Chapter 5. Isabel, the Rising Star
Isabel, the Rising Star
TEN YEARS EARLIER, THE CHRISTMAS PARTY
Around midnight, the genteel facade of piano music and champagne slipped away from the Banks mansion, along with a number of older attendees, and the real party reared its head.
A DJ set up shop in front of the piano, and in the blink of an eye, the music became loud enough to make the floor vibrate, causing me to stagger in my heels.
Bass and alcohol swirled to turn the world off-kilter, into a close-talking, body-pressing, shot-taking blur.
It was like someone had cast a spell. All around the great room, people danced too close.
Actors posed for pictures with their makeup smudged and shirts unbuttoned.
A woman gave a man a lap dance on the couch in the corner.
There was an unleashed carnality, a seediness and honesty that made me more comfortable than the false manners of the earlier party.
Slowly but surely, a crowd had gathered around me and Scout, drawn by our laughter and the magnetism we’d always shared, the quality that had once upon a time convinced us we might make it in Hollywood. This was my element. In the depths of the party, I was at the height of my powers.
“So, I was joking with the casting director,” I said, pausing to ensure I had my audience’s undivided attention. “And I said, ‘If I run outside and trip Megan Booker so she falls and busts her face, then can I have the role?’”
The crowd burst into laughter.
“And he said, I swear to god: ‘Honey, you’d have to find a way to deflate her ass on the way down, cause it’s not her face that’s booking gigs.’”
The laughter turned louder, punctuated by little gasps of faux outrage. I held up my hands. “Not my words, his. I’m sure Megan is a lovely person.”
“I’ve always thought she was overrated,” confided Gia Thomas, an actress who’d starred in a string of art house horror films.
“I heard she flew to Mexico to get a butt lift,” added Ridley Reed, who ran the famous gossip site Hollywood Anonymous. I crossed my fingers he was noting my name for future posts.
“I go to her Equinox on Vine, and I overheard her trainer call her a butter face,” Scout said. Murmurs broke out. “Honestly, people can be so cruel.”
We were good at this, Scout and I. Capturing attention, turning the spotlight on ourselves and reading the room well enough to stay inside it.
She’d been surprised a few months ago when we got the call that we’d booked the queen bee cheerleader roles on The Weird World of Wenda Word, that out of all the parts we’d auditioned for, those were the ones we’d gotten.
But I wasn’t surprised. I’d never told her, but my first thought had been, And so the typecasting begins.
Maybe once an actor got famous, they could hire people to blow smoke up their ass, but when you were just starting out, being an actor meant living in a world of brutal honesty.
It wasn’t just casting managers: other actors, directors, even crews had opinions about what kind of person you were.
Did they see a shy nerd? A villain? The girl next door?
Forget Stanislavski and the acting schools, forget talent.
In this job, the first thing you had to come to grips with was the same thing most people spent their lives avoiding: the truth about how people saw you.
That was your currency, and you wouldn’t last long if you weren’t self-aware.
If your face said you were a childhood sweetheart but you kept auditioning to play the femme fatale.
I’d long suspected that when people looked at me and Scout, they saw what Hollywood screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz once called “bitch virtuosity.” It was a tough pill to swallow.
Sometimes, since she was a bit more of a dreamer, Scout seemed oblivious to how people interpreted her lofty beauty, high cheekbones, and tendency to smirk.
But when she was naive, I made up for it. I’d always been able to read a room.
I knew I should resist playing into what people expected—for god’s sake, no one ever rooted for the mean girls—but sometimes it was just easier to give in.
It was right there to access, anyway: the attitude, the sharp-tongued confidence that inspired fear and admiration, a role I could play with my eyes closed.
What girl raised on social media, sitcoms, and America’s Next Top Model couldn’t?
Bitch virtuosity, indeed. It had worked for us tonight, as it often did at parties, where people were self-conscious and in search of a leader.
I had so many cards stuffed in my bra from new contacts who wanted to grab coffee I was sure I’d have paper cuts in the morning.
“Hey.” Brooks tugged my arm, and I turned. He’d been a sturdy presence at my elbow all night, the first to laugh at my jokes. “Not to cut the Scout and Izzy Show short, because I know you’re having fun, but it’s after three. I’ve got that flight home today. I should probably get some sleep.”
“Three in the morning?” Jesus. How had it gotten so late?
“I know you’re on a mission, but—”
“No.” I put a hand on his arm. “You’ve been patient. I’ll round everyone up and call a cab.”
I caught Scout’s eye while she was midsentence and tugged my ear. We’d developed a shorthand for sets that also came in handy in situations like this. As soon as she stopped talking, the three of us slipped out of the circle.
“It’s three AM and Brooks has a flight home.” I rubbed under Scout’s eye, where her mascara had begun to bleed. “Time to go.”
“Already?” Scout bit her lip and scanned the room.
Even though the party had thinned, there were still clusters of people engrossed in intense conversations.
Her eyes lit up. I followed her gaze to where Easton Banks and Reese Griffin stood, for once without an entourage.
I knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“It’s too late,” I protested. “They’re probably exhausted, or drunk. They won’t remember us.”
“But we said we wouldn’t leave until we talked to them. That was the whole point of tonight.”
“The point was networking.” I pulled down my top so she could see the cards. “See? We did a great job.”
Scout’s face fell. “Izzy, when are we going to get this opportunity again? We’re in his house. You swore to me we’d do anything to catch our break, remember?”
She’d said the magic words: You swore to me. I glanced at Brooks. “What if we just grabbed Georgia and Alden and had him introduce us real fast? Five minutes to grab them, five minutes to chat. Ten minutes, tops.”
Brooks sighed, and Scout raised her fists in victory. “We’ll be so quick, I promise. Where is Georgia, anyway?”
“No idea.” I wiped the glitter from my legs. It had mixed with a spilled drink and turned uncomfortably sticky. “Probably with Alden.”
“I’m calling her.” Scout held her phone to her ear. “Pick up, G,” she said, presumably to Georgia’s voicemail, then hung up and looked at me. “You try.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed Georgia. Straight to voicemail. “Maybe her phone died.”
Brooks pointed. “Emmy’s at the bar. Let’s ask her.”
We marched to the bar, and Scout tapped Emmy on the shoulder. The younger girl spun and gasped. “Shit, you scared me.” Her eyes were unfocused. She tried to concentrate on my face, but her gaze kept listing to my shoulder.
I raised my eyebrows at her full drink. “I really don’t think you need that.”
She stumbled back against the bar. “Has anyone told you you’re kind of a control freak?”
“I’m trying to help you.”
Scout waved to get Emmy’s attention. “Hey, forget the drink. Have you seen Georgia?”
“Not in a while.” Emmy took a defiant sip, smirking at me.
I sighed. “Do you remember the last time you saw her?”
She swayed, then looked at the arched doorway that led to the inner depths of the Bankses’ mansion. “She and Alden went upstairs.” A lascivious grin. “For obvious reasons.”
“Ew. Doubtful.” Scout shook her head. “When was this?”
Emmy tilted, and I steadied her so she didn’t fall into the bar. “Hours ago.”
“Hours?” I frowned at Scout.
She inhaled deeply. “I swear to god, that girl is going to be the death of me. Speaking of.” She turned to Emmy. “You should probably listen to Isabel and call it a night.”
“Whatever, Mom.” Emmy rolled her eyes and turned back to the bar.
“Should we take her home?” I asked Scout as we walked away. “She’s pretty drunk.”
“I could throw her over my shoulder,” Brooks volunteered. “She’s small.”
“Oh sure. So she can kick and scream that we’re kidnapping her? Hell no. If Emmy wants to embarrass herself at another party,” Scout said, “that’s her problem. We’ve got a house to search.”
I groaned. “Our boss’s house. At three AM. I’m going to kill Georgia.”
“Get in line.”
I held my breath as we crept under the arched doorway, waiting for someone to run up and stop us. It was one thing to show up at your boss’s house for a party, another to start snooping through his personal space. And being caught red-handed while trespassing was not how I wanted to meet Easton.
Somehow, the house seemed bigger the farther we walked, opening into soaring, cathedral-like ceilings with lofty windows that must give the Bankses an incredible view of Los Angeles in the daytime.
At night, the windows revealed nothing but a surprisingly impenetrable darkness.
Ahead, a long, faintly lit hallway led to a steep spiral staircase. We’d come to a fork in the road.
Scout tilted her head. “Emmy said up.”
So we climbed, Scout and I balancing on our heels, the pounding bass of the party fading into a gentle background noise the higher we went. “My toes are numb,” I complained, kicking my foot against the railing just to feel something.
“When I’m rich, remind me to buy a single-floor mansion,” Scout said as we arrived at a another hallway riddled with doors. “None of this maze shit.”
“Well.” Brooks drew a deep breath. “Should we start knocking?”
“How many people do you think we’re about to catch having sex?” Scout strode to the first door. “My guess is three.”
I frowned, scrambling to catch up while doing the math. An odd number?
We worried for nothing. Door after door swung open to reveal empty guest bedrooms, a couple of offices, a home gym.
We searched the floor, then pounded all the way down to where we started and peeked into every door leading off the dim hallway, but all we managed to do was startle the waitstaff washing dishes in the kitchen.
“This is insane,” Scout said, phone pressed to her ear. “Where the fuck are you, Georgia?”
“Could she have gone home without telling us?” I asked.
“It’s so unlike her.” Scout jabbed the Call End button. “She’s always been a Girl Scout.”
“Maybe she doubled back to the party?” Brooks dragged a weary hand over his face. I checked my phone. It was now four in the morning. I was going to ruin his trip home for the holidays.
“There’s a pool house outside,” said a hushed voice, and we swiveled in surprise.
A cater waiter was stacking dried glasses in a crate. “I’ve worked a few parties at this house,” she said. “Sometimes they’ll go out to the pool house to avoid prying eyes.”
“Thank you,” Scout said. I sensed she wanted to give the waiter a hug. “Really, thank you.”
“You can get out through that door”—the waiter pointed—“on the other side of the butler’s pantry.”
“One last sweep,” Brooks said, and I pulled off my heels with a groan, giving up on them.
The backyard grounds were beautifully landscaped, a lush tropical paradise with a lagoon-like pool lit from within by a warm green glow. But by now I was frustrated beyond the point of ogling.
“There,” Scout said, dancing around some rocks. “Behind the trees.”
“That pool house is bigger than my parents’ house,” Brooks said.
“Figures the only person who bothered to help us was a waiter,” I muttered.
“It could be locked,” Brooks warned, but when Scout knocked on the door and twisted the knob, it creaked open.
“Hello?” she called into the dark. “Georgia?”
Blindly, I slid my hand against the wall, searching until I hit a light switch. I flipped it, and the room began to swim with muted blue strobe lights.
“Creepy,” I drawled. “It looks like the set of a porn movie.”
“Isabel.” Brooks’s voice was sharp. “The bed.”
In the dark, illuminated by the pulses of eerie light, lay a dark mass. I tiptoed toward it, Brooks at my heels, but it wasn’t until my hands were on it, until I felt the familiar texture of skin, that I registered it as a body. I shrieked and yanked my hands away.
Scout’s voice was cutting. “What is it?”
“Someone’s asleep.” Brooks shook the dark mass by the shoulders. “Hey—wake up—hey.”
“Brooks—” I warned, but he rolled it over anyway, and suddenly it was a she.
There was a face in the blue light, a face I knew too well, except it was all wrong.
Eyes closed, a black pool seeping tentacles from her forehead.
Top wrenched down to expose her chest, bruise marks in the shape of petals—no, bruise marks in the shape of fingers, of hands—darkening the pale expanse of her collarbone, climbing up her neck.
I took a staggering step back. “No—”
Brooks lunged, pressing his fingers to her neck.
“What is it?” Scout tried to push past me, but I held her back. “No, Scout, don’t look—”
She shoved me, desperate, and I clung to her, but it was too late. Her eyes went wide as she saw her over my shoulder, the mess of twisted sheets and black blood and the empty, splintered face that had once been so dear.
“I can’t feel a pulse,” Brooks choked out. “There’s nothing—”
Scout fell to the floor. Fell on all fours, wrenched her head back, and screamed.