The Husbandry pans were the third set in a row for him, following The Widower and Declarations. But he hadn’t seemed upset about the other two. After Declarations was released in February, buried, and then savaged, he’d said the indie phase of his career was over—he was focused on playing Tommy Hall—so Maddy thought it was odd that he was worked up about the Juhasz. She didn’t want to believe his anger stemmed from jealousy over her good reviews. He was too sophisticated for that, and too powerful.

Everyone was anticipating the release of The Hall Fixation the following March. After the Christian Bernard retraction, the studio decided to keep Steven on, and he did a belated press blitz. The production had wrapped in the spring. Everything Steven and Maddy had been afraid of hadn’t happened. In her own way, she had gotten him to the place he was now. She felt she had changed the way the studio saw him. She had helped his fans, his employers, and the media regain confidence in him.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said, standing up and going to him. “You can’t dwell on this. You’re Tommy Hall. That’s all anyone’s thinking about. And you said the footage is great.”

“The release is still five months away,” he said. “Bridget and I had reservations about how Walter was assembling the film, but he kept reassuring us. Never again will I work with a director who wears Depends. Juhasz has set my career back decades.” He started inside.

“Well, I don’t regret doing Husbandry for a second,” she called after him.

“Of course you don’t!” he said, spinning around. “Because you got raves!”

“No. Because Husbandry was what brought us together.” He nodded, but his face was white and cold.


A few days later, when she went to take her birth control pill in the kitchen, she noticed the pack wasn’t there. Unlike her lorazepam, which she hid in the back of her nightstand drawer, her birth control was kept in one of the kitchen cabinets by the vitamins they both took.

Steven was doing laps in the pool. When he approached the side, she leaned over and grabbed his hand. He picked up his head. “Where are my pills?” she said.

“I’ve been thinking about it, and I don’t want you to take them anymore.” His goggles were on and made him look like a bug.

“But you can’t just steal them. They’re mine.”

“Why don’t you want to get started on having a family?” They discussed it every couple of months. She knew he knew her reservations. Lately, he hadn’t brought it up, which she had taken to mean he was okay with postponing it.

“We’ve talked about this. I’m only twenty-eight. We have time. I want to be an involved mother, and I’m not ready to stop working now. My career just started.”

She thought he understood. He had seemed happy for her, happy that she was becoming a star in her own right.

“Women work through their pregnancies,” Steven said, gripping the edge of the pool. “We’ll get you trainers to help you lose the weight. You can bring the baby to set. You’ll be able to do it your own way. Let’s get it going. Get those toxins out of your blood.”

“Toxins?”

“The hormones. They’re poison. I don’t want to be fifty when we start. I want to know my children. Don’t you get that? I bought a new house for you. You said you wanted something better for a family.”

After her repeated entreaties to move someplace homier, they had closed on a new house a short walk away, an Italianate Mediterranean with a small guesthouse, warm-colored tiles, stenciled beams, and a family-friendly feel. But Steven was renovating it, consulting with contractors and architects, and he said it could be a year before they moved.

“I do want a family, but not yet. You can’t just take my pills. It’s a violation.”

“If you don’t want to have children with me now, you never will!”

“That’s not true,” she said. “Don’t you want me to work?” Bridget’s phone had been ringing off the hook since the Husbandry reviews; she said the film would take Maddy to a new level. There was already Oscar buzz on Husbandry, and Bridget said Maddy might get nominated for the many awards that came before the Oscars.

“Back of the spice drawer, underneath the cumin,” Steven said, and took off, splashing angrily as he swam.

Out the window of the kitchen she watched him slice through the water, and hated him. He was guilting her for wanting to work. It had to have something to do with her raves and his pans. If he was jealous, she wanted him to rise above it. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t wait a few more years when he had waited half his life already. In the scheme of a lifetime, a few years meant nothing at all.


Later that week, Steven said he wanted Maddy to come away on Jo with him. To Cabo San Lucas and back. After the Christian Bernard story came out, he had moved the boat down the coast to Orange County. He had gotten a one-week break from the action thriller he was working on and wanted her to take a break from her own film, a cancer drama called The Pharmacist’s Daughter that was being directed by Tim Heller, who had done Freda Jansons.

“I can’t ask for that,” she said. They were in the garden of the Italian restaurant on Beverly. “We’re doing all the deathbed scenes next week.”

“You can do whatever you want. You’re Maddy Freed.”

She thought she detected a sneer but said nothing about it because she didn’t want to have a fight. “Even if they let me, I can’t do it to the rest of the cast,” she said. “It’s not fair.”

“I need you,” he said. She remembered the way he’d needed her to do the press the year before, and how she had helped him. Bernard’s letter had retracted every detail except that they had met at the yacht club.

“I just want to get away from the bad press,” Steven said. “Clear my head. And I feel clearer when I’m with you.” She wanted him to act this solicitous toward her all the time. “Please come with me.”

Though she could have asked Bridget to speak to Tim on her behalf, Maddy felt obligated to do it herself. When she did, Tim said, “It’s going to be hell to reschedule, but I’ll make it work if it’s what you want.”

Maddy didn’t want to abandon Steven when he needed her, but the truth was, she was enjoying the film; she liked her costars and didn’t want to take a break. So she told Steven no, and the next day he said Terry would come along instead.

The night before he was to leave, Maddy was anxious. “Why don’t you just postpone this till we’re both free?” she said.

“Because I want to go now. And Terry knows me. Knows how to be there for me.”

“I wish you weren’t going.”

“Maddy, you’re not making sense. Do you want to come or don’t you?”

“It’s too late now. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be confusing you. Have fun. I’ll miss you.”

He turned over and shut off his light. As she lay there in the dark, she told herself not to be anxious. It was a male-bonding trip. The couple had dined with Terry and Ananda over a dozen times since getting married. Clearly, Terry was straight, and a loyal husband and father. On the boat, the men would do nothing more than talk trash, play poker, and cook.

But maybe he wasn’t really taking Terry. There could be women, younger than Maddy, hookers. Or men. Alex. Maybe Steven had lied to her and he was still in touch with Alex.

The first three days he was gone, she was busy with the film, but then she began to think about him nonstop, and she became unfocused on set. By the time it was Steven’s last day, she had a day off, and didn’t know what to do with herself. When Steven was around, she often wished there were no housekeepers, no Annette, but now she wanted company. Annette was on vacation, visiting friends in Portland. Steven had told her to go, saying she needed a break.

In the morning Maddy sat on a chaise by the pool and tried to read Act One by Moss Hart, which she had checked out of the library, but she couldn’t focus on the words and realized she had read five pages without absorbing anything. She decided to get a facial at the Four Seasons spa, where they always accommodated her and gave her full privacy.

Earlier that year she had been invited to the fashion shows in Paris. She had become interested in style, and she was enjoying working with Patti, the stylist. She had made other important hires, too: a nice Italian business manager named Craig; and the hairdresser, Gemma. She had built up a nest egg of her own from her movie roles, residuals, and a handbag campaign. She never paid for things with Steven’s credit card anymore.

In the facial room, with her eyes covered, she got an itch and scratched her nose, and her knuckles got burned under the steam. “Ow!” she cried out. The aesthetician gave her a cold compress, but for the rest of the hour, her hand smarted and she found herself counting the minutes until it was over.

She stopped at a newsstand on her way home and bought a pack of natural cigarettes and smoked one out the window of the car before she started to feel sick. At home she swam her laps, and when she got out, she didn’t feel tired. It was only three o’clock. If she could just talk to him, she would feel better, but he never took phones on the boat.

She sat by the pool and dialed Ananda’s cell.

Ananda was someplace loud, and when she answered, she was laughing at something. “How’s it going?” Ananda asked.

“All right, I guess.” Maddy strained to hear if Terry was in the background. He had a deep, easily recognizable chuckle. “I was just calling to say hi. It’s been a long day.”