Anna North - The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“I’m sorry,” she said, “are you threatening me?”

She was trying to sound cold and unimpressed, but I could hear the fear in her voice. She’d never be able to play Isabella, I told myself; she couldn’t even act powerful with me.

“I’m trying to help you,” I said. “Look, I know you’re going to get it together. You just need a couple of months to clear your head, and you’ll be fine.”

This was what my stepdad always said — he just needed two months of total calm and no distractions, and he’d get sober. Once he even put it on the calendar, a big X on the first of October. But then October came, and my youngest sister got bronchitis and shook the house with a cough that sounded like a wild dog barking, and then she had to get chest X-rays, which meant my stepdad had to take another house-painting gig so we’d have the money, and his Calm Months got postponed. He wasn’t mad about it, just shrugged and said he’d do it in December, in January, in June.

“I know that,” Veronica said. “After this I’m going to go on this meditation retreat in Vermont. I’ve done it before. It totally cleans out your whole system — it’s like being a new person.”

“That’s great,” I said. “You should do it now.”

“I have to finish the movie,” she said. She didn’t sound excited or even indignant; she sounded like she was talking about homework.

“If you drop out now,” I said, “it’ll be news for a day. A few people will wonder about it, and you’ll have to figure out something to tell them.”

“More than a few people,” she said. “I have a contract.”

I didn’t actually know much of anything about being a famous actress or how their contracts worked, but I didn’t think it mattered.

“If you stay, somebody’s going to tell Us Weekly that you’re a drunk who can’t say her lines. And that will be news for a lot longer, and it could permanently fuck up your career.”

She didn’t say anything, but I knew I’d gotten to her. Her whole body stiffened.

“I don’t need this from you right now,” she said finally. “You don’t know anything. You’ve been in what, one movie?”

“Suit yourself,” I said, and left her there.

VERONICA DIDN’T LEAVE RIGHT AWAY. She limped along for a few more days, mangling her lines and making the crew roll their eyes every time she opened her mouth. Then, when someone snuck an empty vodka bottle into the shot for her big monologue about Ferdinand (it wasn’t my idea, but I did help the grip find the bottle), she looked at all of us with this kind of ruined pride, more regal than anything she’d shown us before, and stalked off to her trailer. The next day her agent told Sophie she was pulling out.

What I wasn’t prepared for was how Sophie took it. She folded up in my armchair like a sick bird and said in this dull, hollowed-out voice, “It’s over. The movie’s over.”

“It’s not over,” I said. “We’ll find another Isabella.”

“You don’t understand,” she said. “The financing was contingent on Veronica. Now the studio will pull out, and we’ll have no money.”

I hadn’t thought about that. When we made Marianne , we just did whatever Sophie wanted, and I’d figured this would be the same. Now I remembered the trailers and the mini-sandwiches on the craft-services table and the five lighting guys, and I realized how dumb I’d been.

“We’ll find someone even better. Veronica was no good, you know that. She could barely read her lines. We’ll find someone who will really impress them.”

Sophie lifted her head. Her face was awful. It was the first time I’d seen her like that, all the lights out behind her eyes.

“Like who?” she asked.

I sent Abe out for some ice cream. He was happy to go; he felt bad for Sophie. He didn’t know it was my fault.

“Like me,” I said when he was gone. “Like you wanted in the first place.”

She looked confused, just for a second, but long enough for me to realize she’d lied to me. She’d never wanted me for Isabella. She’d always thought of me as Beatriz, the maid.

“I’d love that,” she said, her voice so clearly fake it was insulting, “but they’re going to want a big name.”

Some people just turn away when someone disrespects them. They don’t give that person a second chance. But I’ve always been the kind who stands and tries to show the other person where they went wrong. This has gotten me in a lot of trouble.

I got right up in her face. She blinked. I hoped she was afraid of me.

“Who do you think made Marianne great?” I said. “Do you think it was you? It wasn’t even your story to begin with.”

“I know,” she said. Her voice was so small. Later I’d look back and realize I’d never heard her so weak before. But I kept right on going.

“You need me,” I said. “And not to be your maid. Not to hold your fucking hand. You need me to star in this movie, because it’s the only way it’s going to be any good.”

I didn’t know until right then that I believed that, but it was true.

Sophie looked at me, and her face was exhausted, like after you cry and you just want to lie down by yourself for a while, but her eyes were completely dry.

“You’re right,” she said, and soon Abe came back with the ice cream, and we ate it and watched The Blair Witch Project , and I wasn’t sure I’d won at all.

THE NEXT DAY on the subway platform, in the morning, while we waited for the train that would take us to Sophie’s meeting with the producer, Sophie got a look in her eye like an animal hunting. I was looking down the tunnel for the train’s first light, and she pushed me up against the dirty wall with everyone watching, put her mouth on my mouth, her hand up my shirt. I should’ve punched her; she knew what it meant to come at me like that, without warning. But she didn’t pin my arms — I could’ve pushed her away. Instead I put a hand in her hair and pulled her closer into me. What can I say, except her smell, the taste of her breath. The memory of every single thing we’d done when we were together, and all the years I told myself we’d never do any of it again. The way we knew how to move against each other even after all that time.

EVERYONE WAS PANICKING. The screenwriter and a guy named George, who Sophie said was an executive producer in L.A., were calling her every day to yell at her. The studio gave Sophie a list of names, people she could replace Veronica with. My name wasn’t on it. We made a tape of my marriage speech, and I said those lines like I was made to say them, but they weren’t interested. So we started sending the tape around to other independent studios and to rich people Sophie knew who had liked Marianne and Woods . We waited.

I saw my friend Irina, the girl who’d booked me in the storytelling show years back. I told her Sophie and I were working together again, and she raised an eyebrow and asked if we were together together too. I said of course not, I was with Abe. She said that was good, he was a kind person, and Sophie wasn’t kind. I nodded, pretended that I agreed with her. I didn’t tell her I was realizing I wasn’t very kind either. Or that Sophie and I had already fucked secretly in a cab (coming back from a failed meeting with a rich movie buff) and in the alley behind a Crown Heights bar (after drinking whiskey to cover up the failure). Just that morning I’d snuck into the bathroom while she was showering, pretending to bring her a towel, really licking the water off her skin. It felt right to do it in bathrooms and alleys, without telling anyone. I was ashamed of cheating on Abe and manipulating Veronica; sneaking around and looking over my shoulder and never getting to lie in bed with Sophie on a lazy morning felt like the appropriate price to pay for the things I wanted. And when sex was a secret, the movie almost felt like a secret too, something the two of us could enjoy together without anyone else messing it up.