The View Was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements

Chapter Two

Since she was twenty years old, Win had been two different people, living two different lives.

The first person was the Win who had, give or take some adolescent angst, always existed. Win grew up running wild with her best friend in North East London and then, determined to make a name for herself, grew decidedly less wild. She worked fourteen-hour days in the rain or dark. She had an acidic gift for mimicry, a complicated relationship with her mother, and a bad temper. This was the Win who attended late-night crisis meetings with Marie and spent hours alone with a script trying to talk her way into character. As a teenager, this Win had wanted two things very badly: for her father to get better, and to be given the chance to make it as an actor. She got one of them.

The second person, the second life that Win lived was as Whitman Tagore, international movie star, youngest woman to win a Leading Actress BAFTA, and venerated in both London and Hollywood. Win and Marie had spent the past seven years perfecting Whitman Tagore, testing her angles, honing her glossy edges, working and reworking her flaws. By this point, she was a masterpiece.

Whitman Tagore was never tired. Whitman Tagore was never angry. Whitman Tagore was never wasted. She worked hard, but she didn’t do anything crude like sweat off her makeup, starve herself for a role, or take pills to keep herself awake. Most of all, Whitman Tagore was calm. She did not blink when cameras flashed in her face. She did not respond when talk show hosts speculated about her sex life. She could be emotional, but only when it became her; she could cry prettily as she accepted an award, but she could not sob in the back of a taxi. She could admit experiencing racism and sexism at the hands of the film industry, but she could never accuse a specific man of harassing her. Beneath the folds of this calm no move was uncalculated, no facial expression unplanned. Marie had written the mantra. Stay calm. Don’t panic. Stick to the narrative.

There hadn’t always been two Whitmans. For a while, she had hoped that Win would be good enough for the world. But the split from her real self that she kept closely guarded and the self she presented to the public was not gradual. It happened all at once, seven years ago. A Sunday. It was the day Josip sent the recording to the Daily Mail.

Win had been in America, sliding from bit parts in ensemble comedies to sidekick roles in romantic dramas. She didn’t have a name for herself yet, but she was creeping slowly into the public consciousness, the newcomer Indian actress with deadpan delivery and a skill for stealing a scene even when she was the character with the least lines.

It had been jarring, to see herself described as an “Indian” actress. Win had grown up distinguishing between British Asians like herself and real Indian Indians like her parents and extended family. Becoming well-known in America meant allowing that boundary to slip away. “Yes, we don’t want people to put you in a box,” her agent Patrick agreed, “but we also don’t want people to feel confused by you.” British with Indian heritage was too long and clunky, and Americans didn’t use the label British Asian. British on its own left people feeling deceived, like there was something she was trying to hide. Let it go, Patrick advised her. You’re Indian, but you grew up in England and you have a white first name, so you’re not too Indian. They can call you what they want as long as they’re casting you. Just don’t let them make you do the accent.

At the time she was in New York for a series of meetings with Patrick and a director they had been pursuing. Gigi Waits had just received her first Oscar for Best Director, the second woman to ever do so, and she was known for scooping up lesser known talents and transforming them into overnight stars. Her expectations as a director were well-known: Her cast should be disciplined. They should be happy to redo the same scene forty times without pause. They should be prepared to spend hours simulating hysteria. They should be ready to learn languages, instruments, fighting styles—and quickly. Win was desperate to work with Gigi, who would push her and strain her and bring the acclaim and success Win needed to turn a few fledgling achievements into a career.

That Sunday, Win and Patrick were invited for brunch at Gigi’s loft in the East Village, and it was in the cab on the way over that Patrick’s phone started ringing. Win never found out who was on the other end of the line—an assistant maybe, or a gloating rival. Whoever it was, Patrick’s face dropped as if someone had died. He stared at Win in disbelief. Win must have looked confused, but a part of her, somehow, knew that Josip had done something terrible.

The voicemail that her ex-boyfriend sent the Hollywood Reporter, in exchange for an undisclosed sum of cash and a boost to the sales of his band’s new album, had been recorded three weeks earlier while Win was still in the UK. When Patrick played it to her in the back seat of the taxi, she could barely recognize herself. She didn’t remember saying those things. She only remembered calling Josip very late at night, alone in her flat between a flickering streetlight and an empty highball glass.

What are you supposed to do when your boyfriend of a year goes to a club with another girl, grinding close and smirking as they kiss, her hand already disappearing into his jeans? Do you pretend not to believe it? What about when you try to confront him and he doesn’t speak to you for four days? Are you supposed to just take the hint and let him unstitch himself from your life? What if you haven’t slept because of your filming schedule and you’re on a no-dairy-no-sugar diet, so your only indulgence is vodka sodas? What if you look the girl up online and she seems to be everything you’re not—laid-back, fun, unfazed? Doesn’t it make sense to pick up the phone and wait for the inevitable beep?

Nobody heard any of that, though. They only heard Win’s dark, vicious snarl on the voicemail, the cruel twist of her words as she swore to hate Josip for the rest of her life, the half-sneered jeer about his terrible music, how he was going nowhere and fast, how she didn’t and had never needed him.

The recording spent two days on the front page of every gossip site in the UK, and at least half of the American ones, too. Josip was the lead singer of a mediocre Illinois rock band with a few lucky singles, but he was handsome and he knew how to command attention. It was what had attracted Win to him in the first place; now, it attracted a pack of late-night talk shows all too happy to laugh about crazy ex-girlfriends and give his album a plug in the process. Win’s status was transformed from the interesting new girl to an international joke.

She would listen to the voicemail hundreds of times in the coming months. Presenters quoted it to her at interviews. Late-night hosts played it for their guests, who laughed merrily along. For a while a meme made the rounds where people performed it in their best weeping diva voices, fake mascara tear stains smeared across their faces, and “Hey, asshole, I’m just calling to tell you to go fuck yourself” became the standard opener for all ironic whiny tweets. She forced herself to replay it late at night, when she wanted a reminder of why she could never let it happen again.

“It’s all right,” Patrick said in the taxi, although he wasn’t making eye contact. “It’s just a voicemail. It’s not like you did something illegal.” It was the first time he had lied to her.

Gigi didn’t even let them in the building. “My actors need to have self-control,” she was quoted saying a few days later. “I’m not interested in working with divas.” She never spoke to Win again, and Win’s role was unceremoniously given to someone else. Other roles she had been chasing folded, too. She and Patrick went from rushing between ten meetings per day to barely rustling up three in a week. Party invitations were revoked. Callbacks were retracted. The only people who wanted to talk to her were entertainment journalists who called incessantly and left simpering messages explaining that they just wanted her side of the story. A hive of photographers sprang up in front of her hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of Whitman Tagore wading through the burning wreckage of her short career. That was why Marie came to her hotel, the first time they met. They held the meeting in Win’s suite to save her from having to step outside.

The first question Marie asked was if Win had spoken with other publicists. Win felt suddenly embarrassed to tell the truth: no, she had not. Before that week she had never considered needing one. Publicists were for reality TV stars scrambling for likes and views, or for influencers looking to sidestep the tough climb up to fame. Win was an actress. She was a professional. She almost said no when Patrick handed over Marie’s business card. Then a photographer called her a crazy bitch as she was getting into her taxi, and Win decided some principles weren’t worth dying for.

“I’ve looked into a couple,” she told Marie. “You’re the only one I’ve met in person.”

Marie nodded. “That’s good. It’s best to speak to as few people as possible, during a crisis period.”

A few weeks before, Win would have dismissed the idea of calling this a crisis. It seemed so petty. A stumbling relationship, infidelity, an untamed outburst. Now, Win only needed to switch the TV to an entertainment channel to confirm Marie’s assessment.

“What we need,” Marie said, “is to throw you back out there. Right now, this voicemail is all that Americans know about you. You’re just this crazy British girl who’s come out of nowhere. We need to show people another side of you. And that side has to be much more interesting.”

Marie’s idea was to send Win off to a glitzy party looking fabulous and untroubled. She would wear pale colors, and her hair would be down. She needed to look young, innocent, and carefree, like the sort of girl who only ever raised her voice to shriek in delight. She would smile with a self-deprecating sigh when questioned about the voicemail, but she would not go into details. She would attend with a date.

“I can pull in a favor and get that new French model from Balmain,” Marie said, as if she were suggesting a rental car. She swiped through something on her phone. “Oh, but he’s shorter than you. Better not. You need to look like the weaker one in the relationship.”

Even in those early days, Marie was unabashed in her strategic management of other people. She didn’t have a problem explaining her thinking to Win, no matter how uncomfortable the truth might be. Once, a few years after all this, Marie had scanned an article about an actress’s son and said, “That child really limits her likability,” with no inflection at all.

“Oh, how about this,” Marie said. “The Horizons Group is launching a new hotel in Brooklyn tonight. It’s going to be a very public event, lots of New York celebrities. Plenty of press.”

Win, who had been dogged by the press and sneered at by New York celebrities for the past week, said, “That sounds good.”

“I haven’t told you the best part yet,” Marie said. “The Horizons Group is owned by Bernard Milanowski, and he gets one of his kids to come to every launch. This time it’s the youngest son—Leo.”

Win had heard of Leo Milanowski before. The playboy son of a millionaire hotel mogul and a reclusive ex-supermodel. Rarely seen without a cluster of socialites around him. Caught between America and the UK, and famous for being famous in both.

“I have a source in Bernard’s office who says they’re still hunting down a date for him. Bernard wants someone who will make a splash, drum up more attention for the hotel, you know.” Marie looked at Win. Sometimes Win wondered if Marie had tiny crosshairs printed on the back of her eyes. “They want someone people will be desperate to see.”

As Win dressed for the party that evening, she watched Whitman Tagore appear in the mirror: the heavy dark hair, the high cheekbones, a winding silhouette and huntress shoulders. She practiced playing herself as a role, keeping her real self hidden. She practiced her smile. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself,” Marie said, and so she switched to the wide-eyed, agog expression of posh London girls that she and Shift used to laugh at. She was Whitman Tagore, who wanted nothing more than to go to a party with a spoiled It boy. While she slipped into her heels and pulled on a cape of pale silk, Marie briefed her as though she were a soldier about to go into the field.

“There’s a line of press as you walk into the building. They will be hard on you. Maybe the other guests, too. Milanowski won’t pull anything at his dad’s own party, but he won’t defend you, either, if things get tough. It’s okay. Just keep calm, and keep smiling. Stick to our narrative.”

Win met Leo for the first time in the back of a black sedan. There was less fanfare than she had been expecting, no elaborate greeting, no stilted introduction from Marie or one of Leo’s entourage. As she slipped into the car, he said, “Just ask the band to start later.”

He waved at her and mouthed, On the phone, as if Win couldn’t see the cell phone tucked under his ear. Leo Milanowski had a strong, handsome face, a sharp jawline dappled with stubble that seemed designed to frame his mouth, and disarmingly long eyelashes. He wore what Win guessed was a very expensive suit with negligent ease, and he looked bored and a little sleepy, like a commuter on the tube, as though he hadn’t noticed the lush leather interior of his surroundings or the actress sitting beside him.

“No, I won’t be there for long,” Leo said, running his fingers idly through the hair that curled over his forehead. “Just need to shake some hands.” He laughed at something the other person said.

He stayed on the phone for the whole drive, leaving Win to watch Manhattan slide past them in silence, unsure if she was annoyed or grateful for the peace. She resisted checking her phone too often; recently it had only brought her bad news. She stared out the window and tried to relax.

When they stepped out onto the street, there was a storm of camera flashes. At the sight of Win and Leo, the thicket of paparazzi surged forward, the assembled line of security barely holding them back. They were all calling her name.

Leo leaned in so his mouth was almost touching her ear.

“Hi,” he said, “hand on your back, or arm in arm?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m a hand on the back guy, personally, but it’s your call.”

They were talking out of the sides of their mouths, with security waiting around them. Win remembered Marie’s comment this afternoon. She needed to appear vulnerable, pitiable. The weaker one.

“Why don’t you come closer?” she said.

Leo gave her a quick, assessing look, then put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side. She turned her face toward his chest. He was very warm, this close, and when he ran his fingers gently through the hair falling over the nape of her neck, she didn’t have to fake the shiver.

They walked into the party like that, arms around each other and turned away from the flash of cameras. When she peeked up at him, Leo’s face was quiet and calm, almost possessive. He was a good actor, too, she realized.

In the lobby he uncurled his arm from her shoulder.

“No offense,” he said, “but if I was you, I probably would’ve stayed at home.”

Win smoothed down her dress and patted her hair to make sure it was still in place.

“Unfortunately, staying at home was not an option.”

“Tell me about it,” Leo said.

They sized each other up, an odd moment of stillness in the middle of the party. It wasn’t the usual up-and-down look Win was used to from potential love interests; it was more calculating than that, more thoughtful. Win wondered what the possibility was of Leo selling his Whitman Tagore story to the press. She wasn’t sure what Leo was thinking.

The walls of the lobby were decked out in graffiti paint (the graffiti artists, Leo told Win later, had been flown in from Paris and Rio de Janeiro, and their designs had been vetted by a team of six executives before they were allowed to start painting). Below the chandeliers, whose bulbs flickered to create a seedy, urban effect, guests mingled and waiters toting trays of champagne circulated among the crowd. The golden reception desk had been dented and artfully tarnished to give the illusion of decay.

“Edgy,” Win said, surveying it.

“Thaaaat’s Daddy,” Leo said.

People had already begun to notice them. Back then, Leo’s fame far dwarfed Win’s, so he was getting most of the curious looks and hopeful waves, but there was a ripple running through the crowd, too, a snarky, sideways lowering of voices and narrowing of eyes, and Win knew that was just for her.

“You could pretend to faint,” Leo said, keeping his voice low so only she could hear him. “That would get us both out of it.”

“No,” Win said. “I’m fine. I am having a good time.”

The corner of Leo’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t argue. He offered his hand and Win took it, linking their fingers together. She leaned against Leo’s side, like she was overwhelmed and needed him to protect her. It felt strange to be acting in real life; Win kept wanting to apologize to him. But Leo only looked entertained.

“Let’s go get some drinks,” he said.

“Strong ones.”

They stuck together. Leo declared himself “unmoved” by the rest of the guests, and Win was tense the entire time, focused on her resolve to be as Whitman Tagore as possible: open, harmless, calm. After a week inside the media firestorm, she was constantly expecting attack, and it was only Leo’s hand on the small of her back that kept her from her instinct to cut and run. Leo seemed to notice. When a probing New York columnist was getting a little too familiar for comfort, he leaned into her ear and said, “Honey, can I steal you for a moment?”

Win couldn’t thank him properly, with so many people around, but she could return the favor when she saw him cornered by a grabby trustee. She caught his arm with affected urgency. “Darling, your father needs you.”

They ran into Bernard Milanowski in the smoking lounge. Bernard had the same discerning stare as Leo, the same demanding jut of his chin, except Bernard expected obedience, not attention. He gave Win one abrupt, comprehensive look, and nodded at Leo. Win tensed and straightened without thinking. A second later, she realized Leo had, too. He let Win respond monosyllabically to Bernard’s prosaic questions about how they found the party while he stared distantly over his father’s head.

Win knew Bernard had only invited her as bait for the press. She got the impression he found her presence to be a distasteful necessity, like having to tip a maître d’ to get the best table. After he excused himself, Win and Leo let out twin sighs of relief.

“I’m not a cliché, by the way,” Leo said, as they escaped to the balcony. “I don’t hate my dad. I just don’t care for him.”

“You’re very complex,” Win agreed. She turned as something caught her eye. There was a waiter a few feet away with an empty tray tucked under his arm. He was leaning against the railing with one hand hanging carelessly at his side, his phone angled toward them as if by accident. Win couldn’t tell if he was taking photos or filming. She nudged Leo very gently, nodding in the waiter’s direction. Leo kept his face casual as he glanced over his shoulder.

“He could probably get fired for that,” she said.

“Well,” Leo said, turning back to her, “let’s make it worth his while.”

Win’s breath caught as Leo waited just long enough to give her the chance to tell him no, and then he pressed forward against her in a sudden, lilting kiss. His mouth was warm. She could feel his chest against hers, the press of muscle on silk. Win brought a hand up to cup his cheek, which was cleared of stubble but still faintly rough, and she felt his grip tighten on her waist. People would be looking.

Leo broke off, and she let her hand slide down to his neck.

“Too much?” he murmured.

She almost laughed; it was almost funny. She’d popped one foot up when he kissed her, not on purpose but instinctively, and she brought it down now. She could imagine the director in the corner, shouting, Cut!

“We got it,” Win said.

Leo eyed her, making some judgment that she couldn’t track or decipher.

“Whitman Tagore,” he said. “Would you like to share a joint?”

Even six months later, by then a diligent pupil in what Leo called Marie’s House of Shame, Win couldn’t believe she’d risked it. She didn’t know Leo then, and if he’d wanted he could have destroyed her with one well-timed photograph catching her in the act. Win knew better than to put her faith in handsome strangers. But that night she looked up into Leo’s secretive, smiling face and realized that an evening that should have been an ordeal was turning out to be the most fun she’d had in weeks.

The rooftop was not quite finished, Astroturf half rolled down, wheelbarrows and tools still kicking around. Leo and Win slipped out of view of the open door and over to the edge. There was no sound or sign of the party. Leo’s weed was strong but friendly, relaxing Win’s shoulders further.

“How many of these do you go to?” Win asked, and Leo considered, taking another hit.

“One or two a year. My siblings and I trade them off,” he said. “We used to go together but one time my brother brought this really shitty acid, and me and my sister nearly drowned in the champagne fountain. Gum freaked out and tried to do CPR on a statue. Dad said we were a bad influence on each other, so now it’s one kid per launch.”

Win wheezed with laughter, tucking her nose against Leo’s shoulder. She always got touchy when she was high, but he didn’t seem to mind, slouching obligingly so she had better access.

“Then for a while I brought my own dates,” Leo continued. “But when I was eighteen I was seeing this German pop star—”

“I had a German boyfriend when I was seventeen,” Win said, remembering him fondly. “Germans go hard.”

“Germans go hard,” Leo agreed. “And we, uh, we snuck off to have sex in the lift and we hit the emergency stop so no one would know, but we didn’t notice when they fixed it and the doors opened in the middle of the party…Dad was not happy. So now I don’t usually get to pick my own dates.”

“How have I not seen photos of this?”

“Oh, Dad has five different law firms on retainer for shit like this. There was my sister’s motorbike period, and the time I got uppers mixed up with poppers, and another time at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner where they decided for some reason it would be a good idea to have a separate party for anyone underage. Politicians’ kids are fucking crazy, there were these two senators’ daughters passing me between them—”

“Oh, it’s been a hard life,” Win said, but she couldn’t stop laughing. They exchanged quick, pleased glances, testing each other out, liking what they found.

“Well, you’ve had a normal childhood,” he said. “I don’t know many people like that. It’s mysterious.”

“Very mysterious,” Win agreed, and told him about the raves she and Shift used to go to and the window in her family home she used to climb back through until her mum wearily told her that she might as well just use the front door. Leo had lived in London on and off for years, but he didn’t know the curry houses in Aldgate where Win and her father used to go after school, or the house parties in Brixton out of whose windows Win had thrown up only a few years earlier. Hilariously, he thought he might have seen Shift play one of her early Dalston nightclub residencies, two years ago now: “That’s my best friend!” Win said, pounding on his shoulder in glee.

“Maybe we were both there,” Leo said, and gallantly offered her the last hit.

They swanned back to the party, Win’s hand clasped lightly in Leo’s, ducking around models and moguls. People were still staring at them, but now the whole thing felt ridiculous, Upper East Side snobs slumming it in Brooklyn, pretending to rough it while they sneered at the disgraced Whitman Tagore. It made her laugh, and Leo laughed, too, without asking what the joke was. Win felt high and satisfied, as though she could reach through the mess and noise to create the party she wanted, all the danger of the evening made impotent like a defanged snake.

The next morning, it was the sheer volume of photographs that shocked her the most. They had been immortalized in film at every moment of the party: Win and Leo catching eyes over another guest’s shoulder. Win and Leo dissolving into laughter at some forever-private joke. Leo tucking his chin over Win’s shoulder as he excused her from a discussion with one of the Horizons investors. Win and Leo sequestered away in secretive corners, looking as if they were whispering things too intimate to repeat. And of course, the kiss. His hands in her hair, the kick up of her heel as she leaned into him. Afterward she had bitten her lip and smiled, and their waiter had caught that, too.

Win went through the fourth, seventh, tenth gossip article about them. They looked unbelievable together. She thought suddenly that it was downright selfish of Leo not to be a real actor. Directors dreamed of this kind of chemistry. She only stopped clicking when her phone rang.

“Marie,” Win said. “I need to talk to—”

“I have him on the other line,” Marie said. “Did you see the Post? I’m sending you a link to the front page right now.”

Under an overly excited headline, the main shot was of Win and Leo waiting for their car. There had been a brief shower of rainfall, and security was too preoccupied with the photographers to bring them an umbrella. Instead Win held her silk cape up for both of them and they huddled under it together, Leo’s hand wrapped around her waist, his eyes sparkling between camera flashes. The caption below the photo read:

Whitman Tagore and Leo Milanowski leaving the party. Exactly how long the dream romance has been going on is unclear, but by the look of these pics, these two know each other…shall we say…intimately. Looks like the witch has jumped off her broom and into bed.

Below the article, comments were reeling in on an endless feed.

omg whitman tagore and leo milanowski!! im SO WEIRDLY into this!ugh that dress is giving me LIFEhow long has this been going on??is she trolling us?sucks to be josip lolcouple of the year tbh

“This is a big deal,” Marie said. “If we play it right, it could totally eclipse the voicemail. It could do more than that—it will make people love you. All we need to do is give them more.”

Win laughed. She hadn’t thought it would be this easy. Just find another boy and make him like you, and the world will follow suit.

“Hey,” Leo said once Marie had patched him through. “Your assistant is pretty intense.”

“She’s not my assistant.”

Leo made a disinterested noise; he was harder to read over the phone, when Win couldn’t follow his body language and his cue. “What can I do for you, Whitman Tagore?”

She tried to sound nervous, in case that might appeal to him. “I’m just— I wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Although, you should probably say what you’re thanking me for—was it thank you for the Post or thank you for BuzzFeed?”

“You’ve seen the pictures,” Win said.

“They were hard to miss.”

“Well—thank you. For all of it. I had a really good time with you.”

“Likewise.”

There was a pause. Even without him in the room, she could feel his amusement. He was enjoying holding back, waiting to see what she was going to say next.

“Leo.” She made her voice breathy, like she was pent up with excitement rather than determination. “I don’t know what it is about you. I’d really like to see you again.”

He laughed. “Is that your best line? Did your assistant write it for you?”

“She isn’t my assistant,” Win repeated, irritated.

“Try again,” Leo said. “I want a better story.”

“Okay, I don’t know what it is about us. But people like it. I think we have…”

“Chemistry?” Leo suggested.

“I was going to say stage presence.”

He laughed again. “So what are you asking me for?”

Win paused. When she first started acting, it was because she was good at it, because it was where she felt best in the world, inhabiting a character and making them real. Her father had loved that about her. He’d told her that she had a gift and that she shouldn’t squander it. She was sure that this—investing in herself as a brand, making people care about her personal life and not her work—was not what he’d meant.

But it was becoming clear that her work wasn’t enough. And if she didn’t want to squander her gift, if she wanted to stay true to her ambition and her father’s belief in her, she would have to make sure that she got the opportunities she needed. To do that, she had to be liked. With Leo, she would be loved.

Win took a steadying breath. “I want us to pretend to date. I want to be seen with you, and I want us to look good.”

Leo was silent for a moment. If he was impressed with her honesty, he didn’t admit it. Eventually he asked, “And what’s in it for me?”

“You seem bored,” she said. She thought of Leo’s lazy gaze drifting around the party, the way his focus had narrowed in on her. Leo seemed to like playing games. Maybe he would accept her as a teammate. “I thought you could do with a project.”

Leo laughed again, short and delighted this time, like she’d caught him off guard. “I’m flying back to London next week for my friend’s gallery opening. You can have me for eight days. How’s that?”

“I think that will work,” Win said. She sank back into her chair. She was smiling. “As long as you put on a good show.”

“If you show me a good time,” Leo said, so that Win could hear him grinning over the phone, “the rest of the world will have a good time, too. I promise.”

Annoyingly, he was right.