Picture Perfect

Will and Arden had made a film together, a big-budget action movie, two years earlier, when Arden was a mere twenty years old. Will had played her father. The film had done well at the box office, although Elliot and Maggie had watched it at her house and laughed at Arden trying to make a mediocre script sound like Chekov.

Maggie glanced at Arden’s ensemble for the evening: a mess of black leather and tulle, with a black lipstick that only accentuated her thin lips. It wasn’t that Arden was unattractive—she had a certain Euro-chicness about her with her blue-black hair—it was just that she looked mean. She looked like she would throw a sack of kitten in a lake and not turn back, Elliot had once said, and Maggie knew just what he meant. Elliot knew people, it was a shame his father didn’t have the same sixth sense.

Arden pushed in between Stella and Will. ‘Is it true you’re going to be my new leading man?’ she purred. ‘We could be the next Julia and Richard.’

Maggie rolled her eyes. She knew Arden was hoping to topple her from her pedestal and had gone from playing edgy, asexual roles to a recent part in a romantic tragedy.

‘Arden, what are you talking about?’ Will asked impatiently, draining his wine and waving the empty glass at a waiter for a new one.

‘I had lunch with Zoe’s old assistant Josh,’ she said knowingly. ‘He told me all about the film.’

Maggie, Will and Arden all shared a manager but Zoe was, and would always be, Maggie’s closest friend and confidante.

‘According to Josh, Zoe wants to know if I’m interested in the role. I knew she was seeing the big four studios, but I kind of guessed she’d go with Jeff, he’s a class act, despite what people say about him as a person.’ She looked at Maggie pointedly. ‘I always think it’s important to judge people on their talent, not their reputation.’

Maggie smiled. ‘I always think it’s important not to judge people,’ she said politely.

Arden looked like she knew she had lost that round and she turned back to Will, touching his chest with one black-leather-gloved hand.

‘Let me know if you’re going to be my leading man, Will;

I certainly hope so,’ she said in a feverish voice, which made Maggie glance at Stella and make a face. It wasn’t easy being with Will. Women loved him, and girls like Arden would always be using him for the next career move.

But what was the role Arden was talking about? Her brain was screaming. Will was a superb actor, at the top of his game right now. If there was a film he was being considered for, Maggie wanted to know. The only part of their marriage that worked was when they talked about work and although Zoe managed both of them, Maggie still felt proprietary towards Will and his career moves.

The movie he made with Arden had been something Maggie and Zoe had thought was a bad idea, which proved to be true at the box office. She didn’t want Will to make any more stupid choices—God knows he had made enough of them over the years.

Arden swanned off towards Bradley Cooper, and Maggie turned to Will.

‘What role is she talking about? She seems thrilled to have the chance to work with you.’ Maggie imitated Arden’s breathy delivery.

Will scoffed and took a large slug of wine. ‘As I said to Zoe, if you think I’m interested in the book that was responsible for ending my marriage, then you’re kidding yourself.’

Maggie gasped. ‘Zoe’s casting The Art of Love?’

‘Casting?’ exclaimed Will. ‘She’s trying to produce it as well, which is why I guess she was sitting with Jeff. I heard she signed that sad sack writer you love so much.’

Maggie clutched the stem of her glass and nodded. ‘Excuse me,’ she said and rushed to the bathroom.

Pushing open the door, she was grateful to see the plush bathroom was unoccupied except for the bathroom attendant.

Zoe had signed Hugh Cavell? She wanted to produce The Art of Love and hadn’t told her? Why hadn’t she asked her to be involved? They did everything together.

This was how they had rolled for twenty years and now Zoe was keeping secrets.

Christ, she was the one who had introduced Zoe to the goddamned book.

It was the most profound and beautiful book about love that Maggie had ever read, not that she had read many books. Hell, she had cried over this book, bought copies for everyone she knew and then walked out of her marriage.

She wanted what the author and his wife had had in The Art of Love, and nothing less.

The author had nursed his wife through cancer, had seen her through her best and worst, and he spoke of his wife in a way that Maggie doubted any man had ever spoken of her. It was her greatest desire to meet Hugh Cavell and learn from him everything she needed to know about love, and how to have a decent relationship.

She had even told Zoe all this. It was only now that Zoe’s reaction at the time made sense.

‘Maybe he doesn’t want to be some sort of relationship guru,’ she had said. ‘He’s just a journalist who wrote a memoir, I don’t think he’s really able to offer anything else beyond this.’

Zoe must have already met him by this stage.

The treachery of Zoe excluding Maggie from this deal made her both confused and angry as she faced her reflection in the mirror.

She was still beautiful, she was still slim and elegant, but there were subtle changes around her eyes, tiny highways of lines. All roads lead to Hollywood, she thought as she pulled at one to see if she should consider a facelift, but she couldn’t concentrate on her own reflection, so she knew she was upset.

Zoe knew she wanted to play Simone, she had told Zoe this when she’d given her the book. Even though Maggie was the wrong side of thirty-five and Simone was only thirty when she died, Maggie could still play younger—

The bathroom door opening interrupted her thoughts as another attendant came in to relieve the first one. Maggie watched the new girl in the mirror as she straightened the perfume bottles and made sure the hand towels were perfectly lined up.

She was beautiful, Maggie thought with envy, as she looked back at the mirror, aware of the slight crêping of the skin on her décolletage in the light. She stood taller and pulled her shoulders back.

Maybe Zoe had decided that she, Maggie Hall, was too old to play Simone? The thought hit her like a slap to the face.

‘Are you an actress?’ she asked the girl. Girls like this worked industry parties for any opportunity, each girl seemingly more lithe, beautiful and willing than the one before.

This girl would have more luck in the men’s bathroom, thought Maggie wryly.

‘No,’ said the girl, in a voice that was husky and low, the voice many voice-over artists wished they had. The girl was a complete package.

‘Really?’ she asked, surprised.

The girl shook her blond head and shrugged. She could have been a model, thought Maggie, taking in the long slender frame and startling green eyes.

‘So what do you do?’ asked Maggie, intrigued.

She must be the only beautiful girl in LA who doesn’t want to be an actress, she thought, almost laughing aloud at the irony. The girl reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t quite place her.

The girl paused. ‘I’m working on a research project,’ she said vaguely.

‘Oh, you’re at college?’

‘Kind of. I’m working on a thesis of sorts.’

Beautiful and smart, thought Maggie, as she turned back to the mirror. Beautiful and dumb had far more currency in LA, but still.

‘I never went to college, but I would have liked to,’ said Maggie.

‘You seem to have done okay without it,’ the girl said with a little laugh.

‘I guess I have,’ said Maggie, smiling along with her. ‘Do you work this kind of event often?’ she asked, wondering why she cared.