In a video shared two days after the incident, Vidal shows off a black eye that he says was caused by Emma’s punch. In a tearful eight-minute-long monologue, he says that he “loved her like a daughter” and would never steal from her. He called her a deeply troubled, narcissistic child, and urged her to get counseling for her insecurities and anger management issues.
Emma has moved on to a new manager—former publicist Michelle Sawn, who is already courting production studios with a reality show about the fist-swinging social sensation. Bye, bye, Vidal. It looks like this fiery blonde didn’t need you after all.
32
#truecolors
I don’t know why I didn’t tell Vidal about the volunteering at the Outlier Ranch, but I was later glad I didn’t. When we split, he turned against me and shared every personal detail, including dead James Union, my lotto ticket win, and the brutal and embarrassing truth about Emma Ripplestine. He painted me as a white trash, pimple-covered, hockey-mouthed loser, and had the yearbook photos and pathetic social media accounts to prove it.
Michelle and I lawyered up, but I hadn’t signed a confidentiality agreement with Vidal—I hadn’t known I needed one. And unfortunately, everything he said was true. Every embarrassing word and photo of it.
My parents chose that moment to come out of the woodwork. My weekly calls with them had trickled down to monthly, then stopped altogether about six months after I won the lottery. As it turned out, I was the only one making those calls. When I stopped, they never continued. I changed my number after three months of silence, then convinced myself that that was the reason for the non-contact. Not because they didn’t care, but because they couldn’t reach me. I still checked my old email though and it remained clogged full of solicitors and void of any parental concern. Until, like I said—Vidal’s outlash of revenge.
Mom called the number on my website, which went to Michelle’s secretary, who passed on the message to me. I sat on the message for a week, then threw it away.
I had no good reason not to talk to my parents, except that everything in this new life glittered and they did not. Besides, family wasn’t everything. Wesley never acknowledged or spoke about his mom and dad—and seemed perfectly happy.
I don’t know what Vidal would have done with the knowledge that I was growing close to Wesley, but he would have destroyed it for me. Thankfully, by the time we parted, I was already thirteen million followers deep. And the scandal and the embarrassment… it only built my infamy.
By the time that summer was over, every Gen Zer with a pulse knew my name.
33
#thefamegame
CASH
My mother’s agent had always been a Russian battle-ax named Therma Villeck. I remember Therma dragging me by my ankle off the Beverly Hills set when I was seven, then threatening to lash me until I bled. I spent my adolescent terrified, then my teenage years in a sort of silent awe of her. It had been nine years since Mom starred in anything, yet the appearance of Therma’s name on my phone still caused me to snap to attention.
“I’ve got something for you, C-baby.”
My first thought was a movie, but Therma had always been TV, even back when TV was shit and snubbed by any star with options. Mom hadn’t had options, which was why she stuck with Beverly Hills for seventeen seasons. When you’re a raging alcoholic, you take the roles that will put up with your shit and ignore everything else.
“It’s just an eight-episode run at first, dahling—but I know you. You can convince them in that time to go big.” Her thick Russian accent was almost impossible to navigate.
I pressed the phone harder against my ear. “I’ll have to talk to Frank.”
“Screw Frank,” she barked out. “Frank doesn’t have big enough hands to hold my tits. Listen to Therma, baby. I wouldn’t have called you if this wasn’t something you need to do.”
"What network is it?" My mother taught me two things: how to make a perfect martini and the power of the network. It wasn't so much the project that mattered; it was the platform and time slot. That, more than the plotline or pacing, would determine its success.
“It’s cable,” she said flatly. “But it’s right up your audience. Your sponsors are going to love this exposure, Cash.”
She never called me Cash. My suspicions rose. I carried my plate into the kitchen and set it beside the sink. “What channel?”
“MTV. It’s a reality show. Scripted, though.”
“No,” I said flatly.
“Cash.” It was a command, one that required absolute obedience. I took a french fry off my plate and waited to hear what she had to say. “You need to go and talk to them. Promise me you’ll at least do that.”
I tilted my head back and tried to imagine telling Frank about this. I didn’t need to hear his lectures on what reality tv could do to an acting career. I had seen the shit side of the industry myself. Hell, if anyone knew that, it was Therma. She had been in the passenger seat when True Hollywood Story had profiled Mom. We’d had crews follow us around for a week while they filmed every sordid bit of our lives—a peek behind the curtain that revealed exactly how far my mother had fallen from grace, or from the public’s perception of her grace.
"I've got it all set up for you," she forged forward. "All you have to do is show up and listen to them. And if Frank tells you any different, let me know, and I'll shove my favorite pair of Louboutins up his rear. He’s a manager, dear. Let the big girls handle this.”
I stayed silent, thinking that I would let Frank handle her. He had a way with Therma that I didn’t, and I had long suspected that they fought their battles in the bedroom.
Frank would kill this. A reality show? I may have sold my soul for Instagram followers, but I was on track to be an actor. Frank knew that, even if Therma couldn’t seem to understand it. Frank would get me out of it.
"We're looking at an entirely new concept in television." The producer had brilliant blue hair that bounced out from her head in tight ringlet curls. "Six super influencers. All together. The lives behind the camera, but on camera. You know everyone we're talking to, of course. You guys are the Rolling Stones of social media."
“All guys?” I did a quick calculation of the list.
“No. I’m referring to guys in the gender-neutral sense. It's actually three on three. I can't share the names yet, not until we have signed disclosures from everyone."
My interest in the project skittered a fine line between rabid and dead, with only one factor pushing the lever. “Is Emma Blanton on the list?”
She tilted her head at me, a coy smile playing over her dark ruby lips. “What an interesting question!”
I waited for an answer.
Finally, she shrugged. "I can't tell you that. But, let's say she was. How would you feel about that?"
There was no easy answer to that question, and none—absolutely none—that I would give to her, especially not with two cameras pointed at my face and a mic pinned to my lapel.