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TO DIE FOR

Opera does not threaten us. Fiction does. Frederick R. Karl, A Readers Guide to the Development of the English Novel in the Eighteenth Century

There was this old English actress called Phoebe Something-Or-Other. Hart-Williams? Hill-West? Skylar never could remember (not that she tried very hard). Phoebe Something-Or-Other was huge, like a big, old toad and, on set, in between takes, she sat in a corner and did some kind of sewing. (Cross-stitch. You should try it, sweetie.) It didnt matter who you were, star of the movie or a faceless runner, you were sweetie to her. It got on Skylars nerves. It was so British. She was tired of everything British, especially the weather. They were in the make-up trailer, five in the morning in the middle of nowhere. (Kent? Somethingshire?) Wherever it was, it was green and dripping with water. Every day on location they had to stop for rain; most days they never even got started. They were shooting an outdoor scene where Skylar had to ride a horse down a hill towards a big old house. She had to cry as she rode. Then she had to jump off the horse and run towards Phoebe (who was playing her grandmother), standing on the

steps of the house. They werent allowed inside the house. Skylar would have liked to have seen inside the house. Skylars tears should be, according to the director, A mixture of joy and relief, tinged with sadness and regret for what might have been. All that and on a horse! What did he think she was? (An actress, sweetie?) The script called for the horse to gallop but theyd compromised on a kind of trot because horses made Skylar want to pee her pants. They were so damn big! Skylar was barely five foot two and way under a hundred pounds. Of course, she looked gigantic on screen, but Mom had been helping Skylar keep the pounds off ever since she won the Augusta Sweet Pea Pageant when she was knee-high to a gnats heel. They refused to dope the horse so she had to fill herself with Xanax and be hitched up by the horse wrangler and the chief stunt guy. Over and over, because of the rain, because of the petrified expression on Skylars face. Plus, she had to do the whole thing side-saddle in a dress the size of a Big Top. It was a costume drama, an eighteenth-century thing, about thwarted passion, from some novel that had won a prize. The Girl Who Went Astray which was a real dumb title in Skylars opinion. The crew called it The Girl with Big Tits. Some people had no manners. They were big, it was true, theyd been paid for with the money from a Dr Pepper ad

she did when she was sixteen. She was twenty-two now. She hoped that if she ever got to be as old as Phoebe someone would shoot her. In the movie Skylar was playing a hooker who was really an heiress, but she didnt know it (until the happy, happy end) because shed been swapped at birth after her mother died, leaving only a locket behind to identify her by. (Eventually, by Phoebe, her grandmother, etcetera.) Harry, Skylars agent, said she should do the movie so she could capitalize on her accent, seeing as it had taken her so damn long to get it right. That was on account of her being English in her last movie as well (All Hollywood A-Listers do English, her agent said. Its the only way youll ever get an Oscar.) Shed played a spy in the Second World War. All very tragic, etcetera. They had shot the whole thing in Hungary. In a Time of Madness, it was called. (It was!) She was shot by a firingsquad at the end. They did twenty-two takes of that. By the end, the look of suffering on her face was real. They were holding the premiere tonight in Leicester Square. It was the last thing Skylar felt like doing but everyone said it was going to be a big movie (not like this one, for sure). Selling yourself to the press goes with the territory, sweetie, Phoebe said. As if Skylar, of all people, didnt know that! Skylar knew exactly where Phoebe Something-Or-Other could stick her sewing. And the sun definitely didnt shine there!

Phoebe was eating a bacon roll. Mmm. On-set catering, she said, the best thing about this job. Yeugh. Skylar tried not to inhale the scent of dead, fried pig; instead she took two Ritalin, to keep the weight down and perk her up (what more could you ask for in a pill?). Peering in the mirror, Phoebe said, Gawd love us (or something like that), what an old crone I am. You have a wonderful face! Skylars make-up girl gushed at Phoebe. So much character. Character meant old. Skylar didnt want to have any character. Everyone (except Skylar) loved Phoebe. They called her a national treasure, like she was part of the Crown Jewels. (Skylar had been to the Tower of London, a special out-of-hours visit that someone arranged for her. It was cool.) Whenever anyone needed an English queen in a movie, they wheeled in Phoebe. (Oh, God, yes, sweetie, Ive done them all: Elizabeth, Victoria, Mary Q of S, Anne Boleyn when I was younger, of course.) The way she behaved, you would think she was royalty. Soothes the nerves, Phoebe said, waving her bit of sewing in Skylars face. It was a cushion cover with a big pink rose on it. It was almost finished and if you stared at it long enough you felt you were being sucked inside the rose. You have trouble with your nerves, dont

you, sweetie? Phoebe persisted. The way she said it was real, real catty in Skylars opinion. Well, nervous exhaustion, Skylar said. That was what I was hospitalized with. (It had been all over the papers, no point in denying it.) Nervous exhaustion is different from nerves, Skylar pointed out. Of course, everyone knew that nervous exhaustion meant you were wiped out from drugs or booze or sex (or, in Skylars case, all three). She bounced right back though. Two weeks in a clinic in Arizona and she was good to go. Again. You know what they say about all publicity being good publicity, Skylar? her manager, Marty said. Well, its not necessarily true. You dont want a reputation with the studio. Look what happened to Lindsay. Cut down on the partying. But, darn it, she was young! All she wanted was some fun, what was wrong with that? There were no parties out in the godforsaken countryside. Her stunt double (yes, she had a stunt double, and no, the stunt double couldnt do the horse-galloping thing because the director was a realism Nazi) and her accent coach (who was on set all the time, it was like being back at school) wanted to take her to the local pub last night but she took a couple of Ambien instead and talked to her Mom on the phone until she fell asleep. The hotel where she was staying didnt even have twenty-four-hour room service. It didnt actually have room service, but Skylars people

had a word with someone and now they brought up bad coffee and limp salads to her room. Her personal trainer said she couldnt have coffee but Skylar didnt really care. Her personal trainer who, by the way, was down here in Somethingshire for no reason because there wasnt time for Skylar to work out. No time for Skylar to do anything. So the personal trainer was doing nothing on Skylars dollar. Like a lot of people. Nervous exhaustion. Of course, sweetie, Phoebe said. I stand corrected. Silly old me. I could get you a pattern? Some wool? Gee whiz, that would be swell, Phoebe. Skylar would rather stick pins in her eyes. She had no intention of cross-stitching big pink flowers on to cushion covers. The very idea made her mad. Or cross, as they said here. Ha, ha. Skylar preferred to go to her trailer between takes, kick everyone out, pop a couple of Vicodin and watch DVDs of Days of Our Lives that Mom recorded for her. Skylar had been in it for a year when she was thirteen, playing a kid who was a runaway. That was after years of modelling. The Crisco Kid, her mother called her, but actually shed lost out on that one to a Scarlett Johansson type. Or maybe it was Scarlett Johansson. For someone with so little past there seemed to be an awful lot of it that Skylar couldnt remember. Days of Our Lives got them out of the trailer park for good and Mom out of the Piggly Wiggly and now Mom was a realtor and wore red lipstick to work every day and had a real nice house in Orange County, all thanks to Skylar. Dont mention the

trailer park in interviews, Skylar, Marty said. But why not? It was the American dream to escape the trailer park and Skylar was the allAmerican girl. She yawned and her make-up girl had to stop applying her lipstick. Skylar was so tired. She was making movies back to back because she was real hot at the moment. Everyone wants you, Marty said. Yeah, sure, everyone who made money out of her. In the mirror she could see her English assistant (Christie? Kirsty?) smiling encouragingly at her. She was holding the biggest umbrella Skylar had ever seen. Ready, Miss Schiller? Skylar sighed and hitched up her breasts. Yeah. As Ill ever be.

They didnt wrap until five. Skylar had to get a car back to the Covent Garden Hotel, have her hair and make-up done, chose from the dresses her stylist had been given and be in Leicester Square by eight oclock. She had another PA waiting for her at the hotel, but he was her friend as well Marshall. Hed been a kid actor too and a Mousketeer in the Time of Britney. Now he just got paid to hang out with Skylar to stop her dying of boredom, and when her stylist wasnt around he was pretty good at picking out clothes. Plus, of course, he was a walking drug store, although most of what Skylar needed was on prescription. She had a great physician back home in LA. He was called Dr Morris and he really

listened to Skylar and gave her all kinds of stuff that helped even out the day. In the end theyd ditched the horse and Skylar just ran down the hill (pretty difficult in that dress), which everyone said looked better after all. Everyone except the director, but what did he know? He was, as they said here, a wanker. A real jerk-off. His last movie went straight to DVD and Skylar wouldnt be surprised if this one did too. The studio needs a tax write-off, Marshall said, and honey, I think youre it. (Dont listen to that little fag, Marty said. He pours evil like poison in your ear. Marty could talk pretty fancy when he wanted to.) Remember Kirsten Dunst in Marie Antoinette? Marshall said. Nuff said, honey. Her assistant held the umbrella over her while she walked from her trailer to the car. Skylar had asked for some kind of screen so no one could see her on this little journey but it never happened. So maybe she wasnt A-List enough. Someone was going to have to have a word with someone. Have a nice time, Miss Schiller, her assistant said as Skylar got into the car. Yeah, thanks, Kirsty. Its Karen, Miss Schiller. But it doesnt matter, you can call me whatever you want. (Jeez, imagine being that desperate.) Skylar decided shed give her something real nice when they finished shooting. She had

a Birkin bag someone had given her that was worth a fortune. Skylar already had two.

Skylar! Skylar! This way, Skylar! Skylar, Skylar, over here! Skylar, look at me, darlin! You got used to it. It went with the territory, as Phoebe would have said. Her co-star (gay, married, bozo) walked down the red carpet with his hand in the small of her back. She was supposed to do the walk on her own. Harry and Marty would be furious. She was wearing a cute Stella McCartney dress and a pair of peeptoe Leboutins that were a half-size too big. Shed had two Oxycontin and half a bottle of champagne before leaving the hotel and was feeling pleasantly floaty. She slept through most of the movie, despite Marty pinching her on one side and Harry on the other, and before she knew it they were back in the Dorchester for the premiere party. Marshall was there, thank the Lord, and gave her some Exefor to keep her going. Marty and Harry were pretty happy and everyone kept saying how great she was in the movie. Of course, they always said that. She flirted a little with a lot of guys and then this one guy came up and said, Do I know you? He was real, real English. When Skylar was a kid Mom had taken on three jobs so she could afford a voice coach to get the Georgia out of Skylar and theyd done a lot of that rain on the Spanish plain

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stuff. Skylar had thought it would come in handy for In a Time of Madness but the voice coach on that movie (another friend of Hitlers) said, Forget everything anyone has ever taught you, Miss Schiller. As if. The real, real English guy was still standing there like a dork, creasing his brow like a bad actor and saying, Im sure Ive seen you somewhere before, so Skylar said, Im Skylar Schiller , all polite because thats how Mom raised her, but really, how could he not know who she was when for the last two hours hed been looking at her face blown up a zillion times? (Although, of course, shed been dressed down as a spy, which, according to the movie, was not a glamorous occupation. No siree.) He was ordinary looking but there was something about him that was familiar. Skylar was pretty sure she hadnt slept with him. He laughed and said, No, no, no, just joking, of course I know who you are God, Id have to have been living at the North Pole for the last two years if I didnt know who you were. Im a huge fan, I was really concerned when you were taken into hospital, are you all better now? Is it Schiller like the poet? All this without taking a breath! A lot of people in England asked about Schiller the poet (and, no, Skylar wasnt related to him); no one in the States ever mentioned him. And then he was off again. Alle Menschen werden Bruder and all that, he said. He flushed as pink as a

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shrimp when Skylar smiled at him and said, Yeah. That too. They were right, the English really did speak a different language. She was looking around the room for Marshall to come and rescue her when who should pop up out of nowhere but Phoebe Something-OrOther. She was dressed as if shed been involved in a terrible accident in a fabric mill, bits of chiffon trailing everywhere. She smiled at Skylar, showing horrible yellow teeth didnt they have orthodontists in this country? and said, Have you been introduced properly to his Royal Highness? Well, you could have knocked Skylar down with a feather.

I was a good friend of his grandmother, Phoebe said before scooting off again, hanging on to her glass of gin as if she was on a Ouija board. So Skylar said. Was she supposed to curtsey? She gave a tiny little bob, just in case. So, Prince Which one was he? The one who was going to be king one day or the other one? She was suddenly aware of the big wad of gum in her mouth. It didnt seem appropriate when you were talking (possibly) to the future king of England. Prince Alfred, but please call me Alfie. So, Prince Alfie I didnt know they let you go to movies and that kind of stuff. Oh, real lame, Skylar, real lame. Oh, we get let out occasionally. He laughed. And its just Alfie.

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OK, just Alfie. Im a huge fan, did I say that? Yeah. He looked a whole lot cuter now that he was royal. Skylar. Like skylark, he said. But without the K, Skylar pointed out. I thought you were a blonde, he said, waving vaguely in the direction of her hair. Im not really anything, Skylar said. Im whatever they want me to be. Mm. Me too, he said. Shall we get out of here? Go to a club or something? People will talk, Skylar said, suddenly, unaccountably nervous. People are talking, he said. I have to be home by midnight, or I turn into a pumpkin, Skylar said. She wanted him to think she was funny. Or interesting. Or something. Actually, I think its the carriage that turns into a pumpkin, he said. Weve got one like that.

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On the Pont Neuf, two gendarmes roller-bladed past them. They made it look chic. Only the French could do that, Campbell thought. She needed hot tea. She felt nauseous with tiredness and jet-lag. Or maybe she was coming down with something. Think how many germs you shared on a transatlantic flight. Millions, probably. I need tea, she said to Joel. Sure, he said. Can we look for a caf? Joel sighed. Campbell knew he was contemplating the unwelcome idea of negotiating food and drink with a Parisian. When they were here last time, five years ago on honeymoon, everyone had seemed charming and friendly; now the same people (more or less) were surly and uncommunicative. Between them, she and Joel had pretty good French when he was a child Joel lived in Switzerland because his father was something big in international banking, and Campbell had majored in European languages at Brown before she fast-tracked law but as soon as they started speaking to anyone in French they cut them off impatiently as soon as they heard the American in their voices. The irony was that then they started talking to them in their appalling English! Twenty-four hours and the French were already they and them the enemy. At least they dont smoke in cafs any more, Campbell said encouragingly.

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It wasnt until theyd walked almost all the way back to their hotel near the Madeleine that they found somewhere both of them were prepared to compromise on. The window was full of exquisite cakes that were like works of art that were works of art. They ignited a kind of mad desire in Campbell, made her feel so greedy that she wanted to eat every cake in the window. This one then? she said, feigning indifference. Sure, Joel said, not feigning indifference. He didnt have a sweet tooth. Hed been in a bad mood ever since they landed on French soil. Their luggage had gone missing at Charles de Gaulle and it had made him endlessly fretful. But it had turned up this morning at the hotel and when they opened their suitcases their neat, pressed clothes (unredeemably American) were all present and correct, so he really didnt have to keep going on about it. All the time looking for something to complain about. She supposed he had been argumentative for weeks, but here, removed from his everyday New York context, his petulance seemed to pervade everything. Theyd spent their honeymoon in a quaint little hotel in the Marais but it was fully booked this week and they had ended up in a middle-ofthe-range place that seemed characterless in comparison. Breakfast this morning had been a rather spare buffet little pats of foil-wrapped butter