by Maggie Marr
Lydia lifted the envelope from Worldwide off her desk and pulled it open. The tone was much more hostile, and instead of the signature of the president of Business Affairs at the bottom, Arnold himself had signed. Somebody is getting desperate, Lydia thought. She knew the longer she and Zymar kept the print away from Arnold, the bigger the fool he appeared to the Hollywood community.
“Zymar on line one,” Toddy called out from her desk.
Lydia kicked off her Bottega Veneta woven leather platform pumps and settled into her office chair. One day ahead and seven hours back, that was the only way she could remember the time in New Zealand. She glanced at her watch; so it was two A.M. Saturday.
“Toddy, this one will be personal,” she called, alerting her assistant to hop off the phone line.
“Hello, love,” Lydia said.
“Lyd, you’re in early. Tried the house but you’d already left.” Zymar’s voice crackled across the seven thousand miles.
Lydia paused. Even with satellites, there was a time delay whenever you had a phone conversation with someone on the other side of the globe.
“I miss you,” Lydia said.
“Now, Lyd, how could that be? You’ve got Arnold and his letters to keep you company.”
Lydia grimaced and looked down at the new letter she held in her hands. “Just got another one this morning. This one signed by the leprechaun himself.”
“It must be getting serious, then, if ‘e’s signing them instead of ‘is lackeys.”
Lydia knew that post must be going well; he sounded chipper. But even Zymar’s good mood couldn’t pull her out of her funk. She felt like a wounded doe watching the wolves circle.
“I got one, too, today. My attorney forwarded it, some sort of legal paper demanding their print back. What a wanker. If I didn’t love the film so much, I might shred the whole lot, fly back to L.A., and shove the whole damn thing up Arnold’s ass.”
“You sound happy,” Lydia said.
“Three more days, Lyd, and it’s finished.”
“What? But I thought you needed at least two more weeks of post?”
“Little director trick: Always overestimate your timetable because then you look like a stud when you bring it in early.”
“That’s great news!” Lydia spun her chair around and looked out her window.
“The score is amazing. Van Hausen did a phenomenal job.”
“Too bad I can’t pay him.”
“Oh, he’ll get paid, Lydia. There’s no way they’re not releasing this film. No way.”
Lydia wished she shared Zymar’s conviction. She had, before the screening, but not now. She knew Arnold. He’d rather lose half a billion dollars than appear wrong in front of the world.
“I wish I was as confident. Three days, then what?”
“A screening.”
“Don’t joke,” Lydia said. She wished she could fly to New Zealand to see the finished cut.
“I’m not.”
“Zymar, stop it. You screen it here and Arnold will have us both in handcuffs.”
“Lydia, haven’t you been on your computer at all? Don’t you watch television?”
“Not really. E-mails, letters … Why?”
“I built a site for the film, and this past week I’ve gotten a million ‘its worldwide, and that number is growing. Go to defamer.com. They’re clamoring to see this film. Then look at the Drudge Report. This little war we’ve got with Arnold is all over the Internet. The public wants to see Seven Minutes. Arnold can’t stop it.”
Lydia clicked over to defamer and was greeted by a big bold headline that read WHY IS MURPHY SO AFRAID OF MIDNIGHT? The article detailed (correctly) almost all of the ongoing battle between Arnold and Lydia. Where do they get this stuff? Lydia wondered. To the left were numbers from a poll; the choices were “Screen it” or “Let it die.” Ninety-six percent of the people voting wanted to screen it.
“Zymar, it’s one Web site. A bunch of computer geeks with nothing better to do can’t force Arnold Murphy to schedule a distribution date.”
“Lydia, these `techno geeks’ control the entertainment world. They spend millions of dollars on movie tickets. This movie, without a release date, is tracking higher than any other summer release. Click on the trailer.”
“You cut a trailer?”
“Just click.”
Music swelled from her speakers as sexy shots of a scantily clad Celeste filled Lydia’s screen, intercut with a montage of breathtaking action sequences.
“Oh my God,” Lydia said, caught between complete fear and jubilation. “You cut this and released the trailer on the Net, didn’t you?”
“Nothing that can be proved, Lydia,” Zymar said. She could hear the mischievous smile in his voice.
“Zymar, to edit the film is one thing, but to distribute… Arnold will throw us in jail for sure.”
“Not if we get the spin out there first.”
Lydia watched her screen as the trailer played again. “Zymar, we can’t—”
“Yes we can. I spoke to Jess and already have the screening room locked in. Invite the distributors, the studio heads, the agents, the press. Invite Ted Robinoff, Arnold’s boss. If he sees it, he’ll know Arnold is wacko and he’ll release the film for sure. Lydia, I promise, it’s that good. It’s worth the hype.”
Lydia sat on the edge of her chair. She hadn’t gotten anywhere in life by playing it safe. In fact, the first risk of her career many years before had involved Arnold Murphy. Back then it had taken every bit of her courage and resolve to tell Weston and Beverly Birnbaum when Arnold stole the script Time’s Up from her.
Lydia and Arnold both had been working at Birnbaum Productions, she as a low-level development executive and he as a senior vice president. Treading water and desperately ambitious, he’d hated young Lydia and her pedigree from the start. Unable to take out his personal frustration on Weston or Beverly, since they were his bosses, he chose to abuse and humiliate Lydia instead. She’d been working with a “baby” writer on Time’s Up for months, and just when she was ready to take the script to Weston, Beverly, and Worldwide, Arnold “found” the script on Lydia’s desk and claimed it for himself. Arnold threatened Lydia and the writer, telling them both that no one would believe they’d developed the script, and that if Lydia or the writer went to the Birnbaums, Lydia’s nascent career in the film trade would be dead. Lydia felt she had nowhere to turn, her father having died two years before. She didn’t know whether Weston and Beverly would believe her or Arnold.
It was the writer who brought Arnold’s deceit into public view. The writer told Weston, Beverly, and the president of production at Worldwide (with Arnold and Lydia both in the room) that it was Lydia who found the script, gave him great notes, and championed the project. Lydia remembered Arnold’s eyes boring into her during the meeting. She’d stared at the table, unsure how to answer when the president of production asked her if what the writer was saying was true. But answer she did, and it was public humiliation for Arnold at the highest level. He lost his job and his reputation (although he quickly found another vice president gig at another production company), but he never forgot about the disgrace. Lydia stayed with the Birnbaums and developed a reputation for spotting great new writers and commercial material.
The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward.
“You’re right; we need to leak the screening to the mainstream entertainment press,” Lydia said. “There needs to be big buzz and big pressure within the community.”
“Five days, Lyd. CTA screening room.”
“If Arnold finds out when and where, he’ll shut us down,” Lydia said, knowing that she was, at this very moment, taking control of Seven Minutes Past Midnight’s destiny. She wouldn’t sit by and watch Arnold shelve her film. “Okay, send Jessica the digital file for the trailer. It’ll have to come from her or Kiki Dee. We leak the trailer, get the public clamoring for a release date. The screening is top secret. We’ll invite the press and the studios.
”
“Exactly.”
“When do you get in?”
“Commercial flight, through San Francisco, Burbank airport, arrives at three on Tuesday.”
“We’ll screen it on Thursday. Don’t tell anyone. Not a soul. If your arrival leaks, Arnold will be there with the police and the FBI. He’ll have you in cuffs and the print locked down or destroyed.”
“Don’t worry, Lyd.”
“Okay. Okay. I need to go, we’ve got a lot to do,” Lydia said, half to herself. Her mind was reeling.
“And Lydia,” Zymar said. “I love you, too.”
Lydia smiled as she heard the click on the other end of the line. Zymar didn’t know it yet, but Lydia had decided this was the last trip he was ever taking alone.
Chapter 29
Jessica Caulfield and Her Silver Badgley Mischka Heels
Jessica bent over Steven Bartmeier’s gold-plated toilet and vomited. She wiped her mouth with a piece of tissue, tossed it in the wastebasket, then turned and surveyed the damage in the mirror. She’d managed not to get any of the vomit in her auburn hair, down her Pucci gown, or on her silver Badgley Mischka heels. But her skin was a pasty gray. Perspiration collected at her hairline. Not enough to smudge her makeup, but enough to be noticed. What was wrong with her? The waves of nausea came at indiscriminate times, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening, almost always at four P.M. She occasionally threw up when she had migraines, but there were no headaches accompanying these upset stomachs. Maybe bad sushi? (A sushi addict, tonight she couldn’t even stand the thought.)
Searching under the sink, she found some mouthwash. This time alcohol had triggered it. One of the waiters had walked by with an especially strong bourbon. Jessica wrinkled her nose just remembering the smell; she rinsed and spit, getting the horrible taste out of her mouth. She pulled her Chanel red out of her bag and curved her lips. She prayed none of the other guests heard her. In a town where being thin was a competitive sport, the best bulimic was usually the winner, but that was a competition Jessica had no desire to be involved in.
She dropped her lipstick into her evening bag and looked into the mirror. Jessica was confident no one would know what just happened. She spritzed the bathroom (just in case there was someone immediately behind her) and then pulled open the bathroom door. She had a lot of work to complete in one evening.
And she had to work quietly and quickly. Steven Bartmeier, one of the editors of Variety, was having a charity cocktail party at his palatial Bel Air spread, two thousand dollars just to get in the door. It was the perfect place to put “the spin” in motion. Jessica, Lydia, and Kiki Dee (nobody seemed to know where Cici was) had spent four hours in Jessica’s office strategizing over their plan. They needed to have the “right” message about Lydia, Zymar, and Seven Minutes Past Midnight. They needed to get that message to the “right” people, and they had to accomplish all of it in five days. All this while never allowing Arnold to get the upper hand. Kiki was in charge of getting the word out to the mainstream media, Entertainment Express, People, Us, and Star. Jessica would work the inside of the entertainment community.
And having spent the last hour at Steven Bartmeier’s, Jessica knew she’d struck gold; the guest list couldn’t be more “inside.”
Jessica walked toward the large atrium in the middle of Steven’s home. It was the hub of the party. Old Hollywood. Not in age, but in power. The players, gathered at Steven’s home, were the decision makers; they controlled the game. Producers, studio heads (surprisingly Arnold Murphy had yet to arrive), and celebrities schmoozed.
She needed to get a moment with Steven in order to set the Seven Minutes Past Midnight story in motion. Then Arnold and Worldwide would begin the spin game in the defensive position. She liked the idea of Arnold on the defensive. He’d have to refute every one of Jessica’s claims that he was shelving a fantastic film and misusing the studio’s money to play out a personal vendetta against Lydia. Obvious malfeasance by the head of a studio—that surely was worth a story on the editorial page of Variety.
Jessica looked forward to watching Arnold’s decisions publicly scrutinized and questioned. A maniacal egoist with low self-esteem, he guarded his authority fiercely and didn’t take probing well. He could barely contain his legendary temper in the most innocuous of settings, and she knew that any questions regarding Seven Minutes could set it off and help to destroy any glimmer of credibility for his arguments in favor of shelving the film.
Jessica spotted Steven Bartmeier across the room, chatting up, luckily for her, Mike Fox. (He’d been briefed on the plan; perhaps he was already whispering about Seven Minutes Past Midnight in Steven’s ear.) Jessica walked with purpose toward the pair. She caught Mike saying, “The trailer is absolutely magnificent,” as she approached.
“Jessica.” Steven smiled at her. “We were just discussing one of your clients.” He leaned forward and pecked Jessica on the cheek. “A very hot lady that is in the buzz right now, Lydia Albright.”
Jessica gave Mike and Steven a knowing smile.
“Well, what can I say? I mean, it’s just so obvious what Arnold is trying to do. This silly grudge he seems to have? It’s a waste of the studio’s money if you ask me. Malfeasance on Arnold’s part. The public wants to see this film. And really, aren’t ticket sales what it’s all about, at least for the studios? Steven, you should take a look at the trailer. You can’t believe the number of hits that the Drudge Report has gotten since someone stole a copy and uploaded the trailer to the site. Over a million in the last twenty-four hours and close to twenty million in the last seven days. You do the math—that’s two hundred ten million in box office. Plus, it’s an action film—they do amazing overseas. Can you even imagine what the international ticket sales will be? The DVD market alone will pay for the film.”
Steven looked at Mike. “She’s very impressive, isn’t she?”
“I think so,” Mike said, putting an arm around Jess.
Steven leaned in surreptitiously. “I hear there’s going to be a screening.”
“Now, Steven, you and I both know that would be illegal,” Jessica said, taking a sip of her soda water.
“But a great way to get the community on board. Create some internal heat, some fire. Press Arnold from the inside.”
His eyes sparkled. He was a member of the press, a reporter, and what reporter didn’t love a secret?
Jessica glanced at Steven out of the corner of her eye. Slyly she titled her head. “Well, if something like that was to screen, I can think of no better place than CTA, and it would be a brilliant way to spend a Thursday afternoon, don’t you agree? After lunch around three.”
“That sounds ideal. Well, if something like that were to ever take place,” he said, grinning, “you can count on my participation.”
Jessica smiled. “Excellent. Now, should you hear other dates and times, you ignore them. Unless, of course, you hear it from me.”
The plan included a disinformation campaign. It was inevitable that the news of a screening would spread like wildfire, but to ensure that there would be no unpleasant appearance by Arnold, Jessica and Kiki were floating a myriad of dates and times throughout the community. Only the people they needed at the screening would get the correct information. Unless they heard otherwise from Jessica, CTA at three on Thursday was the only place to be.
*
Jessica rested her head against the leather headrest in Mike’s Aston Martin as he whipped around a turn on Laurel Canyon Drive. She’d done it; she’d passed along her verbal invite to everyone she was responsible for getting to the screening. There were no interruptions. Arnold Murphy had failed to appear. And Mike was an amazing asset. He’d worked the room with her. They made a fantastic team. Mike’s humor softened Jessica’s ever-present businesslike tone.
“Hey, so Will is having a party at his house tonight. It’s not far from here. Want to stop by?”
Jessica glanced at the clock. It was only ten P.M., but she
was tired and famished. A guilty little voice told her she should go. Missing celebrity parties, Jessica believed, was one of the reasons she’d lost Holden and Maurice. Plus, now she had Tolliver breathing down her neck.
“Can we get something to eat first?” Jessica asked.
Her hunger clawed at her insides. And she was horrified to admit, there was only one thing that would satisfy.
“Sure. Where you want to go? What are you hungry for?”
Mike asked.
Jessica glanced sheepishly to her left.
“Well, you won’t believe this. But I want a cheeseburger and fries.”
Mike glanced over at Jess.
“Little overdressed, aren’t we?” he kidded her.
He pulled to a stop at the light outside the Beverly Hills Hotel and reached out and touched Jessica’s hand.
“A burger, huh?”
Jessica rested her head on his shoulder and nodded.
“Well, I know there’s an Islands on Beverly. We’ll go there.”
Jessica smiled in satisfaction, knowing that her meal, and the chocolate shake she craved but failed to mention, was only moments away.
*
Jessica knew she should be on her feet working the room. An agent wasn’t any good sitting down, a mantra she’d repeated to herself at every party she attended in the last seven years. A great agent continuously circled, meeting everyone, being everywhere, saying hello to every person at every party. You never knew when an opportunity might arise. And those opportunities definitely weren’t going to come to you if you were sitting down with your feet up.
