Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (13 page)

We sat by the pool pretending that our plastic tumblers were cut from blood diamonds and that the improved taste of our margaritas was worth whatever civil wars these goblets had funded. Then Meg came out to tell me it was time to start hair and makeup. Aurora watched her walk away.

“That’s her—your One Cell bodyguard?” Aurora was referring to the tabloids’ christening of Meg.

“She’s not my bodyguard. She’s my friend.”

“I expected her to be a nun. She’s hot. Does she dress like that around your fiancé?” Meg was just wearing the usual: jeans and a fashionable T-shirt.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“But she is in the cult, right?”

“Well, it’s not really like that. I told you.”

“What about those secret confessionals, where they stand in a circle, take off all their clothes, and reveal their darkest desires? Have they made you do that? Did you levitate? Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” Aurora held out her arms as if in a trance.

I laughed. “If you care at all, it’s called the 100, and you’re not naked. From what Rob tells me, it’s pretty much group therapy.” But it wasn’t Rob who had told me. It was Meg. Rob was still frustratingly unforthcoming on the topic of One Cell.

“Well, I still think it’s creepy. I mean, you’re Rob Mars. You can do anything in the world—why that?”

“Maybe that’s
why
he can do anything in the world . . . One Cell really does seem to help some people.” The more questions Aurora asked, the more I realized how little I still knew about my fiancé’s organization.

“Well, you’re not going to get sucked into it, are you?”

“The minute I drink pig’s blood, you’ll be the first to know.”

The attire for the party was black and white. Genna had brought over ten bright red gowns—so I could stand out from the crowd—but I’d negotiated her down to a black Dior dress with a Burmese ruby-and-diamond necklace that was my birthday present from Rob. Get it, fire and ice? The tabloids said Rob had worked with Ander Walford of Walford Diamond to design it for me, but by now I knew that meant that Ander had submitted some designs and Rob had gone across the street from the Studio to pick one. Anyway, it was stunning.

Meg brought in my dress and jewelry, water for everyone in the room, and a snack. She got Talia set up to do my nails and she told Joaquim to
start on hair and makeup. When Meg left the room, Aurora said, “Isn’t it awkward having a friend who works for you? Or does she work for the Studio?”

“It’s great,” I said, shutting her down. After that Aurora left it alone, but I should have paid more attention.

The ballroom at the Beverly Hills Hotel was quite dark, lit by tall flaming torches that were definitely a fire hazard. On each table was a massive abstract ice sculpture. Everything white—the flowers, the men’s shirts, the cubelike furniture, and (to my surprise) highlighted hair—all glowed in the black lights. But, I noticed, only natural teeth responded to the light, so everyone with porcelain veneers (about half of the women) had dark-looking teeth. I silently gave thanks for my excellent childhood dentist, Dr. Glass.

I spent the duration of the party trapped in one spot, being greeted by guest after guest. Meg stood next to me pointing out important guests: “Diabolical Eyebrows over there—that’s Jameson Whitely—he directed
Son of God
” and so on. At some point I noticed Aurora waiting patiently for my attention, and I slipped over to her side. She handed me a Bellini. The signature cocktail of the evening was a Dizzy Lizzie, in my honor, but Aurora knew I couldn’t stand bourbon. I gave her a thankful squeeze.

“My shoes are killing me. And I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to hang with you,” I said. “This is ridiculous.”

“Don’t worry about me! This is your night,” she said. “But one question: Do you think there will be toasts? I promise I won’t embarrass you . . . too much. Maybe just a small mention of the time we crashed a wedding, picked up Siobhan and her boyfriend, then drove all night to see Siobhan’s brother launch his wooden ship on Lake Michigan.”

“Oh God no,” I said. “It’s not that kind of party. Save it for the wedding!”

We were interrupted by Teddy Dillon, the head of One Cell, and Aurora was gone.

Not five minutes later, people started clinking their glasses with spoons and rings, and Rob climbed up on the stage, holding a cordless microphone. He looked handsome in his Prada suit, and the room quieted immediately.

“It’s really dark in here,” he said. Everyone laughed, not that it was particularly funny, but Rob can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand. “You probably think this is a deeply sophisticated party, but really we’re just trying to hide the fact that you’re standing in a high school gymnasium.” More laughter.

“I want to thank everyone for coming, and I ask you to raise a glass to my beautiful fiancée, who is out there somewhere. I hope.” Uproarious laughter. He raised a hand to his forehead and surveyed the crowd. A spotlight appeared, circling until it found and instantly blinded me.

“Ah, there she is. Elizabeth, can you come up here?”

As I walked toward him, someone switched out my half-gone Bellini for a Dizzy Lizzie. Damn. I stood at Rob’s side, and, though it was too dark to discern the faces of our guests, the dim light reflected off a sea of cell phones, all raised up, their flashes signaling like a fleet of ships seeking harbor. Hashtaglizzieandrob, officially trending. Strangers, most of them, making news of this moment, of my birthday, of my life. They wanted something from us, all of those people. I’m an actor. I’m supposed to love the spotlight. But I was terrified of disappointing them.

I focused on Rob as he toasted me, noticing the way his brow furrowed and eyebrows slanted up and in when he was being sincere. Or wanted to sound sincere. After all, I’d seen him rehearse that same expression of sincerity in the bedroom mirror at home. The words flowed right over me—I was too nervous to pay attention, but by keeping my eyes on Rob I knew exactly how to respond—what the audience craved from me—at
every single moment. When one corner of his mouth turned up, I laughed, like everyone else did, at his joke. When he looked apologetically at me, I gave him a stern Alice Kramden look, which the crowd loved, and when his voice got louder, and his hands started waving in the air in the service of some over-the-top story, I simply put my hand to my face and shook my head in apparent mortification—and we brought down the house.

I thought it was over, but then Rob said, “Now, I know there’s someone else who’d like to say a few words about Elizabeth.” To my surprise, Meg came up to the microphone. I glanced over at Aurora, making an I-had-no-idea-this-was-happening face. She had to be feeling a little left out, but she gave me a game double thumbs-up. I could count on Aurora not to be petty.

“Rob is okay,” Meg was saying. “But the fact that he picked Elizabeth makes him even cooler.” Rob, still near the mike, patted himself on the shoulder.

Although Aurora knew me better, I had to concede that Rob was right to call on Meg. She gave the perfect speech for that event—short, charming, and not too personal. The audience was satisfied, and yet there was nothing that would sell to the tabloids and torment me for the next week. The dividing line between private and public had shifted. Aurora, my parents, my past—all were crowded into the ever-shrinking space reserved for the imperfect, authentic, and spontaneous.

At home after the party, I watched Rob lift his chin to undo his bow tie. I hadn’t talked to him all night.

“Did you know that we get paid to wear some of our clothes?”

“I guess,” he said.

“I mean, it’s not just that we get them for free. They actually pay us thousands of dollars to wear them.”

“Okay . . .” he said.

“Can we stop taking that money? It makes me feel like—”

“Sure,” Rob said.

“You don’t care why?”

“Not really,” he said. “You don’t like it; we don’t do it.” Rob put his jacket and tie on a chair and came over to me. “Now, about
this
dress . . .”

“I’m not getting paid to wear this one,” I said.

“What I would give you to take it off,” he said, and he reached his hands behind my back to unzip me. We kissed, but I wasn’t quite done.

“One more thing,” I said.

“Yes?” He sounded a little impatient, like a teenager who just wants to get back to his video game.

“Can you be the one to tell ACE?” I was a new client. I didn’t want one of my first interactions with the agency to be telling them that I wanted us to earn
less
money.

“No problem,” Rob said. My mind was still whirling. Would he remember to tell them? And could they be trusted? How could we know for sure that they weren’t still earning a commission to send us clothes? Maybe they would just stop paying us and keep the money for themselves? I had always taken pride in handling my own finances, but Rob had a money manager, who was helping me now, too. Did Rob even see his income statements?

My dress was on the floor now. Rob’s body against mine answered all the questions in my head.
Don’t worry. You’re safe. I’ll take care of you. This is good.

I
quickly learned why Rob had so many nice houses. He was stuck in them.

At first I had assumed the plotting and secrecy involved in our comings and goings was because we were keeping our relationship on the down-low. Then I thought it was because we were the latest breaking news. Now it finally dawned on me that this was it. This was how Rob always lived. He was stuck, and so was I. And it would be this way for the rest of our lives, or at least until Rob and I were so old and withered that the world lost interest. There was the L.A. where most people ate, exercised, worked, socialized, saw art and movies, walked on the beach, hit the Grove, or wandered from shop to shop in Beverly Hills. Then there was our L.A., made up of back entryways, private rooms, underground garages, and friends who lived like us, in walled-in estates and gated communities. I could never again pop out to get a spur-of-the-moment frozen yogurt.

The Studio in Beverly Hills became one of my favorite refuges. At first I had just gone there to meet Meg for lunch when Rob went to practice or had a meeting about the New York expansion. Now it felt more like a club where Rob and I were both members. I could go to meet friends for lunch
or tea and then make calls and send e-mails out of Rob’s office. There were always people around, industry acquaintances and my new reps from ACE. At the Studio nobody took my picture, asked for my signature, or stared at me like I had bird poop in my hair. Ironically, the most mysterious, exclusive building in L.A. was the only place where I could feel normal.

My earliest memories of the Studio are the afternoons I spent in its grassy courtyard that fall, planning my wedding with Meg. As soon as Rob and I got engaged, he’d brought in Bethamy, the Lotus event planner who’d spearheaded our engagement, my twenty-fifth birthday party, and every other small and large event in Rob’s life, including his first wedding. Bethamy said our wedding would be a dream come true, not just for me but for the country, since America didn’t have a royal family, unless you counted the Kennedys, and they would be attending anyway.

Bethamy could see that I was nervous, but that was perfectly normal, especially in cases like this, where the groom was so much more accomplished, but only because he was so much older, by which she meant distinguished, but her doctor would give me beta-blockers, actually she had some right here, which weren’t so much blood pressure pills as they were like a spa treatment that you took internally. Bethamy understood that it was hard for me to process all the options and directions and concepts involved, but not to worry, she, Bethamy, was captain of this ship, and she was completely confident that my wedding day would be the best day of my entire life, but that was not including my wedding night, wink, wink. Bethamy had my back. All Bethamy required of me was that I relax and enjoy the ride. “Just show up, darling. And do your dieting in advance. My brides aren’t allowed to faint.”

“How’s it working out with Bethamy?” Meg asked me. She had brought sushi for our lunch to the Studio from Yoshu, a chef on Wilshire who also did all the sushi we had at home. The Studio cafeteria was decent, but Yoshu was our favorite.

“Oh, she’s cool. Rob’s known her forever, and she really knows her stuff.”

“And . . .”

“And I hate her,” I said.

Meg burst out laughing. “Join the club. I didn’t want to say anything . . . But why in the world is she the queen of your wedding?”

“Rob’s always worked with her. I can’t, like, fire her.”

“Oh, sweetie, you clearly haven’t started practicing here at the Studio.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Let me try this,” she said patiently. “What do you want from your wedding?”

“That’s easy,” I said. “I want to gather my family and closest friends. I want them to bear witness when Rob and I make a lifelong commitment.”

“That sounds nice,” said Meg. “What does Bethamy want?”

“She wants . . .” I slipped into Bethamy’s run-on squeal. “A fairy tale—she’s thinking Cinderella’s night at the ball, where I arrive in a golden horse-drawn carriage in a con
fec
tion of a dress—can’t you see it?—
stunning
, and Rob gallops in on horseback and the entire wedding is a grand ball and the colors are gold and white with a touch of royal scarlet and Rob and I are the most perfect, most beautiful, most unforgettable couple in the entire world.” Back in my normal voice, I continued, “I don’t want the spotlight. I mean, I know I’m the bride, but people already stare at me constantly. I just want to celebrate love.”

“Does Bethamy know what you want?”

“Probably not.”

“And who does Bethamy work for?”

“Me, I guess, but really Rob.”

“Does Rob know what you want?”

“No.” I could see where she was going with this. “I get it. I’m supposed to tell Bethamy and Rob what I want. But I . . .”

Meg interrupted me. “Let me guess. There are reasons you don’t want to talk to them. You want to be a good girl. You want to follow the rules. You don’t want to be seen as difficult. Your parents taught you to behave this way—it makes for polite and manageable kids—but if you leave your wedding in Bethamy’s hands, you’re going to pop out of your own wedding cake, and then you and Rob will parachute into a pool of champagne—”

“Full of color-activation crystals that will turn my gown from angelic white to gold lamé!” I chimed in.

“It’s your wedding, Lizzie.”

I got the subtext: I, Lizzie Pepper, was a total wimp. “You’re like Rob,” I said to Meg. “You know what you want and you just go for it.”

“I wasn’t born this way,” she said, “and, believe it or not, neither was he. We learned to access our power.”

“How?” I asked.

“Here.” She gestured toward the buildings, where One Cell’s Practice, lectures, and classes were held.

Meg touched a nerve. I had spent my whole childhood trying to please my father. I took on his expectations of perfection, so I got straight As; I practiced the cello, which I despised, for forty-five minutes every night; I played soccer (mediocrely, but I gave it my all). I didn’t date. I made curfew. The first time a cigarette touched my lips, I reported it to my mother (though I hid thousands after that). And when I got the role of Lucy McAlister, and the show became a massive hit, I committed to stay on the cast for its entire six-year run—four years of which I’d always assumed I’d spend in college—because my father couldn’t countenance quitting. But all of that rule following and achievement didn’t give me half the confidence that Meg and Rob had.

I was suddenly profoundly curious. I jumped up, grabbed Meg’s hand, and dragged her inside, to the hall that led to the Main Practice Room. I
stopped in front of a big bulletin board wall, covered with notices and sign-up sheets.

“Where would I start?”

Meg moved her finger in circles as she scanned the wall. Then her index finger landed on a sheet. It read, “Introduction to the Whole Body Practice: Accessing the First Mind.”

“Sounds like psychobabble,” I said.

Meg smiled. “I actually met Rob in the Intro Practice. We went through it together. It was my sixth time and his first. It basically teaches you how to figure out what you really want. Seems obvious, but you do exercises to help you move past the obstacles that other people put in your way. So you can have the wedding that you want . . . and tell your fiancé if you can’t deal with his staff! It’s the first One Cell class most people do, and Rob always says it’s the best.”

I was signing my name to the form before she finished her sentence. Bethamy was driving me crazy, it was true, but it wasn’t only my overbearing wedding planner that led me to the Studio. It was what Meg had just told me: “Rob always says . . .” She seemed to know my fiancé better than I did.

I wanted to connect to Rob. For a while now I’d been trying to go deeper with him, to get past his impossibly flawless exterior. Bethamy wanted to cast him as Prince Charming in our wedding, and I wanted the opposite. I wanted him to know that he could leave his work at the office. I didn’t need him to be perfectly chivalrous every minute of our lives. And suddenly, One Cell seemed like it might be the way to reach him. Rob credited the Studio with his acting prowess, which I so envied, but for a long time I’d suspected that it went much deeper than that. The Practice was core to who he was. And Meg, who’d studied alongside him, seemed to know him as a
person
, not just the model fiancé he was for me. Spending time on the periphery wasn’t working. Maybe getting closer to One Cell meant getting closer to Rob. I sure hoped so.

And thus began my journey into the world of the One Cell Studio. It was that easy. I’d felt like Rob was holding me at arm’s length, and I’d been waiting for him to invite me, but all I had to do was step forward on my own. And, that, he told me later, was one of One Cell’s tenets. Nobody was to be persuaded. Everyone was expected to find their own way to the Studio.

I bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

And suddenly there I was, on a path to an enlightenment I’d never known I lacked.

belly of the beast
, I texted Aurora.
i’m all in.

it was nice knowing you
,
pepper,
she wrote back.

Introduction to the Whole Body Practice met at the Studio twice a week for two hours. The leader, Cece, had grown up with Meg. She was an elegant Brazilian woman who made the shapeless One Cell robes look like an effortless fashion statement.

There were about ten people at the first practice. (The second week, a guided meditation titled “Truth and Consequences,” the room was maxed out at sixty people. When Meg met me afterward, she looked at the crowd flowing out of the room and said, “Well, Lizzie, you sure can fill the house.” Apparently One Cell practitioners weren’t completely immune to the lure of celebrity.)

We gathered in a large, airy room with clean white sand on its sunken floor. A simple wooden bench circumscribed the perimeter of the room. There were posters of Teddy and Luther Dillon, the cofounders of One Cell, surrounding us. Each poster had one of Teddy’s aphorisms, like “The being is the mirror of the mind” or “Readiness doesn’t wait for tomorrow.” On the bench near me, someone had carved “The self is not
limided.” I smiled inwardly. At the verry least, the self is not limited by spelling rules.

For the first hour, we stood in a circle in the sand, barefoot, wearing our robes, in perfect silence. As the minutes passed without anyone saying a word, I grew uncomfortable, then impatient, then angry. But then something strange happened. A lightness came over me, and I stopped my restless shifting. The central issues in my life—joys, fears, hopes—floated in and around my head without demanding resolution. There they were, my little collection of unruly concerns, corralled for the first time like a motley petting zoo. I watched them from an unfamiliar remove.

Cece broke the spell, and then we sat on the bench while she led us in a meditation. To my surprise, people were alert, with eyes open, taking notes in black-and-white composition books. I rediscovered my notebook from that class recently, with phrases like “conquer the second self” and “getting to the radiance of self-fulfillment.” I’d underlined the latter three times in bold black strokes. It would be too easy to say that I was caught up in something meaningless. The truth is that all my notebooks from high school look the same—full of nonsensical phrases that clearly meant something powerful to me at the time.

Finally, we began the series of poses. Odd, asymmetrical poses that looked like a parody of yoga. Now, I’d always found yoga painfully slow, and I never met a Shavasana (Corpse Pose) that didn’t put me to sleep. But the Studio was on to something with their weird, airplane-crash poses. When the two-hour class was through I felt light and energized, though not remotely thinner. Alas, I’d have to keep the personal trainer.

That night I filled Aurora in on some of what I’d learned from Cece’s talk. “She began by asking us to shout out rules of behavior we’d learned as kids. People yelled them out: ‘Do your best.’ ‘Listen when others are speaking.’ ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ I added one of my father’s favorites: ‘Never give up.’”