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Certainly not legendary, like my mother, who truly is great at her craft. But I take direction well, have decent presence, and can put a fresh spin on the most tired of dialogue. Because I’m not classically beautiful enough for leading lady status, I often play the supportive best friend, the no-nonsense sister, the sympathetic coworker. I’m never going to become the star my mother is, which isn’t my goal. But I am aname. People know me. Directors like me. Casting agents put me in big parts in small movies and small parts in big movies and as the lead in a sitcom that lasted only thirteen episodes.
It’s not the size of the role I care about. It’s the character itself. I want complicated, interesting parts into which I can disappear.
When I’m acting, I want to become someone else entirely.
That’s why my main love is theater. Ironic, I know. I guess growing upin the wings really did rub off on me. The parts are better, that’s for damn sure. The last movie offer I got was playing the mother of an actor six years younger than me in aTransformersreboot. The character had fourteen lines. The last theater offer was the lead role in a Broadway thriller, with dialogue on every page.
I said no to the movie, yes to the play. I prefer the palpable spark between performer and audience that exists only in theater. I feel it every time I step onstage. We share the same space, breathe the same air, share the same emotional journey. And then it’s gone. The whole experience as transitory as smoke.
Kind of like my career, which is all but over, no matter what Marnie says.
Speaking of things that don’t last, welcome to Step Four: Marry a screenwriter who is also a name but not one big enough to eclipse yours.
In my case, Len. Known professionally as Leonard Bradley, who helped pen a few movies you’ve definitely seen and quite a lot that you haven’t. We met at a party first, then on the set of a movie on which he did some uncredited script polishing. Both times, I thought he was cute and funny and maybe secretly sexy under his gray hoodie and Knicks cap. I didn’t think of him as boyfriend material until our third meeting, when we found ourselves boarding the same flight back to New York.
“We need to stop meeting like this,” he said.
“You’re right,” I replied. “You know how this town talks.”
We finagled our way into adjacent seats and spent the entire flight deep in conversation. By the time the plane touched down, we’d made plans to meet for dinner. Standing in JFK’s baggage claim area, both of us flushed from flirtation and reluctant to part, I said, “My car is waiting outside. I should go.”
“Of course.” Len paused, suddenly shy. “Can I get a kiss first?”
I obliged, my head spinning like one of the luggage carousels piled high with Samsonite suitcases.
Six months later, we got married at city hall, with Marnie and my mother as witnesses. Len didn’t have any family of his own. At least nonethat he wanted to invite to his impromptu wedding. His mother was thirty years younger than his father, pregnant and eighteen when they wed and twenty-three when she abandoned them. His father took it out on Len. Not long into our relationship, Len told me how his father broke his arm when he was six. He spent the next twelve years in foster care. The last time Len spoke to his father, now long dead, was right before he left for UCLA on a full scholarship.
Because of his past, Len was determined not to make the same mistakes as his parents. He never got angry and was rarely sad. When he laughed, it was with his whole body, as if there was too much happiness within him to be contained. He was a great cook, an even better listener, and loved long, hot baths, preferably with me in the tub with him. Our marriage was a combination of gestures both big—like when he rented an entire movie theater on my birthday so the two of us could have a private screening ofRear Window—and small. He always held the door for me. And ordered pizza with extra cheese without asking because he knew that’s how I liked it. And appreciated the contented silence when the two of us were in the same room but doing different things.
As a result, our marriage was a five-year period in which I was almost deliriously happy.
The happiness part is important.
Without it, you’d have nothing to miss when everything inevitably turns to shit.
Which brings us to Step Five: Spend a summer at Lake Greene.
The lake house has always been a special place for my family. Conceived by my great-great-grandfather as an escape from New York’s steaming, stinking summers, it was once the only residence on this unassuming slash of water. That’s how the lake got its name. Originally called Lake Otshee by the indigenous tribe that once lived in the area, it was renamed Lake Greene in honor of the first white man intrepid enough to build here because, well, America.
My father spent every summer at the lake that bore his family name. As did his father before him. As did I. Growing up, I loved life on the lake.It was a much-needed reprieve from my mother’s theatrics. Some of my fondest memories are of endless days spent catching fireflies, roasting marshmallows, swimming in the sun until I was as tanned as leather.
Going to the lake for a summer was Len’s idea, proposed after a frigid, slushy winter during which we barely saw each other. I was busy with the Broadway thriller I’d chosen over theTransformersmovie, and Len kept having to return to LA to bang out another draft of a superhero screenplay he’d taken on because he mistakenly thought it would be easy money.
“We need a break,” he said during Easter brunch. “Let’s take the summer off and spend it at Lake Greene.”
“The whole summer?”
“Yeah. I think it’ll be good for us.” Len smiled at me over the Bloody Mary he’d been drinking. “I know I sure as hell need a break.”
I did, too. So we took it. I left the play for four months, Len finally finished the screenplay, and we set off for Vermont for the summer. It was wonderful. During the day, we whiled away the hours reading, napping, making love. In the evenings, we cooked long dinners and sat on the porch sipping strong cocktails and listening to the ghostly call of loons echoing across the lake.
One afternoon in late July, Len and I filled a picnic basket with wine, cheese, and fresh fruit bought that morning at a nearby farmers’ market. We hiked to the southern end of the lake, where the forest gives way to a craggy bluff. After stumbling our way to the top, we spread the food out on a checkered blanket and spent the afternoon snacking, drinking wine, and staring at the water far below.
At one point, Len turned to me and said, “Let’s stay here forever, Cee.”
Cee.
That was his nickname for me, created after he had deemedCasetoo hard-boiled for a term of endearment.