Rose felt a cold sore coming on. In the mirror she could see her bottom lip puffing up at the corner like a tiny Yorkshire pudding. It must be all the heat, she thought: the eucalyptus steam room, the Finnish sauna, the sulfur baths. She was almost homesick for the March streets of Toronto with their blackened pyramids of curbside ice.
This was her third day at Rancho Agua Caliente, just across the Mexican border—a reward she had given herself for finishing the novel, even though the book didn’t have a publisher yet. Which could be tricky, after the dismal sales of her previous one, The Bludgeoning.
“Let me pay half,” her ex had insisted. Having just learned that Judy was pregnant with twins, Eric was feeling both expansive and guilty. Rose accepted.
In her thick white robe Rose trudged down the hall to a reflexology session, already looking forward to the single glass of white wine she would allow herself for dinner at the raw-food buffet. She’d have to go early, to avoid sitting with Fanny the Manhattan broker. That woman was wound up.
There were three other white-robed women in the waiting room—the friendly inseparable sisters from Ottawa, who always did the pre-breakfast hike up the mountain, and an attractive older blond woman with luminous skin wearing horn-rim glasses. She was deeply immersed in a hardcover book. Rose squinted to read the title: something-something, by Ann Patchett.
At one point the woman snorted with laughter, pushed the bridge of her glasses up, and gave an audible sigh of pleasure as she turned the page. She had a long, thin nose. Even reading, her face was expressive, alive.
Then Rose realized that the woman with the book was Meryl Streep. For sure—that emotional skin. Her pale blond hair was caught up messily in a tortoiseshell barrette and she wore no makeup. On her feet were the too-big pink paper slippers that came in the spa welcome kit.
A smocked employee opened a door, releasing a cloud of aromatic mist, and summoned the two sisters inside. Rose was left sitting opposite the actress, who pulled a tissue out of her robe pocket and rubbed it under her red nose.
“Every time I go to a place like this I come down with something,” she said to Rose with an apologetic smile. “Maybe being pampered is bad for your health.”
“I know what you mean,” said Rose. “All this pressure to relax has given me a cold sore.” She pushed out her lower lip.
Meryl laughed. “I think I love stress, actually.” She closed her book and crossed her hands over it. “You know? And I hate massage music.”
“I brought my own playlist. Lots of Prince.”
“Some klezmer would be good too. Very soothing.” The actress extended her hand, her eyes dancing.
“I’m Meryl, by the way.”
“Yes, I know, I mean, I recognized you, of course. I’m Rose.”
“And what are you here recovering from?”
“I just finished writing a book. A novel.”
“Oh, good for you! That’s huge.”
“But I’m having trouble getting rid of the voices,” Rose said, pointing to her head. “I mean, of my characters.”
The actress rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. I’ve found ways to banish them, though.”
“Really? Like what?”
“Well, I play tennis, really vicious tennis.” She laughed. “I kind of murder the voices with my racket. And I sing in a choir, which helps.” She unclasped her barrette and gathered up her hair again, closing her eyes dreamily. Her eyelids fluttered. “It reminds me that in real life I am not Adele.”
Rose laughed.
“But you’re so lucky,” Meryl said. “You get to make your characters up. I have to take what they offer me.”
“Don’t you have your pick?”
“It’s been better lately,” she said, knocking on the table between them, “but it’s still a boys’ club, Hollywood, trust me.” She poked her feet deeper into the pink slippers. “So what’s your book about?”
Rose tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. Her doubt always clouded it.
“It’s a thriller, sort of. About a woman, a writer doing research on some environmental activists who have this scheme to save the Great Barrier Reef. She’s on a ship with them when they get hijacked by Somali pirates.”
Well, that sounds ridiculous, Rose thought.
“What’s it called?”
“Havoc.”
“Do you have a copy with you? I’d love to read it.” She wagged the Ann Patchett. “This one’s almost done.”
“It’s not quite published yet,” Rose said, studying Meryl. She was maybe a touch too old to play Renata, her main character, she thought. But it wasn’t out of the question.
“Well, what about a PDF? I don’t mind reading on a screen.”
The actress took a pen out of her robe pocket and wrote her email on the back of the reflexologist’s card.
“You sound Canadian, Rose,” said Meryl. “The way you say ‘about.’”
“I’m from Toronto, actually.”
Meryl clapped. “Toronto! I was up there for the film festival last year. I loved it. Don and I have fantasies of moving up there sometime.”
“But the weather’s not great. Even the summers.”
“Oh, the weather’s crap everywhere now,” said Meryl, waving her hand like someone talking to a smoker.
A door opened and a pretty Asian woman with silver eyelids emerged.
“Rose? Hi, I’m Kumiko. Come on in.”
As she went by Meryl, the actress gave her arm a pat.
“See you at dinner, Rose. Or maybe we could sneak into town, get some fish tacos. I’d love a cold beer.”
“Sure. Me too. I’m in Room 344.”
“Have a good session.” She stuck out one leg with a delicate purple starburst on the calf. “I’m getting my spider veins done too. Zip-zap!”
Rose stepped into a small dark chamber and climbed onto the padded table.
“She’s sooo nice.” Kumiko sighed. “I wish everyone was like her.”
“She does seem nice,” Rose said, trying to be warmer and more vivacious than usual.
“We get lots of celebrities here, and some of them…” Kumiko bundled warm sheets around Rose, leaving her feet bare. She began pressing a point on the arch of her left foot and Rose felt a deep, gratifying ache.
“It’s a bit tender there.”
“That’s your transverse colon. Don’t overdo the brown rice here. People think you can’t go wrong with brown rice, but it’s extremely acidic.”
She gave herself over to Kumiko’s skillful prodding, and her spa-oppressed spirits began to lift. Soon she would be eating fish tacos with Meryl Streep.
* * *
Rose pulled her roller bag out of the taxi. It was March but freakishly warm. The front yard was pooled with meltwater, and the flotsam hidden under the snow all winter long had surfaced: ash-white dog shit, a stiff mitten, broken branches from the January ice storm.
She could hear her landline ringing as she unlocked the door. A dash-dot-dot long-distance ring. She put on her cold telemarketer answering voice and picked it up.
“You made it!” It was Meryl, already laughing.
“Hi! Yeah, I’m just back now. Sorry about the voice, I thought you were someone calling from India.”
“Give me your address, I want to send you something I found in O’Hare when I was making my connection.”
“Oh, wow. That’s so nice.” Rose spelled out her street and postal code.
“It’s nothing, a set of place mats made of sweet grass, but I thought of you when I saw them. The thing you said over dinner, about Eric never wiping the place mats.”
“Right.”
Meryl lowered her voice. “Any more emails? About Chips and Vinegar?”
Rose winced. After two beers in town with Meryl she had overshared about the baby names Eric and Judy had already picked for the twins—Charity and Viggo.
“No. Just that one.” Rose could hear a yappy dog barking in the background.
“Luther!” Meryl spoke sharply. The barking stopped.
“Listen, do you mind if I give Don your novel? He’s a big snorkeler, he knows everything about reefs.”
As Meryl talked, Rose tried to shrug out of her down coat, and got her scarf tangled in the phone cord. It was really time to ditch the landline.
“What’s it like in New York now?”
“A mass of blossoms in the park. So gorgeous. It’s good to be back home. But I miss our conversations.”
“Yeah, me too.” Rose doodled a crooked tree on the phone pad.
“And I’ve been rethinking what I said, you know, about the decapitation passage? It’s not too much, not when you read it in context.”
“I did do some research,” Rose said. “Very few women have ever decapitated anyone. It’s an anomaly. But it has happened.”
“And for Renata, it does kind of make sense. After what she’s been through. Such an interesting character.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. My only thought was, maybe the ending could be a shade tighter. Decapitation, news item, underwater shot of Renata swimming through a school of fish, then zip-zap, end credits. Unless I’ve been reading too many screenplays.…”
“No, no, that could work.” Rose was still in her coat, overheating. “Well, I just got in the door, so—”
“Rose, listen, there’s a benefit I’ve been invited to speak at, in Toronto, for ovarian cancer. Why don’t I fly up for a quick visit?”
“Really? That sounds, that sounds great. When were you thinking?”
“Friday.” Two days away.
“Which hotel?”
“Oh no, I’ll just bunk in with you, if that’s okay. I get tired of hotels.”
A sheen of sweat broke out on Rose’s brow.
“My place is tiny, but there’s a spare bedroom you’re welcome to. No white robes, though.”
Meryl gave a laugh that went up and down the scale. “Thank God we’re out of there. And please don’t go to any trouble. Just take me somewhere where they make a good martini.”
“That I can do.”
“I got you a little pedometer too, so we can see how many steps we take in a day. We’ll walk everywhere. I can’t wait.”
They hung up and Rose felt a wave of anxiety. Why was Meryl Streep so interested in her? It didn’t seem sexual. She obviously adored her husband. Her kids were all grown up, successful. Her other girlfriends were people like Oprah. What did Rose have to offer that Oprah didn’t?
She moved through her house, looking at it with movie star eyes. The bedspread in the spare room needed cleaning, and those cheap vinyl shower curtains would have to go. She’d buy some memory-foam pillows, a vial of lavender, and a nice sleep mask. The actress was a light sleeper, she knew. Then there was the question of where to take Meryl Streep in Toronto. The spice stalls in Kensington Market? The new aquarium? She studied a copy of NOW magazine that ranked the city’s restaurants, and settled on foie gras poutine at Yours Truly on Ossington. There was a documentary playing at the Bloor, about backup singers, called Twenty Feet from Stardom. Which could be amusing for someone who lived at stardom’s ground zero.
So, dinner and a movie it would be. Like a couple on a date.
* * *
The airport limo door opened and Meryl stepped out bundled in a mango-orange shawl and gray leather gloves. The sun was shining, but the March wind had turned gusty, bitter. The actress went through Rose’s small pretty house, exclaiming, sighing, plucking at mohair throws, touching the paintings. She went into the spare bedroom.
“My favorite pillows!” she said sprawling across the bed. “How did you know? Plus all the books I could ever want. This is perfecto.” She plucked Rose’s novel off the bookshelf.
“I’ll read this in bed,” she said, putting The Bludgeoning beside the vial of lavender.
Later the poutine was a hit too, although they both longed to have naps afterward. The movie didn’t start for a while, so they walked up Ossington, heads bent into the wind.
“What are cheese curds, anyway?” said Meryl. “Are they the beginning or the end of the whole cheese process?”
“Yesterday Eric sent me a photo of himself, with pregnant Judy,” Rose blurted out.
“That’s a bit weird. Don’t you think? Did you ask for one?”
“No, of course not. I think it is weird.”
“So what does she look like?”
“Dark bangs, big glasses, all covered up. Not his usual type. But she was his therapist before they got involved. All very taboo.”
Meryl tucked her arm through Rose’s. “We never really know who we’re living with. Sometimes I look over at Donald when he’s sleeping, and think … Who is this dear, unfathomable human being beside me?”
“At least he’s beside you,” murmured Rose. They’d had martinis before wine with dinner.
On the way to the cinema, they passed a dark shop front with a pink neon sign.
PSYCHIC READINGS BY SYBIL. HANDS, TAROT, TEA LEAVES—$20.
Meryl peered through the window into a space that resembled all fortune-telling vestibules: dim, cluttered, with leggy plants in the corner and several cats slinking about.
“We’ve got some time to kill,” said Meryl, opening the door. “Come on.”
Rose followed Meryl into a room that smelled of aromatherapy oils, with a sign beside a metal ring on a cord that read PLEASE PULL FOR SERVICE. Meryl tugged on it. The cord spooled out and whipped back into place with a whir, like an old-fashioned outboard motor.
“What’s wrong with a simple bell?” Rose muttered.
This made Meryl giggle. The color was high in the actress’s face. She was the most excitable, responsive person Rose had ever met. Her laugh had an extensive vocabulary of beginnings, middles, and ends, in different tempos, and everything seemed to capture her interest. This caused Rose to feel more self-conscious about her own aloofness, her circumspection and Canadian monotone. But these qualities only seemed to make Rose more appealing to Meryl.
They whirred the cord again. One of the cats ran into the back room, where they could hear pot lids rattling, followed by the scuff of slippers. A hand parted the beaded curtain in the doorway and a striking older woman emerged. She had a cloud of white-and-ash curls, up-slanted greenish eyes, and remarkable cheekbones, porcelain and shiny. A fuchsia scarf was looped around her throat, warming her pale skin.
“Welcome,” said Sybil. “You must be freezing. But this is what we get for driving SUVs.”
Meryl pulled the shawl off her head and unbuttoned her coat.
“Yes, I’d like a reading,” said Meryl with a creamy smile. “If this is a good time for you.”
Sybil shrugged. “I’m always here working in the back, so any time is good. Tea leaves, palms, Tarot cards? Or I can do a combo for forty dollars.”
“Whatever you feel like,” said Meryl. “Whatever you think is appropriate.”
“Let’s start with the hands then.” Sybil took Meryl’s left hand and turned it palm-up.
“Huh,” she said. “Interesting.”
“What?” said Meryl, craning forward. Sybil gave Rose a sideways, diagnostic glance.
“Does your friend want a reading too?”
“Oh, we don’t have time for two,” said Rose. “Just pretend I’m not here.”
“It’s okay, we’re together,” said Meryl.
Sybil smiled a cool, broad smile.
“Then come with me,” she said, slipping through the curtain.
Rose and Meryl followed her into a room lit by drooping strings of white Christmas lights. There were books on a sideboard by authors of a certain vintage, names Rose recognized—Primo Levi, Jane Gardam, Fay Weldon. A long-haired cat was curled asleep in an armchair.
“Minky has claimed the best one, as usual,” said Sybil.
Rose perched on the arm and Meryl sat across from the fortune-teller at a gray Formica table.
“I like your coat,” Sybil said to Meryl. “Max Mara?”
“No, Tom Ford,” said Meryl, blushing. She was not the least bit vain but, as she told Rose, she had come to appreciate well-made clothes. And designers kept giving her things.
“It’s a good length,” said Sybil. “What’s the point of a winter coat that doesn’t cover your rear end?”
“That’s so true,” said Meryl, laughing a little nervously and laying both hands on the table. She wore almost no makeup, as usual, and had the same womanly hips as she did in The Bridges of Madison County. It gave Rose a certain satisfaction to see those squarish hip corners, just like hers. But inside, the actress was all youth and appetite—a fun gal, generous with her radiance. Rose felt more girlish and alive around the actress. Also, Meryl seemed to find everything Rose said hilarious.
“I don’t know why Nutella hasn’t caught on in a big way,” Rose had said one night while they were lined up at the spa buffet. “Who could argue with chocolate and hazelnuts?” This caused Meryl to hoot with laughter.
“Nutella! You’re right, it should be huge, like peanut butter.”
Using a barbecue lighter, Sybil lit some tea lights under saucers of oil. A sharp scent filled the room.
“Bergamot and eucalyptus. Good for the nasal passages, commerce, and memory. But before we get down to work…” She cocked her head in a birdlike way and smiled at Meryl. Her mouth curved up at the corners, like a child’s drawing of a smile.
“Oh, of course,” said Meryl, rummaging in her eggplant-colored Kate Spade bag. She took some bills out of a pocketbook.
“I only have American.”
“American’s okay,” said Sybil with a faint knitting of the brows.
“And no small bills, I’m afraid.”
“Well, I’ll do your feet too.”
She tucked the money into a book and poured tea from a black iron pot into three thumb-sized cups.
“Assam and astragalus. Good for the immune system.”
Rose sipped: liquid smoke. Delicious. She drank it down.
“Do you ever do the future, as a whole?” she asked Sybil. “Like, what’s in store for all of us?”
“Oh sure. For a hundred and twenty dollars I do a comprehensive global forecast, but I can tell you right now, it won’t be good. Carbon emissions over 445 ppm. Hundreds of species disappearing every day. Thousands. And of course the oceans are dying. But nobody cares because the ocean doesn’t have a face, and big brown eyes.”
“I know, I’ve done some research on coral reefs,” Rose piped up.
“What’s happening to the reefs is just a trailer for the devastation to come,” said Sybil without losing her Delphic smile. “And don’t get me going on human sexual reproduction! Count yourself lucky to have all that behind you.”
Sybil turned back to Meryl, who was still sitting with her hands extended.
“Okay,” said Sybil, “let’s have a look-see.”
She gazed at the palm of Meryl’s left hand for a long minute, as if reading a page in a book.
“Huh,” she said again. Her voice was slightly nasal. Afterward, Meryl would do a killer impression of it.
“What?” said Meryl avidly. “Is it bad?”
“You have a simian line, which I’ll get to, but look here,” she said, pointing to a crease inside the deeper line that curved around the base of Meryl’s thumb. “Your line of Mars is very pronounced. It’s almost an extra life line.”
“But isn’t that good? Two life lines?”
“It means that although you’re easy to get along with, you can be fierce about standing up for things. A fighter.”
“Well, my husband would not disagree,” said Meryl, blushing again. Sybil tapped the plump bulge at the base of her thumb.
“And look at that Mount of Venus—so much energy.” She peered at a chain of tiny islands that braided the lifeline.
“But you do have to watch your lungs.”
“That’s right! I caught some sort of bug when we shot Osage County and it took me weeks to get over it.”
Sybil chuckled and put a finger on the fleshy pad under Meryl’s third finger. “You also have quite the appetite for sensual excess.” The actress gave Rose a sidelong tell-me-something-new look.
Sybil traced the single horizontal crease on Meryl’s left palm.
“This simian line … textbook case.”
“Simian, as in gorilla?”
“Yes. It’s when the head line and the heart line run together. Only ten percent of the population have it, but it’s fairly common among artists—and criminals. Nothing to worry about, though. It just means that you take a slightly maverick, intuitive approach to things.”
“Okay,” said Meryl tentatively.
“But sometimes it clouds your judgment. When you’ve got your sights on something, you can be opportunistic.”
“Really?” said Meryl in a little-girl voice.
Rose sat forward.
“More tea?” said Sybil.
“Yes, please.” Meryl held out her black cup. “What else?”
Now she took Meryl’s right hand in her own. “You feel things deeply—sometimes too deeply.”
At this Meryl looked as if she might cry.
“I hope you’ve cultivated a few ways to protect yourself.”
Meryl snorted. “Well, I do hot yoga, if that counts,” Meryl said. “Although I think it’s wrecking my back.”
“Just be careful about what you throw your heart into. Because once you commit, there is no turning back. And then the people closest to you can suffer too.”
Meryl turned to Rose with one hand on her heart.
“I wish my daughters could hear this.”
But Rose was thinking about Eric, his single-minded focus on work. How it had shaped their life.
“And don’t confuse a commitment to acting with self-immolation.”
“But how do you know this—have you been an actor?”
Sybil’s sly smile returned, along with that flirtatious cock of her head.
“Not really. But I do write a little. And writers tend to be obsessive.”
“Do you write poetry?”
Sybil now poured herself some tea.
“Yes. But these days it’s mostly novels, or stories.”
Rose could read the names on the spines of the books piled beside her. Valerie Martin, Edna O’Brien, Alice Munro. Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood. Several copies of Cat’s Eye.
“How’s your sleep?” Sybil asked Meryl.
“Not so good.”
“That does not surprise me. Do you meditate?”
“I’ve tried it, but my schedule is so crazy…”
“You know what Flaubert said: If you want to be a revolutionary in your art, lead a boring bourgeois life. Or words to that effect. Let’s have a look at those feet.”
Meryl took off her Sorel boots and socks—Rose’s socks, actually. She had the beginnings of a bunion on one foot and a recent pedicure. Nude polish with a pearly sheen. Sybil poked at her boot.
“These are great in the snow but they have zero support. You’re going to pay for that eventually.” She pushed down on the top of Meryl’s foot.
“Ouch.”
“Nerve supply seems okay. Have you tried toe-spreaders?
“Toe-spreaders?”
“The foamy things they put between your toes at the nail salon, only sturdier. When you walk with your toes separated, you distribute your weight properly, which means that you’ll keep your balance much longer as you age. And get your husband to massage them when you watch the news. Look at mine,” Sybil said, kicking off her slippers and flexing her slim feet. “I’m seventy-four, but I’ve got the balance of Nadia Comaneci.”
Rose surreptitiously checked her phone. “Sorry, Meryl, but if we want to—”
“I think we’re done here,” said Sybil.
“Thank you so much!” said Meryl, standing up. “You’ve given me such a lot to think about. And I’d love to read something you’ve written. Could I persuade you to sell me one of your books? A novel, if you have one.”
Sybil smiled her cat smile. “I have a few.”
She retreated behind the curtain and returned wiping the cover of a book with her sleeve.
“You have daughters—yes?—so you might like this one.”
“Cat’s Eye,” said Meryl, reading the cover.
And now it all fell into place for Rose: the voice, the knowing smile, the nimbus of curls.
“I’ll sign it for you.” Sybil took the book and opened to the title page.
“The thing is, once your balance goes, you’re more likely to fall and break a hip, and then it’s game over. Most people die within a year of fracturing a hip, did you know that? So we have to stay grounded. Especially given everything. Given the world right now.”
She pointed to Rose’s brogueish shoes. “Rose has the right idea.”
Sybil scribbled some words across one corner and returned the book to Meryl. Then she put a hand on the actress’s arm.
“And now I have to say something, something you might not want to hear.”
Meryl looked at Rose. “No, what, say it.”
“You’ve embarked on a new project recently…”
“That’s right,” said Meryl.
“It involves you playing a certain character, and you like to do a great deal of research for these roles. The way a person speaks, and moves.”
“Yes.”
“This new role of the woman, the failed writer who murders someone—I’m not sure this is going to work out well for you.”
Rose felt the room recede, as if her hearing had shut down. She can’t mean me, she thought. But it was done, the arrow had entered her. In the armchair beside her, Minky’s claws flexed open and then dug into the fabric. Meryl’s face reddened.
“But that’s not how I see her, as a failed writer,” said Meryl almost in a whisper. “To me she’s a character I love.”
Rose’s thoughts ran backward, all the way to the spa, and to their first dinner. Meryl’s penetrating questions. The talk about advances and broken contracts.
“It’s not the role that’s the problem so much as your approach to it,” Sybil said. “You’ll do what you do, which will serve the work well. But don’t be surprised if certain relationships suffer in the process.”
“It’s always a little hard on my family,” said Meryl quietly. She was gazing down at her hand and would not look at Rose.
“Besides them,” said Sybil.
Rose’s original plan had been to go to the movie, and then after for drinks at the star-worthy Shangri-la, where the fireplace ran the full length of the bar. They would talk about the movie, and how Darlene Love’s amazing voice had been stolen without credit for the hit record “She’s a Rebel.” They’d marvel at how arbitrary it could be, success or failure. A writer and an actress, talking.
It’s too late to just walk out, Rose thought.
A passerby on Ossington peered into the storefront window without seeing the three women. Sybil began to clear away the tea.
“Remember what happened when you played that Australian woman accused of killing her baby,” she asked. “The dingo movie?”
Meryl put her face in her hands. “She said I made her look coarse, and she hated the clothes they made me wear. But it’s a movie, I kept telling her. It’s fiction.”
“Well, there’s no such thing as pure invention,” said Sybil mildly. “I’ll be right back, I have a little something I want to give you.”
They were left alone in bruised silence. Meryl came over to Rose and took her hand, made her meet her eyes.
“That’s not how I see you, Rose. Please believe me. This has nothing to do with my work.”
“How do you know? It’s all fair game. I’ve done it too.”
Rose remembered a newspaper story she had written in her twenties, about a woman who lived with thirty-six rescue cats, and was fighting an eviction. She had shared tea and home-made butter tarts with Rose, who then made ruthless fun of her (and her zodiac coffee mugs) in print. Months later they found themselves in the same lineup at No Frills. The woman glared at Rose, left her groceries behind, and stalked out of the store. Rose went home, reread her story, and saw what she had done. Felt deeply chastened, and never forgot the lesson.
“But I would never decapitate anyone,” Rose said. “I think.” Meryl laughed and then teared up with relief.
“I agree. I can just Google that part.”
Outside, some snow had begun to fall, absentmindedly, like drifting thoughts. Sybil slipped back into the room and handed them two Ziploc bags. Rose opened hers: a pair of blue foam toe-spreaders. Meryl’s were glittery. The actress thanked her effusively and Sybil went over to the chair with the sleeping cat.
“Minky, down you get, it’s time for bed.” She blew out the tea lights and turned to the two women with the cat in her arms.
“Don’t forget what I said about the feet. And if you go right now, you’ll still make your movie.”