And grateful as I was for
American Dream
, I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’d loved English literature, and French class, and how for the first twelve years of my life I was certain I’d end up a pediatrician. Dreams change, children don’t become their parents, and the greatest luxury we could give Cap and Leo was the freedom to choose their own paths. To make certain choices for them about who they were, well, that would be breaking the one promise I’d made to my younger self.

Rob had conducted the photo session behind my back and had hidden the resulting poster in his private room. He must have known I’d eventually see the posters and most likely recognize the boys. So why the secrecy? I knew the answer to that. Rob didn’t want the annoyance of my opinion. I simply didn’t matter.

Rob. When I married him, I believed he was the love of my life, and I knew there might be hard times. I was committed to working through them. My parents were still together, for better and worse, and I never thought I would do anything differently.

I had finally found the missing piece that I’d been looking for all these
years, the unreachable part of Rob. It was the knowledge that his ambition drove him. He was committed to his work, and faithful to One Cell. Everything else was far down the list.

In a flash, I saw what my life looked like from the outside, what Aurora had tried to tell me. My life wasn’t my own. But I wasn’t a target; I was an accessory to Rob’s vision and goals. As long as I was in his life, there wouldn’t be a choice about me and the boys being part of the Studio. It was his way of life. It was more core to who he was than our marriage.

That poster. The dramatic shadows, the rosy sunset, the Hallmark message. I had thought it was a Valentine’s present for me. I had let myself believe it was a symbol of family, of true love. But it was so goddamned corny. I could see Aurora gagging. On top of everything else, I had lost my edge.

I slipped back inside and went upstairs to the boys’ room. Cap lay stick straight in his twin bed, covers up to his chin, hands neatly clasped on his chest. My little angel. In his matching bed, Leo, as usual, had rotated ninety degrees and was now sideways on the bed, the covers in a twist, his head nearly dangling off the edge. I pulled him back to his pillow, straightening him up. Now the two of them were parallel again, their breath rising and falling in sync as it often did. Their bodies formed such small bumps under the thick down duvets. We hadn’t ruined them yet. But their vulnerability terrified me. My job was to protect them, even from a man who loved them and wanted to give them the world.

I didn’t care about being a movie star, about being Rob Mars’s wife. Not anymore. What I wanted, more than anything, was for my boys to have an imperfect, simple, real-world childhood where they could have friendships that came and went, get report cards, study the secret lives of turtles, and when the day came, they would mourn Mr. Hooper on
Sesame Street
, or his modern-day equivalent.

The only reason I was still in this marriage was for Cap and Leo. But I was wrong. Staying wasn’t best for them. It would slowly, insidiously form them. I couldn’t sit around for a day, an hour, a minute, with the sense that other forces would shape my sons’ lives.

I had to get them away, to start a new life. I wanted a divorce, and I wanted custody. I looked at my phone, next to me on the bed, and remembered how, right after I called Lexy, her number went dead and she was whisked away to Mustique. My phone was being monitored. And Jordan was always with me. And Lewis, a longtime One Cell employee, had the keys to “my” car.

I knew what I had to do. I just had no idea how I could ever do
it.

I
just want to go on a hike, like we used to,” I said into my phone.

Aurora and I had been friends since I was fourteen and if there was anything she knew for certain about me it was that I never had and never would want to go on a hike. My expeditions were strictly armchair.

“I would love to,” Aurora said. “I’ve been missing our hikes. Just don’t get us lost like you did last time.”

Leave it to Aurora to take a lie and run with it. I had missed her.

“But I need you to know: I’m very happy being part of the Studio. I can’t associate with you if you’re still talking to that guy—what was his name?”

Aurora instantly picked up on what I was doing. “Buddy. Don’t worry. He turned out to be a creep.”

The hike Aurora chose ostensibly led to a waterfall, but it hadn’t rained much lately in Topanga and everything was dry. The first half of the trail was flat, but it soon became so steep that in places there were chain handholds along the rock wall of the path. My sneakers, which must have been designed for in-gym use, had zero traction and I was sliding all over the place. Aurora set a rigorous pace.

“I get it,” I panted behind. “I didn’t listen to you.”

“I’m your best friend! You ditched me for fame and fortune!”

I stopped. “I know you’re joking,” I said, “but you’re right. I’m sorry. I got swept up in . . . all of it. I thought it was a dream come true. Go ahead. Tell me I’m a shallow bitch.”

“I guess it’s not entirely your fault. The One Cell Studio plus Rob Mars. That is a hard-core combo. I can’t really blame you for getting sucked in.”

I’d once accused Aurora of leaking information to the press, but now I suspected the Studio of tapping my phone. Had Geoff tried to frame her—the one friend I had who would worry and warn me about the organization? Had he poisoned me against her?

Though I think there were, and are, many honest, good people in the Studio, I was soon to learn about its dark underbelly. To Geoff, public perception was everything. He had groomed Rob as his poster boy, and he would do anything to maintain that image. Which included me, Rob’s perfect wife. To turn me against Aurora was just what Geoff would do to “protect” me.

At the top of the climb, we took a water break on a comfortable perch overlooking the Pacific.

“This feeling in my legs. I don’t like it,” I told Aurora.

“You prefer to do that weird yoga shit at the Studio?” Aurora teased.

“No, I hate that, too. But this feels more . . . self-inflicted.”

Exertion aside, to be outside and perfectly alone—it was amazing. I was free. Free from paparazzi. Free from tapped phones. Free from the watchful eyes of too-polite household employees. A gray “S” of highway was so far below that we couldn’t hear its white noise. Even the trees held still. Safe at last, I told Aurora everything.

Aurora, who’d seemed so alarmist all along, was careful not to judge. I now know that she’d been carefully prepped for this meeting by none other than the infamous One Cell rebel Buddy White. Aurora had been
told not to scare me away with all she knew about the Studio. It worked; I found her supportive and practical.

And then, when I thought I’d told her everything, I finally said what I’d been thinking ever since I’d found Rob’s scripts.

“This is my fault. I got exactly what I wanted: a perfect-on-the-outside husband.”

It was the first time I’d admitted it out loud. Rob, whose very touch had given me shivers, was still the enigma he’d been when we first met. The allure of that mystery had transformed into a kind of torture. Giving up the grand lifestyle—that didn’t faze me. But I had to accept that the love I’d felt, the love I’d believed in, the love I’d built my life around—it was all a façade. Explaining that, for the first time, I wept.

Aurora put her arm around me. “You loved him. Of course you loved him. It’s Rob fucking Mars. You won the heart of the prince of all the land. It’s so hard to let go of that.”

“Rob Mars.” I was crying and laughing. “I’m dumping Rob Mars. Can I do that?”

“Actually,” Aurora said, “dumping him might be even cooler than marrying him.”

Then I got serious. “But look what happened to Lexy. When she left Rob she walked away from everything. But I have more to lose. Rob will want the boys. That cannot happen. I can’t lose them. I’d stay with Rob forever before I’d let that happen.”

I know how it sounds. Rob Mars stealing my children! This wasn’t a made-for-TV movie (please, I would never). For all the custody issues in all of Hollywood, for all Rob’s power and influence, he couldn’t keep my children away from me. Except . . . this was Rob Mars
and
the Studio. Lexy seemed to have grown to appreciate her quiet small-town life, but did she have a choice? Geoff’s girlfriend, Patricia, had disappeared.
Emotions are a chemical reaction.
Well, there was a chemical reaction going
on in my gut, and it told me to be very, very careful. I couldn’t just grab Cap and Leo and walk out the door, and Aurora and I both knew it.

“You have to call him,” Aurora said.

“I know.” I stood up and paced in a tight circle around the summit.

“You don’t have to do it right now,” Aurora said.

“Give me your phone.”

I needed my father’s help, but I had no idea how he would respond. After all, being married to Rob was everything he’d ever wanted for me. Not just the famous, rich husband and beautiful children. Rob was my career ticket. That was what my father had arranged for me before I’d even dreamed of marrying a megastar.
The Safe House
was about to catapult me to the next level. Staying with Rob meant success—my father would accept nothing less.

I called him at work—something I’d only ever done to announce that I’d landed a part. I didn’t mince words. “Dad, I’m leaving Rob and I need your help.”

My father spoke. “I got you into this, and I’ll get you out of it.” There was an odd garbled sound at the other end of the line, and when he spoke again I could barely hear him. “My baby girl, I’m sorry, for what I did, for all of this . . . Please forgive me, Lizzie.”

Tears sprang to my eyes. He hadn’t called me Lizzie since I was little. “Of course, Daddy.” There was so much to say that I couldn’t find another word.

I heard him sigh deeply, and I was almost relieved when his next words summoned his familiar gruffness. “Tell me what you want.”

My father, whose ambition on my behalf had both shaped my life and put a wedge between us, was at last ready to listen to me. He’d always cared about me, but for the first time he actually cared about what I wanted. My answer was easy.

“I just want my children.” I would move to Bend, Oregon, and give up acting forever if that was what it took. So long as I was with my boys.

“You got it, Elizabeth.” I smiled in spite of myself. That was Doug Pepper for “I love you.”

Four days later, on a Saturday, my father met me and Aurora at a nondescript office in Santa Monica that his secretary had rented under the name of a client.

As always, Doug Pepper came prepared. “First off, we need to get you to New York as soon as possible,” my father said. “You’ll start applying to New York schools for the twins immediately.”

He explained that unlike California, where the family courts liked to split everything fifty-fifty, in New York, one parent would be awarded primary custody and the other would get visitation. Even though we hadn’t spent quite enough time in New York to establish residency, if the New York courts saw that we were serious about staying, they would probably accept the case.

“Second: money. Don’t worry about money,” he said. “I realize you don’t like to mix business and love. However, the prenup I had my lawyers draw up for you is watertight. Aside from your savings from
American Dream
and the proceeds from the sale of your condo, you will have an additional eleven million dollars safely in your Pepper Mills account to get you back on your feet.”

Aurora whistled.

I rolled my eyes. “My
dowry
,” I said with scorn.

“You’ll be thanking me for it when Rob’s people freeze your joint accounts,” my father said grimly.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll take it!” Aurora chimed in. “Uh . . . for charity!” she added.

My father wasn’t joking around. “You’ll need an apartment in Manhattan—for later, not for now. We’ll do that in Aurora’s name. She’ll
be your stand-in. Everything we don’t want Rob’s people to trace will be in her name.”

“Thank you, Mr. Pepper. I’ve always wanted my very own New York apartment,” Aurora said. My father didn’t even pretend to be amused. Those two never hit it off.

My father turned to the next page of his yellow pad. “This is a serious matter. Rob and his people are not going to let the boys go without a fight. The Studio has an image to maintain, and losing the sons of such a high-profile supporter doesn’t look good. We need someone who knows how that place works.” He looked up at me questioningly.

“Buddy White?” Aurora suggested. I’d known he would come up eventually. But he was a stranger to me. I had a better idea. There was one person I might be able to trust. She had kept secrets from me, she had envied me, and she had most likely worked against me. But, in the end, after I’d accused her of false friendship and banished her from my life, she’d sent me the key to Bluebeard’s chamber. I had to believe in that gesture, to trust that that one, small piece of metal meant more than everything that had come before. Because nobody knew the inner workings of the Studio better than Meg.

But when I said Meg’s name, Aurora pursed her lips. “Do you know where Meg is?”

“Back at the Studio?”

“Don’t be so sure,” Aurora said. “Buddy says that she disappeared after she left your house.”

This was one of the popular rumors about the Studio—that, like Patricia, people who caused problems for the organization got locked away in work camps. I knew that people went to Fernhills for silent retreats. It had been described to me as an intense renewal program, one that people freely chose to undertake. (It included a severe fasting program that yielded enviable results. I always cringed when my fellow actors decided
they needed to go to Fernhills right before the award season.) Also, Geoff, in more than one lecture, had talked about the forces that had it in for the Studio. “These accusations people make about us—that we’re a cult. That we abuse our practitioners! That you are here against your will! Is this your experience?”

“No!” the audience would shout.

Then again, there was the story Buddy White had started to tell me about his wife. She went to Fernhills for a silent retreat, and he didn’t hear from her again for years.

Meg had tried to prove her loyalty to me. There was never any affair between her and Rob. I had known that for longer than I realized. I should have believed Meg from the start, but, in true One Cell fashion, I didn’t trust my emotions. Now I needed her to help me escape. I needed her, but first we had to find her. If she had gone into a silent retreat, it might be impossible.

We agreed that we would proceed slowly and deliberately. To rush would be to risk everything. I knew what the worst-case scenario was—losing my sons forever. We all left the meeting with action items. My father was rounding up a legal team; Aurora was establishing accounts; and the boys and I took a weekend trip to New York, making sure we were photographed coming out of the Turtle Bay town house. This time, when the paparazzi asked me what we were doing in town, I said, “Well, I’ve always loved New York. We’ve been bicoastal for a while now.” I’d learned from the best of them:
optics
.