Courtney touched his arm. “No, Jack, you’re missing the point.” Sofia blinked at the way Courtney spoke to him. He wouldn’t stand for it.
“What is the point, young lady?” he said to Courtney with a smile. Sofia’s heart sank a little. He seemed to be standing for it.
“The point is, Sofia’s character is meant to be humorous. Jane Austen wrote comedies, remember? This will honor that.”
Sofia bristled. She found herself in a battle of two warring parts. On the one hand, she wanted to look devastatingly glamorous on-screen in a beautiful gown, break hearts, and show Courtney up. On the other hand, she worshipped Jane Austen, and doing right by the little woman now living in her brother’s house would involve honoring this infernal child’s suggestion. She cursed Jane for the dilemma.
Jack looked at them both. “It’s a good idea,” Jack said. “You don’t mind, do you, Sofe?”
“I suppose not,” Sofia said. She didn’t mind most things when he called her “Sofe.” He used to call her that all the time.
“Cool,” he said.
“Cool,” Courtney repeated. She winked at him and followed him out of the makeup truck.
Sofia stood there and watched them go.
ONCE UPON A time, Sofia’s beauty had disarmed. When she was fourteen years old, a man had walked up to her on a darkened train platform, drunk. “You’re the hottest piece of arse I’ve ever seen,” he declared. He was at least thirty-five. She was terrified. Then she learned to use it. She studied herself in the mirror each day until she had shaped a set of looks, walks, and laughs. By the time she was fifteen, tales of her beauty swept the length of her village.
The body matched the face in perfection. Sofia was not just thin, she was curved, like the hood of a race car. If you wanted to get all scientific about it, as some of the movie nutritionists did in awed voices, she maintained a fat percentage homeostasis known as bikini, hovering around 18 percent, never wavering, and most of that was bosom and bottom. She never counted calories, anguished, or starved. If she indulged over Christmas, she would eat carefully for three days and be back to her best. Nothing else was required; she was born that way.
She had made her way to London as soon as she could, one of the youngest students ever accepted into RADA’s hallowed halls. The other students pointed and whispered; they said she didn’t get in on talent, she wouldn’t graduate. Eight months out from finishing, when the Royal Shakespeare called looking for an Ophelia, Sofia auditioned, was offered, and accepted the role. So the students were right.
She did TV and theater for a few years, good British stuff, always playing the same role whether she was a policewoman, a lawyer, or a medical intern. She was the harlot with the heart of gold, the damaged love interest. Too beautiful to play anyone serious. She eked out a good living, but she wanted more. As soon as she had enough money saved, she bought a one-way ticket to Los Angeles. Three months later, she was Batgirl.
When Sofia first slipped into that batsuit, the black oily skin hugging her hips and breasts like a glove, no straight man in the audience (and quite a few of the women) was the same again. It was only a comic book movie, but desire transcended even the silliest of settings. Bronwyn, the hair and makeup designer, dyed Sofia’s hair red to go with the slinky black leotard, old-Hollywood style, like Rita Hayworth’s. It turned out to be a masterstroke: Sofia already looked like no one else, but with the crimson hair, she was truly in a league of her own. Sofia was only playing a supporting character, but she romped and whipped her way through the film. Under the lights, her hair bouncing on her shoulders in voluptuous flaming curls, Sofia stole the show. History was made, records were broken, and a star was born.
Sofia liked the red hair so much, she kept it. The color became her calling card, a tidal wave of rich ruby velvet that crowned her head, like no other.
Then one day, at age thirty-four, Sofia caught her reflection in a mirror in daylight. A crow’s-foot stared back at her. Minuscule and imperceptible to anyone but her, a trench ran from the corner of her left eye and dragged gently down her cheekbone. Sofia knew she was still a fine-looking woman, by world standards. But she did not live in the world. She lived in magazines and on billboards, where pores were magnified and wrinkles were to scale. She’d gasped at the small crack in her face and pleaded with herself to remain calm. But by the end of that year, a second crow’s-foot had joined the first. Her skin grew coarser and sagged in places. But under certain lights and with makeup, she still looked damn good, she told herself.
A few months later, a director did not return her call, something that had never happened before. She thought she would be good for a part in his next movie, the love interest of a naval officer trying to find himself. The part went to someone ten years her junior and she felt incredibly foolish. The next month, a fashion brand quietly severed its contract. She reassured herself that things would be okay. She had traded in only one currency for over a decade; now its value had dropped. But surely people didn’t love her just for her looks. That power she’d first wielded at fourteen was gone, but she had other things of value to offer, no?
Sofia stood in the makeup room, on the wrong side of thirty-five, and tried to convince herself she was right.
“You know why Courtney’s doing this, right?” Derek said. “The green dress, the no makeup? She’s trying
