In interviews, he was quick to mock himself and his success, pointing to the element of luck in his career. Maddy didn’t know if his disbelief at his fame was real or an act designed to make him more likable. Several years ago he had bought a palazzo in Venice and spent a few months there in the spring and summer, entertaining luminaries. He was an anti-scenester, or so it was said.

“I think he has process,” Maddy said. “He’s just not very showy.”

Though she found some of the writing twee, Maddy had enjoyed The Widower. Weller wasn’t genius—her best friend in grad school, Irina, called him a “hack-tor”—but Maddy found herself responding to his less important scenes. In one, he kissed a woman too eagerly at the end of a date, and the woman recoiled, and Maddy felt that his posture as he walked away showed everything about his character.

“The only reason people think he can act is because he’s a handsome guy who makes himself look less handsome in his films,” Dan said. “Which is ultimately kind of offensive.”

“I don’t understand,” Sharoz said.

“Weller’s attractive but takes these unattractive roles,” Kira said, “so it seems like he’s transforming himself, except the whole time the audience knows it’s really him, so they want to sleep with the character even though he’s a sad sack, which makes them feel deep and generous instead of totally shallow and looksist.”

Ed Handy was approaching, cell phone in one hand and a tumbler in the other. A paunchy bald man in his early fifties, he carried himself like a male model. “Welcome to Mile’s End,” Ed said. “It used to be all prostitution and saloons. Now we service a different kind of whore.”

“How many times have you used that line?” Dan asked.

“Hundreds. You have to understand, every conversation here has been spoken.”

“Does that bother you?” Maddy asked.

“Not at all. Repetition relaxes me.”

A middle-aged woman, maybe late fifties, with shiny brown hair, blue eyes, and perfectly aligned teeth, came over and kissed Ed on both cheeks. Maddy had noticed her earlier, circulating gracefully. She wore dark jeans tucked into riding boots and an off-white sweater that hugged her boosted breasts. To her left was an extremely short young man with intense light blue eyes.

“This is Bridget Ostrow,” Ed said. Steven’s longtime manager-producer, Bridget Ostrow was one of the most powerful women in entertainment. “Bridget produced The Widower.”

“Congratulations,” Dan said, smiling widely. “Loved it. Loved it.”

When Maddy glanced at him, he didn’t make eye contact. She hadn’t expected him to be rude but was surprised to see him being so phony. “And this is Bridget’s son, Zack,” Ed said. “Zack’s at the Bentley Howard Agency in New York.” Bentley Howard, which had offices on both coasts, was one of the top five entertainment agencies. Ed turned to the Know Her crew. “These guys made I Used to Know Her. Dan Ellenberg here’s the director. A New York dancer goes home to Vermont to try to prevent her best friend’s wedding to this total sleazeball—I identified with him the most—and realizes they’ve grown in different directions. Maddy helped write it, it’s based on her hometown. Bridge, these two girls, Maddy Freed and Kira Birzin, are brilliant. First screening is Saturday at ten.”

“A.M.?” Zack asked.

“Yes,” Ed said. “If you guys are up, it would be fantastic if you came.” Maddy glanced anxiously at Dan. He had been furious when he first got the screening schedule. On Friday night, Bentley Howard was throwing a party for Rap Sheet, a film about a car thief turned rapper, at Mountain Way Pub and Grill. This meant that at ten the next morning, most Mile’s Enders would be sleeping off hangovers, not seeing films. Dan was convinced the bad timing would harm their chances of distribution.

“I had already made a note to see it,” Zack said.

“I’ll be there, too,” Bridget said, glancing over Dan’s shoulder at another face in the crowd.

“Your film has great buzz,” Zack said, clapping Dan on the back.

“Everything has buzz here,” said Dan. “It’s like the old man who told his friend his knee surgeon was the best, and the friend said, ‘They’re all the best.’ ” Zack laughed and rubbed his palm against his nose. Maddy didn’t know if it was a nervous tic or a sign of drug addiction.

Dan turned to Bridget. “I’m a big admirer of your movies. I loved Frogs.” Frogs was an ensemble retelling of the Exodus story set in the adult entertainment industry. Weller had played a porn director who blows out his brains.

“Interesting that you used the word ‘movies,’ ” Bridget said. Her voice was melodious and pleasing, with the trace of an outer-borough accent. “Steven likes to say we have to make the movies to keep making the films.”

Maddy caught Zack rolling his eyes. What was it like to be Bridget Ostrow’s son, trying to carve out your own niche as an agent? Clearly, mother and son were not in perfect harmony—but if he didn’t admire her on some level, he wouldn’t have gone into representation.

“It was so wonderful meeting you all,” Bridget said abruptly, glancing at Steven and Cady across the room.

Zack gave out business cards to the foursome. “I’ll see you Saturday morning if not before,” he said. As they left, Ed beside them, Maddy noticed that mother and son had the same gait, pigeon-like, the heads bobbing, the bodies undulating slightly, as they moved.

“How come you were sucking up to Bridget when you didn’t like her movie?” Maddy asked Dan.

“We’re here to network,” he said testily. “Her client is one of a dozen actors who can get a project made by attaching himself. If she remembers me a couple years down the line, I could wind up directing Steven Weller.”

“But you hated his performance.”

“I could get better work out of him.”

In New York, Maddy was used to being the social one, going out with fellow New School alums to plays and movies, while Dan preferred staying inside or seeing foreign films with Maddy and no one else. She always tried to get him to come with her—he might meet actors for his films, producers—but he said he didn’t believe in networking. He’d trot out some line he attributed to Hunter S. Thompson: “An artist must have a strong sense of revulsion for the banalities of everyday socializing.” Now all his high-art soliloquies seemed a handy way of casting an unwilling lack of success as a willing one.

Steven Weller was holding court in the center of the room. Bridget’s eyes were on him, but her body was turned slightly away. She looked like a Secret Service agent scanning the room for danger.

It occurred to Maddy that Bridget Ostrow probably knew things about Steven Weller that no one else did, even Cady Pearce. Over the years she must have seen his insecurity, fear, anger, everything a celebrity had to hide from the rest of the world. A manager couldn’t yell at her star client or act jealous when he got all the attention. She couldn’t cross him (or let him find out if she did), and when she disagreed, she had to do so gently, respectfully. Maddy wasn’t sure which one had the real power—Weller, with his fame, or Bridget, who had made the fame possible.

Dan said he wanted another drink, and Maddy followed him to the bar. As he tried to get the bartender’s attention, she leaned back to face the room. She closed her eyes and tilted her head, the din thrumming in her ears, phrases like “entire ecosystem” and “digging deep.”

There was a skylight, and through it she could see the moon. She wanted to call her father on her cell and tell him she was at an elite party, a stone’s throw from a movie star, and then she remembered that she couldn’t. She sighed and lowered her chin. Her gaze fell on the group huddled around Steven Weller. Everyone was zeroed in on him, but he was staring, unblinkingly, at her.

2

On the bed, Dan was typing furiously into his phone as Maddy unpacked. To save money, they had rented a condo twenty minutes from town; Kira and Sharoz were in the one next door. The apartment looked like it hadn’t been altered since the 1970s, complete with old board games, linoleum floors, and a cream-colored fridge.

Maddy removed the jeans and slouchy sweaters she had brought along—Dan and Sharoz had told her that in Mile’s End, it was gauche to be anything but casual—and lay down beside him. He was emailing their hired publicist, Reid Rasmussen, about the first screening, trying to make sure they got bodies. She took one of his hands. He had long pale fingers, and she loved to lace them through hers. “I think we’re going to win Dramatic,” she said.

“Ahh! Don’t say that. I don’t want to jinx it.”

“What’s the point of being here if we can’t fantasize?” Maddy loved doing theater, but since graduation she had done mostly Off-Off-Broadway, and Actors’ Equity showcases and staged readings, and regional theater productions in depressing small towns. She was hoping the festival would expand her horizons. Even if I Used to Know Her failed to get distribution, she wanted to use her time in Utah to make connections and meet talented people with whom she could collaborate on other indie films like the one they had made, films that didn’t speak down to their audiences.

“We’re not going to win,” he said, taking his hand away so he could type. “Dramatic will go to the one about the suburban New Jersey boy whose stepmother comes on to him. Or Rap Sheet. Anyway, distribution is way more important than awards.”

“Well, whatever happens with I Used to Know Her,” she said, rubbing his belly, “I’ll still think you’re the most talented man in the universe.”