by Maggie Marr
Like she was right now, tucked into a plush couch at Will’s home with her feet resting on an ottoman. It was one A.M., and this party had just started to rock. DJ Jinx was warming up and the place was packed. Mike had disappeared an hour earlier, into a back room where there was some heavy-hitting poker game going on.
She chatted with Rachel Adamson, a young star repped by ACA, the competitive agency that had recently poached both Holden and Maurice. Jessica supposed she could count this as work. She was, in a way, trying to obtain a new client for CTA. Rachel was in that perilous position that young female stars found themselves in after the first hit—what next? Actresses had such a small amount of time and few opportunities to make their mark. Jessica knew that if Rachel didn’t “break out” in her next film, some new hot young thing would take Rachel’s spot in line.
“So, Jess, do I go with the action film—it could be a franchise—or do I stick with the small character roles?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, Rachel, figuratively as well as financially. What is your gut telling you? What do you want to do?”
“Well, Josh says I should go for the money; but my gut tells me that’s shortsighted. Shouldn’t it always be about the quality of the work?”
Jessica smiled. Not only was Rachel talented, she was also smart.
“I agree with you. When I advise my clients, I tell them it’s got to be about the work. Now, if they don’t care and only want the money, that’s fine, and I’ll negotiate the deal. But I know that part of what I need to give them for my ten percent isn’t just my connections and negotiating skills, it’s also my advice. The wisdom I’ve gathered over the last seven years.”
Jessica’s eyes drifted past Rachel toward the front door.
“Did you say your agent is Josh Dragatsis?” Jessica watched the little devil Josh stroll in with Holden, Maurice, and her former assistant (and now competitive agent) Kim.
“Yeah,” Rachel said, turning her head to see what caught Jessica’s attention. “I can’t believe Josh convinced Holden to do Booty Time 2. And I thought he’d finally decided to become a legitimate actor.”
Jessica could barely suppress her contempt. Her predictions about Josh and what he’d do to destroy Holden’s career were already reality.
“That’s what happens when it’s all about the money for the agent,” Jessica said. “Rachel, I’m going to find Mike. It’s about time for me to go.”
Rachel stood with Jessica and reached out to give her a hug. “Thanks for all the advice, Jess.”
“Of course. You know where I am. And you have all my numbers. If ever you’re unhappy or just want to talk, please give me a call.”
“I’m going to do that,” Rachel said, eyeing Josh and Holden. “Let’s get some lunch this week. I don’t think I want to end up in Booty Time Part 3.”
Jessica walked toward the private poker room knowing she’d just managed to take one of Josh Dragatsis’s big clients. Three months ago, she’d have been thrilled, wanting vengeance against any competitive agent who even looked at one of her stars. But recently something had changed. The hunt and the kill were beginning to seem pointless to her. Jessica tried to shake these thoughts loose from her head. What was she thinking? Her rapport with stars paid for her lifestyle and had catapulted her to president of CTA. Such success had been her dream since she was pushing a mail cart a decade ago. She was definitely losing her edge.
Jessica could barely see through the thick haze of Cuban cigar smoke in the back room. The stench made her gag. She had to get Mike and leave quickly or she might vomit on the floor. She caught his eye and cocked her head toward the door. He nodded and held up one finger. She knew this would be his last hand. A pile of cash and chips lay in front of him, proving that the golden touch that made all his films turn to hits seemed to magically apply to poker as well. She’d never met anyone so adept at and also so comfortable with success. Never worried he might lose, Mike just kept on winning. Why couldn’t she be so sure of herself?
Jessica stepped back and leaned against the wood-paneled wall. To be in this room, hanging out with the who’s who of the entertainment universe, would have been any music or movie fan’s dream. Young Hollywood, the next generation. Rappers, rockers, studio executives, actresses, and actors. These people were amazingly talented, but they were just people. When had she become so disinterested?
Jessica watched her former client Holden Humphrey enter the room through the French doors from the patio. She knew that as president of CTA and Holden’s former agent, she should rush to him and schmooze him. Make sure that he knew he always had a home at CTA. But for the first time in her career, she didn’t want to. She nodded her head in recognition, and to her surprise, Holden started walking toward her.
“Jess?” Holden said, with what sounded like relief in his voice. He leaned forward and pecked both her cheeks.
Jess gave him a little squeeze and a sincere smile. She wasn’t angry anymore; she actually felt sorry for him.
“So, Booty Time 2?” Jessica asked.
Holden flushed and ducked his head.
“You heard?”
“Yeah. What happened with Inside the Fire and Tony Scott? I know he wanted you for that.”
“I shit the bed,” Holden said, using the age-old actors’ expression for blowing an audition.
“Holden, how?” Jessica exclaimed. “You’ve been preparing for that audition. You and Moises worked on that role for weeks.”
“I know, I know. Jess, it was a major cluster fuck. I just, well, I went out the night before. Josh had this major thing at his place.”
“You did what?” Jessica could barely contain her anger. Opportunities like starring in a Tony Scott film didn’t come often. In fact, most actors never got that type of chance in their entire careers.
“It’s fucked up, I know,” Holden said. He was obviously embarrassed. “They got it on tape, too. Plus, Tony was in the room.”
Jessica knew that this was major damage. The only way around it would be for his agent to plead and beg for one more audition for Holden. Blame it on a death, the flu, a blow to Holden’s head. Anything, as long as Holden got one more shot in front of the director.
“But you’re going in to see Tony again, right?” Jessica asked.
“Nah. Josh said it wasn’t worth it.”
Jessica bit her lip so hard to stop herself from screaming that she tasted blood. Be cool. He’s not your client anymore, Jessica thought.
“Besides, Booty Time 2 will pay my full quote plus gross points.”
“That’s great.” Jessica feigned pleasure. She knew, even if Holden didn’t, that Booty Time 2 would end his career.
“Hey, babe.” Mike slid his arm around Jess’s waist and kissed the top of her head. “Holden.” Mike smiled at Holden. “How’s it going at ACA?”
“You know, can’t complain,” Holden said, tipping the beer he held to his lips.
“Well, it looks like my girl is pooped. We’re going to hit it,” Mike said, steering Jessica toward the front door.
“See ya later, Jess,” Holden called, smiling and giving Jessica a wink.
What had been a $20 million wink a month ago was soon to be worth absolutely zero in the marketplace.
“Later,” Jess said, knowing that all her years of hard work for Holden Humphrey meant nothing at all.
Chapter 30
Mary Anne Meyers and Her Adidas Running Shoes
Mary Anne felt like a spy. She wore dark oversized Gucci sunglasses, a khaki trench coat, and Adidas running shoes (in case she needed to make a quick getaway). Her driver (Mitsy) stayed with the car while she paced in front of the arrival gate at the Burbank airport. The cryptic details that Toddy had given Mary Anne were sketchy. She was to pick someone up at the Burbank airport today. This someone would be on the three P.M. flight from San Francisco. According to Toddy, Mary Anne would know this person when she saw them.
It was all very cloak-and-dagger, something that
made Mary Anne incredibly uncomfortable. A habitual rule follower, Mary Anne never enjoyed the frenzied adrenaline rush that accompanied illicit behavior. Her palms started sweating when she thought about making an illegal U-turn. Now she stood in the Burbank airport, waiting for something and someone she knew was illegal. Mary Anne just hoped it wasn’t drugs. Surely Lydia wouldn’t ever be into that scene. But Worldwide had frozen all of Lydia’s films, and her lifestyle was very expensive. Mary Anne wondered if she’d have a legitimate defense when the police nabbed her. “I’m sorry, Officer, I didn’t know that I was being used as a mule. I was just trying to help a friend.”
Whoever this person was, Mary Anne was not helping them carry their bags. It was bad enough she was their chauffeur, but she wasn’t becoming an accomplice, too. But what if they got stopped in the car? And Mitsy! Why had she brought her mother? Mitsy, even the new Mitsy, the one with a red wine obsession and a nicotine habit, wouldn’t survive in the clink. Mary Anne inhaled and exhaled. Be calm, she told herself. They weren’t going to get pinched. She’d make Mitsy drive. Who would ever suspect a fifty-six-year-old woman from Minnesota for a drug mule? Besides, this whole thing wouldn’t take very long. She had strict orders to pick this person up and drop them at the Best Western three blocks from the Worldwide lot.
Mary Anne stood by the baggage carousel scanning the passengers of Flight 220 from San Francisco. She prayed that whoever this drug runner was, they hadn’t checked their bag. For God’s sakes, surely they are smarter than that. I mean, this is L.A.; they have drug-sniffing dogs. Mary Anne scanned the baggage claim area, searching for German shepherds or a SWAT team.
All she saw was one very big, very bald guy pretending to read a newspaper by the glass doors. Passengers trickled by, an elderly Asian couple and a group of twenty teenage girls carrying pillows and giggling. Where was her connection? She started to pace again. Of course she wanted to help Lydia. She’d do anything for Lydia. But serving time was not one of the things that Mary Anne ever thought Lydia might need.
Mary Anne suddenly stopped. Pacing was suspicious. Especially when you whispered to yourself. It wasn’t as if Mary Anne needed to get home and write. She wasn’t on a deadline—at least not anymore. She’d gotten a call from Josanne Dorfman (or Jojo the monkey-faced girl, as Cici called her) two weeks before. Josanne was very abrupt; in fact, downright rude. She’d told Mary Anne to stop working on The Sky’s the Limit, the script of Mary Anne’s that Lydia had found in her slush pile months ago, the one that Worldwide had purchased assuming it would be Lydia Albright’s next film after Seven Minutes Past Midnight was complete.
“Mr. Murphy requested that I call,” Josanne said, her tone implying that the fact that the call was at Arnold’s request made it of the utmost importance. “We won’t be moving forward on The Sky’s the Limit.”
Mary Anne was speechless. Still relatively new to the entire Hollywood film business, she wasn’t sure what “not moving forward” meant.
“In fact,” Josanne continued in her nasal voice, barely able to contain her glee, “we won’t be moving forward on anything concerning Lydia Albright.”
Josanne paused as if to let the meaning of this statement sink in with Mary Anne. “Except cleaning out her bungalow and shelving her film. That we will be doing,” Josanne cackled.
But it was no joke. Mary Anne immediately phoned Jessica. “It’s a huge fucking mess,” Jessica said, sounding irritated.
“What does it mean?” Mary Anne asked, hoping that all her hard work on both scripts wasn’t for nothing.
“It means that Arnold Murphy is a huge prick,” Jessica said, typing on her computer as she spoke to Mary Anne. “And that he’s terrified of Lydia’s success.”
“But—”
“It seems that Arnold and Zymar had a huge fight at the screening. Arnold threatened to shelve the film, so Zymar stole the only print and went to New Zealand.”
“What?!” Mary Anne was shocked. She’d spoken to Zymar the day before the rough-cut screening. He had been locked away in his editing suite on the Worldwide lot working feverishly on the film and had called to tell Mary Anne that she was a fantastic writer and how spot-on her dialogue was.
“Look.” Jessica sighed. “This thing will work itself out; it always does. But for now, Lydia is banned from the Worldwide lot, and all the projects she’s set up there, including The Sky’s the Limit, are on hold.”
“Can they do that?”
“They’re the studio; they can do whatever they want. You remember that huge check that they gave you, the one with all the zeros? Well, they own The Sky’s the Limit.”
“Forever?”
Mary Anne’s hopes were crushed. She loved The Sky’s the Limit. The script was a character piece, very close to her heart. It was, Mary Anne believed, her first piece of truly beautiful writing.
“There is a reversion clause in the contract.”
A glimmer of hope. “How long before I get it back?”
“Seven years. But please, trust me, it’s not really dead. I’ve already started talking to Paul Peterson, the head of Summit, about Lydia getting an overall deal there.”
“So …”
“Mary Anne, don’t worry about this now. It won’t take seven years. And don’t worry about Seven Minutes Past Midnight, either. There are things that we are doing, I can’t be specific, but Arnold has only won one battle, not the entire war,” Jessica said, and then she belched!
Mary Anne giggled. The idea of the tightly controlled Jessica letting a burp slip was crazy funny.
“Oh my God, Mary Anne, excuse me.” Jessica sounded horrified. “I’m so sorry. Dammit, I’ve been doing that ten times a day. I don’t know what I ate, but this burping is just disgusting.”
“Don’t worry about it; happens to me all the time,” Mary Anne lied.
“Thanks. Okay, now just continue working on The Duo. It’s at Summit and Lydia will do it next if The Sky’s the Limit gets pushed.”
“I’m finished with it.”
“What?” Jessica sounded surprised.
“Jess, I’ve done all the notes Lydia gave me. I handed it in to her three days ago. It’s not like Lydia. She usually calls the day after I give her a script to read.”
“Then I’m going to get you another assignment to keep you busy. Or do you have an idea for a film? I can get you mid, maybe high, six figures for an original.”
“Well, I do have an idea that I’ve been working on….” Mary Anne’s voice drifted off. She’d been toying with an idea but didn’t have the story hammered into a three-act structure yet.
“Great, come in and pitch it to me. Later this week. Lauren!”
Jessica yelled at her number one assistant. “Hop on this line and schedule a time for Mary Anne to come in and pitch to me.”
“What happened to Kim?” Mary Anne asked. She’d gotten so used to dealing with Jessica’s first assistant over the phone that she hadn’t known the other two by name.
“Don’t ask!” Jessica said, again typing away on her keyboard. “And don’t be shocked if she calls you and asks you to lunch, either.”
“She left?”
“Long story,” Jessica said dismissively. “So how is everything going with your family?”
No matter how busy Jessica was, and Mary Anne knew she sometimes fielded up to three hundred phone calls in one day, Jessica always asked Mary Anne about Mitsy and Marvin. In fact, since Mitsy moved in with Mary Anne, Jessica had called several times just to check on Mary Anne’s family status.
“Good. Not good. I don’t know.”
Mary Anne felt a pang of sadness surge through her.
“If you ever need someone professional to talk to, please, let me know. I know the most brilliant psychiatrist.”
“Thanks, Jess. Maybe in a couple of weeks. Right now it just feels too fresh.”
“I get it,” Jessica said. Mary Anne could once again hear Jessica’s fingers flying across her computer keyboard. Time to go. Mary A
nne understood that every agent had ADD and that there was a maximum attention span of perhaps ten minutes.
“I’m going to take this other call. Lauren, are you on this line?” Jessica yelled out. “Mary Anne, Lauren is going to schedule a time for you to come into the office.” And with that Jessica was gone. Jumping onto another call and spinning more business in the Hollywood phone web.
Now it was Tuesday and Mary Anne stood in the Burbank airport, waiting for a stranger. She glanced at her watch for the sixth time. According to the arrival board, the plane had landed almost seven minutes ago.
“You looking for someone, Miss?”
Mary Anne glanced up at a very tall man with a beard and a Dodgers baseball cap. He wore aviator sunglasses and a nondescript olive-colored jacket. But his voice sounded vaguely familiar. The stranger pulled his sunglasses down and peeked over the top, giving Mary Anne a wink and a great view of his stunning blue eyes. Zymar placed his index finger to his lips and shifted his eyes to the left and to the right.
Mary Anne cleared her throat and calmed herself. “Yes. Actually, uh, my roommate sent me to pick up a dear friend of hers, whom I’ve never met.”
“Ah, you must be Mary Anne,” Zymar said, extending his hand and continuing the charade.
“You must be … uh …”
“Patrick,” Zymar said.
“Patrick, yes. So sorry. Well, Patrick, do you have luggage? Anything I can help you with?”
“No, just this.”
Mary Anne glanced down at the rather large, hard plastic overnight bag Zymar rolled behind him.
“Well, shall we go, then? My car is right outside.”
“Great,” Zymar said.
Zymar glanced around the airport one more time. He walked beside Mary Anne, and under his breath, without moving his lips or removing his smile, said, “Mary Anne, ‘as that big fellow over there pretending to read the paper been there the ‘ole time?”
