With no respite, her mind had been alternating between worries about the baby, the film, and her inability to sleep, all of which were tied together. If she couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t gain weight, and if she couldn’t gain weight, she couldn’t get discharged, and if she couldn’t get discharged, she couldn’t work.

In the hospital that morning, she had complained to Dr. Liddell, who had confirmed that it could cause birth defects, and had sent a doctor to see her, a psychiatrist, a woman, who specialized in reproductive issues. The psychiatrist told her that lorazepam was the safest of all benzodiazepines for pregnancy, and that she could take it for a few weeks along with Zoloft, until the Zoloft started to kick in. Then she could go off the anti-anxiety medication.

“What if I can’t do the movie?” she asked, burying her face in Steven’s shoulder.

“We’ll get it worked out. For now you have to focus on getting rest.”

“But I want to work. I want to be Betty.”

“We have to keep the baby safe,” he said. “Maybe Walter can stop the production until you get better. He’s very committed to you.”

“This has been the strangest couple of days,” she said. “I went from not knowing I was pregnant to knowing to worrying about the baby nonstop.”

“That’s what it means to be a mother,” he said. He said it like it was good, but she wasn’t sure she agreed.

“I wish we’d been more careful in Venice,” she said.

“You can’t blame yourself. There’s no perfect time for a pregnancy.”

“I just wanted to do this film. And now everything’s ruined.”

“Don’t you want to be a mother?”

“I want to be a mother, but I also want to be an actress,” she said.

“You’re going to get better,” he said.

“I’ve been taking pills at night,” she said. She told him she had been relying on them since Husbandry, whenever things were bad between them or she had an early call, and then she told him about the psychiatrist and the antidepressant.

“You can’t take those when you’re pregnant,” he said. “They’re not good for the baby.”

“Are you kidding? Millions of women do and the babies are fine. And I know they’ll work. I did well on them after my father . . .”

“I don’t want my baby to be born with medicine in his body,” Steven said.

My baby. His body. How did he know it was a boy? As far as she knew, it wasn’t either gender yet. “Do you want your pregnant wife to be a basket case?” Maddy said. “There’s a reason they torture people with sleep deprivation. I’m telling you this because it’s your baby, too, but I’m not asking your permission. I have to help myself. And if you care about me, you’ll want me to.”

“I’m going to do some research on it.”

That night, on the lorazepam, she slept. Her relief in the morning outweighed her concerns. She told herself to trust the reproductive psychiatrist about the drugs. She told herself the woman probably treated pregnant patients far more unstable than Maddy.

Steven stayed in London; after a week, she was still in the hospital room, hooked up to an IV. The vomiting had continued, and she was on the drip all day and night.

Production on the film had been halted, and Walter was going back and forth with Lloyd’s of London about how to proceed. Steven wanted to stay longer, but she said he should go back. She didn’t like him hovering when there was nothing to do but wait. She was like a baby herself, being monitored for weight gain. She had gone from woman to patient.

After Steven left, Zack flew out for a few days to keep her company. They played cards and she would break every hour or so to throw up. She read scripts, though it was impossible to imagine working on any film when she was lying in a hospital bed indefinitely. Zack shared Hollywood gossip. It was good for her mood, but it felt like a Band-Aid. She didn’t want to be stuck in a hospital with her agent, lying on her back, talking about deals. She wanted to be on set with her costars, doing the scenes. Doing what she was meant to.

The morning the call came from Walter, Maddy was shaking. “Lloyd’s won’t let me postpone until after you get better,” he said. She put him on speaker so Zack could hear. “I already put in two claims for delays, and the second one was so long, it’s cost about two million dollars. I am so sorry, Madeline. You know how desperately I wanted you to do this. I am going to have to replace you.”

“I have money of my own,” she said. “What if I reimburse Lloyd’s the cost of all further delays?”

“If it’s about money,” Zack said, “we have options. Let’s trouble-shoot. Problem-solve.”

“I won’t be here forever,” Maddy added. “I’m already gaining weight.”

“You know movie sets are like jigsaw puzzles,” Walter said. “I can’t lose the other actors. I’m sorry, my darling. We’ll work together again, I promise you.”

She looked at Zack. “I’m going to get into it with him,” he said. Hollywood-speak for fixing something. Like it was simple, an error on a contract or a difference of a few thousand dollars. “Just give me a couple of days.”

He flew back to L.A. and called to say he had tried everything, but the insurance company wouldn’t yield. He said, “It’s out of my hands. I’m so sorry, Maddy.”

A few days after that, he called again. “Kira is replacing you,” he said. “After it became clear that Walter wanted to recast, we got a call about her. Apparently, he’s been a fan of hers ever since he saw I Used to Know Her. She didn’t even want to go in because you’re friends, but then she read the script and . . . she changed her mind. She wanted to call to tell you, but I felt it was my responsibility.”

Maddy believed him but was hurt anyway. Kira would be playing Betty in The Moon and the Stars. Zack would get his commission. That was what happened, you had a problem and someone else took over. Just like Clint as Dirty Harry and Newman as Butch.

“It’s okay if you’re angry,” Zack said.

She was numb. “I’m not. I would have done exactly the same thing if the roles were reversed.”


Throughout Maddy’s stay at the hospital, Steven flew back and forth when he could. It made her feel loved that he was taking care of her, but she hated having him see her in the hospital. She felt inadequate for her inability to have a normal pregnancy, and in the back of her mind, she believed it was a result of the surprise. If they had planned it properly, she would be calm, and if she were calm, she would not be ill.

After Kira arrived in London, she called Maddy. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry it worked out this way.”

“No, you’re not,” Maddy said. “You have a job.”

“I mean, I know how badly you wanted it.”

“When I was in your house and you asked me for the script, were you trying to angle in on it? Tell me the truth. Did you track down a copy and read it before any of this happened?”

“I swear to God, no. I didn’t even try. When Zack told me everything that happened, I just felt so sorry for you. But I know you’re going to be fine. Morning sickness is a sign of a healthy pregnancy.”

Maddy started to say it was much worse than morning sickness, but she didn’t have the energy.

“Do you think I could come visit you one day?” Kira asked.

“Probably not a good idea.”

“Can’t we still be friends?”

“If I see you, I’m only going to feel sadder, so I don’t want to see you. I’m sure you understand.”

One day Zack called from L.A. and said, “I know it feels like you’re under house arrest, but this hospital stay could be an opportunity.”

“For what?”

“Well, when you’re not puking, you could set up a desk in there and get started on your screenplay.”

Before flying to London, she had optioned the rights to the Lane Cromwell bio and bought the life rights for $200,000 from Cromwell’s daughter Jean. Only Zack, and Kelly Kennedy, the new entertainment lawyer she had retained shortly after hiring Zack, knew. In Maddy’s mind, the money came from her salary on The Hall Surprise. She was taking money she had gotten for something bad and using it to pay for something good.

“I’m just trying to keep this fetus healthy,” Maddy said on the phone.

“You have a lot of time on your hands. You should take advantage of it.”

“I think my mood is too dark.”

“That’s perfect for the script,” he said. “Think about how bleak Lane’s life was. Use everything you’re feeling, all your frustration right now. You don’t need Lloyd’s of London in order to write.”

After she hung up, she thought about it and tried to take his words to heart. But she was anxious and distractible, and when she tried to type, it didn’t flow. To procrastinate and put less pressure on herself, she devoted her time to research. She read the biography of Lane over and over. She read memoirs of the 1930s and O’Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance. She read and reread Hemingway to get a feel for war. She read Syd Field’s Screenplay.

After four more weeks, the vomiting resolved and Dr. Liddell said Maddy could be discharged. She flew home by chartered plane, and Steven stayed with her in Hancock Park a few days before flying off to his set at her insistence.

With the frightening early weeks of the pregnancy behind her and the hyperemesis gone, she tried to enjoy her changing body—her full breasts, her big nipples, her hips and thighs. Because she couldn’t act, she focused on the screenplay. In her study, with Steven off in Providence, she began to do index cards, plotting out a structure for the film.