Read Online Movie Star By Lizzie Pepper by Hilary Liftin - Free Book Online Page A

away that I’d nearly missed it. But nonetheless, there it was.
    In the four months that we’d been dating, Rob had only mentioned the One Cell Studio a handful of times, and only in the most dismissive, don’t-even-ask-me-about-this manner. And yet I knew how important, how present, it was in his life, not just from the tabloids and rumors, but in the many times a week he would go to the Studio to practice, in the meetings that sometimes filled his days, the private phone calls, the time he would occasionally spend inside that office he had behind the gym.
    But really, all I knew about One Cell was what everyone knew, or thought they knew. It was a secretive, possibly cult-y meditation group whose practitioners wore simple burlap robes and, supposedly, used superpowerful magnets to channel their energy, or something like that. I often drove past its center of operations—a massive green marble monolith that loomed over Beverly Hills. Nobody knew what went on beyond those high, Oz-like walls. But there were an unusual number of A-list celebrities among its followers, actors whose work I deeply admired. To my mind, there was no way all of those respectable, successful people, including Rob, were brainwashed.
    Aurora had half-jokingly warned me, on more than one occasion, not to get sucked into Rob’s crazy cult. That never seemed possible. In fact, I’d begun to think that maybe Rob intended, for whatever reason, to keep me separate from that part of his life indefinitely.
    But now, just the tiniest sliver of an opening dangled in the air between us, inviting me—if I wanted—to ask Rob more about the Studio. One Cell, it seemed, was the key to my boyfriend’s acting talent. And—if it really was so core to his life—it could also lead to the deeper Rob I longed to access, the imperfect Rob with doubts and needs and unmet desires, the frog behind the prince.
    I waited a moment longer, then dove in.
    “One Cell. The cult,” I said. “What’s the real story?”
    “There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Rob said. “But I’ll let you make your own judgments. I first heard about Teddy Dillon and her brother, Luther, about twenty years ago, when they were just starting to develop the One Cell Practice. Not sure what you’d think of Teddy, but she’s a genius. She has her PhD in organic chemistry, but it wasn’t until she spent five years living in the desert with the Aborigines that she put the science and meditation together. My acting coach for
The Son
sent me to Teddy. Before I began practicing at the Studio, my acting was just . . .seat of the pants. Through the Practice I learned to harness a range of emotions I hadn’t even experienced
in my own life
. I was so jazzed by what she was doing that I spent six months at the first Studio in Fernhills. My involvement took off from there.”
    “How come I’ve never taken one of the classes? I mean, you’ve never even invited me,” I said.
    “You have your own set of principles. I don’t want to inflict mine on you. I’m just glad you let Geoff steal me away a couple times a week to go to the Studio.”
    “Geoff is involved?” This was news to me, but I had never tried to understand the roles of the many people who orbited around Rob.
    Rob laughed. “Wow, I’m terrible aren’t I? Geoff is actually the head of PR for One Cell.”
    Oh my God!
“Geoff is
Geoffrey Anciak
!” I was an idiot for not making the connection. Whenever the One Cell Studio was mentioned in the press, Geoff Anciak was the one quoted, usually making another futile effort to dispel the rumors of the day. When we’d gone on what I thought was
Geoff’s
yacht to what I thought might be
Geoff’s
island—it was all part of One Cell. No wonder my father had known who he was. Geoff was the public voice of the Studio. Naturally he would consult with its most high-profile practitioner.
    Over the next couple of weeks, I watched Rob through a slightly altered lens, wondering