Odetta #2
For the next few years, I clambered through a professional desert, as so many of us do after having children.
I battled with postpartum depression twice.
I enjoyed being a mother, some of the time.
The rest of it, I mapped out all the other ways my life could have been.
The roles I could have snagged. The risks I should have taken.
The awards I could have won. Or at least, been nominated for.
If only I’d been stronger, smarter, prettier, better.
Things took a turn, once more. I was approached by the director you know, about the movie you think of when you hear my name.
The role of a lifetime, dropping in my lap, at the ripe old age of thirty-seven.
A budget so high it made every mouth in Hollywood water.
The bottomless digital ink spilled over the surprise, the shock, the strangeness of the fact that I’d been cast.
By the time I found out that Dorian was the main producer on the movie, I was in too deep to walk away. Would you have? Would you have turned down everything you’ve ever wanted because of the risk you might lose it again?
Maybe you’re stronger than me.
The rumors didn’t start again right away. Yes, I’m talking about the one where I threw a glass at a production assistant. How I was found almost unconscious and half-naked in my trailer one morning. About my husband’s despair over the state of me.
I’d like to be able to claim that I made the connection. That I understood, right away, how the events of my life fit together like pieces of a puzzle. But, like I said, this isn’t about making me look good. This is about the truth.
Because Dorian was back in my life, and that was enough to distract me from the curious timing of these rumors.
Technically, there was no cheating this time. No sex, nothing of that sort.
I’d learned a few things. I was more mature. I had children I hoped to raise in a stable home.
But Dorian managed to permeate every pore of my life just the same.
There were middle-of-the-night calls to discuss revisions to the script.
Later, there would be middle-of-the-night calls over his relationship woes, his broken heart.
Calls from a rehab clinic, at which, I learned only recently, he was never a patient.
There would be endless texts, last-minute schedule changes.
Filming on the other side of the world at a grueling pace.
I’m not suggesting that all of it was orchestrated with the ultimate purpose of my demise. But nothing Dorian did was innocent.
He threw party after party, where I had no choice but to make an appearance. He announced his engagement two days after calling me crying because of the breakup.
My marriage suffered, obviously. I breathed Dorian. Thought about him all the time. In many ways, us not sleeping together made it worse.
There were more roles, each one better than the last. Nothing I could seriously consider turning down. All produced by Dorian. Before I knew it, our lives were intrinsically tied. He had access to me at every moment of every day.
I’m not pretending to be a damsel in distress. I claim no innocence, not then, and not now. Dorian was destroying my life, but he was also shoving this most delicious feast right in front of me.
And I was hungry, so hungry.
My husband stuck around. I’m pretty sure he was having an affair for the last two years of our marriage, but no one would blame him for it.
The man was married to me. He tolerated Dorian at our holiday parties, our children’s birthdays.
He allowed him to offer Hazel—our sweet Hazel, who’d wanted to act since she was so little—her first role at age thirteen.
Dorian had approached her first. By the time the decision came to us, the parents, we knew Hazel would never speak to us again if we objected.
That brings us to the movie Dorian and I starred in together.
The erotic thriller, the twisted romance.
Add this to the list of things people would never believe: for the longest time, he wasn’t meant to be my costar.
At least five other actors had been attached to play the male lead role.
They all dropped out. Creative differences, the media said.
Conflicting schedules. You’ve heard all that before.
Now I know that Dorian designed it that way. He never even suggested he might be interested in the role, only to swoop in at the last possible moment, when it was way too late for me to back out.
This part was never leaked, so I’ll paint you a brief picture.
For every sex scene, there were a dozen takes.
In between, I lay mostly naked for everyone to see.
Despite my repeated requests, no one could find the time to bring me a robe.
Intimate scenes are usually filmed on closed sets—with only essential crew members present.
But not on this film. Every time the director yelled Cut, there were more men I’d never even met behind him.
And then there were all the instances of Dorian going off script, kissing me and touching me in ways I never saw coming.
How violated I felt deep inside, how much I forced myself to go along with it, hoping it would be the end.
How I despised myself for liking it a little bit, in spite of everything.
The humiliation sunk me deeper and deeper every day.
I quit, a hundred times. In my head I did.
But my marriage was already on the rocks.
I needed the money. I know it sounds wild when famous people say they need money, but accepting one’s fall from grace isn’t so easy.
I hear you wondering, how did the #MeToo movement not come for Dorian Fisher?
How sweet to believe that every predator got his day in court, that every victim sleeps at night knowing that justice was rendered.
You forget that Dorian wasn’t a rapist. I can’t know for certain of course, but I doubt we’ll hear stories of sordid encounters in hotel rooms, of drugged girls and ripped dresses.
Dorian favored emotional violence, the kind that only bruises on the inside.
The kind that is so much harder to prove.
To this day, I haven’t seen the movie. Yes, the one that got me so many nominations.
The one that put my name on a dozen maps.
On the rare occasions I come across a clip from it, or from one of the many interviews I was contractually obliged to give, I still feel the urge to run to the nearest bathroom and empty my gut.
And then to reach for the bottle of vodka, the container of pills.
That I will give you: I have been an alcoholic. I have been an addict. I am, I suppose, still those things.
When my husband first brought up the topic of moving out, we fought so hard the walls shook.
We ate off plastic plates for days, pretending that I hadn’t broken most dishes we owned.
I’m not proud of myself. Of the threats I made.
The things my children heard. I have failed the people around me many times over. I have failed myself just as much.
From there, you can fill in the rest. The divorce papers served on the streets of New York, where paparazzi just happened to know where I was staying.
The stories about how even my children can’t stand me.
They are teenagers; of course they can’t stand me.
My daughter followed around, the nasty rumors about her eating disorder.
My heart broken yet again. My spirit shattered.
I swore never again. I would cut Dorian out of my life.
Until he made me an offer I certainly could have refused but couldn’t bring myself to.
My directing debut.
Don’t Be Sad!
Don’t you fucking dare be sad when you have everything, at least on the surface.
I snapped under the weight of decades of, well, I’m scared to put a name on it. If I say abuse, will you remind me that he never laid a hand on me?
Because in the end, I was the violent one.
I was the one who grabbed that fire extinguisher.
I’m not saying I would do it again, given the chance.
But the thing I shouldn’t be telling you, the thought that I most definitely should take to my grave, is that I’m having a very hard time regretting it.
A very, very hard time.