July 2017
Trousdale Park Gated Community, Beverly Hills
(North of Sunset, off Benedict Canyon)
Bentley hadn’t planned on working during hiatus, but if their renewal was on the line, it was time to #TURNITUP. It had been a month since she had made the decision to go full-on Breaking Bad Bentley, and by the time she got in the car on this particular hot July night, she felt like she was ready for battle.
Maybe it was the war paint plastered all over her face. Maybe it was the stranger-danger adrenaline coursing through her body. Maybe it was the head-to-toe Balenciaga leather armor, or the thigh-high leather stiletto boots. (The filmy pink gauze tutu that some stylist had selected for her to wear over all of the above wouldn’t be much help in the event of battle.) Either way, she had come to fight, and fight she would.
Bent slammed the door of Mercedes’s SUV, sat down on the plush seat, and turned to her perfectly made-up big sister. “Bad Bent, ready to roll.”
“Really? A tutu?” Bach looked at her in the rearview mirror. Driver Dan had the wheel (he was the Royce family driver; nobody knew his real name), and Bach had insisted on going along for the ride.
“Ask me if I care what’s on my body right now. Go on. Ask me,” Bent said.
Bach smiled and looked away. “That’s my girl.”
Bent turned to Porsche, who was still expertly applying lip liner. “Boi? Really? That’s the name of the club?”
“Yeah. So? What were you expecting?” Porsche looked amused.
“I dunno,” Bent admitted. The Death Star. Waterloo. Normandy Beach, Bentley thought. The Titanic.
Bentley Royce’s Last Stand.
“Hey, what are you looking at?” Porsche craned her neck to try to see what was on Bentley’s phone.
“Nothing,” Bent said, turning her phone facedown in her lap. “Let’s get this party started.”
Bent’s opening salvo came long before they got to the club itself, which was a nondescript building, painted black and white, with the silhouetted photo of a skateboarder stretching three stories high. She checked her watch. “Pull over. We can’t arrive before midnight.”
“Why? This is a vampire hangout?” Porsche, redoing her lip liner, already sounded bored.
“Now that I’ve finally looked at it, I can tell you the Bentley Bible is pretty strict on that point. Bentley Royce never shows her face anywhere until the party is peaking.”
“How does she know?” Bach asked from the front seat, trying not to laugh.
“Apparently she just does,” Bent said, staring out the window. “Maybe it’s a pack-animal thing. Like how wild wolves know wild wolf…stuff.”
“Look at you,” Bach said. “Bad Bentley’s a wild thing.”
“I get it.” Porsche nodded. “I like it.”
Ted knocked on the window, holding his handheld camera. Tonight, he and Jojo had followed in their own car. “Give me a count when you’re ready for us, guys.”
“I guess that’s it. Boi,” Porsche called up to the front seat, holding up her phone. “I’ll get the Snap vid.”
“And we are…rolling,” Bach said as Porsche swung her phone toward Bent.
Bent smacked her lips and started to open the door, then slammed it shut. “Wait.”
“What’s wrong?” Porsche asked.
“Selfies first,” Bent replied. “Almost forgot.” Bach laughed out loud.
“Excuse me?” Porsche raised an eyebrow. “You’re voluntarily posing for a picture?”
“Hey, I’m all about the follow-through—” Bent held up her phone and stuck out her trademarked tongue, while Porsche did her pout.
“Go you,” Porsche said, picking up her bag. “Leveling up your selfie game.”
“Remind me to give you your RWTR merit badge when we get home,” Bach said from up front.
“Oh, I’m just getting started.” Bent typed into her phone. “Adding location—on. There we go.”
“What?” Bach looked curious.
“Gotta give the paparazzi a chance to catch up.” Bent dropped her phone into her clutch, which was a Vuitton frog so tiny that it barely even held that much. “One more thing,” she said.
“Did you step in something?” Porsche looked concerned as Bentley grabbed one stiletto heel and began yanking on it.
“If that’s a new look, I’m not seeing it,” Bach said. “But it’s disturbing.”
“I’m going for drunken party girl train wreck, right? I mean, she is? Bentley?” Bent yanked harder.
Porsche looked amused. “That’s the general idea. So?”
“So Bentley needs a stagger, but I won’t remember to do it all night, and someone will catch on. Only one way to be certain.” Bent pulled as hard as she could—until the stiletto heel popped off. “There. Now she’ll walk like a drunken sailor.”
Bach was impressed, if still anxious. “Are you nuts?”
“Possibly, but I’m just going by the book here.”
“Who wrote that thing, LiLo herself?” He shook his head.
Even Porsche looked envious. “Yeah, really. The Porsche Bible really just has the color for my highlights, my sizes, and the names of my BT.” Porsche’s BT was her Beauty Team, whom Bentley and Bach privately referred to as the Death Eaters.
“I have to admit, it was all pretty inspired.” Bent reached for Teddy’s jacket, which hung over the seat in front of them. She grabbed a pack of Marlboro Lights.
“Gross,” Bach said.
“It’s not like I’m really going to smoke them. God, that would be so disgusting.” Bent tapped out a cigarette. “Anyways, this is LA, not New York—the Bentley Bible just says to light and hold.”
“This feels like act one of every teen movie ever.” Bach shook his head. “And I predict this will somehow end with me paying you to pretend to be my friend so I can become the most popular gay at John Hughes High.”
Porsche looked her sister up and down. “I almost feel a little queasy seeing this. It’s so not you, B.”
“It is now,” Bent said gamely. “The new me.”
“Next thing you know, you’ll be angling for the up-skirt shot,” Porsche said.
Bent turned red. “What? No. No way. That’s where I draw the line. The underwear stays on.”
Porsche shrugged, pulling a compact out of her bag. “I thought you were going for train wreck?” She checked her lip gloss again.
Bentley stared at her sister. She couldn’t tell if she was teasing or not, and Bent found herself wrestling with the impulse to open the door and run for it, as fast as she could—even with only the one heel. “That’s more like a train pileup.”
“Go big or go home. That’s what Mercedes would say.” Porsche shrugged. Bent knew Porsche was just goading her, but she also knew her sister had a point. Still. There was headline far, and there was headline too far.
Wasn’t there?
No, Mercedes would say. There isn’t.
“Forget it,” Bach said from the front seat. He was already unbuttoning his pants. “I’m wearing clean boxers. I’ll do it.”
Bentley and Porsche looked at him like he was insane.
“Not you! You’re the good one. The CGB! Don’t let her take you down with her!” Porsche looked at Bent. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Bent sighed, because her sister was right. “But, Bach, I think that’s the nicest bullet anyone’s ever almost taken for me.”
“You’re welcome.” Bach threw his jeans over his left shoulder, and then there he was. Sitting in the front seat in his polka-dot Italian silk boxers. Thank god the windows were tinted.
“I’ve got an idea,” Bent said.
Five minutes later, Porsche looked over her sister, studying her from head to toe. “Wow, you really are taking one for the team.”
Bentley took a breath. “Porsche, you still filming this?”
“Oh, right. Yep, here we go.” She raised her phone so that it stared straight at Bent.
“Oh my god, I’m sooooo drunk, you guys!” Bent grinned and lurched at her sister, who rolled down the window. (Bentley had never been that trashed, but she’d seen plenty. Between high school and Hollywood, she probably knew enough to administer a Breathalyzer with courtroom-admissible precision.)
Porsche was trying gamely not to laugh. “That must be Boi,” she said brightly. “Looks hoppin’.”
“Boi meet girl!” Bent burst into laughter. “Get it? The club is called Boi? And me, I’m a girl?”
“Got it,” Porsche said. She patted Bent’s head protectively. “You sure you’re up for this, cute thing?”
“LIPPYTIME!” Bentley said suddenly. “Mushy Melon me!” She puckered her lips. Might as well throw in a little product push, seeing as the failing family fortune depended on it.
“Musty Melon,” Porsche said, but still, she handed Bentley the gloss gratefully.
Bent sniffed it. “Ummm. Yuuuummmmmmmy.”
Porsche pinched her sister’s cheek. “Let’s do this.”
Bach covered his face in the front seat, and Bent couldn’t tell if he couldn’t bear to be seen or if he couldn’t bear to watch what was about to happen. Probably both.
Porsche ducked out of the car first, long legs unfolding in front of her. The noise swelled, both the screaming and the shouting of the paparazzi calling her by name, as it always did. The flashbulbs were blinding, almost deafening. Porsche turned back toward the car door. “Well? Are you coming?”
Well? Am I?
Bent hesitated. She thought of college: Would these pictures jeopardize her chances of being accepted? Would this be the headline that pushed her over the edge, the one that cost her a future shot, however far down the line, at four years of Royce-free freedom? It might, she knew that. If not this headline, then the next one, or the next. But she also knew it was a chance she had to be willing to take.
In the middle of her fake-drunk, single-shoe, cigarette-in-hand delirium, Bent had a moment of perfect clarity: tonight was a sacrifice, her sacrifice, and she had to make it. She had no choice. She had to have faith. It was now or never.
She could feel Bach looking at her (between his fingers) from the front seat—and Porsche watching from outside. She could even feel Mac and Teddy behind the cameras—and then the overwhelming energy of the crowd that had gathered around the car.
This is what you came to do. So do it.
Bent’s off-balance stilettos hit the pavement, teetering.
Turn it up, Royce.
She stood up, blinking in the light. She wore nothing but Bach’s boxers, one Balenciaga jacket, and one broken stiletto heel. She looked like a homeless person, or an idiot, or maybe a movie star.
Judging by the swelling roar of her name and the number of flashbulbs going off, it worked like a charm.
Bach shook his head. Porsche looked shocked. Driver Dan looked straight ahead as always. Ted and JoJo got it all on film.
Bentley held up the cigarette by her face, coughing. Then she took a step—and fell right over. The crowd roared, and she smiled at the asphalt.
She rolled onto her back, staring up at the cameras and the streetlights and beyond that, the stars.
Judge me, she thought. Judge me and hate me and watch me and need me. I’m yours for as long as you want me.
Take that, Grunburg.
And then: If this doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.
Tallulah Kyong-Grunburg, wearing tie-dyed pajama bottoms and a Four Seasons Hualalai T-shirt—a hotel she had a particular soft spot for ever since she’d made a killing in chocolate eggs at the resort-wide Easter egg hunt, along with Judd Apatow’s youngest daughter’s friend’s youngest sister—checked her Tumblr feed and froze.
She picked up her cell phone and hit a rapid succession of buttons. The phone rang, echoing up the stairwell outside her room—which meant her father was downstairs watching Korean soap operas to try to fall asleep.39
His voice came through the receiver. “Go to bed, Lulu. Your mother wants you at your advanced origami tutorial in the morning before school tomorrow.”40
“Yeah, you know what origami is, Jeff? Folding freaking paper.”
Her father sighed on the other end of the line. “Lulu, I’m not getting in the middle of this. You know your mother says Stanford wants one of two things—”
“I know, I know. The bleeding edge and the obsolete. Google or the marimba. Or maybe a podcast about the marimba.”
“Exactly. Now tell me, what’s more obsolete than paper?”
Lulu rolled over on her Pratesi duvet. “So Justin Brammer learned how to beat paper out of tree bark for his application. Big deal. Marguerite Vendermeier built a whole boat. Am I suddenly going to have to grow a pair of sea legs, too?”
“Instead, how about you finally open the pamphlet about this Illuminated Manuscripts summer camp thing?41 Your mom wanted me to talk to you. It’s in Alexandria, but we could upgrade you all the way to Athens. Do you want to come downstairs for a face-to-face?”
“I’m good.” Tallulah waved him off, her eyes glued to the laptop perched on a pillow next to her. “Gotta run. Check out TMZ. I just sent you the link. You’re going to want to get in the middle of this. And you’re welcome.”
She hung up, turning her attention back to the headline that lit up the center of her screen, and smiled. Tallulah was always impressed when someone had enough sense to take her advice.
BAD BOI! BENTLEY ROYCE BOOTED FROM CLUB—IN BOXERS!
She reached for the open bag of Hint of Lime tortilla chips she kept under her bed, where a stash of carbs could remain safe from the prying eyes of that spy/babysitter she called an assistant. After twelve straight years of gluten-free, sugar-free, wheat-free, cruelty-free, GMO-free, joy-free, organic vegan living, smuggling junk food under her parents’ noses was her one remaining passion in life.42 (She wondered what Stanford would have to say about that.)
“Well played, Royce. Well played.” Tallulah stuffed another chip into her mouth and hit REFRESH. “I gotta admit, I didn’t know you had it in you.”