Chapter 24
Mutual Admiration Society
It felt like someone else had let Max set up a meeting for me with Ari Fox, a someone else who was confident and happy and in love and excited to connect with queer women in the industry.
The person walking into Spring Hope for this actual meeting was none of those things, just a heartbroken on-the-record reckless driver.
Max met me in the lobby and hugged me more tightly than I knew a tiny person was capable of. “How are you doing?”
“Oh, maybe not my best,” I said, determined not to start crying. “I’m sure you and everyone else are ready to murder me.”
She shrugged. “Honestly, between us, I’ve saved about twenty-seven memes to my phone. Though as far as Joyce, Riley, and Erica are concerned, no I didn’t.”
“I haven’t looked,” I said, my heart thudding. “Is it bad?”
Max pulled her phone out of her pocket and scrolled for a moment before turning the screen to me. A gif from Vindicators 3, Princess Platinum soaring through the air with Boy Voltage behind her, the text reading I’m taking my dog to In-N-Out. It wasn’t particularly clever, but I laughed anyway.
“Right? It’s so stupid but I love it.” She smiled and gestured to the stairs. “Anyway, Ari’s already here. She’s terminally early. Should I bring you up?”
I couldn’t think of a polite way to say no and book it out of there, so I followed Max up. She knocked on a closed meeting door softly, and I laughed.
“I know, why do I do that, I sound like a gynecologist letting you know I’m about to walk in,” she said, cracking up as she let us into the room.
“You really did sound like my gyno,” Ari Fox said, jumping up from the sofa.
She was about my height, her hair currently bleached platinum and cut blunt and short, with the cheekbones and symmetrical features that made people want to put you on the big screen.
If I was the girl-next-door, she was the new girl in from out of town who taught you everything you’d never known before. “Hey, Tess, it’s great to meet you.”
“I’ll be in my office, so just text me if you need anything,” Max called, letting herself out.
I looked back to Ari, who was wearing a muscle tee over black joggers and Nikes, wishing I was allowed to dress like that in public. “It’s good to meet you too,” I said, shaking her hand. “Thanks for taking a random meeting with a stranger.”
Ari laughed. “I don’t think you qualify as a stranger. Also, we were actually at the same Exemplar party once, but I didn’t have the nerve to talk to you.”
“Oh my god, I wish you had! I never know who to talk to at those things.”
“Great, now we know we can talk to each other.” She grinned as she sat back down, if she’d ever stopped grinning to begin with. “I should say that I’m a huge fan.”
“Oh, me too. Treading Water was one of those films that felt life-changing to me.” I sat down across from her, wondering how Max had broached the subject of this meeting, if Ari knew about me.
Treading Water had gotten a huge amount of publicity up to and including its Oscar for best supporting actress, but relating to it too much—well, that felt telling.
“OK, so this is a mutual admiration society then,” Ari said, still grinning. “I’m psyched you’re playing Princess Platinum again. My wife and I are obsessed with those movies. I’d kill to be a Vindicator, as long as they let me be super gay.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I might do these movies forever if they gave me sapphic superpowers.”
We both laughed, and I thought about how she was the seventh person who knew, and how that felt OK. Good, even.
“Thanks for talking to me,” I told her. “Honestly I just feel a little trapped. I know how that sounds—I have this career people would literally kill for, and more money than I need, but—”
“No, dude, I get it,” Ari said, running her hands through her hair.
“Do you feel like you’re getting good scripts?
Do you feel like you’re getting to talk about the right shit when you do press?
I honestly hate all that stuff but I can’t deny that it helps.
Also I’m embarrassed to be asking you these questions, I’m sure you know way more than I do. ”
I shrugged. “I don’t feel like most of it is within my control.
My team sends me things, my team sets things up.
I begged to do this play and it felt like a battle the whole time, and—I actually like playing Princess Platinum!
But I had this idea I’d be doing other things too—movies like you’re in, I guess, and more theatre—and I feel like the more I fight, the more they want to tighten the reins, you know? ”
“I do know,” she said, nodding seriously. “And I don’t know what it’s like to do one of those big franchises with all those companies and all that money attached. Still, it’s your life, not theirs. And not to be gross and pull rank, but they’re working for you.”
“Supposedly,” I said, thinking about my team’s refusal of even the possibility of Hometown on Broadway. “At this point I don’t really know who’s in charge, except it doesn’t feel like me.”
“The thing is,” Ari said, “you have to be willing to have them all mad at you. Not just when it’s a fight.
Like, picking projects they hate or refusing to do press that doesn’t suit the story you want to tell.
I always remind people that they can be great at the Hollywood thing, but I am the only expert in the Ari Fox thing. ”
I thought about Professional Actress Tess Gardner, how she wasn’t my call at all.
“We should do a project together,” Ari said. “Joyce would definitely believe I bullied you into it and you’d be off the hook.”
“Wait, really?” I imagined the car chase movie I’d been dying to make, Ari in the back seat as my rational and exasperated love interest I’d pulled into my dangerous world. Maybe that wasn’t what she had in mind, but it was a nice fantasy. “I’d love that.”
Ari cracked up. “This is the weirdest meeting of my life. Do you understand our comparative fame levels? But, yes. I know Max wants to get into producing; let’s put her on the task.”
It was the first time since I’d landed the role in Hometown that my career’s future seemed so full of potential, and Ari and I chatted easily about the kinds of roles we hoped for, the films we wanted to make.
The hour passed quickly, and I apologized as I said a hurried goodbye so I could get to the Jaffe on time.
“If you’re free tomorrow night,” Ari said, as I headed to the door, “I have this super casual industry hangout I do like once a month-ish, and I’m hosting this month. Dinner, conversation, super chill.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking about the networking dinners, the half fish fillets uneaten, the Deuxmoi blind items later.
“You look like you’ve sensed danger,” Ari said quickly.
“My guess is that, whatever you’re thinking, it’s not that.
Literally like five or six folks in the industry who aren’t toxic—Max is one of them—food I order in because neither my wife nor I could handle cooking for more than two people at a time, and—you have a dog, right?
Disclaimer that I know you have a dog because I follow her on Instagram.
Anyway, your dog can play with my dog in the backyard.
And if you’re busy or don’t want to, just ghost me, it’s fine. ”
“I won’t ghost you,” I said. “Sure. Rosie and I will be there.”
Ari high-fived me, which was perhaps the best way I’d ever left a meeting, and I rushed to the theatre thinking about this future I supposedly had a say in. Maybe it should have seemed as impossible as it always had, but for the first time I could remember, all I felt was a little flicker of hope.
At the Jaffe, Michael paced in the lobby, and I wondered if I should ignore him and assume this was some new display of masculinity I hadn’t yet observed in the wild. His expression—a furrowed brow that would have looked like regret on anyone else—gave me pause, though.
“Everything OK?” I asked, and he sighed.
“Verne was filming content up there and I fucked up.” He shook his head. “Used the wrong pronouns for them while they were recording.”
“Oh,” I said, and gave myself a moment to make sure I hadn’t misheard. I didn’t realize someone like Michael—and Michael, specifically—would even care about misgendering. “I’m sure you apologized.”
“Obviously,” he said. “Still. They probably think I’m some old white straight guy who doesn’t give a shit.”
“I think all you can do is prove that you aren’t,” I said. “Should we go up?”
“Give me another minute,” he said. “You don’t have to wait with me. My old white straight guy feelings will recover.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, sitting on a bench. “How are you feeling about the show?”
“Tech felt rough to start,” he said. “But I’ve found those are often my favorite shows. What about you?”
I sighed. “It’s been … a weird time. But I think I’m ready. I was just already so worried my reception in this would be overshadowed by Vindicators, and the announcement for 4 definitely didn’t help matters there. And that was before …”
“You took your dog to In-N-Out?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, that.” I shrugged. “Lately all I do is mess things up for myself.”
He sat down next to me. “Look, if you want my old white straight guy advice …”
“Never,” I said, but laughed. “No, go on.”
“You’re never going to get where you want if your biggest goal is chasing recognition from critics,” he said. “Or audiences. That stuff feels great and it’s a total dopamine hit, sure. It’s not going to make you whole.”
“OK, Mr. Three Tonys,” I said, and he laughed.
“OK, Ms. Whatever the Fuck You Get Paid,” he said, and then we were both laughing.
“Look, sure, that first Tony, I lost my mind wanting that to happen. And then it did and my life didn’t change the way I expected.
The only thing that makes me feel the thing I want to get out of—well, life, is doing the work I want to do, and continuing to do the work. Tess, you’re an incredible actor—”