That’s the part I was stuck in, the part where you accept the apology because it’s easier than addressing the root of the problem, when Harry Cameron came to my dressing room and told me the good news. Little Women was getting the green light.
“It’s you as Jo, Ruby Reilly as Meg, Joy Nathan as Amy, and Celia St. James is playing Beth.”
“Celia St. James? From Olympian Studios?”
Harry nodded. “What’s with the frown? I thought you’d be thrilled.”
“Oh,” I said, turning further toward him. “I am. I absolutely am.”
“You don’t like Celia St. James?”
I smiled at him. “That teenage bitch is gonna act me under the table.”
Harry threw his head back and laughed.
Celia St. James had made headlines earlier in the year. At the age of nineteen, she played a young widowed mother in a war-period piece. Everyone said she was sure to be nominated next year. Exactly the sort of person the studio would want playing Beth.
And exactly the sort of person Ruby and I would hate.
“You’re twenty-one years old, you’re married to the biggest movie star there is right now, and you were just nominated for an Academy Award, Evelyn.”
Harry had a point, but so did I. Celia was going to be a problem.
“It’s OK. I’m ready. I’m gonna give the best goddamn performance of my life, and when people watch the movie, they are going to say, ‘Beth who? Oh, the middle sister who dies? What about her?’ ”
“I have absolutely no doubt,” Harry said, putting his arm around me. “You’re fabulous, Evelyn. The whole world knows it.”
I smiled. “You really think so?”
This is something that everyone should know about stars. We like to be told we are adored, and we want you to repeat yourself. Later in my life, people would always come up to me and say, “I’m sure you don’t want to hear me blabbering on about how great you are,” and I always say, as if I’m joking, “Oh, one more time won’t hurt.” But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.
“Yes,” he said. “I really think so.”
I stood up from my chair to give Harry a hug, but as I did, the lighting highlighted my upper cheekbone, the rounded spot just below my eye.
I watched as Harry’s gaze ran across my face.
He could see the light bruise I was hiding, could see the purple and blue under the surface of my skin, bleeding through the pancake makeup.
“Evelyn . . .” he said. He put his thumb up to my face, as if he needed to feel it to know it was real.
“Harry, don’t.”
“I’ll kill him.”
“No, you won’t.”
“We’re best friends, Evelyn. Me and you.”
“I know,” I said. “I know that.”
“You said best friends tell each other everything.”
“And you knew it was bullshit when I said it.”
I stared at him as he stared at me.
“Let me help,” he said. “What can I do?”
“You can make sure I look better than Celia, better than all of ’em, in the dailies.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“But it’s all you can do.”
“Evelyn . . .”
I kept my upper lip stiff. “There’s no move here, Harry.”
He understood what I meant. I couldn’t leave Don Adler.
“I could talk to Ari.”
“I love him,” I said, turning away and clipping my earrings on.
It was the truth. Don and I had problems, but so did a lot of people. And he was the only man who had ever ignited something in me. Sometimes I hated myself for wanting him, for finding myself brightening up when his attention was on me, for still needing his approval. But I did. I loved him, and I wanted him in my bed. And I wanted to stay in the spotlight.
“End of discussion.”
A moment later, there was another knock on my door. It was Ruby Reilly. She was shooting a drama where she played a young nun. She was standing in front of the two of us in a black tunic and a white cowl. Her hood was in her hand.
“Did you hear?” Ruby said to me. “Well, of course you heard. Harry’s here.”
Harry laughed. “You both start rehearsals in three weeks.”
Ruby hit Harry on the arm playfully. “No, not that part! Did you hear Celia St. James is playing Beth? That tart’s gonna show us all up.”
“See, Harry?” I said. “Celia St. James is going to ruin everything.”
*
THE MORNING WE STARTED REHEARSALS for Little Women, Don woke me up with breakfast in bed. Half a grapefruit and a lit cigarette. I found this highly romantic, because it was exactly what I wanted.
“Good luck today, sweetheart,” he said as he got dressed and headed out the door. “I know you’ll show Celia St. James what it really means to be an actress.”
I smiled and wished him a good day. I ate the grapefruit and left the tray in bed as I got into the shower.
When I got out, our maid, Paula, was in the bedroom cleaning up after me. She was picking the butt of my cigarette off the duvet. I’d left it on the tray, but it must have fallen.
I didn’t keep a neat house.
My clothes from last night were on the floor. My slippers were on top of the dresser. My towel was in the sink.
Paula had her work cut out for her, and she didn’t find me particularly charming. That much was clear.
“Can you do that later?” I said to her. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m in a rush to get to set.”
She smiled politely and left.
I wasn’t in a rush, really. I just wanted to get dressed, and I wasn’t going to do that in front of Paula. I didn’t want her to see that there was a bruise, dark purple and yellowing, on my ribs.
Don had pushed me down the stairs nine days before. Even as I say it all these years later, I feel the need to defend him. To say that it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. That we were toward the bottom of the stairs, and he gave me a shove that bumped me down about four steps and onto the floor.
Unfortunately, the table by the door, where we kept the keys and the mail, is what caught my fall. I landed on it on my left side, the handle on the top drawer getting me right in the rib cage.
When I said that I thought I might have broken a rib, Don said, “Oh, no, honey. Are you all right?” as if he wasn’t the one who pushed me.
Like an idiot, I said, “I think I’m fine.”
The bruise wasn’t going away quickly.
Paula burst back in through the door a moment later.
“Sorry, Mrs. Adler, I forgot the—”
I panicked. “For heaven’s sake, Paula! I asked you to leave!”
She turned around and walked out. And what pissed me off more than anything was that if she was going to sell a story, why wasn’t it that one? Why didn’t she tell the world that Don Adler was beating his wife? Why, instead, did she come after me?
* * *
TWO HOURS LATER, I was on the set of Little Women. The soundstage had been turned into a New England cabin, complete with snow on the windows.
Ruby and I were united in our fight against Celia St. James stealing the movie from us, despite the fact that anyone who plays Beth leaves the audience reaching for the hankies.
You can’t tell an actress that a rising tide lifts all boats. It doesn’t work that way for us.
But on the first day of rehearsals, as Ruby and I hung out by craft services and drank coffee, it became clear that Celia St. James had absolutely no idea how much we all hated her.
“Oh, God,” she said, coming up to Ruby and me. “I’m so scared.”
She was wearing gray trousers and a pale pink short-sleeved sweater. She had a childlike, girl-next-door kind of face. Big, round, pale blue eyes, long lashes, Cupid’s bow lips, long strawberry-red hair. She was simplicity perfected.
I was the sort of beautiful that women knew they could never truly emulate. Men knew they would never even get close to a woman like me.
Ruby was the elegant, aloof sort of beauty. Ruby was cool. Ruby was chic.
But Celia was the sort of beautiful that felt as if you could hold it in your hands, like if you played your cards right, you might just get to marry a girl like Celia St. James.
Ruby and I both were aware of what kind of power that is, accessibility.
Celia toasted a piece of bread at the craft services table and slathered it with peanut butter and then bit into it.
“What on earth are you scared of?” Ruby said.
“I have no idea what I’m doing!” Celia said.
“Celia, you can’t really expect us to fall for this ‘aw shucks’ routine,” I said.
She looked at me. And the way she did it made me feel as if no one had ever really looked at me before. Not even Don. “That hurts my feelings,” she said.
I felt a little bit bad. But I certainly wasn’t going to let on. “I didn’t mean anything by it,” I said.
“Yes, you absolutely did,” Celia said. “I think you’re a bit of a cynic.”
Ruby, that fair-weather friend, pretended to hear the AD calling for her and took off.
“I just have a hard time believing a woman the entire town is saying will be nominated next year is doubting her ability to play Beth March. It’s the chewiest, most likable role in the whole thing.”
“If it’s such a sure thing, then why didn’t you take it?” she asked me.
“I’m too old, Celia. But thank you for that.”
Celia smiled, and I realized I’d played right into her hands.
That’s when I started to take a liking to Celia St. James.
*
LET’S PICK UP HERE TOMORROW,” Evelyn says. The sun set long ago. As I look around, I notice the remains of breakfast, lunch, and dinner scattered across the room.
“OK,” I say.
“By the way,” she adds as I start to pack up. “My publicist got an e-mail today from your editor. Inquiring about a photo shoot for the June cover.”
“Oh,” I say. Frankie has checked in on me a few times now. I know I need to call her back, update her on this situation. I’m just . . . not sure of my next move.
“I take it you haven’t told them the plan,” Evelyn says.
I place my computer in my bag. “Not yet.” I hate the slight tint of sheepishness that comes out when I say it.
“That’s fine,” Evelyn says. “I’m not judging you, if that’s what you’re worried about. God knows I’m no defender of the truth.”
I laugh.
“You’ll do what you need to do,” she says.
“I will,” I say.
I just don’t know what, exactly, that is yet.
* * *
WHEN I GET home, the package from my mother is sitting just inside my building’s door. I pick it up, only to realize that it’s incredibly heavy. I end up pushing it across the tile floor with my foot. I pull it, one step at a time, up the stairs. And then I drag it into my apartment.
When I open the box, it’s filled with some of my father’s photo albums.
The front of each is embossed with “James Grant” in the bottom right-hand corner.
Nothing can stop me from sitting down, right on the floor where I am, and looking through the photos one by one.
On-set still photos of directors, famous actors, bored extras, ADs—you name it, they are all in here. My dad loved his job. He loved taking pictures of people who weren’t paying attention to him.
I remember once, about a year before he died, he took a two-month job in Vancouver. My mom and I went to visit him twice while he was up there, but it was so much colder than L.A., and he was gone for what felt like so long. I asked him why. Why couldn’t he just work at home? Why did he have to take this job?
He told me he wanted to do work that invigorated him. He said, “You have to do that, too, Monique. When you’re older. You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small. OK? You promise me that?” He put out his hand, and I shook it, like we were making a business deal. I was six. By the time I was eight, we’d lost him.
I always kept what he said in my heart. I spent my teenage years with a burning pressure to find a passion, one that would expand my soul in some way. It was no small task. In high school, long after we had said good-bye to my father, I tried theater and orchestra. I tried joining the chorus. I tried soccer and debate. In a moment of what felt like an epiphany, I tried photography, hoping that the thing that expanded my father’s heart might expand my own.
But it wasn’t until I was assigned to write a profile piece on one of my classmates in my composition class freshman year at USC that I felt anything close to a swelling in my chest. I liked writing about real people. I liked finding evocative ways of interpreting the real world. I liked the idea of connecting people by sharing their stories.
Following that part of my heart led me to J school at NYU. Which led to my internship at WNYC. I followed that passion to a life of freelancing for embarrassing blogs, living check to check and hand to mouth, and then, eventually, to the Discourse, where I met David when he was working on the site’s redesign, and then to Vivant and now to Evelyn.
One small thing my dad said to me on a cold day in Vancouver has essentially been the basis of my entire life’s trajectory.
For a brief moment, I wonder if I would have listened to him if he hadn’t died. Would I have clung to his every word so tightly if his advice had felt unlimited?
At the end of the last photo album, I come across candids that don’t appear to be from a movie set. They were taken at a barbecue. I recognize my mom in the background of some of them. And then, at the very end, is one of me with my parents.
I can’t be more than four years old. I am eating a piece of cake with my hand, looking directly into the camera, as my mother holds me and my father has his arm around us. Most people still called me by my first name, Elizabeth, back then. Elizabeth Monique Grant.
My mom assumed I’d grow up to be a Liz or a Lizzy. But my father had always loved the name Monique and couldn’t help but call me by it. I would often remind him that my name was Elizabeth and he would tell me that my name was whatever I wanted it to be. When he passed away, it became clear to both my mother and me that I should be Monique. It eased our pain ever so slightly to honor every last thing about him. So my pet name became my real name. And my mother often reminds me that my name was a gift from my father.
Looking at this picture, I am struck by how beautiful my parents were together. James and Angela. I know what it cost them to build a life, to have me. A white woman and a black man in the early ’80s, neither of their families being particularly thrilled with the arrangement. We moved around a lot before my father died, trying to find a neighborhood where my parents felt at ease, at home. My mother didn’t feel welcome in Baldwin Hills. My father didn’t feel comfortable in Brentwood.
I was in school before I met another person who looked like me. Her name was Yael. Her father was Dominican, and her mother was from Israel. She liked to play soccer. I liked to play dress-up. We could rarely agree on anything. But I liked that when someone asked her if she was Jewish, she said, “I’m half Jewish.” No one else I knew was half something.
For so long, I felt like two halves.
And then my father died, and I felt like I was one-half my mother and one-half lost. A half that I feel so torn from, so incomplete without.
But looking at this picture now, the three of us together in 1986, me in overalls, my father in a polo, my mother in a denim jacket, we look like we belong together. I don’t look like I am half of one thing and half of another but rather one whole thing, theirs. Loved.
I miss my dad. I miss him all the time. But it’s moments like this, when I’m on the precipice of finally doing work that might just expand my heart, that I wish I could at least send him a letter, telling him what I’m doing. And I wish that he could send me one back.
I already know what he would write. Something like “I’m proud of you. I love you.” But still, I’d like to get one anyway.
* * *
“ALL RIGHT,” I say. My spot at Evelyn’s desk has become my second home. I’ve come to rely on Grace’s morning coffee. It has replaced my usual Starbucks habit. “Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday. You’re about to start Little Women. Go.”
Evelyn laughs. “You’ve become an old hand at this,” she says.
“I learn quickly.”
*