Chapter 10 INT. HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOM
Chapter 10
INT. HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOM
If Tasha had scheduled this meeting in the hotel parking garage, Maggie would’ve been certain it was the pretense for a hit job. Since it was in a conference room, the odds of that were only, like, 33 percent.
Maggie pushed the door open. “Tasha?”
The lights weren’t on. A folding table leaned against the wall. A few chairs were strewed about the room almost randomly. But just before Maggie left, chalking it up to Tasha changing her mind or Maggie having the wrong place or time, she noticed the starlet standing at one of the windows.
In her movies, Tasha never seemed to stop moving. She was a creature of constant action, always punching someone, kicking a door open, or jumping out of a plane. Tasha Russell does stuff was practically a genre category on Videon.
But now, she might as well have been a statue. One of Tasha’s hands was curled around the base of her throat. The other held the flimsy curtain open a crack so she could see the street below. She was so still, she was almost camouflaged.
“I thought I had the wrong room.” Maggie closed the door behind her.
“Traffic is really soothing. To watch, I mean. Not to sit in.”
For about the one hundredth time since taking this job, Maggie wished she were a psychologist. Tasha was like one of those glacial lakes: far deeper than she appeared from the outside yet strangely disconnected from the rest of the world. But the only way for Maggie to do her job was if she better understood Tasha’s hang-ups, which were clearly numerous and painful. Maggie had to dive in.
“Why?” she asked.
Tasha took and released a deep breath. “In traffic, everyone works together. They follow the rules ... ish. We make allowances for the rat bastard that’s speeding or the lady who didn’t use her damn turn signal. I’m honestly amazed there aren’t more car accidents. It’s kind of uncanny we all get into murder tanks every day and more people don’t die.”
“In fairness, driving is probably the most dangerous thing we all do daily.”
“But we don’t think of it as being scary. When you consider how much humans hurt each other in other ways, you’d think it’d be like John Wick on the 405. I guess I’m perverse, but that soothes me.”
That we should hurt each other more—and we don’t?
But Maggie was going to keep tiptoeing after Tasha’s lead here, hoping they ended up plumbing the contours of this lake of secrets.
Tasha finally turned toward Maggie, and it was honestly unfair for anyone to be that beautiful. She didn’t have on a lick of makeup, her hair had clearly dried after her shower without any styling, and she was more arresting than any person Maggie had ever seen in her life. People who looked like Tasha had called movies into being. It was the only explanation. Humans had had to create some medium to record their beauty. Tasha was that lovely.
“I’d never thought about traffic like that,” Maggie said. “But I’m guessing that’s not why you wanted to chat.”
“No.”
As a teacher, Maggie had made friends with silence. In her first few years on the job, she’d ask a question, and if someone didn’t answer it immediately, she’d want to fill the void—to rephrase her question or to offer a little hint or to just answer the damn thing herself. But sixteen years later, she felt none of those impulses.
Ten seconds slipped by. Maybe a minute.
Finally, Tasha offered, “I ran into Rhiannon at the gym this morning.”
Maggie was the only person here who didn’t hit the treadmill first thing. The gym was obviously the Waverley equivalent of the watercooler. “Filming went well last night.”
The call sheet that had arrived in Maggie’s inbox earlier today said the second unit was shooting B-roll, and then there was a bunch of Jacobite stuff shooting at the set they’d used yesterday.
No kissing and no nudity meant no Maggie.
“That’s what Rhiannon said.” Tasha appeared to be murderous about it. “I had a text from Cole too.”
Cole was definitely trying to help out Tasha and, by extension, Maggie. Her heart did a hop, skip, and a jump about that, but Tasha’s trauma had to come before Maggie’s drama.
“I realize I’m being a bitch, and it isn’t personal.”
“I never thought it was,” Maggie said quickly.
There was another epic silence. Then Tasha said, “Have you seen Cosa Nostra ?”
“I have.”
“Do you remember those Oscars?”
“I remember your dress.” It had been an engineering marvel: strapless peach silk that was minimalist in the front but somehow backless with a sweeping train. Tasha had worn what appeared to be a royal vault’s worth of diamonds: in her hair, around her neck, dripping down her arms. She’d been fresh and radiant, beyond beautiful—and she hadn’t left public consciousness since that moment.
After those awards, her style had never again been that overtly feminine. A decided edge of I-could-fuck-you-up-if-I-wanted-to had crept into her persona, and on screen she’d become a professional ass kicker. But that movie, that night, had started it all.
Or maybe it had ended something.
“I remember you came with Vincent Minna.” That was risky, injecting him into this conversation, but Maggie suspected she’d been right when she’d said to Zoya that that movie was the key to unlocking Tasha’s pain.
“Uh-huh.” Tasha betrayed no emotion. She didn’t so much as bat an eyelash or flinch. She was obviously used to taking a high-definition close-up.
It had been almost twenty years ago, and Tasha was younger than Maggie. “How old were you?”
“Eighteen at the Oscars. Seventeen during filming.”
Maggie managed not to gasp but only barely. “That’s pretty young.”
Something broke in Tasha’s face. Her eyes shot to the ceiling, to the floor. She found her composure again, but her voice was reedy when she spoke. “You know when you’re a kid and people say ‘You have an old soul’ or ‘You’re so mature’ or ‘You grew up in this business, you’re already a pro,’ and it feels like a compliment? None of those are fucking compliments.”
The time for patient silence was done. Tasha was asking Maggie to ask, so she did. “What happened when you filmed that movie?”
“I never talk about Cosa Nostra , you know. When people ask me, I change the subject. I talk about something else instead, fitness or my hair—as if I care about my freaking hair. You’d think people would’ve noticed, would’ve pressed me or asked other people about it, but no one ever does. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. No one ever fucking sees me . I’m like a Rorschach test.”
No, Tasha was more like Mount Saint Helens, rumbling and smoking and about to level the place when she blew. The force of her rage was palpable. A seismometer could’ve measured it.
“ I see you,” Maggie insisted. “I see that you haven’t done a nude scene since Cosa Nostra . I see that you’re scared. I see that I could help you.” That last bit was hubris: Maggie hoped it was true, but she wasn’t certain.
Tasha scoffed, not dismissively, but sadly. “I know Waverley won’t be like Cosa Nostra . I trust Zoya, and I trust Cole. He’d never hurt me or make me uncomfortable. Ever. And even though I don’t really know you”—she took a breath—“I’m not afraid this will be like that.”
What was that , though? Tasha hadn’t answered the question.
Maybe Maggie didn’t need her to. “I don’t want you to talk to me about what happened if you don’t want to. Honestly. I think we can work together even without that disclosure. But I think that if you’re not talking to someone about it—like a therapist—then you’re probably not healing. And it’s clear you have an open wound.”
Bernard had impressed upon Maggie that her main concern had to be what was good for the production, but it was impossible not to see someone in as much pain as Tasha and not worry about her on a human level.
It’s what Cole would have done.
“I’ve been injured on sets a lot,” she said, wryly. “Black eyes, broken toes, cracked ribs, a concussion once. It was easier to treat all of those. To feel as if I needed to treat them.”
A pause.
Then Tasha rushed into it. “When they brought the script for Cosa Nostra to me, they were upfront that it was going to be ‘edgy.’ I mean, I can’t say I didn’t know what the part was going to be. And I fucking wanted to play her. Here was this woman who had so little power in a world that doesn’t respect women, and she was using her body and sex to challenge that shitty system. Something about that seemed ... radical. But I didn’t understand that, sure, she acts out of desperation and survives—but to portray that, I’d have to be pushed to my limits. Experience humiliation. It isn’t a revolution when the caged animal bites, you know?” She drew a sharp breath, her first as she’d delivered the monologue.
“No, it isn’t.” Maggie understood what it was like to be powerless and face down a bully.
When she’d been fired, she’d realized that all too often, it was the worst people in the world who were making the decisions. It wasn’t that she’d been ignorant about those people existing. It was that she’d thought we all knew better than to listen to them. It had been shocking to realize they were actually in charge. That when we’d all been distracted, they’d seized the levers of control.
“I don’t know why they bothered to have wardrobe for me on that fucking movie.” Tasha rolled her eyes. “Most of my costumes were lingerie. I was on screen with, like, half a dozen different men, most who were fine.” She paused, and Maggie had trouble not spitting out that an adult man who was appearing in intimate scenes with a literal child was not actually “fine” until Tasha added “But.”
“But?” Maggie echoed.
If the first part had come out almost in a rush, now her story was a series of choppy spurts. “The real issue was Vincent, that fucking bastard. He and my mother had a relationship—a complex, messy relationship. It was professional, at the start. Then came the sex. They fucked and used each other for decades. Now, it’s whatever these things turn into when you despise each other but you still work together sometimes and sleep together when you’re drunk or desperate. Vincent has the most obnoxious I’ve-seen-you-naked shit-eating grin. It’s astonishing no one has knocked his teeth out.”
There was a largeness to this world Maggie was only just now coming to understand. The amounts of capital, the number of people, the sheer size of the entertainment industry was more expansive than Maggie had realized—and she’d spent her life working in the theatre. What Tasha was saying, and the fact that it was an open secret in Hollywood that Zoya could speculate about even while still working with him ... it made her dizzy.
This was dangerous. For Tasha to have experienced. For Maggie to know.
Maggie added fear to the list of swirling emotions she was feeling.
“Did he hurt you?” Maggie’s question was painfully bald but still euphemistic. Hurt covered all kinds of crimes.
“Not like you’re thinking. He was on set constantly. All the fucking time. He loves to give back rubs to his stressed-out stars, and it turns out I must have been very stressed.”
“How . . . thoughtful.” How disgusting.
“Remember, I went into this movie calling him ‘Uncle Vince.’ Of all the goddamn names, it was uncle .”
“And now he’s watching you act naked and giving you back rubs.”
“Yup. And bringing along the other producers, too, the douche. It was ... I wanted that part, I really did. But I didn’t know how it would feel.”
Maggie had a lot of suggestions, but she didn’t want to name Tasha’s emotions for her. What the actress needed right now was unconditional support.
“You were a child, Tasha. This isn’t your fault. There was an entire industry that should’ve responded to this and stopped it.” Stopped him.
“My mom, my own fucking mom, was on set when some of it went down, Maggie. And she and I and my agent signed whatever they put in front of me without blinking. The press ... they’ve picked up the tension between my lovely mother and me, but they’ve never connected it to Cosa Nostra .”
Of course Tasha was livid about it.
“She should’ve protected you.”
“Maybe. She could have fucking warned me at the very least. I feel like everyone assumed I knew the score because she’s my mom, but I honestly had less information than anyone else about what he was, what this industry is. My mom told me jack shit.”
Maggie wanted to scream on Tasha’s behalf. She wanted to burn down the fucking room and kick Vincent Minna’s ass. But Tasha was watching her, waiting for that exact response. It would’ve been expected, and in some ways, not enough.
What Tasha, and probably so many other women, had experienced was soul destroying. What did justice even mean? What would Maggie’s rage do , beyond making Maggie feel better?
What Maggie could actually provide to Tasha was validation. During those moments when Maggie had been at her lowest, the way Savannah had simply told her over and over again that she hadn’t done anything wrong and put the blame where it belonged, that had been the only thing that had helped.
“Tasha, if this was a Reddit AITA post, the answer would be that everyone in this story except you sucks. They all suck so much.” Comic understatement wasn’t enough, but in this moment, it was what Maggie could give.
There was an extended pause. Then Tasha laughed, hard and long. A laugh that was a sob.
“You did not deserve that,” Maggie went on. “Even if you read that script and wanted to play that character, you did not deserve to be treated like shit on the set. Vincent Minna should not have harassed and pressured you in any way. He had absolutely no business touching you. None. Your mother, your agent, and every professional on that set failed you. I’m joking to defuse the situation, but if you want to put together a team of mercenaries to exact justice ... I mean, I don’t think I’m very scrappy, but I’m aces at travel research. I can probably get us a group rate.”
Tasha covered her face. After several deep breaths, she put her hands on her hips. She’d composed herself again into ruthless beauty. “I have never talked about this with anyone. Not my old agent, not my new agent, not Merrit, not Cole, not anyone. It’s been the cone of fucking silence.”
“Again, I am so sorry that this happened to you. And I will never repeat any part of this conversation.” Maggie wasn’t able to project emotions into a space the way Tasha could, but she meant it. Tasha had shown tremendous trust in telling Maggie all this. The least Maggie could do in return was to keep her mouth shut.
“Thank you.”
That felt like the end of one chapter in their relationship and the beginning of another one. As a director, Maggie knew that necessitated a scene change.
She crossed to one of the chairs and dragged it toward another one. She sat down and pulled a notebook out of her purse. “With that context, if you’re ready to talk about it, I’d really like to think about what you need for Waverley —what the production can do to support you and protect you while you’re acting.”
Tasha sat down across from Maggie. The morning sunlight streaked over her cheekbones and down the column of her throat lovingly, as if she were in a Dutch master’s painting. “Well, I don’t want Vincent Minna to be on set.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem. But he is ... I mean, he owns Silverlight, and they’re producing Waverley .”
“I know.” Tasha muttered a string of curses under her breath. “But he’s mostly retired.”
“Feel free not to answer this, but why did you take this part? With them as the production company and all the sex and nudity in the script, those both seem like they’d be dealbreakers.”
“I took it for Cole,” she said simply. “But also, Effie Deans is a badass—and not in the way ‘strong’ female characters usually are. She doesn’t set off explosives or roundhouse kick anyone. But she knows what’s true, and she says it, even when it costs her. She refuses to escape from prison because that would admit guilt, and she knows she’s not guilty. She’s selfish and immature, like Geordie, at the start, but she becomes a better person. I know Zoya reworked the book, made Effie the focus rather than Jeanie and gave Effie a happy ending, and I just felt as if she deserved that. I realized I’d be pissed if anyone else got to play her.”
“That makes sense.”
Tasha probably identified with her character in much the same way Cole did with his.
Tasha smiled a deadly sort of smile. “For a long time, I did action movies because, while I had to wear tight clothes, I didn’t have to get naked. They’re all PG-13, so there’d be some kissing, maybe, but nothing else. And they let me be ... powerful, albeit in a pretty limited way. But I’ve killed, like, hundreds of shitty men on screen.”
“Did you picture them all as Vincent Minna?”
“Half. The rest are Supreme Court justices—you can guess which ones.”
“Super fair.”
Now that Tasha had let her guard down, it was easy for Maggie to see why Tasha and Cole were such close friends. The real Tasha was charmingly profane.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore. Effie Deans, Waverley : they’re going to be the way I finally get past this. And again, I really do trust Cole. And Zoya. And I think you too. I needed some time to warm up to the idea of an intimacy coordinator. And maybe to figure out that strength isn’t just holding things in.”
“Noted. And I want to earn that trust. So no Vincent. What else do you need?”
“Rhiannon said you wrote out all the blocking, touch by touch.”
“Yup. I know it’ll be tricky, but if you and Cole and I could find some time in the next few days, we could choreograph your stuff. There are, um, several scenes.” Zoya had literally described episode four as including a bonk-fest montage.
“Effie and Geordie are really hot for each other.”
“They are,” Maggie said diplomatically.
Tasha nodded. “It would help me to have predictability, a closed set, and veto power over the wardrobe. I guess what I’m saying is I need to know if I speak up, someone will hear me.”
That was all anyone needed, and it was amazing how rare it was to get.
Maggie leaned back in her chair. “I wouldn’t have taken this job if Zoya hadn’t convinced me that the people at the top of the production care. I was worried they were bringing me on to paper over something messy or unsalvageable. I haven’t been here very long, but I don’t think that’s the case.”
It hadn’t been during the preproduction or rehearsal, at any rate.
“And look, I should also say, while I will do everything in my power to make filming go well for you, I can’t ... I’m not a therapist.”
Tasha snorted. “I can barely talk about my piece-of-shit mother and her psychopath ex with you—I’m definitely not going to do it with a total stranger.”
“They’d only be a stranger for a few minutes.”
“Everyone’s a stranger to me, except maybe Cole. He’s a marshmallow, that guy, and I love him like a brother. That’s why I took this part for him, to help with his career, even if I loathe so many things about it.”
Maggie could see the love and concern between them. Now, knowing more about Tasha’s history, she was even more stunned by it. “It’s one of the most sincere acts of friendship ever.”
“I expect my fucking Nobel Peace Prize to arrive any moment.”
But because no one knew about what had happened with Vincent, no one except Maggie would ever appreciate how much sacrifice had been involved.
Maggie shoved the thought away. It wasn’t her job to mediate Tasha and Cole’s friendship, or make sure Tasha got credit for how brave this performance was going to be. It was her job to protect Tasha on set—and today had been an object lesson in why that mattered.
She’d worried that if she didn’t go back to high school teaching, she’d never find a job that felt that important again. But Maggie had been very wrong.
This job was every bit as crucial.
“Okay, let’s set up meetings with wardrobe and makeup and find a rehearsal space and a window for you, Cole, and I to get to work.”