by Emma Dibdin
THROUGH HIS EYES
Emma Dibdin
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About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
www.headofzeus.com
About Through His Eyes
Jessica Harris is a struggling Hollywood reporter hungry for her big break. So when her editor asks her to profile movie star Clark Conrad, Jessica is thrilled. Clark is an A-lister with access to everyone. If she can impress him, she’s made it.
When she arrives at Clark’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills, he is just as she always imagined: charming, handsome and disarmingly open. But then things take a darker turn. Clark’s world is not as straightforward as it seems and Jessica’s puff piece soon becomes something much more delicate – and dangerous. As Jessica draws herself deeper into Clark’s inner circle, events begin to spiral out of her control.
Transfixing, insightful and unsettling, Through His Eyes drops you into the mind of a young woman with everything to play for – and everything to lose…
Contents
Welcome Page
About Through His Eyes
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
About Emma Dibdin
Also by Emma Dibdin
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Prologue
You have to know when to say no. That’s one of the first things they tell you about journalism, when you’re young and hungry and everything feels like the last step before your big break. You have to know when to let a story go, or a hunch, or a dream. This business is dying and being reborn into a form nobody understands, or so they tell you, and when the stakes feel so high it’s hard not to cling to everything. This is doubly true when you write about Hollywood.
I said yes. From the first day I arrived in Los Angeles from London, chasing a dream I didn’t yet understand, I started saying yes and never stopped. Every yes feels like one step closer to the inside, to being embraced by the untouchable.
People talk about star-fuckers and hangers-on and fangirls with derision, as though it’s shameful to crave proximity to the famous, and not the most natural thing in the world. Celebrities are less like gods than drug dealers, delivering us into a more narratively perfect world in which everyone is beautiful and nothing is irreparable. This is a city built upon an industry built upon our collective need for escape, and the sheer force of all the stories that have been told here gives the city a glow, some nights, when you’re paying attention.
I have never been able to say no to the glow.
1
On that particular sun-bleached winter morning, the morning everything changes, I am beyond tired. I haven’t had more than three hours of sleep in any single night for weeks, and my edges are starting to fray. I woke up this morning fully clothed, my head at the foot of the bed, face down and I’ve never been able to fall asleep face down. I have no memory at all of how I got home last night, and this is no longer uncommon.
This is what it takes to break in, I tell myself in my weaker moments. The field has never been narrower for aspiring journalists, between the proliferation of unpaid internships and barely-paid work, the disappearance of staff writer jobs and the prioritization of clicky content over good writing. But the truth is that I’ve never cared much about journalism per se, because it’s a means to an end, a way to be inside. I’ve never wanted to be an actor, or to be famous, but to be a part of the world in which beautiful people tell stories for a living.
And so I hustle. Starting at five each morning I log on to work a three-hour shift for an up-and-coming entertainment website whose name I hardly remember, aggregating news stories about celebrity weddings and feuds and wardrobe malfunctions. They will likely fold within a few years, but for now they’re still in the high-hopes deep-pockets phase of the startup life cycle, throwing resources at the wall to see what sticks, and as a result they’re paying me far more by the hour than they need to.
During normal work hours, I’m covering maternity leave for the assistant editor of Nest, an online home decor brand. I’ve spent the last six weeks pretending to care about interiors, because the company that owns Nest also owns Reel. Once the glossy monthly magazine I always dreamed of working for, Reel now exists mostly online, and is the home of movie industry news, interviews and features, straddling the divide between a trade journal and a mainstream consumer brand. They’ll cover acquisitions and distribution deals, but also run reviews, lavish photoshoots, in-depth recaps of television episodes, profiles of actors and directors and the odd writer. Jobs at Reel are scarce and sought-after, but now I’m within grabbing distance for the first time.
My evenings and weekends are for freelance assignments, and though I’m pitching hard and eking out the odd byline here and there, most of what I end up being assigned is video. Go to a red carpet and get a clip of so-and-so talking about something buzzy that we can make ad money on. Go to a junket and get a news line that will make people watch our YouTube channel. It’s far from what I imagined when I made the decision, spontaneous and yet thoroughly planned, to board a flight to Los Angeles and become a movie journalist, to get nearer to the beating heart of everything I love.
I’ve been here for three years, and this is the first year in which I’ve even felt close. I’m making enough money to pay rent, and buy food, and pay down my debts a little bit more each month, and I’m doing it in proximity to what matters. And so it doesn’t matter how tired I am in this moment, or how impossible the prospect of carrying on like this seems, or that my right eye has developed a convulsive twitch which I hope isn’t noticeable. I’m close.
And so I get out of bed after my shift, put on something resembling officewear and refuse to fall asleep on the hour-long bus ride along palm-tree-lined boulevards from Echo Park to Fairfax. Instead, I apply my makeup on the journey, starting with the fifteen-minute routine I’ve developed to hide the dark crescents under my eyes. I had my long dark hair cut into a fringe last year, on the charming recommendation of a video editor who told me it would make my face look less ‘harsh’ on camera. I hate to admit that she’s right; the fringe softens my angles and emphasizes the bright blue of my eyes and makes facing the world easier on mornings like this.
‘You look like hell,’ a sardonic voice murmurs in my ear when I finally make it to my desk. Justin is the creative director across several brands at this company; he has a dry wit, a filthy mind, and is the only person here I trust.
‘Feel like it. Thanks.’
‘Did you go out last night?’
‘I had a hot date with the Shorty Awards.’
‘Oh Jesus, who made you cover that?’
The Shortys are essentially the Oscars of streaming video content, honouring the best and brightest YouTubers and social media influencers. They are everything I hate about my job. I don’t answer, because I’m not technically sure I’m supposed to be taking freelance assignments during my time here, and though Justin won’
t care you never know who else is listening.
‘Why don’t you sit in on this today?’
He’s gesturing towards the conference room, where the weekly editorial meeting is about to begin. As a temporary contractor I’m treated as two levels up from an intern, and do not usually warrant an invite.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Don’t get too excited – I may need you to cover for me if she asks for ideas.’
I nod and follow him in, already brainstorming in my head.
‘All right, what’s everybody got?’ Jackie Smart, the pixie-cropped, quietly formidable editor of Nest, asks. ‘I know I don’t need to remind anyone of this, but we’ve fallen just short of four million unique users for the past three months, and I want us to get over that threshold this month. Justin, want to start us off?’
‘So the high-res Rita Ora shots are in – I’m still not convinced anyone cares what her condo looks like but I guess we’re gonna find out. She’s agreed to share it on all her social channels, so we should get a decent spike out of that. We have talent lined up for the next three weeks of home tour videos… Oh, so we’re still looking for someone to take on whatever this Clark Conrad thing is.’
‘Clark Conrad?’ I say, trying to sound casual after almost choking on my coffee.
‘The one and only, although given the amount of restrictions on questions it’s gonna be hard to tell who the interview’s with.’
‘Why would Clark Conrad agree to an interview for Nest?’ Nest is where people go for a window into a more perfect world, be it Jackie Kennedy’s childhood home or Jennifer Lawrence’s first Santa Monica mansion. Nest allows you to tour the houses of people who will never know you exist. Nest is not publishing exclusive interviews with one of the most media-shy A-listers in Hollywood.
‘Because he’s very excited to talk all about the inspiration behind the remodelling of his Laurel Canyon home,’ Jackie replies. ‘It’s his post-divorce crisis pad – he’s gut-renovated it, added a new wing for his daughter, made the whole thing eco-powered. I get the sense he’s trying to rebrand himself as a cool single dad, divert attention away from the fact that his last movie bombed and America’s favourite marriage is over.’
The Conrad family as a unit are almost more famous than Clark himself: Clark and Carol, their two beautiful blonde daughters Sarah and Skye and their golden retriever Banjo. They were on-screen lovers first, starring together in a late-nineties romantic comedy which is now remembered solely as the movie where they got together, rather than for its delightfully off-kilter plot about a woman who chases her ex to Texas in hopes of reconciliation and winds up becoming a rodeo star. Carol was the lead in the movie, but Clark was the breakout – playing the roguish cowboy who shows our heroine true love – and that dynamic held true in their marriage. As his career flourished, hers faded, and despite tabloid speculation that Carol’s first pregnancy was an accident, she seemed more than happy to transition into the full-time role of wife and mother. ‘I’m a Southern girl at heart,’ she would say in interviews for lifestyle magazines, in between glossy shots of her relaxing at home with Clark and the girls, stirring a big pot of chilli on the stove. ‘I’ve always been a homemaker.’
The Conrads had it all; they were wholesome enough to appeal to middle America, effortlessly glamorous enough to own every red carpet they attended, and just enigmatic enough to keep their tabloid appeal alive. The loss of them out of nowhere felt like a tangible blow to pop culture; so much so that the magazine I was working for when the divorce announcement happened declared an unofficial Day of Mourning, and let people drink at their desks as they wrote up coverage.
‘His architect is also thirsty as hell,’ interjects Justin. ‘Conrad is doing this guy a favour, from what I can tell. He’s desperately trying to become a thing, have you seen his Instagram?’
‘Wait, you need someone to do the interview?’ I said this too fast, I realize, too eager to make sure I’m not misunderstanding in my brain fog. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ Justin tells me. ‘We’re not going to get anything good out of him. He won’t do any video, so the tour is just going to be ten minutes of this architect nobody cares about. We’re scheduled to be at the house for four hours, we’ll shoot all the various rooms, and you’ll get colour quotes from the architect for each one, super-detailed. Then you’ll get twenty minutes with him, which they’ve negotiated down from an hour.’
‘I can make it work.’
A silence, as Jackie exchanges a glance with the features editor, and I clench my fists under the table. There’s no way they will actually give this to me. It’s way above my pay grade, way above my experience level. How has some veteran profile-writer not already swooped in to take this? An interview with Clark Conrad is like a unicorn sighting in the world of movie journalism, for anyone, even for people who haven’t idolized him since puberty.
‘I’m not sure we should—’ the features editor whose name I can never remember begins, then cuts herself off. ‘Maybe we hold off on making a call on the writer. I have a couple of freelancers I’d like to run it past.’
‘We’re really down to the wire on this,’ Justin says. ‘How fast can you get a freelancer onboard?’
‘I’m a little confused as to why we still don’t have a writer assigned,’ says Jackie softly. She is the kind of woman who never raises her voice, never needs to, because people lean in to catch every word. She turns to the features editor. ‘Eleanor, could you clear this up for me?’
‘We had Jim Rothman assigned, but he pulled out when we told him about all the restrictions on questions, and it’s been hard to—’
‘Okay,’ Jackie interrupts. ‘I don’t need to hear excuses, I need a solution. The interview is happening this week, yes?’
‘Friday,’ Justin confirms.
‘All right, Jessica. Let’s give you a shot. Send your notes and your transcript to Eleanor when you’re done, and the two of you can work together on the angle. Do you have any clippings of similar pieces that you’ve done before, anything long-form? In case Clark’s rep asks.’
We both know that this has nothing to do with his rep. They want to vet me, and though there’s a part of me that bristles, I know they’re right to do so. I’m a nobody being handed an absurdly huge assignment.
‘Definitely. I can send you some clips today. I’ve written interviews before.’ This is true, but only with studio executives, indie directors, the odd supporting actor. No one on the level of a Clark Conrad, not even close.
‘She’s a pro,’ Justin says. ‘You don’t need to worry, she’s way overdue for an assignment like this.’
I glance gratefully at him.
‘All right, sounds good.’ Eleanor smiles, tightly. ‘Jessica, we can go over your questions in more detail later, but maybe try to get a line from him about Loner. The fandom for that show is still really engaged, even though it’s been off the air for so long, so anything he says will get picked up.’
As if I don’t know this.
‘And obviously anything he says about the divorce will be buzzy. I’m not expecting much, but it’s the whole reason for this midlife crisis renovation project, so even anything he says about the house that sounds like it could be about Carol if you read between the lines…’
‘I’m still not over it,’ Justin says mournfully. ‘The downfall of America’s golden couple. Love is dead, chaos reigns.’
The strangest part of Clark and Carol’s breakup has been Carol’s complete disappearance ever since. All anyone knows is that she moved to New York with the couple’s elder daughter Sarah, that she has retired permanently from acting, and that she’s been spotted a few times hiking in the Adirondacks. She has given no interviews, no statements, and has barely been photographed since the move. It’s not for lack of trying – almost every week, a gossip magazine will run some variation of the cover line ‘Why She Disappeared’, promising to finally reveal the truth about Carol’s new life, an
d to explain why she took Sarah with her and not Skye. There’s a persistent rumour that she cheated on Clark and is now quietly shacked up with the mystery beau, possibly pregnant with his child. Another impressively detailed theory says she’s joined a cult based in upstate New York, risen swiftly through the ranks of this ‘new religious movement’, and has now indoctrinated Sarah despite Clark’s best efforts to stop her. But the actual stories are always filler, a cobbled-together mess of old quotes and speculation from unattributed sources. Carol has become an enigma, which is all the more reason why any quote at all from Clark will be breaking news.
Later in the day I send over my meagre list of meaningful clippings to Eleanor and Jackie, trying to ignore the dismissive remarks already ringing in my head. I’m imagining all the ways this assignment could be taken from me before I ever had it, all the clear, undeniable reasons for me not to get invested in this. There’s no way I will be at Clark Conrad’s home in the canyon two days from now for an exclusive interview. Replace his name with the name of any other star and I might believe it, as an extreme but still plausible twist of fate. But not him.
I refuse to entertain the thought, for the rest of the day. I write the captions for a gallery of ‘The 19 Best Colours To Paint Your Bathroom, According To Instagram’, and outline a draft of ‘10 New Year’s Resolutions For Your Home’ for tomorrow, anything to distract myself from thinking of Jackie and Eleanor currently evaluating my clips, holding my dream in their hands without even realizing it.
On my way out of the office Jackie calls out to me and I spin on my heel, go running.
‘I just wanted to say, your clips are good. You’re a strong writer, sharp and concise and voicey. I’m happy to have you do this piece.’
‘Thank you so much. This is a real honour.’
‘Justin’s filled you in on the tight turnaround, right? You’re going to his house this Friday, you have a half-hour with him, and we need the piece to run before the end of next week.’