The article speculates on her identity (local girl? summer romance?). In the photo she looks bedraggled and weak, and of course it was her body that did this, that ruined their perfect isolation. Tenderly, he had carried her back to the house, stuck her in bed, made her large mugs of herbal tea.
“Come on, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine, you had a panic attack.”
The article goes on to talk about Orson’s fall feature, the alleged sparks between him and his costar. It turns her stomach. She hates that love is his trade; that he can produce it so easily for anyone.
She scrolls. The Orson Grey fan club is trying to identify her, posting all of the ridiculous things they would do to get him to rescue them.
i would turn into a giant trout if he would hold me like that
i would sell my voice to an octopus sea witch
full ophelia vibez
“Stop reading that,” he snaps. They look at each other gravely. He is growing long, ugly sideburns for a period piece he will start filming atthe end of fall. It’s uncanny; his face no longer quite the face she fell in love with. “Sorry,” he says. “But Vi, we need to be ahead of this.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re going to be on the lookout. If we don’t control the story, they’re going to control it for us.”
“Well, what if we don’t give them anything to see?”
His face falls and this is the wrong suggestion.
“Come on, let’s do something nice,” she says, sitting up, touching his chest. It was her fault, and now it’s her responsibility to fix this, to reconjure the magic of the two of them, a world without judgment. But they cannot go for a walk down Main Street. They cannot go to the beach or the ice cream shop.
“We could play some cards,” she suggests. “We could play some music.”
Orson places his head against the wall. “This was supposed to be about getting to know your places,” he says. “We could go up and talk to your family. If that’s the thing.”
“It’s not the thing.”
But it is. One of so many things.
“Look, I don’t know your dad. But I know he can be difficult.”
“No, you don’t know him,” she snaps. What is he trying to say? It’s unfair enough that he knows her mother—he cannot claim her father too.
“What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think it’s good for you. For us. All this hiding. I mean, it’s been wonderful, being a grinch with you. But you’ve got your whole life, Viola. I mean, you hardly see your friends. You hardly even run anymore. I feel like—I don’t know. I’m just worried.”
Outside, a robin is singing. Love, she has discovered, is entirely unlike film. In film, love is beset with external obstacles: good-looking rivals, warring families, natural disasters. Real love manufactures its own obstacles: needs, strains, arguments lost and unspoken. Orson taps his foot against the floor.
“You know,” he says, “when your mom was pregnant, she didn’t want to tell anyone at the studio.”
Viola sighs and gathers herself. Imagines her mother, hiding her. “God. Why?”
“She thought she’d get fired.”
“Wow. It’s a jungle out there.”
“It was mad. But she loved her work.”
“I mean, they were going to find out, obviously, eventually.”
“Don’t you think that sounds familiar?”
She has never welcomed the future. Too inevitable. Too full of endings. “Yeah,” she admits softly.
