“I’ll get Griffin.” Lana ran her fingers through her hair, wet and tangled from the shower. “He’s over at the house, talking to?—”
“No need.” Estelle raised a slim, elongated hand, the pale-pink crescent nails backlit by the sun. “I’ll wait. Mitch let me in. I’m still on the green list at security, surprisingly. I thought Griffin would have deleted me by now. It was madness coming in. Next there’ll be headlines about a love triangle.”
Lana righted the fallen bar stool, and found herself clinging to the back of it. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not here to check out the competition, Lana, if that’s what you’re thinking. I have information that might prove useful to your situation.”
“My … situation.”
“Your sister’s situation.”
“How do you know?—?”
“Let’s wait. Save me repeating it for Griffin.” Estelle crossed her legs, slowly and gracefully, like she meant to draw attention to them. “So you infiltrated the set?”
“I … uh … wanted to see if I could find information. About Vivien.”
Estelle smiled, a deliberate reveal of perfect teeth. “I see that’s not all you infiltrated. Well done, you. He never invites people in here. To his parents’ home, on occasion. But this is his sanctuary.” She looked at the ceiling, as if the answer to some question was written there. “He trusts you.” She spoke as if it were a thing of wonder. “Griffin trusts nobody.” She lowered her gaze to meet Lana’s. “I’m intrigued. You’re not his usual style.”
So everyone reminded her. “Oh, we’re not together,” Lana said, hating herself for feeling like she had to explain, to deny. She wasn’t answerable to this woman, so why was she acting like her prey? The Bond girl had caught Miss Moneypenny in bed with the hero.
Estelle’s eyebrows rose in perfect black arches. “But then he does have a hero complex. I don’t mean that as a bad thing—he’s one of the good guys, for sure—but he doesn’t always protect himself like he should. He can afford to be a good guy, of course, because he has power. But he chooses very carefully where he uses it. He can’t resist stepping in to be the hero in a narrative about injustice, and he can’t resist a damsel in distress.”
Estelle rose, not via any obvious effort on her part, but as if lifted by an invisible wire. She wandered—glided—toward the windows that faced the view. Nothing seemed subconscious; she did everything meaningfully. Her sentences seemed scripted, her movements so poised they could be choreographed. People who insisted that celebrities were regular folk hadn’t met these ones. Only two days ago, Lana had watched Griffin and Estelle kiss, again and again. Now, that seemed perverse. With most of the blinds closed, the room suddenly felt very narrow.
“Do you know,” Estelle continued, “they wanted to cast a nineteen-year-old for my role inGods and Mortals?” Lana went to answer but Estelle kept talking. “I’m twenty-nine, so I’m getting offered mom roles.”
“At twenty-nine?”
“Oh god, yes. Not mother-of-the-bride, not quite. But school mom, for sure—and there’s no coming back from that. But you know what Griffin did? Not only did he insist they cast someone nearer his age, but he demanded I get paid the same as him. And do you know what happened?”
Again, she paused, but Lana didn’t bother responding. It seemed clear her role in this scene was as a silent extra.
“They took it seriously, because this is a guy who doesn’t play into the bullshit. He doesn’t have to play the game like the rest of us. The game is played around him, to suit him. Which is why some people hate him.” She thought for a few seconds, before clarifying. “Oneof the reasons. If they only knew…”
She paused, as if it was Lana’s turn to speak. Her line. Lana couldn’t think of a thing to say—she didn’t understand where this was going.
Estelle turned and took in Lana, linking her fingers behind her back. “Whatever happened between Griffin and me, I owe him. Not because ofGods and Mortals, but because of the hack.”
“The hack?” Was Estelle the friend Griffin had mentioned—the one whose messages were hacked?
“You don’t know?” Her surprise seemed genuine.
Lana shook her head.
“Imagine all your private messages going online—the entire history. Thousands and thousands of them, going back years. Every time you’ve bitched to a friend about someone. Every time you’ve let off steam in what you thought was a safe place.” Estelle drifted to one of the alcoves in the wall and picked up a vase, slowly revolving it as if she were sculpting it. “I lost a lot of friends. Came close to being blacklisted. But the thing that saved me? Becoming the Hollywood bitch made me perfect for the Hollywood ice king. Griffin’s idea. He felt sorry for me—he hates that kind of gossip pile-on—so he had our agents set us up, publicly. And the craziest thing? Some of the bitchiest messages I sent were about him. He could have hung me out to dry.”
She smiled wryly, returning the vase and subtly adjusting the angles of the ceramics. “But Griffin’s Griffin.” She said it almost resentfully. “His support changed the tone, and our relationship changed the conversation.” She strolled toward Lana, glancing at the sketchpad on the coffee table with a nostalgic smile. “People think when you’re famous, they can say anything about you. But actors are by definition vulnerable. Vulnerability is what makes a good actor. And the system preys on vulnerability. It smells it and seeks it out and destroys it at the source.” She touched the center of her chest. “Like Franklin Ross did to Griffin.”
Franklin Ross. The director in palliative care. “What do you mean? What happened?”
“Oh, that’s Griffin’s story to tell—if he wants to. My point is, I owe him.”
“And this has something to do with Vivien?”
“Again, I’ll wait.” Estelle folded herself over the counter, bringing her closer to Lana. “The problem with Griffin?” she said, lowering her voice. “Even while he does all these things, these heroic things that make you think you mean something to him, he won’t let you in. You’ll ache to be let in, but he won’t. He’s a difficult man to love, both because of who he is and what he is. You can’t know him. He’s unknowable. And that’s the main attraction.” She smiled, slowly. “And yet, everyone wants him. It’s not enough for people to watch him on the screen, admire him from afar. There’s this primal desire in the communal psyche—to own him, have a piece of him that’s yours, like a coveted jewel. But it’s complicated. Sometimes, in this business, it feels like half the world worships you and the other half wants to tear you apart with their fingernails. They love him but they can’t have him, so they have an urge to destroy him—or destroy what’s his.” She let her gaze drop to Lana’s bare feet, and raked it slowly back up.
“Mom is looking through the names…” Griffin’s voice startled Lana, but Estelle merely raised her eyes to the open doorway. “But there is one other weird thing she—” He stopped dead. “Estelle!”
