Chapter 17. Rosie, the Journalist
Rosie, the Journalist
ONE YEAR EARLIER, PASADENA
“I’ve always considered myself a champion of women, even before it was in vogue,” announced Deirdre Cole, shaking vegan parm like snowfall over her slice of veggie pizza.
“Which is why I agreed to meet with you. But nothing goes on the record. It’s hard enough finding directing jobs in this economy without having a reputation as a snitch. ”
“Of course,” Rosie assured her, though inwardly she thought that if Deirdre Cole was struggling to land directing jobs, it probably had more to do with the fact that her résumé was full of mediocre teen sitcoms that were last popular a decade ago, the kind that dealt in lazy tropes like mean-girl cheerleaders pitted against shy, sensitive heroines.
Plus, she was a pill. “Everything you say will be on background.”
It had been a week since the partners at Gerson PR had dropped their delicious lead about the Hot Girl Murder Club. In that short amount of time, Rosie had managed to dig up so much dirt on the group she was stunned no one had beaten her to the story.
In addition to the possibility that Scout and her network had tipped off the IRS to a Sony executive’s tax fraud—the Dalton Preston versus Miranda Preston case—there was evidence they were behind leaked text messages that revealed an actor’s racist rants against his female costar; anonymous funding that helped an up-and-coming musician file a sexual harassment lawsuit against a famous music video director; and now-viral footage of an NFL tight end committing domestic abuse in the hallway of a hotel.
On and on it went, spanning years. Scout seemed to collect women in trouble.
The appearance she and her coterie gave was of beautiful, coquettish starlets with nothing on their minds but industry ascension, and yet underneath, to a T, they were wronged, vulnerable women who’d grown sharp teeth and sharper ambitions.
Like picking up a soft rabbit only to discover it bore fangs.
Rosie almost had to admire the game. Act smart, play dumb, reap the rewards.
But how had they managed to pull it off for so many years?
And how had the whole ruse gotten started?
Since Scout was the linchpin, starting with her had been a no-brainer.
Rosie had managed to get in touch with Scout’s first boss in Hollywood, a woman who’d known her way back when she was young.
Unfortunately, Deirdre Cole lived out in Pasadena and refused to meet Rosie halfway for an interview, which had meant trekking two hours in Los Angeles traffic.
Deirdre had also expected Rosie to pick up the tab for lunch at her favorite vegan restaurant, whose prices made Rosie’s eyes water.
(What were these vegetables made of, gold?) Though Rosie would have to skimp on groceries this month, and maybe even run into the bathroom to smuggle out a few rolls of toilet paper, she was hoping Deirdre would make all the trouble worth it.
She pressed start on her recorder and leaned in. “Like I said, I’m doing an in-depth profile on Scout Sage, and I had a few questions about the time you spent with her on”—she checked her notes—“The Weird World of Wenda Word.” What a mouthful.
“I’ve been waiting for the world to catch up and make Scout a star,” said Deirdre, ripping into her pizza wolfishly. “She always had that thing, you know? Presence. Even back then.” She waved the slice. “Her friend, not so much. But you can’t help who the gods tap on the shoulder, can you?”
“Do you mean Isabel Cruz?” Rosie had discovered that the woman who now served as Scout’s personal assistant had once been her childhood best friend.
The two women had moved to LA and even gotten hired together on Cole’s show.
But after that, their paths had diverged—Scout’s into music, Isabel’s into the far less glamorous assistant track.
What made a person give up their own acting career to become their friend’s hired help?
Rosie couldn’t stop picturing Isabel as the Alfred to Scout’s Bruce Wayne.
“I think that was her name,” Deirdre said, barely finding time to breathe between bites. Rosie pushed her own slice of pizza away. “So, what do you want to know? Whether Scout was a diva on set? Whether Wenda was jealous of her? Cause I can answer that last one with a resounding yes.”
“Actually,” Rosie said, trying to keep her tone nonchalant. Don’t spook the source. “I was hoping you could tell me about Scout’s younger sister, Georgia. I read she passed away while Scout worked on your show, but it’s been hard to find details. She was only eighteen at the time, right?”
The death of Georgia Sage was mentioned in a handful of Scout Sage bios, but always relegated to a vague single line, something like: “Scout, no stranger to tragedy, lost her eighteen-year-old sister within a year after moving to California.” Rosie had found a single archived Tumblr post through a deep Boolean operator search that mentioned Scout’s sister’s “tragic death” in an effort to encourage people to buy her debut album.
But that was it. If there had once been more, it had since fallen off the internet, and not even the Wayback Machine could find it.
Deirdre dropped her pizza and wiped the crumbs from her hands. She was a buxom woman, and her chest rested distractingly on top of the table. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for years to talk about that party.”
Rosie straightened. The thrill of a lead under her skin. “Scout’s sister died at a party?”
Come on, Deirdre, you gossipy woman—spill.
“Not just any party.” Deirdre switched to a whisper. “Easton Banks’s Christmas party.”
“Who?”
Deirdre laughed. “You young people. He used to be the president of ABS. One of the major players. My former boss.”
Scout’s sister had died at a Hollywood bigwig’s party—how interesting. “What happened?”
“No one knows,” Deirdre said, leaning back in her chair.
“What?” Rosie blinked. “How’s that possible? Wouldn’t reporters be all over the story?”
“Here’s your first dirty little secret,” said Deirdre, obviously relishing holding all the cards. Rosie didn’t care—Rosie would buy the woman all the overpriced vegan pizza in the world as long as she kept talking. “Scout accused Easton’s son of killing her sister.”
Now this was worth driving two hours for. “She thought Georgia was murdered?”
“I don’t know all the details,” Deirdre admitted.
“What I do know is that Scout and her family were all fired up, putting big pressure on the cops to arrest the boy—Alden, his name was, real weird kid—but no charges were ever filed. I remember the day they came storming back onto the lot to turn in their badges. Well, Scout stormed, I don’t remember Isabel putting up much of a fuss—”
“They quit your show over the accusation?”
Deirdre snorted. “Wouldn’t you quit your job if you thought your boss’s son killed your sister?”
“And then got away with it,” Rosie murmured, putting the pieces together.
So this was Scout’s Rosebud, her raison d’être, her ikigai.
The thing that drove her. She believed her sister had been murdered and that the murderer had walked free.
If it was true—and Rosie would have to verify Deirdre’s account to be sure—then the Hot Girl Murder Club might be a much darker organization than the partners at Gerson realized.
“Get this,” Deirdre said, taking a dramatic sip from her fragrant kombucha. “About a month or so after Georgia died, Alden Banks killed himself. Everyone figured the guilt had been eating at him and it was karma, you know? The world works in mysterious ways.”
Rosie could only stare.
“Everyone on the show gossiped like crazy about it back in the day,” Deirdre said. “We all had our theories.”
“But it was barely reported on.” Rosie’s mind was racing. “Or maybe it was, and she found a way to scrub it?”
“She?” Deirdre raised a brow. “Try he.”
Rosie locked eyes with her. The buzzing under her skin grew more insistent.
“Easton.” The woman said the name in a way that gave Rosie goose bumps.
“There was no one who wanted that story swept under the rug more than him. Those network CEOs, they look like they’re on top of the world, but trust me, they’re fighting for their jobs just like everyone else in show business.
Always on the verge of getting their heads lopped off in a regime change.
Easton couldn’t afford for people to think his son was a murderer.
No, ma’am, he had to make sure it stayed quiet.
And he had the power to do it, too. That’s the other dirty little secret about Hollywood.
People are willing to do just about any favor as long as they think you’ll scratch their back one day.
You can make anything happen. Or take anything away. ”
Rosie sat in her butter-yellow Volkswagen Beetle with the windows rolled down, fingering the buttons on her phone, mulling over the words You can take anything away. She bit her lip. And made the call.
“I told you not to contact me again,” said the gruff voice, in lieu of “hello.”
“This is important,” she insisted, pressing the phone against her ear. “I need your help one last time.”
The man snorted. “It’s always the last time with you.”
“I’ll pay you double,” Rosie swore.
“Not high enough.”
She looked up at the tears she couldn’t afford to repair in the ceiling of her Bug, then out the window, where the Namaste vegan restaurant sat innocently, despite having robbed her of all her cash.
Nellie Bly had gotten herself beaten in Bellevue Hospital for the sake of her story.
Hunter S. Thompson had strung himself out on whiskey and dope.
Joan Didion had chronicled her descent into blindness and multiple sclerosis, writing through her pain.
Sometimes the truth required extreme prices that journalists had to be willing to pay.
“What if,” Rosie said slowly, “I threw in something extra?”