The F List: Fame, Fortune, and Followers Page 3

  I looked at the three sugar packets and tried to figure out what, out of everything, I really wanted. “I don’t have a lot of money.” A million dollars had seemed like so much money initially. Then, after state and federal taxes, three dental surgeries and tooth implants, plus a year of guilt-free living, I was down to just over four hundred thousand dollars. At ten thousand dollars a month, a year with Vidal would take a sizable chunk out of that.

  “Look at me.” He placed a hand over mine, his touch warm and comforting. “LOOK at me.”

  I did.

  “Do you want to be somebody? Because I can make it so that every person on this earth knows Emma Rippensky’s name.”

  “Ripplestine.”

  “It’s a horrible name,” he said dismissively. “But go ahead and answer the question. Do you want to be somebody?”

  I warmed at the words and nodded.

  “Then you’ve got to trust me. You found me because you needed me. Let me help you become famous.”

  It’s really sad to say, especially now, with everything that ended up happening, but I fell a little bit in love with him at that moment. Because that was my moment. When Emma Ripplestine died a quiet death—and Emma Blanton was born.

  It wasn’t a bad death. It was quiet. Unobserved. No one even noticed I was gone.

  “She was Emma Ripplestink or something like that when she came to me. That was one of the first things we changed. You can fix a lot of things, but there’s no point in trudging uphill against a bad name. So we changed it to Emma Blanton. It had a nice ring, and was easy to spell and to remember. Plus, it sounded rich.”

  Vidal Franklin, Former Manager to Emma Blanton

  “UGH—Vidal. He totally changed her. I called her once because I saw her at the Grammys and was hoping that I could go with her to some of these really cool parties and he was the one who called me back. He basically told me to forget I knew Emma. I was like, we were roommates for two years. You don’t just forget someone, especially not once they’re finally something.”

  Amy Fannerty, ex-roommate of Emma Blanton

  8

  #99problemsbutfameaintone

  EMMA

  Vidal and I decided to skip my dream of being an actress and focus on building celebrity. I’d like to say that I’d had a better goal than to be famous, but Vidal cut through the bullshit quickly. He got me drunk on hard liquor and had me confessing every insecurity and significant event of my life. He explained that he couldn’t make my dreams come true if I couldn’t admit them to myself. And what I wanted… what I really wanted was to be famous. To be seen, known, sought after.

  And he acted like it was easy.

  “There are three types of celebrities. First are the ascribed ones.” Vidal picked through a salmon and avocado salad with the precision of a surgeon. “Those are the Liv Tylers, the Lisa Marie Presleys, the Paris Hiltons. You first know of them because of their parents, and that’s their launchpad. If I could have a stable of ascribed celebrities…” he sighed. “Actually, I wouldn’t have a job, because they don’t need me. If you’re Michael Jackson’s child, you don’t have to try. You’re born, you’re famous, and then you decide how long you want to ride that train and how far it will take you.”

  I thought of Cash Mitchell, who I’d stalked online since our interaction at his party. He would fall into that category. Celebrity mom = celebrity kid. He had almost twelve million followers already, and had been in a movie—some kung fu low budget disaster that I had seen five times already.

  I wrote down “ascribed celebrities” then put a neat line through it. My father worked as an editor for a gardening magazine, and my mother was on her seventh career—this time as a bank teller. I couldn’t think of less glamorous, or connected lineage—though Dad always said that our lineage dated back to George Washington’s wife.

  I hadn’t told my parents about my lotto win, which probably put me into the hall of fame for the worst daughter of the year. If they had been conscientious spenders, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But there was a reason I grew up in a doublewide and already had eight thousand dollars in student loans. My parents had no willpower or money management skills. I could just picture them with their hand out, demanding more. The scorn they’d dish out if I hesitated. The guilt they’d lay on with each additional request. My money would go through their hands quickly, and what would I have to show for it in the end?

  Nothing.

  I had tossed and turned over the omission, then solved the moral quandary by withdrawing twenty thousand dollars and dividing it into two different envelopes. I dropped one into Mom’s open sunroof five minutes before her bank closed. I put the other in dad’s toolshed, propped up beside his beer fridge. Inside both envelopes, I typed out a short note.

  This is an anonymous gift. It contains no strings or expectations, and no one will know about it unless you tell them. Please spend it wisely on anything you’d like. Thank you for being a good person.

  I’m not going to lie, it felt good, delivering those envelopes. Exciting, like I was a secret agent in a movie. I hid in my new car and watched as Mom found the envelope and carefully counted the money. She did it twice, and read the note several times. Then she sat in the car for a good fifteen minutes. Just sat there, staring out the front window. It was eerily similar to how I sat in our kitchen, studying the winning ticket.

  It was a bit cryptic of me, but I wanted to see how they would respond, and if either of them would call me. The following Sunday, we talked as we always did for a few minutes after dinner. I told them about James Union, and they gave the appropriate murmurs of disbelief and sadness over the death.

  “I quit my job,” I followed up. “I just couldn’t go back after that.”

  A long pause. My father cleared his throat. “Have you put in other applications?”

  “At a few places,” I lied. “But no one has called me back yet. I’m going to see if my apartment will give me an extension on my rent.”

  “I’m sure it was traumatic, but you have to work, sweetheart.” Mom sighed, and I could imagine the moment she pushed her bangs out of her face and sighed in exasperation. “You know this. It was dumb to quit your job without another one lined up.”

  “I know.” I twisted my hand around and undid my bra strap, needing more room to breathe. “And the air conditioner just broke on my car.”

  That was only a partial lie. It had broke, which had been the catalyst for the shiny new convertible, which was now outside my apartment. But I just wanted to test them and see if either would throw me a lifeline. “Could you guys front me some rent, if they won’t give me an extension? Just one month,” I begged. “My portion is six hundred dollars. That would give me some breathing room to find another job.”

  “Absolutely not.” My dad’s voice was devoid of sympathy. “You’ve got to figure this out for yourself. Sell blood if you need extra money.”

  My mom echoed the denial, though hers was softer in its punch. I ended the call and waited a few days to see if either of them would reach out privately and offer to help. They didn’t. They had each just stumbled onto ten thousand dollars—complete with a ‘thank you for being a good person’ note—and neither one of them had stepped up to help out their only child with her financial need. It didn’t matter if it was a fake financial need. Right then, I decided it was bullshit for me to feel bad about keeping my lotto win a secret from them.

  Sure, it was a test. A gift and a test, all rolled into one. They failed, and maybe I failed as well—just by executing it. I didn’t know and, in those early months after the lotto win, I didn’t care. I was too busy focused on the future.

  “So.” Vidal paused, a chunk of salmon speared on the end of his fork, and watched as a spindly blonde in a sports bra passed. “For you, we obviously can’t work the parent angle. Not unless your parents are serial killers or being investigated for any crimes?” He looked at me with hope.

  “Nope. Sorry.” An interesting world, apologizing fo
r the fact that my father hasn’t butchered a family to death.

  “So next there’s achieved celebrity. Those with a talent. Daniel Day-Lewis. Roger Federer. Jeff Bezos. We’ve already determined that you’re not that.”

  “Right.” I wrote down ‘not talented’ and underlined it three times.

  “Then… and this is where we start to move into Emma Blanton territory—there are the attributed celebrities.” He put down his fork and gave me his full attention. “These people create their own fame.”

  “And how do they do that?”

  He gave me a slow and almost evil grin. “Be patient, little bird. We’ll get there.”

  9

  #bojanfrost

  EMMA: 3,702 FOLLOWERS

  I had to have a label. No tabloids would print a photo of me until I had a label. Something for them to put after my name. A justification to their bosses and readership of why they were mentioning me. The easiest route was a girlfriend label, and it needed to be tied to the most prominent name we could find.

  Sadly, our best option was Bojan Frost.

  Bojan was an ascribed celebrity—the only heir to the Frost Electronics fortune and the sort of guy I hated. He was Serbian, with a thick nape of hair and a dense and close-cropped beard that surrounded pouty pink lips that were constantly affixed in a scowl. He burned fossil fuels without regard, and seemed intent on passing Dan B as the Instagram douchebag of the year. His feed was filled with topless girls in thongs, champagne and cigars, and a propensity to lift his middle finger to the camera. Vidal had proclaimed him to be perfect. I went into the date with my walls and bristles fully in place.

  “You’re number eighteen, you know.” Bojan grinned at me from the other side of a leather lounge in the upper deck of the Soho house.

  I sipped a cranberry and vodka and wondered what he was talking about. “Am I?” Vidal had promised me that there would be photographers here, but I hadn’t seen any. The place was eerily dark and empty, and every instinct in my body was telling me to sprint out of there.

  “Yep. Eighteen of these publicist-set dates and you girls are all the same. And hey, I get it. Everyone wants a ride on the Bojan express.” He grinned at me, then tilted back a clear martini, which was a direct clash to the leather slides he had kicked off under the table. I swallowed a grimace, staunch in my opinion that male toes shouldn’t be seen in public, and certainly not in any type of place that had a valet and membership dues.

  “The Bojan express?” I set down my drink before I felt the urge to throw it in his face. “What is that?”

  “You know.” He lifted his thick jawline at me. “The fast track to fame. You get a nice byline in some stupid paper, and I get laid. It’s a win-win.” His gaze dropped to my legs. “Looks like it’ll be worth it this time.”

  My legs, which met with a personal trainer three times a week, and held definition for the first time in their life, pinned together at the knee. I stared at a small mole on the side of his nose and swallowed the urge to vomit. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  He chuckled. “Come on, Emma. You want this more than you dislike me.”

  It was really interesting, the way he said that. A bit softer. Kinder. And he said my name. Back then, that was a big thing, someone knowing and remembering my name. Using it.

  Ugly girls, we don’t get remembered. It’s just a fact of life, one you get so accustomed to that you don’t even notice it because you have never had anything different.

  I felt myself yield. Literally felt the muscles in my legs relax and part. Just a hands width, but it was enough of a move to catch my attention and underscore his point.

  I wasn’t going to sleep with him. That wasn’t even a glimmer of a possibility. But his question did still spark an interesting conundrum. Did I want fame more than I disliked Bojan? Yes. But that wasn’t exactly the question, though he certainly thought it was. The real question was whether I wanted fame more than I wanted my self-respect. And that question I couldn’t answer as easily.

  I set down my drink. “Eighteen is a lot.”

  “Well, it could have been more. I just recently learned the game. Wasted a lot of years before that.” He grinned, but something moved behind the mask. This was pathetic of me. But it was also sad for him. He was sitting here with the knowledge that I had no interest in him for anything other than a press mention. That had to hurt, even if he played it off like a benefit.

  I picked up my drink. “Let’s forget the deal.”

  He snorted. “Right. Sure. Forget the deal.” He looked toward the bartender as if he was bored.

  “I’m not going to sleep with you, and no one is going to know about this ‘date’.”

  He shook his head. “Stupid decision.”

  I tried to find the right words, to find the hole to enter his heart through, to figure out what he wanted more than his dislike of himself. But I already knew.

  He was insecure.

  He was unloved.

  He was ME, with a bigger bankroll and an addiction to everything.

  And if he was like me, he wanted a friend. A real one, not someone after his money or his celebrity or his ticket at Coachella. I pulled out my phone and texted Vidal and told him to call off the photographer. Then I looked at Bojan. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “It was brilliant how she did it. It was like that movie… that one where the popular kid makes a project out of the loser girl, and she becomes the most popular girl in school? It was like that, only in reverse.

  Everyone hated Bo. He was this complete douchebag who always had hot girls dripping off his arms. And at the beginning, we thought that’s what she was—another girl sleeping her way to fame, except that they avoided the cameras and weren’t dating. There seemed to be this genuine friendship that was growing between this complete random and Bojan Frost, and she really changed him. You look at Bo now, and you forget. You forget that there was a time when he was a complete waste of very, very expensive space.”

  Ingrid Long, The Celebrity Report

  11

  #hollywoodcurrency

  EMMA

  “I can work with this.” Vidal eyed a string of photos that showed me and Bojan sitting in my car, eating burgers. “It’s not as strong as a girlfriend, but he can still get you into the big parties, and we can pair you with someone there.”

  “I don’t want you to use Bojan.” I propped one foot up on the stool between us and stretched my hamstring. “Find me someone else.”

  He turned to face me. “You realize that you’re nobody, right? You’re shit.”

  Back then, he used to say things like that to me. I allowed it because I believed it. And back then, in the world of Los Angeles… I was shit. I was a wanna-be star climber and in Hollywood, that made you normal and normal was shit.

  “I can’t just pull another name out of my ass. Bojan is your ticket. And you guys got along so…” he tapped on the front of the photos. “Let’s run with it.”

  “I don’t want to benefit from being his friend,” I insisted. “That’s not why I did that. I did that because I didn’t want him to think I was using him.”

  “But you were using him,” he countered. “He knew you were. It’s the currency of this town, Emma.”

  I crossed my arms over my shirt, an itchy wool number that cost me four hundred dollars but Vidal insisted I needed. “Find someone else.”

  He sniffed as if it was impossible. As if I was being unreasonable. But he could do it. And… though it took three more months and an eight-thousand dollar donation to secure the date, he delivered me a new man to make a fool of myself with.

  Cash Mitchell.

  12

  #Frenchys

  CASH

  I know the moment I became untethered. It was in a casting room eight years ago. I was nineteen and up for a one-line role in a Lifetime movie. It was a crap gig, but I needed that one stupid line so I could be SAG-eligible and could climb the next rung in the ladder.

 
The casting director was a painfully gaunt woman who had smoked too many cigarettes and not eaten enough, and when she coughed things rattled in her throat. She made bedroom eyes at me and passed me her card with her cell phone number written on the back. I went to her Hollywood Hills studio apartment that reeked of cat litter and perfume and had sex with her on a futon bed that creaked with each thrust.

  That was when I lost myself. I stepped over the line that once separated me from the other guys. And now, it didn’t matter how many Make-a-Wish kids I took to Disneyland or dollars I donated; it was all built on the back of something rotten. Those fifteen minutes in that studio apartment. The line of coke I did on my agent’s kitchen counter. The cruel one-liner I gave about Pamela Anderson, the one that got me my first TMZ mention.

  Did it make a difference that I had talent? Did that make me any different from the others?

  I opened the diner door and stepped inside and there was my Cinderella girl.

  It was her, the one from the party. She was waiting for me at a two-top at Frenchy’s, the one that was right in front of the window, the one that all the star-chasers gravitate to, and all the real celebrities hate. You could tell, just from that seat, who was real and who was fake. I hated that damn seat, and I was already ready to punch the photographer perched outside its glass.

  I stood by the hostess stand for a minute, confused. Because the girl from my party couldn’t be sitting in that seat, and couldn’t have been the one whose manager called my manager but it was her, and she was there. She turned her head and our gaze connected across the busy restaurant.