“I’m so glad to have a chance to work with you,” Roger enthused. “I’ve always been a fan.”

“Thank you.”

“But more of you than your hair,” he went on. “I’ve never actually seen a flattering hairstyle on you in any of your films. Not that you didn’t look good, I just thought your hair could look better.” He turned on the dryer and continued the conversation, shouting over the loud whine of hot air. “Except for Mist on the Lake. That’s the best I ever saw you look.” He ran his fingers through her hair as he spoke. Suzanne frowned at her reflection.

“But my hair was wet for most of Mist on the Lake,” she screamed.

“Exactly!” Roger shouted back with satisfaction. “And that’s close to what I want to try with you on this picture. Slicked back. The wet look. Dramatic but casual.”

“Great!” she shouted.

Show business, Suzanne thought, as this man she had just met—this man she would probably know fairly intimately by the end of the week—played with her hair. It’s all about distraction, a way of being transported out of your life, of having someone else’s life for a while. Identifying with them. Feeling relief that their predicament isn’t yours, or feeling relief that it is. A way of dreaming outside your head. Tilting your head with the actors when they kiss, thinking, “It’s so real.” The New Real.

The New Real was not being real, it was acting real. Suzanne was in the business of seeming—of entertaining people with her ways of seeming real. Portraying reality had become her way of experiencing it. She knew how to act like a regular person. She was self-consciously unselfconscious. She didn’t mind being watched, but on some level she minded being recorded. It was as if she became an African native the moment the cameras started rolling, and felt her soul being robbed. If the natives were right about this, Suzanne figured her soul level was unacceptably low by now. It occurred to her that after she noticed her soul was completely gone, she would quickly lose her all-important ability to seem okay.

The door opened and Marilyn came in. “Lucky you,” she said, placing several chocolate doughnuts in front of Suzanne. “I got to the doughnut tray before the camera crew, so there were plenty of the icing ones left.”

“How can I ever repay you?” asked Suzanne, looking at the doughnuts as if her medicine had arrived.

“Just hold still while I’m doing your eyes.” Marilyn moved to her area and took the lid off her Styrofoam coffee cup.

“She’s all yours!” Roger announced to Marilyn, gesturing grandly. Suzanne thanked him through a mouthful of cake, then made her way across the room into Marilyn’s chair. She squinted into the glare of the lights around the mirror, trying to adjust to their fluorescent horror.