“You were so young. To act in such deeply emotional scenes—that one where your father dies…”
“I was nine,” he said, with more bitterness than he intended. “It wasn’t acting.”
“What was it?”
“That scene gets played over and over, but I can’t watch it. It wasn’t acting—it was Franklin Ross emotionally abusing a kid for months, then filming the breakdown.”
“That’s terrible.”
“When I was little, I had speech problems—a lisp, a stutter, other stuff. My parents must have paid a fortune for the best surgeons, the best speech therapists… Years of work, and I was so self-conscious—I envied kids who chatted away like speaking was no effort at all. And then came that movie… I didn’t even want to do it—I was so shy, partly because of the speech impediment—but I was never aware of an option to say no. My parents thought it would bring me out of my shell, build my confidence. That ‘cute’ lisp I have in it? It was pure terror of Franklin Ross. I got the stutter back too. After filming wrapped, I had to learn to speak all over again.”
“Holy shit.”
“And then I get this fucking Oscar nomination. I was terrified that I’d win and have to go up and speak and wouldn’t be able to spit out a word.”
“Your parents didn’t put a stop to that—the abuse?”
“They didn’t know, but I doubt they would have interfered. They’re all for us ‘exploring our humility.’ And it was a different era. I had a chaperone, but everyone worshiped Franklin Ross.It’s old-school shit—this idea that to be an actor you need to get torn apart until your soul is raw and bleeding.”
“I’m surprised you kept acting.”
“I don’t know if there was ever a point where I chose it. I got offered roles, and I said yes because I thought it would be ungrateful not to. And with Franklin Ross out of the way, I discovered I liked pretending to be other people, people more confident than me. Fortunately, that was his last film, so no one else had to go through that shit, well not with him.”
“I’m so sorry, Griffin.”
He shook his head, sadly. “I got off lightly. But whenever I hear an account of abuse in this industry, I believe it. That’s the story of Hollywood—addiction, abuse, obsession. People preying on others—like these blackmailers.”
“Is that why you set up that foundation?”
“I didn’t set it up, just found some people who are good at that stuff and gave them seed money—and an ongoing income.”
“And this is something you keep secret?”
“It’s not about me—it can’t be about me. Anyway, eat.”
That wasdefinitelyenough about him. Why did he keep feeling compelled to tell her stuff he never shared with anyone? It was going to get him in trouble.
They landed at an airstrip at a town he hadn’t heard of before that morning. A rental car was waiting. It had rained and the sky was dull, but he kept his cap and sunglasses on. This might feel like a different country, with its yellow-green fields and tree-covered hills, but remote places could be even worse when it came to being hassled.
“Even the air smells green,” he said, lowering the driver’s window as they left the airstrip.
“It’s the light I notice most.” Lana let down her ponytail and shook out her hair. “I always feel like places have auras. Here it’s like a blue-green tinge. In L.A. it seems bright white—even whenit’s hazy. Or it’s this yellow, sunshiny feel.” She looked out her window. The looming conversation with her parents obviously weighed on her, but she suited this environment. Maybe it was the pale skin and dark hair. “I miss the seasons, the summer rain. The dryness in L.A. makes me thirsty. I have this feeling there’s a layer of dust on my hands.” She rubbed her palms together. “It’s wild to be here so quickly. It’s usually such a long trip that you slowly acclimatize. Feels like we’ve snapped our fingers and here we are, in this other world.”
Griffin’s phone beeped. He got Lana to check it before they lost coverage.
“It’s from Darnell,” she said. “‘Found something big. Come to mine.’ Should I call him?”
“He’ll never tell us over the phone. Tell him we’ll drop by early evening, as soon as we land.”
“‘Something big,’” she repeated, tapping out a reply. “He said he was going to track Vivien’s last movements.” She sent the message. “I really want her back, Griffin. I know that’s obvious, but … all this stuff about Walter Shepherd and our aunt being our mother. That’s something we should be dealing with together. Why didn’t she tell me?”
Lana turned away, staring so deliberately out the passenger window that he guessed she was fighting tears. He did what she did for him earlier—reached out and took her hand.
“I still can’t wrap my head around all this.” Lana looked at him, her eyes indeed glistening. “It reframes everything.Everything. My infiltrator feeling, Vivien’s need to belong. It’s like she’s spent her life searching for something—people she belongs to, a place she belongs in. How much of our lives, the people we turned out to be, tracks back to that? My whole career is about not fitting in.”
“How so?”
“I hung out in the library because I didn’t feel like I fit. Vivien became a people pleaser and I became a mouse, hiding in the cracks. Even with the commune kids, I didn’t fit. They were mostly either religious defenders of the lifestyle, or rebels, and both groups were all you’re-either-with-us-or-against-us. Vivien would lurch between the two, while I was stranded in between. Mom once suggested I start a book club at school, to find like-minded kids.”
