by Lila Monroe
The assistant looks up from her computer. “Yes?” She’s got long, bejeweled pink nails that must make it hard to type.
“Laurel Young to see Mr. Davis,” I say. No squeaky voice. Great start. She picks up the phone, hits a button, and says, “She’s here.” After a second, she hangs up and nods. “You can go in.”
I enter Herman Davis’s office without tripping, smacking my head into the door, or initiating a nuclear standoff. Always a good beginning.
At first it’s hard to see anything, what with the row of about twenty golden Emmy awards lined up against the back wall reflecting the morning sun. Blinking stupidly with my mouth open is surely not the world’s greatest first impression, but I recover fast. Behind a spacious, mahogany desk, Herman Davis waits.
Mr. Davis is somewhere in his early sixties, with a full head of silver hair, a pair of rimless glasses, and an attitude full of don’t-fuck-with-me. He looks at me without irritation or lust: already, this is new.
“You’re Young, aren’t you?” he asks.
That’s not a real question about my age. Hopefully.
“Yes. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.” I try to keep my voice pitched as low as possible. Otherwise, I come off as the teenage babysitter hoping to score an extra five bucks at the end of the night.
“Brian Sanderson’s an asshole.” He sighs. “Taking off like that with the star of our show. Idiot.” Poor Brian. He’s a sweet, loveable dork who remembered birthdays and collected Funko POP! characters on his desk, not a sharky Hollywood jackass. I have to resist the urge to stick up for him. “But he told me you’re one of the best assistant producers he’s ever seen.” Davis raises his eyebrows.
Do I take a seat now? I can’t hesitate: in Hollywood, perfect confidence gets you the corner office. I sit down in front of his desk, fighting the urge to smooth my skirt. Nervous habit. He doesn’t say anything.
“Brian always listened to my ideas,” I say, sounding casual. In reality, Brian’s attitude towards women in the workplace was like a golden unicorn: beautiful and impossibly rare.
“Mmm. You were the one who suggested the Yukon expedition for Millionaires in Paradise sweep week.” Davis nods, looking gruffly pleased. “People didn’t expect that; pampered princesses in rugged territory.” He leans back in his leather chair. “Big ratings hit.”
Brian stuck up for me, good man that he was. He didn’t claim my idea for his own. Why the hell did he have to blow everything up like this?
“Let me explain this situation to you.” Davis leans forward again, clasped hands on the shining top of his desk. “We’ve got a gaping hole in the Thursday night lineup now that Millionaires is gone. It’s a hole that needs to be filled at once. I’m accepting emergency pitches for a new show.” He nods. “I want to hear your ideas.”
Oh God, does he mean right now? Frantically, I start the wheels in my brain spinning. Come on. Hot girls find love with gamer geeks? Four families are sent to the bottom of the Mariana trench to see who survives? I’m blowing this.
“You’ve got a week.” Praise Jesus! Davis stands up, and I do the same. A week. Seven whole days. I can work with that. “I want to see if you’re as good as Sanderson told me you were. Deliver me a great pitch, I’ll do more than take it. I’ll let you produce the entire thing yourself.”
I do a great job of not dropping dead on the spot. Produce the entire show? That’s a fast track I never thought I’d be on. That’s a career-making move. Davis clearly sees this is making me too happy, because he adds,
“I need capable producers. What I don’t need are hangers on with nothing to do.” He doesn’t smile. “And with Sanderson gone, you won’t be very busy.”
Okay. It’s feast or famine, producer or unemployment line. If I succeed next week, I’ll finally be a producer, full fledged and shiny. I’ll have control of my own show. No more bowing to other people, even good guys like Brian. I’ll be running the place myself. Those sweet images of world ratings domination float through my mind.
But if I don’t make the cut, I’ll probably be back in my Ohio hometown, looking for a job at the local public access station. New mantra: Don’t fuck this up, Laurel.
“You won’t be disappointed, Mr. Davis,” I say, almost reaching to shake his hand. But that’s not a smart move. I don’t know that he’s touched anyone below the executive pay grade since 1989.
“I better not be. All right, Young. Off you go.” He nods to the door, and I walk away, wanting to do little twirling dances and sing dumb songs. I imagine a full-on Disney musical number, complete with animated sidekicks, but not here. Outside.
Before I can touch the handle, the door opens. And I’m face to face with my worst nightmare. There he is, five foot ten of gelled, chiseled-jaw, Axe body sprayed douche canoe. Tyler Kinley.
“Hey, it’s Young Laurel. Still as sexy as ever.” He gives a smile so white it belongs at a GOP stump speech, and raises his Ralph Lauren sunglasses. His eyes go down my body, lingering on my breasts. I resist the urge to knee him in the groin.
Young Laurel. That was the “nickname” he thought was so fresh. Back when we were sleeping together, I let him get away with it. I’m not in the mood for his wacky verbal shenanigans now.
“Hey, Tyler. If you can try squeezing your ego through the doorway, I’ll be able to leave.” I give him a professional, hollow smile. He gets to leer, and I have to shut up and bear it. It’s a healthy dose of the real world over at Reel World, let me tell you.
He laughs and sweeps into the room past me, a perfumed cloud of jackass suffocating me in his wake. “Mr. D! How are you, man?” Tyler actually walks up and grabs Davis’s hand. I can’t tell if the executive is pleased or not, but he doesn’t say anything. Could I have gotten away with that? Or would it have been too ‘immature’ coming from a woman? “I heard it through the grapevine that you’re accepting pitches for Sanderson’s misfire. Happy to volunteer my brilliance.”
My stomach plummets. It takes the elevator back up and plummets again, even further and harder, when Davis says,
“We’re taking the pitches in a week. I want to see good work, Kinley.”
“If by good work, you mean good T and A, I got what you need. I’m already cooking up an angle for something totally new: breast implants for underage teen daughters of celebrities. It’ll be SAH—Sweet As Hell.”
“Have you been waiting for the right moment to use that one?” I say, wanting to run him over with a tractor. I wince; damn, I didn’t want to appear rattled in front of Davis, but Tyler will do that to you. The bastard actually winks at me.
“Came up with it in the moment. That’s what I do, Young. I’m an idea guy.”
No. You’re the guy who steals other people’s ideas. As I walk out of Davis’s office and listen to Tyler guffaw and talk about the ‘hot new assistant’ outside, I grit my teeth. It’s time for Genghis Khan to grab her pumps and get to work.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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