Weller appeared to be coming right toward them. Dan blanched. Maddy looked over her shoulder to see if there was someone famous behind them, but there was no one there. He extended his hand to Maddy and said, “I loved your performance.”
His palm was warm and rougher than she expected, the hand of a man who might use a rowing machine without gloves. He kept his eyes on her for a long moment, and she couldn’t decide whether he was flirting with her or was one of those people who flirted with everyone. Celebrity was automatic sexual charisma.
“And you, sir,” he said to Dan, “are a very talented director.”
“I, sir, am very uncomfortable right now,” Dan said, and gave a nervous laugh.
“There were so many little moments,” Weller said. “Like when Heather is at the bar and she kisses the one guy and then kisses the other. The rhythm. It was like a piece of music. And the subject matter—to me, it was about the futility of long-term friendship.” Maddy was impressed that Weller had not only seen the movie but had insight about it. “And the fact that they’re women,” he went on, “but their breakup is not about sex per se, is all the more interesting. Usually in film, when two women have a falling-out, it’s over a man. It was brave of you not to turn it into that.”
“Wow, you really got our movie,” Maddy said, immediately wanting to kick herself for saying “wow.”
“I want to ask you about one of the scenes,” he said, turning to Maddy. Other guests were glancing at them, curious that these nobodies were monopolizing his attention. It was embarrassing. She wanted to release him back into the fold of successful people, where he belonged. “You know the fight they have after the rehearsal dinner?” he continued. “There was this moment when it looked like you were breaking. What was that about?”
Maddy knew the moment he meant. It was part of a long monologue, and she and Kira had done a few takes, but Dan wasn’t happy. He kept saying that the scene lacked nuance. Maddy had been getting frustrated when she remembered a lesson from one of her professors: The best auditions contained an element of surprise. In the next take, she threw in a smile right after the line “You never cared about me.” Almost as though Alice didn’t believe her own words. The smile had enraged Kira, and the take had contained an energy that the other takes lacked. When they finished, Dan had said, “That’s the one.”
“I wasn’t breaking,” she told Weller. “I was playing the contempt instead of the hurt.”
“I hope everyone’s hungry,” Bridget said, gesturing toward the dining room. Zack and Bridget walked ahead, leaving Weller, Dan, and Maddy behind. Maddy could see Zack whispering furiously at his mother, but when Bridget glanced back at Maddy, she smiled.
As they turned toward the dining room, Weller’s arm brushed Maddy’s through his soft blue sweater. Her whole body came awake, even though all she had touched was alpaca.
In the dining room, a long distressed walnut table was set for twenty. Maddy took Dan’s hand and led him toward two empty seats, but Weller said, “Bridget had place cards made up. Dan is next to me.” Dan glanced at Maddy anxiously. “Maddy, you’re next to Lael.”
Weller led Dan toward one end of the table, and Maddy spotted Lael Gordinier at the opposite end. Siberia. She didn’t like that Dan would be so far away. She wanted to experience the party with him. But Lael was a jury member, which meant she would judge the competition films. It could be useful to sit next to her. She could help their film.
After the two women introduced themselves, Maddy said, “I really liked your work in Die Now.” It was a neo-noir in which Lael seduced her ob-gyn into killing her husband. Lael had a reckless bravado that she brought to all her roles. She also brought her voluptuous and much discussed figure.
“I was so fucking young,” Lael said, staring ahead mordantly.
“Wasn’t it, like, two years ago?”
“Yeah, but I was emotionally immature.” Suddenly, Lael pivoted toward Maddy and said, “Your movie rocks. I’m very threatened by you.” She said it like she could be either joking or serious. “It was brave how you didn’t wear makeup.”
“I did wear makeup.”
“Oh.”
At the opposite end of the table, Weller was speaking intently to Dan. Over the din, Maddy heard Weller say, “She’s looking for what’s best and what’s next,” and gathered it was industry-speak. She knew Dan didn’t care about the business—or at least he hadn’t before Mile’s End—but now he seemed transfixed.
Weller caught Maddy’s eye, and she turned toward Lael, not wanting to appear to gawk. On Lael’s other side was a rangy model turned actress, also in her twenties, Taylor Yaccarino. The women were talking about some actor Maddy had never heard of, with whom they had both played recent love scenes. “He always pops wood,” Lael was telling Taylor. “No one told you?”
“No!”
“Oh God, it’s the worst. Then he spreads rumors that the sex was real. It’s disgusting.”
“You think he’s telling people we did it?” Taylor asked, seeming horrified. “That’s crazy. He had a cup.”
“He probably put Vaseline in there to excite himself,” Lael said.
Soon the women had moved on to industry gossip and a film for which they had auditioned. Maddy thought she heard Taylor say “Husbandry.”
“I didn’t know you went in for that,” Lael said.
“Yeah. I thought I would just put myself on tape, but he only does face-to-face, so I flew to London.”
“Me too,” Lael said. “I heard they’ve been casting for a year. I don’t think it’s going to get made.”
Servers were coming around with the amuse-bouche, a creamy squash soup. The table had gotten quiet. Weller was telling a story, and the guests wore the same hyper-alert expression Maddy had seen on the faces at the opening-night party. The story was about a television star named Clay Murphy who had been mocked several years before for having written a novel that became a New York Times best seller despite its abysmal reviews. “So Clay had to give a speech at a book fair,” Weller was saying. “And he asked me for help with his speech. He said he wanted it to be about his love of reading. He told me his favorite writer was Ayn Rand.” The group chuckled snarkily. “So he says to me, ‘Steven, I think I’m going to lead with the story about buying my signed first edition of Atlas Shrugged. What do you think?’
“Well, Clay is a sweet guy,” Weller continued, “and I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I know if he says that, he’s going to look like an idiot in front of these literary types. So I say, ‘Clay, I’m not sure that’s a good idea.’ He says, ‘Why not?’ I think for a second and I say, ‘It’s still so controversial.’ He pauses a second and goes, ‘I understand.’ ”
Everyone howled with laughter. It was a funny story, obviously delivered many times before. Maddy watched Dan sit higher in his seat as though soaking up adoration by association.
After the four-course dinner, guests mingled in the living room over liqueur and dessert wine. Maddy grabbed a glass, and after spotting Dan alone on a couch, she went to him. “So tell me all about Taylor and Lael,” he said. “That sounds like a folk duo.” He was sipping from a glass of something green.
“Horrifying,” Maddy said quietly. “They spent half the time talking about how awful it was to do sex scenes and the other half talking about every famous guy in Hollywood they’ve fucked. But Lael loves our movie.”