Page 11

Chapter Eleven

The buzzing of my cell—over and over—wakes me from a nightmare.

I had been dreaming I was in a World Wrestling cage match with Marcus Flare in Madison Square Garden. My mother was the referee. She made me stand motionless in the center of the ring while Marcus jumped on me—over and over again—from the top rope.

“Don’t fight back,” my mother kept saying as I lay on the mat. “It’ll be over soon.”

“No,” I said. “I have to fight back.”

I grab my cell, which does not recognize my exhausted face. I enter my passcode.

Page Six! You’re famous! reads a text from Juice. Well, infamous. Are you okay?

I click on the link she has attached from the New York Post ’s infamous gossip column.

There is a photo of me tossing my glass of champagne at Marcus Flare. My face is flushed and enraged. I look like a character from a horror movie. Marcus looks calm and innocent standing there. If a jury saw this photo alone, I would be convicted.

I click on the link Juice sent.

FLARE-UP AT LE POMPEUX BETWEEN LIT HEAVYWEIGHTS!

Does Page Publishing Heiress Have Trouble-y

with the Bubbly?

My nightmare is real.

I scan the article, my eyes growing with each sentence they gulp.

Sources tell us that Emma Page—the newly minted University of Michigan grad and daughter of Gotham society’s Phillip and Piper Page, heads of The Mighty Pages publishing empire—got into a shouting match at Sag Harbor’s famed French hangout Le Pompeux with bestselling author Marcus Flare.

“Obviously not over who had more book sales,” the source joked.

Page proceeded to toss a glass of champagne on the iconic author, who simply brushed off her assault as if he were editing a chapter of his latest book, The Chase , which comes out this fall and has already been optioned for a major motion picture.

Sources revealed to Page Six that Marcus joked to partygoers that Page couldn’t hold her liquor and hit on him—“a happily married man,” he reportedly said—and that Page’s mortified mother had to intervene to calm her publishing progeny, saying, “Please, Emma, I can’t tolerate one more lie!”

“Talk about a loaded author attacking a loaded author!” our source joked.

The night was meant to be a celebration of two pub powerhouses. Phillip Page announced last night that Flare was launching Books with Flare, an imprint with The Mighty Pages.

If you’ve read the trades, you know The Mighty Pages needs a mighty shot in the arm, and Marcus was supposed to be the adrenaline.

Truth, they say, is always stranger than fiction (although this is a book we would read!).

Poor Pages.

I stare at the last line.

Literally , I think.

My phone continues to buzz every minute or so, text after text coming like the ocean tide just outside my window.

A text from VV.

Lesson #1 in publishing, Emma: Never lose your cool in public. P.S. You do know who “the source” is, right? He who has no name came out of it smelling like a rose, promoting his new book and movie, and his new imprint. Talk about the triple crown of publicity.

I reply: What should I do?

Well, I certainly wouldn’t start my morning sober if I were you. And I’d never waste a glass of good champagne.

I smile despite the indignity.

My phone trills.

“Hi, Gin,” I say. “I take it you saw the article.”

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know.”

I tell her what happened.

“Oh, my God, Emma. That’s even worse than I could have imagined. Are your parents going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “What should I do?” I hesitate. “I think that’s a question I’ll be asking a lot.”

She laughs sympathetically.

“What do they always say? Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer?” Gin asks. “I’d suggest you make faux amends. I was just assigned an important investigative story at the newspaper over a colleague who was expecting to be promoted. Didn’t deserve it, but he expected it. And he’s tried to make my life a living hell, spreading rumors about me, implying how I ‘earned’ the story from my boss.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m treating him like my best friend to not only show my colleagues I don’t need to play in the dirt but also to ingratiate myself to the person who hates me the most,” she says. “What was it you always called characters in books you trusted in the beginning but who revealed themselves to be liars?”

“Unreliable narrators?”

“That’s it!” Gin says. “Be your own unreliable narrator. Control your own narrative. That’s what I’m doing. I’m a journalist so I’m simply accumulating facts right now and piecing my own story about him together. It’s all a ruse, of course, but it’s working for now until I can nail him. I tell you, this real-world stuff is real.”

I laugh.

“I actually was just thinking of a plan like you outlined,” I say. “I miss you.”

“I’m only a call, or flight, away.”

“I might be on the run, so…”

“Oh, I gotta go,” she says. “My unreliable narrator is coming. Love ya like a sister from another mister.”

“Back at’cha. Bye.”

There is a soft knock my door.

It opens, and Jess appears.

My real sister who seems like more of a stranger.

Jess’s hair and makeup are perfect. She’s wearing a flouncy summer dress and a statement hat and jewelry, a Hamptons fashionista.

She is holding a copy of the New York Post .

“I’ve seen it already.”

“The whole world has,” she says. “And they think you’re a spoiled brat.”

“Living the dream.”

“You ruined Mom and Dad’s big night,” she says. “I’m beyond angry at you.”

I stare at her, wanting to explain, knowing I can’t.

“I’m sorry,” is all I can manage to say.

She exhales.

“I’ve already started drama control,” Jess says, pointing at me with the paper. “I’m hoping we can spin the drama to our advantage. People love gossip. It’s what sells a movie, a book, a product. I’m saying this feud was orchestrated as a preview to illustrate the type of books Marcus’s new imprint will feature. Lots of drama.”

“You’re good.”

“Now you need to be as well,” she says. “Apologize to Marcus.”

I open my mouth to tell her everything, to tell her what he said, that I plan to befriend him in order to expose him, but I cannot even get a word out before she screams, “Apologize to Marcus!” She takes a jagged breath. “Somehow, someway.”

She turns and glides away saying, “You have to come downstairs to get your own coffee and make up with Mom and Dad. So, wake up, Emma. And I mean every word of that.”

This is as much a warning as a request.

I get out of bed and look out the wide windows overlooking the ocean. I open the custom drapes all the way, letting the sun off the water flood the room with light. There is a boardwalk leading to the ocean, and one of the household staff is setting up chairs and umbrellas on the beach.

I have never woken up in a fifty-million-dollar oceanfront mansion.

And, yet, save for location and the price of land, it’s really no different than GiGi’s cottage in South Haven.

I stare into the ocean and think of GiGi saving me so long ago.

I need coffee. Desperately.

I realize I have nothing to wear as I was planning to head back to the city last night. I open the drawers to a beautiful dresser.

Empty.

I open the stunning wardrobe.

Empty.

I head into the en suite and open the bathroom cabinets.

Nothing.

“A fifty-million-dollar mansion that has nothing in it,” I say to my ragged reflection.

I manage to find a bar of soap and a towel in the bathroom along with a waffle weave robe hanging on the door with The Ritz-Carlton stitched on the breast pocket. I run my fingers over the logo of a lion sitting atop a crown.

“Royalty meets financial backing,” I say out loud, explaining not only the meaning of the Ritz logo—told to me years ago by my father—but also, in essence, my current predicament. “Power and money make the world go round.”

I wash my face a bit too hard—scrubbing away as if it will erase last night—and run my fingers through my hair.

I open the bedroom door. It’s quiet. Maybe I can sneak downstairs, grab some coffee and come back and shower without having to confront my parents yet.

I tiptoe as carefully as a cat burglar down the gorgeous bifurcated staircase, admiring the detail of the beautiful balustrades.

I head through stunning room after room, Versailles on the beach.

I round the corner and yelp.

The kitchen is filled with white-uniformed staff.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

A laugh echoes throughout the cavernous kitchen.

“They work here.” Jess is seated in a beautiful banquette.

“I just need some coffee,” I say.

“Latte, espresso, cappuccino, Americano, cold brew?” a woman asks.

“Um, cappuccino, please.”

In the blink of an eye, a perfect cup of coffee is handed to me.

“Thank you,” I say to the staffer. I take a sip. “It’s perfect.”

“Seems like you got used to that service pretty quickly, Miss I’m So Above All of This,” Jess snarks.

I act as if I’m going to toss my coffee into Jess’s face to make light of last night’s incident, but my parents walk in, and my mother exclaims, “What in the world, Emma? Not again!”

“I have the worst timing,” I sigh.

Jess glares at me and raises a perfect brow.

“Mom, Dad… I’m so, so sorry about my behavior last night,” I continue. “It was uncalled for, and I want to apologize to you. I feel awful.”

Jess clears her throat.

I have to swallow hard. “And I plan to apologize to Marcus as well.”

My parents—perfect as always, Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones on vacation in East Hampton—look at one another and then me.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” my father says. “What is it they say? Any publicity is good publicity.”

“You acted like a Real Housewife last night,” my mother sighs. “I’m just glad there wasn’t a table to overturn nearby.”

My mother is not so forgiving.

“And you’re dressed like a Real Housewife this morning,” she continues.

“I didn’t bring anything to wear. I wasn’t planning on staying.”

“Obviously,” my mother says. “Come with me. I can help you find something appropriate to wear from my things.”

“I think that you are probably different sizes,” Jess says, eyeing me over, smiling at her dig.

“By all means, let’s body shame this morning,” I say.

“You actually can feel shame?” Jess asks. “I should leak that to Page Six.”

“Girls!” my father says as a warning.

He takes a cup of coffee and says, “Today is supposed to be a celebration as well.”

I turn and look at my father, questioning. A celebration?

Everyone shoots him a look that I swear reads, Keep your mouth shut, Phillip. Our girl is not right in the head to hear this right now.

My mother and sister are acting as if nothing was just said.

Is there another family secret I’m not aware of?

They focus on their coffee.

I want to ask what is happening, but I can read a room, and I don’t want an angrier mob. I’m also not sure what to do until I figure out the through line on this story.

“Let’s try to act like a happy family,” my mother says. “For once.”

Instead, I keep my mouth shut, smile and sip my coffee.

My mother takes me by the arm.

“When will you be ready to go?” my father asks. “An hour?”

My mother looks at me for far too long, her lingering gaze shouting the unspoken: I think my daughter will need more than an hour .

* * *

I am wearing a summery sundress and strappy sandals.

My mother has dressed me in her image, hoping, I’m sure, some of her class might rub off on me.

“Where are we going exactly?” I ask. “And why are you driving, Dad?”

“I told you,” my mother says, fingers pecking away on her cell. “It’s a surprise.”

Her eyes are glued to her phone. In the brief moments they’re not, they are glued to the vanity mirror on her sun visor, in which she constantly checks her appearance or pretends to fix her hair without actually touching it.

This is not unusual behavior. But the fact that my father is driving is as rare as my parents inviting VV over for a barbecue and croquet match.

My father never drives. I didn’t even think he knew how to drive. At the very least, I just assumed he’d forgotten how living in New York.

“I promise you everything will work out beautifully,” my father says, always so diplomatically optimistic. “We have a piece running in the Times Magazine on Sunday. Jess has been working her magic on social media. This is going to put The Mighty Pages back on the publishing world’s radar.”

And if it doesn’t? I want to ask. You’re still going to lose everything to a conniving hustler, and we’ll be living in a motel.

“We just need an apology from Emma,” Jess says with a smile.

My father’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, and he nods with conviction, then gives me a sweet wink.

I smile despite the crack in my heart.

What is it about my family? How can they infuriate me over and over, confound and enrage me one moment, but then in an instant—via one simple look from my father—I would do anything to protect them?

I clutch my seat belt and twist it in agony. I have to tell my parents that Marcus wants to ruin them and The Mighty Pages. I have to make it clear to Jess that our family is in trouble. But I also know they trust him way more than me right now. If I said a word in the car, they would all think it’s because I’m yet again acting like an impetuous child and refuse to grow up. If my family had trusted me, they would have told me what they had planned with Marcus from the get-go.

My father may be driving, but Marcus is in the driver’s seat.

I need proof.

I need Marcus on my side. I need him to trust me as much as my family trusts him. I need a touch more time.

I rub my head.

I also need more coffee and three Tylenol.

The streets leading from the ocean through East Hampton are wide, and marbled sycamores provide a canopy overhead. The landscape is lush, the privets thick or shaped into balls, the hydrangeas otherworldly. This is the result of a place with such history—dating back to the 1600s—and wealth. Homes—if you can even call them that—peek from behind the hedges. Shingled cottages with turrets, contemporary barn-style mansions, sleek modern behemoths that look as if they should be in Palm Springs.

There is money, and then there is money .

This is M-O-N-E-Y!

And my parents have always wanted more of it.

This yawning need for more and better—homes, cars, friends, likes, publicity—is destroying my family.

GiGi was very well off. My family has enough money to be happy. Our lives are a gift of her hard work and sacrifice. But my parents aren’t comfortable being comfortable. We are poor compared to these Hamptons standards. And they want this .

We inch our way through downtown East Hampton—past Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada—the traffic at a standstill. I watch hordes of people flock into Citarella, the upscale grocery where you can buy designer ice and forty-dollar prepackaged salads.

My gut is telling me to leap from the car and race into BookHampton, one of my favorite bookstores in the world. When I come to the Hamptons, I escape to BookHampton, spending hours roaming through the aisles looking at the latest releases. I always ask the staff for suggestions and leave with my arms filled with books, just as I did with GiGi.

I could use a book right now.

People lean out their car windows red-faced and angry.

New Yorkers flee the city for the slower pace. They need the Hamptons to detox. We crawl, a mile at a time, until finally the traffic begins to move, and we are in the “country.”

But this farmland is not like Michigan’s. Here, quaint orchards, farm stands and nurseries are being swallowed up by huge new builds on large tracts of land, FOR SALE signs more prevalent than tomatoes, flowers and trees. Since New Yorkers need this open space, they also require this open space.

Traffic slows as we near another town.

An old wooden sign proclaiming Bridgehampton Founded 1644 greets us, and my father turns on a road that leads away from the ocean and toward the countryside again.

I again want to leap from the car and race to Southampton to Tate’s Bake Shop, which makes the most wondrous chocolate chip cookies—crisp and buttery—in the most adorable bakeshop, filled with fresh flowers and carved wooden tables.

I glance at my mother, who is checking her appearance again.

Perhaps I don’t hate the Hamptons as much as I like to act.

Perhaps it’s the people—and not the place—that gets on my nerves.

My father smiles at me in the mirror. The man can read my mind.

Finally, he turns into a crushed gravel driveway across from a farm.

A behemoth of a house overpowers the lot.

My family jumps out of the car, and I follow, confused.

My mother spreads her arms. “What do you think?”

I furrow my brows.

“Think of what?”

And then I notice the Sotheby’s sign, planted in new sod against a row of boxwood just beyond where my mother is standing.

My father’s shoes making the quintessential crunch of old money on the white gravel.

“We’re thinking of buying this, and we wanted your input and, hopefully, approval,” he says. “We need to rethink our future—all of our futures. We’re taking big, bold steps with our company, and we need to do the same with our lives.”

My father’s eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, but I know they are searching mine, seeking not my input or approval but my acquiescence.

“This is a brand-new home,” my mother says, waving her arms dramatically. “This is a brand-new start.” She looks like a tiny speck before the moon.

I stare at the modern barn-style mansion. It’s undoubtedly beautiful. Through the oversize windows I can see the soaring ceilings, a sleek fireplace, white floors, double kitchen islands. A wall of glass in the back opens to a sleek pool.

Is it what I’ve come to love about a summer cottage? No.

It’s new. It’s pretentious. It’s yet another modern take on a farmhouse by people who don’t even realize that cows live on a farm and a barn is a home for their hay.

“Nine bedrooms, ten baths,” my mother continues as if she’s a real estate agent trying to make a sale. “Modern, clean.” She turns. “See how it’s designed? Each of us will have our own suite, our own wings.”

My mother loves new, new, new.

She removes her sunglasses and places her hand very close to my arm to replicate the emotion of intimacy.

“You’re out of college now, Emma. You’re interviewing to work in the city. We all,” she says, gesturing to Jess, my father and herself, “spend the majority of our time out East now. It just makes sense to consolidate our lives.”

“And leave Michigan behind,” I say. “Leave GiGi behind. Leave our history behind.”

My father removes his sunglasses.

“Emma, it’s getting harder and harder to get back there,” he says, his voice a low hum. “It will only become more difficult the busier we become. The people we work with, the people in our orbit, all summer in the Hamptons. If we truly want to stay connected, relevant and reinvent, this is the smartest move to make, personally and professionally. You know how much I love Eyebrow Cottage. It was my home. It was GiGi’s heart, but life marches on, and we cannot remain tied to a past that no longer makes sense.”

“How much does this cost, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My parents look at each other.

“Just a skosh under eight million,” my father says.

“Property values only go up here, Emma,” Jess says quickly. “It’s a lot of money, but you’re going to look back in ten years and have a fifteen-million-dollar home at least.”

“But we already have a summer home,” I argue.

My mother lowers her hand and retreats a step. This is too much emotion for her.

“We’re too isolated in Michigan, honey,” my father reasons. “We can summer here and still make it back to the city by Sunday night or Monday morning.”

“But isolation is the point of a summer place, isn’t it?” I ask. “You need to get away from the city and its energy to recharge, reset, imagine, dream.” I stop and look at them. “To write.”

“We can do that all here, Emma.”

Or we can do that in a motel.

If you ever say a word about our little talk with your parents or sister, I will have you in that motel sooner rather than later.

What secret does Marcus have on my family? Just how close are we to financial ruin?

I suddenly see this house sitting on the edge of a dune in Michigan, one that has been eroded by time, rising water and vicious waves. It is perched on the precipice believing it is safe when it’s about to collapse into oblivion, and nothing and no one can save it.

Except me.

I’m beginning to feel like I’m the only visitor at Saltburn who sees the danger surrounding them and understands a crazy man disguised as a friend is out to destroy our entire family.

I have to say something even if they don’t believe me. I have to tell them what he said. I have to tell them what I know.

But if I do, and they do not believe me, we are toast.

Not fancy avocado toast, but burned-beyond-recognition toast.

I have to write the next chapter myself. Even if it makes them dislike me even more right now.

“I hate you for putting me in this position! How could you?”

“Emma,” my mother warns. “Do you even care about our future?”

More than you will ever know.

“Just come inside,” my mother urges, turning toward the house. “I know you’ll love it.”

I do not budge.

“We need this as a family,” my mother says. “We need to turn the page.”

“I don’t want to turn the page,” I say. “Eyebrow Cottage is a part of my history, too. It means everything to me. It’s filled with memories. It’s filled with GiGi.”

“And this home will be, too,” my mother tries to soothe. “Just think of the day when you will be running the business with us, married, your children racing through the house and directly into the pool out back.”

That day may never come.

I stop short of stomping a foot in the pretty gravel, but I cross my arms like a sullen child for dramatic effect.

I, at least, can give my family what they have come to expect from me until I have a chance to figure out our next chapter.

“You are such a baby,” Jess exclaims. “I can’t with you.”

She walks toward the house.

“Emma,” my mother says, losing patience. “Just come look at the house. Please.”

I shake my head. “So? That’s it? We’ve decided?”

“Three against one,” Jess calls over her shoulder. “You do the math.”

“We wanted to make this decision as a family,” my father says.

“When have we ever done that?” I ask.

“Emma—” my father says.

“I’m being serious,” I say. “You made the Marcus Flare decision without my input. You kept it a secret. You kept this a secret. You’ve all obviously looked at this place together without ever mentioning it once to me.”

“You have a lot on your plate, sweetheart,” my dad says.

“No, stop lying to her, Dad,” Jess says, coming back down the driveway toward me, her eyes flashing, each step an exclamation point to her rage. “Let’s get real here for once. You’re too sensitive. You always choose yourself over everyone else. You’re tied to a past that is going to drown you.”

Her words hurt. My face tenses. Jess continues, knowing she has me cornered and vulnerable.

“What choice do we have but to tiptoe around your emotions all the time? You need to move on, Emma. You need to leave Eyebrow Cottage. Those memories of GiGi—of how you found her—aren’t healthy. They’re holding you back.”

“I can’t leave that place,” I say. “I won’t let you sell it.”

“God, you are impossible,” my sister huffs. “No, actually, you’re just pathetic.”

My mother is done with me. “You have no choice in that matter.”

“Emma,” my father says, his tone conciliatory. “Take some time. Think about it. Think what’s best for all of us, not just you.”

“Why do you always have to be the odd bird out?” Jess asks.

Jess is standing in the sun, arms out, questioning my entire existence. I glance at her shadow—dark on the white gravel—which resembles a bird in flight over sun dappled waves. I think of GiGi and Jonathan Livingston Seagull .

“Jonathan’s one sorrow was that other gulls refused to open their eyes and see,” GiGi used to tell me as we floated on the lake. “But you see, Emma. You see. The world will try to make you just like them, but don’t you dare follow the masses. You fly, so high, that the only way you know how to get back home is by instinct.”

I look at my family, blissfully oblivious to the fact their entire existence is in danger: their company, their finances, their future, their happiness, their homes, their life’s work.

Right now, all I want to do is come clean with my family, but they are not ready to see.

Their faces—soaked in the sun—are staring at me, as they always have, wondering, Where did our little girl go? Is she coming back?

The only way I know to save them right now is to give them the character they have already written.

I turn and begin to walk down the driveway toward the road.

“Where are you going?” my mother calls.

“Home!”