Star Bright (Bright Young Things Book 1) Read online

  Star Bright

  Bright Young Things, Book 1

  Staci Hart

  Copyright © 2020 Staci Hart

  All rights reserved.

  stacihartnovels.com

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Quirky Bird

  Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing

  Playlist: https://spoti.fi/3dSGpfc

  Pin Board: https://bit.ly/2BZ0oLK

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1. Cordially Invited

  2. Seeing Stars

  3. Something Else

  4. Little Gold Book

  5. Have The Cake, Eat The Cake

  6. Feed The Python

  7. Cirque du Freak

  8. Some View

  9. Plus-One

  10. Strings

  11. Can't Say No

  12. Nothing But You

  13. Thieves

  14. Since You Asked

  15. Shake On It

  16. Throw the Wrench

  17. Disco Chicken

  18. Smart Little Cookie

  19. Clucks and Schmucks

  20. Rise and Fall

  21. Is that a Yes?

  22. Good Boy

  23. A Lie For A Lie

  24. Love Burrito

  25. The Hope Trap

  26. Hamfist

  27. Hope Not

  28. The Choice

  29. Exposed

  30. Signed, Sealed, Delivered

  31. A-fucking-plus

  Epilogue

  Hidden Gem Sneak Peek

  Thank you

  Also by Staci Hart

  About the Author

  To those of you

  searching for a place

  to belong.

  “There is to be a fancy dress party. How exciting it sounds. One’s heart thuds. It all sounds so different to any other party, though in reality it is much the same once the dressing up is done. Infinitely daring it seems.”

  —Cecil Beaton

  Author’s Note

  Inspiration is a wonderful thing.

  The Bright Young things of a century ago have always fascinated me, as has Cecil Beaton, an esteemed photographer and fashion designer who has inspired me beyond description and even before I knew it, watching My Fair Lady and drinking in the decadent costumes in the film.

  When inspiration struck to write a modern imagining of the Bright Young things, there was no denying it. And though I used research to spur the idea, I took them in a direction all their own.

  Or maybe I should say they took themselves.

  I hope this story inspires you to look up Cecil Beaton and bask in his brilliance, to read about the original Bright Young Things and their lust for life that caught the attention of the world. I hope it inspires you to celebrate the fact that you’re alive, that you are here. Because that is reason enough.

  1

  Cordially Invited

  LEVI

  “It smells like a urinal at the Port Authority back here.” My nose wrinkled up so tight, I wasn’t sure it’d ever be smooth again.

  My footfalls—and those of my buddy Ash and the couple ahead of us—echoed off the towering brick walls on either side of us, a rhythm to match the muffled beat of a drum and a bass line coming from behind the iron door standing silently at the end of the alley.

  Ash laughed, an untroubled sound. “Oh, come on, man. It’s no worse than any other alley in Manhattan.”

  “This can’t be the location of the party. I swear to God, Ash—if I got all dressed up just to get mugged, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

  Again with that laugh, coupled with a flash of teeth that made it almost impossible not to smile back.

  I somehow managed to resist.

  He clapped me on the shoulder and snapped my suspenders like a dick. “Come on. Be a good sport.”

  A derisive noise from somewhere in the back of my throat was my only answer.

  “Listen. You wanted me to get you into one of these parties—”

  “After you badgered me for months to come with you—”

  He shot me a look. “Not on one of the nights I had Lily James on the hook—I’ve been waiting five years for her to be single. But I’m a good fucking friend, so I brought your ass instead. So live it up, bucko. Next time, you won’t be so lucky. So wear your suspenders and quit bitching, would you?”

  I jerked my chin at the couple ahead of us as they approached the door. “They didn’t dress up in ’20s gear.” When the guy turned his head, I leaned toward Ash and said under my breath, “Wait—is that who I think it is?”

  “You’d think he’d play along with the ’20s theme. He played the Gatsby, after all.”

  Some commotion went on at the door, and Leo turned, blowing past us, mumbling swear words with his date trotting behind him, trying to keep up. Out of nowhere, he whirled around, jabbed a finger at the door, and yelled, “Bullshit!” His date plowed into him, and the two spun around before he righted them, snagged her hand, and stormed toward the mouth of the alley.

  Ash’s sideways smile noted his pleasure at the sight. “Not even Leo gets in without a costume, golden ticket or not.”

  At the mention, he reached into his inside coat pocket and extracted the invitation, printed on heavy black paper with gold foil deco detailing and our instructions:

  The Bright Young Things

  do cordially invite you

  to ruckus and rebellion

  by way of jazz and whiskey.

  The brighter, the better, darling.

  Password: The Tattler

  The address, which wasn’t so much of an address as it was a general direction, was printed underneath, the words catching what little light shone in the dim alley, glinting like a promise.

  It was typical of the Bright Young Things—vague, melodramatic, and undeniably intriguing. Since the recent turn into the modern ’20s, the enigmatic social group had taken over—first New Yorkers, followed quickly by gossip columns, and then the country as a whole. Copycat parties had swept the nation, but none were so extravagant as the trendsetters’. Presumably founded by a pack of anonymous socialites, the parties had become a topic of voracious interest. Where would they be? What spectacle would follow? And most importantly, who was Cecelia Beaton?

  The name was a play on the illustrious Cecil Beaton, an icon in fashion photography and notorious member of the original Bright Young Things. The infamous, irreverent youths had overtaken London newspaper headlines through the late 1920s for all the same reasons as their namesake: they were wild, rebellious, and glamorous with exclusivity that was almost impossible to break into.

  Cecelia Beaton signed her name to any contracts and invoices for parties, paid in cash, and generally flummoxed everyone regarding her real identity. If she even was a she. No one knew, and none of the fifty or so core Bright Young Things would talk. The mystery of it ate the general populace alive. So they wondered and watched and salivated in unison at the sight of celebrities’ Instagram posts from the parties and stalked Twitter for any sliver of gossip they could inhale. Two hundred invitations went out for every party, and no
t one single attendee would risk their coveted spot by leaking any important details leading up to an event. Just enough to whet the appetite of the public, amplifying the intrigue exponentially.

  As far as I knew, I was the first reporter to actually make it into one.

  And I intended to make the most of it.

  The steel door we stopped at was imposing, set under an unassuming tin-topped light in the brick wall—a rusty, bolted, ten-ton affair with a metal slide at eye-level. When Ash knocked to the beat of “Shave and a Haircut,” the slide rasped open, and a pair of suspicious eyes glinted from the shadows.

  “Password,” he growled.

  But Ash flashed that smile he flung around so easily, along with his invitation. “The Tattler.”

  The slide slammed shut, and with a creaky grind, the door slid open.

  I wasn’t a small guy—six-four with no shoes on, my shoulders broad enough to intimidate most anybody into submission. But the man behind that door wasn’t so much a man as he was a rhino, with a jaw like a brick and a neck like a tree trunk. He could have pounded us into the ground like a stake with nothing more than a hammer-swing to the skull. But instead, he stepped out of the way and let us pass, watching us as he rolled the door back in place and lowered a metal arm dense enough to stop a battering ram.

  “They don’t fuck around about security, do they?” I asked, glancing once more over my shoulder.

  “Don’t want the rabble getting in, do we?”

  “Anything but that,” I answered flatly as we trotted down a set of narrow stairs as black as pitch.

  The stairwell dumped us into a long, dimly lit hallway, and at the end was a doorway, a portal to decadence, a glittering window to music and laughter, gold and velvet. Luxury incarnate.

  In a rare act of nerves, Ash grabbed his homburg hat by the indentations, lifting it just high enough to run his free hand through sandy-blond hair. Where he wore a double-breasted three-piece suit, complete with pocket square and pocket watch, I’d decided on the ’20s workingman. Shirtsleeves cuffed to my elbows, no tie, slacks with a higher waist than I preferred for authenticity, suspenders, and a tweed newsboy cap.

  Never was one for suits. Ash, however, had been born in Armani with a silver spoon in his mouth and a G & T in his hand. Just like almost everyone on the other side of that threshold.

  Though I had plenty of rich friends—and I mean, filthy rich, old-money friends—their extravagance always made me uncomfortable. Not for the underscoring of what I didn’t have, but for the sheer lack of normalcy, the flippancy at which they’d spend twenty grand in a night while there were so many who had nothing. That sort of grandeur was so out of touch, it bordered disrespect.

  But that was what it was and happened to be exactly why I was here. For a fairy tale of riches no commoner would ever see.

  I tried to put away my disapproving frown, lifting my chin and straightening my spine. My lungs expanded with a fortifying breath.

  And we stepped through the doorway to be thrust into fantasy.

  A jazz band played on the stage at the other end of the space, lights shining on glistening skin as they played their goddamn brains out. A fiddle and a bass, a trumpet and a trombone, a sax player next to the clarinet. Behind them was the drummer, looking slick as all hell and cool as a fucking cucumber, despite his soaked shirt. The dance floor before them was a glittering thing, sparkling with beaded dresses and feathered fascinators and fringe and pearls. A swirling mosaic of mirrors covered the low ceiling, the grout golden. And the rest of the space was a symphony of textures—red velvet and brass, mahogany and exposed brick.

  Ash grinned like an idiot from my side, eyes hungry and bright as he watched the dance floor bounce in time to the beat of the drum. Blindly, he slapped me on the chest.

  “We need a drink. And then we’re finding somebody to dance with whether you like it or not.”

  With a laugh, I followed him to the bar, where we ordered scotch from a guy with an undercut and a handlebar mustache. And when we turned around to make our way to the edge of the dance floor, I took a moment to appreciate the feast laid before me.

  It was, as everyone had said, rich and indulgent, from the decor to the people who filled the establishment. I spotted faces that would have been recognized by even the most devoted recluse—actors and actresses, musicians and models—and some many wouldn’t have a clue about, from photographers to artists and even a few writers. Not a single person in the place was out of costume, the effect both unnerving and immersive. We’d gone back in time to enjoy the night to the fullest before the cops busted down the doors and threw us all in paddy wagons.

  It wasn’t a far cry even now, a hundred years after the Prohibition. If the police commissioner had anything to do with it, every Bright Young Thing in the joint would be locked in said paddy wagon and on their way to having the truth about Cecelia Beaton’s identity wrung out of them.

  His obsession with the group of seemingly harmless youths was its own spectacle, and everyone was curious as to why. Why was the commissioner on a crusade to disband the movement? What did he want with the group, and why had he decided to grandstand? Something about it felt personal, though no one knew what’d happened to instigate the attack.

  But that wasn’t what I was here to find out—not officially, at least. The scheme was simple, concocted over several gallons of coffee in a writers’ room at Vagabond, where I was a staff writer. We were the ’90s answer to Rolling Stone, created as the new generation’s music and culture magazine. Almost overnight, we’d stepped into their role, starting a rivalry that still went on thirty years later.

  Everyone wanted to know what it was like to be a Bright Young Thing. The public was thirsty as fuck for details, for deeper insight into the fantasy the group provided. Was there some higher purpose, or were they just a bunch of disparaging youths, parading their elite and exclusive group around to tease the masses?

  Since I was the only one at the writers’ table with an in, the gig was mine, and with it came a substantial pay raise on delivery. The plan was simple enough: convince Ash to bring me to as many parties as I could in order to write a big overview article for the magazine feature.

  But to get what I needed, the necessity for secrecy was imperative. Ash knew—I wouldn’t have asked without his knowledge of what I was really doing. But otherwise, I’d have to keep my profession to myself or risk being blacklisted from the parties. Or worse—I could take Ash down with me.

  And if I could draw out Cecelia Beaton, I might just earn myself a hefty bonus.

  The suspicion was that it was the whole lot of them, or at least the fifty or so core members. The secrecy drove people mad, and though they never really caused trouble beyond some red tape here and there, serving minors on occasion, noise violations and the like, Commissioner Warren didn’t care. Never mind drug dealers and sex traffickers—Warren put the Bright Young Things on his banner and waved it around like they were everything wrong with the younger generation. The generation of waste and sloth and irresponsibility. A brood of whiners, soft and useless.

  He might as well be shaking his fist and shouting, Damn millennials! Get off my lawn!

  Where some called him out for wasting resources on something so harmless, he insisted it was just as important—he wouldn’t let the rich kids get away with flagrant disrespect for the law. And beyond all logic, the louder voices agreed, ready to hunt down Cecelia Beaton and give her the old Marie Antoinette.

  Truth be told, I thought they were all assholes. But at least these assholes threw a great party.

  Ash hit me in the chest with the back of his hand, but when I shot him a look, he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring in front of us.

  At her.

  She floated toward us like a north magnet through a sea of norths that parted as she approached and closed behind her, a bubble of force keeping them just out of reach in deference or awe or both. Eyes, bright as glittering diamonds, were locked on mine, her lips touc
hed with the ghost of a curve at the corners, the promise of a smile. Everything about her shone—the finger waves in her golden hair, the crystals dotting the band of her fascinator, the reflective beads on her dress.

  That dress. White chiffon and silver lace, twinkling beads trimming the deep V, the ghostly fabric hugging the curves of her body from rib to hip before cascading to the ground. Tiny strands of silver beads capped her shoulders like a draping spiderweb, heavy with sparkling dew.

  But my eyes snagged hers again, lustrous blue eyes lined with smoky kohl and long lashes, her skin pale and perfect but for the rise of color in her cheeks and the blood red of her narrow, lush lips.

  A tug somewhere in the expanse of my chest urged me to meet her as she drifted toward me.

  Not Ash.

  Me.

  Because if she was a north magnet, I was a south. And it seemed both of us knew it.

  Time lurched to a start and picked up speed, like turning on a record player when the needle already rested in the groove.

  She smiled.

  I smiled.

  Ash saved us from having to speak. “Stella Spencer. Aren’t you a vision?”

  She laughed, the sound plucking a thread in me. “Flatterer.” She reached for him with long, pale fingers, brushing his bicep as she leaned in to press her cheek to his. “I thought you were bringing Lily,” she said as she backed away, her eyes flicking in my direction.