7

Maddy learned that Steven was to play Tommy Hall when she was driving to the set of Line Drive, flipping channels on the car radio. It was a few weeks after the I Used to Know Her premiere. She wasn’t even paying attention, just wanted sound for the car, and then she heard a talk-radio guy mentioning Steven’s name. Tommy Hall, who had been created by the novelist Jerome Roundhouse, was a legendary character with an insatiable appetite for sex and risk and a constant stream of bons mots. A divorcé with several ex-wives, he had a hankering for attractive women half his age. Roundhouse, a reclusive man in Connecticut, had written eight Tommy novels and for many years had refused to sell the rights, but the guy on the radio was saying Roundhouse had made a deal. The first adaptation was The Hall Fixation.

The radio sidekick, a woman, thought Steven was sexy, but the man, a shock jock with a nicotine voice, thought he was too old. Maddy had never heard Steven mention Tommy Hall. Her first thought was that it was a hoax, one of those radio gags they did to attract more listeners.

She pulled over and typed “Steven Weller Tommy Hall” into her phone. At least a dozen items popped up, all opening with some version of “Apollo Pictures has announced that Steven Weller is to play the iconic spy Tommy Hall in a three-picture deal.”

So it was real. If all these outlets were saying so, it had to be. She dialed Steven but got his voice mail.

When she arrived on her set, the cast and crew were abuzz about the Tommy deal, congratulating her, asking her to send him their good wishes. She nodded faintly, the only saving grace that she had heard it on the radio so she didn’t look like a complete idiot.

That night she was to meet Steven at the Italian restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. When she arrived five minutes early, he was already waiting in the garden. She could sense diners watching her as she paraded to the rear. As he stood, she felt her face crumple. She sat quickly so no one could see her, lowered her head, and said, “How could you not tell me?”

“The studio was going to announce it Thursday,” he said, “but it leaked, so they had to move forward with it. I was going to tell you Wednesday.”

“But why not before? You used to talk to me about your jobs. I tell you everything.” She often felt she put too much weight on his opinion, delaying responses to scripts until Steven had a chance to read them.

“This wasn’t an audition,” Steven said. “Everything came together so quickly. Bridget kept it secret from me for weeks.” He explained that Jerome Roundhouse had gotten director and actor approval and wanted only Steven for the role. He felt no one else could play Tommy.

“I thought you were into artistic films,” she said. “This is a total one-eighty for you, and you didn’t even want to share it with me.”

“It was because of the confidentiality, Mad.”

She wondered if it had something to do with their talk about Alex a few months ago. He must have felt violated to learn she had been in his study. She had snooped, and he was betrayed, so now he didn’t trust her with his decisions. She had built a wall between them.

The waiter came, and Steven ordered them a bottle of her favorite Tocai. “Aren’t you even a little bit happy for me?” he asked.

“I just didn’t think this was the direction you wanted to go in. I thought you wanted to do projects like The Widower and Husbandry.”

“I’m not sure those films were serving me. We’ll see what happens when Husbandry is released, but you know The Widower wasn’t what I had hoped. Anyway, I don’t see The Hall Fixation as selling out on any level. High art can be low art and vice versa. The script is going to be incredible. We’re trying to get Bryan Monakhov.”

She winced. Dan would be insanely jealous. “I just didn’t know you were interested in—a franchise.”

He stiffened at the word “franchise,” as if it were a slur. “This is a deeply personal project for me. I told you I read The Hall Fixation when things were bad with my dad.”

“You never told me that.”

“Yes, I did, you’re forgetting. I told you in London that night we went to see the Pinter. I’m not even interested in the thriller elements. It’s the father-son relationship between Tommy Hall and the boss, Richard Breyer. That’s the crux of the films.”

She was almost certain he’d never said anything about the books. She would have remembered. When he referenced books, they were usually by James or Wharton. It was as though he were spinning her, as he would spin the public. With a made-up story that Tommy was personal.

Lowering his voice, he proceeded to tell her the deal points: $12 million for the first film with a pay-or-play, and options on the next two Tommy Halls, with escalations.

“So you just want to be richer than you already are?” she asked. “It’s about money?”

“It’s about what the money means. This will give me longevity as a performer, and allow me more choice as I get older, which I’m going to need. It could lead to more producing. It’s not just for me, Mad. It’s for us. I want to have children with you. This will ensure that they’re taken care of.”

A family. He was trying to seduce her with talk of a family. But he already had money, which she knew from the net-worth statement he had had to prepare before the postnup. Their children would already be taken care of. He was speaking like a minimum-wage janitor who had just won the lottery instead of a man already worth tens of millions.

Later that night, as he was making love to her from behind, she told herself to forgive him. If he wanted to build a family with her, then he saw her as a partner. But if he saw her as a partner, then he would have told her about it. She had lost him in some way, and as he came in her and cried out, his face invisible behind her, she felt like she wasn’t even there.


In mid-October, a few days after Steven’s Tommy role had been announced, Maddy came home from a long day of complicated driving shots in Line Drive, wanting to eat a plate of Annette’s roast organic chicken and go right to bed. Steven was at the dinner table—Annette was out—and though he’d already eaten, he had warmed a plate for her and poured her a glass of red. She was moved by how kind he was being, and they talked about their workdays. After a few minutes she could see that he was troubled by something. “What is it?” she asked, blotting her mouth with her napkin. “You seem upset.”

He waved his hand. “It’s— No, I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.”

He let out a little sigh. “There’s a story coming out, some guy came forward and said something ridiculous, but it’s in a low-class publication and we’re already on top of it.”

She put down her fork. “Go on.”

“Some lowlife took a payout from The Weekly Report to say he and I had an affair. They’re running the story in a couple days. Edward’s already on it, he’s drafting up one of his famous Edward letters. Actual malice, reckless disregard for the truth. We’ll get a retraction from the guy, but I wanted you to know because the paps are going to be worse than usual. Do you like the chicken?”

“Who is this person? Who said this about you?”

“He works at the yacht club. I’ve known his father forever, and we’ve met, but only dealing with the boat. He’s a dockworker. Last name Bernard. I can’t even remember the first, Chad or Charlie or something. Anyway, Edward’s going to squash him. Kid must be desperate for cash, because the supermarket tabs don’t pay as much as they used to. I think he has drug problems.”

It couldn’t be true. It was too perfect, too easy. A dockworker, the yacht club. It was only because Steven was famous that this was happening. And because he had signed on to do The Hall Fixation.

“You’re supposed to do the press thing for Tommy next week, right?” she asked, no longer hungry.

“Yeah.” He would be doing all the morning shows, the late-night comedies, choice entertainment-blog interviews, phoners with the international press, and a few trades. “But we know about the story early, which is good, and we’re going to get him. The guy will retract it before anyone can blink, and the magazine, they never retract, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll get a letter from him, and Edward will leak the letter. Everyone will know it’s meritless.”

His cell phone rang, and he went into the study to take the call. From his tone, it sounded like Bridget, but she wasn’t sure.


The first sign the situation had worsened was when Maddy pulled out of the studio lot, at the end of a long shooting day, and saw fifty paparazzi standing there. She wondered whom they were there for, and then one of the guys ran up to the window, the rest trailing behind, and said, “What do you think about the Weekly Report story about Steven? Is Steven gay?” She had to close her window, afraid that one of them would stick his hand or his face in the car. She drove so fast to get away that she ran a light.

At home, what looked like a hundred photographers were on the sidewalk corner. Maddy drove up the driveway and opened the gate, terrified that they would follow her in, and when she got out of the car, she ran in. Bridget was there. “Oh, my darling,” she said, and hugged her.

Bridget led her into the study. Flora, their publicist, was there; and Edward, a wide-faced sixtyish man who resembled a young Ernest Borgnine; and Steven, each typing frantically on a device. Classical music was playing in the background. Their faces were alert but not happy.