She was walking away. Marian said, “Ruth.” Ruth turned. Everything Marian wanted to say was stuck in her throat. “See you.”
Ruth seemed to droop. A sadness emanated from her that Marian didn’t understand. “Sure,” she said.
Marian was posted to the No. 6 ferry pool at Ratcliffe before Ruth arrived at White Waltham, and again she was relieved, and still she did not write.
Trust Your Lust
Sixteen
“Picture!” Bart shouted. “Lock it down! No talking, please! Settle in, please. Sound rolling. Camera. Swinging a lens, and we’ll go again. Hold the work, hold the talk. Last look. First team is in.”
Life is full of sound, and film sets are full of silence. We were shooting in a retro music venue in downtown L.A., a big, balconied room made up to look like a wartime London nightclub. Extras were strategically distributed to make the place seem jammed, and they mimed chatter and laughter and moved noiselessly through the dance floor’s revolving spangles, sweating in their costumes because air-conditioning would make too much noise. They danced in silence while the white-jacketed swing band pretended to play, trombone slides going in and out while the bandleader conducted to music that only existed in the tiny buds in his ears.
After the Alexei kiss hit the internet, I wasn’t allowed to talk. Siobhan and our emergency PR triage people said it was best to issue a statement saying I would not be commenting about my private life and let everyone scream into the void.
Outside on the hot white sidewalk, guys in black T-shirts pushed around rattling dollies piled with utilitarian bric-a-brac: rolls of tape, coils of cable, tripods, racks of lights, big squares of rubber flooring. Trucks and trailers clogged the street. Hair and makeup girls bustled around, their belts heavy with brushes and clips and spray bottles and big nylon pockets like the ones animal trainers carry treats in.
I swayed and turned with Actor Eddie in the middle of a crowd of other swaying, turning couples, who, if the real Marian Graves had danced in a club like this, would have been absorbed in their own lives but were now just props meant to plump up my world, make it look real. A camera orbited around me and a boom hung over my head like a fuzzy black moon, and I was supposed to be falling for my friend’s husband.
“Ruth’s my friend,” I told Eddie.
“Ruth’s not here,” he said. “And tomorrow I’m going to fly over Germany, and I might never come back. So what do you say?”
* * *
—
If I ever had a real meltdown, if I ever well and truly lost my shit, at least inside my own head, it was that week after Vegas.
Alexei didn’t return my texts or calls. He didn’t make any public statements. Finally he emailed me that he had a lot to sort out and needed to concentrate on his family and didn’t want to have any contact at least for a while.
What I wanted was to scrape my whole life away, cast aside everyone I knew because everyone I knew had disappointed me, build a new existence from scratch. I wanted to escape the system of my past, all the chain reactions. I wanted to be the big bang.
But instead I took a bottle of Scotch over to Sir Hugo’s. M.G. drove me the hundred feet between our gates because the paparazzi were basically eating each other alive at the bottom of my driveway.
“My dear, you are becoming a toxic asset,” Hugo said frostily. “You’re lucky we can’t fire you.” We were standing in his kitchen, and he was filling two glasses nearly to the brim.
“Last time you said I’d made myself interesting.”
“There are limits. We need women to see this movie, and women generally aren’t enamored of homewreckers. I know it’s unfair, I know it takes two to tango, but there you have it. We want people to look at you and see Marian Graves, not think about the chaotic tabloid strumpet who keeps getting caught shagging the wrong people.” He clinked his glass against mine. “Cin cin.”
I took a swallow. “This thing with Alexei didn’t really feel optional.” Nothing as insignificant as the dignity of his wife or the prospect of total ruin would have stopped me. I saw a bumper sticker once in L.A.: Trust Your Lust. This is not prudent advice.
“Is it over?”
“I hope so, but I hope not.”
Hugo pierced at me. “Are you in love with Alexei Young?”
I set my glass down, covered my face with both hands, nodded.
“But not just since Vegas.” Hugo was no fool.
I uncovered my eyes. “No.”
“Well, remind yourself that you’d probably love him much less if you were actually with him, because that’s the way it always plays out. Relish the pining and leave it at that. Spice of life.” He opened a cupboard. “I wouldn’t say no to something to nibble on, would you?” He came out with a box of water crackers and a jar of mustard. “What about young Mr. Feiffer? I thought there might be something there.”