The first book she pulls is called The Men Who Built Los Angeles, which only has one chapter on Riggs. Apparently his dad had a very big trust fund and an even bigger gambling problem; Avery was raised to believe he’d never have to work, and then, when he came of age, discovered that he if he didn’t, he and his mother and sisters might starve. He left the East Coast for Hollywood, hoping to remake the family name out there in the wilderness. But he wasn’t really a very good director, and after a while, no one would hire him.
He got lucky when he begged his way into a screening of a film called Bluebeard, an adaptation of the fairy tale starring a young actress named Constance Wilmott. She was still a teenager, and aside from her studio contract she had nothing. He married her even though it wouldn’t do anything for his “prospects”: a true love story, very touching. Except that it turned out she was a good investment, because it was the money she’d earned on that film—her first and last—that he took and used to buy his first property.
Lulu recognizes the outline of the story, if not the specifics. Her dad was still a junior associate at his firm, not a failed director, and her mom didn’t choose to stop being a serious actress, she stopped getting good roles, but other than that, yeah, she pretty much knows how this one goes. An older man and a younger woman; two people with almost no power, and yet, somehow, one of them has more.
The book says: Wilmott may not be a star that many remember today, but in fact her single role changed Los Angeles irrevocably. The intangible forces of her beauty and talent became the seeds for a real estate empire that would materially reshape the hills and valleys of Los Angeles. It was her image that allowed Avery Riggs to begin to create the city according to his singular vision.
It makes Lulu feel shivery to imagine it: these two people, small and ordinary, falling in love and changing the course of an entire city’s history. Connie playacting in a movie, and her acting turning into money that turned into land and business and a legacy. Maybe that’s why people are so obsessed with Avery Riggs: He made something out of nothing. He married a much younger woman and turned her into an empire.
If only her dad had figured out how to do that, Lulu thinks, instead of the extremely boring regular thing he did, which was to dump her mom when her career never took off, and marry someone younger, and then someone younger again.
She almost misses Rich’s response to her Flash amid all the stuff from people she doesn’t know. He went up to the lookout with Jules, apparently, and Bea, and a smallish bottle of vodka. In the video he sent her he’s holding his phone at arm’s length and filming the two of them, Bea’s dark head huddled close at his side. “You think that just because you have—what, two thousand—”
“Five thousand!” Bea chirps. She’s definitely drunk.
“Five thousand Flash followers,” Rich corrects himself, “you’re too cool to hang out with us now?”
“You’re bored ’cause you’re boring,” Jules says, somewhere off camera.
“Julian Powell!” Bea yells. Rich swerves to turn toward Jules and Lulu catches a glimpse—barely that—of Owen.
Someone is standing next to him. Someone shorter.
Some girl.
Then the video cuts out.
Lulu thought her heart froze the day Owen broke up with her; she thought she put it in deep freeze and left it there to just—well, not rot. Ice. Whatever. So it surprises her to feel it kicking in her chest, the gasp of a spasm where she was supposed to be numb. She wasn’t sure she wanted Owen back, but she definitely didn’t want him to move on first.
She’s sure her face will give her away if she tries to send a picture back.
Instead she messages Bea, I hope you’re defending my honor up there.
OBVSSSSSSSSS, Bea replies. BUttt shouldn’t you be here defending it yourself?
Lulu types, I have English eighth.
Come out with us after, Bea says. We’ll be at R’s house for a while and then I think going to some party? Someone Patrick knows?
Lulu weighs her options. It’s nice to have something to do, first of all, and if Owen is—whatever—with whoever—and who would he even be—she should assert her claim to her place in the group. She belongs there with them. She has belonged there for years, in ways that have nothing to do with being or not being Owen’s girlfriend.
But also: ugh.
Then a second thought occurs to her. If the party is being thrown by someone Patrick knows, he might know Cass too. She said she never went to those parties. It’s totally a long shot. But last time Lulu disappeared, Owen went looking for her, and everyone knew it.
Okay fine, Lulu sends Bea. I guess I’m in.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE GIRL FROM Rich’s Flash, the one who was standing with Owen, comes to the party too. Kiley Rathbone. Some sophomore.
The worst part is that Lulu knows her a little bit: They’re in Cinema Studies together. Kiley doesn’t talk much, but when she does, she usually says smart-seeming things. She sits with a girl named Maija, who Lulu knows because she knew Maija’s older sister, Sam, when she was a senior last year, and also because Maija is probably the prettiest girl in the sophomore class. Not the most popular, but the prettiest, which means Kiley isn’t afraid of pretty girls. Which probably means Kiley has some sense that she’s very, very pretty too.
The only other thing Lulu knows about Kiley is that she dances, or at least she was in an assembly teaser for a dance theater show last year. That was the first time Lulu noticed her, up on stage, but to be fair, it was hard not to: She was the only black girl up there.
Also, she was, like, good.
Lulu ignores her and tries to look cheerful about it.
Luckily, there’s plenty to distract her. In the kitchen, Jules turns a TV on so he can watch the Lakers, but it’s part of an art installation that shows looped clips from news reports about missing and murdered girls spliced in with scenes from cop shows about the same thing. Whoever’s house they’re at—Isabel, maybe, someone said her name was?—her parents have truly atrocious taste, and an amazingly huge collection of stuff that demonstrates this fact. There are ugly “modern” sculptures and garish abstract paintings everywhere, and after the television incident, Lulu is afraid to sit on or really touch anything in case it turns out to be art.
At least the booze is stashed out back near the pool, where it’s obvious what it’s supposed to be.
Lulu scans the crowd for Cass and doesn’t see her. Something goes tight in her throat at the idea of spending the whole night standing around and making, like, small talk. Trying to get or keep Owen’s attention. Everyone looking at her, and looking at Kiley, and Owen and Kiley, and Owen and her, and thinking whatever they’re thinking.