Most Hated, page 4
Sabrina felt too tired to debate. She wanted to call someone and ask their opinion, but who would that be? She’d long ago lost touch with her Upper East Side friends and classmates; she never had any Hollywood friends; her team (the agent, the publicist, the manager) disappeared when they were snubbed from the wedding to demarcate the new season Sabrina the former actress was entering; and after the scandal broke her few remaining London girlfriends had distanced themselves from any and all contact with her. There was Budgie, but Sabrina already knew that she’d have some brutally honest observation like, “Honey, you did marry an aristo-cat. You sort of elevated the odds of being fodder for cocktail parties.”
“Alright. Let’s lose the magazine.”
“Perfect. See, we’re working together.” Zoe said kindly.
The Verroye households Budgie and Sabrina grew up in were built around the old days. The homes were not modern. No sleek, empty shelves with succulents and design books. They had elaborate curtain hangings, expensive rugs, uncomfortable couches, and chairs with beautiful lines. They stopped short of dressing formally for dinner every night—though they did always sit together, and none of them owned a T-shirt.
That being the case, Sabrina—and her skull—was conditioned to tugging, untangling, and the occasional burning. It was not unfamiliar to her to sit in a chair and have multiple people pulling at sections of her hair, to have a makeup artist pressing about too hard on her eyelids with their hundred-dollar brushes, and to have someone else cutting away cuticles and applying polish to her ever-brittle fingernails. There had even been times along the way where the dolling-up of Sabrina had been for a formal portrait sitting—like they were the Romanovs or something.
Sometimes there was a photographer or cameraman in the room, depending if anyone in the family had recently inked a deal—a book deal, magazine article, maybe a documentary. This was how Sabrina understood that the behind-the-scenes footage Aleksandr was getting was being filmed on the basis of the intense hope that there would be enough scandal to warrant the unpolished moments. Sabrina knew better than anyone how to put up with constant peripheral chaos.
When she had transitioned into her stint in the British aristocracy, life wasn’t all that different. She had been resignedly confident in the fact that her life was now set by these ridged rules and boundaries, and that it would never change. In fact, many in her former circle would be appalled that she’d had the nerve to be weary.
For whatever reason, it struck her as the show’s team began her makeup that she might be in some of the last days of this kind of life. After all she had gone from an estate in Europe to a bathroom in Manhattan. Granted, said bathroom was big enough that you could roller-skate in it, and in a penthouse that overlooked Central Park. Life after the scandal was a slippery slope, and she seemed to be in freshly waxed skis on the highest hill.
The Verroyes would always be rich. But she was disgraced, old news, and it was unclear how much her family would suffer for her embarrassment. They weren’t that medieval, but what if their name, the Verroye name, started to connote all this ugliness? They would never hate her, never hold it over her head (on purpose). But any further bad press could ruin them in society.
Best she could do was remind the world she was human. Laugh at herself, own her mistakes, and be the relatable one. The comeback story for a generation. Anything besides go into hiding.
This show had to work.
The beautifiers around her, not her usual crew but a group hired by production to devise her glam interview look, kept talking about how gorgeous and perfect she was, as if she was not sitting there. They kept talking about her different “looks.”
“Oh my god, girl, I’m still crying over her wedding dress. I die. I’m legit dying. I’m dead. All those sparkles. Were those crystals?”
“The dress was forty thousand Swarovski crystals, twenty thousand mother of pearl tear drops, and the train was thirty feet long. Sorry, am I right?” the other young woman asked Sabrina.
“That sounds right, I don’t know exactly.”
“It took like twenty-five seamstresses to make, and ten to get her into it that day. And your waist, like how is it so small? It blows my mind it’s like Barbie.”
That part was true. Nothing could have more completely proven to Sabrina how locked in she was about to feel. Countless clasps and sharp, rigid whalebones pressing against her own.
“What about that dress she wore when they went to that party in Cannes?”
“It was Givenchy, right? It had the same lines as the dress, oh my god, why am I blanking on the movie? Audrey Hepburn.”
“Was it Roman Holiday?”
“Maybe it was. Was it?”
“The movie was Sabrina,” said Sabrina, interrupting the conversation going on above and around her.
They both went silent.
“That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“We are legit beyond dumb.”
“How did we miss that?”
This went on for the rest of the hour it took to finish her hair and makeup, and Sabrina tuned in and out. Zoe came in and said to hurry up, they needed to get Sabrina dressed.
Soon, she followed someone into her own dressing room and unlocked the jewelry case, where a couple of unimpressed twenty-two-year-olds picked out what she ought to wear. They selected two Harry Winston bracelets and a pair of forget-me-not two carat earrings Sabrina had honestly forgotten. When she said this, they looked like they hated her, and she understood it, but couldn’t take it back.
They asked to see the looks she was hoping to wear for her interview, indicating the final decision would not be her own. Then they took the outfits into another room and got on FaceTime with some offsite producer who gave the go-ahead on an Oscar de la Renta with off-shoulder sleeves. Sabrina put it on, they photographed her, more FaceTime with the decision she needed a redder lip and was missing some “extra sparkle.” They gave her one of her own diamond necklaces and moved in to pump up her lip color.
“It’s too much, I can’t wear these many diamonds, I look like a caricature,” she managed to say when the makeup girl paused to reload her lip brush.
“Are you kidding? You look fabulous.” Zoe said. The one filling in her lips nodded in agreement. “Every carat is a fuck you to that scumbag.”
That made Sabrina smile, and yet she still wasn’t sure. There was no time to wonder, however, as she was ushered to her seat up on her wooden pedestal, beside the little decorated side table. The magazine was gone. The tiara had stayed. There was a glass, one of her glasses, with sparkling water, a lime wedge, and a straw, positioned out of camera view beside one of the legs of the throne. Zoe saw her glance down at it and caught her eye to mouth “for you” punctuated with an awkward wink. She blinked a few times to adjust to the stadium-bright lighting as her hair was combed, sprayed, and sprayed a bit more.
There was further adjusting of the set behind her, she was mic’d up, rolled for lint, and there was a sound check with a realization that the bracelets made a subtle but interfering noise, so they’d have to be taped together. During this time, Zoe was in deep discussions with a new face, an attractive young man who was drinking coffee from a can and nodding in understanding at what Zoe was instructing.
Zoe, iPad in hand, made an announcement to no one in particular, as the makeup girl took a burst of close-up photos of Sabrina with her phone.
“We’re ready. Let’s get going. Quiet in the kitchen please.” The last comment was directed at Sabrina’s housekeeper who was working away, unsure if she should stop altogether. Then to Sabrina, “Relax and be your wonderful self. If you need to stop for a bathroom break that’s all good.”
Zoe backed herself out of the way of the camera onto a nearby waiting chair, rotated her iPad, clipped in her keyboard, and began to transcribe.
“Sabrina,” the young man with the questions and the cold brew began, “I’m Drew and I’m going to be asking you all about yourself.”
He said the word all in a way that implied Sabrina was one of those women who loved nothing more than to talk about herself. Sabrina realized how nervous she was and reached to her feet to take a sip of the bubbly lime water. She was surprised to taste the vodka Zoe had introduced to the mix but felt it somehow appropriate not to let on she hadn’t anticipated this. She had to give the girl credit, she knew The Sabrina wasn’t Sabrina’s real drink, and the vodka, soda, lime ratio was spot on the way she liked it: three lime sections squeezed, one left in. Someone had done their research. She took a long sip, cleared her throat, waited for makeup coming in to touch up her lips, smiled her most pleasant smile, and answered, “Hello Drew.”
“I need you to answer my questions in full sentences back to me because of course I’ll be edited out of all this. If I ask, ‘What’s your favorite flavor ice cream,’ don’t answer ‘Chocolate.’ Instead, we need you to say, ‘My favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate because… .’ It’ll be frustrating for a minute till you get the hang of it. I’m sure you’ll be a pro.”
She nodded in understanding, thinking about the last time she had chocolate gelato in Rome with her daughter. Aubrey had watched through the glass storefront for more than a half hour, mesmerized as the owners and their children made the gelato, laughing and interacting with each other, showing great affection. She was twelve at the time, and Sabrina knew what had captivated the girl was not the process of how the dessert was made but rather a family dynamic entirely foreign to her.
“Tell us a little bit about yourself?”
Her heart was in her throat. “Unfortunately, I am afraid … people know who I am. Do I need to say it? Do I need to acknowledge what my husband—my ex-husband did? I already tried to talk about that, and we see how well that went.”
“Everyone’s got to do a little intro. It’s a brief thing.”
Sabrina gathered as much poise as she could and thought about how to describe herself. All her identity was wrapped in wealth and other people. She had spent her adult life either falling for or connected to someone or something she didn’t want to be hers anymore.
“My name is Sabrina Verroye, and for several years, I was the Countess of Edingale. Before that, I was an actress.”
“And what do you think about your acting career?” asked Drew.
The crew stared at her.
“A lot of people felt very strongly about my acting career. I was not one of them.”
Then he had her go through every single in and out that she could remember about her career, in particular the scandal surrounding Lily of the Alley. They were thirty minutes into it when he switched gears.
“Tell us a little about your cousin Budgie.”
“My cousin Budgie is someone who puts her mind to something and accomplishes it. It was no surprise when she succeeded as she did.”
“Were you two always close?”
“Close?” She stopped to think for a moment, picked up on a look on the interviewer’s face, and recalled the full sentence instruction. “Budgie and I were always close. I was often somewhat jealous of her. She had a way with things that I didn’t. She could make people like her. Even if they didn’t want to.” Sabrina laughed. “If we were to get in trouble, she was always able to talk her way out of it.”
“Got it. Okay.”
Sabrina was loosening up; Zoe swapped out the now-finished cocktail with a fresh one, without missing a beat. Sabrina sipped while makeup went in yet again to re-gloss the lips and pat down the hair. Then she shared her best Budgie stories. She explained how when they were kids, she was always in her cousin’s shadow. They were both only children, and their mothers were sisters and best friends. Every family trip was the six of them. The moms, the dads, and the girls.
She recalled how, even as a kid, Budgie was funny. Loud, but knew when to shut it. She mimicked the grown-ups, using their expressions as her own little jokes.
“It was always like that,” Sabrina mused. “She made friends at the pool on our family trips, roping kids of all ages into pretend games that, as we got older, became elaborate plays that she would write and direct, and only sometimes, star in.”
“When Budgie went to school for theatre, and emerged with not only a degree, but a rolodex’s worth of connections, no one was surprised. She was a success right away. She had Broadway’s biggest show of the year and directed a few longest-running shows all by thirty years old. By forty, she had three Tony awards and her ego had still managed to remain only a little above the pull of gravity.”
When Sabrina changed her major three times before following in Budgie’s footsteps but on the acting side of things, her family expressed cautious support, encouraging a backup plan—maybe a double major in business?—and always insisting that it was not a lack of confidence in her but more a fear of how harsh that industry can be.
Sabrina had wanted to be angry at her parents, to resent them, but she couldn’t be, in her heart of hearts. Because she knew what her parents didn’t want to say, which was that Budgie had what it takes to win at showbusiness: chutzpah, alligator skin, fortitude, oomph, a good head on her shoulders, and every other expression for girls like her.
By the world’s standards Sabrina was a success. She realized no one would feel sorry for her because she hadn’t failed; she was simply a miserable product of many poor choices. Drew’s next question jarred her out of her mental trip down memory lane.
“Moving on. What about your daughter?”
Sabrina cleared her throat, “My daughter is Aubrey. She’s almost eighteen.”
“And what would you like to tell us about Aubrey, Sabrina?”
“Aubrey is at school in England.” Sabrina wasn’t certain but suspected where this was headed and had now become very guarded; her posture changed from relaxed and chatty to erect and cool.
Sabrina never discussed Aubrey with anyone, rarely even with Budgie. She never referenced the ache she felt at leaving her. It wasn’t a hurt—laser facials hurt, feet hurt in heels at the end of the night. Walking away from the best thing you’d done in your life ached. Relentlessly. Daily. There was no cocktail, no medication that could numb the throbbing. Sabrina was given time with Aubrey, but the visits were formal and arranged, which was almost worse than not seeing her at all. And Aubrey never tried to conceal the resentment she felt toward her mother. The years skidded by, opportunity for time together had vanished not ever to be recovered.
“Okay … what makes you angry?”
“I suppose … injustice?”
“Please answer in a complete sentence.” He prompted her to start with, “Injustice makes me angry.”
She took in a deep breath. “Injustice makes me angry. I can’t stand seeing the wrong people get ahead, and the right people get stepped on.”
“Perfect.” He made a tap on his iPad and then asked, “what makes you upset or sad?”
“The same thing.”
“Well, what else, then?”
Sabrina shrugged and was silent.
Drew looked to Zoe who caught the cue and leaned forward. “If I can say something about myself, I’ve had a lot of girlfriends turn out to be pretty awful. People I thought I knew, people I thought knew me, ended up stabbing me in the back. Anything like that ever happen to you?”
Sabrina breathed in. “Yes.”
“Full sentences, don’t forget,” said Drew.
Sabrina hesitated. More silence.
Zoe stood up and looked at the rest of the crew. “Can we take a break here for a sec guys? Clear the room please.”
7
Zoe
Despite what she had been taught in school about ethics and the production process, Zoe believed successful reality talent producers were grifters with an ability to read a mark and gain their trust to get what they needed from them. This was her chance, and she could feel it.
Drew and the rest of the crew looked at her like she had lost it. She could practically taste their hesitance. She gave them a small nod. Trust me.
Leaving all their equipment in place, they complied, shuffling out of the foyer and into Sabrina’s enormous kitchen.
Fuck yes.
Also, fuck, now she needed to make something happen.
Zoe looked at Sabrina. Yeah. She could do this.
Once the door swung shut, she looked at the camera to make sure it was still running.
“Let me make sure this camera is…” she said, hoping Sabrina would assume that meant it was off. Judging by the deep breath and relaxing of her posture, that’s what she thought. The whole “red light” thing was a myth, at least on these cameras. How else were you supposed to capture the best moments? But Zoe was after something more useful here, a good juicy sound bite she could cherry pick and frankenbite into another context in the edit.
“This apartment is crazy,” said Zoe. “You should see where I live. It’s, I would say, about the size of this hallway. I’m about one amenity away from a shoilet.”
Sabrina smiled. “At least it’s yours.”
“Is this not yours?”
“This home is still, technically, my ex-husband’s. Everything is. I don’t own much of anything, it seems. I’m not sure how that happened.”
“Now that part sounds like my life.”
“You? You look too young to have been married.”
Zoe gave a laugh. “I was, I guess that was part of the problem. Anyway, my crappy situation is nothing compared to what you’ve dealt with. I mean, what a nightmare.”
“It has not been easy.”
Sabrina shut down as Sabrina The Well Bred took over, diplomatic in her responses. Zoe was going to have to crack her open and get her to bleed the petty, bitchy blood she knew was in there. Everyone whose life takes a hairpin turn in the wrong direction feels ripped off at some level. Sabrina genuinely was. How was Zoe going to get her to blow? Getting her to blow a .8 might be the answer.
“Did you think Rob had this in him? My ex was like … basically bipolar. I didn’t know. Was it like that for you?”
“Do I think my husband was bipolar?”
