The Silver Bracelet

Chapter 13 — The Trending Topic

Vera found out about the video at six in the morning on Friday, when Nina shook her awake in the dark of Room 612 with a face the color of paper and a phone in her hand.

"Vera. Vera, wake up. You have to see this."

Vera, who had not, in three weeks, slept more than four hours a night and who had finally, the previous night, slept seven, sat up with the slow, muzzy confusion of a person dragged out of a dream she did not want to leave. She took the phone. The screen was, for a moment, too bright to read. Then her eyes focused.

It was TMZ. The headline, in the bold red font the site used for what it considered its most important stories, read:

EXCLUSIVE: SCREEN STAR MENTOR PHOENIX RAYNE CAUGHT IN LATE-NIGHT HOTEL ROOM WITH CONTESTANT VERA THORNE — "SHE'S THE ONE," HE TELLS HER

The thumbnail was a still from the video. It showed Phoenix, in a charcoal coat, sitting on the floor of what the caption identified as "a hotel room" — what Vera recognized, with a small, cold drop in her stomach, as Rehearsal Room C. In the still, Phoenix was leaning forward. His hand, on the floor between them, was almost touching hers. The angle, she understood immediately, was not the angle of the actual room. The angle had been chosen to make them look alone, and intimate, and caught.

She scrolled down. The article, beneath the headline, was three paragraphs. The first paragraph identified her as "the replacement contestant with the mysterious past." The second paragraph identified Phoenix as "Hollywood's most eligible bachelor." The third paragraph quoted, in full, the line Phoenix had said at the end of the session — "That is what the camera is for" — but the quote, in the article, had been edited. The article read, instead: "Rayne, who has never publicly dated, was overheard telling Thorne, 'You're the one I've been waiting for.'"

Vera, in the dark of Room 612, read the line twice. She did not, in the reading, feel anger. She felt the cold, focused clarity of a person who has been raised by Maggie Thorne and who has, in twenty years, learned exactly what to do when a lie is being told about her in public.

"Nina," she said. "Where is Phoenix."

"He's — Marcy called an emergency meeting. Green Room. Six thirty. He's there."

"Get dressed. I'll meet you there."

"Vera —"

"I'll meet you there."

She got out of bed. She showered. She did not, in the shower, cry. She dressed in the same black t-shirt and dark jeans she had worn every day for three weeks. She put on her silver bracelet, on her right wrist, where it clicked softly against her hip. She looked at herself, for a long moment, in the bathroom mirror. The face that looked back at her was the same unremarkable face she had studied for twenty years. There was, in it, nothing that suggested she was the woman in the headline. There was, in it, nothing that suggested she was anyone else, either.

She took the elevator down to the lobby. The lobby was, at six fifteen, almost empty. The security guard at the desk looked at her with the careful blankness of a man who had been told, by his employer, not to speak to her. She walked past him. She walked across the lobby. She walked, in the cold December morning, around the block to the front gate of the soundstage.

The crowd at the front gate was, she registered with a small, distant part of her mind, larger than the crowd at the back gate on Tuesday. There were more cameras. There were more microphones. There was, in addition, a small cluster of women she did not recognize, holding handmade signs that read, in marker: PHOENIX + VERA 4 EVER. She did not, for a long moment, understand what she was looking at. Then she understood. The internet had decided. The internet had decided that she and Phoenix were in love. The internet had, in the twelve hours since the video had been posted, decided that this was, in fact, the most important story in the country.

She did not stop. She did not speak to the crowd. She walked through the front gate, into the soundstage, and down the corridor to the Green Room.

* * *

The Green Room, when she arrived, was full. Marcy Klein was at the front of the room, on her phone, with the gray, exhausted face of a producer who has not slept. Evan Hamilton was at the back of the room, in a charcoal suit, with a face that was, if anything, grayer than Marcy's. Phoenix was standing by the window, alone, with his hands in his pockets and his back to the room.

The other contestants were sitting in the folding chairs, in their street clothes, with the small, careful blankness of people who have been told to be in a room and who do not know what to do there. Scarlett Hamilton — who had, after her withdrawal the previous week, returned to the show as an audience member for the live taping, on the condition that she not speak to the press — was not in the room. Vera was, in that small mercy, grateful.

"Vera." Marcy, at the front of the room, lowered her phone. "Sit down."

Vera did not sit down. She stood in the doorway. She looked at Phoenix, who had turned, at the sound of her name, from the window. His face, in the gray morning light, was the face she had seen the night before in Rehearsal Room C — the face of a person who had been kind to her, and who was, as of this morning, being punished for it.

"Marcy," Vera said evenly. "What is the plan."

Marcy looked at Evan. Evan, after a long moment, stepped forward. "Miss Thorne. Mr. Rayne. The legal team is, as of this morning, preparing a cease-and-desist against the outlet that published the video. The outlet will, in all likelihood, take the video down within forty-eight hours. The damage, however —"

"Will already be done," Phoenix said, from the window. His voice was flat. "Evan. Don't lie to her."

"I am not lying to her."

"You are omitting. It is the same thing."

Vera looked at Phoenix. Phoenix looked at her. In the long, evaluating silence between them, she understood, with the small, cold clarity of a woman who had been raised by Maggie Thorne, what was about to happen. The legal team would, eventually, take down the video. The outlet would, eventually, retract. But in the meantime — in the twelve hours, or the forty-eight hours, or the two weeks before the retraction — Phoenix Rayne, who had been in the public eye for eighteen years and who had built, in those eighteen years, the only thing he had ever been certain of, was going to be destroyed. The press would call him a predator. The internet would call him a creep. The sponsors would, by Friday afternoon, begin to pull their ads. The show, if it did not act, would be canceled. And the one person — the one person — who could stop it was the person who had, in fact, done nothing wrong.

She did not, in that moment, think about her own career. She had not, in fact, ever had a career. She had been a carer. She had been a contestant on a reality show for three weeks. She had, as of this morning, no career to lose.

Phoenix Rayne, on the other hand, had a career to lose. He had, in fact, the only career that had ever, in the history of Screen Star, been worth saving.

She looked at Marcy. "Marcy. Is the show going to be canceled."

Marcy, gray-faced, did not answer for a long moment. Then: "Not if we act quickly."

"What does quickly mean."

"It means —" Marcy paused. She looked at Evan. Evan, after a long moment, nodded once. "It means, Miss Thorne, that one of you needs to take responsibility. Publicly. Before the live show tonight."

"Responsibility for what."

"For —" Marcy, who had clearly been dreading this conversation, took a breath. "For the appearance of impropriety. The footage, as it has been edited, suggests that Mr. Rayne was alone with you, in a hotel room, late at night, telling you that you were 'the one.' The footage, as it was actually taken, shows the two of you in a rehearsal room at the soundstage, with a professional conversation about a monologue. The footage, however, has been edited. The actual footage is, at this moment, in the hands of our legal team. The actual footage will, eventually, be released. But the edited footage is, at this moment, the only footage the public has seen."

"And you want one of us to take responsibility."

"We want —" Marcy paused again. "We want, Miss Thorne, for one of you to publicly state that the relationship was not what the footage suggests. We want, in particular, for one of you to publicly state that the other was not at fault. The cleanest way to do this —"