Colder than Ice Page 4

  He looked different in person. Sophie wasn’t sure how. It was something about the shape of his face, or the way cameras were all mirrors and light and shadows. And when they’d been sitting at the table in the office kitchen, Tristan had done something, shape-shifted or moved some part of his face, or set a cosmic intention, because it had all clicked, come together, and then he was Tristan Eccleston suddenly, and she couldn’t understand how she hadn’t seen it, like a Magic Eye puzzle.

  For the rest of the afternoon she’d had the vague hope that they were used to this kind of thing from critics or haters or internet trolls, that Prasad really meant the way he seemed to let the whole thing roll off his back.

  But on the other hand, this was Hollywood and they were just as likely letting her think that everything was fine so they could go straight to the director after Sophie left and ask that the stupid girl from Omaha go back to flyover country. Appease her with a fruit basket and send her home, back to her empty apartment, accomplishments in the rearview mirror. Cancel the comic book series, hand Demetrius a pink slip too, film her story as whatever mess someone had twisted it into.

  Back to the office job on her hands and knees. She sighed.

  Sophie lifted her phone off the nightstand and tapped the button to bring up recent applications, figuring that maybe a deep dive into some gifsets on Tumblr would at least help dull her sins a little. It usually made her feel better, and fans really loved it when she faved or reblogged their Morganna posts. Recently her timeline had been taken over by buzz about the movie. Dissertation-length posts about why the Dark Magic version of Imperium made for excellent feminist discourse when compared with the old 1970s jigglefest it had originally been, photo posts with dream-castings of all Asian or Hispanic actors, and—

  Tristan Eccleston.

  Hair dyed dark for a role in Hamlet, sitting on a milking stool on an empty stage somewhere in London, looking toward Heaven with a tragic expression. At least he didn’t look much like the man she’d humiliated herself in front of that morning.

  Sophie thumbed back to the bottom of the post to see the username.

  dearMrEccleston

  It was always like that—damniteccles, mrs-eccleston, firstchurchoftristan. They were all so… something. Unabashed. Proud of it, even. Like they’d grown up with subscriptions to Tiger Beat or some other mystical guide that had taught them all to lay claim not just to him, but their love for him. Like they’d been granted permission to do that in a way she’d never known existed.

  Or had allowed herself to know.

  Who were they, the girls in the Instagram photos who posted themselves kissing his photographs? How did their minds work, how did they reconcile the full-throated, overwhelming desire to just look at his face all day with what other people thought of them?

  How were they so brave? You could have things taken from you when other people found out you had them; not just your emotions or your dignity when someone poked fun at them, or at you for being so girly and brainless, but physical things, too, that you didn’t even know were tangible. Your story, your characters, your work. When that was all you had, you had to protect it—fiercely, even if it wasn’t cool or made you look insane.

  He hadn’t given the slightest indication of being angry that she’d insulted him.

  Sophie tapped on dearMrEccleston’s username, watched the page load, and began to scroll.

  Pictures of him in period costume for a Victorian parlor drama that had aired on PBS three years after running as a miniseries on BBC. The man could certainly work a waistcoat and shirtsleeves.

  Photo stills from military dramas, Shakespearean festivals, that time he’d played the killer in an Agatha Christie TV movie, at the BAFTAs with his sisters at both shoulders, a five-minute video clip of him delivering a monologue from something called Tamburlaine. An audio clip of him reading Catullus 5 in full, which she pointedly did not open.

  Gifsets of him being interviewed by a kid reporter for a YouTube channel. What’s it like, being a hero? the closed captioning read beneath the young boy, maybe six or seven years old. Oh gosh, I don’t know that I am a hero, but if you think so, then it must be true, Tristan was mouthing in an endless loop.

  A gif of him gazing at the actress from the Victorian miniseries, the woman glancing at him, and his face slowly blossoming into a heartbreaking grin before she looked away again.

  She kept going. An editorial photo of him balancing on a wrought-iron fence above a sidewalk, arms stretched out like a child; a series of interviews over several months, the bookshelves behind him shifting and changing with tides of new spines in different colors, the flat stacks of books on the floor slowly disappearing until there was a lit Christmas tree nearby, throwing red and blue specks of light onto his glasses. He was talking about a charity where rats sniffed out land mines in Africa, a pet project he was apparently known for supporting.

  Oh my God, he finally put everything away like a year after he moved, GOOD JOB TRISTAN, GOLD STAR FOR YOU, HONEY, was the first comment.

  Tapping the last picture to make it fill her phone screen, Sophie stared at the bookshelves behind Tristan’s right ear. That was the inside of his house, his flat, in some chic London district, probably. His inner life. Based on the other comments, people spent their time dissecting what he’d been reading, what had changed in the minutiae of the privacy he was so willing to share, these fans who compiled data trends and compared photographs like crime scene evidence, obsessing, endlessly scrolling, on and on—

  That was enough.

  Sophie set the phone face down on her nightstand, flipped off the lamp, and turned away to sleep.

  “Morganna’s choice to reach out to Lucius, to try to save him from Mordred’s psychological grip comes from a place of assuming that his problems are the same as hers,” Sophie was saying. “Not from pure arrogance. She believes that she’s really doing the right thing, she just doesn’t yet have the full understanding that her experiences aren’t universal.”

  Prasad nodded and frowned, still looking at the giant chalkboard of hand-lettered coffees and drinks over the baristas’ heads. Despite Card One having plenty of production assistants to run errands and pick up drinks and food, this mostly seemed to be an excuse to get out of the office.

  “Do I want a biscotti?” Prasad asked her. Or himself. She wasn’t really sure.

  She couldn’t understand why they’d come here. It was just as easy to go through a Starbucks drive-through as it was to come to some brand-new artisanal coffee shop on the first Friday after it had opened. Agreeing to come along had been a concession; she needed to play nice with Prasad to make sure that the changes they needed to make to the script actually went through.

  They’d been reworking the story’s structure the way Sophie had wanted—demanded, some voice inside her head reminded her—but it hadn’t felt so far like they were really getting back to the real heart of what she’d intended Dark Magic to be about. And even though she had an official title, a furnished apartment, and Prasad was kind enough to basically share his office with her every working hour, Sophie was having a hard time pushing for the changes she really wanted.

  She was the creator of the reboot, sure, but she was also a guest, if not a tourist, and this was a whole studio, a microcosm, a system that she was disrupting with her very presence.

  At the same time, though, the story wouldn’t change without a little pressure in the right direction. And there was a lot more shame in rolling over and letting someone else take over than there was in temporarily annoying people and being a killjoy. Besides, even if she did stay in LA after the project was over, Hollywood moved fast. That was what everybody said. They’d move on, and she’d move on, and it’d all move on.

  Some sea change was happening in the coffee line behind her; everyone shifting and moving to let someone through. Sophie turned just as Tristan managed to find them, smiling in that charming way that both apologized for his presence and reassured the people he was
displacing that he’d more than make it up to them somehow.

  He loomed over her like a bird of prey, or her own existential dread. She still hadn’t exactly apologized to him for that outburst in the hallway, and could hardly look at him half the time. Why was he here? How had he even found them—had Prasad invited him just to get a break from Sophie and her demands? The crush of people had been a background hum of nuisance; now she was outright annoyed.

  “Have you ordered yet?”

  Prasad turned to look over the heads of the people in front of them. The two men had a good foot and a half advantage on Sophie’s height, and their obliviousness to the fact that her view in LA was nothing but people’s backs and asses would have been funny, if her view wasn’t constantly backs and asses. Nobody was short in this town if they could help it.

  When Tristan leaned forward to see the menu board, the sharp but somehow eager smell of spices and citrus came with him, and she stepped back, stretching her neck to see how much of a line behind them he’d bypassed. It was getting more crowded, and people outside on the sidewalk were giving up and walking away.

  “Getting there,” Prasad said.

  “What about you?”

  Sophie turned back to see Tristan gazing down at her gently, even hunched slightly to hear her better.

  “There’s still five people ahead of us,” she said, gesturing ahead of her. “Baristas must be short-staffed today.” Sophie did not voice aloud the thought that they were already overworked and stressed without people cutting in line. Why was he even talking to her, or asking these obvious questions? Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be alone in her apartment writing dramatic lines for Morganna to shout across the page, or planning the next great war that Mordred would wage.

  When they did order—iced coffee with one sugar for Prasad, a mint and black iced tea with no sugar for Sophie, and a vat of what appeared to be nothing but whipped cream and caramel for Tristan—Tristan somehow managed not only to bypass both of them and pay for their drinks, but then leaned toward the barista and said,

  “And if it would be possible, can you please make sure my card covers everybody’s drinks in here? At a fifty percent tip. That would be lovely, thank you,” as the barista blushed and steadied herself with both hands on either side of the cash register, fully ensnared in the nuclear blast of Tristan’s charm.

  Sophie sighed and walked out of the coffee shop ahead of the two men, just trying to get some breathing space. It was already warm outside, and the traffic was loud, and the sun was too bright, but the world felt better for just a moment.

  Of course he’d pull a stunt like that. What was he aiming for—

  Sophie forced herself back.

  It was a nice thing to do, especially when it was crowded on a day like today. Sophie closed her eyes and tried to feel normal, anything but this weird sense of keyed-up emotion she couldn’t identify.

  “What’d you do, get lost?” Prasad said as they finally came outside.

  “Want me to carry that for you?” said Tristan, holding out a hand for her jacket.

  “No, thanks,” said Sophie, and headed toward Prasad’s car.

  She got a slight reprieve from him on the drive back, looking out the passenger window while Prasad tried to make conversation with himself, but Sophie walked in to the Card One lobby to find Tristan already there, handing over the domed plastic cup of whipped hydrogenated oils and corn syrup to Madison. Apparently it was her standard order, and he was “always happy to oblige such a lovely person.”

  And with a kind and very white and straight smile, Madison thanked him without a second thought or a dark cloud in her mind. Her world was clean and mirror-bright, a place where gorgeous British actors brought drinks to her, and that was all.

  “Do you always spend so much time together?” she asked Prasad after lunch one day.

  “Who, Tristan? Yes, we’re secret lovers,” Prasad said. “He moved in with me last weekend.”

  Sophie gave him a flat look.

  “I can tell him to fuck off and find something else to do,” he continued, merging onto the highway smoothly. “He can be a bit much sometimes.”

  Sophie considered it. On the one hand, Tristan wasn’t obtrusive, or creepy about hanging around them so much. He didn’t make her feel threatened, or uncomfortable. He was too guileless, too noble, for that. And as scenery went… well, he was certainly easier on the eyes than corporate studio art. His blond curls were just the right amount of curly, and she’d caught herself a couple of times trying to figure out whether they were natural or it was some early-morning hair and makeup illusion.

  “It’s not that,” she said finally, shaking off the image in her head. “I guess I just don’t understand why he’s at the office when he could be… I dunno, partying, or going to fancy premieres, or whatever it is celebrities do with their down time.”

  Prasad laughed and turned his wrist to look at his watch.

  “He’s probably swimming right now—he was on a team at university. Says it helps him think.” Prasad brought them to a stop in the traffic that Sophie was slowly getting used to.

  “So he just likes being around?”

  Prasad shrugged.

  “He likes a good story.”

  Above all, it struck her that Tristan’s presence seemed oddly superfluous in pre-production. They could be in Prasad’s office going over storyboards, and Tristan was right there first thing in the morning, bursting through the door with mugs of tea that he remembered to make just the way they liked, only to sit and stare at his phone, apparently texting everyone he knew while they were trying to work.

  When they went to a bar to get drinks with the second unit director Matt, she was surprised when Tristan didn’t flip the table from where he was hiding underneath to yell TA-DA, IT’S ME! But moments later, there he was, two bottles of champagne in his hands being followed by waiters carting over every appetizer on the menu. When she finally got an Uber ride at the end of the night, the text message from Prasad as she made it through her front door was almost certainly prompted by someone musing aloud on whether or not she was okay.

  Just checking, the text said.

  Oh really, Sophie replied.

  We’re courteous that way, Prasad had answered back, with a winking face.

  Tristan was exactly as nice and kind and well-meaning as his fans believed he was, and Sophie couldn’t quite wrap her head around that being a real thing.

  He seemed to want to be friends with her, or at least friendly. He wanted her approval, or at least a smile or a laugh. She could feel it radiating off him in thick waves that were practically visible, like a dog that wanted so badly to impress her. Sophie couldn’t help but assume that the reason he was trying so hard was because no one disliked Tristan Eccleston, and she’d inadvertently thrown him completely off his rhythm by not gushing over him the way everyone else did.

  That hadn’t been her intention. And she wasn’t rude to him, exactly. More polite and professional, as much as she could muster on a day-to-day basis.

  Because to her humiliation, Sophie realized that she was starting to look for him everywhere.

  Alone in Prasad’s office on her laptop, the slightest noise would make her glance up, expecting his tall figure and the constant refrain: Tea? Doors opening and closing down the hallway, assistants passing by, all made her lose her concentration, and then she’d listen hard for the distant sound of his voice in the lobby.

  It wasn’t unusual, given how frequently he popped up. But it was as though Tristan, through no fault of his own apart from existing and trying to be his superlative self, had a small, polite grip on her imagination, as if he had temporary residence inside her head. He had a bit of leverage over her that he didn’t know he had, and she wasn’t sure what to do about it, because she’d worked hard to never be caught in situations like that again.

  Her burgeoning career was one soaked in a rich tradition of being a male-dominated field, both in terms of creator
s and fans, and Sophie had to be mindful and protective of herself against being dragged down. Her Twitter block list seemed to get bigger every time she opened it. She regularly checked to see if there were any subreddits specifically formed to shit-talk her. She’d fought just as hard to free Morganna from the constraints of being a sexy, slutty sorceress with huge tits in filmy outfits and bring her into the 21st century as she’d tried to make a better life for herself. One where her ideas would be respected, and she wouldn’t be arbitrarily jerked around like a puppet.

  Which was why she sat up straight one afternoon when Tristan said,

  “Why is Lucius so intent on remaining under Mordred’s rule when his primary motivation has always been to get away from his family?”

  Sophie started—did he already have a copy of the screenplay? Were those being given out? Had Prasad given it to him? She looked at Prasad, who was looking at both of them mildly, like he was an outside observer with no skin in this race.

  Tristan was asking her for advice about his character, about how to play Lucius, she realized. He was looking at her through his thick-rimmed glasses.

  “He wants to make sure that his father doesn’t suspect anything when he begins his takeover,” she replied.

  Tristan made a hmm sound.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean the character interpretation so much, I suppose I mean… I suppose I mean how did you get there in Imperium? Why did you make that narrative decision? He was never written as a traitor in the original series,” said Tristan mildly. “He wanted to rule his own galaxy, away from everyone else, alone.”

  Sophie let her head tilt and stared across the room, wondering if she was having an aneurysm. Tristan Eccleston knew vintage comics lore?

  “I guess… I wanted him to be balanced against his sister,” she said. “Not as a plot contrivance, but because I wanted to show that the two of them in harmony meant struggling and cooperating in a cycle, over and over.”