I sleep badly the night after the Montage, and almost every night that follows, something unsettled in my mind that won’t let me rest. This despite the fact that things are coming together; my interview with Clark is finally live, including the follow-up quotes I teased out of him over a lunch of Albondigas soup and guacamole, a lunch during which I finally realized I am no longer starstruck. My feelings around him have become something else, something deeper and less nameable.
‘There will never be a day I don’t miss what we had together?’ Faye texts me, alongside a crying emoji. ‘This is HEARTBREAKING. I can’t believe he said that!’ And though the reaction online has been similarly starry-eyed among his fans, though the piece has been picked up by outlets across the globe and won Nest its biggest traffic month ever, I’m nowhere close to satisfied with the final article. Even the scoops – Clark’s first real comment on Carol since the divorce, his first comment on Skye since her suicide attempt – feel to me like a failure. I had imagined a written-through profile where I described the winding fairy-tale roads leading up to the house cradled in the canyon, the sheltered deck where Clark shook my hand for the first time, the way his trademark coiffed hair and pressed three-piece suit and humble charm belied the way he spoke about his past, his need for a fresh start. Admittedly, we didn’t have as much time as I’d hoped, but with prose you can extrapolate, you can hint at things unsaid in the interview itself, and in doing so shape the way the reader interprets what quotes there are. I had so many plans, most of them not fully formed until it became clear to me that I wouldn’t get to execute them. Jackie insisted.
‘This was always going to be a Q&A,’ she tells me calmly, while I try to keep my breathing even and not say something I’ll regret. ‘It’s as much about the photographs as the copy.’ And sure enough, the Q&A runs alongside a very lengthy series of beautiful photographs of the house, each of them captioned by Jerome’s breathless descriptions, and I suppose that this is what Nest readers want. This is the compromise I signed up for, but that doesn’t make it go down any easier. At least I didn’t end up having to incorporate Jerome the architect into the piece; his quotes ran wholesale in captions underneath the relevant pictures. And in any case, I’ve now stopped believing that this article is the last chance I’ll have to dig into Clark Conrad.
‘Skye’s coming home tomorrow,’ he tells me after we’re finished with our follow-up interview.
‘That’s great!’
‘It is. It’s a relief.’ His tone implies the opposite, and I stay silent, waiting.
‘Her mom and her sister are out of the picture, her circle of friends is… not thrilling to me, to say the least, and I’m her clueless dad who’s the last person she wants to talk to about anything. I’m concerned she’s going to slip back into old patterns unless something changes.’
I close my eyes, picturing her, angelic and frail in a hospital gown, though of course she hasn’t been in hospital this past week but at a ritzy rehab facility in Sherman Oaks. Angelic and frail in a rehab-appropriate outfit, then, but alone. Very much alone.
‘That makes sense,’ I say, and there’s an idea forming in me, close to my lips, but I don’t want to push too much too soon. ‘Does she have any friends that you like? Maybe from before she started modelling, got into that whole world?’
‘Unfortunately, once she got into that world, she didn’t have much interest in sustaining relationships with anyone who wasn’t.’
‘I’m not surprised.’ I pause. ‘This might be a completely insane thing to say – and feel free to tell me if that’s the case – but what if I talked to her?’
I watch him as he takes this in, let the silence go on for as long as I can stand.
‘You want to talk to Skye?’
‘You sound sceptical.’
‘You are a reporter.’
‘I know, but I don’t mean talk to her as a reporter. I know what it’s like to be nineteen and lost.’
‘I can’t imagine you ever being lost.’
If he only knew. I may be overstating the common ground between us – Skye is the kind of sharp-edged girl who would have ignored me at best and targeted me at worst had we been schoolmates, the kind of girl I went out of my way to avoid. But the image in my head of Skye wearing institutional clothes, sitting in a sparse room trying to remember reasons to live, is a scene from my past, not hers. Clark does not need to know this, does not need to know about the seven months during which I ate only steamed vegetables and Special K and one banana a day, until the dizzy spells and heart palpitations become impossible to hide and I was sent away, for a spell, for what my mother called a spa trip whenever anyone asked.
‘Believe me, I was,’ is all I say. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to help Skye, but I do know that back then, the thing I wanted more than anything was to meet someone who made me feel less completely alone and insane. And sometimes it’s easier to be honest with a stranger.’
‘That’s certainly true. You’re, what, twenty-five?’ He looks at me like he’s trying to convince himself. ‘You’re ambitious, you’re smart, you’ve got your head screwed on. I’d have to ask you to sign an NDA.’
‘Of course.’
‘And I’ll warn you that she doesn’t seem interested in talking to anybody right now, so don’t take it personally.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘And you should know that a lot of the tabloid fodder about her is just that. She’s never been a drug user, she doesn’t drink to excess, doesn’t party – at least, all of that was true up until about six months ago.’
‘When Brett Rickards came into the picture?’
He grimaces.
‘So you’re familiar.’
‘Not personally, but I think everybody’s at least a little bit familiar with Brett.’
‘If that sentence isn’t an indictment of modern society, I’m not sure what is.’
I waver. If he doesn’t bring up the leaked pictures of Skye first, I’m certainly not going to do it.
‘I take it you’re not a fan,’ I say lightly.
‘He’s not without talent. Strong voice, by all accounts he works hard, but as a person? No. Not a fan. Never was, but of course, what nineteen-year-old wants to take dating advice from her father? The less I wanted her to date him, the more appealing he became.’
‘So that’s when she started partying?’
‘I suppose. That’s certainly when I stopped ever seeing her earlier than 2 p.m. I try not to ask too many questions about where she spends her time, but…’
I recall the stories from the barman who claimed he used to work at the Chateau, how Clark had to make amends after Skye’s meltdown.
‘She just had so much potential,’ Clark says, before correcting himself. ‘Still has. I always felt – probably narcissistically – that she took after me. You can see it in her modelling, she just has this very natural connection to the camera, and she’s very intuitive. I think she could be truly great, if she put her mind to it, as an actress. I wanted her to study acting, but she just didn’t have the drive. Ended up dropping out of school after her first year.’
‘Maybe she could use a break from California,’ I suggest. ‘The best acting schools are all in New York anyway, right?’
‘Them’s fighting words.’ He smiles. ‘But yes, it’s hard to argue with Juilliard and Tisch. I don’t think she’d ever want to move that far, though.’
‘Well, I’ll try to slip in some subtle references to how great school is when I see her.’
‘I’ll let you know where to meet her,’ Clark says, signalling a waiter for the check. ‘Saturday should work. And by the way, don’t be unnerved when she shows up with a security detail. See that bald guy right there, diagonally across?’
I turn and take him in: stocky, six-foot-something, a wall of muscle folded uncomfortably into a booth. He nods at me, and I wave awkwardly.
‘That’s Lenny. Been with me for twelve years. Mike’s my other guy, but he’s not here – don’t usually need both, except for events where there’s a really big crowd.’
‘Wow. I really never imagined you having bodyguards.’
‘I resisted it for a long time, but Loner had – still has – a pretty intense fanbase, and there were a couple of incidents back then.’
‘Stalkers?’
‘You name it. People showing up at the house, hiding in the bushes, leaving gift boxes on the front porch with God knows what inside. Most of it was harmless, and I could handle it, but it got to a point of not being safe for my family. Some of the letters… it was hard to tell whether they were love letters or death threats.’
‘You’d hope that distinction would be clear.’
‘One young woman had ninety-nine red roses delivered along with a note that just read “Soon.”’
I mime an exaggerated shudder.
‘Soon what?’
‘I didn’t wait to find out. My wife was freaked out by this point, and that was before another fan showed up at our daughter’s school.’
‘Skye?’
‘No, this was my eldest, Sarah. Skye would only have been about four at this point, it was around the time Loner was wrapping up. That’s when personal protection began to feel more like a necessity and less like some alien luxury.’
Since he brings her up, I have to ask.
‘It looks from the news like Sarah hasn’t been to see Skye, and neither has her mum. Is that true?’
‘They’ve spoken on the phone,’ Clark says with a shrug, disappointment clear in his voice.
‘But… your daughter tries to commit suicide. That warrants more than a phone call.’
‘Carol and Skye have had a pretty tough relationship for a long time now. I don’t think Skye wanted her to come.’
‘Still. Isn’t it your job as a parent to show up and take the abuse, even when your kid rejects you? Maybe especially then.’
‘Well, yeah, that’s always been my approach. Especially now. I’m just not convinced of how much good it’s doing. She’s so…’
‘Withdrawn?’ I offer. ‘Because that’s to be expected, probably.’
‘Did you ever see the movie Changeling? Clint Eastwood picture from a few years ago, based on a real case. A mother gets her kidnapped son back, and this should be the greatest moment of joy, the greatest relief she’s ever felt. Except that it’s not him. It looks like him, everyone’s telling her it’s him, but she just knows in her bones it’s not.’
He hasn’t looked directly at me for several minutes now, his gaze lowered. For a moment, I’m afraid he’s about to cry and a chorus of conflicting impulses go through me, but when he looks up his eyes are dry and his smile’s back in place.
‘Anyway, what I’d really like to do is get her off social media. I know that’s like telling the tide to stop coming in, trying to get a teenage girl off Instagram, but she’s on the thing 24/7. Every half-hour she’s posting some new video, selling some new aspect of her life to the masses, and it’s all for Likes, right? That’s the point of this stuff?’
‘Yeah, Likes and Views. It’s a validation farm.’
‘Well, I’d like her to be getting her validation from some more wholesome source. Anything you can do to convince her to stay off that stuff, even for a few hours out of the day…’
‘I’ll try my best.’
Outside, he waits with me until my ride arrives, Lenny hanging back almost out of sight like the pro he is. He opens the car door for me, presses a hand to my shoulder to guide me inside and I can feel the imprint of where he touched me for days to come. Every time we’ve touched is logged in my mind, catalogued and assigned a sound and a smell and a feeling. Today is traffic, woodsmoke, a prickle like soft lightning.
‘He’s gonna win the Oscar, right?’ my Lyft driver says, not turning around. ‘Love that guy.’
I have another text from Faye waiting when I check my phone, and then a series of them, and I have to suppress an actual laugh.
Faye: have you seen Amabella’s new website????
Faye: OMG I need you to be seeing what I’m seeing please go to SlayToday.com immediately
Faye: this is a straight quote from the homepage: ‘Learn how to SLAY TODAY with world-renowned model, actress, speaker, lifestyle coach and media personality Amabella Bunch!’
Faye: ‘I spent years struggling in Hollywood, feeling irrelevant and lame and like my voice didn’t matter. I wish I’d known then what I know now – but here’s the great news! YOU get to know now what I know now!’
Faye: she says she’ll share her secrets to ‘a long-lasting Hollywood career’ and ‘constantly netting more than 10 million press impressions per week’
Me: WOW. How many of those press impressions were from before she started dating Clark tho?
Faye: maybe 3 of them
Me: Also what are press impressions?
Faye: lol you’re literally press
Me: And I’ve never heard of a press impression! Does she mean page views?
Me: My favourite part is ‘you get to know now what I know now’. So catchy.
Faye: you have the inside track now are they still together? I give it another month tops, she makes him look trashy and he doesn’t want that
Me: No idea tbh
Faye: he wants that oscar BAD
Faye: he should be dating like a Rachel mcadams or kirsten dunst. someone classy who’s an actual actress
Faye: tell him for me thx
I’m always the one to let the text chain die. When Faye doesn’t have a day job she spends most of her time at the beach or The Grove, and she has unlimited time to text endlessly. Even on the rare occasions when I have the time, I get impatient with any text chain after four or five exchanges, pressed in by the weight of all the other things I could and should be doing instead. I still haven’t called Tom.
Four days pass after our lunch, and I have not heard from Clark. It’s frightening how fast time disappears when you’re in limbo. I have produced no fewer than six slideshow galleries for Nest this week (‘25 Rustic Italian Living Rooms To Inspire Your Redecoration’, ‘15 Tiny But Beautiful Coffee Tables For Small Spaces’) and now that it’s Friday I’m way beyond ready to get out of here at a sprint and never look back.
My phone is face down on the corner of my desk, and I’m typing harder than necessary as though I can dissuade myself from grabbing it by force. Skye came home on Tuesday, but I have heard nothing, and with every moment of silence that passes I’m sure that something I said during our lunch has made him reconsider, made him realize that agreeing to let me talk to Skye was a mistake. Every interaction that we’ve had – all three of them – feels hazy and fragile in my memory, each one of them tinged with something that distorts their clarity. Every time he disappears, I’m convinced that it’s the last time I’ll see him.
On my final morning at Nest Jackie beckons me into her office without looking up, waving me towards a seat. It’s four full minutes before she finally shuts her laptop, just enough time to make it abundantly clear that I am not her top priority.
‘Sorry!’ she exclaims brightly. ‘What a week.’ We don’t exchange many more pleasantries before she cuts to the chase, abandoning all pretence that this exit interview is anything but a formality. There was a time when this would have devastated me.
‘So, where do you see yourself in five years’ time?’
I consider saying that I see myself in her job, just to see what reaction I get.
‘I guess ideally I’d like to be a staff writer at a magazine, but I know those jobs are almost extinct. Maybe an editor. I don’t think I want to stay freelance for ever.’
‘And you’re sure that entertainment is where you want to focus?’
‘Yes,’ I say, so quickly I almost interrupt her. ‘That’s all I’ve ever— I don’t know how to write about anything else.’
‘No interest in going into PR, publicity, that side of things?’
Is she suggesting I’m not a good enough writer to avoid selling out? I try not to visibly bristle, breathing in deep.
‘None.’
‘Understood. It’s a very tough time, as you know, and it’s likely only going to get tougher over the next few years. So make sure you’re in it for the right reasons.’ She looks sharply at me. ‘Are you?’
I know that the perfect response to this will come to me an hour from now, but for the moment I’m flummoxed. ‘I think so. I just want to write, and to tell people’s stories, and feel like I’m a part of the industry in some small way.’
‘Hm.’
She’s still looking at me strangely, as though nothing I’ve said has assuaged whatever her scepticism about me is. Or is she hoping to convince me that interior design journalism is where my true passion lies?
‘I actually wanted to ask you a favour,’ I say eventually, to break the uncomfortable silence.
‘Oh?’
‘Do you know David Nevins? The new online editor of Reel?’
‘Very well. We worked together at the Tribune in another life.’
I knew that, of course, and she probably knows that I did.
‘I have a story I’d like to pitch to them. Would you consider passing on his email address to me?’
‘What’s the story?’
‘It’s an interview with Ben Schlattman, the studio executive. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with—’ She nods. ‘He’s leaving the company he co-founded and starting a new one, and I got an exclusive interview with him.’
‘Wow.’ She raises an eyebrow, in a way that suggests that she has more to say but is choosing not to say it. ‘Schlattman?’
‘Yep.’
‘Interesting.’
She’s still looking at me, and I wonder if she knows. Is he known for this? Did I walk directly into a trap that any canny journalist would have seen coming?
‘He’s an interesting guy,’ I reply carefully. ‘I don’t know whether Reel has anything else in the works with him, but he told me that this was the only interview he’d done.’
‘You must have been very persuasive, to get him to agree to speak to you exclusively.’
And now I see what she’s suggesting. Of course. Why take me seriously when she could just make the lazy assumption? I wonder whether she’s projecting because this is what she used to do to lock in sources, back when she was an actual reporter and not a sellout.
‘I didn’t have to do much persuading,’ I reply with a tight smile. ‘Though he is a friend of my friend’s uncle, so that’s why he gave me the time of day to begin with.’
‘I see.’ Nepotism: a milder sin than exchanging sex for an interview, but still enough of an infraction that Jackie can believe this of me. ‘Sure, I can put you in touch with David. I’ll send an email and loop you in.’
‘Thank you. I really appreciate it.’
As I pack up the few belongings I’ve accumulated over my time here, the thought occurs that I will never need her again after this. She will not even be a footnote on my résumé in ten years’ time, but the Schlattman piece could be a turning point. It doesn’t matter how I feel about him. It doesn’t matter what kind of man he is. Put all of that aside, the skin-crawling memory of him, and write a succinct, smart article about his importance to the industry, his groundbreaking track record with Scion that has changed the face of independent film for good, his commitment to ensuring a fairer future for the women of Hollywood.
Most of the office works from home on Fridays, and Jackie offhandedly tells me I can leave after lunch; one final reminder that I am expendable. I take the opportunity to make a long-overdue call to my mother and end up walking more than half the way home as we talk, through the hedge-lined enclave of Hancock Park and the densely packed restaurant rows of Koreatown, taking in every detail of my surroundings to distract from her laundry list of complaints. Her negativity is infectious, and only recently have I built up the mental defences to resist it.
‘It’s as though he doesn’t care at all about my view,’ she’s saying, in reference to a neighbour who’s planning an extension to his house. ‘It’s going to block out so much daylight from the dining room, but I’ve told him so and he says he’s going ahead with it anyway. Why even ask if you’re just going to ignore your neighbours’ concerns? I’ve written a formal complaint to the council, though I’m sure they won’t do anything about it.’
‘Maybe you should get out of the house more,’ I reply, before realizing how this sounds. ‘I mean, because then the lack of light probably wouldn’t bother you as much.’ I have to bite my tongue, but I know she goes days on end without leaving the house, sometimes weeks. Too young to formally retire but too chaotic to hold down a job, my mother also has enough inherited wealth to ensure she never really has to get her act together, and so she rattles around a four-bedroom house alone, stewing in resentments and anxieties that never seem to dissipate or to significantly change. I had to get out. I had to get this far away even to begin to feel human.
It takes me a while to realize that she has changed the subject, to me and my dating life.
‘Have you seen Tom?’ she asks.
‘What?’
‘Tom Porter! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your beaus from back home now.’
‘He’s not— How do you know he’s in LA?’
‘His parents had me over for lunch just last week.’
God. The image of it almost stops me in my tracks.
‘We were all agreeing how nice it was that you’d reconnected and ended up back in the same city. And both chasing the Hollywood dream! Have you been seeing much of him?’
He finally seems to have given up on me, after I once again didn’t call when I said I would. There never seems to be a moment when I can prioritize him.
‘I’ve been so busy that I haven’t seen much of anyone.’
‘Tom’s not just anyone,’ she says, her tone sly, and I want to hang up.
‘He and I are just friends. I’ve told you, we barely went out.’
‘Well, I worry about you all on your own over there. You never spend any time with friends, or have anyone special in your life. You always get so twitchy when I even ask.’
She’s never got over my decision to move here. Apart from the sheer distance between here and London, she always told me LA was an absurd choice for a recovering anorexic. And though I wouldn’t admit it at the time she was right, of course.
‘I have plenty of friends, I’m just focusing on my career. Casual dating isn’t my thing, and LA’s a terrible place to try and meet someone serious.’
‘Did he tell you that he got a part? Tom did. Some sort of series on TV, I didn’t really take in the details, but—’
‘Wait, really?’
And suddenly, prioritizing Tom feels easy.