Chapter 17
Lily woke up to a surge of excitement about finally being overseas and a text from Wilson reminding them about their date at the Sunset Room that evening with Stacy Black. Nicola was already up and surveying the exploded contents of her suitcase.
“This?” Nicola asked as she held up an item of clothing that was mostly sequins. “With these?” She held up a platform heel.
“Maybe not to breakfast.”
“Breakfast? I’ve sorted breakfast,” said Nicola scornfully, indicating an ensemble arranged on the floor, complete with bag and hat. “I’m talking about dinner.”
“You know it’s twelve hours away, right?”
“You don’t seem to appreciate the gravity of the situation, Lily. Even I was too stupid to fully grasp it yesterday but I’ve done my research and now I know. The Sunset Room is THE restaurant. Nobody gets in there without celebrity status or booking a year ahead.”
“So turning up with clothes on should be the easy part.”
“It’s a big deal!”
“It’s dinner.”
“I might see a superhero.”
“Well, if you do, and they happen to notice you, I’m sure they’ll appreciate you wearing something tight. With a cape. Now come on, let’s get out there and see some sights!”
They spent the day exploring as much of Beverly Hills as they could comfortably reach on foot.
They wandered up and down beautiful curved suburban streets, took photos of themselves on impossibly green lawns in parks, and exclaimed over every little thing.
Look! A convertible! A silver fire hydrant!
A dog in a bag wearing a collar of diamonds!
They giggled their way through boutiques selling clothes and accessories and jewelry that they couldn’t possibly afford.
“They don’t know that,” Nicola pointed out, and Lily quite agreed that they were as entitled to look at expensive things as anyone else.
They made it back home with an hour to get themselves ready for dinner, only to find Wilson already home from work, dressed, and in a bit of a state.
“Where have you been? Quick, you’ll never be ready!”
“Has the time changed?” wondered Lily.
“One of you will have to use a different bathroom, oh my God. Mom?”
Charlotte materialized out of nowhere and made soothing noises while Nicola berated Lily for not listening to her.
“Honestly, I told her we had to come home,” she insisted. “But we’ll be fast, promise!” She scooted off to the guesthouse.
“Don’t worry, I can shower after her, we’ll be fine,” assured Lily as Wilson demanded to know which bathroom she could use and Charlotte tried to calm him down.
“I haven’t even seen what they’re wearing!” he complained to his mother.
“I’m sure Stacy will understand they’re from out of town,” Charlotte reassured him.
Lily laughed as she slipped out to the guesthouse.
She was not at all nervous about attending a fancy restaurant or meeting Wilson’s famously powerful movie-producer boss.
What did either of them really mean to her?
She was independent and glad of it. Wilson’s extreme investment in the markers of status was just sad …
when it wasn’t incredibly amusing. Her unique experience of living close to wealth but not with it had taught her that most rich and powerful people got that way through luck rather than merit, and self-interest rather than beneficence.
Her experience with Dorian had confirmed as much.
Yes, Stacy Black had made a lot of great movies.
But Lily would wait to see what she was like in person before making any judgment about Stacy Black herself.
Exactly forty-five minutes later, she and Nicola presented themselves for Wilson’s approval. He sighed deeply and declared it would just have to do.
“Oh, honey, don’t! They look perfect!” declared Charlotte.
Wilson looked despairingly at Lily’s feet. “You don’t think a heel?”
“I don’t have a heel.”
“Really? Oh. Maybe … what size are your feet? Mom, have you got—”
“No, really,” Lily protested. “I’m perfectly comfortable in these.”
“Oh my GOD, the car’s here. Mom, go get her some pumps.”
“Don’t be silly, honey, my feet are enormous and those sandals are lovely. No one will see them sitting down anyway,” soothed Charlotte.
But Wilson’s focus was on the street outside. “Is that our car? Did he just drive away?” he said, and charged out, waving furiously.
Nicola took the opportunity to quickly get a bit more reassurance from Charlotte that their outfits weren’t totally embarrassing.
“Are you sure we’re okay?”
“You both look divine,” she reassured them. “There’s no dress code. It’s only underlings who dress up for the Sunset Room.” She gave them a conspiratorial wink as Wilson started shouting from the driveway that the car was here and they had to go now. “The truly rich and famous go casual.”
They were met at the restaurant door by a smiling greeter with impossibly long nails and lashes, who ushered them to a booth with a view of sprawling magnificence that took in all of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, and Santa Monica, all the way down to the distant ocean.
Nicola breathed a sigh of awe and reached for her phone, only to score a brisk slap on the hand from Wilson.
“Ixnay on photos!” he hissed.
As they slid into their seats, Wilson leaned in for a breathless military-operation-style scope of the celebrities currently there, from the A-list Oscar winner in the corner to the brand influencer at the bar.
Lily was fascinated, not so much by the celebrities themselves, most of whom she didn’t really know, but by Wilson’s deadly serious cloak-and-dagger identification of them.
She had to work hard not to laugh, but luckily Nicola had the presence of mind to remain super impressed.
They were ten minutes early. Exactly ten minutes late, the greeter ushered a person to their table who was barely visible behind enormous sunglasses, a floppy hat, and a blow-dry. Wilson sprang from his seat and gestured frantically for everyone else to do the same.
“Oh, don’t get up,” drawled the figure as she slipped into the best seat at the table, where Wilson had been, and directed the nondescript teenager trailing behind her into the seat next to her, which had been Nicola’s.
Everyone moved down and sat, with much fussing and moving of water glasses, as a waiter appeared from nowhere and set a shallow glass in front of Stacy Black.
“Skinny martini,” she said to everyone and no one. “They always make them too cold here.”
She took a sip, removed her sunglasses and hat, shook out her orange locks, and turned pale eyes on Lily, who smiled pleasantly in return, and Nicola, who trembled.
“So the Aussies have invaded. I didn’t think you’d look so tired.”
Part of Lily had really hoped that as Stacy Black had produced so many sensitive, profound, and elegant films, there would be some evidence of those qualities somewhere in her personality.
She wasn’t an actor like Dorian, a gun-for-hire who made a living out of pretending.
She was actually in charge of making those films. But on reflection, Lily realized that to recognize the commercial potential in someone else’s creative work, then facilitate that work with money, required its own set of skills.
Throughout the meal, Stacy Black snapped at her daughter (“Sit up straight, for God’s sake, Inez, you look like a goddamn prison inmate”), alternately commanded and ignored Wilson (“Order the fish. Pass me that. What is this? Look it up.”), and interrogated Lily and Nicola.
“So you live at this island place?”
“Yes,” said Lily. (Nicola couldn’t speak.) “But it’s not an island.”
Stacy turned her pale eyes back to Lily with faint surprise.
“Wilson said it was an island.”
“It’s actually on the foreshore of a huge national park. It’s surrounded by thick bushland and steep cliffs, so the only way you can get there is by boat.”
“It feels like an island,” mumbled Wilson.
“If you need a boat, that’s an island,” Stacy Black continued over the top of Wilson. “I hear there are no shops, no restaurants, no cars, quite idyllic.”
She looked at Lily as though she shouldn’t really come from anywhere idyllic.
“It is.” Lily smiled back without flinching.
“And private.” She contemplated Lily thoughtfully. “How many people actually live there?”
“It varies because a lot of places are just weekenders. In winter, during schooltime, there’s often only about thirty people there. But during summer holidays, there’s three to four hundred.”
“And how do you shop? You get things delivered?”
Lily laughed. “Nothing is delivered.”
At this, Stacy Black’s teenage daughter looked up from her phone, which she was holding beneath the table, with a look that was half-disbelieving and half-scornful. Her mother noticed.
“See. That got her attention. A life without unboxing.”
“I don’t unbox,” muttered Inez.
“She lives to shop,” Stacy Black explained, talking over her daughter.
“No I don’t, you do.”
“I would adore to live on an island with no shops.”
“Wilson told me it doesn’t have flushing toilets.” Inez flung the remark at Stacy Black like a grenade. Her mother just tilted her head in a way Lily knew from experience was infuriating to a daughter looking for a reaction.
“Disappointing. If true.”
“It’s not,” Lily laughed, interrupting Wilson’s immediate attempt to both apologize and explain. “We have plumbing; we just have to save water sometimes. When we’re in a drought. The water supply is all rainwater.”
Lily thought Californians might understand the sacrifices one had to make in a drought.
“Can’t you buy water in Australia? That’s what we do.”
Maybe droughts didn’t exist when it came to Stacy Black’s lawns.
“Yes you can,” put in Nicola, a little too enthusiastically. “We have friends, they’ve got a farm and they had to buy tanks—for their farm. They have a weekender. At Pippi.” Nicola flagged a little under Stacy’s gaze, but she rallied. “You can definitely buy water in Australia.”
“Good to know.”
“But at Pippi you’d have to drop it in by helicopter,” added Lily.
“I love helicopters,” Stacy murmured. “You take one to school?”
“I took the ferry.”
“Huh. I suppose your mother works remotely?”
“No. She’s a cleaner.”
“A what?”
Wilson intervened. “I believe she runs some kind of—”
“Hush,” said Stacy Black, and Wilson hushed.
“She’s a cleaner. Cleans houses. And I help her.”
Stacy looked like she’d never heard of anything so delightful. Inez smirked, while Wilson and Nicola looked dreadfully unhappy. Lily just smiled. She’d long ago learned to enjoy the challenge of revealing her modest means.
“And how,” Stacy Black went on, “does a cleaner’s daughter—who also cleans—get a vacation in LA?”
“I’m very lucky,” admitted Lily. “I saved up and I’m only staying a few weeks. My aunts helped me with the airfare.”
“Aunts, you say.”
Wilson could restrain himself no longer. “My mother is best friends with Lily’s aunt Elizabeth—the children’s author who won—” but Stacy Black silenced him with a flick of her pale eyes.
“Well,” she said to Lily, “so this might be your only trip here for some time. We’d better make the most of it. You just go ahead and order whatever you want.”
“Thank you,” Lily said, and couldn’t help but wonder if the others also needed express permission.