Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper (35 page)

This is it,
I thought, as the plane touched ground in New Jersey. If the press met the plane we’d be safe . . . and they were there. Pops at the front of the herd, as planned. Before we disembarked, I went to the bathroom, where I pulled off the Truth necklace and flushed it down the toilet. It disappeared with a violent gasp. We were home free. Or so I thought.

I
’ve never told anyone about this next part.

The press took photos of us disembarking. They would soon have a story to go alongside the pictures—my lawyers were simultaneously filing for divorce. The local driver was supposed to take me and the boys straight from the airport to our new apartment in Brooklyn. Max was with us, and he was an enormous man. I barely came up to his elbow. I felt safe. It wasn’t until we came out of the Lincoln Tunnel and headed north instead of south that I suspected something was wrong.

Max was in the passenger seat, his head skimming the ceiling. I tapped his shoulder.

“Max—where’s he going?” It was a little rude, given that the driver was right next to him, but I didn’t want to make a direct accusation.

“Turn around, man,” Max said. “We’re going to Brooklyn.”

Staring straight ahead, the driver said, “I have different instructions.”

I reached toward the panic button on my wrist.

“Hold on,” the driver said. I froze. “Don’t worry. You’re safe. You’ve been seen by the press—they’re right behind us—and your man Max here isn’t going down without a fight. But Geoff wanted me to tell you: You should hear what’s going to happen to your sons if you go through with this.”

I glanced down at Cap and Leo. Leo was asleep in his car seat, his mouth half open, but Cap stared up at me, perpetual furrow in his brow.

“Do you want the police?” Max asked.

“No, not yet,” I said. The police, the panic button, Max, all the safety measures we’d lined up were meant to prevent me from being held against my will. But this was different. If Geoff had something on me, I wanted to know what it was.

Twenty minutes later, Cap, Leo, and I were in a boardroom in a building facing the construction site on 17th Street. Max made sure the room had only one door before he stationed himself outside it.

There was an oval table surrounded by chairs. A small TV was perched on an AV cart at one end of the table.

In walked Geoff and five other men in suits, all business.

“Elizabeth. Casper. Leo.” He greeted my five-year-old sons as if they were board members sitting down for an end-of-year finance report.

Leo didn’t respond. Sometimes I imagined all adults blended together for him. But Cap asked, “Do you have any mints today?”

“Of course,” Geoff said. “Sit quietly and I’ll give you one when we’re done.”

Over my dead body he would. Silently seething, I turned to Cap. “You haven’t had dinner yet, but Mommy will get you a treat later.”

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Geoff said. “I wanted to show you this.” He used a remote to turn on the TV, and all eyes in the room turned toward it.

Not knowing what to expect, I pulled out my phone. “Here, sweetie,” I said, and handed it to Cap. He immediately began to play Turtle-opolis, his favorite. Leo watched over his brother’s shoulder.

On the TV screen, the video cut in, and my sister appeared. She was on the sofa in the main room of my uncle’s cabin up on Lake Michigan.

“I am Allison Pepper, and yes, my sister is the famous Lizzie Pepper.”
Allison laughed, lifted a hand, and studied her fingers. She was high. The film jolted, and I could tell there had been an edit.

Allison continued. “Yes, I have done certain drugs with my sister, Lizzie Pepper.” Another jiggle. The interviewer’s questions had been cut from the tape so all we could see was Allison’s side of the conversation.

“Coke, meth. I’m not proud, but that’s the truth.”

“Lizzie gave drugs to me and we did them together. Okay?” Allison delivered this last damning sentence in a monotone, and started to stand up as she said, “Now can I—” The film cut out.

Everything was completely clear to me now. The ubiquitous mints. The man giving Allison an amount of money that must have rocked her world. I could imagine him handing her a script, and this tape showed her reciting the lines that he had fed her. (Maybe, like me, she’d memorized her part on the first reading.) This was what Allison had remembered when she told me there was more—that our parents were right to protect me from her. This tape was my worst nightmare. I had never done any drugs, not with Allison (whom I’d only seen that one time since I was a child) or anyone else. It was a lie, yet it would be a PR nightmare. But I refused to be intimidated.

I stood up. “Thank you for that,” I said. “We’re leaving now.”

“You’re not as clever as your husband thinks you are,” Geoff said. “Unfortunately, this is more than damning to your reputation. It—” He glanced at the boys as if being careful about what he said in front of them. As if he gave a flying fig about my sons. “I’m afraid this tape calls into question your ability to provide a safe and healthy environment for young children. Perhaps they would be safer with their father.”

I was such an idiot. Of course this was his game. Custody. My single fear, my whole purpose, was to keep Cap and Leo out of the Studio’s clutches. I would do anything to keep custody of my sons and he knew it. I sat back down.

“Does Rob know about this?” I asked.

“Rob is very hurt. He trusts us to support him at this difficult time.” Unfortunately, that rang true. Rob would live in denial if it meant having his way.

I had lost. If I left, Rob would fight me for custody. With this video of Allison and all the legal help money could buy, he would certainly win, and Cap and Leo would be lost to me forever. Their image would be used to promote Rob’s interests. They would be raised in the culture of the Studio, trained to do endless exercises to suppress their emotions, oblivious to the dark underbelly of the organization. My friends and I, we had tried our very best. Even my father couldn’t help me now. My sons and I were free to walk out the door, but it was a false, temporary freedom. It meant nothing. There was no way out. We were up against something much bigger than we were, and we had lost.

The room was silent—everyone watching as I accepted my fate.

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“Very little,” Geoff said. “If it were up to me, well . . .” He let his words hang in the air, then went on. “Rob simply would like you to give it some more time. Meet up with him in London. Practice at the Studio. Try to reconnect.”

I almost crumbled. Rob was my husband. I believed, in theory, that any marriage went through hard times. I’d never even tried asking Rob to change—to take some time off, to get to know his children, to talk things through with me. We could spend more time together. I would confront him with the scripts. We could start all over again.

Except that Meg had warned me. There was no turning back now. I thought about what my father would do in this situation. Doug Pepper was the smartest man I knew. He’d guided every choice I made before I was married. And Doug Pepper never accepted defeat.

Geoff tapped his fingers impatiently on the boardroom table.
Without taking his eyes off me, he flicked open a tin of Altoids. The smell of mint drifted across the table and ignited in me a white-hot fury. This man had photographed my sons. The idea of him giving them candy made me sick. I had to protect them with every fiber of my being. My father and I didn’t see eye to eye about my life, but I was still the Pitbull’s daughter. In my head, I heard his voice:
I always win
. And suddenly, I knew why he always won. Because he was convinced that he was right. He trusted his instincts. I looked around the room. Everyone was frozen, waiting for my response. Except Cap and Leo, who, blissfully unaware, were having an impressively low-volume fight about whose turn it was on my phone.

I was Doug Pepper’s daughter. And I had my own tricks up my sleeve.

“There’s something I’d like to show you. Are there security cameras in this room that show the outside of the building?”

Geoff gave a nod. A young man stood up and opened a panel on the wall. It revealed four small screens with different angles on the building entrances. I walked over to the screens. One of the cameras showed the front gate, outside of which ten paparazzi stood, cameras at the ready.

“Can you zoom in on this one?” I asked. The guy complied. Now I could see what I was looking for. There, at the edge of the screen, was Pops. I pointed to his black-and-white image. “Bring this guy up here.”

Minutes later, Pops entered the room. I said, “This man has documentation of the donations, the receipts, and pictures of Studio Manhattan. The minute that tape of Allison hits the press, we will release these documents.” It was a gamble. And the best acting performance of my life. There had been nothing useful in Bluebeard’s chamber.

I stood up. “We’re leaving. My sons and I are leaving.”

To my amazement, nobody stopped me. I like to think it was my determination, but it may have had something to do with Max the Giant, waiting just outside the door.

While we were en route to our new apartment, Aurora alerted the press. When we arrived, they were already clustered outside the building, shouting, “Is it true that you’ve left Rob?”

For once I was happy to see them. Their watchful lenses kept me safe.

T
wo weeks later Cap, Leo, and I were comfortable in our new apartment. Gone was Rob’s cool, minimalist décor. Gone was Jordan’s disturbingly constant presence. Gone were Jake and his notepad of endless obligations. I filled the apartment (prewar! exposed brick!) with flowers and color, and let Cap put amphibian wall stickers in a march around the door of the living room. Everything was on a smaller scale, and the boys’ laughter filled the rooms.

What was the beginning of the story for everyone else was the end of it for me. Oh, the media was relentless, but the hardest part was over. I was out.

During the custody battle, the press had a field day. The stories came out, each worse than the next.

One day a man came up to me on the street and wished me strength. “I can only imagine what you’re going through,” he said. “Call me if you ever want to talk, human being to human being.” He handed me his card. Writer.
Rounder.

Somehow (damn her!) Aurora’s “Run, Lizzie, Run” T-shirt was leaked
and became a fashion item, reducing the most terrifying moment of my life into a pop culture joke.

Lexy did a photo shoot for
Rounder
. The accompanying article had Lexy saying that she and Rob had an amicable divorce. She thought he would make a wonderful primary caregiver for the boys. I couldn’t wait to see what luxury vacation Lexy would be taking next.

Ultimately, I got Cap and Leo. While the lawyers negotiated custody—in my favor—we both kept our sides of the bargain: One Cell sat on the tape of Allison and Pops didn’t release the nonexistent documents. Then, as everyone knows, Teddy Dillon (and her brother, Luther, whom I’d never actually seen) absconded with the funds that had been raised for the New York project and were now apparently living happily in Bhutan, which has no extradition policy. Geoff was left to face the Studio’s legal woes, and wound up with a fifteen-year prison sentence on federal fraud charges. At the time of this writing, the state sentence was still pending. The Studio is closed for good. ACE immediately bought the Beverly Hills headquarters and had a massive beach party before they put down wood floors in the practice rooms. My ex-husband had no comment. I could imagine Lotus advising him that it would blow over, like everything else. What I couldn’t imagine was what Rob told himself.

I can’t, and don’t, blame One Cell for the failure of my marriage. Ultimately it was one person’s fault: mine. I was younger than I knew when I signed on to a life in a megastar’s shadow and a love that was too good to be true.

America is still obsessed with the Studio, its Practice, its downfall, and Rob’s involvement with it. I don’t dwell on it. I simply saw the Studio as his safety net—a place where nothing was improvised, where the end justified the means. It made his complicated life simple, but it would have
made our boys’ simple lives too complicated. It’s hard for me to believe that Rob had no idea what went on with Meg and others at Fernhills. But I guess it’s also possible that he would relish the intensity of that experience. He would much prefer enduring a physical, mental challenge—the labor! the darkness! the silence!—to allowing his emotions free rein.

I dream about Rob (me and half of America), but in my dreams he’s never singing “Love of My Life” on bended knee or sweeping me into his arms or kissing me in front of a Venice sunset. The Rob of my dreams is mundane. He swats at a mosquito. He drops his car keys. He ties Cap’s shoes for him. He plays catch with Leo. Rob went to such lengths to win me with planning and poetry. But the Rob I longed for was at a loss for words.

Nowadays, Rob and I communicate through his new assistant, Marjorie. (Because the Jakes of this world eventually have nervous breakdowns and decide they have to follow their dreams: becoming production assistants.) Rob and I haven’t spoken at all, except for one polite hello when we came face-to-face at Sundance last year (which generated two weeks of tabloid drama). He never even called to find out what had gone wrong between us.

We arranged for Cap and Leo to see their father when he isn’t working, so long as it doesn’t interfere with school and I approve. Through Marjorie, I send frequent notes to Rob about the cute things the boys say, how quickly Cap is learning to read, and how Leo is the social director of his first-grade class. Rob doesn’t respond. I wish things were different. I want him to know that I loved him. I sometimes think if only he had publicly renounced the Studio, or if only he’d worked less for those first few years, or if we’d run away to New Zealand, we’d have had a chance to live together, to carve our way, to grow into our marriage, to find each other. But I couldn’t be an accessory to someone else’s perfect life. And I couldn’t let that happen to my sons.

I don’t know if Rob and I will ever reconnect. But I do have hope that
in some way, though he may never admit it, he understands my side of the story. Our divorce agreement included a confidentiality clause that forbade me to discuss (much less publish) details about our marriage. I chose not to agree to this clause. I crossed it off, and initialed it, as did Rob. To accomplish this, I relied on something I learned when we were married: Rob never reads his contracts. He flips through whatever his lawyers send him while he’s on the treadmill, diligently signing all the places with little sticky tabs reading “Sign here.” There is a very good chance that this negligence worked in my favor.

But there’s another possibility. Behind the page where I crossed off the confidentiality clause, I inserted a new, separate page into the document. It was nothing legal, just a note to my now ex-husband. The note was my attempt to bring us both closure, and it said many things, but the part that is relevant here read, “
You know.
You know exactly why I had to do this. It is hard to live as you do, and I couldn’t do it. I need to be in the real world. I need to be free. I couldn’t live your story, and I don’t want to live the story the press will write for me. I want the freedom to talk about myself. I’ve spent too much time trying to be what others want me to be. It’s my life. I can’t sign the right to talk about it away. Please, let’s both not have any more secrets.”

Did Rob read it? Did he agree with what I wrote? Did he think it was “great”? Is that why he initialed the crossed-out confidentiality clause? Or did he just let it happen? I don’t know the answer, but I hope against hope that the reason I own the right to tell my story is that Rob, a man I truly loved, decided to let us each have this freedom. For all his wealth and power, he, more than I, has already had to sacrifice so much.

When everything was agreed upon and signed, and all was said and done, I was free. It was an end, and it was a beginning. Instead of dressing and
doing hair and makeup to go get a coffee, now I just throw on a sweatshirt. The first time I was photographed like that, P. J., my publicist once again, called to applaud my savvy. The second time I wore that sweatshirt, the tabloids declared “Lizzie Losing It,” and I learned my lesson.

Without the Studio, Meg needed to find her own identity. At first, we thought it would work for her to stay on and work with me, but when the Studio fell apart, she went back to Fernhills to help her family and friends pick up the pieces. Her boyfriend is also a former practitioner. When last we spoke they were planning a trip to India.

Aurora visits us often, and her organization has been raising money for LifeHeartTruth, so we get to work together on that. She is still my best adviser, my constant text companion, and I was overjoyed to hear that she is expecting a baby girl. It may be selfish, but I love that she’s decided to be a single mother—we’re already making plans for her girl and my boys and us.

One day Johnny Flaim called. He was sober, allegedly, although every so often he was photographed in Vegas at three in the morning. But on the phone his familiar voice was gentle and full of concern.

“I’ve been worried about you, girl. Are you safe? Are you free?”

Tears sprang to my eyes and I pushed them away angrily. Why did I feel sorry for myself whenever anyone felt sorry for me? Johnny and I met for lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Lebanese restaurant in the East Village. My car waited outside, an incongruously pristine SUV idling illegally on the narrow street. Johnny spoke carefully, being supportive without probing, and I could see that in the past seven years my bad boy had grown up. Maybe he wanted to show me that, and maybe he thought we could have a second chance. But it felt like we were speaking two entirely different languages.

In 1917, Ernest Shackleton returned from his
Endurance
expedition to England. He had saved all of his men, but Antarctic heroism was of
little interest to a country in the midst of a bloody war. Shackleton went on the lecture circuit, tried unsuccessfully to repay his debts, drank a lot of whiskey, and died an early death.

I was no explorer. My adventures were domestic and climate controlled. But my years with Rob Mars had shaped me, sculpting such an irregular form that it was hard to imagine ever fitting next to anyone again. So,
Rounder
,
Starlight
,
Sheigh Moi
,
Glam
,
Tomorrow
, and every other “news” outlet, for once and for all: The answer is no, Johnny Flaim and I are not getting back together. (Love you, Johnny.)

My movie
The Safe House
went straight to video, all of its potential and all of Parker’s hard work for naught. This happens sometimes, and sometimes it isn’t because the biggest agency in Hollywood wants to appease its biggest star. The disappointment just thickened my skin. In meetings and in parties I shrugged and said, “It’s a tough business, but I’m really proud of the work I did.” Besides, I consoled myself, it was just another Hollywood movie about a white savior. No big loss. I recently accepted a part on Broadway, and for now that’s quite enough for me.

I am still an actor, and I love working hands-on with O Naturale on our cosmetic line, but mostly I’m a mother. When the boys and I took the subway for the first time, Leo was in heaven. The noise of it frightened Cap, and he started crying for our driver. In the moment I worried that the damage was already done—Cap was never going to be like other kids. But that night I let Max go, and now we take the subway all the time.

Cap and Leo were attending a real school, where they were just like all the other kids. Except for the private exit, down through the lunchroom, where our new babysitter led them out every day for that first year, in disguise, past the food trucks, until the fervor died down.

Cap is intense, like his father. When he is interested in something, he won’t give up until he nails it. (He recently traded his interest in turtles for
Matilda
, the musical, and his favorite pastime is belting out the songs
while staring at himself in the mirror.) The transition has been harder for Leo. Lately, when he doesn’t want to do something, he isn’t polite about it. (Though I swear he acts out in front of the cameras like he never does at home.) I try to handle his tantrums the same way every time, no matter if the world is watching. I’ve knelt down to talk to him while photographers snapped one thousand shots of my butt crack. He’s pulled my shirt to the side, exposing my bra. Believe me, the high-waisted jeans and ever-present camisoles are not fashion choices. They are safety measures.