5. You Know What They Say About Glass Houses #3
“Give me that.” She held out a forceful hand and I blinked.
“Give it to me now. I can’t have you filming with it.
Many of the people here are very important, you know.
That’s a very hot new producer,” she said, jabbing one cherry-red nail at a man who looked hardly older than me.
“There’s a showrunner over there, just won an Emmy.
That’s a fucking Coppola.” She was pointing to people so quickly and indiscriminately I couldn’t tell whether to be impressed with her casual knowledge or dubious that any of it was true.
“I can’t allow you to use social media while you’re here. ”
“Oh, I’m not going to, I can assure you—”
She emphasized the emptiness of her hand. “You can have it back at the end of the night.”
“At the end of the night?” None of this seemed plausible to me.
The request, much less the willing act of surrender.
My phone was my lifeline. My banking app was on there.
My contact information. My access to the outside world.
True, I still had terrible service and probably wouldn’t get much use out of it if I didn’t connect to the house’s Wi-Fi, but even so, it felt like she’d commanded me to strip naked.
To get a pap smear right here, right now, feet in the stirrups of a villa chaise lounge. “Emmanuelle, I just—”
“You signed an NDA,” she reminded me. Now she seemed old to me, authoritative. This was the woman who was William de Witt’s co-producer, I thought. “Is this noncompliance with the legal document you signed?”
Could she even say that? Legally I wasn’t sure, but practically speaking it seemed final. The usual calculations were slightly dizzying. She produces all of William de Witt’s films. Nothing gets made without her approval.
A prayer: If I fail, it won’t be because of me.
Reluctantly, as if cutting out a kidney, I placed my phone in her hand.
“Thank you.” She was instantly sweet again, her free hand rising to cup my cheek with fondness.
“And you’re right, I’ve been neglecting you.
Would you like me to introduce you to a few people?
I can have Edward bring you something a bit more appropriate,” she added, gesturing to my outfit.
I wondered if she knew what Teddy’s job even was, or if she just thought of him as William’s assistant and therefore hers by extension.
Which reminded me that I had a job. “I would love to mingle,” I assured her, chasing after her again when she resumed her path along the edge of the pool, “and really, I’m so grateful for the opportunity, but since I don’t see Julian on the monitor—”
Her face went pale as she came to an abrupt stop. “What?”
It wasn’t rage this time. It was just as sudden, but I could tell it was something much darker, much worse. I offered her the monitor without a word and she took one look at it, motionless.
Then, just as quickly, she handed it back to me. Her expression changed again—this time it was a calm, placating smile. As if she’d gone somewhere light and breezy in her head.
“Well,” she said. “You’re quite right, Anya dear, he’s gone.”
“Right,” I agreed, “so should I—”
“You have a job.” Her eyes met mine with a cool wealth of condescension. “Don’t you? So do it.”
“I—” A thousand things flashed through my head.
Whenever my mother got angry, I wasn’t allowed to make excuses.
I wasn’t allowed to look her in the eye.
When I was younger, I had always understood this to be cultural, that some things I did in my normal, daily life at school to assert my personhood were considered unacceptable defiance when it came to my mother, or to my elders in general, whom I was supposed to revere.
It was a constant code-switch, who I was at home and who I’d been at school, the way that filial piety could look like inattentiveness to a teacher, and thus disrespect of a whole other kind.
I felt trapped in that crevice all over again now, torn between telling Emmanuelle to go fuck herself and offering apologies for not having thought of this possibility first. Of course it was my job to watch a person I had never met, whose age I didn’t know, on a property I had never been to before.
I couldn’t have found the bathroom, much less a missing child.
But somehow, in that moment, it did feel like my mistake.
“Right,” I said. How hard could it be? I’d call the name “Julian” like seeking out a lost dog and either someone would answer or I would be fired, and either way this night was finite. It would eventually have to end. “I’ll find him.”
“Wonderful.” Her face melted. She loved me again. She was so, so grateful for me, for my virtuous help. “Anya darling, what a blessing you are,” she said, and peeled away from me, gliding through the throngs of guests until she reached the center of a crowd.
I checked the monitor again, hoping that Julian was a normal, mobile eight-year-old who had simply gotten up to use the bathroom and then returned to his bedroom.
I told myself this was not more unreasonable than any alternative, and then for purposes of survival, I believed me.
The indoor portion of the villa was sweltering already, music present but inaudible beneath the din.
Someone brushed my arm and I breathed a sigh of relief that it was Atticus, whom I’d already met, who clearly had a taste for young men and was probably on drugs but seemed kind enough as a human being, and unthreatening to me. “Atticus. Can I ask you something?”
“Yes?” He swerved toward me on a theatrical tide, smelling of pomegranate vodka.
“Have you ever met Julian?”