“I see,” I said.
“Could we grab a drink sometime?” Carrigan asked. “Go over the particulars?”
I thought about it. I thought about his wife and his big house and his even bigger bank account, and I thought about fucking him with Jackal’s eyes on me in his apartment, the way he’d shivered as I cried. I thought about the red blinking light on my answering machine that morning. When I’d clicked it, the voicemail button squishing under my fingernail like a ladybug, an unfamiliar voice had filled my office.
“Hi, um, hello? We met—well, no, we didn’t exactly meet, I guess, you left your card for me a few weeks ago at the, um, at the St. Leo. The hotel. I was there with a man, and he was, well, ha, you know. I spilled a beer into his lap. Jesus, Laura, shut up, you’re rambling! Anyway. You left your card for me. That’s all. You left your card for me and told me to call you if I wanted, um, a free drink? And, well.” A breathy little laugh. “Here I am. Calling.”
At the time, I’d rewound the tape, played it again. Wrote down the number she’d left me on my notepad and stared at it for a long time, wondering what to do about it. On the phone with Carrigan, I thought about that pretty young girl at the St. Leo, a million years ago, and what she might be able to do to the career of an old money man like Carrigan Sr. I thought about how I wouldn’t have to split the money with the Lady Upstairs, and about how grateful a man like Mitch Carrigan would be for my help. I thought about the power I had now over this girl’s life, if I called her back.
I thought about all of that and then I said, “Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”
We hung up, but not until after we’d agreed to meet the next week for a drink. I wondered what his company would be like when I wasn’t playing defenseless. I told Carrigan to pick someplace expensive. I told him to consider it an investment.
Somewhere during the phone call, I’d finished the bourbon. I crossed to the bar cart, uncapped the bottle, and poured a little more brown into my cup. Topped it off with a squeeze of lime juice from a warming green plastic bottle shaped to look like the fruit. A spritz of club soda on top of that. A proper cocktail.
Lou had asked me once, early, whether I thought what we did was evil. Testing me, maybe, when I was green and tender-fresh. “Not evil,” I’d said, surprising myself by how much I meant it. “Everything is currency.” And it was true: everything was currency of a sort. A smile applied at the right time like a crowbar—that was currency, a kind word the same. My body was mine to spend as I wanted. It wasn’t evil to not have good intentions with sex. I didn’t owe men pure motives. It wasn’t kind, what we were doing, it might not have even been right, but it wasn’t evil. Not then.
And some part of me still believed it. We’d done evil things. But that didn’t mean the game was flawed from the ground up. Not when men who shot their wives in the face could plaster their names all over the city and be remembered as good men, not when men’s potential was considered more important than women’s bodies, not when the game was so rigged against us all.
I’d learned things from Ellen, invaluable things. I would do it differently this time. I wouldn’t give this new girl, Laura, the chance to feel too much. You left someone in the orbit of charisma and of course she’d fall for it. It wasn’t her fault. It didn’t matter how tough she was; sometimes it couldn’t be helped. Particularly if she was heartbroken, or lonely, or borderline homeless, sleeping out of a car.
I’d watch Laura carefully. I’d take my time, make sure she was ready for it all, that she was more than ready for it: that she wanted in on it, too. I’d drill Lou’s one good lesson into her head: Never love anyone more than yourself. I’d be straight with the police. I’d send the pictures right to the papers. I wouldn’t give Carrigan Sr. a chance to barter his way out of it. This time, there’d be no Jackal, no other partners to complicate things, to play their own games in the dark. No distractions.
Before, there had been the beginning of something special with our work. But I’d learned from Lou’s mistakes, and from my own. It was why I was still there, in that office, watching the twilight settle over the city. It was why it wasn’t me six feet under, staring up at the sunset and looking for the living to play the part I’d outlined. The script was all mine now, not some faceless dead woman’s.
Maybe Lou had started out with good intentions, too. Maybe she’d thought she was building a sisterhood, a place for women to take back power using the weapons men haven’t learned how to defend against. That was the dream she’d sold me. Or maybe she’d only needed to protect herself at a moment when she had no other options. Maybe it was both. I’d never know. But her failings had taught me everything I needed to make sure that tiny glimmer of possibility, that glittering picture she’d painted for me one morning in a diner, became the reality. The artificial into the true, the alchemy of Hollywood. I’d take Lou’s vision, and I’d perfect it. And in the end, that would be Lou’s true legacy. In the end, a little piece of her would last forever.
I took a sip of my drink and watched the daylight purple and melt into twilight, become renewed with the dark. The sun was setting earlier these evenings. The heat that had plagued the city for weeks was mostly behind us—or long in front of us, if you wanted to think of it that way.
I went to the balcony at the back of the office and stood in front of the iron railing, drink in hand, and watched the lights of all of the city’s people flicker out, brief and bright, before me. As soon as one blinkered off, another one took its place, so it was never true dark. The night sky was clear and glittered hard, but not with stars. People read so damn much into the stars—star-crossed lovers, love like galaxies, written in the stars, all that jazz. In my city, we’d gotten rid of all that and in its place put something brighter and harder that never went out, so you could barely even see those stars at all.
I preferred it that way.
Acknowledgments
First, I want to thank my wonderful agent, Sharon Pelletier, for her incredible vision for this book and her help in getting it there. It is a dream come true to work with you. To my editor, Danielle Dieterich: thank you for taking a chance on me and Jo, and for your heavy lifting in sculpting this novel. To my team at Putnam—Ivan Held, Sally Kim, Brennin Cummings, Alexis Welby, Monica Cordova, and Erika Verbeck—thank you for making this experience even better than I dreamed it would be. And another huge thank you to Kristina Moore for taking this book places I’d barely let myself dream it might go.
To my Otis College cohort, thank you for all your work in helping me bring this book to life, and in particular, Esther Lee, Heather John Fogarty, Krystle Statler, Kevin Thomas, Guy Bennett, Marisa Matarazzo, Jen Hofer, and Marisa Silver. A huge thank-you to Peter Gadol, who taught me so much about craft and who spent one very memorable afternoon storyboarding with me. It was one of the honors of my life to study with Paul Vangelisti, one of the great noir poets, who made grad school so much more fun than my future children will ever one day believe.
This book is inextricably linked with Olivia Batker Pritzker, who deserves a whole chapter of thanks. From Trader Sam’s Tiki Bar to sneaking into Disneyland (invaluable research into the art of the con!) to your unending patience for talking through every question and insecurity I threw at you (along with the multiple charts you drew), this book would not be the same without you.
It is not hyperbole to say this book would not exist without the loving editorial eye and support of Layne Fargo, who plucked me out of the Pitch Wars slush pile. Thank you for taking me and Jo in hand and helping me figure out exactly the right way to break the book to make it better. You are truly the fairy godmother of this book, and the best part of Pitch Wars is knowing you.
A huge thank-you to my loving family and friends, in particular, Samantha Omana, Tara Donohoe, and Leah and Lorraine Esturas-Pierson, the best cheerleaders a girl could ask for (and to Wilder Esturas-Pierson, who did not do very much cheerleading this time aro
und, but I will let it slide). And finally, batting cleanup: my parents, Kim and Jeff Sutton, who never even once told me they thought it was a bad life plan to become a writer. Thank you for bribing me to read as a kid, and for nurturing and encouraging me as an adult. I love you very much.
The Lady Upstairs
Halley Sutton
DISCUSSION GUIDE
A CONVERSATION WITH HALLEY SUTTON
Discussion Guide
1. Discuss the ways in which The Lady Upstairs does or does not fit into the noir genre. What noir tropes do you see in the novel? How does the author subvert the more typical conventions of this genre?
2. How did the first-person narration in the novel affect your reading experience? Did you always trust Jo as a narrator? How does viewing things through her eyes change your perception of the events in the novel?
3. Jo is determined to take down men who treat women badly, and yet it could be argued that she herself does not always treat women well. What do you think of Jo’s attitudes toward other women? Do those attitudes change over the course of the novel? Would you consider her to be a feminist?
4. Take a look at Jo’s romantic relationships, particularly those with Jackal and Lou. How were these relationships different? How was Jo herself different in each of them?
5. Compare and contrast the different ways that characters in The Lady Upstairs command power over others. How do traditional definitions of power—whether political, financial, or professional—compare to the kind of power that Jo, Lou, and the Lady create?
6. What do you imagine Jo’s past looked like, before she joined in with the Lady Upstairs? Additionally, what do you imagine happens to Jo after the novel’s end? Is history doomed to repeat itself?
7. Many of the characters in The Lady Upstairs believe that money will solve their problems. Which instances in the novel support that idea and which undermine it?
8. Did you guess the identity of the Lady Upstairs while you were reading? If so, when?
9. Consider the different moral codes that guide each character. Who do you think bears the most responsibility for Ellen’s murder? How are “good” and “evil” defined?
10. Did you ultimately find Jo to be a sympathetic character? Discuss the different consequences of her actions. Did the ends justify the means?
A Conversation with Halley Sutton
The Lady Upstairs is your debut novel. Can you share a bit about your experience as a first-time author?
It’s a strange thing to have your childhood dream come true in the middle of a global crisis. I would say that the best part is having access to the writing community and to writers whom I admire, in a different way than I did before. For example, I’ve attended Noir at the Bar events for years—getting to read at one of those, from my own book, is a life highlight I won’t easily forget. Along with seeing my name on a book for the first time!
What inspired you to tell this story?
I wanted to write a story about power and sex and heartache and regret. It doesn’t get more noir than that.
Jo’s first-person voice is so unique and powerful. Where did that voice come from? Which came first, the character of Jo or the plot of the novel?
I had Jo’s voice in my head early; I knew I wanted to spend more time with her. I didn’t have a story for her yet, but her voice was definitely the first thing that grabbed me and made me think, I could spend a novel untangling this person. She didn’t spring into my head fully formed, but her snappy, snarky voice was always there, sort of parallel, narrating events in my head all day long. Maybe she was just waiting for her chance to find the right story to waltz into.
The Lady Upstairs is a modern take on the classic noir genre. Did any particular noir authors impact your writing? Do you have any favorite noir movies or novels? How is this book different from a traditional noir story?
If you’re writing about LA noir, there’s no escaping Raymond Chandler, and The Long Goodbye is one of my favorite books. Nobody packs as much pain per ounce as James M. Cain—he can do more with one hundred pages than most authors can in a trilogy. Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy B. Hughes, Jim Thompson. But the writer I return to over and over is always Megan Abbott, particularly her novel Queenpin. Sara Gran’s Dope. Vicki Hendricks is another favorite—I don’t think anyone spends enough time talking about what a fantastic book Miami Purity is. Whenever I feel like my writing needs better rhythm, I pick up Elmore Leonard (my particular favorite being Gold Coast, featuring one of Leonard’s many compelling leading ladies named Karen). For films: I watched Body Heat almost daily while writing The Lady Upstairs (frighteningly, that’s only the tiniest bit of an exaggeration). Gilda and Jackie Brown were movies I returned to again and again, and it doesn’t get much more hard-boiled dame than Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. Devil in a Blue Dress—both the Walter Mosley book and the film starring Denzel Washington. Steph Cha’s Juniper Song books were great modern noirs I turned to repeatedly.
As for how this book is different from a traditional noir story—I wanted to take all the noir tropes that I love and shift the spotlight. I wanted to create a femme fatale who was the center of the story—and a literal femme fatale at that. What if women had weaponized the anxieties of classic noir to work for them, to take back a little money and power for themselves?
The city of Los Angeles feels so alive on the page—it is almost a character itself! What is your own personal experience with LA and why did you choose to set the novel there?
Los Angeles was actually the missing piece to Jo’s story! I moved to Los Angeles for grad school and didn’t know that much about the city. When I first started trying to learn about the history of Los Angeles to make sense of my new home (admittedly, mostly via murder bus tours, which are not necessarily the same as diving into peer-reviewed research or history), I was struck by how much it felt like the myth of the city eventually just became the history of the place. I thought a good way to approach understanding LA might be to dig into it through a cultural lens, which refired my love of noir. Once I figured that out, I realized that Jo was a perfect femme fatale voice, and the rest of her story clicked into place for me.
Were there any particularly challenging scenes or characters that you encountered while writing? Were there any surprises during the writing process?
Jo’s scene seducing Carrigan was the hardest in the novel for me to get right. I probably wrote more than twenty drafts of that scene, each one maybe a little better than the last (maybe), but none of them right. It was the scene I was working on the longest in the book, but once it was the right version of itself, I knew. That was a very, very satisfying moment.
Did current events or the rise of the Me Too movement have an influence on your writing? Would you define The Lady Upstairs as a feminist novel?
Not as much as you’d think, or at least not in the sense that it was written with the Me Too movement in mind. It’s not like men abusing power or women started with #MeToo, but the movement did put a specific stamp on it. I started writing The Lady Upstairs in 2015, and stories about sleazy Hollywood men capitalizing on the casting couch to assert power over women have been around since Hollywood began. They probably started when the first couch was made, to be honest.
To me, The Lady Upstairs is a feminist novel because it centers on the experience of women—broken, jagged, fucked-up women. That said, they’re also working within the patriarchy, and much of their work and lives do revolve around men—they haven’t broken free of the structure, even if they’re subverting it for personal gain. Jo often prioritizes herself or Lou above the well-being of other women. I don’t know that I think Jo would describe herself as a feminist. I would not describe Jo as a feminist, either.
Sexuality and sex work are forms of both currency and agency in the novel. Why did you want to explore these themes? And why was it important for you to depict queer characters on the page?
I think representation in fiction is always important. But I also think when writing about sex it wasn’t possible to imagine some of my characters not being fluid in their sexuality—that’s just not true to life, and it didn’t feel true to Jo or Lou, either. But I don’t think I ever specifically label them in the book, because I don’t think Jo would label herself as anything. It’s not Jo’s relationship to sex or to being queer that’s hardest for her to deal with in the novel; it’s the fact that she has feelings for Lou (and Jackal!) at all, that it’s not actually possible for her to be the hardened woman she’s always striving to be.
What do you hope readers take away from Jo and her story? What lessons can we learn from Jo’s example?
At the end of the novel, Jo speculates that the business started as a way for women to take back power, before pivoting into another way to assert power, and that original idea isn’t flawed per se. But eventually, if you’re working within an institutionalized system that prioritizes money over people, any good that might have happened along the way becomes secondary. I think there’s strength in community and standing up to power and the patriarchy, but I don’t know if it’s possible for that not to be corrupted when it becomes about the individual.
What is next for you?
Hopefully twenty-five more books with my name on them.
Photo of the author © 2019 by Faizah Rajput
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