Amy Sohn - The Actress

“I know you want to be smart about this,” he said. “You’ve always been the perfect manager, Bridget.” He went to the window.

“I’ve tried to be.”

“You know why?” he asked, placing his palm against a pane that would not open. “Because you always put Steven Weller first.”

Steven had stepped out of his car and was coming up the pathway to the house. Normally, Maddy liked Lucia to do the hand-off, but she was sick today in bed and Maddy had been one-on-one with Jake throughout the morning. She would have to hurry if she didn’t want to be late; she was headed to Santa Monica to have lunch with the director Deborah Berenson, of Rondelay fame, to see if she was right for Pinhole.

Maddy had been apprehensive when she first heard the name, remembering that Bridget had said she had a mixed track record. But she’d loved Rondelay, and looking back, she thought maybe Bridget had said it to prevent Maddy from wanting to be involved with the project. Maddy was excited to hear Deb’s ideas about the script.

When Steven came face-to-face with Maddy, Jake on her hip, he looked uncomfortable. “Lucia’s sick today,” she said. “Don’t look so disappointed to see me.”

“I’m not disappointed,” he said. “I just thought you didn’t—I thought you didn’t like to see me. Hi, Jakey!” Jake reached out, and Steven took him in his arms.

Maddy had been living in the house with Jake for a month, but this was the first time she and Steven had been alone, without Lucia there. She couldn’t run from him forever. Dina had been telling Maddy to stop blaming herself, had told her she’d done nothing wrong. She’d reminded Maddy that the marriage had not been all bad. They had supported each other, given career advice, laughed, made Jake.

But Jake was the reason she was so angry. Because of Jake, she could never cut her ties from Steven. Not completely. There were no goodbyes when you shared a child.

She had filed and served the petition for divorce earlier that week, using an attorney who had helped half a dozen high-profile Hollywood wives. Steven was using the guy who had negotiated his postnup. Her lawyer had said it would be a matter of days, not weeks, because so much had been hammered out in the postnup.

The tabloids were going crazy for the details of the separation. There were varying reports: She had postpartum depression; Steven was on cocaine; she’d kicked him out because he missed the birth; he was sleeping with Ryan, with Billy Peck, Corinna Mestre, even Kira. Maddy had slept with Billy or Ryan or Munro Heming. Or she was having a torrid affair with Zack, which Zack said he found flattering. Journalists staked out the house and Steven’s hotel.

She had packed Jake’s bag with a rubber giraffe toy and two wooden trucks he liked, and his lovey, a lamb blanket. It was in the kitchen, and as she turned to get it, she said, “Please, come in.”

In the kitchen Jake, now eight months, saw his block set and squirmed in his father’s arms to be let down. Jake had Steven’s eyes. The eyes that drew you in, made you fall in love in a second. Maddy would watch him squint at something complicated or punch his toys or frown, and it was as though Steven still lived with her.

There were times when she wished Jake had been a girl; if the baby had been a girl, she could have imagined it was hers and not his. There were times when the resemblance was so difficult, she had to turn her head away.

Jake smashed the castle he had built, and the blocks scattered all over the floor. They laughed at the same time at his destructiveness. He was going to be all right. The divorce had happened so early that it would be all he knew: his parents separate, not together.

But one day he would be older, and Maddy would have to tell him why Mommy and Daddy got divorced. She couldn’t imagine what Steven might be like in five years, or ten, or fifteen. Maybe he would get a new perspective on it, decide other things mattered more than image, and become a merry sixtysomething gay man, authentic for the first time in his life. Maybe he would trade her in for a new wife, or maybe this was it. Maybe he would wind up with Ryan and they would become an iconic couple.

“I should get going,” she told Steven. “I have an appointment.”

“Jake! Let’s go, buddy.”

He scooped up Jake. Maddy grabbed her keys and purse and followed them outside. He strapped Jake into the car seat, and she leaned in and gave the baby a few big kisses on the cheek. Then she closed the door. His car seat faced backward and there was a mirror with colored toys hanging off of it and Jake was reaching forward to touch one.

Steven was starting for the front door when she put her hand on his arm. “What are you going to tell him when he gets older?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When he’s old enough to understand, and he asks why we split up, what are you going to say? Are you going to keep lying forever?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell him,” he said. “He’s not even one yet.” Then he got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

Maddy was surprised when the phone rang in early February and Steven said, “Do you want to come with me to the Oscars? For old times’ sake?”

“What?”

“I’m presenting. The editing award.” Maddy had not been nominated that year because she hadn’t worked. Kira was nominated for The Moon and the Stars. Which meant that she would be there, parading around, accepting accolades.

“I don’t think I could take it,” she said. “With Kira, I think it’s just too painful for me.”

“I’ve only been nominated once, and I’ve gone eight times,” he said.

“We’re different people,” she said. She was on the cordless in the garden with Jake, who was playing with his trucks. “You should probably find someone else.”

“I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”

“Why?”

“I just miss you. I still love you even though we’re divorced, you know. Even if you think I don’t. And I need a date.”

The financial and all other terms of the settlement were confidential. It had taken only ten days. She and Steven had joint custody, she didn’t fight him on that, and Steven would get Jake one-third of the time. The settlement contained a clause in which each party agreed not to speak publicly about the other’s personal life or the details of their marriage. Because they had been married four and a half years, she would get about $4.5 million. It was strange to think her worth could be quantified. But the lawyers didn’t know what she had truly done for him.

Though she could not imagine doing the red carpet with her ex-husband, she knew she was going to have to find a way to coexist with him. She wanted her anger to fade. And he was humbling himself to invite her.

It wasn’t good for Jake to have a mother who hated his father. “Why is this so important to you?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you now. It’s a surprise.”

“I’ve had enough surprises.”

“It’s a different kind. You won’t be disappointed, and you know how good I look in a tux. Please?”

Later that day, Patti came over to consult with her about dresses, and soon Patti was sending over different possibilities. Maddy felt better physically, most of her baby weight gone, the color back in her cheeks.

She selected a strapless champagne-colored Marchesa covered in crystals, with a two-foot silky tulle train. It was like a ballerina bridal dress but form-fitting, and around the neckline were little pieces of fabric that looked like winged birds.

When Steven arrived in a limousine he had rented for the occasion, and she emerged from the house, he stepped from the car and shook his head. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

“I really hope this isn’t a stupid idea,” she said.

He came around the side of the car. “We could get married again. People have done it before.”

“Steven,” she said quietly. “I’m your date tonight, but that’s it. I’ll never attend another event with you. This is the last one.”

“I know.”

Alan opened the door and she got in first, gathering her train around her. When they pulled up to the theater, she saw it all. The pen of fans on risers. The line of celebrities walking the L-shaped carpet to the golden entrance with its golden curtains held to the side.

As they emerged, there was a roar and the fans leaped to their feet. The screaming was deafening and reminded her of Berlin. Once again she was a cog in a machine.

She had been wrong to come, wrong to cave to Steven. Now that she no longer had to.

Slowly, they made their way to the video crews, posing again and again for the gathered photographers on one side. Steven took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. They knew exactly how to stand next to each other, they had done it so many times. She pivoted to her left, her good side. There were shouts: “Can you turn your back, please, Maddy?” and “Maddy, look this way!” and “How about a three-quarter?” Again and again they posed, some together, some apart, so the photographers could get a full shot of the dress.

Finally, they approached one of the entertainment-news crews. Kira, in a dark green V-neck dress, was talking; when she saw Maddy behind her, she turned and embraced her, widening her eyes at Maddy’s date, and pulled them both in front of the camera. Kira kissed Steven graciously, and he congratulated her on her nomination. As Kira stepped aside to let the interviewer have his time with the couple, she whispered to Maddy, “You managed to upstage me.”

Kira moved to her next interview, and Maddy and Steven answered dumb predictable questions for the dopey young reporter. She said kind things about Kira’s performance, and the guy was good enough not to mention that she’d had to back out, even though everyone knew about it.

After they had given half a dozen interviews, they made their way toward the entrance. As they moved up the line, slowly, slowly, the ticket-taking drawn out so the fans could get their last glimpses of everyone famous on the line, Steven put his mouth to her ear. “I’ve been thinking about what you said,” he whispered. “And I don’t want to keep hiding. I want Jake to know me. All these years I told myself there was no other choice, but there was. I’m going to tell the world who I am. If I lose Tommy Hall, I don’t care.”

She was shocked. Did he mean here, tonight? The orchestra was quick to cut off people during acceptance speeches, not to mention any other kind. But he was Steven Weller, and the producers would recognize international news when they saw it.

She looked at him again, her eyes welling with pride. Her ex-husband was about to make history. And the moment would be immortalized on camera, the cameras that had been his friend all these years, the cameras that had brought him everything he had, including Maddy. Including Jake.

They made their way to the reporter waiting to talk to them. Holding her hand, Steven walked just a few steps ahead.

Inside the theater, they sat side by side, watching the endless ceremony, laughing appropriately at the jokes. The beginning was slow. The host, a faded comedian in his sixties, opened with a big song-and-dance number. Steven was to present the best-editing Oscar, to be given out toward the end of the first hour. When a production assistant tapped him on the shoulder during a commercial break to take him backstage, Steven squeezed Maddy’s hand. She looked up at him to see if he really meant it, if he was really going to do this thing. But he was already gone.

As Steven made his way up the aisle, he knew that when he walked back down, everything would be different. These were his last moments as the Steven Weller everyone knew, and tonight would be marked as the turning point. It was terrifying, and he still didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, he hadn’t wanted to memorize it, but when he was done, he would be a different person. A real father to his son. You had to be honest to be a good parent; otherwise you set a terrible example.

Everything was going to be fine. He’d been in the industry long enough that he had earning power, any producer would see that, the studios knew it, and there would be goodwill, especially from GLAAD, an organization that had surpassed the ADL in Hollywood power. He would lose the third Tommy Hall; they would put it in turnaround to “rethink” the casting, he knew that.

But he would bounce back. It might take some time, but he would bounce back. Audiences were sophisticated now, they knew gay people, it was why gay marriage was going to pass, the tide was shifting and audiences could suspend disbelief, they suspended disbelief every time they watched a straight guy play a fag for an award, a beautiful actress don a prosthetic nose.