Then, the day after her thirty-seventh birthday, the trade papers announced a plan to film a new installment of Batman. The news was happy for everyone but Sofia, who learned that the role of Batman’s perky dream girl, his partner in crime, the role Sofia had made her own for a generation of fans, had gone to Courtney Smith, a twenty-three-year-old Los Angeles native who brought “energy” to the role and “always knew” she was the “real Batgirl.” Sofia had not landed a starring role since.
“He won’t care what you’re wearing, Sofia,” her agent said carefully.
“He will,” she replied.
“Could you not just concentrate on your performance?”
Sofia scowled. “Never say that to me again, Max.”
Max sighed. “I thought this was a bad idea from the start,” he said. Sofia felt inclined to agree with him but didn’t verbalize it. She had been the one to insist on the part. “Why do you do this to yourself, Sofia?”
“Working with Jack Travers is an honor,” she said in a robotic voice, repeating the sound bite she had given to seven separate news agencies when she first signed on to do the film. “He is one of the best directors in the world. How could I pass up the opportunity?”
“It’s an honor for anyone who is not his ex-wife.”
“Not divorced yet, Max.” Sofia sat down.
This was the real reason for the panic attacks, the paper-bag blowing, the hiding. She and her husband had signed on to do the Jane Austen picture when they were still together. Jack Travers wanted to do a period film, and he had a family connection to Jane Austen; he was a descendant of one of the author’s brothers. Secretly, Sofia knew the real reason was that Jack wanted to add a statue to his mantelpiece. After years of breaking box office records with his violence-heavy CV, now he wanted cred.
Sofia had joyfully joined the ride, because she loved Jane Austen, and because it gave her the chance to spend time with Jack. Hilariously, she had originally signed on thinking she would be playing the lead. When she quietly discovered she was playing Mrs. Allen, the chaperone of the lead (chaperone—was there a frumpier-sounding word in the English language?), she nodded enthusiastically and pretended like she had known this all along. It still allowed her to hang out with her husband, which was the part she wanted.
Then a few months after contracts were signed, as Sofia presented Jack with a three-egg-white-and-spinach omelet she had made herself in their stainless-steel kitchen in the Hollywood Hills, Jack announced he was leaving her. They had grown apart, he said.
Everyone had voiced their kind words and support; the production company had offered to release Sofia from her contract so she wouldn’t have to work with him. But Sofia, quietly heartbroken, vindictive, and secretly hopeful, insisted that if anyone was going to leave the film, it should be Jack. Jack stayed on, and Sofia took this as a sign. She hatched a plan.
Film shoots were long: after spending that much time together, he would fall back in love with her. They had fallen in love during the crazy time of a film shoot, and they could do so again. Unfortunately for Sofia, she remained horribly in love with her husband. Nothing she had ever felt compared to that first falling for him, and you got such things once. Everyone has their one, and Jack was hers. And now she planned to use this film to get him back.
She had spent the last few months dealing admirably with the potential end of her marriage. She’d learned the unique torment of separating from someone in the public eye. Sofia used to be one of those people characterized by headlines about her basic movements: “Sofia Wentworth Stuns in Black Leggings While Walking Dog.” Recently, the headlines about her had changed. “Friends Worry for Sofia’s Mental Health” was one (she didn’t know who these friends were), “Poor Sofia Hides Out After Separation,” another. Strangers approached her on the street, offering her marriage advice as though they knew her—owned her—which, in a way, they did.
Despite all of this, she maintained a dignified silence. She’d avoided drowning her sorrows in those jumbo tubs of ice cream that caterers buy for weddings, she’d not sobbed on the kitchen floor. She’d gone to the gym, preserved her waist at its pre-breakup measurements, kept her glorious red mane coiffed to its usual perfection. Her husband was an aesthete: he loved beautiful things, and he appreciated talent and confidence.
But now, as she wore this bejewelled outfit resembling a flightless bird, all her hard work would be ruined. If she presented herself to her husband for the first time since their breakup hidden beneath these comical folds of fabric and making a fool of herself, it might be hard to maintain the irresistible veneer of happiness she carefully fostered, the appearance of being okay. She was not one of those women who could gleefully and gracefully send themselves up; she did not appear on talk shows wearing chicken costumes or dressed up as a man for laughs, allowing herself to be roasted or made fun of. She wore beautiful clothes and people wanted her. Now she was about to destroy all that. Not only would she turn off her fans
