When the movie was over, he said softly, “I want Walter to read her.”
“I knew you would,” Bridget said. He could tell she wanted to say “I told you so” but was holding herself back.
He moved to the window, looked out at the mess of pine trees. They’d had several near misses for the role, but casting was ninety percent of a project, and he was unwilling to compromise. Ellie had to show sexiness, determination, and sadness. They couldn’t cast just anyone. Audiences needed to feel there was no one else on earth who could play her.
It would be hard to make much headway at the party with the boyfriend there to distract her, but he was emboldened by the challenge. Though Steven Weller had many talents, one of his greatest was his ability to connect with men.
3
The car that ferried Dan and Maddy to Bridget’s lodge was a large black gas-guzzling SUV. On the ride, Dan stewed about the competition. An NYU classmate, Bryan Monakhov, had already gotten his film acquired by Apollo Classics: Triggers, a Jewish-gangster crime caper set in Brownsville, Brooklyn, during the 1930s. Monakhov had won Best Dramatic Feature before, for a mother-son incest picture. Dan was worried the early deal would hurt I Used to Know Her’s chances, because the studio had only a finite amount to spend.
But that morning’s screening had twice the audience of the first. The reviews had come out—in its roundup, The New York Times had called I Used to Know Her “a pitch-perfect study of the pleasures and pains of female friendship,” and Variety had cited “two knockout performances and a spare smart script.” The L.A. Times review was mixed, saying that Dan was “more comfortable as a writer than a director, framing his shots with little originality.” Dan was furious, and Maddy felt protective, but she told him to focus on the other two.
With the reviews had come other firsts: Two agents had given her cards after screenings, and she was scheduling coffees. Nancy Watson-Eckstein was a self-assured, petite, African American woman who worked at Original Talent Associates. The other, Galt Gurley, was an anemic-looking older white woman at United Creative. Maddy couldn’t believe that she could have a choice.
Reid had authorized a few interviews for the cast, and Maddy was taken aback when an indie-film blogger brought up the Special Jury Prize for Acting. Maddy laughed and said she had no chance because their film was too small. But then she couldn’t help it: She imagined herself holding up the award at the Mountain Way Theater. It was a variation on the old Oscar-acceptance fantasy she’d had as a girl. Except in those fantasies, her father was in the audience, cheering her on.
Her dad was the reason she had grown up in Potter, which, in a way, was the reason the film had gotten made. A Jewish Philadelphian, Jake Freed had gone to Dartmouth, where he met Maddy’s mother, née Dorothy McHale, in an Eastern Religion class. They discovered Potter on a road trip with friends, and Jake fell in love with the Northeast Kingdom. After graduation, he sent out his résumé for teaching jobs and landed a position as an English teacher at the Potter Ski Academy, a private school that churned out Olympians. Dorothy was a nurse in nearby St. Johnsbury before she got sick with breast cancer; she died when Maddy was seven.
Jake’s memorial had been packed with all the friends and family members who were in such high spirits during the shoot. Many cast and crew members came, wanting to pay their respects. Neighbors stood at the podium and told stories of his generosity—letting kids crash at the Freed house when they were going through rough patches, caring for a fellow teacher who became ill. Jake Freed was a thinker, a teacher, a mensch. People like him weren’t supposed to drop dead in their sixties. He made too many people happy.
The SUV ascended a steep hill and Maddy felt the familiar grief welling inside her. In the dark of the backseat, she reached for Dan’s hand, but he was studying his phone. She tried to snap herself out of her reverie by imagining the dinner. Weller would be there, undoubtedly, and Cady Pearce. Probably other stars, too. It was one thing to hostess people like this at La Cloche, another to dine next to them.
The SUV pulled up to two stone pillars and a gate, which opened as if by magic. Maddy wondered who controlled the gate—a guard, unseen in a little booth behind the house, like the man in The Wizard of Oz.
A snaking driveway let them out at a parking lot where a dozen luxury cars were already stationed. She worried she and Dan were out of their league. At the door, a girl in a knee-length parka searched a clipboard for their names. The entryway had huge stone columns and picture windows with views of the forest.
They checked their coats—what kind of hostess had a coat check person in her home?—and made their way into a living area decorated with moss art and a slate fireplace. Tall steel candlesticks flickered on small finished tree trunks.
Dan edged over to the freestanding bar to get their drinks while Maddy took in the assembled guests: the star of Triggers, Munro Heming, the rising sandy-haired heartthrob who spoke like Marlon Brando; Ed Handy; Todd Lewitt, the director of The Widower, who dressed like a 1970s computer programmer; and Lael Gordinier, a redheaded late-twenties actress who specialized in femmes fatales. As Maddy accepted a glass of chardonnay from Dan, she felt like she was in a scene in a movie about Mile’s End.
A handsome young guy with slicked-back hair came over and Dan introduced him as Bryan Monakhov. “Crazy to see you guys here,” Bryan said. “I didn’t know you knew Bridget.”
“Well, we do,” Dan said tightly.
“Congratulations on your acquisition,” Maddy said, hoping Bryan wouldn’t notice Dan’s scowl.
“I’m going to try to catch your movie,” Bryan said. “Good luck with the screenings. I’m rooting for you, man. That’s why I come here. The brotherhood of celluloid.”
“I think that was a gay doc here a couple years ago,” Dan said.
“Good one,” said Bryan. “You are one funny cat.”
Bryan went to greet a partygoer, and then Bridget strode over and kissed Dan and Maddy, each on both cheeks, as though they were old friends. She was wearing a royal blue organza skirt that flared out at the ankles. “You are an absolute wonder,” she said to Maddy. “It was so original and so moving. Dan, you are such an actor’s director.” Maddy was surprised; she hadn’t seen Bridget at any screenings.
“I really appreciate that,” Dan said, his voice steady.
Zack came over. “I was just telling them how great the film is,” Bridget said to him.
“You went to a screening?” Zack said.
“Ed sent me a screener,” she said. “Steven watched it, too.” Maddy couldn’t imagine why Steven Weller would be interested.
“So what did Steven think?” Dan asked shamelessly.
“Absolutely loved it,” Bridget said.
“How did you get him to see a little film like ours?” Dan asked.
“He does whatever I tell him—though many years ago, I told him never to act in a movie with the word ‘bombs’ in the title.”
Zack started to say something but was drowned out by Weller’s loud chuckle. He was moving through the room as he had at the Entertainer, clapping guests on the back. Maddy waited for the girlfriend to emerge just behind him, but this time he was alone. Cadyless.