The Life and Death of Sophie Stark (20 page)

“He can’t blame you for that,” I said. “He gave you permission.”

She shook her head. She used her empty taco container as a shovel to scoop a hill of sand.

“He didn’t know what he was getting into,” she said. “Neither did I. I keep thinking it’s going to be different, but it never is.”

She used her fork to draw a road up the hill, then stuck the fork in the top, a flag.

“Different how?” I asked.

She looked up at me then, and I recognized her face. It looked like mine in the mirror after I got the last of my stuff from Taylor’s house,
or after I finished eating brunch by myself in between two happy families, or after I came home from a night out at what used to be my favorite bar, now filled with people who would never be my friends.

“I thought making movies would make me more like other people,” said Sophie. “But sometimes I think it just makes me even more like me.”

Again I thought about Kat when she was twelve. I thought of the stories she’d shown me—the science teacher who discovers aliens in his backyard, the unpopular boy who turns into a tiger. I knew a good story when I saw one—I knew it wasn’t just because she was my daughter that I thought her writing was funny and surprising. I gave her pointers here and there, and I imagined doing this for years—mentoring her, helping her become the great writer I knew she could be—and then when her first book was published and dedicated to me, I could know I’d done something good with my life. But Kat had stopped showing me stories and, as far as I knew, stopped writing them. Now she was an anthropology grad student, the kind who studies old bones, and whenever I asked her about her work she just said, “It’s really technical,” as if I wouldn’t understand.

“Why would you want to be more like other people? You know how many other people can make movies as good as yours? I can think of maybe five who are working right now.”

She looked right at me as I talked. It didn’t embarrass her to be complimented.

“You have a responsibility,” I went on, “to make the best movies you can. It might cause problems along the way, but the value of what you make will outweigh all that. That’s what you’ll be remembered for.”

She smiled, and when she stood up, she looked taller than before,
her back straighter. I felt bigger, too, like I used to when I would lift Kat to pluck walnuts from the tree in our backyard. The sea and sky were blue-gray now, and everybody else had gone home; we could’ve been giants on that beach.

W
E MET WITH
S
TEVEN
, the head of development at Blackhorse Pictures, two days later. Sophie hadn’t booked a hotel, of course. I thought about booking one for her, but when she kicked off her shoes and curled up on my couch, I didn’t have the heart to make her leave. I was realizing that she needed more than a place to lie low; she needed taking care of. At night I could hear her from my bedroom, whimpering in her dreams.

She turned out to have brought decent clothes with her—dark jeans, a black blazer—which was a relief, because I had no idea where to take a young woman shopping. The morning of our meeting, she changed and slicked her hair back and put on red lipstick. She looked like a different person, cool and confident, like the first photos I’d ever seen of her, from the premiere of
Marianne
. In Steven’s waiting room, though, she seemed nervous, crossing and uncrossing her legs. I wasn’t worried. I knew that Steven was getting jealous of execs at other studios who were churning out Oscar contenders. I knew he’d been hurt when the
L.A. Times
called Blackhorse “a clearinghouse for faux-indie fare.” I figured that to him Sophie would mean credibility.

“I’m so excited to meet you,” Steven said to Sophie when the receptionist finally let us in. “I have a million questions.”

Then he wrapped me in a hug, which I’d come to expect but hadn’t entirely gotten used to. Steven and I had partied together
when we were younger, and he’d been a much bigger piece of shit than even I was. Once he brought an aspiring starlet, maybe twenty years old, to a big party in Runyon Canyon—he’d met her when she waited on him and his wife at a restaurant. He said that like it was something to be proud of; his wife was home that night, pregnant with their son. But then Steven turned forty and met his second wife, and suddenly he got wholesome. He quit cheating, quit doing coke, had two more kids, and now his office was full of their Little League trophies and pictures of the whole family vacationing in Bali. The charm that had gotten him laid when we were young had softened into this constant cheerleadery enthusiasm—his e-mails always included the word “psyched.” It made me feel tired, but clearly it worked—Steven was where I thought I’d be at fifty-five, and I was not.

“You have the coolest style,” he said to Sophie when we were seated facing the giant window in his office. Against the backdrop of the Hollywood Hills, he looked like he was on a nature show, an effect I’d always found unnerving. From old Steven the compliment would’ve been a come-on; new Steven just sounded like an eager fanboy.

“Thanks,” Sophie said, with no feeling. I liked that she didn’t bullshit him back; clearly she hadn’t learned the language of meetings, of sucking up. I was glad I could do that for her.

“Sophie’s so jazzed about
Isabella
,” I said. “Jazzed” was another word Steven liked. “She can’t wait to get started.”

“Neither can I,” he said. “I think this is such an amazing fit. Sophie, your sensibility is so raw and honest, and I’m so psyched to have you bring that to
Isabella
.”

Sophie just nodded. I wondered how she’d gotten this far without
learning even basic politeness. I assumed she’d been terrible in school. I, on the other hand, had always known how to kiss ass.

“Great,” I said. “I knew you were the right person to come to with this. Not everyone would understand what we have with this project, but I think you know it has the potential to be a really big deal, not just critically but commercially. And I think we can do it for thirty million.”

Steven’s smile got a little tighter.

“Remind me who you have attached for Isabella?”

This was the question I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask. I knew he’d want a big name to play her, and I’d sent the script out to five young actresses who were hot right then and who I thought would be interested in something period and highbrow. But nobody had committed yet, and I didn’t think anyone would until I could promise them real money. I’d been hoping to lock Steven down and then get the cast in place; now I was going to have to bluff him.

“Marisa Teal basically said yes,” I told him.

She hadn’t, but of the five she seemed the most likely. She’d done a couple of romantic comedies lately, and I knew she was looking for something that would make people take her seriously. Plus, I’d produced her breakout film; she’d played a young woman who moves to West Texas to escape an abusive husband and ends up managing a rodeo.

“‘Basically’?” asked Steven.

I felt stupid for assuming this would be easy. I’d just figured Steven would be as excited about Sophie as I was, but he’d gotten where he was by making lots of money for the studio. And it was true that Sophie had never worked with a significant budget, never had to make real money for anyone. I looked over at her; I could tell she was
anxious. Even though she was acting like she didn’t give a shit, I knew she wanted this. I tried again.

“She’s this close to committing,” I said. “I’m sure once we can tell her we’ve got funding, she’ll sign on right away.”

Steven nodded, but not encouragingly. He looked like he was humoring a little kid. I remembered one bad night in our twenties, getting kicked out of a club when Steven vomited on the wall. He was drunk and high and crying, and he kept saying, “I’m a shit. I’m a terrible person. I need to change my life.” And I’d held him up until we found a cab, held him while he shook and cried and talked about hating himself. Now he looked so smug, like he’d always been better than me, like he’d never been humbled.

“You just get Marisa on board,” he said, “and we’re good to go.”

Meaning that without Marisa we were nowhere.

“W
HAT DO WE DO NOW
?” Sophie asked.

We were driving down the 10, L.A.’s ugliest freeway, the city lying low and gray on both sides, but Sophie still had her face glued to the window like we were on safari.

“We get lunch with Marisa,” I said. “She’s my friend. We should be able to convince her.”

Again I was exaggerating—Marisa and I had a good professional relationship, but we weren’t friends. I hoped she felt like she owed me.

“I don’t want Marisa Teal,” Sophie said.

I’d been afraid of this—that she’d insist on Mieskowski or some other hyper-indie actress and cause a lot of trouble. I sighed.

“In order to get the funding we need to make the best movie—” I started.

But she interrupted me. “I want to talk to Veronica Dias.”

Veronica Dias wasn’t the name I’d been expecting. She was just coming off
Aero-Man
, and she’d been
Dude
magazine’s hottest woman of the year. She was definitely bankable; I just didn’t know if she could act.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.

“No,” Sophie said. “That’s why I want to talk to her. Do you know her?”

I knew Veronica a little—I’d met her at a couple of parties, and her agent was sort of a friend of mine. I found her anxious and fragile and full of herself.

“A little bit,” I said, “but—”

“Can we meet her?”

“I just don’t know if she’s right,” I said. “She’s never done a project like this before. And I don’t think she’s very easy to work with.”

“I need to see her to decide if she’s right.”

She was so certain all of a sudden, like she was snapping back into focus. It both reassured and bothered me; I wondered who was in charge.

“We can try to have lunch with her,” I said, “if you really want to.”

Sophie nodded like she was satisfied. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She looked out the window for a long time. We came up on the 405 and the traffic slowed way down. I wanted her to talk to me—every time she got quiet and distant, I felt like I was missing my chance to get to know her.

“Where’d your name come from?” I asked finally.

She didn’t answer right away, and I was worried I’d overstepped; I’d heard she wasn’t born Sophie Stark, but she’d never explained it in interviews. Maybe it was something she didn’t explain.

Then she yawned and pulled her knees up to her chest, her feet on the seat.

“When I was a kid, I used to go all over,” she said. “I’d sneak out of the house and go someplace, anyplace.”

“Me too,” I said, even though the only place I went was my friend Eddie’s, because he had comic books and sometimes, if we begged, his mom would take us to the movie theater and leave us there all day long.

“One time I took the bus to Chicago and went to the art museum. They had an exhibit of photos, and I’d never seen good photos before, like ones that weren’t just of someone’s birthday.”

I imagined her as a kid wandering through a big museum, except in my mind the kid Sophie looked just like Sophie now.

“There was one of this woman. It’s hard to describe. She was wearing a man’s suit and a hat, and she was looking right at the camera with this kind of half smile like she knew exactly how the photo was going to turn out and it was going to be great. I remember I just looked at the photo and I thought,
Yes, this is how I’m going to be
. And the card next to it said ‘
Self-Portrait
, by Sophie Stark.’”

“That’s amazing,” I said. “So there’s a single photograph out there that completely inspired you? Have you met the artist? You two should do a project together.”

I was already imagining a joint show, a retrospective of Sophie’s films with the other Sophie’s photos in the lobby.

“I tried to find her last year,” Sophie said. “I just wanted to see what her life was like. But I couldn’t even find the photo again. When I search for the name, I just get me.”

I was disappointed. I wanted to know where Sophie came from.
Still, I told her, “Maybe you don’t need her anymore. What you do, it’s a lot harder than taking a great photo. I know you’ve had a rough time recently, but to me it looks like you’re doing great.”

She turned to look at me, and for a second I saw a new expression on her face, just for a second, open and hopeful, like a kid excited to be praised. I could’ve thrown my arms around her, I was so happy to be getting through. Then she turned away. When I looked at her again, she seemed to be concentrating, like she was doing math.

“Why do you live by yourself?” Sophie asked.

I could’ve been offended, but she’d asked the question in her flat voice, with no judgment and no pity. It was strange to hear my life questioned so coolly. And I wanted to keep her talking; I wanted to see her face open up again.

“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling.

“I mean, you’re friendly and everything. You were nice to that guy back there, even though he was kind of a dick. How come you don’t have a wife or whatever?”

For someone who didn’t understand people, she was good at getting right to what would hurt me. At the same time, I wanted to answer her. After Taylor kicked me out, I’d had no one to ask me what had happened, how I was. I called Kat, and she listened silently for a few minutes before saying, “Pardon me if I don’t have much sympathy for you.”

“I was living with my girlfriend,” I said to Sophie. “She was a little younger—well, twenty years younger. We’d been together three years, and I always assumed we’d get married someday, but I hadn’t done anything about it. Then one day she told me she’d decided she didn’t want to be with me anymore, so she kicked me out.”

Sophie didn’t say anything, but when I took my eyes off the road to see if she was listening, she was looking at me with total concentration.

“I told her I loved her, we should get married. I said I’d get her a ring and we’d go to France for the honeymoon. And she looked at me kind of sadly, and she said, ‘I don’t want to marry you.’”