Auctioned to Him 7: The Contract

by Charlotte Byrd

  “The line starts back there.”

  “I’m not here for an audition,” I say loudly, to just appease everyone’s feelings. I feel the whole hallway give out a sigh of relief – one less person to compete with. As if I could really be competition, I chuckle to myself.

  There’s a tiny woman with thick frames and short black hair sitting at a table at the end of the hallway. She looks up from her clipboard.

  “You have to wait in line, miss,” she says.

  “I’m actually not auditioning. My name’s Chloe Nichols and Tim is expecting me,” I say as confidently as possible. Tim is the producer who responded to my email. At this moment, I can’t remember his name. Shit. She looks at her clipboard.

  “Oh yes, here you are. You’re right on time, but we can’t interrupt the auditioning process. I’ll let you in as soon as that girl comes out.”

  I nod and wait. By the look on her face, I can tell that the girl in front of whom I’m cutting in front of isn’t happy. She’s not one to hide her discontent.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say. “But I had this appointment set up a week ago.”

  In a flash, her bad attitude vanishes and she gives me the biggest smile. I’m not sure if it’s genuine, but it makes me feel better.

  “No worries,” she says.

  Erdoes! Aha! The producer’s name is Tim Erdoes! I suddenly remember.

  A girl comes out of the room, and the receptionist shows me inside.

  “This is Chloe Nichols. She has an appointment with you, Tim.”

  I enter a tiny, windowless room with a long table at the head of it. There are four people sitting at the table buried in head shots and notes. The small pudgy guy in a stained t-shirt looks up from his clipboard.

  “Yes, Chloe! Come in, come in.”

  “This is the wardrobe designer who contacted me earlier,” he tells the people in the room. “Chloe, this is Martha, Richard, and Barbara.”

  “Nice to meet you,” everyone says as I shake their hand.

  “To tell you the truth, I didn’t really give wardrobe much thought. And I’m glad that you contacted me.”

  I smile. His warm demeanor and everyone’s friendly faces are putting me at ease. My adrenaline is still running on overdrive, but my breathing is getting a little bit steadier. You can do this, I say to myself.

  “I’ve worked on a number of small films,” I lie. I really worked on one, and it was a short film. I wasn’t the main wardrobe stylist, just an intern. After months of not hearing back from anyone, to even work for free, my sister insisted that I make up (‘exaggerate’ was her word) some jobs on my resume to get my first real job.

  “So I have experience styling actors. I think you’ve seen my portfolio on Instagram.”

  Lila is also responsible for my Instagram feed. She wore most of the outfits and posed for photos. In some photos, you can see her face in others you can’t.

  Tim smiles at me.

  “Yes, we liked it very much,” he says, cracking his knuckles. It’s some sort of nervous tick. The sound of cracking knuckles makes me cringe, but I remain professional and personable.

  Lila’s words ring in my ears. “Just keep smiling. It’s harder to reject a smiling face.”

  I hand them a portfolio of the best photos from my Instagram feed. I wait for a moment for Tim to pass the photos over to the other side of the table. Once I feel like his attention is back on me, I add, “As I’ve stated in my email, I work for a very reasonable rate. $150-$200 per day. Plus expenses.”

  “Wow, that is reasonable,” Barbara says.

  “Well, these look great. You definitely have the flair for what’s modern and contemporary but unique. Doesn’t she, Tim?” Richard asks.

  “Oh yes, definitely,” Tim agrees.

  “I love this one in particular,” Martha points to one of the photos, showing Barbara.

  “Well, let me tell you a little bit about the movie itself,” Tim says. “It’s about a famous actor who’s also a drunk and his journey of coming home for Thanksgiving and dealing with demons of his past.”

  “That’s fascinating,” I say following another tip from Lila. The movie does sound interesting, but Lila said that it was important to use over the top words when describing their work.

  “As a word, ‘interesting’ is way over used. It makes it sound like you’re bored,” she said.

  By the expression on their faces, I can tell that I nailed it. Everyone’s smiles brighten up.

  “We’re glad you feel that way,” Barbara says. “We’re definitely really excited about it.”

  “The budget is quite small though,” Richard says. “$500,000. But we are in negotiations with a couple of famous actors who might work for free and take money out of the backend.”

  The backend means they’ll take a percentage of the profits, if the movie were to make any. This is rarely the case, but if they are really in negotiations with someone famous, then that means that script is pretty good and the movie will at least get seen. Now I want this job even more. I do something that I’ve done since third grade whenever I wanted something. I hide one of my hands behind my back slightly, and cross my fingers. My own personal good luck charm.

  “If you don’t mind stepping out for a second, Chloe, I’d like to take a moment to talk about this with everyone,” Tim says. He’s sitting up straighter now. There’s a smile on his face. Good news perhaps? I hope!

  “Oh, before you leave, I was just wondering, how did you get into this line of work?” Martha asks. “Did you study fashion in school?”

  “No, actually. Fashion was always a passion of mine, but growing up in Pennsylvania, I didn’t really know of a way I could make a living at it. I actually studied Economics at Oberlin. It’s a small liberal arts college in—“

  “Ohio!” Richard finishes my sentence. “I know, I went there! But I graduated about ten years before you.”

  “I graduated four years ago. I can’t believe you went there. Most people have never even heard of it,” I say. “Especially out here in LA.”

  “I know, right? Aren’t they missing out?”

  “Totally.”

  “So, you majored in Econ?” Richard asks. “I majored in dance.”

  After catching up about the pleasures of spending four years in the cloistered environment of Oberlin College, I go outside and wait for their decision. Within a few minutes, they call me back and offer me the job.

  * * *

  I leave the meeting on cloud nine. I have my first wardrobe stylist job! I’m actually going to be paid for doing something in fashion! After graduating from Oberlin, I was lost. I went to New York and got a finance job, which I hated. On day two, I knew that I hated it and never wanted to work there, but I slugged it out a whole year. After quitting, I couldn’t afford to live in New York and ended up back home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania living with my parents. It was pathetic. I was depressed. I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself.

  My sister, who is two years older than I am, has been living in LA since college. She went to University of Southern California and studied acting. She’s actually doing really well. She has been in a number of independent films and has a Screen Actor’s Guild card and an agent. Now, she’s actually getting paid for work. Not enough to quit her job as a waitress, because the work isn’t steady, but I’m certain that she will in the future. There’s a saying in LA: it takes at least a decade to become an overnight success. She’s only five years in.

  Well, during my year of despondency and depression, she invited me to visit her out here. When I came out, we went out for a couple of lattes at Starbucks (her treat, because I was beyond broke), and she invited me to stay.

  “I can’t lie, I like it here,” I told her that day. “It’s always sunny and warm, and the guys are much more attractive than in Pennsylvania.”

  “That’s true. But they also know it, which isn’t that great,” Lila smiled.

  “But I don’t know if I can move here.”
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  “Why not?”

  “Because…because I don’t know what I want to do. I studied economics, and I thought that a job in finance would be fine. But it was awful.”

  “Oh c’mon, Chloe. You and I both know that you never dreamed of a job in finance.”

  “Does anyone?” I asked.

  “I’m sure that some people do,” she said after thinking about it for a second. “But that’s not important. What’s important is that economics and finance were always some back up choices, weren’t they?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Fashion. That’s what I mean. You love fashion right? And not just to shop. You love arranging, styling outfits. Finding just the right accessories for just the right occasion. To evoke just the right mood.”

  “Okay, so what? That’s not a job,” I shrugged.

  “Out here it is, you idiot. It’s called wardrobe stylist, and it’s very important.”

  “You mean in movies?”

  “And television. Everywhere,” Lila said.

  “But I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’s basically a crew job. You just send out your resume and experience and portfolio out to all the production companies and tell them that you work cheap. Someone will hire you.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” she says decidedly.

  “And what do I do for money in the meantime?”

  “Waitress. At the right place, you’ll make really good tips. It’s what everyone does.”

  Even now, driving back home, I can remember her face at that moment. Determined and effervescent. She had somehow managed to solve all of my problems over a cup of coffee, and she was damn proud of it.

  Chapter 3 - Finn

  I wake up with a pounding headache. Thump. Thump. Thump. Groggily, I feel around the night stand for a glass of water, but it’s not there. Dammit. My mouth is as dry as a desert and my lips are chapped. I head out of the bedroom, through the living room and toward the kitchen. It’s times like this that I really regret getting a 5000 square foot house. If it weren’t this big, it wouldn’t take me this long to get to the kitchen.

  I grab a bottle of water out of my new $10,000 refrigerator – I didn’t know that refrigerators could cost that much, but the interior decorator educated me about it – and gulp down the whole thing. I shouldn’t have drank so much last night. I pop a few Aspirin into my mouth and head out to the patio. I hate being hung over. Who doesn’t? Every muscle in my body is sore. I feel like I just worked out for four hours with my personal trainer, but what I really did was fight too much with my ex. Ariel Chantal. Not her real name, of course. But who here goes by their real name, anyway?

  In case you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years and don’t know who Ariel Chantal is, let me fill you in. She is TV’s most popular vampire. She plays Erica Hill, a girl who is living a double life: regular high school girl by day and vampire queen by night. There’s some explanation for why she continues to go to school despite being a vampire queen, but I can’t remember what it is. The show is a hit and recently got picked up for two additional seasons. She just signed a new contract, and she’s getting paid more than any other female television star out there.

  I, of all people, had the misfortune to fall in love with her. Not the way millions of people around this country and the world has, no. I didn’t just fall for her beautiful green eyes and long lustrous hair, the color of dark cocoa. I didn’t fall for those perfect breasts and those quirky tattoos with inspiring quotes and butterflies and birds. Even though no matter how much you may not like tattoos, they do accentuate the curves of her body even more. And wow, do they look good when she’s naked. No. I didn’t fall for any of those things. Not at first. At first, I thought she was hot and that we’d go on a date, and that would be the end of it. I’ve dated other actresses in the past. I’m not a lightweight myself. I’ve graced the covers of Teen Beat for years (and anyone will tell you that it’s hard to land that sucker if you’re not hot in just the right way), and my agent just told me that I’m in the final round of competition for People’s Sexiest Man Alive. But that’s all beside the point. What is the point? The point is that Ariel and I weren’t just some publicity stunt. Yes, my agent introduced us, but after we went out a couple of times, I started to really fall for her. And she fell for me. We moved in together within the month. We spent all of our time, outside of work, together. I thought everything was perfect.

  And then…that happened.

  No, I can’t think about it. Not now. I walk around the patio. Los Angeles looms below me, stretching out in all directions as far as the eye can see. Far in the distance, the blueness of the Pacific Ocean calls for me. Even though I’ve been in this house for three months now, and paid the interior decorator a small fortune to get everything in each room just right, I’m still not entirely sure if the Hollywood Hills are for me. I love the rugged canyons and the way the houses are nestled onto the cliffs, but I want the ocean. I want to wake up and smell the salty air. I want to be able to jump on my surfboard at any moment, night or day. Especially on a day like this.

  I take a deep breath and exhale. Just like my personal trainer showed me. I bend over, spreading my arms and legs into a downward dog pose. I’m just starting out with yoga, but it has been quite an eye-opening experience. It has this effect of calming me down in times of stress. Today, unsurprisingly, my hamstrings feel tighter than before. I move my heels up, up, and down to stretch them out a bit. After a few deliberate attempts, they finally cooperate and land on the floor.

  I should stretch out, but instead I delve right into a hand stand. I put one of my legs onto the railing of the patio and form an L with my body. Then I lift them up to the sky, carefully balancing on my hands. There’s something about a handstand, which is totally liberating. It messes with my equilibrium and makes me feel invincible. And relaxed. When I finally step out of the hand stand, this one is no different. Relief sweeps through my body. Whatever leftover anger remained in my muscles, it drains away. Vanishes. Dissipates.

  I walk back inside to make myself a cup of coffee. After being upside down for a few minutes, the blood in my body seems to be flowing differently and my headache is starting to wane. Finally. On my way to the kitchen, I flip on my 50-inch smart TV and turn up the volume. I can’t remember what I was watching last night, but for some reason TMZ comes on. I hear Harvey Levin’s voice in the background. I never watch this show. Oh yeah, Ariel was here. She must’ve watched this channel last night. I start a cup of coffee on my Starbucks machine and watch the sudden jolts and cuts of TMZ. How can anyone watch this show without getting a headache? They cut back and forth between frames for absolutely no other reason but to make something look more exciting, when in reality it’s just some celebrity walking from Whole Foods back to their car.

  Just as my cup is about to finish brewing, I hear a familiar scene coming from the TV.

  “So, what do you think about your girlfriend, Ariel Chantal, walking out of Chateau Marmont with Ben Kingsolver?”

  “What?” I ask the paparazzi. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, you know, she spent the night there with him. We have them on video going inside, laughing and holding hands, and then coming out early this morning. Also, holding hands.”

  I flip the television off. I hate the vulnerable look on my face. It has been playing on all the entertainment news channels. In a day, this has somehow became headline news. I guess no one ever saw what someone looks like when they discover that someone they care about is cheating on them. But that was it. The stupid photographer caught me completely off-guard. What made me really mad about it, and really disappointed in Ariel, is that she could’ve just told me. She didn’t have to lie about going away for the night. She could’ve just told me that she fell for her co-star, I mean who hasn’t been there, right? They work together. They spend all their time together. It’s only natural. Agh, I feel like s
uch an idiot.

  Whatever Zen I achieved standing in a handstand has all disappeared. I’m back to feeling as shitty as I did last night when she was over here packing to move out. We were fighting and yelling, I don’t even know about what. I wasn’t asking her to stay. I just wanted an apology, and that’s something that she just flat out refused to give.

  I need a drink. I look at the time. It’s not even ten. No, I’m not drinking this early. I partied a lot in my early twenties, and this little incident with Ariel is not making me go back there. To that dark place. Last year, I did a movie where I played this tough, kick-ass know it all guy. He was pretty much an arrogant prick, but he did have an awesome line.

  “I don’t drink to feel better. I drink only to feel even better.”

  In other words, you should drink to celebrate something. Not to bring yourself out of a funk, because everyone who has ever gotten drunk when they were depressed knows that it doesn’t work. Ever since I read that line, I tried to apply that to my own life. And, for the most part, I’ve been pretty successful. But now, I really want a drink.

  While I sit on the couch with my cup of coffee, flipping through the channels and marveling at how there are like a million of them and yet there’s absolutely nothing on, my phone rings. I look at the number. It’s Josh, my agent.

  “Hey Finn. How are you? Are you sure you want to do this movie?” Josh asks. The “how are you” is purely rhetorical. He’s a busy guy. Even on his days off, he isn’t the kind for pleasantries.

  “Have you seen the news?” I ask. He’s not really a bad guy to talk to about problems, when you catch him in a good mood.