“I didn’t distract you today,” she said. “Ryan did. You wasted thousands of feet of film.”

“I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“But you said you missed me, and I’m your family.”

“Sometimes I don’t like to mix family with work.”

“I thought you’d like us being in the same city. You said if I did Faye, then we would get to be together, and I did, and we were.”

“We were both working then. It’s different when only one of us is.”

“You’re not making sense.”

The waiter came to refill their wineglasses, and though he was gallant, the couple could not look at each other. Steven’s coldness made even less sense to Maddy given the sacrifice she had just made for him. She had done The Hall Surprise to make him happy, and he was ungrateful. It was as though, in giving in to his wishes, she had made him hate her.


On the soundstage the next day, she sat by Bridget and watched. Ryan kept making the grips and gaffers laugh. Between takes, both men would rib each other.

While Ryan and Steven were doing a rehearsal, Bridget leaned over and passed Maddy a Tootsie Roll she had gotten from Craft Services. Maddy held her hand up to say no, then changed her mind and took it.

“It’s beautiful here in summer, isn’t it?” Bridget asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spent much time outside.”

“Why don’t you go running? Or take a long walk by the beach? You don’t want to sit here all day.”

“I came here to see Steven. You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?”

“Honey, no. I just want you to enjoy yourself. You look bored.”

As Bridget regarded her chewing on the candy, Maddy seemed almost childlike to her, her lips pursed insouciantly. All wives watched their husbands. That was not unusual. But Maddy was watching Steven with her entire being, and that was a dangerous thing.

“I’m not bored,” Maddy said sullenly.

Bridget looked ahead at the men rehearsing their scene. It was a bit involving a stapler, and the director wanted the choreography just right. There was a stunt coordinator making sure no one got hurt. “Do you remember,” Bridget asked, keeping her eyes on the men as they worked out their action, “when you were doing Husbandry, and you had those scenes with Billy, and Steven started coming to set?”

“How could I forget? It was horrible.”

“Do you remember how you felt like you couldn’t work?”

“Everyone felt that way. Not just me. I don’t like to think about that time.”

Bridget turned toward her. “I want you to listen to me very closely. I know I don’t usually talk to you this way, but we’ve been in each other’s lives a few years now, and there are times when I feel I cannot beat around the bush. On Husbandry, on that set, Steven wasn’t giving you the freedom to create. You needed to have intimacy with Billy to achieve the wonderful things you achieved, and Steven wasn’t allowing you any.”

“What would he say if he heard you talking to me like this?”

“He would agree.”

“I needed intimacy with Billy then, but that was a drama. This is a comedy.”

“Even for a comedy, there is a rhythm, a mood on set. This is a comedy targeted toward men, and half the time I feel like an interloper, even though I’m one of the producers. Don’t you wonder why Steven’s acting the way he’s been acting? These stupid pranks?”

“Yes, it’s not like him at all. Steven said ‘brosef’ to Ryan this morning. I don’t even know what that means.”

“He’s trying to get into character, just like Billy would stay in his American accent all day. It’s not to be taken seriously, and it certainly won’t last. You have to let it pass you. Observe it, take it in, but don’t get involved. It’s Method, pure and simple.”

“It’s not just the pranks. It’s the way he acts around Ryan. They have all these secrets. It’s like—the two of them against the world.”

Bridget pitied the girl and at the same time was frustrated by her immaturity. She needed to be careful with Maddy, as cautious as she had been with Steven at the very beginning, in Venice. “This friendship won’t last. It’s a set friendship.”

“I’m worried it will,” Maddy said with a sigh. “Do you think it’s possible that a man can have too many friends?”

“Not if they give him something he needs.”

“What does he need from Ryan?” Maddy’s eyes were wild. “You understand men better than I do.”

“Sometimes it’s easier for men to be around people like themselves.”

“But Ryan’s nothing like him!”

“He has a playful side. Steven likes that. He’s enjoying the ability to horse around. Tommy Hall has freed him to be lighter.”

“That’s well and good, but Ryan’s an asshole. You see that as well as I do.”

“It doesn’t matter what you and I think of the guy. He’s your husband’s friend. You need to let up on Steven or you’ll ruin this.”

Maddy wasn’t sure what Bridget meant she would ruin: the film or something bigger. On the soundstage, they were about to roll. Maddy sat for a moment before walking out and driving to the beach. She watched the waves, hiding under a big sun hat. The problem was that she was looking to Steven to solve her frustration about her own career. She had come here to replace her emptiness with Steven, but he had no room for her now, just as she’d had no room for him on Husbandry. Even on a comedy, she had to respect his process, though she wasn’t sure what it was.

That night he went out to dinner with Ryan and some of the other cast members, and she didn’t ask to go along. She stayed in the house and went to bed early, and when he came back, she pretended to be asleep.

In the morning Steven left early for set, and as she was drinking coffee in the kitchen, she heard her cell phone ring. She trotted upstairs to fetch it. “Ms. Freed,” the voice said.

She knew from the accent who it was. “Walter.”

“I have something to discuss with you,” he said. “I’m wondering if you can come to London.”

“When?”

“As soon as you can manage it.”

“Can you tell me anything more?”

“It involves a project. But please, do not tell Ms. Ostrow or your husband at this point. I ask only for the chance to discuss it one-on-one. Is there some way you can get here within the next week?”

She hung up but stayed at the window. You could feel stuck and then you could feel unstuck. It was as though Walter knew how depressed she had been after The Hall Surprise and wanted to help her.

She would stay at the Dorchester, do all the things in London that she hadn’t had time to do when she was on Husbandry. Go to the theater alone. Walk around and shop, maybe eat at the hotel’s new restaurant that everyone was talking about.

She wouldn’t tell Bridget or Steven the real reason for the trip. Steven still blamed Walter for his poor reviews, and if she told Bridget . . . Bridget would never keep anything secret from him.

So she told Steven she was going to London to see a New School friend in a stage production of Harold and Maude. He didn’t even ask the friend’s name. There was a production of Harold and Maude, but she didn’t know anyone in it. Maybe she would see it anyway. She hadn’t been to the theater in a while, because there wasn’t enough good theater in L.A.

Steven said, “That’s fantastic that you’re going. It will be fun for you to get away. It might help you get out of your head.” She could tell he meant she was acting crazy again, but there was no need to argue now that she was leaving.


As the plane touched down in Heathrow, Maddy felt a sense of expansion. She had been off the pill less than a week but felt that she could hear more, smell more, taste more. She was looking forward to being in London in the summer again, this time alone. Out the window of the car, she scanned the faces on the street, reserved, pragmatic, some of them even grim. In L.A. everyone pretended to be happier than they were. In London no one did.

Her room at the hotel was deco, an homage to 1930s Hollywood, with a large terrace and its own dressing room. She took a bath, ordered room service, and flipped channels on the television. Then she stood on the terrace and looked out at Hyde Park.

The next day she went to Walter’s Georgian town house in West London. It was decorated in bold colors, with an Italian feel. It had been just over two years since she had seen him, at the London premiere of Husbandry, but he did not look any older. In fact, he seemed younger, his cheeks fresh and pink.

He ushered her to the kitchen in the back, where he had set out tea and cookies. “Thank you for agreeing to see me,” he said. “I have come across a very intriguing script. It’s set here in London, in the early ’60s. It is about a young schoolteacher who begins to suspect that her husband is leading a double life. As her mind expands, first in fear and later in shock, she begins to explore the counterculture of the time. She begins closed and becomes open. It’s called The Moon and the Stars.”

“When you say double life, what do you . . .”

“I’d like you to read the script. I know you have just completed an action picture, playing a siren with an alliterative name. Perhaps that is the direction in which you wish to take your career. But consider this. That’s all I ask.”

“I don’t want to do action movies. I only did that because—because—that was just a onetime thing.”

“Maybe you’ll hate the screenplay. But I don’t think so. I have realized I work better with material that I have not written. I want to do an homage to an older kind of film. They used to call them women’s pictures. The screenwriter is Nuala Fallon. She’s written for a popular television drama here. She wanted to meet you, but I said you’d have to read the screenplay first.”