by Shari Low
‘I loved the book. Loved it. Mercedes, did I tell you I loved that book?’
‘You loved it,’ replied shiny reception person.
At which point my shoes became hovercrafts and I started floating on air.
This was Dave. Head of Development at Global Studios. And he loved my book.
We sailed on through to his office, another feast of décor so extravagant and sumptuous that it was the kind of place I imagined that Elton John would come to die.
We sat down at a massive, ornate table that spanned almost an entire stretch of wall. On the other side of the office was a magnificent antique desk and two stunning overstuffed antique sofas, furniture that looked slightly out of place in a room that was decked in more movie posters than our local Odeon. Focus, Carly, focus, I chided myself. And do not make an inappropriate comment about that life-size cardboard cut-out of Uma Thurman.
He offered me a drink but I declined–I didn’t trust myself not to spill it, leave ring marks on the table or do that very inelegant thing where you take a large gulp then choke and spray the entire room.
‘So…loved the book. Loved it. Funny. Quick. Sharp, sharp, sharp,’ he announced with accompanying finger clicks.
Great, great, great, thought I.
‘So, tell me all about you.’
My astonishment just gained another layer. I was expecting a guy who looked like a stockbroker and a serious, intellectual, intimidating discussion, and instead I was having a girly chat with one of the blokes from Queer Eye.
‘What do you want to know?’ I asked.
‘Everything–start with growing up and we’ll take it from there–I just want to get inside the head of Carly Cooper.’
A head that was, at that moment, ready to explode with excitement. Surely that must mean he was interested in making me an offer? These guys had so many people banging on their doors that they surely wouldn’t waste time with meetings that weren’t going to lead somewhere?
Although why details of how I grew up had any relevance to the numbers of zeros on the cheque, I had no idea.
Nevertheless, I regaled him with tales of a Glasgow childhood, moving through my teenage years and into early adulthood. I was just approaching the point where the story of Nipple Alert started when he interrupted me.
‘Do you smoke?’ he asked.
Oh, crap–a test. In California the mere mention of the word Marlboro can result in forty environmentalists (with the emphasis on ‘mentalist’) descending and beating you to death with fag packets. Perhaps the studio had a policy of working only with non-smokers. My first instinct was, of course, to lie. But then I wondered if he somehow knew I smoked and wanted to test my honesty and integrity.
Doh! Now I knew how Mac and Benny felt when being interrogated about something they knew they’d done wrong but planned to lie their way out of.
‘Erm, yes. Sometimes. Not many. But occasionally. Socially…’
Mouth open, ramblings coming out.
I waited for klaxons to sound, lights to flash and storm-troopers to burst in and hose me down with anti-nicotine spray.
But instead, ‘Fantastic!’ he whispered in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Let’s have a cigarette right now.’
‘But I thought there was no smoking on the lot,’ I replied, perplexed. I don’t know what had given me that idea–perhaps the four-foot-high signs on every single wall promising ejection and death to all smokers.
He motioned me over to a window that had a packet of cigs on the ledge, offered me one and took one for himself. Just when I thought this meeting couldn’t get any more bizarre, I was now hanging out of a window and giggling with the Head of Development of one of the most prestigious studios on the planet.
I was so on to a good thing here. I was so…
‘Okay, so here’s the thing, Carly.’ Finally, he was going to contribute more to this meeting than prompts for the gory, salacious details of my life and black lungs.
‘This is what we’re going to do.’
‘Write a huge big cheque and transform your life,’ was the line I was waiting for.
‘We’re going to pass on Nipple Alert.’
Did he say pass? Was that movie-world lingo for ‘snap up right now for an obscene amount of money’?
‘We love it. Love it. But we’ve already got six rom coms in development and I think we’re maxed out in that genre.’
You could have knocked me down with a Marlboro Light.
‘But we love your writing. We love what you do and we love you.’
Fuck, this bloke just loved everything. Except cheques with his signature on them.
‘The reason I wanted to meet you today is because I think we could work together on future projects. How would you feel about doing a dialogue polish on comedy projects?’
I pondered this for a moment, giving the grey matter time to regroup. He didn’t want to buy my book, so goodbye fame and fortune. He did, however, want me to do some work for him on script polishing. Consulting my vast knowledge of the world of movie production, garnered from Jackie Collins’s books and occasional chats with Sam, I knew that polishing was when a script was just about finished and they brought in someone to make the dialogue better.
Or something like that.
It definitely didn’t involve Pledge and a duster, so it could only be good. Great, actually.
I started to get excited again. It might not be the jackpot but it was the equivalent of five numbers and the bonus ball. He was offering me a job with Global. Should I jump up and smother him with kisses now or wait until later?
‘When would I start?’ I asked in a voice that was on the helium side of normal.
He looked confused for a second. ‘Actually, I don’t have a specific project in mind at the moment. But with six scripts in development, we’re definitely going to need you at some stage on a freelance basis. No guarantees, of course.’
So much for stardom being handed to me on a plate by Dave Marino. Instead I got deflation, dejection, and another step closer to lung cancer.
‘Ah, he’s a shrewd guy,’ said Ike Tusker later when I called him on his cell phone to give him the lowdown on the meeting, while waiting at the studio entrance for a cab. ‘He’s spotted that you’re good and he wants to keep you onside. No one in this town wants to be known as the person who rejected the next big movie, the next big actor or the next hot writer.’
‘So do you think it’ll lead to anything?’
‘Possibly,’ he replied.
My spirits soared.
‘But possibly not.’
Spirits clutched their chest and keeled over.
‘It’s a crapshoot, honey, but at least Dave Marino knows who Carly Cooper is, and we might be able to use it as leverage later down the line. Now you go home, rest and call me tomorrow after your other meetings.’
I flopped back against the security booth as I disconnected the call. I felt like I’d just run a marathon–I was exhausted, disorientated and I had sweat marks in very unattractive places.
I allowed myself a moment of disappointment for the Hollywood break that hadn’t quite transpired, then returned to giggly, thrilled mode when a huge limo drew up at the gates and stopped to be checked by security.
I tried my hardest to see who was inside while trying my hardest to act like I didn’t care. Nothing. I couldn’t see a thing through the smoked glass of the windows.
The security guard had a chat to the driver then the car started to move into the studio lot. As the back seat passed the booth the window rolled down.
‘Morning, William,’ shouted a female voice.
The security guard tipped his hat. ‘Morning, Ms Winslet.’
I turned my head away so quickly I was left with whiplash. The last thing I needed was for her to think that her deranged park stalker had followed her overseas.
Thankfully, I don’t think she saw me. And on my way back to Pacific Palisades, I pondered that brief episode.
Kate Winslet: lim
o-driven by chauffeur. Carly Cooper: taxi-driven erratically by a rally-driving maniac who spoke only in the national tongue of Kurdistan.
Sometimes the Gods just liked to rub it in.
Family Values Magazine
PUTTING THE YUMMY IN MUMMY
THIS WEEK…
A LITTLE HELP FROM OUR FRIENDS
It’s happened to all of us–the car has broken down, the nanny has called in sick, and the heel on your Manolo Blahnik has broken on the way to that benefit you’ve been planning for months. Quelle horreur! Girls, there’s only one emergency service you can call when such disasters strike–your friends!
It’s often easy to take your chums for granted. Remember, they’re there for the good times as well as the bad. So if it’s been a while since you slipped into your favourite little Chloe number and headed out for fun with the femmes, then get on that BlackBerry right now and set up a date.
Actually, why not go one step further? Next time husband is away on business, call the agency, recruit some extra help, leave the housekeeper in charge and book a revitalising spa weekend with the girls. Go on, you deserve it. What could be better than a couple of days spent nourishing the important things in life: your soul, your skin and your sense of humour? Close your eyes and imagine it now: the sheer bliss of catching up with the gossip, sharing your worries and giggling until your face pack prevents it. Remember, ladies, husbands are fighting bigger fires and don’t want to worry about our minor annoyances. Offload all those little irritations and let the fulfilment of female companionship remind you that we’re the suffragettes of the new millennium: we’re fearless, fabulous and always ready to support our sisterhood in their struggles.
(On that note, can I just thank everyone who joined my petition against the delay of the new Mulberry bag–the company has assured me it is looking into ways to increase production.)
And the best part of a break with the girls? When husband returns he’ll find you refreshed in both body and mind. Isn’t he lucky!
Step Twelve
‘Wow, you’re Carly Cooper, aren’t you? I love the car! You know, you are such an inspiration. I think you’re a great example of a woman in her thirties who decided to risk it all and go for the dream, and now look at you: Porsche, house in Pacific Palisades, and married to Liam Neeson. I wish I could be just like you.’
At which point, a middle-aged man in a Corvette drew up beside me and looked at me like my normal mode of dress should be white and have the words ‘strait’ and ‘jacket’ in the title. Aw, come on–didn’t everyone talk to themselves in their rear-view mirror sometimes?
And anyway, like he could talk–he was a middle-aged bloke in a bomber jacket and a sports car, two facts that automatically barred him from making lifestyle judgements about anyone else.
The lights turned to red and I moved forward. Then stopped. Then moved forward. Then stopped. Shit, I’d never get used to these automatic left-hand-drive controls. I had all the co-ordination of a line dancer on Buckfast.
But hell, I was driving through LA in a Porsche, so how bad could it be?
After seventeen stops for consultations with my Thomas Guide, I finally saw the offices of Dreamtime looming in front of me. Ike Tusker’s secretary, the jolly Stefan, had emailed me my schedule and he’d noted that there was underground parking at these offices, so I screeched around the side of the building and down into the car park–a manoeuvre that was executed in a state of mortal fear that driving on the opposite side of the road from normal would cause me to misjudge the barriers and leave a wing of Sam’s car as a souvenir of my visit.
I stopped at the checkpoint and introduced myself, then frantically groped for the brake as the Porsche jumped forward. Then stopped again. Then jumped forward. Where the fuck was the handbrake?
The very nice security man ignored my ineptitude. He checked a list, found my name and directed me to park over at the faraway wall of the garage, in between a Ferrari and a Bentley I bit my bottom lip and mentally did a calculation: if I wrecked both of them, I figured I could have the debt cleared by the time I was 126.
‘Would you like me to park it for you, ma’am?’ asked very nice security man.
I beamed. ‘Am I allowed to kiss you?’
‘That won’t be necessary, ma’am,’ he replied with just a faint hint of terror on his face.
I entered a very dramatic pink lift–if it were a shade on a colour chart it would be ‘vulva’–and made my way up to the eleventh floor.
‘Juliet Brookstein, please, I have an appointment.’
‘And your name?’
‘Carly Cooper.’
Operation Hollywood Break, take two.
I glanced around the reception area, trying my very best not to be awestruck by the huge water wall in front of me. A water wall. In the middle of a high-rise block. The whole space looked like it had been decorated by Ivana Trump on LSD.
My favourite thing, though, was yet another wall of movie posters, these ones featuring every film that Dreamtime had made, almost every one of which had been a success of blockbuster proportions. I pondered again how far I’d come–all the way from watching their movies with a rubber hot dog in a cardboard roll at the Chiswick multiplex, next to a group of fourteen teenagers with mobile phones that kept ringing, to looking at posters of the same movies in Dreamtime’s offices. Glee and giddy excitement once again.
My stomach was doing flips and my heart was throbbing. I suddenly realised that I wanted to phone Sam. Or Kate. Or even Carol. Or anyone else who would take some joy from sharing the absurdity and sheer bloody optimism of this whole adventure.
Anyone except my husband.
I was sure he was trying. No, cancel that, he was definitely trying–trying to get right on my hooters. When I’d returned home the day before, bursting with the news of my first, admittedly anticlimactic meeting, he had still been at the beach with Mac and Benny.
I’d busied myself writing and filing my column while I waited for him to return.
And waited. And waited. My mind had gone into overdrive–after all, Mark didn’t know LA, it was his first time out on his own and there were loads of crazy drivers out there.
Yep: pot, kettle.
Just when I had been considering calling my friends at the LAPD to file a ‘missing persons and inflatable reptile’ report, I’d heard the car crunch up the driveway.
‘Mum!’ screeched the boys as they piled out of the car, all shiny faces, spiky hair and filthy clothes. I’d wrapped them up in a huge hug then sent them on inside to find Eliza.
‘Hey you, I was getting worried,’ I’d said.
Now, here’s where it gets a bit fuzzy. That statement could be construed in several ways, depending on the tone of voice used, the mood of the moment and the time of the month.
True, I had been worried sick, so I was possibly a little on the tetchy side. But on the other hand I was genuinely pleased to see him and looking forward to a long cosy night discussing our escapades of the day. So my story, and I’m sticking to it, is that it was said in a jovial, concerned and loving way.
Unfortunately, his brain had heard accusatory, narky and pissed off. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. And of course, Mark being Mark had reacted by, well, being Mark. ‘Look, Carly, it’s been a long day, the boys have been a nightmare and I’m tired. I don’t need the moaning, okay?’
‘I wasn’t moaning!’ I’d moaned.
He’d shrugged his shoulders and turned on his heel, heading into the house. ‘I’m going to check my emails,’ he’d said, in a tone that definitely couldn’t have been called jovial, concerned or loving.
Damn! How had that happened? We’d gone from hello to pissed off in seconds. This was the kind of stuff that happened to couples who didn’t like each other any more, not Mark and I. We’d never been hostile. We’d never been disdainful. Even through those dark, dark days of new-babydom when we were dropping with exhaustion and our nerves were shredded we’d always managed to la
ugh and stay on the same side. Now it seemed like the distance between us was wider than Kate Winslet’s limo.
An hour later, after sixteen attempts to peel the boys off the ceiling and settle them down for the night, I’d gone into Sam’s office, where Mark was hunched over the computer.
‘What did the boys have to eat today?’
This time I had been going for ‘casual enquiry’, but I’m prepared to admit that it may have come out as ‘Jesus Christ, what have you been feeding them because they’re completely hyperactive, I know that E-numbers are involved and I can’t believe you’d be so bloody irresponsible and such a crap parent.’
There were heated words, stamping of feet and a slamming of door.
It had taken me a while to calm down, but eventually my fists unclenched. On my way to bed, only an hour after Mac and Benny had finally admitted defeat and fallen asleep, I’d popped my head in again, a white flag clenched between my teeth. Perhaps I was being a bit harsh. After all, Mark hadn’t spent ten unaccompanied hours with the kids since, well, ever. Small Child Mania must have been a bit of a shock to the system for someone who usually spent his day having cappuccinos served to him by a secretary and holding civilised, orderly conversations with real grown-up adults. Time to cut him some slack. Anyway, it was only for one more day, then normal service would be resumed and we could have a semblance of a happy family holiday. We could explore, we could relax, we could shag like porn stars if it took our fancy. We could rediscover why we loved each other and spend all day celebrating the important things in life: marriage, children and Ben & Jerry’s. I couldn’t wait. But first…
‘So do you want to hear about my meeting today?’ I’d asked him in what I’d hoped was a manner that could not be construed as anything other than conciliatory.
He had taken his hands off the keyboard and turned around to face me.
‘Sure.’ It was fairly deadpan.
I’d jumped onto Sam’s big red chenille office sofa. ‘Well,’ I started, ‘when I got there, I gave my name to the security guard and he looked it up on the computer….’
