Anna North - The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

He shrugged. “Juvie.”

“What did you do?”

He shrugged again.

“My dad was in prison,” I told him.

Peter lit another cigarette.

“What’d he do?” he asked.

I used to make up stories about my dad, like he was a bank robber or a gunrunner or a hit man. But I didn’t think Peter would like those stories, so I told him the dumbest, saddest one of all, which was the truth.

“He stole a car outside of Richmond and he was going to take it home to my mom and me to surprise us. But then he got lost and he pulled in to a gas station for directions, and the gas station was across from a police station, and the cops recognized the car and arrested him.”

Peter shook his head. “Your dad was a dumb-ass.”

My mom used to say this about him while he was away, from when I was three to when I was seven. When he came back, though, she cried and wrapped her legs around him, and they tried to make it work for a while and even had one of my sisters. But he was just missing the thing that lets people get by in the world, and he was always getting in trouble for no reason, getting thrown out of McDonald’s for trying to smoke or fired from jobs for skipping three days just because he felt like it. He wasn’t evil or even all that stupid; he was just really, really bad at following rules, and eventually he left us and moved out to the desert, where he said there were no rules at all. I didn’t tell Peter this, though. I just said, “Yeah.” I didn’t want him to think he’d riled me.

“I didn’t do anything,” he said. “Some older kids were selling weed and I was the lookout, that’s all.”

“How long were you away?” I asked him.

“Well once I was in there I kept getting in trouble for other stuff. Fighting. So six months and then another six, and then I got transferred and then two years. So three years.”

“That’s a long time,” I said, and then I took a little risk. “I bet you missed a lot of school.”

“Yeah,” he said. “So?”

“Listen,” I said. “Where I grew up the schools were shit, and a lot of kids didn’t go anyway. I knew a lot of people who couldn’t read.”

“Don’t fucking condescend to me,” he said in a low hot rage-whisper. “I know she thinks I’m a fucking retard and I don’t need you to explain it to me.”

His face went all tense the way boys’ faces get when they’re trying not to cry. I realized then that even if he didn’t care much about acting, he cared about impressing Sophie. I wondered if all the cast and crew were people like us, people who loved Sophie a little or a lot and were willing to do whatever she said. It made me jealous — I wanted to be the only one. But it also made me feel warm toward him; we were in the same boat.

“Sophie didn’t even know you couldn’t read. She thought you were just being a jerk, and she didn’t care. If she wanted trained Shakespearean actors, she could’ve gotten them. She wanted us. And that should make you feel good.”

“Why do you care about this so much?” Peter asked. “It’s not like you like me.”

“I love her,” I said, “and I want to make her happy.”

This was true, but there was something else I didn’t say — I could tell people were going to start coming between me and Sophie, and if I could take charge of Peter, maybe I could take charge of the next one too. And if I was in charge, maybe they wouldn’t make it as far in and it wouldn’t hurt as much.

Peter give me a little smirk then, held up two fingers in front of his face, flicked his tongue.

“So you guys are, like, lezzies?” he asked.

I almost liked him then; he looked like a twelve-year-old kid.

“Yeah,” I said, bugging my eyes out, making fun of him, “we do this.” And I flicked my tongue between my two fingers too.

He laughed. Then he shook two cigarettes out of his pack and handed me one without asking. I’ve never been a big smoker, but I had a cigarette with him and watched the starlings, and then we both went inside.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS were exciting ones. We were constantly behind schedule, and the production assistant quit, and the nineteen-year-old grip dropped one of the lights and sprayed broken glass all over the floor, and the little trust-fund girl who was playing Stacey cut her foot and cried and talked about a lawsuit, but Sophie just powered through all that with this kind of scary joy. She was barely eating and her collarbones stuck way out and her eyes were huge. One night she yanked my hair and snarled and bit me on the thigh, and I wore a short skirt the next day so everyone could see the bruise.

Because Peter was ad-libbing we all ended up doing it a little, and we kind of got into a rhythm with each other, especially Peter and me. Hating each other was a joke we kept pushing further and further. Once during a take of the scene where Bean tells Marianne he knows how to snap someone’s neck, we just busted up laughing for no reason, and Sophie came charging over yelling at us, asking what was so funny. We couldn’t explain. I could tell she was a little jealous, and I didn’t mind. Peter started to flirt with me — he asked me did I ever date guys, and did girls have special tricks, and could they ever teach them to a man or were there things only a woman could ever do — and I didn’t mind that either. I still didn’t think Peter was good-looking, but there was something raunchy and sneaky about him that I liked. He always smelled like sweat, and I liked that too.

The day we were supposed to shoot the big scene at the restaurant was the first day of February. Our version didn’t end the way my story had; instead of letting him leave, I was going to shove a knife into Bean’s belly. We were in the parking lot behind a Turkish restaurant in Bay Ridge whose owner loved movies. Inside we made it bright and cheesy-looking with checkered tablecloths and menus we printed out at the DP’s mom’s house, but the parking lot was still dirty and lonely, a sad place to end up. I took my mark, my back against the faded red door. Peter stood in front of me. The makeup artist, who was the nineteen-year-old grip’s big sister, had given him a close shave, and in his polo shirt and khakis and leather shoes he looked like a stranger. The wedding ring we borrowed from the other grip fit like it was his.

“You ready?” I asked him, smiling, trying to get comfortable.

He nodded, but he was looking past my shoulder at the beat-up door. Sophie counted down.

“You know why it didn’t bother me, running into you today?” he asked.

His voice was different — he sounded slick, polite almost. For the first time, I realized he was good at this, at being someone else.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I came here on purpose,” he said. “Just to see you.”

Then he moved close to me, the way he’d been in the run-through, so close I could smell him and feel the heat coming off his chest. And then he came closer. He was fully against me, pressing on me with all his weight. I looked at him to get him to ease up, but his eyes were flat. I looked at Sophie but she was staring over the DP’s shoulder at the picture of us in the viewfinder. Peter pressed harder, and I could feel his cock against my belly, through those stupid khaki pants, and I wanted to scream so he would stop, but the take would be ruined and everyone would know how weak I was, how someone could scare me just by pretending.

“Why would you come to see me?” I asked him, and people who love the movie have told me this is their favorite part, the fear and anger in my voice feel so real, so authentic. I hate it when people say that.

“Because I want you to know that I know how to find you. Wherever you go, I’ll always be there.”

And then he grabbed my chin and put his mouth on my mouth.