“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sandra Bullock!”
G smiles, closes his eyes for a second, and then half stands and leans into my ear. “I said, you have thirty days.”
19 Girls Rule
The thing about getting fired is, no matter how much you prepare for it, are primed for it, for hearing those very words, it’s still a kick in the head.
And it is. Or it would have been, if it had ended there with my mouth full of crème brûlée and G literally screaming my epitaph in my ear. It doesn’t matter that he has no grounds to fire me. No grounds except what he was reading into the Phoenix’s dress and the fact that he couldn’t dispose of Suzanne. Or at least, not yet. And of course, the fact that he is my boss, or one of them, and can technically fire me at any time.
I don’t know. Maybe there is a God. Or maybe we all have our Wizard of Oz–like moments of clarity and salvation. But, like Billie Burke materializing out of a bubble, my own glittery Glinda the Good Witch chooses that exact moment to wander by.
Actually, the Phoenix is heading for the ladies’ room and needs me as her guard dog, but never mind. The result is the same. “Alex, where’ve you been?” she says, the HBO partygoers parting like Munchkins before their queen. “We’re leaving.”
“Where’ve I been?” I say, leaping up, nearly kicking G over in the process. You mean besides being ignored by you all evening? “Why, just here,” I say blandly. “Getting fired.”
I don’t know what I am hoping for exactly. Maybe nothing. Or maybe just the exhilaration that comes from speaking the truth. Finally. Of no longer being afraid. Of saying what needs to be said, and not what’s expected. Certainly, I’m not anticipating a house landing on G, although with the Phoenix, God knows you could never be too sure.
“Oh, please,” she says, looking at me and then down at G. “Do I know you?”
G stands up and sputters something about Jerry Gold and the agency. And having been next to her for most of the evening. Like that mattered.
“He’s the G in BIG-DWP,” I say.
“Oh, I have you right here on my ass,” she says, nodding over her shoulder. “So as the G, you’re in a position to tell my publicist she’s not doing her job?”
G smiles, clears his throat. “You know, this is really not the time or place for office matters,” he says, coming toward us. “I think this is something that—”
“Office matters?” the Phoenix says, shaking her head so the crystal and jet beads hanging from her wig clack together. “Look, I may have just given a speech about the bullshit nature of celebrity. But let’s not kid ourselves. We both know how it works here. So I suggest you rethink your decision, because if you fire her, I’ll fire you and hire her to be my personal publicist.”
“Now, why would you want do that?” G says, taking a step closer.
Even I know the answer to that one.
The Phoenix looks at him and then the crowd. “Because I can.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome David Geffen,” blares from the television.
“And while you’re at it, G, turn that shit down,” she says. “I can’t stand to see myself on camera.”
If this had been a movie, my own personal movie of which I was, finally, the star, this is where the audience would cheer, someone would toss G into the pool, and the sound track—maybe Gloria Gaynor, although she’s so eighties, or maybe Dorothy’s anthem, “You’re out of the woods, you’re out of the dark, you’re out of the night”—would swell. But given that it’s just a Globe after-party, and late at that, with everyone looking a little the worse for wear, it’s a lot less cinematic.
Having dispatched G, the Phoenix turns for the exit. “Are you coming?” she says, in the tone of voice that reminds me that if her scenario comes to pass, I have just exchanged one boss for another. Still, I follow her and hold her feather boa and her purse in the ladies’ room, where the conga line of women is nonplussed to find the Phoenix coming in to pee just like the rest of them.
And then the evening is pretty much finished. The other parties are deemed unworthy, thank God, and it’s just a cell-phone call to the driver and a short hop to the Toyota. And, like Cinderella back in her coach, or actually I’m so tired I can’t keep my metaphors straight, it’s over.
“Did you mean what you said?” I say, bending down by the passenger door.
“When?” she says.
“Back there. When you said you’d hire me if he fires me.”
“Yeah, I meant it.”
“But I thought I was history after our last meeting.”
“Yeah, well, I thought better of it,” she says with a shrug. “After what you said. Besides, there’s going to be a ton of stuff with the show coming up and somebody’s got to deal with it. Might as well be you.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “But I think you should get a new job one way or another. That guy looks like a jerk.”
And then she is gone. A tiny black limo creeping down the hotel’s rain-slicked driveway. Like Glinda floating away, leaving me almost, but not quite, where I started.
“So you go, then I’ll go,” Steven says, when I reach him on my cell as I’m driving home.
“Actually, the only place I’m going is home,” I say, turning onto Wilshire. “Where are you?”
“Still on the roof at the Fox party,” he says, and I make out the roar of laughter in the background.
“Is Troy still there?”
“No, he split hours ago. I think he left with Sandra Bullock. Weren’t they an item at one time?”
“No, that was Matthew McConaughey,” I say, turning off onto Santa Monica. “Look, I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, but the short version is that G fired me.”
“He fired you?”
“Well, he tried to.”
“Wait, does that mean I’m fired too?”
I guess the Phoenix was right. This really is a “Where’s mine?” town. “No. Or I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think I’m even really fired because he gave me thirty days and—”
“Just until the Oscars. Nice, G.”
“But the point is, the Phoenix intervened.”
“And hit him with her feather boa?”
“Offered me a job.”
“Oh, man, can I come too?”
“Look, I don’t even know how this is going to shake out. If I’m fired or hired or if I even want to do this anymore. I just know that I’m too tired to think about it now.”
We make noises about talking tomorrow. In the office. Figure it all out then.
“By the way, I bumped into Rachel,” he says. “She said she had one word for us: tomorrow.”
“No kidding,” I say. So the other shoe’s about to drop. Perfect fucking timing. “Look, I’m making a detour,” I say, heading up Beverly toward Sunset, toward Laurel Canyon and the twenty-four-hour newsstand in the Valley. Unless I miss my guess, Monday’s L.A. Times should be hitting the sidewalks just about now.
The day after an award show is like a snow day in Hollywood. Everyone is so wiped they either stay home or straggle in bleary-eyed sometime after noon. Unless your clients won, then you’re up at it early, cranking out releases and dealing with the press, which is in feeding-frenzy mode.
I am at my desk by 8 A.M. I’m in jeans, an old black cashmere crew neck, and my hair’s in a ponytail, but I’m here, writing my releases, reading the wires, and generally readying myself for the onslaught to come. Suzanne is the first through the door.
“I know you knew about this,” she says, tossing the Times business section onto my desk.
I glance up. “Yes, I read that. Last night. Picked it up at the newsstand on my way home. Interesting.”
“Interesting? Oh, it’s a lot more than interesting.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, looking up. “And we should probably have some sort of statement ready. Unless G’s already prepared one.”
She looks at me and sh
akes her head. “Why didn’t you just come to me about all this? We could have handled it in-house.”
I don’t even bother challenging her assumption that I’m the “BIG-DWP publicist who insisted on remaining anonymous” named in the story. That I have broken the cardinal publicist’s rule: Never tell the truth. At least not in print. As for why I did it, I could say that I did it for her. That she asked me to save her job and I did. Or I could tell her I did it to screw G. But I didn’t do it for either of those reasons. In fact, I’m still not sure why I did it.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess if I’ve learned anything here, it’s that there are times when things really are wrong, and not just a matter of spinning it.”
She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “This business is so different from when I started twenty-five years ago, I don’t even know what’s appropriate anymore,” she says. “I don’t know if I should thank you or suspend you.”
“Well, if it helps you any,” I say, turning back to the computer, “G fired me last night, although God knows what that means. I mean, now.”
There’s a commotion outside my door. Steven, still in his tux, carrying a copy of the Times like it’s on fire. “Jesus, I didn’t know you actually talked to the reporter. . . . Oh, sorry,” he says, catching sight of Suzanne.
“I suppose you knew about this as well?” she says.
Steven looks at me, then Suzanne, and then back at me.
“He’s trying to decide if he’s going to get blamed or praised,” I say, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair. “Come on. Final answer.”
Steven looks down, pulls his tie from his shirt, and then looks up. “Yeah, I did. I knew about it.”
No one says anything for a minute. Down the hall, the phones begin to ring. It’s already starting. The unraveling of BIG-DWP. Or at least part of it.
“So what happens now?” Steven says, looking at us.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Suzanne says, shaking her head and heading for the door. “I haven’t a clue.”
It happens fast, actually. As things do when the words Hollywood and kickback appear in a headline on the front page of the L.A. Times’ business section. By tomorrow the trades will have it. Depending on what happens, if G pulls a Mike Ovitz and goes postal, blames the gay mafia, or in this case the girl mafia, it could make the national papers.
At the very least, he’s finished here. There’s a lot you can get away with in Hollywood, but not all of it. And not if it gets out. Last year, a CAA agent got the ax after the papers got wind of his kickback scheme involving a Beverly Hills real estate agent and the sale of his clients’ houses. G’s sins are bigger. A lot bigger.
In fact, everything Rachel, Steven, and I had suspected back at Tom Bergin’s was there in black-and-white. It had started with my talking to the reporter about Troy and G and my suspicions about G and Jerry, but the other break was finding a weak link in Jerry Gold’s office. Another disgruntled employee who was more than happy to help connect the dots. How G had plotted with Jerry to bleed DWP dry before he even bought us out. How G had already paid Jerry a “good faith deposit” for taking Carla out of DWP. How G planned to revive the agency once Suzanne and the other original partners were gone and sell it to the highest bidder. Apparently, G had lined up an investment-banking house to drum up possible suitors. Opening bids were expected to be north of ten million.
“I had no idea we were worth that much,” Steven says, after Suzanne leaves and he’s reread the story for something like the fourth time. “Maybe I should go to business school.”
“Maybe you should go home and change your clothes.”
“I’m serious. There’s a lot of ways to make money in this town if you just think about it the right way.”
“Or the wrong way. Do yourself a favor. Go to law school. You’ve already watched so much Law & Order you might as well.”
“Well, now that you mention it . . .”
“What?” I say. Assistants grow up to be publicists. Happens all the time. It’s supposed to happen. Like the children of Mormons, because who in their right mind would convert? I guess I just thought Steven would always work here. He just wouldn’t take my messages anymore.
“I have applications to USC, UCLA, and Stanford law schools at home. I’m thinking of filling them out and seeing what happens. I mean, it’s late, but—”
“You’ll get in,” I say, shaking my head. “You’ll make a hell of a lawyer.”
“Well, they say it’s always good to have a lawyer in the family,” he says, balling his tie up in his hand. He looks at me and smiles a smile I can’t really read. “Here,” he says, coming toward me. He drapes his tie around my neck and wraps it loosely into a bow. “Okay.” He stands back to admire his handiwork. “Now I’m going out for lattes. Like I always do.”
I turn back to my desk. Take several congratulatory calls about Troy’s upset win last night. And many more from the tabs and the fashion press wanting to know about the Phoenix’s dress and if it is, in fact, on her website, www.phoenixgarb.com. Apparently, a few have already tried to find it. But mostly it’s fallout from the Times’ story. Everyone is shocked, shocked to learn gambling has been going on here in Casablanca.
Peg calls, sputtering about mistrust, miscreants, and men in general. “I never liked that guy,” she says. “I always figured he was going to raise your rates.”
I hear from the Phoenix. Or rather I hear from Tracy, who tells me I’m “on her call sheet” but that, due to the late night last night, “she will be getting to her calls later than usual.”
I get an e-mail from Troy, who’s on his way to some shoot somewhere. Some film offer he got at the last minute. Daddy Madden would be proud. I am 2.
Finally, Rachel weighs in.
“So you did it,” she says.
“G did it to himself.”
“If it were that simple, only the good guys would be running Hollywood.”
“If it were that simple, this would be the smallest town in the world.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“You mean, other than go to Disneyland?”
“I mean, I heard his final act was to fire you.”
“Yeah, I guess I technically have thirty days.”
“Seriously, what are you going to do?”
I sigh. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. We still have the rest of award season to get through.”
“I meant with your life. You were so Jean-Paul Sartre the other night.”
“What do you mean, ‘the other night’?”
“You’re right, you’re always hung up about your life. Like it hasn’t even started and the rest of us have it all figured out.”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to.”
“Well, in that case,” I say, “I guess I’m right where I should be.”
We make plans to meet later. For a drink. To celebrate. Or commiserate, depending on our moods. “By the way,” Rachel says, “I heard G hired a publicist. Some crisis-management firm. I also heard that Sony is interested in the rights to his story. Apparently they think that with a few changes, it makes a good little thriller.”
As for G, who knows if the rumor is true? He never even shows. The office is strangely muted. Lots of whispering behind closed doors. But then, what do you expect from publicists? They’ll deny news even when they make it.
Finally, the blandest of press releases goes out: “regrettable actions,” “resignation effective immediately.” Suzanne sends a mass e-mail announcing an all-office meeting first thing tomorrow, but meanwhile keep our mouths shut and stay the course. We are still in the midst of award season. Everyone seems relieved to go back to work.
Except me. I’ve been here since eight, since time began, and all I want to do is go home and sleep. For about three years. Or at least until award season is over. But I still have a ton of e-mails to return and a meeting tomorrow morning about some client’
s movie I should prepare for. I check my watch. Coming up on seven. Everyone in the office has bailed. Even Steven. God knows why I’m still here. Maybe I know that if I leave, I might never come back.
I decide to give it another half hour. Tops. But even that’s going to require some stimulants. One of the muffins in that basket somebody sent over for something earlier today. I head down the hall to the kitchen. The kitchen that is its usual charming self. A pile of dirty coffee cups in the sink, napkins, and crumbs all over the counter. A spilled, empty container of vanilla soy milk. And the looted muffin basket. Just another one of our messes for the cleaning crew.
I wipe up the worst of it, root around the basket of muffin remains, and find a whole one. Or most of a whole one. Poppy seed, I think. Oh well. I hop up on the counter and start tearing the top off, bit by bit. You never want to rush this. I’m just pondering the idea of a second muffin, when the kitchen door flies open. Suzanne with an armload of flowers—lilies, irises, and roses. I’m so startled I immediately hop down.
“Alex, I didn’t know you were still here,” she says. “I was just looking for a vase.”
“Nice,” I say, nodding at the flowers. “Who sent them?”
I expect her to rattle off the name of a client’s manager. Or a studio publicist. The usual post-awards graft.
“My parents, actually,” she says, sounding embarrassed.
“Your parents sent you flowers?” Somehow it had never crossed my mind that Suzanne had parents. Not now. Not ever. She didn’t seem to need them.
“Is it your birthday?”
“No,” she says, turning toward the cupboards, looking for a vase. “They wanted to congratulate me.”
“For our Globe winners?”
“No.” She turns to look at me. “For keeping my job. For hanging on to my company.”
“They knew about that?” I say, stunned. Who tells their parents about their job? Who tells their parents about anything?
So 5 Minutes Ago Page 28
