Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (14 page)

“Your dad is a pit bull,” Aurora conceded.

“Cece walked us through the values governing those rules. Love. Kindness. Forgiveness. Achievement. Then she said, ‘These are important values, but life isn’t about being a well-behaved child. You are a grown-up, a spouse, an employee, a boss, a friend to adult friends, a parent. Nobody ever teaches us how to play any of
these
roles. We’re here to address the gap between what your parents taught you and the life you’re leading today.’

“Think about it,” I told Aurora. “My parents did a good job, no question about it. But I left home at seventeen and was instantly on
American Dream
. It was a great experience, but I missed out on a lot.”

“Beer pong and midterms. Poor you,” Aurora said.

“We float through our lives, following our parents’ plans; believing what doctors tell us about our bodies. We’re totally out of touch with our own selves. We need to take authority over our lives. I know it sounds silly, but the Practice is about being a grown-up.”

“In that case, sign me up!” Aurora said.

The Whole Body Practice wasn’t touchy-feely—it was pragmatic. We stripped down our life choices. Emotions, we learned, were obstacles. In class we practiced provoking our emotions, then distancing ourselves from them, observing them from afar. “Emotions are a chemical reaction,” we chanted during the meditation. The poses enabled us to change our body chemistry. We would never again let our emotions control our lives. And I suddenly understood why Meg and Rob reminded me of each other, why they both seemed so clear and direct and easygoing. They lived the message of this practice every day. I was excited. This wasn’t just a route to knowing Rob better. It might be the answer to all of life’s challenges.

And so it was that I eventually called Bethamy and said, “I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but I’m changing the wedding. It’s not going to be in
Malibu. It’s going to be in Ireland, in the town where my grandparents were born. There won’t be a theme. And I will be making the guest list myself.”

“I’ll have to talk to Rob about this. I always do his list—he doesn’t even know who his own brand manager is!”

“I’ve already spoken to Rob,” I said firmly. “It’s up to me. You can confirm that with him if it’s important to you. Also, the wedding’s going to be intimate. No brand managers.” I hung up, checked twice to make sure the phone was really, truly hung up, then turned to Meg and we did a little victory dance.

The Whole Body Practice did much more than free me to fire my wedding planner. I had hoped that it might bring me and Rob closer, and the results were immediate. At dinner the night after my first practice—weeks before I even fired Bethamy—I babbled in excitement.

“It makes so much sense,” I said. “I’ve been playing the same role—class valedictorian—for way too long.”

Rob nodded thoughtfully. “You’re a high achiever. That’s not a bad thing.”

“But I’ve always worked to someone else’s standards. My high school teachers, then Steve Romany and Alice Baer” (the showrunner of
American Dream
and its director), “and always my dad.”

“All good people,” Rob said. “But, as your fiancé, I have to say that I trust you with yourself more than I trust any of them. I can’t wait to see what you find when you follow your own instincts.”

“Take a look in the mirror,” I said. “I already found you, all by myself.” Rob smiled for what seemed like just a moment too long, then stood up and took my hand.

“Come with me. I want to show you something.” Aha! I was breaking
through to my hard-to-read fiancé. It was about to happen. He was finally going to take me to his private sanctum, into Bluebeard’s chamber, to reveal whatever secrets he kept from the rest of the world. This must have been what he was waiting for—a sign from me that we were in alignment.

But no. Bluebeard’s door, off in the gym, stayed shut tight, keeping its secrets for now. Instead he led me to our shared office and opened a PowerPoint slide show on his computer. The title slide read “Studio Manhattan, Construction Launch.” Below that it read “Tomorrow, Manhattan. Next, the World.”

I expected the slides that followed to show images of the new Studio I’d heard Rob and some of his One Cell associates talk about—a space in New York that would bring the Practice to a whole new population. But instead of marketing or architectural plans, Rob was showing me images of what looked to be the slums of the world. Families standing outside decrepit houses. Dirty children playing on the ground. Shots of Third World bathrooms. In the background, stretches of beautiful blue mountains.

“What is this?” I asked.

“The One Cell community is something of an island,” Rob said. “Why should self-knowledge be the privilege of the rich? One Cell helps people realize their greatest dreams. Who can it better serve? We aren’t going to feed them, Elizabeth. We’re going to
teach them to fish
! Manhattan is just the beginning. Someday the Studio will be known as a place where people from all walks of life do the 100. A worldwide practice for self-actualization.” His eyes were shining. So this was what my husband-to-be was planning, what all those meetings at the Studio were about.

Even then I thought his idealism was overblown, but it was sweet. I liked what it said about him. Also, to be honest, I wanted to believe that the practice I was learning at the Studio wasn’t another rich person’s dalliance, like Isle Goodwin’s solo pilgrimages with her personal guru,
which basically were excuses for her to take an annual trip to his ashram in India, or Minette Stone’s monthly weekends at Malibu’s Total Purity Cleansing Center, which billed itself as rehab from the toxins of daily life but which everyone knew was the best way to lose a quick fifteen pounds. Aside from needing ammunition against Aurora’s mockery, I liked the idea that One Cell was trying to do good in the world.

“I want to help,” I said. “This is something I could really see myself being a part of.”

“Of course!” he said, and I could tell he was delighted—and maybe even a little relieved. “I’d love your help.”

“You’re a good man, Rob Mars.”

“I try,” he said.

But seriously, that locked door was killing me.

M
an of Her Dreams
was premiering at the Aspen Film Festival at the end of November. It would be the first time since Rob and I had met that I’d get to be the star while he played dutiful consort. At last, I would reclaim center stage. Much as I respected my fiancé’s success, being cast as the young, innocent girl who’d been swept up in a fairy-tale romance by a powerful movie star was starting to get old. Here was my chance to remind Hollywood and the rest of the moviegoing public that I already had a respectable career, thank you very much.

We landed in Aspen and were met by Rob’s local driver, Pete, who was straight out of a ski resort brochure, cut from the chair lift and pasted into the driver’s seat of a Range Rover. He had a skier’s tan: a reverse raccoon mask, the top half of his face pale where goggles had shielded his skin.

While Rob and Pete talked powder depth and texture in the front seat, I watched the snow-covered peaks go by. A magpie landed on a wooden fence. The world was black and white.

We drove up a winding country road to a huge wooden lodge. Its windows glowed. The mountain rose behind it. Even though it was nearly six o’clock and the sun had already dipped behind the mountain,
the slopes were brightly lit for night skiing, and a chairlift was still running.

“That’s Argus Lodge,” Rob said. “We ski in, ski out from there.”

“Why isn’t there anyone on the chairlift?” I asked. At Chestnut Mountain, where I’d skied as a kid in Chicago, there was always a line for the chairlift, no matter how bitterly cold it was.

“It’s a private mountain,” Rob said. Sure. Our own private mountain. Why not? Rob went on, “You might encounter Hunter skiing the bumps, but otherwise it’s very quiet.” That would be Hunter Dix.
The
Hunter Dix.

About three minutes past the lodge we came upon a few rustic houses and stopped in front of one.

“This is my—our—cabin!” Rob said, and he popped out of the car to open my door. The front hall opened into a great room—it must have been forty feet tall, with a dramatic waterfall plunging down one wall, and floor-to-ceiling windows looking out at a perfectly framed snow-capped mountain. A fire roared in the massive stone fireplace. There was a long rustic table that probably sat twenty, and a chef’s kitchen with windows all around. Multiple glass folding doors led to a deck, where the steam from the hot tub was red, tinted by colored landscape lights. Four fire pits lit the pool with orange flame.

I got out my phone. “I’m sending a picture of this
cabin
to Aurora,” I told Rob, “so she can see that we know how to rough it.”

The premiere was the following afternoon. Rob and I did our practiced red carpet routine, smiling and posing and waving, staying on message for the event. This time my refrain was “I can’t wait to see
Man of Her Dreams
. I haven’t seen it yet! But working with Olson Nelson was amazing.” It was a lie. I had seen the movie at our screening room in Brentwood, with my agent, manager, and publicist, right before I fired all of
them, and I was not a fan. The movie had started off as a light romantic comedy, but Olson had cut almost all the jokes, and the ones that were left felt lonely and flat. He had also cut what I thought was my best work of the film: the third-act monologue where I convince Luke, my dream date, that we belong together, even if it means stepping out of reality forever. Instead, in the final cut, my costar, Matt Wilson, has the last word, telling me that having each other in our dreams is enough. If you asked me, it made for a depressing ending. And my performance was reduced to the generic cute girl of every romantic comedy—offbeat, ready for love, with the winningly humble habit of hiding her hands in her sleeves. (Ironically, my best surviving scene was the one that we shot right before my ex-boyfriend Johnny executed his spectacular film/relationship bomb. I guess I’d been having a good day up until that moment.)

Also, Olson Nelson was
allegedly
(that’s for the lawyers) having an affair with Sandra Beakley, which might explain why the camera spent such a disproportionate amount of time lingering on the minor character of my little sister.

So my stock statement was that it was great to work with the director, which everyone knows is industry code for
I don’t like this movie, but you can’t blame me for putting my faith in a director with a good track record and reputation. Now I am being professional out of respect for those who invested in this film and to demonstrate to future filmmakers that I would never sell them out.
The important thing was to be visible in the industry—to remind Hollywood that I was cast in this, and would be cast again.

Not that it mattered. I could have ratted out the director, panned the movie, and declared frozen peas the new celebrity weight-loss secret; apparently all anyone was ever going to write about until the end of time was the endlessly fascinating love story of Lizzie Pepper and Rob Mars.

When the photographers shouted questions at Rob (“
When’s the wedding?” “How much was the ring?”
) his only response was “I’m here to see Elizabeth’s movie. I’m excited and proud.” It was actually true that Rob hadn’t yet seen the movie. The fact of the matter was that he and I had never watched any of my movies together (or
American Dream
, for that matter). I had never seen him see me act. Now, as we settled into our seats for what I knew would be a cringe-inducing 110 minutes, I didn’t worry about the audience. I was focused on Rob. What would he think of my acting? If he didn’t think me a good actor, would he still love me?

In anticipation of this very moment, I had made sure to warn Rob about the sex scene. Ironic as it sounds, given what happened, I didn’t want to blindside him. In the beginning of the second act, my character, Catherine, undresses and climbs into bed with Luke—the man she first met in her dreams. I was fine with doing nudity at the time. I’m not particularly modest, and I’ll pretty much do anything that feels true to my character if I believe in the movie—which I still did when we shot that scene. Now, however, I had my regrets. But I was also curious to see Rob’s reaction to my naked, strategically waxed body on the twenty-foot-tall screen.

And so Rob watched the movie and I watched Rob. At the end of the first act, when Catherine realizes she’s (basically) alone in the world, Rob put his hand on my knee. I took that as a sign that he didn’t like to see me sad, which meant, in some way, that he bought my character’s despair.

After that, Rob seemed intently focused on the screen, so I just sat there, trying to convince myself it was a sweet movie after all and noting that I was really skinny. (Lately Rob and I had been eating a little too well, and my hip bones were now covered by a layer of soft flesh. After the screening I would return to a carb- and dairy-free existence. Again.) My nude scene came . . . and went—with no perceivable reaction from Rob. I should have known. He was too professional to take such things personally.

But then it happened. Third act, just as my mind was turning to what questions I should anticipate from the press outside the theater. Suddenly, there I was, up on the screen, delivering the monologue that Olson had stripped from the film.

It was impossible! I had seen the “final” cut just one week earlier! Changes at this point were unheard of. Someone—someone very high up—must have liked my performance enough to demand that Olson reinstate it. I poked Rob and started to tell him, but he turned to me and smiled.

“Better, isn’t it?” he whispered.

He knew! The one who’d been blindsided was me.

That night, after smiling through the party and posing with my costars and pretending it was perfectly fine when Celia Montbatten, who is a giraffe of a woman and has no business wearing five-inch spikes, nailed the top of my foot with her full body weight and then fake apologized by saying, “Oh, I didn’t
see
you,” as if I were short and insignificant, when really she didn’t see me because she stepped
backward
onto me. After Olson Nelson gave me the stink eye all night; after noticing how Rob tacked on a whispered “And thank you” when he congratulated Olson; after all that, in the limo heading home, I finally asked Rob what he thought about the surprise edit.

“You did a spectacular job with that monologue and people deserved to see it.”

“But did you have something to do with it? Did you ask them to do it?”

He put his arm around my shoulders and grinned proudly. “Elizabeth, I didn’t ask them to do it. I
told
them to do it.”

“But you can’t do that! How did you do that?”

Rob chuckled. “Actors are powerless in this business. We make a
movie, put our hearts into it, and have no control over how it turns out, how it’s promoted, whether it gets distributed or goes straight to video. We’re artists, yet we get treated like the paint on someone else’s canvas. But that’s not how I play the game anymore. And you don’t have to, either. Haven’t you learned this in the Practice? The self is not limited. We have the power. We
are
the power.”

It wasn’t hard to guess how it went down. Someone gave Olson the message that Rob wanted that scene. Olson didn’t give a rat’s ass what Rob wanted. Then Olson was encouraged to include the scene and strongly reminded that the distribution company, Radian, was owned by ACE, and that all purse strings led back to Rob Mars. Fait accompli.

Rob leaned back and crossed his arms, smiling a bit smugly. I was impressed. This was how I wanted to be. After so many years of following a script, listening to a director, and having my days arranged around call times and media appearances, a little power was very appealing. “But, hon, one thing?”

“Anything.”

“No more surprises.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I was still so naïve. It hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would leak the change, or hold Rob accountable, but of course the piece on
Movieline
came out the next morning and the whole world saw my busybody fiancé leveraging his status to boost my comparatively lame career. Oh, the press loved me when I was standing next to Rob, a picture-perfect pair. They loved that we were engaged. They were so dying to hear about the wedding details that Lotus was getting offers for exclusives on the
planning sessions
. (Before I fired her, Bethamy was unabashedly angling for this, as she wanted to pitch her own wedding reality show.) But when it came to my work, I was perpetually relegated to Rob’s shadow.

My father was not pleased. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I think
every minute you’re onscreen is brilliant. But look at the press, Elizabeth. We have to think about how these things play. Rob should
know
that.” It was always amazing to me how personally my father seemed to take these missteps. Like he was watching a bad play by a football team that he’d put a lot of money on.

My father was hung up on public opinion, but Rob was thinking bigger. He was showing me how to take charge of my work. Next to Rob, my father seemed out of touch and provincial.

When I got off the phone, Rob raised his eyebrows at me. “Everything okay?”