Chapter 39. Emmy, the Nobody
Emmy, the Nobody
TEN YEARS EARLIER, THE CHRISTMAS PARTY
The music from the Christmas party crashed through the walls and reverberated through Emmy Nolan’s skull.
She groaned and staggered out of bed, clutching her head.
All she’d wanted was peace and quiet, a private place to nurse the wounds of Reese Griffin’s humiliating rejection earlier in the night.
Instead, she’d chosen a guest room that might as well have been inside the DJ’s subwoofers.
Screw it. The Bankses had plenty of other bedrooms. Emmy stumbled into the hall, the whiskey she’d drunk making the floor tilt.
Dakota had insisted they steal her dad’s special bottle from his office—she’d wanted to stick it to him, a wounded child perpetually acting out.
Emmy had gone along with it because she wanted whatever was best and most expensive, and the special whiskey Mr. Banks kept locked in his office had to be the best, right?
But the joke was on her, it turned out. Apparently, Dakota’s dad got his rocks off by lacing his whiskey with dizzy-making drugs.
It was the only explanation for the way she kept listing.
She practically crawled down the staircase, one painstaking step at a time, clinging to the rail.
Accidentally dosing herself tonight reminded Emmy of when she’d slipped one of Dakota’s medical-grade sedatives into her old classmate Mallory Martin’s drink.
Hell, maybe these were even the same sedatives, and Dakota had been wrong thinking they’d come from her mom.
Either way, dosing Mallory had been one of the funniest nights of Emmy’s life.
When Mallory had fallen like a log in the VIP section, finally silenced—the mouth on that girl, talk about a source of domestic terrorism—Emmy had wished she could have taken pictures of it.
Create proof she could savor. And then as time went on and her many, many auditions yielded no results, Emmy had started to wish she could drop one of those little white pills into the cups of every actress waiting the outside casting directors’ offices.
Especially the ones, like Mallory, who slid smug looks her way as she walked by, the ones with famous mommies and daddies who made sure they got callbacks.
Well, karma was a bitch, especially when it landed on you. Emmy would’ve laughed if her head didn’t hurt so much.
When she finally made it downstairs, she clapped her hands over her ears to drown out the sound. She knew where she could go that was guaranteed to be quiet, because Dakota had made a dig or two over the years about not knowing what her dad got up to out there that required so much soundproofing.
For the record, Emmy was pretty sure Dakota’s dad was banging hookers.
What else did a rich old man with a wife who wore the kinds of weird prudish nightgowns she’d seen on Mrs. Banks do, other than bang hookers?
Emmy might’ve only been eighteen, but she’d known for a long time that Dakota’s dad was a freak.
Even if the rest of the Bankses—Dakota’s uppity addict mom, her limp-spined brother, even Dakota herself—all turned a blind eye.
It felt good to step outside into the warm December night.
Only the hum of the sprinklers turning on and a floral-scented breeze disturbed the grounds.
Thank god for California, where even Christmas was mild enough to wear a micro-dress.
Emmy limped for the pool house, pausing to rub her toe over a rust-colored stain on one of the decorative boulders surrounding the pool, which was her tradition.
She’d hit her head on that spot when she was ten years old attempting a dive, and had bled everywhere, some of it becoming a permanent part of the backyard.
She’d grown up in this house. In fact, ten years old was probably the same age she’d become hyperaware of Dakota’s father and his friends anytime she came over in a bathing suit.
She jiggled the handle on the pool house and the door opened.
There was usually a fifty-fifty chance it was unlocked, so she’d gotten lucky—or maybe Mr. Banks had already been in here for whatever nefarious purposes.
Emmy was so drunk, tired, and eager to forget Reese Griffin, she didn’t care if she slept in used sheets.
She flung herself on the bed. Blessed silence. But after a minute, her eyes crept open. It turned out the silence brought new problems. Her drunk brain wouldn’t stop replaying the way Reese had kissed Georgia’s hand earlier at the party, his eyes lighting up, probably picturing Georgia naked.
Stupid fucking Reese. Why didn’t he want to picture Emmy naked?
The infamous producer was supposed to be an easy get for a girl like her.
That was what the other actresses whispered in audition waiting rooms. Watch out for Reese Griffin.
Don’t be alone with him. He doesn’t understand the word “no.” Well, he certainly understood it when Emmy came around.
Dakota was naive, thinking she didn’t know Reese was a sleaze.
She’d been trying to break into Hollywood for almost a year, and every audition she walked away from made her feel lower than dirt.
Actually, to be honest, she’d started to feel insane, wondering what was so wrong with her that no one would give her a single fucking break.
Not even a line read in a lone episode of motherfucking SVU, a show Dakota called the “community carousel of Hollywood” because “they’d give everyone a ride.
” When the other option was that level of rejection, Emmy didn’t care if she had to sleep with an old guy to get a role. She’d do far worse, for the record.
Ugh. Emmy pulled a pillow over her head, but all she saw was Reese’s face when she’d introduced herself, flinging her hair over her shoulders with the confidence of a beauty queen.
His eyes had flicked over her, from her Jimmy Choo heels—swiped from Dakota’s closet—to the emerald dress that hugged her hips, short enough to make her legs go on forever.
And then he’d stopped. Was it her face where he’d lost interest?
Boys had called Emmy a butter face in middle school and her mom had wiped her tears with promises that they were simply being cruel, but had it been the truth?
She’d told Reese she was a friend of the Bankses’ as well as an actress and that she would love a private drink with him.
That was supposed to be a string of words a dog like him couldn’t resist. But his expression had blanked, and then he’d said, “Appreciate it, but I’m busy,” pointing to Dakota’s dad at the bar.
An undeniable dismissal. In shock, Emmy had stuttered thanks—thanks? —and then run away.
What the fuck was so wrong with her that even Hollywood’s most notorious predator had tossed her aside?
The sudden sound of footsteps and giggling made Emmy go ramrod-straight in bed.
Someone was outside the door. She lifted her head and peered through the window.
Oh shit—it was Dakota’s dad, and he was with someone.
As if her night weren’t humiliating enough.
Emmy scrambled off the bed and froze as they rattled the knob.
She was too woozy—she couldn’t think straight. What was she supposed to do?
The door was opening.
Emmy thrust herself into the closet, folding the accordion door behind her just as Dakota’s dad stumbled into the room. Through the narrow opening, she watched him tug a svelte blond in a crimson dress into the room and onto the bed.
Emmy clapped a hand over her mouth. That was Georgia Sage. Oh my god. The bitch was sleeping with Dakota’s dad.
She’d never given Georgia much thought—as her competition, Georgia’s older sister, Scout, was infinitely more interesting.
But she never would’ve guessed either of the golden-haired, God’s-gift-to-the-world Sage sisters would do something as sordid, as low-down nasty, as fucking a friend’s married dad.
Emmy’s first rhapsodic thought was that she couldn’t wait to tell Dakota.
The look on her friend’s face was going to be delicious payback for every snide comment she’d ever made about how her family was so old money and proper, unlike Emmy’s.
Her second thought, as Mr. Banks lowered himself over Georgia, was that she was about to watch her friend’s dad have sex.
The two of them kissed, breathing heavily in a way that turned her stomach.
Mr. Banks pulled down Georgia’s strapless dress, exposing perfectly round breasts, a beautiful shape and size for the screen, with the kind of carnation-pink nipples Emmy had only ever seen in porn.
She would’ve killed for those breasts. But before she could snap mental pictures for a future plastic surgeon, Mr. Banks’s hands traveled up Georgia’s neck.
And Emmy, in a kind of sympathetic gesture, stopped breathing.
This was new.
She couldn’t see his face, but she could see Georgia’s.
Her eyes shone in the dim blue strobe lights they’d turned on.
As Dakota’s dad tightened his grip around her neck, Georgia arched in a way that suggested she liked it.
He peppered her face with kisses while his fingers dug deeper into her throat, the vise of his hands tightening, a perverse combination of worship and force.
Georgia writhed under him. Her hands went to her throat, pulling at his fingers. Emmy shifted in the closet, trying to see from a better angle. Georgia was now scrabbling at his hands, making little gasping sounds.
Stop, Emmy wanted to shout. She could see Mr. Banks’s profile; he seemed transfixed by the sight of his hands around Georgia’s neck, like it was a private film he couldn’t stop watching.
Georgia was really moving now, kicking up the sheets and slapping at him, but he remained locked, his arms like steel, with a look of devout concentration.
Georgia’s face emptied, turning from flushed red to bluish white, and Emmy gasped. It was a tiny sound, lost in the furor of Georgia’s thrashing, but she bit her hand anyway, praying they didn’t hear. He was killing a girl—killing this girl right in front of her.
Georgia went limp. For a moment, Mr. Banks’s hands remained around her neck, still squeezing. Then, little by little, awareness returned to him. One moment, he was in another reality; the next, he reappeared in the pool house.
He scrambled back, hands flying to his mouth. “Oh fuck,” he cried, tripping to his knees on the carpet, coming too close to Emmy’s closet door. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, not again.” He began to sob.
And that was when it happened. Looking down at Dakota’s father as he dry-heaved on the ground, a calm descended over Emmy.
She was filled with the most beautiful certainty: Destiny had found her in this pool house.
Maybe she was still drunk, or drugged, but she didn’t think so—what she’d just witnessed was a potent sobering agent.
No, this sudden vision of what to do next came from deep within her, from the place that kept pushing her to act, to embrace her performer’s soul, to demand the world give her a chance.
Emmy slid back the door and stepped out of the closet.
Easton screamed, then fell to his ass on the floor.
“Shhh.” She placed a finger against her lips. “You don’t want anyone to hear, do you?”
He didn’t answer. He stared up at her with terror in his eyes, sweat sheening his face.
“Don’t worry,” Emmy said. “I won’t tell.”
“I didn’t—” Easton stuttered. “I didn’t mean it.”
A noise came from the bed. Georgia’s hands fluttered at her ruined throat as she tried to suck in air. Easton’s eyes locked on her. “Oh my god, she’s alive.”
Emmy crouched in front of him. Took his chin in her hand.
Where had this confident woman emerged from?
She couldn’t have said, but she directed his gaze back to her.
“Do you want Georgia to leave this pool house and tell people what you did? That you almost killed her? Imagine what your wife would say. Or those people at the network, the ones you’re always telling Dakota are waiting in the wings to take your job. ”
His eyes widened. The film Emmy conjured in his mind was the source of his fear now.
Georgia was still stirring, making mewling sounds.
“If she leaves this room, your life is over.” Emmy rose.
She’d stepped out of the closet into a role, a persona she wore like a new skin.
God, she was good. A goddamn natural, casting directors be damned.
Her hand closed around the lamp beside the bed, a heavy figurine of a mermaid curled on a rock, once part of Dakota’s childhood bedroom.
Such an unexpected thing to have made its way out here.
She lifted it and locked eyes with Easton. “Do you want me to take care of this for you? All you have to do is say the word.”
This was the break she’d been waiting for.
An hour ago, Emmy wouldn’t have been able to articulate it.
Her best friend’s father on his knees, her rival’s sister gasping in bed, the fate of the entire Banks family in her hands.
No matter what Easton decided, he would owe her.
She remembered a famous line from one of her favorite TV shows, a superhero cartoon she used to watch with Dakota on the weekends when they were kids, a show Dakota was so proud her father’s network produced: Now this is girl power!
She tried hard not to smile.
Later, she would remember scrubbing herself in the pool house bathroom and making Easton do the same.
Instructing him to hide the lamp and get rid of it later.
Taking him by the collar like a scared puppy and commanding him to return to the party like nothing was wrong.
Most of all, Emmy would remember that in the heat of the moment, when it mattered the most, he had turned weak and she had turned strong.
All he could do was nod, a single tear falling tremulously down his cheek. He wasn’t even brave enough to say the word out loud.
She, on the other hand, was brave. Capable of so much more than the world had ever given her credit for. She would show them.
She brought the lamp down with all her might on Georgia’s head.