by Raziel Reid
Finally Greta breaks the surface, spitting out a mouthful of water. Hailey’s heart doesn’t exactly start beating again or anything, but she raises her phone.
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Sean’s eyes are closed and he’s pressed against the wall in the Paleys’ powder room. The bass from the party music thuds through the locked door.
“Imagine, if you will, a world in which the psychic abilities of human beings are proven fact, but powerful cultural forces conspire to keep this knowledge from the masses—fearing what they might become if they knew their true power,” Sean says.
Fortune is kneeling on his fur coat in front of him. He looks up at Sean as Sean opens his eyes.
“Isn’t that the plot of X-Men?” Fortune asks.
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The party is still going strong. Idris Morcos? Not so much. He’s stumbling all over the place and can barely keep his eyes open. Lily looks around. Should she be worried? The music is so loud. It might’ve been more fun watching the Paleys on TV than it is actually being here. A group of girls are obviously talking about her and looking her up and down. She’s out of place. Zero glam. And there’s been no sign of Hailey all night.
She was grateful when Idris came up to her while she was standing alone, even if she knows what a player he is from watching the show—Lily could never understand why Greta put up with him. But maybe it’s like the facade of the Paleys’ house: everything on the show has another side to it.
Idris almost falls into the pool. Lily gasps as Joel sweeps in and catches him. Lily was trying to play it cool when she met him before entering the party, but it’s Joel Strom! He doesn’t look real. It’s like she’s still looking at him through a screen. Lily has to resist reaching out and trying to swipe him.
Joel drops Idris on a floating unicorn in the pool. Idris passes out and floats away with the swans surrounding him.
“He spiked your drink,” Joel says, putting his hands in the pockets of his pink distressed hoodie.
Lily stares into her glass.
“I switched them at the bar,” he explains.
“Idris Morcos just tried to drug me?” Lily looks back up at Joel. “Isn’t he with your sister? Or is that just on the show?”
“Who knows. Greta’s just another possession to him. Idris thinks he has it all. He isn’t self-aware enough to realize how miserable he is.”
They notice a Platinum Triangle camera lens pointed at them from across the party.
Joel sighs. “We’re supposed to be done shooting this season. But the nightmare never ends.”
“I might be to blame for that,” Lily says.
On impulse Lily reaches for Joel’s hand and takes him to the pool house where Whitney says she’ll be staying. He’s a bit more real now that she’s touched him. Or at least she feels more real. Her heart is racing.
Lily slides open a glass door that leads to a bedroom. She knows from the Paleys’ home tour that the pool house has an open-plan kitchen, dining area, and living room complete with white modern furniture and a Bettina Rheims coffee table book on an Yves Klein Monogold table. The closet is bigger than her bedroom in the trailer where Lily grew up. There’s an en suite with a marble sink that just looks like a slab of marble with a slit in it that drains the water.
The bedroom is pitch-black as she and Joel slip inside. Joel slides the door closed and the music from the party fades. It’s replaced by a faint vibrating hum. A blue neon sign on the wall says Land of Hopes & Dreams.
Lily and Joel are cast in its blue glow. She feels him staring at the side of her face.
“You really gonna be on the show?” he asks.
“I think I’m already on it.” Lily falls to the edge of the bed. “It’s so weird being back here. I haven’t been to this house since my tenth birthday.”
Joel sits next to her. They’re not touching but she can feel his own hum.
“I didn’t know Hailey had a cousin,” Joel says. “Or that you’d been here before.”
“We’re the same age, but I grew up in the Valley,” Lily explains. “Hailey came to my birthday party. She was a diva. She thought the trailer where I lived was horrible. It was…but she didn’t have to say it like that, not in front of everyone. She called her mom and got her to send a limo to pick us all up and bring us back here. Like, right when we were in the middle of eating pizza. But of course everyone wanted to go to Patrick Paley’s house. They wanted to swim in a movie star’s pool, and play games in a movie star’s yard, and sit in a movie star’s home theater watching movie stars…”
Lily touches her charm bracelet.
“I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Do what?” Joel asks.
“Survive in a world where people are made and not born.”
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“Something to drink?” Patrick asks.
It’s like the director whispered in her ear before this scene started, Your character can’t feel a thing. Valeria is so method.
Valeria walks up to the window and stares out at the glowing city, throbbing with neon and rejection.
“Vodka’s your poison, if I remember from that Dr. Seuss shit we shot together a few years back?”
“Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?” Valeria’s reflection in the window smiles but her face is blank. “No one had to tell me how lucky I was to be in that movie,” she says quietly. “I was so excited to work with you.”
Valeria turns to Patrick at the bar. She’s breaking character and she knows it. What if she never works again?
“I was working with the Patrick Paley.” Valeria closes her eyes and remembers how it felt. “I had a poster of you on my bedroom wall.”
She takes the drink Patrick hands her. They sit next to each other on the couch. Patrick sips from a tumbler of whiskey. Valeria has the handsomest co-star. Dark brown hair slicked back, streaks of gray at the temples, as distinguished as the light crow’s-feet next to his piercing blue eyes, the lines almost designed—like they were purposely left untouched by his plastic surgeon so that John and Jane Fat Fuck America could relate to him on-screen.
John and Jane Fat Fuck America is what Valeria’s mother used to call the audience when she was helping Valeria rehearse her lines. “You’re boring John and Jane Fat Fuck America!” she’d scream, unhappy with Valeria’s performance. “They’re heading for the fridge! They’re opening a can of Mountain Dew!”
Valeria takes a sip of vodka. She falls back into the couch. Back into character.
“I was nine years old when we worked together. It feels like another Timeline ago. Someone else’s Timeline. The thing with fame is that you never expect it to go away. You always expect another moment to come along, and for it to be better than the last.”
Patrick traces a finger down her bare arm.
“This moment’s not so bad.”
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The morning sun shines through the glass sliding doors. Joel and Lily are in bed together, lying over the white duvet fully clothed, the neon sign on the wall above them still glowing.
Lily stirs awake. She breaks away from her dreamless sleep and opens her eyes, into the land of hopes & dreams. Joel’s on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He doesn’t turn to look at her as she stares at the side of his face; he keeps his eyes on the ceiling. Lily studies his profile. They’re stretched on top of the bed, just the skin of their arms touching.
“I found out that my dad is transitioning on Twitter,” Joel sa
ys. “My mom drinks rosé all day. My twin sister is on the verge of a mental breakdown. And I’m America’s golden boy who is just always chillin’ shirtless on camera.”
He turns his face and looks into Lily’s eyes.
“I’ve never told anyone what’s actually happening.”
“I’ve never had anyone to tell,” Lily says quietly.
They hold eye contact for a beat.
“I should get home,” Joel says.
“Thanks for hiding out with me last night,” Lily says, sitting up. “I don’t even remember falling asleep.”
Joel rolls off the bed and looks down at her. “I never do.”
He slides open the door and Lily follows him out to the pool, where Idris is still passed out on the floating unicorn.
“Is that…” Lily’s voice trails off as she stares at a spot on Idris’s bare chest.
Joel cracks up laughing.
“Definitely swan shit! Even the swans know what’s up.”
After Joel leaves, Lily enters the main house. It’s early enough that the Paleys’ housekeeper hasn’t started work yet. The Paleys haven’t had live-in help since Whitney caught Patrick with one of the maids in the laundry room. It came out during a particularly vicious fight between Whitney and Kathy in one of the earlier episodes.
Lily slowly walks through the main house, not wanting to wake anyone. She wants to be alone in the house to process this. It’s so quiet without the cameras in the Terry Richardson picture clicking or the sounds of the party outside. The air is so still. Lily’s reflection passes in the glass as she steps into the living room. She doesn’t know how she ended up here. Is it just because she was in the press? Is that some kind of rite of passage? Do Hailey and Whitney think she’s one of them now?
Patrick’s Golden Globe is on the fireplace mantle, and there’s a Hermès throw on the back of the couch. Lily picks it up and brings it to her cheek. Of course she was blinded with jealousy when she watched the show, and of course she wondered what it would be like to live here. She wished she could be on it.
Lily finds herself walking up the stairs to the second floor. The railing is plexiglass and there are no streaks. Everything in this house is transparent and sparkling. The tall wooden double doors to the master bedroom are closed at the end of a long hallway. Hailey’s bedroom door is open. The bed is made and Hailey is nowhere in sight. Lily takes a cautious step inside.
A close-up of Lily’s face is reflected in Hailey’s vanity, and in a smaller makeup mirror. There’s a trifold mirror in the corner of the room. Hailey’s four-poster bed is also mirrored. There are so many reflections of Lily’s face staring back at her, she’s even reflected in the framed pictures hanging on the walls. All shot by @bryant, an Instagram photographer who shoots practically every model and influencer in L.A.
Lily turns the LED lights on in Hailey’s walk-in closet. An entire wall is dedicated to Hailey’s Judith Leiber handbag collection. It’s breathtaking. The clutches are organized in different categories. The food: a French Fries Rainbow clutch, a Couture Cupcake, a Hamburger; the must-have accessories: a Black Card, a Seductress Crystal Lipstick in champagne, a gold Brick Phone beaded in the finest Austrian crystals; and the animals and nature: a Zebra Rocking Horse, an Embellished Rose.
Lily picks up the blue crystal Gummy Bear clutch, which she remembers Patrick giving to Hailey during the Platinum Triangle Christmas episode. It was the prettiest thing Lily had ever seen. That Christmas, all Lily got were some free samples that came with a cosmetics purchase her mom made at the drugstore.
As she replaces the Gummy Bear clutch, Lily accidentally knocks a Jimmy Choo shoe box in a stack at the back of the closet. It falls off the shelf and hundreds of white-chocolate pretzel balls spill out and roll across the floor.
“What the…”
Lily turns to face the wall of shoe boxes. She opens the lid on a Chloe box. It’s packed full of Twinkies. There are rainbow sour belts in Saint Laurent and saltwater taffy in Tom Ford. She tears off more lids. Swedish fish, gummy bears, and soda-can gummies packed to the brim in Gianvito Rossi. Chocolate-dipped cake pops in Manolo Blahnik. Potato chips covered in Belgian chocolate in Stuart Weitzman. Peanut-butter-cup popcorn in Aquazzura. Dozens of boxes of shoes, all with candy inside. Except for the Charlotte Olympia box full of laxatives.
As she scrambles to put the white-chocolate pretzels back where the Jimmy Choos should be, Lily hears a car pull up outside. She puts the box back on the shelf and turns off the light. From the bedroom window, she can see Hailey stepping out of an Uber. Her sequin dress looks so distorted by the morning light. There are sequins missing, and Lily can see that Hailey’s eye makeup is smudged.
Lily dashes out of the room, runs down the stairs, and swings open the front door to greet Hailey just as the Uber is driving off. Hailey trips coming up the driveway—the heel of her Louboutin rolls over a loose stone. She drops her Judith Leiber Pink Diamond clutch and the contents spill out. No cake pops or gummies this time. Just a real Black Card and some makeup.
“Where’d you run off to last night?” Lily asks. She bends over and picks up a Guerlain Météorites compact, passing it to Hailey.
“Was that Joel’s Porsche my Uber passed on the street?” Hailey asks, staring intently at Lily.
“Yeah.” Lily scratches her neck. “The party went kind of late.”
Hailey keeps staring. “Did you two film together last night?”
Lily smiles. “There was no camera,” she says.
Lily breaks eye contact first, bending down to pick up Hailey’s bank card.
“I’d be careful with Joel if I were you,” Hailey says, accepting the card as Lily passes it to her. “Joel may seem charming, but he’s only interested in you because you’re new. He has a private Instagram account full of photos of all the girls he’s piped. Just ask Valeria. We all know what Dora was exploring…”
“Is that why you’ve been chasing him on the show?” Lily asks.
Hailey’s eyes narrow. “Of course you watch the show.”
Lily’s spared from replying by Patrick’s Aston Martin pulling through the gate. The car parks and Patrick steps out, waving over at them.
“Morning, girls.”
“Hi, Daddy,” Hailey says, her voice suddenly sweet. “How was set?”
Patrick bends over to pick up a tube of lipstick. Housewife by Priscilla x Rincón Cosmetics. Lily saw a “What’s in Your Purse?” video on the MKTV YouTube channel where Whitney dumped the contents of her handbag and held up the same tube of lipstick, claiming all the wives of the Platinum Triangle wore it.
Lily notices the bag of coke on the ground at the exact same moment Patrick does.
“What the hell is this?” Patrick holds up the bag.
Lily looks over at Hailey. Her face is blanker than ever.
The front door opens and Whitney steps out in a leopard-print housecoat.
“What’s going on?” she asks. “Why are we all outside?” She stops when she sees the bag of drugs Patrick is holding up between his fingers.
“I asked you a question,” Patrick says, staring into Hailey’s eyes.
“It’s—” Hailey starts to say.
“Mine.” Lily jumps in. “I must’ve dropped it.”
“Oh, Lily.” Whitney looks at her regretfully, like she’s thinking: If only there were a camera filming this. “I’m shocked.”
“I’m not,” Patrick says, folding the bag of coke into the palm of his hand. “I was afraid something like this might happen. How could it not? Look at her white-trash mother.”
“I’m sorry,” Lily says quietly, her eyes on the driveway. “It was a stupid mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“Thank you for being honest with me, Lily. I’m sure you understand that, as parents, we have to protect our daughter from harmful influences. In a town like L.A., that isn’t easy. We can’t have you making it harder on us.”
Patrick turns to Whitney. “She leaves this morning.”
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Valeria’s phone pings on the nightstand in the Montage Beverly Hills. She snaps awake and finds herself alone in bed, her naked body tangled in the soft sheets. Patrick is gone.
She reaches for her phone and opens Instagram. She’s scrolling through the comments and wondering why she tortures herself. Always first thing in the morning. Like she has to start the day off with a punch to the gut or she just doesn’t feel quite right. The trolls are calling her irrelevant again. If she’s so irrelevant, then stop following her!
Valeria replaces her phone on the nightstand, and that’s when she notices the envelope full of cash next to a note written on hotel stationery. She picks up the note and reads it.
Order breakfast. Enjoy the suite. Have a blast. Buy a treat.
—Dr. S
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Lily stares out the passenger-side window of the moving Aston Martin. Patrick is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Lily wishes he would stop, or at least turn on the radio. The silence is so oppressive. Patrick’s energy is almost as cold as the AC blowing on Lily’s bare legs. She’s covered in goosebumps.
“Look, I don’t think you’re a bad kid,” Patrick says finally. “I’m playing Kang the Conqueror in the new Avengers movie. I’m the villain on-screen, but off-screen I’m the devoted family man. Marvel is owned by Disney after all. Everyone is.”
