353 - Hollywood: Backlot Emperor (Patreon)

353 - Another Lecture

Content note: This is alternate-universe fiction featuring fictionalized portrayals of public figures; it does not describe real events. This Patreon edition adapts parts of chapters 351 and 353. This sequence depicts cannabis use, a paid-sex transaction interrupted before sexual contact, and non-graphic physical assault.

Of all the trouble caused by the recent rumor, Cate's reaction worried Adrian most. They had agreed to keep their relationship private, with no one else told. The reporters had drawn her into their speculation anyway. She had no scenes for several days, and he could neither explain himself in person nor bring himself to send a message at once.

Eventually she texted, "I'm okay." The brevity did little to settle him. He had drawn on that anxiety while playing Hughes.

Now Scorsese had scheduled the golf-course scene and Adrian would finally work opposite her again. He found that he no longer wanted to explain. A look inside a scene might say more.

"Men can't be friends with women. They have to possess them or leave them alone. It's a primitive impulse. Hunt, kill, consume. That's the male idea of love." Adrian knew the scene's line, but hearing Cate deliver it before the crew gave it a new edge.

Her pale eyes studied him with an almost playful question. Every movement and inflection belonged to Katharine Hepburn. Adrian thought he saw something private beneath the performance.

'I understand. But don't put me through this again.' That was the message he believed she meant to send. It might have been wishful thinking; the words on the page were about Hughes, not Adrian.

He took comfort in it anyway. They could not speak freely with the crew around them, especially after the rumor, so he watched for the meaning in her expression. Her complaint sounded almost intimate to him. He did not care for the severe makeup and short hairstyle she wore as Hepburn, but he still wanted to hold her.

He could not. What he could do was give the next sequence everything he had. Hughes left a party, flew Hepburn out to the golf course, then took her home. Their ease together pleased Scorsese enough to praise them between takes.

"You're making it too obvious," Cate whispered when they next reviewed the scene. "Once or twice is fine. Keep doing it, and someone will notice."

Adrian knew she was right. He needed to feel the scene without letting his own feelings spill into it. That distinction was harder for him to manage than the strain he had recently used to play Hughes.

After several takes, he found a balance. Scorsese wanted commitment, not the total immersion Adrian had forced on himself for the more difficult material. These quieter shots could bear a little restraint.

He relaxed. When they finally had a moment away from the crew, he held Cate. They did not kiss. She was irritated by his recklessness, but she returned the embrace.

Adrian had a habit of wanting more from every relationship once he thought he had secured it.

He remained involved with Naomi, Katie, and Jordana. With Zooey he had persisted until she agreed to see him. Jessica, Eva, and Mary had each entered his private life on different terms, and he had made room for all of them. His unresolved boundary with Camilla belonged in a separate, more troubling category.

Adrian had drawn a line at the two other stars of Backlot's alternate-cast Desperate Housewives, Teri Hatcher and Jennifer Beals. He had no idea that only two of the show's four leads matched the cast he remembered. Had he known, even that line might have shifted.

It was tempting to turn all of this into a general claim about men and desire. Charlize would not let him.

"That's nonsense. It's an excuse men use when they don't want to answer for their choices," Charlize said, taking a long drink.

"All right. I admit it." Adrian rested his chin on the bar and stared into his glass.

"Admit what? You want to keep every woman close enough to reach," she said. "I thought you might have grown out of it. Apparently not."

"I came to you for help, Charlie, not another lecture."

They had stayed friends and sometimes confided in each other. Adrian still kept some things back; even with Charlize, he softened details he did not want her to know.

Whenever he brought her a relationship problem, she answered with mockery as readily as advice. She seemed to enjoy the argument.

"You deserve the lecture. Half the time you're bragging. That woman in the papers—the one you claim is just a distraction for the press? I don't believe for a second that it's only for show." Charlize smiled despite her sharp tone.

Adrian went quiet. News that he and Jessica were openly dating had spread around October fifth or sixth.

The New York Post, chastened for the moment, had stayed out of it. Other outlets ran with the story. Jessica had been accused of coming between Adrian and Nicole when the earlier rumor surfaced. Their new public relationship made that old accusation look plausible to readers who wanted it to be true.

Some commentators declared that Jessica had taken him from Nicole. Fans argued online, attacking Jessica and Adrian alike. The story turned Nicole into a wronged party without asking what she thought.

Reporters did ask. Nicole gave them little more than a shrug.

In private she was angry. Soon after the Jessica story broke, she called Adrian and demanded to know what he was doing.

The earlier gossip had already painted Jessica as a possible third party. Now Adrian appeared beside her in public. Nicole understood how that would reflect on her, whatever the truth of their previous arrangement.

Adrian said Jessica would draw attention away from other stories, and that no one else had been available. Nicole refused to accept it. In her anger, she threatened to expose what he had concealed if he did not end the new relationship.

'We were only pretending, and we broke up. Why should she get to decide whom I see?' Adrian thought, ignoring the humiliation Nicole had just explained.

Rather than leave the argument there, he went to her home under the pretense of speaking face to face. He had already decided that her refusal to listen entitled him to take control.

He struck her. The violence was not an argument and not a solution; it was another boundary he chose to cross.

He had meant to leave after striking her, or so he later told himself. Instead he tried to force the argument to end on his terms. Nicole was shaken by his violence, and he had damaged whatever trust remained between them.

Charlize would have rejected his claim that he had gone there merely to talk. She knew how quickly he turned a self-serving explanation into permission.

The thought unsettled him briefly. He still preferred the explanation that let him see himself as less culpable.

"At least I've kept my distance from Kate," he muttered.

He meant Kate Beckinsale, his costar on The Aviator.

Beckinsale played Ava Gardner; Cate Blanchett played Katharine Hepburn.

Both actresses had come from outside the United States: Blanchett from Australia, Beckinsale from England.

Beckinsale had become widely known through Pearl Harbor. Adrian had once failed to win a part in it. He had not admired the film as a whole, but he remembered her work and her presence on screen.

He had also watched her in Underworld, where she carried a different kind of role: controlled, severe, and commanding.

Usually he would have tried to turn that admiration into flirtation. With Beckinsale, so far, he had not.