by Raziel Reid
They pass a billboard for the new season of Platinum Triangle. It features an image of Joel surfing. Lily leans her head against the window.
She knew it wouldn’t last.
Patrick glances over at her. He opens his mouth to say something but just lets out a sigh.
“Fuck it,” he says.
Lily lifts her head from the window as Patrick does a sharp U-turn.
“Where are we going?” she asks. “Van Nuys is the other direction.”
“I changed my mind.” Patrick speeds ahead. “There’s something I want you to show you.”
* * *
—
They’re stuck in traffic for what feels like forever. Patrick puts on some music and hums along. His mood has changed. He’s relaxed. When he stops at a Mobil to get gas and cigarettes, Lily sits in the passenger’s seat watching a StarLine bus caught in the traffic jam. Tourists sit with the sun beaming down on them through the open top, looking out at the sidewalks hoping to spot someone famous.
Lily turns up the stereo. Patrick doesn’t wait to light a cigarette before they’ve pulled out of the gas station, like he knows he can’t blow up; he’s already a supernova.
When they finally reach Mulholland Drive Lookout, Lily is confused.
“Why’d you bring me here?” she asks, taking in the breathtaking sight of Los Angeles.
Patrick motions for her to follow him up the stairs that curve around the canyon.
When they reach the peak, Patrick leans against the railing, staring out at the Hollywood sign which has come into view. It almost looks close enough to touch.
“I’m going to give you a second chance, Lily.”
Patrick faces her. Lily forces herself to hold eye contact with him, even though the way he’s looking at her through his Ray-Bans makes her feel like she’s being brought to the slaughterhouse.
“I think you have the makings of a star,” Patrick says.
brandocadogan
324k followers
izabella_012 Its really a shame that certain parents feel indulging their spawn without teaching them what repeating others means, or how to conduct yourself in life and actually have a purpose. Considering the issues of certain parents who obviously are immeshed in their own issues, its not really a surprise that the results of their failures live large in their spawn. You are obviously a troubled soul, rudderless and drifting with no real sense of values or doing anything relevant and meaningful for yourself and others. Perhaps through repeated embarrassment (though that may be something you are no capable of feeling) and humiliation you might grow up one day to grasp the fact that treating people like shit, disrespecting others and acting like a punkass bitch is insufferably boring. With the opportunities you have have had (and wasted) and the people you have met (only by association, not on your own merit) does it not register that you are making a fool of yourself and your family? Likely not. Respect is earned…can’t buy it or inherit it..You may think you are above others but I assure you what you think you have very meaningless in terms of what is really important in life…hopefully you won’t piss away more time and effort on disgracing yourself…humble yourself and find your life., one day you may very week regret not seeking the real meaning of what a fulfilling life is about.
bing_lyon People that talk shit are just jelly
“You’re all peasants!” Brandon screams at the other passengers on his United Airlines flight home from Hong Kong. They’re boring him. They’re booing him. “My father could buy and sell you all!”
It’s been a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad flight.
He blames his dad for refusing to let him use their jet because he needed it to take his mom to Switzerland for her experimental cancer treatments. Or so he claimed. Brandon saw on IG that they were on a boat off Geneva.
Brandon’s life is unbearable. The peasant flight attendant got mad at him for smoking a joint in the bathroom. First class isn’t what it used to be.
Then they wouldn’t give him a drink because he’s underage.
“It’s a thirteen-hour flight!” he yelled in the flight attendant’s face. “What the fuck, man?”
She kept saying, “I’m going to have to ask you to lower your voice, sir,” which Brandon really hates.
He watched as the flight attendant made a call, and then another flight attendant came up to him and was all sycophantic and shit because he’s a follower or he wants to suck Brandon’s dick or whatever.
And. Then. The. WiFi. Stopped. Working.
He had to take six Xanax to not totally lose his shit.
Then he fell asleep for a couple hours.
When he woke up, he was feeling refreshed and gentlemanly and the WiFi was back on so he apologized to the first flight attendant and asked her if she wanted to mile high.
She got really offended. Probably one of those #MeToo types. Shit.
Then he Skyped in with Bea and it started getting kind of hot. Bea took off her top, and then the second flight attendant stopped being all obsequious and got really huffy and told him he couldn’t jerk it on the plane, and Brandon’s like, first class, man! What happened? It’s private or bust. Or in his case, private or not bust.
“If you wanna start shit, then I will fucking fight you,” Brandon shouted. “I’m Brandon Cadogan and don’t you fucking forget it!”
The passengers started booing him so he pissed in the middle of the aisle and all over some peasants, and one of the flight attendants, the first one, started crying. And now they’re landing at LAX and there are police waiting for him on the tarmac.
paleyhailey
1m followers
seehun_139 These are one of the best weight loss pills I have tried. I like that their were no side effects that some diet pulls can cause. I had no jittery feeling at all. I also had increased energy a huge plus. I lost 3 pounds in the first week that I took these. See details on my status..
Hailey’s head is bowed in the toilet of her en suite bathroom. She was particularly ravenous after her dad got back from dropping Lily off in the gutter where she belongs—and then Hailey saw that the basic bitch was still with him.
Hailey’s extreme patterns with food started in junior high in preparation for her first Coachella. Three weeks before the festival she stopped eating, and by freshman year she’d decided that bulimia was in again.
When she binges, it’s pretty much anarchy. She chokes the food down, unwrapping a chocolate bar and shoving it in her mouth while she’s still chewing a handful of jelly beans, washing it all down with a can of whipped cream, and so on and on until she feels like she’s about to burst. Each lick of icing off her lips is another tick of the time bomb. She loves feeling like she’s about to blow. When she’s totally consumed by all that she has consumed, she feels electricity in her veins. She is dangerously wired.
Her favorite part is the release. It’s better than sex. It leaves her so raw and euphoric. She feels a supernatural calm and composure afterward. She always takes the best selfies right after a good purge. There are no bad angles when she has deflated, and the lighting doesn’t matter—her face is flushed from her neon insides.
Whitney knocks on the bathroom door and steps inside, passing Hailey a tissue to wipe the vom off her lips as Hailey stands up and flushes the toilet.
“Why did she come back?” Hailey adjusts her Chanel red silk bow headband. “More importantly, when is she leaving?”
“If we’re going to do this, we have to commit, Hails,” Whitney says. “Let’s shoot some scenes with Lily today and see how it goes…. The premiere is right around the corner. We’ll need Lily front and center.”
“I don’t know what’s worse.” Hailey leans against the sink. “Lily taking over my life or my show.” But Hailey knows there isn’t a difference.
She catches her mother’s reflection in the bathroom mirror. “What are you smiling about?” she asks.
Whitney’s eyes shine. “Look what I found in your father’s suit pocket!” She
opens a Cartier box with a pair of Panthère de Cartier white gold, diamond, and onyx earrings inside. “Our anniversary is coming up!”
Last year Whitney bought her own anniversary present and gave it to Patrick before they shot a scene for Platinum Triangle, where he gave it to her. Whitney was so surprised.
“Make sure you hide them from Lily,” Hailey says sarcastically.
“I’m going to put them back where I found them.” Whitney allows herself one last admiring look before snapping the lid of the box closed.
Such a small box, Hailey thinks. She’d have to open a million to feel full.
lillianrhode
0 followers
Lily lies on her back on the white duvet in the bedroom of the Paleys’ pool house, next to an imprint of Joel’s body.
She doesn’t know what part is the craziest, that she’s here at all or that she spent the night in bed with Joel. It’s not like anything happened, but Lily still feels different. She hasn’t felt that safe at night since her mom left. Lily’s been sleeping with the lights on.
Joel is nothing like how he appears on the show. On the show he seems so chill and happy. He’s always goofing around with Sean Johnson, who he used to make YouTube videos with, and there’s at least one scene featuring him shirtless every episode. He’s portrayed as a heartthrob and a good guy—certainly compared to Idris Morcos and Brandon Cadogan. In real life, there’s a quiet intensity about Joel, a melancholy Lily wasn’t expecting.
Lily picks up her phone, shooting Mia a text to tell her that she’s just finding her bearings, promising that they’ll talk soon, and denying her request for a “close-up photo of Bea Getty’s ass”—Bea is Mia’s crush; she has a collage of Bea’s modeling photos hanging on her locker door at school.
The truth is, Lily doesn’t know how to talk to Mia or any of her other friends who want to know what’s happening. She doesn’t know how to explain it because she doesn’t quite understand it herself. It’s all happened so fast Lily hasn’t processed it.
She stares back up at the ceiling. Beverly Hills feels like another planet…
Outside the glass doors she can hear workers cleaning up after the party in the Paleys’ backyard.
The lights aren’t the only thing Lily kept on after her mom left. Lily had to keep the TV in the trailer on all the time because she thought the silence would kill her. She was so lonely but had too much pride to admit it. She escaped to Zuma whenever she could.
“It’s the only place where I can truly be free,” Joel said one episode. It resonated with Lily so much and prompted her to request Zuma, despite having to take the bus to get there.
Lily googles Joel’s Instagram on her phone. Almost every photo is of him at the beach. Lily doesn’t have an account because she’s never had anything she’s wanted to share before, just things she’s wanted to hide. Before recent events, it felt like nothing exciting had ever happened to her.
You have the makings of a star.
Something possesses Lily to pull the trigger: she creates an account. When Instagram asks her to select a username, she tries @lilyrhode but it’s already taken so she uses her full name: @lillianrhode.
She follows Hailey but isn’t sure if Hailey will follow her back. Hailey didn’t exactly run out to greet her when Lily came back with Patrick. Lily’s been hiding out in the pool house ever since, but Sam texted to tell her to keep her schedule open today—she’s shooting a “girls’ day” with Whitney and Hailey…
Hailey’s feed is curated with glamorous photos, most of them starring Hailey and her superhuman tan. She uses captions like “Don’t be a Queen waiting for her King. Be a Queen ruling her Kingdom until her King joins her.”
The posts are a mix of clothes and jewelry and her shoe collection and her Judith Leiber collection and modeling shots and ads and parties and private jets, and then there are the highlights, which suck you in, one after the other—behind the scenes on Platinum Triangle, her Paper magazine shoot, photos from earlier this summer in the south of France. There’s a photo of her and Joel on the rooftop of Catch that Lily finds herself staring at until she loses all sense of time.
Lily climbs off the bed and walks into the en suite bathroom. Even her reflection looks different in Beverly Hills. It’s like the mirror should come with a warning: Objects may appear more beautiful than they are.
She takes a photo and makes it her first post.
realvalerialeon
3.3m followers
emmaslaays We share the same soul
emmaslaays Like you are my soulmate
emmaslaays But you have no clue
emmaslaays In another universe were probabbly married
emmaslaays Oops i spelled probably wrong .. Fuck it
emmaslaays But ily
Valeria didn’t read picture books growing up; she read scripts and Old Hollywood star biographies. Her mother used to read the bios aloud to her as they sat in her trailer during long shooting days. Gloria said it was important Valeria learn from those who had gone before her. That she always remember she was born to be a myth.
In a Marilyn Monroe biography it was written that after “auditions,” Marilyn would spend hours in a hot shower, washing it all away.
Valeria doesn’t feel like taking a shower. The only shame she feels is over not feeling shame. This is what must be done. And only she can do it. Her whole life Valeria has taken care of her family. Her father could never hold down a job, and before her mother was a reality housewife, she was just a plain old housewife. Gloria’s own dreams for stardom were placed on hold for her kids. She put all of her ambition into making Valeria a success. Since her first Welch’s grape juice commercial at the tender age of two, Valeria has been her family’s main breadwinner.
But it’s all falling apart.
Sophia had to drop out of her private elementary school and Leo may never attend one. Both of their college funds have long since been drained. Then there’s the house. They’re going to lose the house.
The house was bought with Valeria’s movie earnings. It’s all she has left to remember that she was, at one time, wanted. Her mom and dad narrowed it down to a few different properties and they let Valeria choose. She was only ten years old, but it was her money paying the mortgage. She chose the 1930s Spanish-style house on North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills because of its Old Hollywood history. It was once owned by Marlene Dietrich, one of the myths her mother read to her. The house had lasted, and it gave Valeria hope that she could last, too. She was ten years old and already worried about becoming a has-been. They only want you when you’re seven. Valeria’s sixteen and the industry doesn’t know what to do with her. Every day she panics. Shouldn’t there be more scripts coming in? Better scripts?
The house became her anchor—it’s everyone’s anchor, and without it, they’ll all drift away.
When Valeria arrives home from her night with Patrick at the Montage, Gloria is up in her room with her glam squad getting her hair and makeup done. She has Platinum Triangle press with Shondra Johnson. In the trailer for season 2, Gloria accuses Shondra of having been a prostitute in Vegas, which is how she supposedly met Sean’s dad, Christoph. Shondra’s the queen of drama on the show. Last season, the other wives, led by Whitney, tried to get her fired because she’s too “ghetto.”
As soon as she’s home, Valeria forgets it all and plays her favorite role: sister. She feeds Leo breakfast and helps Sophia get ready for her summer day camp.
Sophia wants to wear a crystal choker that says “BIMBO” and when Valeria tells her it’s inappropriate, Sophia shoots back, “Why did Mommy buy it for me, then?”
Valeria remembers watching an old Shirley Temple movie with her mom when Valeria was a kid. “Notice how her dress is cut shorter at the back,” Gloria said. In the scene, Shirley was dancing on a tabletop. It was true. As Shirley spun around, you could see her panties. In another scene, Shirley was milking a cow and squirted milk all over her mouth. Gloria put her hand on Valeri
a’s knee. “You could be an icon like Shirley Temple.”
Valeria finally gets a squeamish Leo to eat some applesauce and puts him down on the floor to play. She’ll leave a note for his nanny that he still needs a proper breakfast. And that the check is coming. They’re a month behind. Her mom’s glam squad has been paid, though. Priorities.
“Where’s my My Little Pony lunch box?” Sophia is screaming. “Valeria, where is my My Little Pony lunch box?”
The kids of the Platinum Triangle are born with a silver-spoon emoji on their feed. When they throw tantrums, they aren’t sent to their room, they’re sent to find their light.
Valeria doesn’t know how to tell Sophia that Gloria had her bring the Moschino lunch box handbag, along with a trunk full of Valeria’s old clothes, to sell off at Wasteland on Melrose.
Sophia is having a total meltdown. “Where is my lunch box, bitch?”
“What did I tell you about talking like that?” Valeria snaps.
“I want my lunch box!” Sophia starts crying.
How did she become so spoiled? Valeria can’t remember ever being like Sophia. She was never entitled. She was too busy to be entitled. She still is.
Leo is choking on a broken-off helmet of a G.I. Joe and Valeria is about to lose it when Gloria’s voice comes through the in-home speaker system.
“Valeria, honey, are you in? Come upstairs.”
Leo spits out the helmet and his face stops turning purple. Valeria sighs. Honey means Gloria is about to degrade her.
“Can you watch Leo for a minute, Soph?” Valeria asks, heading toward the stairs. Sophia has decided that since she can’t find her lunch box, she’s going to put her lunch in Gloria’s Valextra tote. It wasn’t one of the items Valeria was sent to hawk.
