by Clare Naylor
Yeah, right, I wasn’t born yesterday, buddy, whipped through my mind, but instead I tried on a concerned, thoughtful look for size. With a whisper of stupidity for good measure. “Hmm,” I said. “Well . . .”
As I hammed up my thoughtful consideration Ryan pushed open the oak door of the office with my Diet Coke on a tray. I never thought that I’d be so relieved to see him. He banged the large, frosty glass down on the table in front of me. I was parched but also too paranoid that Ryan had peed in my drink to risk taking a sip.
“Ryan, could you try to be less of an oaf? Set the glass down on the table—don’t throw it. Would you try that again, please?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ryan had to pick up the glass and put it in front of me gently. I had a wave of sympathy for him. I felt like I should call in Human Rights Watch, or at the very least the SPCA. This was sheer cruelty. But then perhaps that’s why they got along so well. I’d started to notice in this business that like attracted like. I’d never heard a single kind story about Ryan, so perhaps he was a twisted fuck before he ever arrived at The Agency. I just hoped that Victoria hadn’t become my mentor because she had thought that we were similar.
Ryan left the room, and I decided to steer the conversation in a direction I was more comfortable with.
“Daniel, this script I’ve agreed to produce is called Sex Addicts in Love. The writer/director, Jason Blum, is incredibly talented. I know we can raise the money if we can just get access to the right people. I’ve had a budget done, and we could do it for four million.”
“Have you talked to Scott about this? Have you shown him the script?” Oh, no, he was insidiously accusing me of disloyalty, and he was right.
“Well, not yet. I just ran into you in the elevator and you were so nice and offered to help and . . .”
Daniel’s grin was like a cup of hot chocolate after a sleigh ride. “Elizabeth, relax. I’m not criticizing you. I’m glad you came to me first. I take that as a compliment. Anyway, I did hire you, so ultimately you answer to me.” Okay, I could breathe easy again.
But could I? What did that last sentence mean? Daniel had tried to fire me once, and Scott had saved me. Who was I ultimately answerable to? It wasn’t the kind of thing that HR could tell you.
“So tell me what a typical day is like for you as an assistant.” Daniel was getting into his stride.
“It’s pretty standard, really, Daniel.” I smiled innocently. Well, that would be minus the drugs, women, booze, and Lara missing in action, I suppose. “Our office probably runs just like yours. Scott’s at meetings all the time.” I began to expand on how busy Scott was trying to sign this new director and chasing his actresses and getting points for Justin on his first film. Then I realized that I was probably getting a little too comfortable. It was so warm and dark in Daniel’s office. Like a library in a stately home, and I was being lulled into divulging way too much. Daniel’s incessant questioning was subtle, but it always steered back to Scott and the implication that he was incompetent and irresponsible. In short, Daniel had an agenda, and it had nothing to do with me or the script.
“Does he have meetings with Katherine Watson?” I wondered if he thought they were having an affair, too. I’d never mentioned the subject again to Lara, but Katherine seemed to be calling Scott a lot these days, and always directly, without her assistant on the line.
“Not that I’ve ever scheduled,” I said truthfully.
He glanced at his watch, which seemed to signal the end of our meeting.
“Elizabeth, why don’t you leave your script with Ryan, and I’ll take a look. It was great seeing you, and I’m really glad we have you at The Agency. I think you’ll make a great addition. Let’s meet again soon and have another one of these very informative chats. I love to know what’s happening at all times with my employees,” he said. My grin was plastered to my face like a bug on a windshield.
“Great, Daniel, thanks for your time.” Had I been informative? I certainly hadn’t intended to be. And did I really have to leave Jason’s script with Ryan? I wasn’t sure that I wanted to anymore. I pulled the script out of my bag and gazed at it lovingly. Could I really leave it in the hands of Ryan the cannibal? But I guessed that it would cross his path one way or another. “Thanks so much. Again. See you soon.”
I walked backward out of the office in ridiculous deference. Thankfully, Ryan wasn’t at his desk so I just smiled at Assistants Two, Three, and Four, dropped the script on the friendliest girl’s desk, and darted for the stairway. I just couldn’t handle running into Ryan in the elevator—my nerves were already too shot.
Before heading back to my office, I raced down to my car to grab the blouse I kept there in case of emergencies. I was positively damp with anxiety after that audience with Daniel. Plus, I needed a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I wondered whether Daniel really did have Scott’s best interests at heart, as he claimed to. I knew that Scott had worked under Daniel for years, and he had been the one to promote him exponentially to his current esteemed position. I collected my shirt from the trunk and slammed it shut before making my way back to the elevator. Could I really have been in this business so long already that I could only see a friendly helping hand in a suspicious light? All I did know was that my loyalties were with Scott. Something about all that slithering on the fourth floor just didn’t sit well with me. Daniel and Ryan, the organ-grinder and the monkey. All that easy chatter and fake homeliness. It just didn’t ring true.
As I was about to press the elevator button, José approached me urgently. “Lizzie: Donde hay humo, hay calor.” That was an easy one. I’d decided that the Josés were in league to help me bone up on my Spanish. Perhaps so that I’d be better agent material, or maybe so that one day they could marry me off to one of their sons. “ ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ ” I translated proudly. “I remember that one from eighth grade.” The Josés didn’t seem overly impressed with my translation. “Be careful, little lizard,” one of them said, and then they both scurried off as two guys from the Accounting Department arrived and thrust their valet tickets onto the shelf of the booth.
I hopped into the elevator and made my way back to the sanctuary of my office. And no, the irony of my office’s feeling like a haven did not escape me. I pressed the button for the first floor and wondered what it was about the Josés that made me think they had a superhighway into the heart of goings-on at The Agency. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire rattled around my head. Things had been strange at The Agency lately. Ryan in Scott’s office, Scott’s mystery meetings with Katherine, and then Daniel’s sudden interest in me, of all people. He hadn’t cared a lick about my project in the meeting. It struck me that I couldn’t afford to be such an ostrich anymore, or I’d risk appearing disloyal to Scott. I decided to talk to Lara as soon as possible and try to ascertain whether I was just suffering from routine industry paranoia or whether there was genuinely some chicanery afoot. Ought I to give Scott a heads-up on what I’d observed? I suspected so and ditched my plans to change into my clean shirt and hared back to my office.
I arrived out of breath, only to find Lara missing from her desk and Scott’s door closed to the world. I had to tell him now, before I lost the nerve, so I went straight to his office and threw open the door dramatically. He didn’t have any appointments scheduled, so he was probably just watching a game or a movie. What greeted me was not a usual sight. I blinked a few times in an attempt to identify the clean-shaven, fragrant, gray-suited man at Scott’s desk. Between this morning and now, he had transformed himself from a dodgy Jackass extra into a sharply attired partner of The Agency. Scott looked up expectantly with a calm smile on his face.
“Do you have a wedding this afternoon?” I asked.
Scott smiled, a bit embarrassed. Then motioned to Katherine, sitting on the sofa to his right. “Lizzie, you know Katherine Watson, head of the Lit Department.”
I was even more astonished when I saw that Scott had cle
aned himself up for the irresistible Mrs. Watson. It was really sweet in a pathetic sort of way. Thank God I hadn’t walked in on anything illicit. They were both fully clothed, and Katherine seemed perfectly in control and a good ten feet away from Scott. I stood there like a bronzed Mercury with my mouth open.
“Lizzie, is there something I can help you with?” Scott prompted me.
“Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you about something.” They both looked at me expectantly. “It was kind of private, but it can wait.” Now it was Katherine’s turn to raise an eyebrow. I turned on my heels to leave, but she stood up quickly, straightening her skirt.
“Lizzie, stay. Please. We’re finished here anyway. It was nice meeting you, and, Scott, I’ll let you know.” Know what? I wondered. Maybe what hotel they’d meet in next. Or if she was planning to leave her perfect husband, or what position she favored, or . . .
“Lizzie, what’s up?” Scott stared at me patiently as I struggled to shift my mind back to the subject at hand.
“I just had a meeting with Daniel. I thought it was going to be about this project I’m trying to produce, but . . .”
“What project?” Scott looked surprised. “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Well, it’s just this amazing script I’m trying to produce that a friend of mine wrote.” I stopped speaking because Scott was looking disconcerted. Or was that hurt in his eyes?
“You had a project that you loved and didn’t bring it to me first?” he asked. I looked at him and was flooded with guilt. And regret.
“Scott, really, I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just that . . .” Then the story spilled from my mouth like a newly discovered geyser, in one serious run-on sentence. “I met Daniel in the elevator, and he asked how I was doing and if I liked working for you, and before I knew what I was saying, I’d told him about the project, and then he asked me to meet with him in his office about it, and I never thought he’d call, but then his assistant called to set up the meeting, and then he asked me questions about you, and I wished the entire time that I’d never even been polite and said hello in the elevator in the first place.”
“Okay, Lizzie-o, take a seat,” Scott said, and guided me onto his sofa. Then he sat down opposite me in an armchair. “Let’s take this from the top. And a little more calmly this time.”
“Thank you,” I said, and inhaled.
“So you didn’t not bring me the project because you thought I was shit at my job?” Scott asked.
Oh, God, typical. Why was it that Scott’s insecurity was the primary thing to be addressed here when we had much more important things to worry about? Like Daniel. Like subterfuge. Like dark doings.
“Of course not. I think you’re brilliant at what you do. I just thought you were too busy, and actors seem to be your thing more than writers. Also, I didn’t want to waste your time. You can read the script if you want to. I have it in my desk drawer.” I motioned behind me to where my desk was. “Anyway, Scott, you don’t read.” There, I’d said it. I had to give the guy coverage of coverage. And then he made me read it out to him. Or pitch it if it wasn’t action or comedy.
Thankfully, Scott dissolved into laughter. “You’re right, I’m totally swamped, and I don’t read. But let me know if you need any casting ideas. Now, what did Daniel want to know?”
I proceeded to fill him in on the Daniel grilling. Scott took it all in stride and then asked me only one question.
“Lizzie, are you with me?”
“What, here? Now?” I asked. Was Scott being existential?
“No, I mean you’re either with me or against me. Not that there’s anything going on. But I just need to know.”
“I’m with you, Scott. One hundred percent.” It came out before I had a chance to think about the possible ramifications. I had just chained myself to this fantastic lunatic of a man, and now all I could do was hope and pray that he wasn’t the Titanic.
20
I wish I was going someplace. I wish you were going someplace. We could go together.
—Mary Murphy as Kathie Bleeker
The Wild One
My mother believes that traveling in private airplanes is God’s way of telling you that you have too much money. Every time she hears on the news of one crashing, she shakes her head gravely with an I-told-you-so sigh. She’s an atheist, too, so I’m not sure where that leaves her theory, but I suspect that statistics probably bear her out. Anyway, I pushed all this to the back of my mind as I wheeled my suitcase full of sweaters and scarves and warm things behind me through the foyer of The Agency one rainy January morning. I had been invited to the Sundance Film Festival with Scott, and since it was the first business trip of my entire life, and my first time in a private plane, I was completely psyched.
Originally Lara was supposed to accompany Scott—to go along and answer his cell phone and make sure he got to meetings on time and go to the movies that he couldn’t see because of his busy meet-and-greet and party schedule. But Lara’s parents had chosen that weekend to visit from Philadelphia, and so she had to stay in town. Her loss was my gain, and fortunately it happened just when I most needed it. Everyone had told me that the industry basically went into hibernation from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, but I hadn’t really believed that life could be quite so unequivocally sleepy. Scott hadn’t done a single deal throughout December, Lara spent her days out of the office meeting with literary agents, and even Victoria seemed to have people to buy Christmas presents for. So apart from a very busy afternoon when I’d had to try to ascertain whether to send Hanukkah cards or Christmas cards to Scott’s clients, basically making sure that those who were supposed to get Baby Jesus in a crib didn’t get a menorah card and vice versa, life had been fairly unstimulating.
Not a single agent had responded to Sex Addicts in Love, and I had even sent it beyond The Agency doors to people I vaguely knew at CAA, William Morris, and Endeavor. Plus, I had never heard another peep from Daniel about it. In fact, Daniel had been eerily quiet lately. I hadn’t seen him and Scott slap each other’s backs for as long as I could remember. Even Ryan seemed to have crawled back under his stone. And to make the boringness even more deadly, I had heard from Talitha that my one beacon of romantic light, Luke Lloyd, was on location in Morocco. So I couldn’t even gaze at him in the V Pages and wonder who his gorgeous date might have been at this premiere or that dog dance. Instead I envisaged him having an affair with the leading lady of his picture and imagined them secreted away in some Moorish palace feeding one another fresh figs and making love in the hot afternoons.
When close of business finally arrived, I logged off my computer, then dashed over to the Coffee Bean to say au revoir to Jason and pick up a revised draft of Sex Addicts. While we hadn’t managed to get anyone to read it yet, we were very far from giving up on the project and had spent countless weekends doing read-throughs of the script. I’d overcome my mortification at acting and played the parts of various hookers, mothers, and girlfriends, while Jason had sunk himself into the male roles with the conviction of a seasoned thespian. Whenever our characters were supposed to kiss, we had simply smiled shyly at one another and then skipped to the next scene. Still, though, we remained the unattached stalwarts in one another’s lives, even though any sexual chemistry had been laid to rest long ago. We went to weekend matinees together, made roast-chicken suppers at my apartment when one of us was feeling homesick, and though I didn’t hike with him ever again, we did sometimes stroll along the beach together. To all intents and purposes, we were a couple. I just never got close enough to feel the scratch of his yak-hair sweaters.
“Have fun, Lizzie,” he said as I packed the newly polished manuscript into my bag and made my way toward the door.
“I wish I could put you in my luggage, and then we could run around Sundance together and get some funding for this puppy,” I said, patting the bulge of the screenplay in my purse.
“Well, just do what you can.” Jason waved me off. “And if you need to
take one for the team, then make sure you do.”
I shot him an evil stare and then laughed. “Oh, okay, then. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Our poor movie did seem to be languishing in the doldrums of late. I’d been told that the spring was going to be the time to sell it, though, and get it up and running, so all hope was not lost. I was more convinced than ever that this was a work of genius, and I’d even come around to appreciating Jason’s scratchy directorial efforts, since I’d become a little more educated in cinema through innumerable bleak afternoons watching Elia Kazan and Preston Sturges, not to mention a slew of European films that had previously passed me by as subtitled nightmares for tedious undergraduates. So the deal was that Sundance might just present Jason and me with an opportunity to get Sex Addicts off the ground finally, and I was planning to pitch it to anyone who’d listen.
An hour and a half later, Scott and I emerged from our limo at LAX. It was raining, and our driver was holding up a giant umbrella to shield us from the evening downpour. I looked up, and there, in front of us, was my first Gulfstream on the small airstrip. The steps were down, and a pretty flight attendant was standing at the door smiling at us. I was about to go to the trunk of the car to help pull out my luggage, but instead the driver ushered me over to a red carpet that was rolled out on the tarmac leading to the plane. I wanted to laugh, to shove Scott in the rib cage and tell him how insane the carpet was, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was on his cell phone to Katherine Watson, talking attorneys in hushed tones. Besides which, where Scott was concerned, the Gulfstream was like catching a Greyhound bus, just without the irritation of having to smell the cheeseburger being munched noisily by the guy across the aisle.
