The Life and Death of Sophie Stark (21 page)

“Why not?” Sophie asked.

This was something I’d thought about a lot, obviously, as I moved into my one-bedroom apartment, watched young couples with toddlers building sand castles on the beach.

“I mean, my first marriage didn’t go so well,” I said.

This wasn’t completely true. Nadia and I had been good together a long time. I never wanted to be like Steven and the other guys we hung out with. There were always girls around when we were younger, new, pretty girls with long legs in little jean shorts or white summer skirts, smelling like sunscreen, but my dad had come home to my mom every night, even though he spent all day spreading hot tar on people’s roofs and God knows he could have used a little fun, and if I couldn’t stay faithful with a nice house and a cool job and a pretty, healthy wife, then how could I ever respect myself? So I flirted, but nothing more, for years, and then I fell in love. It’s not important who she was—she had black hair, she was younger than me, but not a lot, she was a lot like Nadia except she was new and she was never mad at me. Nadia and I were going through a hard time then—now I think it was nothing we couldn’t have handled, but at the time I convinced myself that we’d grown apart, that our marriage was over. And I did what I thought was the right thing, and I moved out and got a divorce so I could be with the other woman, who I thought would make me happy.

“I left her for someone else,” was all I told Sophie. “And then that didn’t work out either. So I don’t know, maybe my girlfriend didn’t think I was a very good bet.”

We turned right and I could see the ocean laid out in a shining plate. When I moved, the broker had told me there was something good for the brain about living near the sea, something about ions. But I often felt like the water was insulting me, like, “I’m beautiful and endless—what are you doing with your life?”

“Do you think you’re a bad bet?” she asked. She was looking at me with that math face, but I thought I could see some worry in it, like whatever I said next would be very important.

The day I moved out of Taylor’s, packed my turntable and a few clothes in my car and drove off all by myself, I thought she was probably smart to get rid of me. And for the next few weeks, as I sat in my almost empty apartment and thought about what would happen if I were to die, I still thought that. But over time I came back to the thing that kept me going in my life, the belief that I had screwed up—badly, even—but that I was capable of loving people well and doing right by them, and if I was given a real chance, I would show it.

“I think I can be,” I said.

She didn’t say anything, and her face didn’t quite get that hopeful look it had before, but she seemed satisfied. And she nodded, and her nod seemed to take me in and accept me, like I was okay, like we were both okay. I thought of Kat, the skeptical way she always looked when I told her I loved her or that I wanted to help her however I could. “There’s no way you can help me,” she’d said once, after a breakup of her own. At the time I’d been so hurt I could barely say good-bye, but now I thought maybe that was how the world worked;
your parents weren’t always the ones who could help you, your child wasn’t always the one you could help.

We were home. The clouds were rolling back in, and the evening sun was coming down in streaks. A boy and a girl, probably brother and sister, were flying a bright blue box kite on the beach. The sister held the spindle while the brother watched.

“You should move to L.A.,” I said. “I can introduce you to a lot of people. It would be great for your career.”

She was looking back at the beach, but she turned and gave me a half smile.

“Actually,” I said, “there’s a locations guy you should meet right away. He’ll be a big help on
Isabella
. He took me to this church out in Alhambra one time that would be great for the wedding scene. And for the Columbus scene, we’ll have lots of options, obviously—this guy knows a lot of great beaches.”

Sophie nodded. “This is a nice beach.”

She sounded like a kid again.

“It’s nice,” I said, “but probably not so great for shooting. We’ll want someplace a little less built up. But we’ll find it, don’t worry.”

She nodded again. She was looking at the ocean.

“It’s lucky you came to me,” I said. “I think there’s a lot I can show you. We’re going to work really well together.”

Sophie was quiet for a minute then. A gust took the box kite high up above the waves, and the brother and sister cheered.

“You should direct your own movies,” Sophie said finally.

No one had said that to me in a very long time, and I’d stopped even thinking about it.

“Why do you say that?” I asked her.

“You’d be good at it,” she said, and then she walked into my house.

.   .   .

W
E MET
V
ERONICA
at one of the fancy bad restaurants where I always met actors. Lots of actresses aren’t beautiful in person—they have big, weird features that show up better on screen—but Veronica had a smoky, lush-mouthed sexiness that made everybody look at her, even in a place full of Hollywood types. I could already see her sitting on Isabella’s throne, drawing the whole court’s eyes to her. We kissed on the cheek. Up close her face looked a little puffy, like she’d been crying; she probably had. There were a lot of rumors about Veronica—that she’d had an abusive childhood, that she was bipolar. I was still worried she’d be difficult, but I’d talked to Marisa that morning, and she’d turned me down sweetly but definitively. Veronica was starting to look like our best shot.

I turned to introduce Sophie, but she was already sticking out her hand.

“I’m Sophie Stark,” she said.

“Great to meet you,” said Veronica. Her voice was more gravelly than I remembered, but I liked it; it made her sounds serious. “I love your movies.”

“Thanks,” Sophie said.

I had to keep myself from shaking my head. I’d have to teach her to say, “I love yours, too” whenever someone said that, even if she hadn’t seen them.

We sat. Sophie stared at the menu. I started to get nervous; I should’ve prepped her better. I should’ve told her you had to make flattering small talk with actors, build them up, make them feel important.

“You were really amazing in
Aero-Man
,” I said. “You took a
two-dimensional part and really made it three-D.” This was my stock line for people who had been in shitty movies; it usually worked pretty well.

But Veronica was looking out the window—she looked a little woozy and unfocused. She smiled vaguely and took a sip of water.

“If you want to be Isabella,” Sophie said, “you have to move differently.”

My stomach fell. I gave Sophie a
Shut up
look and tried to think of a graceful way to pretend she’d never said that.

“Excuse me?” said Veronica. Now she looked focused.

“Sophie just got here from New York, and she’s really jet-lagged,” I began, hoping the excuse would start to make more sense as I said it. That didn’t happen. Instead the waiter showed up just as I was running out of words. Veronica ordered a salad; I got a burger. Sophie asked for a plain chicken sandwich. None of this distracted Veronica.

“I want to hear what that’s supposed to mean,” she said. “Move differently?”

Sophie looked totally calm. “You keep your shoulders hunched and your elbows too close to your body. All your muscles are too tight. You move like you don’t know you’re beautiful.”

I hoped the compliment would calm Veronica down a little, but I knew it was too equivocal to do much good. Starlets are used to being told they’re beautiful; you have to really drown them in praise for it to have any effect.

“Veronica’s been working nonstop lately,” I said to Sophie, my eyes yelling,
Shut up, shut up, shut up
. “She can’t have perfect yoga posture every minute.”

Veronica ignored me. She was staring at Sophie.

“How should I move?” she asked.

Her voice was too loud—people were looking at us. Whatever was up with her, Sophie was making it worse.

Sophie drew herself up straight. She threw her shoulders back, picked up Veronica’s water glass, and then, with an easy flick of her wrist, poured its contents on the floor. Then, just as easily, she opened her fingers and let the glass go; it hit the hardwood floor and shattered musically into a million shining pieces.

An older woman sitting next to us yelped. Everybody stared. A busboy rushed over to clean up the mess, and I tried to apologize: “It just slipped right out of her hand.”

Veronica pushed back her chair.

“I have to use the restroom,” she said, and walked unsteadily away.

“What are you thinking?” I hissed at Sophie. “You can’t treat people like that.”

Sophie shrugged.

“We need her more than she needs us,” I said. “Without an actress we don’t have a movie.”

Sophie’s face had changed. It was stubborn and unreadable. I thought of an animal—a cat, a wolf.

“I’m going to have a movie,” she said.

The waiter brought our food. Sophie bit into her chicken sandwich. I sat staring at the glittering orange slices in Veronica’s salad. I tried to think of a lunch that had gone as badly as this one. I remembered one fifteen years ago, when I was still making arty, risky movies. I was trying to get funding for a project starring a cult singer-songwriter named Charlie Buck, who I thought was a genius. It was his first movie; he showed up filthy and obviously stoned, and
he told a story about having a threesome with a sixty-year-old woman and a sixteen-year-old girl. The older, very square producer we were hoping to get money from just sat there bug-eyed. Finally I leveled with him.

“Look,” I said, “it’s obvious that Charlie’s offensive, unpredictable, and hard to work with. You should only do it if you’re brave.”

He signed on within the week. So I decided to try the same tactic again. When Veronica sat back down, I got started.

“Listen,” I said, “Sophie has very high standards. I know she’d agree she’s not the easiest person to work with.”

I turned to Sophie, hoping for some sort of recognition. But she was looking at Veronica, not me. Veronica was moving differently now; her joints looser, her shoulders more relaxed. Her eyes smoldered; she looked, I had to admit, queenly.

“Is this what you want?” she asked, her voice dark.

“Better,” said Sophie.

Veronica nodded. She speared a single orange slice, brought it to her mouth, chewed. Then she gripped her plate between her thumb and forefinger and, in a single graceful motion, flung it across the room. The busboys looked at each other disgustedly; the manager shot out of the kitchen. Before any of them could reach our table, Veronica stood up and walked out of the restaurant.

I put my head in my hands. I couldn’t look at Sophie.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked her from between my fingers.

“That was good,” Sophie said. “She’ll be good, I think.”

I lifted my face. Sophie was eating her sandwich. The manager was hovering a few steps behind her, looking like he was trying to hold in a scream.

“I’m sorry,” I mouthed. “We’ll pay for it.”

I turned back to Sophie.

“She’s going to think you’re crazy,” I said, “and she’s not going to want to work with you.”

“Then she shouldn’t work with me,” Sophie said.

I admired her a little then, how sure she was that she was right, how little she was willing to compromise. I took a deep breath.

“I know you have your vision for this movie, and I respect that. You just need to learn how to deal with people. You need to learn to stroke their egos a little.”

Sophie was silent for a moment, like she was considering what I’d said. Her eyes were pointed at mine without actually meeting them, like my face was an object she was examining. Finally she said, “I don’t think I do need to learn that.”

T
HAT NIGHT
I
COULDN’T SLEEP
. Even if Veronica said yes, I was worried she wasn’t going to be able to work with Sophie. Sophie was worse than I’d thought, further away from normal. The coldness I’d seen in her movies wasn’t something she just called up every now and then to help her with a scene; it was the way she was. I’d had such a clear picture in my head of us working together—her watching each take with her keen eye and saying perceptive things to me about the actors and the lighting and the camera angles, and me moving easily about the set, my arm around the DP, my voice in the actress’s ear, translating what was in Sophie’s head into reality. Now I couldn’t imagine it anymore.

I got up to go to the bathroom; from the hallway I looked in at the couch. Sophie was sitting awake at the end of it, her arms wrapped around her knees. I thought of going in and sitting down
with her and asking what was wrong, but right then I felt so unable to help or understand her that I decided to let it go. I told myself she’d probably rather be alone.

I
N THE MORNING
Sophie was gone. I looked in the kitchen and the bathroom and the bedroom where I’d just come from, as though she might be hiding under my bed. I called for her on the hazy beach; a jogger with neck tattoos looked at me like I was crazy. A girl came up to me, seven or eight years old, dragging a long string of kelp behind her like a tail.

“Did you lose your dog?” she asked me.

I didn’t have Sophie’s phone number, so I called her agent, but the line went to voice mail. I went to her website and sent her an e-mail. My apartment had no trace of her, except for a dent in the pillow where she’d laid her head and a smell—maybe it was my imagination—like fallen leaves.

In the afternoon Steven called. I’d been sitting on my couch staring at my TV, watching
Battlestar Galactica
without paying attention.

“I just wanted to touch base,” Steven said, “and tell you how excited I am.”

“Excited about what?” I asked. I sounded like Sophie, no feeling in my voice.

“About
Isabella
,” he said. “I talked to Veronica this morning. I’ve never heard her so psyched about a project.”

“That’s great,” I said. I didn’t want to let on that I hadn’t heard from her. I started to feel more hopeful—if Veronica had said yes, maybe Sophie was out meeting with her. Maybe she’d be back, and
we could start brainstorming locations. I’d been thinking about beaches, and I remembered a private one where we could film the Columbus scene. It had a little cove we could use as the Spanish harbor, cormorants on the rocks and whales in the winter. I’d already checked to make sure there were cormorants in Spain.