Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
EMMA
I couldn’t stop shaking or get that image out of my head; even though the curtains had closed, and the wall was now hidden, the vision still lingered in my mind.
I glanced around, expecting to see everyone else in shock like me, but they all seemed to be in deep conversation.
What the hell was going on?
“He is fucking nuts,” I heard a woman beside me exclaim.
“I fucking love him,” the guy next to her said. “We should buy one of his pieces for Adam’s birthday next month.”
“Colton, do you have a spare fifty grand?”
“And then some,” another woman remarked. “I heard some of his art has gone for a lot more than that.”
It’ll be worth a lot more now he’s dead, I thought, then hated myself for thinking it.
No one was rushing to leave the courtyard, and there was a strange serenity about the place.
As I spun around, I noticed a flustered Lloyd pushing through the crowds, heading towards me.
By the time he came to stand in front of me he was huffing and puffing, his cheeks red, and his breaths heavy and laboured.
“I’m so sorry,” he gasped. “I meant to get back to you to watch the performance, but I just got tied up.”
“Is he okay?” I asked, my eyes darting from Lloyd to the curtain and back. “What’s happening?”
“Do you mean S.K.A.M?” Lloyd asked. “He’s fine.” And he frowned back at me like he thought I was losing my mind.
“He hung himself,” I stated in exasperation.
“He hung from the wall, he didn’t hang himself,” Lloyd replied. “He was wearing a harness. But you already knew that. We told everyone at the entrance about the trigger warnings tonight.”
“No one told me,” I shot back.
Typical, the snooty girl at the entrance obviously thought the information wasn’t necessary for someone as low as me. No wonder Alex didn’t want me to watch this alone. But it was done now. There was nothing I could do to change the situation. At least I knew the artist was okay.
I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and downed it in one to help calm my nerves.
“What did you think?” Lloyd nodded animatedly at the curtains. “He’s good, isn’t he.”
“He certainly left an impression.”
“That’s what he does, makes you think, look at the world from a different perspective, and maybe, look at yourself, too.”
“His words were very...” I tried to find the right words to describe how he made me feel. “Raw and honest.”
I wasn’t sure how the other guests would’ve felt, coming from the kind of family and wealth that S.K.A.M. was destroying with his rhymes. No wonder Lloyd didn’t want me to sit amongst them.
We started to walk back into the main gallery, and Lloyd tilted his head towards me as he said, “I can’t wait to read your piece in the newspaper next week. I’m sure your readers will love hearing all about everything you’ve seen tonight, and the photos, too.”
Shit.
I’d been so engrossed in S.K.A.M.’s performance, I hadn’t taken a single photograph.
“I loved it, and they’ll love it too,” I said, faking my confidence. “If you have any photos or videos you can send onto the newspaper, that would be great. They might be better than mine.”
“I did wonder why you hadn’t brought a photographer with you. You’re a woman of many talents, covering everything. Do you have a business card with your email on?”
I didn’t have a business card.
I wasn’t deemed important enough by Mr Gold to warrant having one.
“Oh shoot,” I replied, pretending to check in my purse for a card. “I must’ve given away the last one. But if you send anything you have to the main email for the newspaper, it’ll come through to me.”
Because I vetted all those emails, anyway.
“Right you are,” Lloyd cocked his finger at me like he was pretending to shoot. “Yours will be the first review we read.”
And I couldn’t help but notice the red stains under his fingernails as he pointed at me.
“What the fuck do you call that?”
Mr Gold threw some papers down on my desk and then stood over me with his arms crossed over his chest and a shitty look on his face. A look that told me he was beyond pissed off.
I should’ve been the one pissed off. I’d spent my whole weekend writing an article about the art exhibition to submit to him this morning. I’d barely slept, desperate to get it just right. And now, here he was, looming over me with his coffee breath, his nostrils flaring like he was ready to breathe fire.
I picked up the papers, and at first glance, I could see they were a print off of my article.
“What’s the problem?” I stared back up at him, totally at a loss as to what was wrong.
“The problem...” He jabbed his chubby finger towards my desk. “Is that you haven’t got the first clue how to write an engaging piece.”
My brow furrowed, and my eyes narrowed on him.
“What do you mean? This is a good article. I included details of all the main artwork, the people who were there, and the performance...”
“Yes, if you’re writing for a fucking brochure, advertising the bloody place, then it’s fine. It’s great. But do you think our readers want the five-star, sugar-coated, glossy review, or do they want to hear the nitty gritty, the gossip, the bad and the ugly all rolled into a terrible package of delicious disaster that they can revel in? They want a car crash, Emma. So they can slow down and bask in someone else’s misery.” He nodded to the papers in my hand and added, “You can throw that in the bin. Start again. And this time, put something salacious in it. Sex it up.”
I didn’t bin my hard work; I placed it into the drawer of my desk. Then I sat staring at my computer screen for longer than was necessary, thinking about how I could improve an article that I didn’t believe needed improving. My boss was being a jerk for the sake of it. I knew the company’s ethos was to tell the truth and bring the news to the masses in an honest way. They were all about integrity, but I guess Mr Gold didn’t get that memo. And they’d certainly let him slip through the gaps when they were hiring.
I considered giving Gracie a call at her office so I could sound off to someone about what an asshole my boss was. I knew she’d agree. But time wasn’t on my side, and I wanted to get my piece into the newspaper so badly. So, I tweaked a few lines. Added in how dumbstruck I was over the big reveal at the end of S.K.A.M.’s performance and how stark and harrowing I found it. Would that be salacious enough for Stephen Gold? Probably not, but I refused to compromise my professionalism and write something that didn’t happen.
I stayed at the office well past my working hours that day, and as day turned to night, I heard Mr Gold exit his office behind me and stalk over to my desk. He threw a newspaper onto my keyboard and said, “You’re welcome.” Before strolling off, leaving me in an empty office.
I picked up the newspaper, an early copy of what’d go out tomorrow morning, and when I saw the headline, my heart dropped.
S.K.A.M? More Like Scam Artist!
I started to read, my heart shattering with each sentence that I clearly hadn’t written, but when I saw the name credited on the article, I wanted to throw up.
Emma Belmont, Junior Reporter.
This was not how I wanted to get my promotion.