the therapist gently, ‘we’d like you to introduce yourself to the group. As a person.’
‘Oh, “as a person”,’ Sabrina mimicked sarcastically. ‘As opposed to what? A dog?’
No one laughed.
‘Jesus, OK, fine. I’m Sabrina. I’m here because my manager is an a-hole. Good enough?’
Things got worse when patients were asked to talk about their childhoods. Sabrina sighed petulantly. ‘Dad was a junkie, Mom was a whore, the children’s homes sucked. Next question.’
‘I’m sure there was more to it than that,’ prodded the therapist.
‘Oh, sure. There were the assholes who tried to rape me,’ said Sabrina. ‘From twelve to fifteen I was on the streets. Poor little me, right? Except that it wasn’t poor me, because I got into theatre, and I got out. I got out because I’m talented. Because I’m different. Because I’m better.’
It was the first time Sabrina had expressed any real emotion in session. The therapist seized on it gratefully. ‘Better than who?’ she asked.
‘Better than you, lady. And better than the rest of these junkie sad sacks. I can’t believe you guys actually signed up for this piece-of-shit programme out of your own free will.’
Everyone knew that Sabrina Leon was not at Revivals by choice. That her manager, Ed Steiner, had staged an intervention as a last-ditch attempt to salvage her career.
Stumbling out of a Hollywood nightclub a few weeks ago, with a visible dusting of white powder on the tip of her perfect nose, Sabrina had lashed out at Tarik Tyler, the producer who’d discovered her and made her a star, calling him a ‘slave driver’. Tarik, who was black and whose great-grandmother had been a slave, took offence, as did the rest of the industry, who demanded that Sabrina should apologize. Sabrina refused, and a scandal of Mel Gibson-esque proportions erupted, with outrage spewing like lava across the blogosphere. Access Hollywood ran Sabrina’s feud with Tyler as their lead story, devoting three-quarters of their nightly entertainment roundup to a vox-pop of ‘celebrity reactions’ to Sabrina’s ingratitude, all of them suitably disgusted and appalled. Even Harry Greene, the famously reclusive producer of the hugely successful Fraternity movies, emerged from his self-imposed house arrest to brand Sabrina Leon ‘a graceless, racist brat’. In one, single, ill-judged night, the tide of public affection and goodwill that had swept Sabrina Leon to unprecedented box-office success – America loved a good rags-to-riches story and Sabrina had been the ultimate poor girl made good – turned so suddenly, so violently and completely, it was as if her career had been swept away by a tsunami.
And when the tide finally receded, she’d washed up at Revivals.
‘There’s no need to be insulting,’ chided the therapist.
Isn’t there? thought Sabrina
She had to get out of this place.
Two weeks she’d been here now. It felt like two years, what with the early-morning starts, the gross, tasteless health food served at every meal, the boring, self-obsessed patients. All the faux emotion of the therapy sessions, the embarrassing over-sharing of feelings, the fucking hand-holding. It made Sabrina want to throw up. Rehab was such a cliché. And, according to Ed Steiner, she still had six weeks to go.
Now, turning back from the window, Sabrina glowered at her manager defiantly.
‘I’m not working for free, Ed,’ she announced bluntly. ‘Not in a million fucking years.’
Ed Steiner sighed. He was used to spoiled, ungrateful actresses, but Sabrina Leon really took the cake. She ought to be on her knees, kissing his hand in gratitude. Here he was offering her a life-line – not just a role, but the lead role in Dorian Rasmirez’s much-hyped remake of Wuthering Heights – at a time when she couldn’t get cast in a fucking Doritos commercial. And she was bitching because Rasmirez wasn’t going to pay her. Why the hell should he? Dorian Rasmirez doesn’t need you, you dumb bitch. You need him. Wake up and smell the coffee.
‘Yes you are,’ he said robustly. ‘I accepted on your behalf this morning.’
‘Well you can damn well un-accept!’ screamed Sabrina. ‘I decide what roles I take, Ed. It’s my life. I have control.’
‘Actually, according to the release you signed when you admitted yourself into the eight-week programme here, I have control. At least over your career and business decisions.’ He handed her a piece of paper. Sabrina glanced at it, balled it up in her fist and threw it to the ground.
‘And it’s a good job I do,’ said Ed, unfazed by this childish show of temper. ‘Let’s not go through this charade, OK, Sabrina? It’s boring, it’s bullshit, and you know I’m not buying it. You know as well as I do that you need this part. You need it. Right now no other director in Hollywood would piss on you if you were on fire. Sit down.’
Sabrina hesitated. In jeans and a long-sleeved navy-blue tee from Michael Stars, with no make-up on and her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked about a thousand times prettier than she had the last time Ed had seen her. Healthier too, less scrawny, and with the glow restored to her naturally tawny, olive skin. This place must be doing something right, he thought. All she needs is to lose the attitude.
‘Sit,’ he repeated.
Sabrina sat.
‘Dorian Rasmirez has had his issues,’ he went on, ‘but he’s still a big name, and this is gonna be a big movie.’
Sabrina softened slightly. ‘When does it start shooting?’
‘May probably. Or June. They’re still scouting for locations.’
‘Locations?’ Sabrina pouted petulantly. A location shoot meant months away from LA, from the clubs and parties and excitement that had become her drug of choice. ‘What’s wrong with the back lot at Universal?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ed sarcastically, ‘except the fact that it’s not a Universal Picture. And it’s Wuthering Heights.’
Sabrina looked blank. She’d never been big on literature.
‘Wuthering Heights? One of the greatest classic novels of all time? Cathy and Heathcliff? Set on wild, windswept moorland?’ Ed shook his head despairingly. ‘Never mind. The point is, it’ll do you good to get out of Los Angeles for a while. Out of the public eye altogether, in fact. We issued your apology statement the day after you came in here, which may have helped a little. We’ll probably do another one before you check out. But it’s still a shit-storm out there. You need to disappear and you need to work. Come back in a year, healthy and happy and with a hit movie under your belt—’
‘A year!’ Sabrina interrupted. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
Being away from the LA party scene was bad enough. But the thought of being out of the media glare for so long – of not having her picture taken or seeing her face in magazines – made Sabrina’s heart race with panic. You might as well tell her she couldn’t breathe, or eat. Without attention she would wither and die, like a sunflower locked in a cellar.
Ignoring her, Ed Steiner went on.
‘I know they’re filming some of it in Romania, at Dorian Rasmirez’s Schloss.
