Даниэла Стил - Finding Ashley [calibre]

“No, I’m not. I never had a vocation. You were right. I ran away. I wanted to run as far away as I could. The convent seemed like the perfect place to do it. I didn’t have some kind of religious vision or inspiration. I was just scared. So I ran away and hid, just like you said. I was a coward. I still am.

“Do you remember the producer who asked me to go to Hollywood for the screen test? He was offering me a part in a big movie. A good part. I was so excited. I never asked any questions. I flew out there on the ticket he sent me and showed up for the test. Sam Steinberg. He flew out to L.A. to be at the test himself. He told me to meet him in his office. So I did, like the idiot I was then.”

“You weren’t an idiot,” Melissa corrected her. She was listening closely, frowning. “You were a kid.”

“A very dumb kid. I walked into his office on a Saturday morning. There was no one else there. He said he was going to give me the test himself, because I was so talented. I could see a huge film career starting, and an Oscar in my future. He locked the door with a button under his desk. He took his clothes off then, and tore off mine. He ripped them right off my back, slapped me around, threw me on the couch in his office, and raped me. After that, he laid me on his desk, and punched me every time I tried to move, and raped me again. He hit me, kicked me, punched me, masturbated on me, and raped me all day. He kept me there till six o’clock. I could hardly walk by the time he let me go. There was no one in the building except us. He threw me a shirt and some shorts while I crawled across the floor. I couldn’t even stand up, while he put on his shirt and tie, and his suit. He stood in the doorway and said, ‘Sorry, kid, you flunked the test. You’re too young for the part. Better luck next time.’

“He laughed then and walked out. I don’t even know how I got out of there. I was too ashamed to go to a hospital. He broke some ribs. I was black and blue all over, and I could hardly sit down for a week. Thank God, I didn’t get pregnant. His name was on the list of sex offenders last week. Seventeen women have accused him of rape and assault and battery, and described everything he did to me. He’s been doing it to young hopeful actresses for years. The Sam Steinberg Screen Test. It’s common knowledge in Hollywood apparently.”

Melissa felt sick as she listened, afraid that there was more. “I checked in to a cheap motel and stayed there until I could walk normally again and cover the bruises with makeup. When I got home, I did the only thing I could think of. I went straight to the convent, and told them I felt I had a vocation. I didn’t have a vocation, but I never wanted to see another man again, or have one touch me. I met a girl on the plane, going back to New York, who was crying, and said she had been raped twice in L.A., and once in New York when she was trying out for an Off-Broadway show. That did it. I knew I didn’t want to be an actress anymore. He beat it out of me. All I wanted to be was protected and safe from guys like him. If that’s what acting was about, I didn’t want it.” Hattie was crying by then, and so was Melissa.

“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have called me from L.A. We could have gone to the police. We still can.” Melissa wanted to kill him after what she’d heard.

“He said that if I did, he’d find me and beat me to a pulp or kill me, and no one would believe me anyway. And he was right. No one would have then. He was a big producer and I was no one. I never wanted that to happen again. I probably was no good as an actress anyway. I couldn’t have lived through that happening again.”

“I remember when you went,” Melissa said, feeling sick. “I was happy for you. It was a big deal. And I remember when you came back and went straight into the convent. I thought you were crazy. It didn’t make any sense. Now it does, eighteen years later. I should have figured it out.”

“How could you? I lied to get into the convent. And I lied to you. The only reason I wanted to get into the convent was because that bastard raped me and I was scared it would happen again. I’ve been in for eighteen years under false pretenses. The only reason I joined the order was because I’d been raped, and was too scared to be out in the world, except as a nun.”

“Oh, Hattie,” Melissa said, and put her arms around her. “Let’s go to the police now. It’s not too late. He needs to be held accountable and brought to justice.”

“Someone else is doing that. I don’t have to. I won’t do it. I would be disgraced forever.”

“If you tell Mother Elizabeth, I think she’d want you to.”

“If I tell her, she’ll know I’m a liar and I’ve been a fraud for all these years. But when I saw his name in the papers last week, I knew I had to tell you at least. You have a right to know how dishonest I am, and why I joined the order.”

“You’re not at fault here. He is. He raped an innocent young girl. He brutally beat you, and raped you. He has to pay for that. It’ll carry even more weight because you’re a nun now.”

“I’m not a nun, I’m a fraud,” she said, furious with herself. “I’m going to ask to be released from my vows. I don’t belong there. I want to go back to Africa. I can be a nurse. I don’t have to be a nun to work there.”

“You can’t run away from this again. This man needs to be punished.”

“Maybe it wasn’t entirely his fault,” she said, sobbing. “After the first time, I didn’t even try to stop him. I was too scared. You would never have done something like that. You would have stopped him. You wouldn’t have let him rape you.” Melissa was looking hard at her sister, and she wanted to kill Sam Steinberg with her bare hands.

“Let me tell you something about my career. What happened to you was not your fault. After my first book was published, I wanted an even better contract on the next one. Carson had gotten me a good deal, but I was ambitious. My publisher called and invited me to lunch. I was very flattered. He took me to the Four Seasons and I felt like a big deal. I had three drinks at lunch. When we left the restaurant, he put it to me. If I’d sleep with him, he’d sweeten the deal on my next book, that is if I sweetened the deal for him first. He didn’t rape me or beat me. He coerced me. He enticed me, and I was greedy and stupid enough to go along with it. Carson and I had just started dating. So I went to his place with him. He had an apartment on East Sixty-second Street for just that purpose. I went there with him, like a total whore. I gave him a blow job, and went to bed with him. We had sex all afternoon. It was consensual. When it was over, he said he’d call my agent in the morning and give us a great contract with a huge advance, but he wanted to meet me again. He suggested we meet once a week. He called Carson in the morning and gave me a slightly better contract, not a great one. I took the contract and signed it. I never went back again. I stayed away from him, and I didn’t tell Carson. But I knew exactly what I was and what I’d done. I’d prostituted myself to get ahead. I had felt like a slut and had behaved like one. There are a million guys out there like these, waiting to jump on young women, using sex to make their deals. And some of us are dumb enough to buy into it. I never did it again, but I never forgot what I did. So I’m not so lily pure either. And I did it willingly. You didn’t. You were raped.

“The publisher I had sex with was fired a few years later, and went to another publishing house. He’s probably still playing the same game if he can get anyone to fall for it twenty years later. There’s always Viagra if he can’t get it up. He’s probably seventy-five or eighty by now. There are guys like that in every line of work, and women who fall for it like I did. But those women are speaking up now. They’re blowing the whistle on these creeps. That’s the only way it’s going to stop. Women have a stake in the game now. Men in Hollywood, big men, are losing their jobs, their careers, their TV shows, their parts in movies. Some of them will probably go to prison. It’s going to cost them big-time and it should. I was stupid, and lost my integrity momentarily, but you were a victim, Hattie. I want you to go after the guy and put your name on that list. I’ll stand beside you all the way.”