The Go-To Girl

by Louise Bagshawe

  All men adore her. I can’t understand why we still get on.

  ‘He was vile, hon.’

  ‘I know. But he dumped me.’

  ‘Who else would have him?’ Vanna scoffs.

  ‘Some girl,’ I say glumly. ‘I saw her.’

  ‘Was she pretty?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admit. Well, she was compared to me, let’s face it.

  ‘I bet she was a dog,’ Vanna says. ‘And you didn’t want him anyway.’

  ‘But it was so nice to have a boyfriend,’ I say sadly.

  ‘You’ll get another one. A better one. You work at Winning Productions, after all. Just think of all the talent that walks in there! And I mean talent in the strictly trouser sense,’ Vanna adds. ‘You know I think all those actors and writers are just self-indulgent twats.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They really are.’

  ‘I know you think that.’

  ‘I don’t know how you put up with them,’ she says, as though I am hand-holding major Britpack stars every day.

  ‘You handle authors,’ I point out.

  ‘Them? Bunch of self-important tossers, too. I let PR take care of them,’ Vanna says confidently. ‘I only suck up when absolutely necessary, for example at sales conferences.’

  ‘I don’t get much of a chance to socialize at work anyway.’

  ‘You need to try,’ Vanna says, ominously. ‘You may be letting your best chance slip away.’

  ‘Aren’t office romances frowned upon?’

  ‘Well, yes. If you get caught. But where else are you supposed to meet your match, eh? A busy, professional woman like you.’

  I’m not sure this is an exactly accurate depiction of me, but still.

  ‘A harassed executive,’ she continues firmly. ‘On the creative side. With very little free time in the evenings. No, it’s got to be work, babes. You have to take this Brian thing as a wake-up call.’

  ‘What do you—’

  But when she’s in full flow, there’s no stopping her. This is one reason she is so successful. Nobody ever dares interrupt.

  ‘A wake-up call that says, “I will not be ignored any more! I will not settle for the dregs in life! I will only go out with authentically shaggable men who can think themselves lucky to get a look-in with a hottie like me!” That’s your new mantra, darling – Anna is a hottie!’

  ‘Very noble,’ I said, but at least now I’m laughing.

  ‘I wasn’t joking,’ she says earnestly. Vanna is totally blind where I am concerned.

  Anyway, at least she got me thinking that being shot of Brian wasn’t so bad. I mean, I couldn’t stand him. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I am somehow going to replace him with somebody better. I know reality by now. But perhaps I could think more about my job, try and make a bit more of an impression. Get a raise. Something.

  They say that there’s someone out there for everybody, but we all know that’s a load of old bollocks, don’t we? Maybe some of us should focus on trying to be happy alone.

  I look down at the fourteen-year-old kid, for example. Concentrating very hard on the pretty slip of a thing in front of me.

  He looks at me.

  ‘Whatcher staring at?’ he demands, flushing.

  ‘Don’t you think you should give her some room?’

  ‘Fuck off, fatso,’ he says, charmingly.

  Apparently he didn’t get Vanna’s ‘Anna is a hottie’ memo. I lift up my flat shoe and bring the heel down hard on his toes.

  ‘Owwww!’ he yells. Everybody is staring now. The pretty girl turns round.

  ‘He was rubbing against you,’ I tell her.

  She stares at him. ‘You little perv!’

  ‘I wasn’t. She’s making it up, the tart,’ he says nastily.

  ‘How dare you! That lady’s old enough to be your mother,’ she says, nodding gratefully at me.

  The train heaves to a stop and I get out. The day is boiling hot, and when I finally emerge from the tube station it’s like going from an oven into a sauna.

  Ah yes, I think. A perfect start to another perfect week!

  * * *

  ‘Hi,’ I say to Sharon and John, my fellow readers and slaves. We all have a cubicle here on the west side of the office, next to the secretaries and right in front of Kitty Simpson’s office. Technically speaking, we are not support staff like the secretaries but, as Vanna keeps spinning it, executives. However, we get paid less and are expected to do what they say.

  Sharon and John greet me with an equal lack of enthusiasm. Sharon is a pert 22-year-old who is only doing this job as an alternative to waitressing while she hones her acting skills. She has evidently decided that if she flirts with enough male executives here, one of them might give her a part (not that kind of part) or get her an agent or something. She would not need a pep talk about looking for romance in the office. Sharon is a pro. Her light brown curls are always bouncy, her freckled, creamy skin always glowing. In summer she favours teensy little dresses with cute cardigans embroidered with flowers; in winter she likes very tight pants and body-skimming jackets. All year round she likes kitten heels and dangly earrings.

  John is twenty-eight and regards himself as an utter failure, but unlike me he sees this as a choice. John believes the noble art of the cinema is being bastardized by Hollywood, and only a really serious auteur like himself can rescue it. He wants to direct. Surprise. In the meantime, he gets perverse pleasure from reading so many bad scripts and passing on them all. He always wears brown corduroys and an orange or a plum-based print shirt, because he’s all about the seventies (except the good bits, like the Wombles). John likes jazz, beat literature and French cinema. He also likes Kitty, who is an utter bitch, which seems to turn him on.

  John keeps his job because he is a world-class suck-up and fawner.

  Sharon keeps her job because the men in the office won’t let Kitty fire her.

  I keep my job because I do all the work.

  ‘How was your weekend?’ Sharon asks. She is playing Expert Minesweeper with a serious frown of concentration. Sharon has never won Expert Minesweeper but it is not for want of trying. ‘Meet any hot guys?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Great,’ she says absently. ‘Oh, SHITEHOLE.’

  ‘Maybe you should stick to Intermediate,’ I suggest.

  Sharon looks at me pityingly. ‘I’ve moved on … I met someone,’ she adds, ringlets bouncing.

  ‘Oh? Who?’

  ‘I met him at the Legally Blonde 2 premiere party,’ she says, determined to spin it out.

  ‘Was he handsome?’ I ask, ‘Sexy? Funny?’

  Sharon waves a hand as if to brush away such minor considerations. ‘He works for MGM,’ she says.

  ‘Exciting,’ I concede.

  ‘In LA,’ she adds triumphantly. It is Sharon’s lifelong dream to get out to LA and get discovered, so she can be the next Catherine Zeta-Jones. Unfortunately for her Sharon is not talented and only a bit pretty.

  ‘You’d do well out there,’ I say supportively.

  She shrugs. ‘Well, of course I would. I’ve got what it takes. I’m talented.’

  ‘You’re hungry.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Committed. Passionate,’ I suggest.

  Sharon’s smile broadens. She crosses her long, lean legs under today’s white mini dress. ‘Exactly,’ she agrees. ‘You can really spot talent, Anna.’

  ‘Do you think I should go to LA?’ I ask. Maybe that’s what’s missing in my career. Maybe I’m just in the wrong place.

  Sharon takes a long, assessing look at me. I’m wearing my plain camel cotton skirt and long-sleeved white shirt with a pair of slides. It doesn’t attract too much attention and I think it’s businesslike.

  ‘LA’s not for you, is it, really,’ she says. ‘I’m only being honest.’

  I sigh.

  ‘You’re doing really well here, anyway,’ she lies. ‘Kitty relies on you.’

  ‘Good morning, t
eam,’ Mike Watson says.

  We all look up. Oh joy, it’s Mike Watson, also a development executive, and a total pig. He hates Kitty, but that’s about all you can put in the plus column. Mike is a deeply sad man. He loves American slang, working out at the gym and putting women down. Every actress is ‘too fat’ or ‘too old’. Mike has one reader only: Rob Stanford. He’s blond, nineteen, and upper class; strictly window dressing. More importantly, Rob is the nephew of a big agent, Max Stanford, whom Mike sucks up to. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen Rob read a script. He just marks them all ‘pass’.

  Mike gets his scripts direct from agents he likes and ignores all the rest.

  Mike hates me in particular. I once was asked by Max Withers, the head of Winning, in a meeting, about a script Mike was championing and I told him I thought it sucked. They passed on the project, and Mike has never forgiven me.

  ‘Hi,’ I say. John nods bleakly. Sharon tosses her ringlets and smiles at Mike engagingly.

  ‘Hey, Mike,’ she says, in her best breathy little-girl voice. ‘Can I get you some iced tea? I know it’s your favourite.’

  ‘We don’t have that,’ Mike says, giving Sharon’s shoulder a friendly squeeze.

  ‘I could run round to Starbucks for you,’ she breathes. ‘It’s no trouble.’

  ‘Thanks, babe,’ he says, ‘but Rob’s already fixed me up.’

  ‘Oh,’ says Sharon, crestfallen.

  ‘But you can bring me some biscuits,’ he says, grinning as though this is a great treat.

  ‘Sure thing, Mike,’ says Sharon, fluttering her eyelashes.

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Mike demands, seeing my expression. ‘Monday blues?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I mumble.

  ‘At Winning we look forward to Mondays,’ says Mike sternly. ‘We dread Fridays.’

  The phone trills. Sharon jumps on it.

  ‘Winning Productions,’ she says. ‘Hello, you’re with a Winner. What’s that? Now? OK. OK, Kitty. Yes, right away.’ She stands up dramatically, giving Mike a nice flash of tanned thigh. ‘That’s Kitty, she wants us all in her office right away.’

  ‘About what?’ Mike demands instantly.

  ‘I’m afraid she didn’t say, Mike,’ says Sharon, pouting.

  ‘That’s a hold on the biccies then,’ Mike concedes. ‘You can bring them to me later.’ Yeah, and tell him all about our meeting with Kitty, no doubt.

  Sharon smiles at him regretfully.

  John gets to his feet. ‘I believe Kitty said now,’ he insists, opening her office door. He looks daggers at Mike. ‘Excuse us, Mike.’

  ‘I got to go brief my own support staff,’ says Mike, looking at him disdainfully. ‘See you all later.’

  I head into Kitty’s interior-designed office. With all the originality of a new burger joint, Kitty has chosen to do up her gorgeous Victorian corner space, complete with intricate leaf mouldings on the ceiling, as a 1950s American diner. She has a couch, two red plastic-covered stools, a non-working soda fountain and posters for James Dean and Rock Hudson movies. And then of course there’s the Oscar.

  Kitty once actually won an Oscar for producing Best Foreign Film, Questa Sera, back in the seventies, and she’s been trading on it ever since. Rumour has it she was shagging the director to get that credit, but I don’t believe it. Who on earth would shag Kitty? Other than John, of course.

  Kitty’s scary.

  Nobody knows her age. Forty-nine? Fifty-one? She’s been Botoxed to death, so she can’t frown or smile properly. But she can still yell. She’s small and wiry, with the dress sense of Coco Chanel and the warm fluffy personality of Mussolini. And even though she’s five foot two, she manages to always make me feel smaller.

  Despite being a pitbull in the office, Kitty is a social butterfly. Put her in a room with a major actor, director, or agent, and her personality transforms, super-hero like, immediately. You can almost see the total-bitch exterior ripping away to reveal a charming, witty woman, absolutely fascinated by the other person and what they are saying. She takes long, languid lunches at all the right clubs, sends flowers on birthdays, calls everyone important in her Rolodex twice a month without fail just to catch up. She’s a presence on the scene. She’s known. And she has especially good links with the older crowd of stars. They might not be box-office sizzle, but they’re all impressive names: Judy, Helen, Sean …

  Kitty likes success and despises failure.

  She keeps me on for only two reasons. One, somebody has to give her good coverage on scripts. Two, it annoys Mike.

  We slide onto the tiny, uncomfortably hard couch (Kitty hates her guests to be comfortable) and wait nervously. This is not like my boss. Normally she comes in, walks into her office and slams the door. Then her mousy, terrified secretary, Claire, brings her the day’s call sheet. Then she tells us to prepare for a coverage meeting where she cuts us off and berates us for not finding her the next Titanic or Harry Potter at the very least.

  After that she usually has me run errands for most of the afternoon, while she lunches with somebody fabulous, and John takes her notes while she’s in meetings. Sharon floats about pretending to read more scripts but mostly offering male executives cups of coffee and gossiping in the kitchen.

  It’s a fairly well-honed routine.

  Why is Kitty calling us in here now? Is one of us going to be sacked? I don’t think I could take it. My mind runs to my bank account. I’ve got one hundred and three pounds forty-seven in there right now. And to my CV. What would I say? Thirty-something script reader seeks lucrative position as development executive. Film credits: none. Recent promotions: none. Scripts recommended for development: none.

  I glance at Sharon and John. Neither of them seem to be concerned.

  ‘What do you think she’s up to?’

  ‘I don’t think Kitty’s “up to” anything,’ says John, all tight-mouthed. ‘I think as her team we all owe it to her to wait and see what she has to say.’

  ‘Maybe she’s resigned,’ Sharon says hopefully.

  ‘Why would she do that?’ he snaps.

  Sharon smiles fulsomely at John, but he is immune. Sharon does nothing for him. ‘Maybe she’s been poached,’ Sharon adds, placatingly.

  ‘Poached. Yes. Well, that’s possible. Kitty is incredibly talented,’ says John, looking at me and daring me to disagree.

  ‘Coming through, coming through,’ bellows a voice in the hallway. I turn to see Kitty striding through the office belligerently. The effect is spoiled by the fact there’s nobody there. She doesn’t seem to care. Her mobile is pressed to her ear.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right, absolutely. Yes, devastated,’ she purrs. I perk up. I can tell it’s good news.

  Kitty snaps her phone shut, walks into her office and slams the door loudly. John looks up at her approvingly, like an adoring dog. And indeed Kitty does look particularly designer bitch from hell today. Yellow Dolce suit with trademark DG buttons, check; Louis Vuitton baguette in spring colours, check; enormous canary yellow diamond ring flashing ostentatiously, check. She wears her hair up in her trademark French plait, probably to show off the two-carat diamond studs in her ears.

  Kitty believes in labels. If you can’t see who it’s by, why bother?

  ‘There are going to be some changes around here.’ she says dramatically.

  I panic. I am going to get sacked.

  ‘We’re going to raise our game. Find that key project that’s out there.’

  Wow. She sounds like Mike.

  ‘Somebody from Winning has to be the first to deliver, and I intend the Kitty Simpson team to be that somebody,’ she says. ‘It’s absolutely vital that we get ourselves noticed.’

  ‘I totally agree,’ fawns John. ‘You’ve got such a compelling vision, Kitty.’

  She favours him with a wintry smile. ‘Yes,’ she muses. ‘It needs to be the whole team’s vision – the “Kitty Simpson” vision,’ she say
s, drawing a circle in the air with her hand, diamond flashing. ‘As I make my mark!’

  ‘As we make our mark, you mean,’ says Sharon, smiling winsomely.

  Kitty’s eyes narrow. She hates Sharon, which is silly. Sharon’s just Sharon. You know exactly what you’re getting when she walks into an office.

  ‘We can start the team effort with you getting us some coffee,’ she says to Sharon. ‘You seem to be awfully good at that.’

  ‘Of course,’ Sharon says demurely. ‘I’ll make it for you specially.’

  This is obvious code for ‘I’ll spit in it’.

  ‘Actually, why don’t you go, Anna?’ says Kitty, after a second.

  ‘I’ll have a cappuccino,’ says Sharon, smiling broadly. ‘Non-fat milk.’

  ‘I’ll have a chai,’ says John, looking adoringly at Kitty. ‘For the energy! Sounds like I’m going to need it!’

  ‘You know how I like mine by now,’ Kitty says dismissively. ‘Espresso. Double. Lemon peel twist.’

  I walk out gloomily. It’s a reflection of our luvvie production house status that we actually have a kitchen with the ability to make all these things. If I do get fired as a script reader, there could always be a job for me at one of those fancy Soho coffee shops. Of course, Kitty correctly assumes that I will not spit in her coffee. I suppose I lack the killer instinct.

  I stand over the machines, frothing milk and carving off a twist of fresh lemon peel. I even sprinkle cocoa powder over Sharon’s foam. I know I’m far too nice, but I can’t really help it. I think it has something to do with being ugly. Pretty girls are sometimes nice, but often they don’t need to be. They just toss their hair and smile and everyone’s enchanted, men and women. Non-pretty girls can’t get away with that. We need to be extra sweet and accommodating all the time.

  I pile everything onto a tray and head back to Kitty’s office. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Rob Stanford materializes. He manages to plant himself squarely in my way.

  ‘Getting the coffee again?’ he asks, in that horrible plummy voice of his. I bet he puts it on. I bet his mother was a dinner lady or something. ‘They really do work you too hard.’