“No need to,” she said. “We came to terms. Did you guys finish the screenplay?”

“We’re getting really close.”

“Do you have a new title?”

“Yes, but it’s not locked, so I’m going to keep it secret.”

“Never say ‘locked,’ ” she said. “You sound like a real operator.”

“Never say ‘operator.’ You sound like you’re in a Rosalind Russell movie.”

“Right now I wish I was in a Rosalind Russell movie.”

“Good luck with the sex,” he said. “And tell Steven he’s not allowed to give you a hard time about fake coitus. The guy’s fake slept with hundreds of women.” After they got off the phone, she cradled it in her hand as if Dan were still there.


“I told you she was young,” Steven said. He and Bridget were walking side by side in the gardens of Woodmere.

“You’re making too much of it,” Bridget said, removing a silver cigarette case from her purse. She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke out of her nose.

“How could she do that? ‘Cut,’ ‘cut,’ and ‘cut’ again. Even Billy didn’t break.”

“He was going along with the scene.”

“I can’t have these shenanigans on my film.”

“Are you taking care of her the way you should be?” she asked. They had stopped at a fountain. In the center was a naked girl with no arms, water spitting out of her mouth.

“Everything is fine in that department. Better than fine.”

“I’m taking your word for that,” Bridget said, “but put yourself in her position anyway. She’s without her family, without friends, carrying the movie. This is an incredibly masochistic role. And you’re her support system. When she comes home at night, she needs to be taken care of, like a princess. Bathed, massaged, loved. Rise above this. Remember how old you are and the things you’ve seen.”

He thought about her words, angry at what she was implying. If the sex with Maddy wasn’t nightly, it was often. It was difficult for him at times to satisfy her. She wanted it every day. He was not a young man. And the pills, he didn’t like what they did to his system. He didn’t like taking pills for anything. The congestion, which lasted until the next day and affected his vocal style, his adenoids. He had his own needs, the responsibilities of producing, and his lines and scenes, his body and health. He didn’t have time to take care of her the way Bridget was suggesting.

“Is it possible she’s the wrong girl?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not too late. There might be other girls who would come with fewer . . . hairs.”

“She is the one,” Bridget said. “Just be a good partner. And keep Billy at arm’s length. No socializing outside of production.”

“We haven’t. He’s never been over.”

“Well, keep it that way. We don’t want life to start imitating art.”

“But it already has,” he said.


For the next few days, Steven was on set during Maddy and Billy’s sex scenes, making everyone else miserable. He would have long conferences with Bridget and Walter while Maddy and Billy sat around in their robes. The tension between Steven and Walter rose with each hour. Billy told Maddy privately that she needed to take control of Steven because he was turning Husbandry into an unhappy production.

One morning Maddy came downstairs to find Steven at the dining table, a half-eaten omelet beside him, the Daily Mail on the table. The headline was “MORE THAN JUST A PECK?” There was a shot of Maddy talking closely with Billy near the gate of Woodmere. Their heads were angled so it looked like they were kissing, though in reality, they had been two feet away from each other.

According to a source close to the production of Husbandry, Maddy Freed has been stepping out on Hollywood hunk Steven Weller with her costar Billy Peck. “Billy and Maddy got overheated during one of their scenes and started an affair,” said the source.

Weller is a producer on the film and plays Freed’s husband. According to the source, “Steven wants to fire him, but Walter loves the chemistry between Maddy and Billy.” Ironically, Husbandry focuses on a woman who begins cheating on her husband with his brother.

“Oh God,” Maddy said. “How can they print lies like that?”

“They do it all the time.” He was looking at her as though some part of him believed she was having an affair.

“What does Bridget say?” she asked.

“Bridget says we ignore it. That it’ll die. But I think she’s wrong. This is why I wanted you to be professional. You gave them an opening.”

“It’s not my fault! You’re playing a cuckold. Of course they’re going to gossip.”

“I think this was Walter,” he said, frowning over the newspaper. “It wouldn’t be Stu or Jimmy. Walter planted this to draw publicity to the film.” She didn’t think Walter was capable of it. He wouldn’t play games with the press.

The rest of the week, Steven was even more hostile to Walter. There were long producer meetings and whispered conferences among Steven, Bridget, and Walter, usually after scenes involving Billy and Steven. Crew members stormed off. Jimmy snapped at his guys. Everyone was abusing someone else; it was a classic example of the mood flowing from the top down.

Maddy was anxious about her ability to work with Steven over the next five weeks, much less live with him. They had most of their Ellie-Louis scenes left to shoot.

The paparazzi, already irritants, seemed to get worse. Each morning she found a new story in the tabloids open on the dining table. “Billy and Maddy Planning to Elope,” “Maddy Expects Bundle of Joy—But Who’s the Daddy?,” and “Steven to Maddy: ‘End It Or Else!’ ” Steven took long phone calls from his publicist, Flora, strategizing about how to respond. One piece had “someone close to Mr. Weller” saying Steven was gay and not having sex with Maddy, that she had fallen into Billy’s arms due to sexual frustration. Each piece enraged him further. She was surprised that after all these years, he was paying so much attention to the tabloids.

In bed one night, Maddy was going over her lines while Steven thumbed through a book about the Malaparte house on Capri. “I think you have to be nicer to Walter,” Maddy said.

He shut the book and regarded her, his face tortured and white. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’ve overheard the crew. They think you’re crazy.”

“They can think whatever they want. I can fire all of them.” He had drunk three glasses of whiskey at dinner.

“Is there a reason these stories are getting to you like this?”

“Yes, because they’re insulting.”

“And that’s it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Have you ever experimented with men?”

He licked his lips. She had never seen him look at her so coldly. “This is some weird obsession with you. Why do you keep asking me? For God’s sake, do you not think I’m attracted to you?”

“No, I mean, I know you are, of course you are, but the article that said I’m having an affair with Billy because you don’t satisfy me—I thought maybe you’ve had gay experiences, and that’s why these articles get under your skin.”

“They get under my skin because they’re not true and people read them and think that they are.”

“I want you to know that if you’ve been with a guy, you can tell me. I told you about Kira. I believe sexuality is a spectrum, and—”

“Why would you think I was with men?”

“You did repertory theater.”

“It’s not my thing. I’m sorry if that makes me less exciting to you.” He lifted his book in front of his face and the red lettering of MALAPARTE seemed to blink at her to stay away.

A week after the first item appeared, Billy, Steven, and Maddy were doing a scene where Louis tells Paul he has to move out. They did three takes, and after each one, Walter directed Steven to be calmer. “You are not the powerful person in the scene,” Walter said. “When you tell him to move, it brings you pain.”

Steven did it again, and Walter gave another version of the same direction. On the seventh take, Walter called, “Cut,” then said to Steven, “It appears you are not listening to a word I am saying. I do not know if you are deaf or merely obstinate. Stop trying to prove your masculinity. This is a film set, not your life.”

Before Maddy was fully aware of what was happening, Steven had lunged for Walter, and Walter was on the floor, screaming, “You’re crazy!” and bleeding from his nose. Two crew members restrained Steven, though he was making no attempt to land another punch, while another rushed to take care of Walter.

Walter tried to sit up but couldn’t move. The second AD and a couple of PAs were dabbing at his face. Someone called for medical help. Walter had never looked so frail. Maddy could not believe her boyfriend had slugged a septuagenarian.

The first AD announced a ten-minute break and, at the end of it, knocked on Maddy’s dressing room door to say they were wrapping for the day. She realized she didn’t need to go home and wait for Steven to return. She decided to see a movie.


The cabdriver let her off at the Curzon Mayfair. She didn’t care what she saw, she just wanted to be in the dark. They were showing The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine.

One of the reasons Maddy loved The Apartment was that it was about a person without morality finding morality. As she sat there watching the film, the first she had been to alone since before she met Steven, she imagined a life without him.

She would get through it. They would complete Husbandry, both of them too professional to sabotage the film because of a breakup. She would rent a modest flat, finish the shooting, and move back to New York. Or she could stay in L.A. and try to capitalize on the connections she’d made so far. It might be harder than it had been lately, as Steven Weller’s girlfriend, but it had been hard before, in New York, and she hadn’t given up. Maybe she could move back to New York.