Lovegame(3)

“As fun.” She lifts her water to her lips, takes one long, thirsty sip. I very deliberately don’t watch the way her throat works as she swallows. “You do know what fun is, don’t you?”

Fuck. I expected a lot of things from this interview. I never expected to like her.

“I believe I’m familiar with the concept, yes.”

“I hoped you would be. I know there probably isn’t much fun in true crime, but you can improvise a little, right?”

“Is that what you do with your scripts? Improvise?” She gave me the opening and I can’t resist sliding in with the first of my questions. “I’ve heard working with you always involves the unexpected.”

“No answers to your questions until you promise that you’ll answer some of mine.” Her smile is bright white and beaming.

This may be my first celebrity interview of this ilk, but I know when I’m being taken for a ride. I’m pretty sure this wide-eyed, friendly approach works on most of the Hollywood journalists she runs into, but I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life interviewing people whose lives—not just their livelihoods—depend on their ability to lie. Murderers, policemen, federal agents, witnesses, family members of the victims, not-so-innocent bystanders. I’ve interviewed them all and those varied experiences let me see, all too clearly, the calculation lurking in the depths of those world-famous violet eyes.

Recognizing it doesn’t keep me from taking the plunge, however. Some things are inevitable, after all. And calculation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes it’s prudent.

Sometimes it’s fun.

And sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps you alive.

I wonder which—if any—it is for her. Or if it’s all of the above.

Veronica Romero is a lot of things. An ingénue isn’t one of them, no matter how many she played early in her career.

She’s patiently waiting for my response, though, so I nod. “I’ll be happy to answer whatever questions you have. As long as you extend me the same courtesy.”

“Of course. That is what we’re here for, isn’t it?” She glances down at her nails, which are surprisingly short and painted a purple so deep and dark that it’s almost black. The way she doesn’t look me in the eye is how I know she’s telling the truth—and feeling vulnerable—defenseless—exposed about doing so. “Life is full of surprises. I feel like art should be, as well. I don’t improvise just to improvise while on script, but there’s an honesty in the unexpected, isn’t there? In the responses that have nothing to do with preparation and everything to do with…” She pauses, looks uncertain for the first time.

“Being thrown off your game,” I fill in. “And scrambling for purchase.”

“Yes. Exactly.” She smiles approvingly.

“Do you like it?” I ask. “Being off your game? Not knowing what’s coming next?”

“Are you kidding? I hate it.”

“And yet you force yourself and your co-workers into it several times a film.”

“I do, yes.”

“Some would say that’s foolish. Arrogant. Courting disaster, even.”

The dimple flashes again and she laughs a little. “Some have said that.”

“And still you do it.”

“Still I do it. True art doesn’t come from complacency. You of all people know that.”

“So you consider yourself a ‘true’ artist?” I ask.

Something flickers across her face and for the first time I wish that I was videotaping this interview instead of just audio recording it. I would love to be able to come back to this moment later and analyze each of her facial expressions.

“And if I say I do?” Her chin is up, her voice pure bravado.

“I’d agree with you. I think doing that—dropping the mask to get the rawest, most real moments—is very brave.”

“Brave?” She says it like she’s never heard the term applied to herself before. “And here I just thought I was masochistic.”

The words are loaded, the look she gives me even more so.

I feel myself respond despite all the lectures I gave myself to the contrary before she got here. But she’s got a good laugh and an even better outlook on her life. Plus that word, masochistic, calls up all kinds of images of her that are better left unimagined.

Still, now that it’s out there, I can’t just leave it alone. The descriptor is way too powerful for that. “Is that what acting is?” I ask after a moment. “Masochism?”

“If you do it right.” She takes another sip of her water, her eyes locked on mine as her tongue darts out and licks a stray drop of moisture off the perfect bow of her upper lip.

“And do you? Do it right?”

“I think that’s for you to say, not me, isn’t it?”

That’s when I forget how to breathe. For one second, two.

She’s talking about being at the mercy of the audience—a stern taskmaster, no doubt—but at this moment, that doesn’t seem to matter. Not when it feels very much like she is the one in control. Of her career, her destiny, and this interview.

But there’s a gleam of triumph in her eyes that says she knows it and that jump-starts my brain. This interview is a two-day marathon and I’m not prepared to go down this early or this easily.