by Kayley Cole
She's dressed as a sailor, the outfit looking like a one-piece bathing suit except for the short blue skirt, the red bowtie over her chest and the silk-like material. She glances at me, but continues wandering through the room. I watch her ascend the stairs, every step deliberate.
Two emotions battle in my head: anger over the fact that nobody is talking to her— she is a black sheep among a group of people who claim to be black sheep— and an almost panic-driven need to reenact our morning together.
After a few minutes have passed by, I follow her up the stairs. Ty's stairs swirl upward, reminding me of soft serve ice cream. It takes an inordinate amount of time to reach the third floor, but that just ensures that nobody drunk will stumble onto this floor.
The third floor is divided into two rooms— one is a sunroom, filled with plants and armchairs, and one is a dance room, the walls covered with mirrors and the floor is made of smooth wood.
I instinctively go toward the dance room. Ellie sits in the middle of the room, staring at her many reflections.
It would be too risky to kiss her now, but I do anyway.
Chapter Five
Ellie
As Jake kisses me, I can see our many reflections. It's disorienting, but at the same time, it feels honest. There are so many versions of us floating around in people's heads. To other people, Jake is a genius, an asshole, a dedicated workaholic, a playboy, a troublemaker, a criminal, a son, a friend, and, for quite a few people— an enemy. I'm many, many things too, but it feels like they're all solely merging into the simple image of a woman who calls other women prostitutes and was never real in the first place. I'm just a manufactured piece of merchandise, created for a record label to make more money.
"Stop thinking," Jake whispers. "I don't think that many people were on the second floor. We should steal some of his shit."
"Imagine the headlines they'd write about me then," I say. He leans back, his arms still wrapped around me.
"I know. It would be awesome. People would stop inviting us to these stupid parties, and we could just be alcoholics at home."
"At our two homes," I correct. He kisses me again and the way his mouth presses against mine, I know he's just doing it to shut me up. I know I should shut up. I'm letting all this negativity sink between us, and there's no reason for me to become his anchor.
He stops kissing me, his breath softly caressing my lips. He lets his arms fall to his side and takes a step back.
"Anya was near the pool a little while ago," he says. "But I don't think she wants to talk or make peace with you."
"You already talked to her?"
"I wanted to try to clear the air," he says. "She's not interested."
I shake my head. "I have to do something. Maybe I can offer to do a collaboration with her."
He touches his face, the cheekbone of his skeleton face moving as he flexes his jaw. "Ellie, if I could fix this, I would."
"You don't need to," I say. "I'm gonna go back downstairs. Wait at least ten minutes, so nobody knows we were here together."
"Ellie." He puts his arm on my shoulder. When we look at each other, I can picture us naked in this room, our many reflections embracing each other in a burst of passion. "Are we ever going to be able to be together? Publicly?"
"Of course," I say. "I have to go find Anya. We can meet up after the party."
I quickly leave the room. The perk of seeing Jake less is that I have fewer opportunities to mess our relationship up. But I know we feel the same way— the pent-up excitement and fervor between us is amazing when we get to see each other, but it's strange to walk down the street or down a red carpet and pretend that you're a singular person when there's someone else constantly on your mind.
I check the pool area, but Anya isn't there. I wander around the house, inside the house, even back down the driveway. I can't find her. It's possible she already left and, if she did, I've screwed myself over coming here. Everyone avoids looking at me, but as soon as I pass by them, the whispers start. I can feel their hate mixed with their gloating. I thought I had felt shame before, but this is something more evolved— this is more vicious and insidious. It's wearing me down.
"Miss Ellie Rue."
I turn around. A man dressed as an inmate with a shaved head and a scar— which could be real or created with makeup— under his left eye leans over a brick railing. He smiles at me.
"The woman of the hour," he says, tilting his head. "I heard that you're the latest bait in this fishing expedition."
I cross my hands over my chest. "If I were bait, people would be more likely to look me in the eye before they threw me as far away from them as possible."
"You've been flying in the air for a while. You just didn't know it." He walks around the railing, stopping in front of me. "I'm even a bit jealous of you. I've been in this business for years, and you've reached the kind of success I could only dream of."
"My intention wasn't to be famous or rich," I say. "I just wanted to make a living writing songs."
"Well, you know what they say, Hell is paved with… " he says, his fingers brushing against the bricks. "Good intentions and bitter rivals."
"Have you seen Anya Bowline?"
"Yeah."
"Recently?"
"Oh, no." He shrugs. "She still has to be here somewhere. She'll want to take as many photos as possible with other celebrities to show that everyone is standing behind her and not you."
I cross my arms over my chest. "Nobody is standing behind me, which makes me wonder why you're talking to me."
"Because I like you. Because I see the truth. Anya just wants to stay relevant, and the best way for her to do that is to make her competition look like fools."
"Or she could actually release some music."
"Oh, you're feisty now." He moves around the bricks, stopping a few inches away from me. It feels strange when everyone stayed at least a foot away from me since I arrived here. "I could help you with your publicity problem. I know people in all the best charity organizations and some other people that might be able to help you bring down Anya."
I force a smile. "But you don't know me, and I don't know you. I can handle this. I don't even want to bring her down. I just need to find her."
"You don't trust me."
"Right now? I don't trust anybody."
"Well, that's the fastest way to drown yourself." He nods behind me. "There's Anya with her entourage."
As I see Anya— all sophistication and the kind of body every woman desires— all I can see is a woman that tore apart my reputation with a snap of her fingers. In less than a day, I've become a national disgrace. It's enough to drive anyone over the edge.
I step in front of Anya. "We need to talk."
Anya forces a smile. She's wearing a kimono over a one-piece bathing suit. "Of course, Ellie. I've been meaning to find you. This whole interview was blown out of proportion. I should have known better than to run my mouth to a reporter. I was just caught up in the moment when we were talking about the state of music today. I shouldn't have singled you out like that."
"I don't care about that," I say. "I care that you accused me of calling other women prostitutes."
"Calling me a prostitute."
I turn to see Alex Soltis, a tiny woman with her blonde hair pulled into a french braid.
"I didn't do that," I tell Alex.
"Why would Anya lie about that?" Alex asks. I glance back at Anya. Behind her, I see Goldfinch, nodding in agreement.
She's surrounded herself with the same women she said I insulted.
Paranoia starts to seep into my brain. There's no way all these women decided to turn against me, but it feels like I'm in a den of lionesses and there's no way I can get out without losing a vital organ.
"I don't know," I confess.
"First, you call us prostitutes," Alex says. "And then you call Anya Bowline— Anya Bowline— a liar. How much lower can you go?"
"I didn't..." I say, the words echoing
in my head.
I hear quick steps before Jake walks in-between the two of us.
"Everyone needs to calm down and mind their own fucking business," he says. "Do you want to know the truth? The truth is that Anya and I dated. That's what this whole thing is about. Anya is mad because she found out that I was still dating Ellie. We both signed NDAs because we didn't want our personal lives to overshadow our professional ones."
The whole party seems to go silent. Then, slowly, like light rain growing into a rainstorm, people start talking, their voices layering over each other.
It feels like white noise to me. I stare at Jake, trying to figure out if he's lying for my sake or if he's been keeping this from me this whole time.
"It's true. We went on a few dates," Anya says, addressing the crowd like we're at one of her concerts. "But I'm against women throwing each other under the bus over a man. Maybe you missed it, Jake, but I just apologized to your girlfriend— I mean, ex-girlfriend— and she didn't accept it. I did what I could to mend the situation. If she doesn't accept her own culpability in the situation, there's nothing I can do about that. I'm self-aware and mature enough to admit that I was wrong. I'll just leave now. There's no point in arguing with someone who is too blind to see their own faults."
There's a chorus of people begging her to stay, and I can feel the daggers in other people's eyes, all pointed straight at me.
"Come on," Jake says, grabbing me by the arm. I let him direct me away from the house. Everything felt so good this morning, and now it feels like I'm discovering all of that is a lie. I'm caught in a spider web, and I've just found out that Jake helped to weave it. It seems fitting that when we fall apart, his hand will be on my arm and I'll be the one that crashes away from him.
Chapter Six
Jake
Power and control is the exoticism of directing— strange, compelling sensations in a world that's devoid of power or control. It's the reason actors often want to become directors— they could be the world's sexiest man or woman, have millions of people worshipping them every day, have so much money that they walk on gold in their summer house and on diamonds in their winter home, but when they come to work, I can tell them to do the same shot until it's perfect in my mind. They're dolls, recreating the world until it fits my vision. Directing is the chance to be God in a room full of sinners.
Last night was nothing like that.
I circled back to Ellie's apartment in the morning, still wearing my skull paint, but throwing on a bulky hoodie too. I find her curled up on her sofa, softly snoring, while an open bottle of vodka is in front of her, half empty.
I grab the large red-covered book from her bookshelf and sit down in the recliner across from her. I open up the book, where there are photographs of Ellie in the past year and a half, accompanied by her lyrics. One of her fans had created it. Ellie nearly burst into tears at the meet-and-greet.
There's a photo of her with her mouth full of cake as we celebrated the song she wrote, Hurricane, going platinum. "Can't keep my big mouth shut/but in the stillness of the night/this silence is enough."
There's a photo of her wearing a red dress, half in the shadows, half bathed in moonlight. "Demons, demons/save them up like lucky pennies to convince me that you sold your soul/if I told you my thoughts once and for all/I'll just be another on your list, another demon on your roll call."
She never told me who that song was about, but I know it was about Andrew. He had just been admitted into another inpatient psychiatric program.
My phone vibrates. I check it. It's a number from the hotel where I left Ellie's possible father. I've been blowing him off, but I know I can't do it much longer. I need Isabella to work a lot fucking faster to track him or Ellie's real father down. I'd call her, but she turns into a raging monster if I interrupt her while she's working.
"Jake?"
I glance up at Ellie sits up, her legs swinging over the edge of the couch.
"When did you get here?"
"Six hours ago."
"Liar."
"Five and a half hours ago."
She smiles, but it quickly fades away, and a faint glaze seems to flood her eyes. I set the book down and lean forward, clasping my hands together in front of me.
"I have some bad news."
Her eyes flicker up to my face. "How could there possibly be more bad news?"
"It tends to come in threes, so we may be done after this," I say, knowing that bad luck tends to come in like a heat wave, lingering until it rains. She stares at me.
"Will it be better if I never hear this bad news?"
"You'll eventually find out in the next twenty-four hours. I can only imagine your phone isn't constantly ringing because Marie's brain has exploded and she has to clean off the excess from her walls."
"It's on silent and I left it in the kitchen."
"Right." I crack two of my knuckles.
"Just say it. How much worse can it get? One of the most beloved women on earth is trashing me, three of the other biggest singers in the world openly hate me now, and I just found out that you failed to mention that the reason this is all happening is because you dated Anya Bowline."
"It wasn't that serious."
"Clearly, she had a different opinion about it."
I run my hand over my jawline. "The media knows about your run-in with Anya last night."
She closes her eyes, running a finger over her forehead like she wants to cut her skull open to inspect her brain. "What are they saying?"
I take a deep breath. "First, the media is always full of shit. They're always trying to stir up trouble. They need there to be drama in order to write articles that people will read."
"Just say it, Jake."
"They're all saying that you tried to force a retraction from Anya and that you were trying to make a scene."
"Did they mention you?"
"Yes."
She grabs the vodka bottle, pouring herself a shot. "Are they at least a little nicer to you?"
I shrug. "That doesn't matter."
She drinks the shot. "If they're being assholes to you, it's my fault. Tell me what they said about you. Did they mention that you dated Anya?"
"Yes," I say. "In some of the articles, that's all they really mention."
"And in the rest of them?"
"They're saying that I rescued you from an embarrassing situation. There's also an article on Bumper Sticker, alleging that you only dated me to become famous and then dumped me in hopes of finding someone more famous."
She throws her arms in the air. "Who is more famous than you? Where and when was I planning on ensnaring these imaginary men?"
"I'm glad we feel the same way. I was thinking the same thing."
"They're treating you like you're an idiot that fell in love with the first manipulative woman who found you. You should be furious."
"They'll go back to saying I'm a genius when Narrow Roads comes out. I'm not concerned."
"Of course you're not." She stands up, rubbing her forehead even harder. "I'm stuck in a sinkhole, and you're perfectly safe."
"I have enough influence to help you, but just give it some time..."
"Have you seen the fall of all these other pop stars? This is how it all ends. One bad story that casts a shadow over the rest of their career until they twist themselves into something unrecognizable."
"If you let that shadow affect you, yeah, it will mess you up."
She picks up the vodka bottle again. I grab it from her, setting it down behind me on a cabinet. She sits back down, cradling her head in her hands.
"I just want to leave. I want to get out of here."
"You can go then," I say, sitting down beside her. I wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her toward me. "And when I'm finished with this movie, I'll meet you wherever you want to go."
"You know I can't escape this," she says, her body slightly rocking as if she's trying to soothe herself. "First, they'll say I'm running away from the accusa
tions. And unless I go somewhere closed off from the rest of the world, there will still be people who know me. I won't be able to return here to the U.S. for years. They'll just be waiting, ready to pounce on me the first chance they get."
I tuck a strand of her red hair behind her ear. "I love you."
She looks up at me like I'm a beacon.
She turns her head, kissing my cheek. "I love you too, Jake.“
Power and control— it's even more fragile and quick to change hands in LA. Hollywood loves nothing more than dethroning anyone that dares try to rise above the masses. I used to think it was a good thing, but now, sitting so close to the effects, it's a little different. It feels a lot like powerlessness.
Chapter Seven
Ellie
I used to have this belief that the four elements corresponded to four different strong emotions. Air, for when you feel like nothing is above you and freedom is bigger than anything you could ever explain. Water, for when you feel like you are immersed in everything around you. Earth, for when gravity is yanking you down and all you can do is let your body dry out with the dust. Fire, for when you want to burn everything to the ground.
I have been through all four elements this week. It feels like fire is trying to destroy me, but I want to yield it. I want to hurt those who have hurt me, but that's not how things work around here.
I watch the candle burning, the helplessness under my skin starting to wear me down. The paparazzi have been lingering outside my building for the last two days, and I'm starting to feel like I understand that phrase about gilded cages.
I pick up my six-string guitar. I take a deep breath before playing an F chord. I hum some notes, trying to get some lyrics to infiltrate my mind like they usually do.
Calling me a prostitute.
No, that's what Alex Soltis told me last night.
How much lower can you go? her voice whispers.
