Chapter 5 #2
“Though there’s more than a little interest in a Princess Platinum standalone,” Joyce said. “The studio’s done some preliminary testing, and they feel optimistic about box office potential.”
“I can guess what you’re thinking,” Max said with a smile. “But you’d be able to get involved on the production side, be part of deciding what kind of story you want to tell.”
“You’d need to hew to the canon set out in the comics,” Riley clarified. “That should give you plenty to work with though, how many thousands of issues are there?”
“We can pair you with a screenwriter,” Max said. “Someone Pantheon-approved, maybe a cool buzzy director.”
“A female director!” Riley said, and I wondered if they’d rehearsed this. “We could make the soundtrack a big deal, stack it with female artists.”
Max grinned at me. “Yes, we’ll ask Taylor Swift to contribute.”
They were playing dirty and they knew it.
“Can we wind this back a bit?” I asked, pretending to laugh. “A couple minutes ago you said it tested not-terribly, now we’re recording the soundtrack with the most famous person on the planet?”
“Of course, of course,” Joyce said. “Let me see what kind of package I can negotiate, and we’ll take it from there.”
There was no point in arguing, so I let them get back to it. Any observer would have assumed I had almost nothing to do with the meeting. It was only my life, after all. My participation seemed optional at best.
And then I thought about having the career other performers would kill for and did my best to let go of whatever I thought the next years of my life would look like. Professional Actress Tess Gardner had other plans.
Once we’d wrapped up—and I was tentatively committed for the next two years or so to projects my team was giddy about—Max walked me back to the lobby. I knew it was the previous assistant in her, but I always relished our few minutes together.
“The potential holiday movie project seems fun,” Max said in an encouraging tone. “I read the script and you’ll get to be really funny. And it shoots locally!”
“Oh no,” I said with a laugh. “Do I seem like I need a pep talk?”
Max winced, messing up her artfully messy short hair a bit less artfully. “I’m sorry—”
“No, no, I’m sorry,” I said, quietly, pausing before we reached the stairs to the lobby. “It’s ridiculous to be this privileged and downright lucky, and be so obviously whiny about it.”
“It’s not that obvious,” Max said quickly, and we both laughed.
“No, I only mean that I’ve been working with you for a while.
I know the path you want, and I know you’re worried you aren’t on it.
And I’m saying that I think this one is a good fit for that path, and I hope you don’t feel too disheartened. ”
“I’m not disheartened,” I said, and I wasn’t—not even about Vindicators 4, which I’d already known was probably a foregone conclusion—except perhaps about Rebecca.
And somehow I knew that I could dump this whole thing on Max, who per her Instagram had an extremely hot girlfriend who owned a queer bar and a whole social circle of Eastside sapphics, and Max would get it, but letting your brother and your best friend know was one thing.
Even the youngest, coolest, gayest member of my management team was ultimately still that, and I knew this team wouldn’t win the same games if I was out.
The general public thought those days were over, the era of the celluloid closet far behind us.
There were queer A-list celebrities, after all, proof that no one had to hide now.
If only it were that simple, if only the public wanted us as we were and not the market-tested versions of ourselves.
By the time I’d made a few movies, I regularly found myself at parties where it was standard to meet the partner of a supposedly straight star.
The first time it happened, I could still recall how white-hot my entire body had flashed, how desperately I’d needed to escape, how I’d ridden home in the backseat of an Uber Black feeling simultaneously validated for every choice that had led me there and literally sick with the revelation that my current decision to hide would be my future decision too.
I’d run, hard, from who I was, but I must have stuffed away a little pocket of hope—because that night I felt it dissolve.
After all, I didn’t want a secret life, a person hidden from view.
I didn’t want to be one leaked story away from losing the career I’d built.
I knew how it sounded, but it wasn’t only me to consider; my career was responsible for making a lot of people money.
Also, how could I treat someone like that?
No one deserved to exist only in secret.
Out actors made it look easy, but I knew that it wasn’t.
Still, if I were starting now, I’d do it differently, or at least I wanted to believe that I would.
But when I first started landing interviews—getting asked about my love life, becoming Professional Actress Tess Gardner—Kristen Stewart wasn’t out. There was no one like Ari Fox.
Professional Actress Tess Gardner wasn’t that type of celebrity, after all.
I had no idea why America’s Girl Next Door couldn’t be gay—after all, gay people lived next door to someone!
—but it was a category that remained solidly heterosexual.
Big-budget superhero movies were made for the masses, four quadrants to please.
Maybe a side character could be played by a queer person, but one of the four Vindicators?
Considering the pushback in the news, laws against trans kids and gay books and drag queens at story time, I didn’t know why it was shocking that Hollywood was still hiding so many secrets.
And that was just here! Throw in a bunch of global markets that Pantheon and others were desperate to please and profit from, and I couldn’t imagine when it might be considered safe for a pretty blonde superhero to kiss girls.
No, I’d never been explicitly told I couldn’t come out, but I’d never explicitly asked.
I’d never even hinted. I’d behaved exactly as a star of my caliber was supposed to, and no one had any complaints.
I entered the lobby of the Jaffe Theatre from the parking garage almost exactly as Rebecca walked in from the street entrance. Even though we’d spent a full thirty minutes together one-on-one discussing the play only yesterday, I froze upon seeing her.
My team was right. Rebecca could have been lying, could have still been furious for how I’d treated her.
Rebecca could have been over it but horrified that she was making her Los Angeles theatrical premiere with Princess Platinum in the lead.
Rebecca could have simply wanted a team she’d handpicked.
And none of that would matter, because DTA wasn’t going to let her do anything about me.
I wished it would have been professionally acceptable to apologize for that, too.
“Morning,” Rebecca said. Her hair was loose today, and she was wearing a rumpled light blue button-down over jeans and Gucci loafers, every piece radiating comfort and luxury.
“Is there good coffee in LA? I’m not one of those LA is inferior in every way New Yorkers, I promise. I just don’t know where to go.”
I looked around the empty lobby to see who she was talking to.
“Gardner, stay with me here,” she said with a grin, and I tried not to react visibly to that, my name in her mouth, but good god.
“Sorry,” I said. “Not to add to any LA stereotypes, but I don’t do caffeine for the most part. The occasional herbal tea if I need a pick-me-up.”
“Wow,” Rebecca said, and I wondered if she was picturing it too, how we were nearly always the first two at the industrial-size coffeepot in the Applewoods mess hall.
If no one was around how sometimes I’d fill a mug, take the first sip, and then hand it off to her.
“It really is Los Angeles-y in Los Angeles.”
“It’s the thing we do best.” I took out my phone. “Where are you staying? I can see what’s good in your neighborhood.” I froze, replaying Where are you staying? What an intimate question for someone you meant nothing to.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca leaned in my direction. “Looking at Yelp? Oh my god. I didn’t know celebrities used Yelp.”
“I use Celebrity Yelp,” I said, deadpan.
“Raya launched their own offshoot,” Rebecca said, which made me break into laughter. “It’s just regular Yelp?”
“It’s just regular Yelp,” I said, not not noticing she hadn’t answered my question. It was embarrassing that I’d asked, that some part of me automatically unlocked for her, even after everything.
“Good morning, y’all,” Kathleen said, walking in through the parking garage. “Tess, let me tell you, I parked pretty poorly without you to straighten it out for me.”
“Excuse me,” Rebecca said, her tone warm. “You’ve been having our lead valet your car for you?”
“Rebecca, I assure you, I did not ask her to,” Kathleen said with a cackle.
“I’ve known Tess for about forty-eight hours and have already found it impossible to stop her from doing extremely nice things.
Relatedly, thank you, Tess, for at least briefly making my kiddo continue to think that I’m cool. ”
Kathleen glanced at Rebecca as the three of us got into the elevator. “Tess FaceTimed with my fifteen-year-old yesterday after rehearsal. Major cool points.”
“I’d imagine so.” Rebecca fell out of step with us once we stepped off the elevator, and pointed down the hallway. “Kevin will get everything organized for the DEI and intimacy sessions this morning, and I’ll see you after.”
We watched her disappear into the administrative office area, and disappear further into Neil Bryant’s office.
“That can’t be good,” Kathleen said as we headed to the rehearsal room.
“No?” I asked, as if I didn’t know what she meant.
“You may be surprised to learn, missy, that some actors are considered expendable,” Kathleen said, and I laughed very hard at missy.
“Her and Neil could be sorting out who’s getting fired right now.
If Rebecca was willing to negotiate to hire her stage manager—and who wouldn’t, he’s a doll—we know she takes care of her people.
She doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know any of us. ”
“I—”
“No, of course you’re safe, please don’t pretend otherwise,” Kathleen said, and I was relieved for the interruption so that I didn’t have to figure out what I would have actually said.
“I’m not sure it’s that simple” is what I left it at, and Kathleen grinned as we made it into the room, took our seats at the table.
“No, darlin’, it never is.”