THE BUSTLE OF STARDOM(Charles E.J. Moulton) “Miranda!”
Sarah smiled when she saw Miranda looking her way.
“I’m sorry, Sarah. I was gone.”
“Where were you?”
Miranda smiled and reached for her Moet & Chandon. That sweet, bubbly taste made the longing go away. For a while, anyway.
“In Madrid.”
Sarah sat back in her chair. The two, successful women listened to the waves crashing against the shore for a second as the bustle of Cannes passed by the audial landscape. One of the posher Cote d’Azur restaurants was their’s to call their own today between jobs. The film festival was high and mighty at the moment and the the women were both stars in two films being introduced here. Sarah was happily single. Miranda was unhappily broken up. Sarah was trying her best to get Miranda to stop thinking about her ex. Miranda was doing her best to remember him. The wind was soft and warm, just like always this time of year. Sarah’s look wasn’t. It was cool and hard.
“The man is history, Miranda. He betrayed you. Get a life.”
“Seven years is a long time.”
Miranda reached for her biscuit and started chewing. She could see Sarah looking at her. No, this woman was staring at her.
Miranda looked her way. Sarah was adamantly staring back at her through her Ray-Bans. Miranda adjusted her apricot colored creation by Versace and pulled that large brimmed Karl Lagerfeld hat a bit deeper down over her eyes.
Some fan walked by a nodded, taking that hat trick for an invitation to speak, saw that Miranda nodded back and promptly came up with a pad and a pen.
“Oh, Miss Mahoney,” the young woman said. “I’ve seen every one of your movies, but this last one is just fabulous. Will you be working with George Taylor again soon? You two fit so well together.”
Miranda smiled, trying to swallow the biscuit before answering. Was this on purpose? Did God actually send this fan just in this moment to test her?
How was she going to live with this contradiction?
Why wasn’t her agent here?
She tried to do this as elegantly as possible by pushing the biscuit to the sides of her mouth and overemphasizing the consonants. Not that this woman told her friends that Miranda Mahoney was a pig.
“George is finishing off the new Bond movie in Madrid. If our schedules allow it we will work together again soon. We will see what happens, but it is nice to hear that you like our movies. What’s your name?”
“Pamela,” the young woman chirped.
The woman smiled as Miranda signed her autograph and backed away nodding.
Miranda put her sunglasses back on and smiled.
Sarah was still looking at Miranda.
“Now, explain to me what you just did.”
Miranda sighed. “Seven years is a long time, Sarah. I love George, all right. It’s just that I found him with our secretary.”
“You just found him with your secretary? Where did you find him? In the garbage?”
“George has been under a lot of stress lately. His bad press for that romantic comedy was a big blow to his career.”
“Yeah, blow is right. It was a real job.”
“Sarah, please, not here.”
“I just found it interesting that this fan’s name was Pamela. That’s a sign, if anything.”
Miranda shrugged. “It’s a common name, Sarah. My secretary’s name was Pamela, but I don’t have a problem with that name. Do you?”
A waiter walked by and Miranda caught his attention.
“Pourrions-nous payer s'il vous plaît, monsieur?”
“Certes, Mlle Mahoney. Tout de suite.”
Sarah seemed to be giving up. She drank down her Martini in one gulp and then gave Miranda an up nod. “So, you want him back?”
“I was unfaithful, as well, Sarah. We are the modern Liz and Dick.”
“Dick?”
“For crying out loud. Richard Burton and Liz Taylor?”
“Oh, yeah, them. Yes, the yellow press have certainly turned you into that.”
“You’re my friend, Sarah. Please act accordingly.”
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I was already hurt, Sarah. I am trying to live with that in order to find out if I could live with him again.”
The pretty waiter with his long French eyelashes came and laid the bill in front of Miranda’s nose and Miranda inserted her Visa Gold Card into the leather case.
The waiter disappeared again.
“I need him. I seem to think of him day and night.”
Sarah nodded.
Miranda gave Sarah a half-smile. “Obviously, it wasn’t his fault.”
“He did it, didn’t he?”
“He almost did it.”
“They had their clothes off. Gee wiz, what other proof do you need.”
“Sarah, his shirt was ripped. It was rape. She was without a blouse, he was fighting it.”
“Rape? Get real. He was unfaithful. Dump him.”
There was a long silence again. The two women looked at the Carlton pompously towering over them and how it blended in with all the water and all the sand and all the ships. It was obvious they were made to live like this. But were they really happy? Miranda seemed only to think of George and Sarah only kept telling Miranda to get with it and get a new husband. In a way, Sarah and Miranda were like Waldorf and Statler from the Muppets.
“I gotta lay down before the press conference. Hope you don’t mind.”
“I have to, as well. When is yours?”
“Five.”
Since no other word was said for the next minute or so, Miranda kept on talking.
“We have three interviews tonight and twelve tomorrow. I fly back to L.A. alone on Monday. My agent flies back a week later. I don’t mind. Business class is nice and quiet.”
“What are you working on?”
“I start filming Indecision on Wednesday. What about you?”
“Mostly promotion. My next movie is a month away. I am promoting Jackass with Tony Reynolds tonight. We watch it, then I say something about my role, then we drink champagne and eat caviar. Lah-dee-dah and blah-blah-blah, smarty pants.“
Sarah started giggling, but stopped when she saw that Miranda just fiddled with her sunglasses and sighed. Sarah continued.
“Then we have thirteen interviews for that tomorrow. The Wicked Witch of Washington seems to be hitting off well, so we are including that in the Jackass PR campaign. I have to leave on Sunday, because they want me in New York at CBS on Monday night. We have to reshoot an episode of Zelda. Shit, I am already tired. Geez, I never thought travelling this much would be such a drag.”
“We’ll be two posh jetlag bags,” Miranda mused.
“Bags in Chanel and Revlon,” Sarah mused. “Oh, honey. I wish I could solve your amorous entanglements.”
“Then don’t try to tell me what to do, dear.”
Miranda looked out toward the beach, her eyes far off in the distance. Somewhere out there was a cruise ship with a perfectly happy couple, living normal lives. They all wanted to be her. Miranda wanted to be them.
“They all think we have a great life, don’t they?” Sarah sing-songed when she saw Miranda gazing at the water. “I mean, we do. But it is a hell of lot of stress. Every move is watched, every single wink is documented. I can’t even belch any more. Variety would blow it up in the first page.”
Miranda nodded. “I know what you mean. I wish I was back in college again, dating and going to the clubs on Saturdays. Eating ice cream in the park.”
“Instead you are in Cannes, eating lobster.”
Miranda looked at Sarah and began to snigger. Both women felt silly, knowing how lucky they were in their professions and how much they enjoyed being well known. They giggled and couldn’t stop.
“I mean, I get my frigging Revlon for free now,” Sarah said.
“I did a commercial for Revlon once,” Miranda responded, laughing even harder and making the passer’s by wonder why these two very successful women were laughing their heads off. “They kept on putting this lipstick on every second. I felt like a frigging Van Gogh painting.”
When the laughing-fits were dying down, the women let the words sipper out with small spurts of female energy.
“Make-up shoots suck,” Sarah laughed.
“Except for the cash,” Miranda winked.
“You are ao greedy.”
The waiter came again and laid the Visa receipt on the table.
“S’il vous plait. You enjoyed your stay here, ladies, I see.”
Sarah smiled. “We are just laughing at ourselves.”
“Ah, trés gentil. Bien, bien.”
“My treat,” Miranda said, winking at Sarah and writing down the tip on the paper.
“Thanks,” Sarah chirped. “We have a date when you come to New York, right?”
“I will there on the 18th for the opening of that Broadway show.”
“Let’s go out to some fancy place and eat something delicious and expensive.”
Miranda smiled. “You have a date.”
She handed the handsome waiter the bill and gave him back his pen.
“If you really love George, then get him back.”
“I fired the Pamela woman. Her dark, curly hair, brown eyes, nougat skin and sultry looks really turned his head. Georgie said she leapt up on him, ripped off his shirt and started giving him ...”
“What? Head?”
Miranda nodded.
“Uhm, don’t you have to take something else off to do that?”
“I think Georgie knows that?”
“Hey, don’t count on it.”
“Didn’t his daddy tell him about the birds and the bees?”
“He told him to keep his hands to himself.”
“Did you see them do it?”
“When I came in he was protesting that he didn’t want her to go on with it.”
“And you still wanted to kick his ass?”
“Obviously, there was something going on. Pamela’s boyfriend had broken up with her that day and she was taking revenge on him. When I fired her, she cried, not knowing why she had done such a thing and pleading for me to keep her on the staff. I still fired her and then I threw out George out of the mansion on top of it. He is now renting a house in Bel Air. He writes me mails and text messages all the time. He sent me three dozen red roses here to Cannes.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Three dozen?”
Miranda nodded.
“Wow.”
The two women stood up. “I’m gonna lay down. I have a long evening.”
“See ya, toots.”
“Maybe at the festival.”
“Maybe not.”
The two women parted ways, Sarah loafed toward the Palais des Festivals et des Congrés. Miranda went back to her room at the Carlton Hotel to check if George had sent her another message. If he had, she would be sure not to answer him.

The main character was indecisive.
So it was Miranda’s job to portray the her with that kind of a waffling quality. The question was, of course, why this role came to her in her present situation. Okay, okay. She had chosen the role. But still she wondered why someone actually offered her this kind of a role. In fact, although she had been a successful actress now for fifteen years, Miranda felt that she really was quite lazy and never ever could make up her mind. Her agent always kept forcing her to make up her mind about a contract or actually tell somebody off not to push her around. Wasn’t that funny? Everyone saw her as a tough kind of woman, a star. Little did they know that Miranda Mahoney was a milktoast and a scardie-cat.
Business class was empty today, just an executive here and an actress there, and so Miranda could plug in her mp3-player and learn her role. She had recorded all her lines on mp3-files with tips about locations, background information and character history.
That gave her time to let this character sink in. Force Miranda to think about George. Think about the similarity between herself and the main character Susanne. Susanne really always painted herself in a corner because she kept returning to the man she loved. But, in fact, the man she loved only used her. The big question for Susanne was how to make her boyfriend stop using her and still keep him in her heart.
Miranda refused to believe that there was any similarity between her own boyfriend and George. George had never been unfaithful before, Miranda had. George had forgiven her, why shouldn’t she? Had she actually missed something? Was George more of a jerk than she knew? If he was as nice as she thought he was, had she overreacted?
That phone call this morning had been nice and he claimed it was clear to him how much he loved her. He had called himself a dumbass and claimed not to be able to concentrate on his role at all. Madrid was beautiful and Daniel Craig was a very fine colleague. But, in actual fact, George spent all of his time just thinking of Miranda.
Or so he said.
Miranda told him that she needed her time and that they would have to play it by ear. She would start filming the day after tomorrow and every waking moment would be devoted to the set at Paramount. George said that he would finish the movie on Monday a week from now. He could spend the following free month before he started rehearsing the new production of Barefoot in the Park just taking care of Miranda, cooking for her, bringing her breakfast in bed and what not.
She told him that he would have to prepare his role.
He responded that he knew that role in his sleep.
He had done that play a year ago in Chicago. He knew the lines, he knew the character. That show would litterally be a walk in the park.
Miranda said she would think about it.
No, no, no. Miranda had to concentrate on these lines. What was she doing? Shooting was going to start soon. They were going to film the last scene first and that was the most difficult one. Preparation is everything, Madama Yolinka had told her back in the Actor’s Studio during her study years in New York. Never underestimate preparation.
Okay, what was her task in that last scene?
Her motivation was to seek out her boyfriend and tell him that she wanted him after all. She couldn’t find him. He was already gone. The ship had left. Sadness. When had she felt sadness? Strong sadness. When George had betrayed her? Oh, no. Not again.
Okay, concentration.
Last scene.
My boyfriend is gone. Susanne’s centre of gravity is higher, because she is tense and uptight. There is alway this forward motion. She is desperate. Stay true to the physical motion of moving forward. Then, dismay when the character realizes that all hope is lost. Centre of gravity drops a notch and she slouches. Turns around. Sees her boyfriend. No tension. Think air, think floating, think flying. Filled with hope. Five emotions: tense, desperate, dismayed, relieved, joyous. Camera fixed on my face. Little movement, lots of emotion. Work with your eyes. Keep your face still.
The executive two rows behind her began snoring.
Concentration was low. She had been on the air now for sixteen hours, eaten far more than she should have, watched too many movies, slept really badly and her fitness trained butt felt like it was made of dead meat.
That executive was getting louder.
Miranda turned around and saw the corpulent man opening his mouth, his beard making little twirls as he breathed. Man, Miranda thought, you would fit very well in our movie, sir. Instead of Oliver Platt, you could be doing my boyfriend’s buddy. Playing, Miranda. Playing.
Boyfriend. What a word. The scriptwriters insisted on using that word. But to Miranda, it was clear that boyfriend sounded too sophomore. It sounded like bubble gum and The Everly Brothers, pop corn and high school proms.
Then get with it, Miranda, the voice inside her said, what is George to you?
The love of my life.
The phrase was so clear in her mind that it surprised her. Was that true? Yes, it was. It surprised her to say it, but it was true. It was a revelation. The man that had been unfaithful to her was the love of her life. Could she imagine growing old with this man? Yes. Live a quiet life? Har-dee-har. Neither Georgie nor Miranda would ever be quiet, but she knew what that voice meant. Buy a house, have kids and mow the lawn, wake up every morning and eat breadrolls and scrambled eggs on the terrace.
The thought was so beautiful that she cried, put away the mp3-player, watched a stupid movie called Jackass with a colleague of hers named Sarah.
Then, after the movie had ended, the movie star Miranda Mahoney fell asleep and snored very loud. In fact, she snored so loud that the executive started complaining. When the stewardess told him who this famous snorer was, he filmed Miranda snoring with his Panasonic video camera. In secret, of course.
Miranda didn’t know.
She dreamt of George.
In her dream, they were married and had children.
She woke up again two hours later, her face completely outglittered by some hot stewardess that gave her such a toothaching grin that she thought she had the female version of Jim Carrey in front of her.
“Oh, hello,” the woman said and tapped her on the shoulder.
Miranda opened her eyes.
“Hmm?”
She took a long at the woman, saw her sparkling eyes and produced a grin.
“We would like to inform you that the plane lands in ten minutes,” the woman said. “You will be walking off the plane prior to the other passengers. Your driver and secretary are waiting for you at the gates. We wish you a pleasant day.”
Miranda stretched and nodded and the stewardess left.
All the way to the arrivals, Miranda kept on thinking of George all the way home.

Miranda had been sitting on her couch looking at the DVD of today’s initial try-outs. The scene had turned out well, there was incredible energy there, but still she felt that something could be imrpoved. Was it her posture? The look in her eye? She felt the loneliness, she felt the pain, the long dialogue scene had been shot for a six days now and still the director felt that something could be imrpoved. The lonely scenes were fine, but the scene when the female character reunited with her old boyfriend just didn’t seem to work, no matter how intensely the two kissed.
The sun was almost setting when Miranda got up and poured herself a brandy. She took a long look at the original Rubens above the piano and went back to sit on her hundred thousand dollar couch, a present to her from Antonio Banderas.
Once she turned that DVD player on again, the doorbell rang.
Miranda pushed the pause button and got up.
For a moment, she stopped. There was a man outside the door. Could it be?
She ran to the window in the livingroom.
A car was parked outside in the driveway.
It was a Lamborghini.
George’s car. George’s car? He had a Porsche. Had he bought a new car?
There he was, standing on the front stoop in his white Armani-shirt and the Yves Saint-Laurent pants that he knew Miranda liked. He was holding red roses.
“Asshole,” Miranda spat to herself. “Slimy bastard.”
She turned to the gilded baroque mirror above the chippendale closet and looked at her tousled hair and her flowery Calvin Klein bathrobe. She looked like shit. No wonder the studio bosses were having second thoughts.
“Quickly,” she told herself, “powder your nose now.”
Then she stopped and gazed at herself in disbelief.
What was she doing? Making herself beautiful for a man that slept around?
Or had he slept around?
Had it been rape?
Miranda shook her head and laughed. “No way.”
He had to take her the way she was.
She strode up to the main landing across the Persian rug, putting on her fluffy dog slippers as she passed the Jugendstil coat-hanger.
Her hands shaking, she opened the door.
There he was, her bastard dream lover.
He looked like a lost puppy.
She tried her best to put on an angry face.
“What do you want?”
He smiled and shrugged. He lift his hand with an almost reclining gesture of hope and shyness. He closed his eyes. “I miss you.”
She looked at the red roses, not bothering to count them.
“George,” she said, indifferently. “You already sent me three dozen in Cannes. You have something new for a change?”
“How about a new car?”
She gazed at the black thing behind him. “You think I would sell my soul for a car?”
“I can’t sleep.”
Mirandas stood there for two minutes, closing her eyes. When she opened them, he had turned his back. But he was still standing on the second step, hoping for her to ask him to come in. She stepped aside and opened the door. George turned around. That made him stride into the house.
The house smelled of her. It smelled of Chopard perfume and mint bathfoam and coconut shower gel and Revlon lipstick. It reeked of female hatred and a woman’s tear and a promise never to look at another man. It smelled of past loves and thespian pain. It felt cosy and sad and angry. It smelled of lusty vaginas and hurt souls. It smelled like home.
Miranda was already on the couch, watching the TV, watching herself act on camera, pouring herself a second brandy and munching the Beligian Godiva Chocalates she had picked up at Cannes Airport.
George stood there, watching Miranda watch herself. Miranda pretended to be madly busy. Softly, ever so slowly, George took off his shoes and stepped down the three steps on the beige carpet of the stairs onto the white living room. He did not dare speak to her, so he went to the window, looking at the view. This had been his favorite place. Now it hurt to be here. It hadn’t even been his fault. Miranda had been unfaithful and he had forgiven her. George had not. He had been raped.
He had no idea what to say, so he gathered just blurting it out was the best.
“I am pressing charges,” he said. “I have gone to my attourney and am accusing her off rape. Pamela has already received the notification. My lawyer advised me not to. I am, anyway.”
George heard the click of the remote control put the TV on pause.
George turned around and saw a still of Miranda kissing her co-star Leigh Meigham.
His eyes turned to Miranda, who stood there dumbfounded with her brandy glass in one hand and her script in the other. The look on her face was full of love, full of hate, full of happiness, shock, disbelief and mistrust all at once.
“What happened, Georgie?”
George sighed. “I was working on the lines for the Bond-thing, practicing some moves, some emotions, knowing you were on your way. When I had finished, I wanted to cook you a meal, knowing you were going to be tired after a long day’s shooting. Pamela arrived through that door.”
George pointed at the door behind him, through which he had just strode.
“She was very perky and lovely and sweet and said to me that she wanted to help me cook you a meal. I told her to go, because I had promised you a home cooked meal. She looked at me in disbelief and still said that she wanted to help me cook it. I told her that she could help me cut the vegetables and find me the ingredients.”
George went to the bar and poured himself a white wine.
“May I?”
Miranda nodded.
She crossed her arms in front of her swelling bosom.
“Well, as we were there in the kitchen we began talking. She told me that she was an aspiring actress and had studied at the actor’s studio in New York City. I gave her a few pointers and she took them, willingly. We shoved the dish into the oven and I told her I wanted to go down to the wine cellar and get you favourite brand of 1999 Tuscan red. I lay my hand on her shoulder and told her that she could leave, because I needed some time alone with you. Then it happened. She began giving me compliments, telling me how she suffered being so in love with me and having to work here. I was rather shocked and told her I couldn’t love her back. She pushed me against the wall and began kissing me. She obviously thought that her dark, curly, sultry looks got to me and so she went for me. I pushed her away, of course, but she told me that she knew that I liked her and that I had wanted her for a long time. I told her, truthfully, that I had only been friendly. Somehow, that made her even more willing to jump on me. She took off her clothes and started ripping mine off and finally ended up on her knees opening my fly. She was just about to take out my thing, with me pushing her head away, when you walked in.”
George took a large gulp of the wine and continued, waving his hands about.
“You went crazy and I tried to explain myself. As a result, Pamela got fired. I got pissed off for this and you took this as me defending Pamela. In actual fact, I was confused. This woman had just raped me and I had no possibility of defending myself. You threw me out, Pamela drove off, I rang the doorbell and you rolled down the blinds, you turned off your phone, the hot dish in the oven probably got burned beyond recognition and then we flew our various ways. I filmed the last scenes of the flick in Madrid, you were probably wining and dining with Sarah at the festival and ...”
George sighed and shook his head.
“It all went out of control.”
Miranda went to the couch again and sat down.
She took a long look at herself on the TV screen, kissing Leigh.
Now, it was clear to her why the scene hadn’t worked.
Reuniting with her on-screen boyfriend couldn’t be believable when she was so confused about her own love life.
George came and sat down next to her.
Miranda looked over at him and smiled.
“That would explain the ripped shirt.”
George nodded several times, looking down.
“Why would I want to betray you, Miranda?”
Miranda half-smiled. “Maybe she Shows you a good time.”
George laughed. “Is that all you think of me? Some sex-crazed animal?”
There was a long pause. George had the words on the tip of his tongue He had to say it. It was only right. Okay, he wanted her back, but not on the expense of the truth.
“Look, Miranda,” he said. “You were unfaithful to me, too, and I forgave you. I am innocent here. The least you can do is talk to me. Just because I am a man doesn’t mean I am wrong.”
“I have never said that,” Miranda whispered.
“That is what comes across from women today, as sorry as I am to say that. Why do you think there are so many divorces today? Women try to control men, they jig, amble and tally around a thousand curves.”
Miranda sneered. “That’s unfair.”
“Okay,” George said. “The thing is that I love you and I want to grow old with you. But you got to trust me on this, babe. Pamela raped me.”
Miranda shrugged. George took her hands and held them tight. He looked at her deep in the eyes with that look that he knew she loved so much.
“Miranda, I was going to propose to you that night.”
Suddenly, Miranda felt her heart skip a beat. Had she heard right? Had he said propose? Without being able to control it, she sat there holding his hands in front of a screen showing her kissing another man, and cried. One tear rolled down Miranda’s cheek.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter that she was a famous, wealthy film-star. Miranda was a girl at her first high-school prom and her boyfriend and just asked her out for a date.
“What?”
“Will you be my wife?”
Her eyes flickered, she smiled, turned away her head. Then, involuntarily, her right hand travelled up toward her mouth. Sobbing, she started searching for words.
“I was so hurt that day, because I thought you didn’t love me any more. I saw myself on the cover of Variety, my love life spilled on the cover and me in the middle helpless to stop it. My soul felt itself losing the one person I needed more than life.”
George raised his finger and put it on her lips.
He shook his head.
“I am here, I am faithful and I am not leaving.”
George took her head in his hands, moved his head closer to her’s and kissed her. It was the most intense kiss she had ever experienced, his tongue playing deep inside her mouth, his musky Armani after shave reeking of masculinity, his one-day-beard scratching her lips with skillful harshness, his hands playfully reaching for her still natural C-cups and ever so softly playing with her nipples.
She kissed him, taking his head in her hands and let him have his will with her.
Soon their bodies were full of sweat, their organs throbbing, their genders vital. They were united, ecstatic, wabbling, erotic, riding the night with spectacular love.

---