Eleven Miranda
Eleven
Miranda
2018
What is with you and failed contraception?” Miranda exclaims into her phone. “I had to find out from Hollywood Today ?”
“I know, I’m sorry.” Sicily is laughing on the other end, crying a little, too. “They leaked it. I think someone on the Ookini crew overheard.”
“But the Vegas residency,” Miranda goes on. “I thought you had all these plans ...”
“It was definitely a surprise.” Miranda can hear Sicily blowing her nose. “And Vegas is on hold for now. But it just ... happened! I don’t know. Things aren’t always foolproof.”
“I’m aware that none of us went to high school. But you do know how babies are made, right?” Miranda says flatly.
Sicily laughs. “Yes, yes, shut up. You could be happy for me, you know.”
“Are you happy about it?”
There’s a pause on the other end and a big sigh. “Yeah. Yes. I really am. The timing is bad. I’m bummed that Vegas is off the table, but ... this guy , Miranda. Perfecto. And to be able to love on a little baby again? I’ve missed that so bad.”
Miranda bites her lip. If she had a dollar for every time she’s heard Sicily gush about a guy, she’d have been able to buy her own yacht instead of riding around on the one she’s on now, which belongs to another boyfriend. But Sicily deserves happiness whenever she can grab it.
“Then I’m happy for you, Sis,” she says. “I’m over the moon for you, you know that. But the godmother thing still stands!”
Sicily laughs.
When Miranda gets off the phone, Bobbie, lounging on a deck chair nearby, clucks her tongue.
“Was that about the new Bell baby?” she asks. Miranda’s mother is much more in tune with the Hollywood gossip than Miranda, for reasons Miranda doesn’t understand.
“Yeah,” Miranda says. “Baby number two.”
Bobbie shakes her head. “That girl has no sense. I mean, jeez, I made that mistake, but I only made it once.”
Miranda pauses with her cosmopolitan halfway to her mouth and shoots a look at her mother. “Thanks, Mom.”
But Bobbie is adjusting the sleeves on her billowy white caftan and peering out at the sea through her sunglasses, apparently unaware that she’s said anything wrong. She sets down the magazine she’s been reading and gives an exaggerated yawn.
“All this lazing around is exhausting. Think I’ll dress for dinner.”
Miranda knows that’s code for having a bubble bath and drinking champagne. She rolls her eyes as her mother drifts off into the cabin, hardly sparing a backward glance at her daughter.
Bobbie has nothing to complain about. Aren’t they sailing around the Mediterranean on a yacht, no particular destination in mind, no foreseeable end to the vacation? Without the “mistake” of Miranda, Bobbie would still be living in the Midwest and sweeping hair off the floor of some suburban salon. Or worse—stuck in an abusive relationship with a semipro baseball player, which is exactly the scenario that made Miranda agree to bring Bobbie along on this trip. As difficult as their relationship has been, Miranda couldn’t in good conscience leave her mother to her own devices in LA.
It isn’t Taha’s yacht. Taha was five guys ago—and to his credit, he didn’t bail immediately after the DUI. But when they kept her from joining the ABBA remake and Sam dropped her for good, Miranda lost control. Taha walked somewhere between the second DUI, the Oxy relapse, the belligerence, and the jail time. Miranda can’t blame him.
Two years of prison. It was just like rehab—worse than rehab—but at least in prison, people didn’t subscribe to the positive-thinking kumbaya crap. Miranda found her way through it. She could make the other women laugh with her impersonations of famous people and get Bobbie to smuggle in contraband that she could trade for cigarettes and Altoids. Sure, there was a big brawl in the shower and she got stabbed. But the scar is small, a white line right above her left hip, and the attack won her respect from the other inmates and a sympathy vote from the parole board. She’s thinking about getting it covered with a tattoo someday—of what, she doesn’t know. On the other hand, it makes her feel pretty tough.
When she got out, a lot of people stopped returning her calls. Auditions dried up completely. The only bright spot was when Zane broke his long radio silence and called to see how she was doing. Surprised to see his name on her phone, Miranda breezed cheerfully through the conversation. She could have fooled anyone into thinking she was getting back into Hollywood’s good graces instead of becoming one of its outcasts.
“It could be worse,” she remembers saying. “I’ve got a cool scar now, at least. And a few commercials lined up.”
It was a lie; there were no commercials. There was nothing. Why didn’t she tell him the truth, cry, and let it all out and admit that he was the only one who could make her feel better?
“Hey, good for you,” he said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“How’s everything in your world?” Which meant, Are you seeing anyone? Are you eating enough? Are you okay?
He let out a long breath. “Things have been better, things have been worse. My parents split because my mom’s running off with someone back in Venezuela. Well—I shouldn’t say ‘running off.’ They’re getting married and all, it’s legit.”
“I’m sorry,” Miranda said. “I mean ... good for her? I don’t know what to say. How’s your dad handling that?”
“He’s been better.” Zane barked a short laugh. “Bankrupt, now. His last business manager was ... no bueno. Bad at his job. But maybe it’s for the best—all those years of jumping around onstage has been catching up with my dad. Joint pain like you wouldn’t believe.”
He said it sort of like a joke, so Miranda chuckled, but she felt sorry for Zane.
“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” she said. He knew about her foot injury.
“Well, you better stay healthy.” Zane laughed. “Otherwise, I’m going to have to take care of my dad and you.”
Miranda said nothing to that, but it was because she was smiling quietly to herself.
“Means all my famous inheritance has pretty much dried up, though.” Zane sighed through the phone. “I’m getting the realest taste of regular life since Venezuela, and ... it bites.”
“Yeah? How bad?”
“Like, I’m-heading-into-a-shift-at-a-family-friend’s-restaurant-in-twenty-minutes bad.”
Miranda laughed. “That sounds bad.”
“Eh. It’s okay. We get a lot of Laguna Beach bums. But, hey, I have free fries for life.”
“Can’t beat that.”
They both trailed off. Though he was trying to make light of it, Miranda could tell he was embarrassed. She had thought, more than once, about what she should have said in that pause—that they should get coffee sometime, that she’d come to his restaurant to say hi, that it was okay their lives weren’t turning out the way they’d always hoped they would.
But instead, she said, “Well.”
And he said, “Yeah.”
And they bade an awkward goodbye, the conversation fizzling out as quickly as it had started. Miranda had meant to call him again sometime, or make a trip down to Orange County just to see how he was doing. But she thought that showing up unannounced might embarrass him further. And truth be told, maybe Miranda was embarrassed, too. They’d both grown up like he’d said they should—kind of—but their lives were a mess.
And now there’s Amir, who owns the yacht on which she’s now lounging. He’s okay. Miranda can’t really summon up much more enthusiasm than that. She’s begun to see a cookie cutterness to all these megawealthy men and the way they conduct business from their phones, buying the attention of women and media, partying, sailing to a new place, repeat. But traveling the Med on his yacht is not a bad way to escape the heat of summer—not to mention the heat of the bad press surrounding her most recent movie, a horror flick that was supposed to be the summer sleeper hit that relaunched Miranda’s career. Again.
But Ghost Slayer opened in June to scathing reviews and poor box-office numbers. It didn’t do anything fresh, they said; it had some of the novelty of old eighties slashers but kept Miranda, the lead, in a tired damsel-in-distress trope. A winning marketing team would have pitched it as campy, but this studio’s publicity was mediocre at best.
Sam would have never suggested Miranda audition for a role like that. But, like Taha, he and Miranda haven’t spoken since the DUI. Miranda thinks it’s final this time.
But who cares? Like Miranda would ever want to walk into his agency again, after they called her—what was it?— some whore for hire who spent her summers on an Arab yacht . They could keep on saying it, along with every gossip site. Plenty of models and actresses did the same thing. She knew half the girls in the marina at Saint-Tropez. What’s wrong with having a rich boyfriend who buys you gifts and takes you places and lavishes you with money? That sounds close enough to love for Miranda.
She presses a finger to her bare thigh and the skin pales, then pinks. She’s had enough sun for the day. For her lifetime, maybe—but she’ll be grateful for the tan when audition season comes around again.
She sighs and checks her phone. There’s a group text from Germaine to her and Sicily: Remember when we went to the Griffith on the 4th of July and that guy was so startled when the fireworks started that he fell over? I think of it every 4th and it KILLS me. Btw you should both come to Bali if you get the chance. Rooms on me!
Miranda smiles and texts back. So far away from America, she’d forgotten that it was the holiday. And he almost knocked that kid over!!! I thought he was going to roll down the hill for sure XD
Maybe she could convince Amir to spend August in Bali. Miranda taps into her messages from him; sometimes he sends her a shirtless picture from elsewhere on the yacht to signal that he’s in the mood. But Miranda hasn’t seen him in an hour or so.
She walks the length of the boat, squinting to make out the coast of Malta on the horizon. They’re headed to Catania next, she thinks; she’s actually not completely sure. All Miranda’s days seem to blur together out here. She’s losing her sense of time.
The door of the cabin suite she shares with Amir is slightly ajar. When Miranda ducks into the room from the bright-white deck of the yacht, she blinks the sun out of her eyes. It’s dark in the hull.
“Amir?” she says.
Her vision adjusts gradually. But she can still see well enough to witness the two figures in the bed and hear the startled rustle of sheets.
“Miranda! There you are,” Amir says, smiling widely.
He’s coming into focus now—naked, relaxed, arm around someone with tousled bottle-blond hair.
Her mother.
“Come join us, babe.” Amir winks. “There’s room for one more.”
There’s a silence that stretches painfully and then snaps when Bobbie giggles nervously and waves. “Well—why not, honey?”
That she at least has the decency to look sheepish is lost on Miranda.
There is hot, white light flaring at the edges of her vision, boiling water coursing through her veins. Reaching down, Miranda takes off one of her Manolo Blahnik sandals and hurls it with all her strength at Amir’s face. He dodges it and puts up his arms, annoyed.
“You’re sick !” Miranda screams. “You are both sick and I hate you!”
“Hey!” Amir barks. “Uncalled for!”
“Oh, it is So called for,” Miranda snarls, taking off the other sandal. “And You !” she shrieks at Bobbie, launching her shoe. “What kind of godforsaken, hoe-ass bitch —”
Bobbie covers her head, but the sandal still hits her. “Okay. Miranda, okay—”
“They do it in porn all the time,” Amir mutters.
“Fucked up, sick—both of you. Perverted motherfucker —literally—thinking he can get me a few Hermès bikinis and that’ll buy his way into a threesome—”
She has no control. She feels like she could vomit acid on both of them. Miranda wishes for another shoe, a heavy pot she can throw, anything.
“You’re supposed to be my mom !” she bellows, nearly sobbing.
“Don’t go being a crazy bitch again,” Amir says.
“You ruined my childhood.” Miranda can’t stop—her anger feels like a sharp, hard point right now, and she wields it at Bobbie. “You ruined me! Where the hell were you? When I got hurt? When I needed an adult in my life? When they doped up your thirteen-year-old daughter with drugs ?”
Bobbie shakes her head. “Miranda. I didn’t—”
“I want to leave.” Miranda suddenly stops and stands up very straight. “Amir, I want off of this stupid, fucking boat. Immediately.”
“Well, I’d say that you can jump overboard and swim to shore,” Amir says, sneering at her. “But I’m not going to be the one to rescue you. So tough shit.”
Miranda just stands still for a minute, breathing heavily. Bobbie is looking pointedly down at the bedspread, sheets pulled tightly across her chest. Amir is glaring at Miranda.
Then Miranda turns, barefoot, and walks below deck. Amir has stuff, she knows it. She’s been good, she’s been sticking to alcohol, but wouldn’t anyone agree she’s earned this? Yes, she thinks, digging through the drawers of the wet bar with shaking hands. She’s been through enough. She needs this now.
There’s harder stuff, and she tells herself she’s being disciplined by choosing the benzos. Just a little Xanax. Just something, anything, to block out what is happening right now.
A tepid high begins to envelop Miranda as she makes her way back up to the forward deck. She places her hands on the railings, starboard side, and stares down into the blue water. It’s too choppy to see her reflection. She puts one foot on the lower rail, then the other, leaning out until she can feel her center of gravity shift.
She could jump, like Amir said. She could dive down as far as possible and let the sea take over. Swim until her body just gave out, finally putting an end to all this.
But instead, Miranda lets herself fall backward, slumping down onto the deck. She doesn’t have the nerve.
Her phone buzzes a text.
And Miranda kept us rallying until 4 am , writes Sicily, answering the group text. With Zane’s help!;) God what’s happened to us haha. Old and gray now
Miranda sits on the polished wooden beams, numb and cross-legged. She watches the sun go down and wonders how she can escape this life.