The Body Double: A Novel - Hardcover

Beyda, Emily

 
9780385545273: The Body Double: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0385545274 ISBN 13: 9780385545273
Verlag: Doubleday, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

A dark, glittering debut novel echoing Hitchcock's Vertigo, The Body Double is the suspenseful story of a young woman who is recruited by a stranger to give up her old life and identity to impersonate a reclusive Hollywood star.

A strange man discovers our nameless narrator selling popcorn at a decrepit small-town movie theater and offers her an odd and lucrative position: she will forget her job, her acquaintances, even her name, and move to Los Angeles, where she will become the body double of the famous and troubled celebrity Rosanna Feld. A nervous breakdown has forced Rosanna out of the public eye, and she needs a look-alike to take her place in the tabloid media circus of Hollywood. Overseen by Max, who hired her for the job, our narrator spends her days locked up in a small apartment in the hills watching hidden camera footage of Rosanna, wearing Rosanna's clothes, eating the food Rosanna likes, practicing her mannerisms, learning to become Rosanna in every way. But as she makes her public debut as Rosanna, dining at elegant restaurants, shopping in stylish boutiques, and finally risking a dinner party with Rosanna's true inner circle, alarming questions begin to arise. What really caused Rosanna's mental collapse? Will she ever return? And is Max truly her ally, or something more sinister? The Body Double is a fabulously plotted noir about fame, beauty, and the darkness of Hollywood.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

EMILY BEYDA is a Los Angeles native who for the past three years has written the popular "Dear Glutton" advice column in The Austin Chronicle. A graduate of Texas State's M.F.A. program, she currently resides back in L.A. The Body Double is her first novel.

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1

Someone speaks my name.

“Yes,” I say, “right.”

My hand, I notice, has stuck to the counter, where there is a slick of spilled soda, dark-colored, diet, I’m guessing—that’s all anyone orders here. A large popcorn, sour gummy worms from the case under the counter, diet soda. The sodas are all off-brand. Mr. Pibb and Mello Yello. Big Fizz, Dr. Smooth. Moon Mist. The man in front of me has just ordered something, but I’m too tired to remember what it was. Everything swims fuzzy in the fluorescent lights of the lobby. Behind the man’s head, I can see the faded velour nap of the curtains that hang on either side of the doorway, framing his face. At the painting class I’m taking at the community college, the instructor shows us how the old masters drape velvet and silk behind the profiles of their subjects, that noble swish of fabric a signifier of something my brain grasps toward but won’t let me remember through the thick scum of no sleep and caffeine, sugar and sugar substitutes. My hands shake. I spit sweet.

We’re on the third film of our triple feature, it’s something close to three a.m., and still thinking about those sallow-eyed women whose images the teacher projected on the wall of the classroom—nameless, immortal, gazing past us into eternity—I feel my body pivot, working without me, so used to the motions after all these years of taking candy from the dusty case, scooping popcorn into the narrow mouth of the waxed paper bag, filling a big gulp with soda. I had thought, when I started this job, years ago now, that it would be a chance to be closer in some way to the world on the theater’s screens, that smooth-surfaced place where everything is beautiful and poreless and clean. But it’s stickier than I thought it would be. Messy. Even the cash my manager, Scott, pays me is soft and gritty from overuse, the pressure of too many hands. “Seven fifty,” I say, and he, small, smooth-haired, limp-eyed, reaching forward to take his change back, brushes his fingers over my prone palm in a way that feels intentional. Too close. His sweat presses into my skin. I can feel it burrowing down through the lines of my palm, horrible. “Enjoy the show,” I say. I smile wide. Even my teeth feel tired. I wipe my hand, once, twice, on the slick polyester of my uniform pants. The man disappears into the theater. Outside, I can sense the summer air pressing against the thin glass of the doors, straining to get in, the pressure around us immense, like water at the bottom of the ocean. I wipe down the counter. I wipe down the case with the candy in it. I think again of the girl in the painting, the weight of her averted gaze, that long-ago light, so thick and heavy around her that it almost seems damp.

The sun is starting to rise when the last customer leaves. Normally we lock up the theater together, Scott and I, standing in gathering warmth, the cracked asphalt cold under our feet. Across the street the windows of the shuttered pet store shine like soap bubbles on dirty water. I like to look at them, waiting for him, noticing the way the sun shifts pink across their surface. This morning I will not have the chance.

“Wait,” says Scott as I start moving toward the door. “One second. I need to talk to you about something. There’s someone who wants to speak with you before you go home. He’s up in my office. Come on, it won’t take long.”

I’m tired. Too tired for whatever this is. It must be nearing sunrise, and I feel like something has crawled inside of me and died. Even now the light has begun worming its way in through the narrow window in the finished basement where I sleep. Between coming home and waking up I have, if I’m lucky, a good hour of solid semidarkness before the sunlight becomes impossible to escape, and now Scott has robbed me of even that. I consider my options. I could push past him and leave. Scott is a small guy, always wearing the same shirt, always trying to start conversations with the customers about obscure French films nobody has cared about for at least fifty years. Part of me feels sorry for him. Sorry enough to smile at him when I arrive at the theater, to put up with the ten minutes of requisite chat when he hands over my pay for the week, under the table, in cash. Neither of us wants anyone asking questions. In a way, we understand each other. Not sorry enough to want to listen to him talk, though, definitely not sorry enough to let him take me out for after-work drinks, even though he asks almost every week. Not sorry enough for whatever this is.

“Now?” I say. “You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?”

I feel a tingle of annoyance pass through me, and something deeper under that. The nauseating stirrings of alarm. I trust Scott, I tell myself. I should trust Scott. I’ve worked here for so long. There have been so many late nights, the two of us alone. I should trust him. I trust him, I do. But I don’t want to go up to his office, that small space, impossible to escape without fighting. I’m afraid of what might be waiting for me there. He reaches past me to lock the door. I stand still, trying to ignore the nausea, the bright flash of fear that surges through me and wakes me up. Anyway, it’s too late to object now. I tell myself to trust Scott. That everything will be fine. I stand with my hands in the pockets of my sweat shirt and look past him, trying to peer through the mirrored glass to the world beyond the theater. But he pulls down the security gate, blocking the light, and all I can see is my reflection, hunched and fragile, my face obscured by the shadow of my hood. My body looks abandoned. Like an empty pile of clothes.

“Okay,” I say, “but I can’t stay long. They’re expecting me at home.”

We both know this isn’t true. He nods.

“Come on,” says Scott. “Let’s go.”

The room Scott calls his office is the projection booth, hidden up a narrow staircase at the back of the theater. Its walls are painted a dirty shade of Pepto-Bismol pink, plastered with faded posters of the films Scott wishes he could run. The air is dense with the human smell of a small and constantly occupied space: dirty socks, fast food, something heavy and yeasty and alive, cut through with the sour tang of old weed. The lights are off, all except a gooseneck desk lamp, its shade turned up toward the low ceiling to cast a pale beam of light, throwing dramatic shadows across the room. Someone has been working hard to create an atmosphere. And it almost works. The dingy corners of the room are hidden, the grease smears on the walls obscured by darkness, the posters’ tattered edges smoothed out by shadows, the bright walls dimmed to a pale pink. And there is a man sitting at Scott’s desk. He is turned away from us, his back straight. If he has heard the door open, noticed us come into the room, he gives no sign.

“This is Max,” Scott says.

I can feel Scott blocking the doorway behind me, shifting from foot to foot. Nervous.

“Hello,” I say to Max.

His back seems to stiffen when he hears my voice. He must be holding himself incredibly tightly to silence the squeaky springs of that old chair. A sympathetic muscle twinge passes through my shoulders. He doesn’t say anything back. There’s a moment where he seems to be steeling himself, gathering his nerve, and then he turns, and for one instant I see his face light up with surprise. Joy. It is as though he recognizes me. Just as quickly as it came, the expression disappears. He carefully arranges his face into something critical, appraising. I can feel the weight...

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Verlag
Doubleday
Erscheinungsdatum
2020
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0385545274
ISBN 13 
9780385545273
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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