She also went to parties. They weren’t the kind of thing she enjoyed, but her agent had made it very clear that they weren’t optional. She teamed up with a girl called Clara from her improv class and they’d each been the other’s wing-woman. It included a lot of smiling and nodding while people told you about their next project, often at great length. Clara described it as being a never-ending series of ridiculous houses filled with people waiting for their chance to talk next.
Clara was funny. She’d also been a lifesaver. On numerous occasions they’d managed to extract each other from creepy “Baby, I’m gonna make you a star” guys, through the use of subtle signals. Hollywood was perpetually drowning in a sea of its own clichés. They would laugh about it as they walked down from the hills to find a bus route home.
Steven Reed was a producer of kids movies – the good ones. Not the ones that featured animals making inexplicable runs at NBA success. He worked with his wife, Abigail, and they were one of Hollywood’s true power couples. Theirs weren’t the movies that went to Cannes or had massive, splashy opening weekends. Theirs were the movies that were adored by the middle-class parenting masses of America. The ones that the whole family could enjoy and then buy on DVD. The Reeds were said to have an uncanny instinct for what Middle America needed.
Tatiana read for them and then had a lunch, which went great. It was all pictures of their kids, talk of their daughter studying at Stanford, and charming stories about their early days dealing with highly strung stars and the perils of working with child actors. Tatiana was pencilled in for a role, which meant she was down to the last two. The wait was excruciating.
A couple of weeks later, she bumped into Steven at a party. He’d explained that Abigail had flown out to the East Coast to calm down a director who was losing his mind. He seemed remarkably chilled about the whole thing. Tatiana studiously avoided mentioning the part she was up for, while they chatted all night. Steven was showing her off – introducing her to people, some of them big names. Names you saw in the headlines of the Hollywood press. During a quiet moment, or at least one when a well-known director was monologuing about a movie that was never getting made, Steven had leaned in, squeezed her arm, and whispered to her to keep it to herself but she had the part.
Tatiana had felt weak at the knees, but she’d held it together, restraining herself to a demure nod and a grin. At that point Steven had excused himself to go to the bathroom. Tatiana had politely smiled her way through a couple of more minutes and then rushed off to call Clara and tell her the news. She’d wanted to find somewhere discreet, where she could jump up and down and have a quiet scream without blowing her cover of Hollywood blasé.
She’d bumped into Steven again as she’d been on her way out the door. He’d offered her a lift. It had seemed sensible – the safe option. In the car, they’d discussed the movie and Steven had told her he’d phone her agent on Monday to confirm the offer, but to keep it to herself until then. The other unlucky actress had not been informed yet.
Even when he’d suggested she stay over at their place, so that Abigail could talk to her about her co-star in the morning when she got back from the East Coast, no alarm bells had rung. The guy had a daughter her age. They’d had one final drink, and then …
She’d woken up in the morning and known right away. She was in a bedroom she didn’t remember entering. Nothing made sense, though. She only ever had a couple of drinks – she had never enjoyed the sensation of not being in control. There was bruising that confirmed her worst fears. She threw up in the en suite and could hardly look at herself in the mirror. When she’d finally pulled herself together to leave, there had been no sign of Steven, but Abigail had been sitting at the breakfast bar, drinking coffee.
Before Tatiana could say anything, Abigail had nodded towards the door. “There’s a car outside. It will take you wherever you want to go.”
Tatiana had gone to speak, but she’d cut her off.
“Don’t bother, honey. Little tramps like you are a dime a dozen in this town.”
“No, but he …”
“Yeah, sure. You’re a little innocent. Get the fuck out and grow the fuck up.”
Tatiana had cried all the way home and then, when there had been no more tears left to cry, she’d gone to the police. This was long before MeToo was a thing. The cop had taken her report, barely commenting as he took down the details, only raising an eyebrow when she’d explained how she’d ended up back at the Reeds’ house. He’d explained matter-of-factly that these things were Reed’s word against hers and, y’know, he was a powerful guy. He said they would make enquiries. The whole experience had left her feeling worse, not better.
On Monday morning, she’d called her agent’s office to set up a meeting for the following day. She needed to explain what had happened. The meeting never took place. All she’d got was a voicemail the next morning explaining how she’d not got the role in the Reeds’ movie and that the agency had decided that she would be better represented elsewhere.
Tatiana had raged at the unfairness of it all. She’d tried to fight back. She’d returned to the police,
