by Raziel Reid
Lily’s ready too early, and then she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She sits on the couch, taking a few deep breaths while holding the agate stone Sean gave her. But its calming energy doesn’t seem to be working. Lily’s so anxious she almost wants to ask Hailey for one of her Klonopin. She tells herself that it’s going to be all right, Shapiro is a star lawyer. But what if they make an example of her? And what if the judge has been following all of the press about her? The runway wardrobe malfunction, gossip about the drag race crash…Lily hasn’t exactly been keeping a low profile.
She’s taking a break from Instagram. She’s tired of all the negative comments about her and Joel and comparing her and Hailey. Lily has wanted to reach out to Joel so badly since he checked out of the hospital but she hasn’t let herself. Not after seeing him with Hailey. It might be the way she was brought up, the way her mother left so easily—but Lily feels so cold.
There’s a knock on the pool house door and Whitney steps inside. She’s wearing a suit with serious shoulder pads, as ready for her moment in court as Lily.
“Is it time?” Lily stands up and faces her aunt.
“It’s a shame, really.” Whitney’s hand rises to her throat and she toys with her pearl choker. “Rather anticlimactic. I thought whatever the verdict was it would be a great pre-show before tomorrow’s premiere…”
“What are you talking about?” Lily asks.
“Shapiro called. Chris changed his story this morning. He told the prosecutor that you weren’t involved in the break-in or burglary and that you did indeed try to stop him. The charges have been dropped.”
Lily’s knees give out and she sits back down on the couch. “Why would Chris do that?” she asks. The last time Lily saw Chris, he was choking on a mouthful of chlorine and seemed determined to keep dragging Lily through the dirt with him. What changed his mind? Lily feels like she’s missing something, like there’s been some kind of behind-the-scenes play that she isn’t aware of.
“It’s already online,” Whitney says. “I’ll send you a link to the article in OK!”
Of course, the world finds out before her.
“There’s nothing like a little vindication on a red carpet.” Whitney winks at Lily. “You’re riding in a limo with me and Patrick to the Sofitel tomorrow, by the way. Hailey’s getting picked up for the premiere by Joel Strom.”
Lily feels all of the air leave her body. And Whitney breathes in all the air in the room. Lily’s about to flop to her side and start wriggling like a fish out of water.
Whitney smiles at her. “The tension between them has been building all season.”
thejoelstrom
1.8m followers
hilda__s @janavaphillip @calderoned37 STOOOP OMFG DO U HEAR THAT? it’s the sound of my heart exploding
“Couldn’t wait until the premiere?” Hailey asks, opening the door when Joel rings the bell at the Paleys’ house.
“I’m here to see Lily.” Joel wants to settle things with Lily before tomorrow night’s red carpet. He’s confused over why she hasn’t been in touch since the accident, but he’s starting to get the picture. There’s more going on between her and Idris than Lily revealed. Joel was about to cave and send her a text but he wants to see her, face-to-face. No matter what, Lily deserves to hear it from him that he’s taking Hailey to the premiere. He just can’t tell her the real reason why.
“Sorry, Lily’s not here,” Hailey says. “You’ll have to check to see when visiting hours are.”
Joel feels his heart sink. Lily’s court case.
“Don’t worry,” Hailey says, seeing the look on his face. “The charges were dropped. You just missed her. She went out to meet Idris and celebrate being a free woman.”
Joel sits at the bottom of the Paleys’ front steps. He rubs his eyes. He didn’t sleep again last night. He’s been going nonstop since he was released from the hospital. He’s getting as bad as Greta. Joel doesn’t want to be home. He doesn’t want to be inside of himself. He’s been making bad choices. Like going to the dogfight. At least he bailed on the poker game at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was just too weird with Luis Leon there. Joel’s heard the gossip about the Leons’ financial troubles. Joel has all these dark Hollywood thoughts swirling in his mind. He wants to unleash them. There was a part of him that thought seeing the fight would be cathartic. Like it would prove to Joel that he’s not the only one who’s sick.
Hailey sits on the stairs next to him and puts a hand on the back of his shirt.
“Poor baby lost his innocence,” she says. “Careful, Joel. It’s a slippery slope…”
Joel lowers his hands from his eyes and looks at her. “You know, I probably would’ve gone with you to the premiere, posed on the red carpet, bought you a new Judith Leiber…whatever you wanted. You may not always be the best friend to Greta, but you were there when it counted. More than once. I owe you. You didn’t need to send your vapid little minion to blackmail me.”
“What kind of a pet owner would I be if I didn’t throw a stick for Fortune to catch and bring back to me every now and then?”
“I was barely conscious when you kissed me,” Joel says.
Hailey flips her hair. “Start a hashtag about it.”
“I hope it’s enough for you.” Joel pulls himself to his feet. “The image, I mean,” he says, looking down at Hailey. “Because that’s all it’s going to be.”
“Don’t you get it yet?” Hailey stands up and faces him. There’s a new look on her face Joel doesn’t recognize—pity. “That’s all it can be.”
realvalerialeon
3.3m followers
realvalerialeon I’m not sure why my mind went there?
“A hundred dollars for these?” Valeria is trying to control her voice as she lifts up a pair of round-toe Chanel pumps and a Balenciaga purse. “Do you know how much they cost?” But the owner of Wasteland won’t budge, and Valeria ends up leaving with considerably less money than she’d expected.
She needs a hundred thousand. That’s how much the IRS wants in back taxes the Leons owe. It’s like the walls are closing in on them. Luis is still MIA, Valeria lost the part on Almost Everything, the mortgage is due, and now they owe all this money to the government. What were her parents thinking? The money owed is from one of Valeria’s highest-earning years.
Gloria broke the news to Valeria after she told her that her part had been recast. It was almost too much for her to take in at once. Valeria felt herself about to shatter like the cake plates. She didn’t know why she was dropped or who was replacing her. It almost didn’t matter.
Valeria wasn’t going down without a fight. She sprang into action, and she’s been collecting clothes from her closet and from Gloria’s closet to sell. She drove to Melrose in her BMW, which will be going up for sale by the end of the day. She’ll take the bus to her damn auditions.
It was delusional to throw Sophia such a lavish birthday party. Valeria started planning it before she got the part on Almost Everything, when things were looking desperate. She felt as phony as her mom parading around with her glam squad like she doesn’t have a care in the world and has endless money to spend, but she was doing it for Sophia. She was doing it to compensate for everything that Sophia won’t have because of Valeria’s failures, their father’s absence, their mother’s denial…
Valeria still has the Panthère de Cartier earrings from Patrick; she hasn’t been able to part with them. She’s an idiot for clinging to them, for believing they bring her good luck. They’re probably cursed.
As Valeria leaves Wasteland, she pulls out her phone and texts Patrick.
Now?
lillianrhode
80k followers
silvia_strom_paley You know the truth @lillianrhode The heart doesn’t lie
Lily’s thinking about Joel as she sits in the passenger’s seat of Idris’s Rolls-Royce. She was about to call him before Idris’s name appeared on her screen. Lily wanted to talk to Joel about her case being dropped an
d hear it from his own mouth that he’s taking Hailey to the premiere. And just when she was about to call him, her phone rang and it was Idris’s voice on the other end saying his followers had filled him in on the good news about the charges being dropped and they should go out and celebrate.
They go to The Bar at the Montage Beverly Hills and sit on the terrace overlooking Beverly Ca~non Gardens. Idris orders a bottle of Dom Pérignon. Lily hasn’t talked to him since their kiss in the pool house and she isn’t sure how to break it to him that she doesn’t have feelings for him; she was just reacting to seeing Joel and Hailey kissing at Cedars.
“I was going to make #FreeLily tee-shirts if you were sent to jail,” Idris says.
Lily smiles. “It’s all over. And I have no idea what’s coming next…”
“What do you mean?”
“Summer’s almost over. School will be starting soon. I don’t know where I’m going to school, where I’m going to live…I’ve been so wrapped up in the show and Joel and the newness of everything, I haven’t been thinking about the future.”
“You’re not going to stay with the Paleys?”
“They haven’t said anything. And now with the new season of Platinum Triangle about to start airing…I feel like I’ve served my purpose.”
“Well, I hope you stick around. The cast needs someone like you. Someone to remind us what the world’s like on the other side of the screen.”
Lily lowers her Champagne flute. “Idris, there’s something I have to say—”
“No, you don’t.” Idris stops her. He fusses with his La Californienne Rolex watch. “It didn’t mean anything.” He finishes his Champagne, refilling the flute from the bottle in the ice bucket at the end of their table.
The fact that he looks so heartbroken doesn’t give Lily any satisfaction. She used him to help herself forget about Joel, and she told herself it didn’t really matter because it’s not like Idris has real feelings for her, it’s not like he’s capable of real feelings—but maybe she read him wrong.
“You’re really hung up on Joel, huh?” Idris asks.
“I’m sorry,” Lily says.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m the one who should be sorry.”
Idris takes another big sip of Champagne.
“I can write cursive,” he says.
“You can?” Lily asks. “Then why would you pretend you can’t?”
“To keep you away from Joel.”
Lily lowers her Champagne to the table, giving Idris a look.
“It was all Fortune’s idea.”
“Fortune?”
“I guess he made a deal with Hailey. If Fortune could get Joel to take Hailey to the Platinum Triangle premiere and pose with her on the red carpet like a real-life Barbie and Ken, then Hailey would help make Fortune a permanent cast member next season.”
“So you tricked me? What was in it for you?”
“If I distracted you from Joel so Hailey and Fortune could make their moves, then Hailey was going to let me boast that I…” Idris actually blushes. “You know the saving-herself-for-marriage storyline from the first season?” he asks. “Let’s just say I was going to get to be in the last scene.”
“That’s disgusting!”
“That’s reality TV.”
Lily is furious. Hailey’s not a bitch, she’s a psychotic bitch! How far is she willing to go to keep Lily and Joel apart?
“I wanted to tell you right after we kissed,” Idris says, but Lily’s already getting up. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. It all became real to me and I realized that I like you, and—”
“Drop dead!” Lily says, storming out of the bar and into the hotel lobby.
She comes to an abrupt stop when she sees Valeria stepping into the elevator, dark sunglasses concealing her face.
realvalerialeon
3.3m followers
_casparandrey @soh.fys Her sis is way cuter than she was @sophialeon1919 @realvalerialeon
selgforever0758 @realvalerialeon Broke ass bitch
rob_in_tribeca Ur my dream girl to have sex with
lola.asl No one likes talking about death.
shitfaced_pony Will you EVER be in another movie?!
Valeria lies on her back on the bed in Patrick’s suite at the Montage Beverly Hills. She let herself in. Patrick is in the shower. She can hear him singing to himself over the running water. The ceiling is so familiar. She finds the spot where she’s going to be.
A ping comes into Valeria’s phone. It’s Sean. Here if you need me is all it says. She almost laughs. Did the IRS story leak? Or do people know that she’s been dropped from Almost Everything? Both? No publicity is bad publicity. The only bad publicity is no publicity. Valeria’s too afraid to look at her phone. It’s this endless cycle of abuse. She gets so depressed and so she turns to her phone to distract her but it always leads her lower; she’s going in circles, the comments are so mean.
Valeria replies to Sean with a heart emoji, dropping her phone to her side. It slides off the bed and lands on the floor with a thud.
Patrick stops singing in the shower.
“Valeria, that you?” he asks.
Valeria sits up.
No. It’s not.
She gets off the bed and she’s leaving the room, cutting across the suite toward the door, when she remembers her phone. She goes back and picks it up off the floor just as Patrick comes out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist.
“Going somewhere?” he asks.
Valeria turns without a word and walks to the door, sliding her dark glasses over her eyes as she swings it open. She isn’t expecting it when she comes face-to-face with Lily Rhode standing in the hallway. Valeria sees Lily’s eyes widen as she looks behind her to where Patrick is standing in nothing but a towel.
lillianrhode
80k followers
poppykd_ you actually kill me
Lily runs back to the elevator and presses the button frantically.
Valeria’s already gone. She bolted down the stairwell when she saw Lily.
“Wait!” Patrick runs out after her, holding up the towel around his waist. “Lily, please! I can explain. It’s not what it looks like.”
“It’s exactly what it looks like!” Lily has to control her voice to keep from screaming. She presses the elevator button again. Come on. Come on. “How could you?” she asks, her voice shaking with rage as she looks at Patrick’s dripping-wet face. “She’s just a girl! She’s the same age as your daughter!”
Lily knows immediately there must be money involved. All the press about the Leons’ finances. The latest is that the IRS is after them…. Valeria would never do something like this unless she absolutely had to.
The elevator finally arrives but before Lily can step inside, Patrick grabs her by the arm and drags her back into his suite.
“Let go of me!” Lily tries to shove him off. Patrick closes the door behind them and locks it.
“Whatever you think you know—”
“Don’t you dare!” Lily stops him. “Don’t try to pretend like this isn’t real life! Like this is just some scene I saw on TV, something I flicked past. I won’t let you do that! Why does everyone think they can just do that?”
Lily sees remorse in Patrick’s eyes, which she would almost believe if she didn’t know he’s a consummate professional.
“God knows I’m not perfect,” Patrick says. “But I will not be demonized here. I’m not a bad guy, Lily. I’ve done a lot for you, haven’t I? I gave you a second chance after you brought coke into my home—”
“You don’t actually believe that and you know it! You’re just as deluded about Hailey as you are about yourself!”
“You ungrateful little bitch!” Patrick raises his hand like he’s going to slap Lily. She stands her ground and he draws back, trying to control his anger. “I gave you a place to live, paid off the credit card bill for an entirely new wardrobe, put you on TV…hell, I even paid off the hoo
d rat you got arrested with to change his story and take the fall.”
Lily’s mouth drops open in surprise.
“You could show me a little appreciation!”
“This isn’t about me!” Lily tries to steady her voice. “It’s about Valeria.”
“I should’ve gotten rid of you when I had the chance,” Patrick says. “I knew you were going to be trouble.”
“You’re a monster!”
Lily turns and tries to unlock the door but Patrick stops her. The towel around his waist is slipping and Lily is suddenly terrified to be alone with him. Patrick grabs her arm and tightens his grip.
“Don’t be such a consciously naive little bitch!” he hisses. “Do you have any idea how good you have it?” He lets go of her arm with such force that Lily is flung against the door. “Do you have any idea how hard people have to fight to end up where you’ve just landed? You went from a trailer park in the San Fernando Valley to Trousdale Estates in Beverly Hills. You think there isn’t a price?”
Patrick laughs. It’s a Marvel super-villain laugh, and it gives Lily chills.
“How do you think it happened, Lily? Luck? Fate? The goodness of your family’s heart?” Patrick shakes his head. “Face it, kid, your soul was for sale and we bought it. And what’s more, you wanted us to. You wanted to be one of us more than anything in the world. Like a lamb to the slaughter.”
“You’re wrong.” Lily steps away from the door, right up to Patrick’s face. “I’ll never be one of you.”
She looks into Patrick’s eyes.
“I’m going to be a different kind of star.”
paleyhailey
1m followers
paleyhailey At 10, rocking my Chanel suit planning world domination like a #boss
Hailey posts a throwback photo as she tries on her premiere dress—a Marchesa Notte sweetheart illusion Mikado ball gown with a 3-D floral-embroidered bodice.