Hollywood Is Like High School with Money

by Zoey Dean

  going on. She cocked a bony hip inside her patterned shirtdress. "Yes?"

  "I'd like you to tell me the address you told Taylor to go to last night," Iris said in a

  commanding voice.

  Kylie's eyes flicked to me--a little guiltily, I thought--then back to Iris. "Um, oh God, at this

  point, I don't really remember. I think it was the new one."

  "I sent you an e-mail with the address," Iris said, growing more impatient. "Didn't you forward

  it to Taylor?"

  Kylie pawed the carpet with the toe of her boot. "No, but Taylor knows both addresses.

  They're in the assistant's manual," she said defensively. "I'm sure I told her the new house,

  though. I mean, why would you have a couch delivered to the house you were selling?"

  As Kylie scrambled, I couldn't believe my luck. She had sent me the wrong address. And I

  was sure she'd done it on purpose. Kylie hadn't turned over a new leaf after all, but who cared?

  She'd been caught, and I was reaping the benefits.

  Iris sighed, as if Kylie were a difficult child. "The next time you decide to pass a job off on

  her, " she said, pointing to me, "please make sure you give her the correct information. Do you

  understand?"

  I looked from Iris to Kylie. Did that mean that Iris had asked Kylie to go to Malibu?

  Kylie stared at the thick, white Berber carpet. "Yes."

  "I e-mailed you, Kylie," Iris continued, "and asked you specifically to go to my house, because

  I wanted Taylor to be in the Steven Pritchard notes meeting this morning."

  I felt my cheeks flush with pride and happiness. Iris had wanted me to go to a meeting!

  "All right, that's it," Iris said, leaning back and twisting her hair into a clip. "You can go."

  Kylie turned on her heel and stalked out, staring at the ground.

  I could barely contain my glee. Kylie had gotten told off, and she had completely caved the

  second she was called out on her behavior. And Iris was still looking at where Kylie had been

  with an expression of deep annoyance on her face.

  "So how was the meeting?" I asked. I thought I should try to smooth over the awkwardness.

  Iris grimaced slightly. "Postponed. I need you to reschedule it. Oh, and call Diva on Melrose.

  Tell them we need the B&B Italia sofa delivered for Saturday. And get me New York, please."

  She smiled wearily and turned toward her computer. "It's time I got on with my day."

  "Of course," I said, turning to go.

  "Taylor."

  She turned around.

  "I apologize," Iris said, shaking her head. "It's really unfortunate you went all the way up there

  for nothing."

  "It's okay," I replied. On my way out, I had to force myself not to grin.

  "Oh my God, did you hear?"

  Julissa marched into the kitchen, where I was sucking down a Red Bull. She was wearing a

  cute little jumper dress I recognized from Gap, Fall 2007 (I had tried it on back in Middletown,

  but it made my thighs look terrible), and an eager, almost scandalized smile.

  Boy, that got around fast, I thought. Newsflash: sycophantic first assistant finally gets her

  comeuppance.

  "About Melinda Darling!" Julissa hissed.

  I rolled my eyes. "Friday Darling Rubenstein, I know. It's absolutely insane."

  "No, not that, " Julissa said, tossing a bunch of scripts I'd asked her to read onto the counter.

  "She's not coming back after she has the baby. She just announced it."

  I perked right up. It could have been the Red Bull, but more likely it was Julissa's news. "So

  Metronome's going to be needing a new CE," I mused.

  "Totally," Julissa exclaimed. "And you know it's going to be one of the assistants. All they

  have to do is package a movie or discover a great screenwriter or something, and they'll get the

  promotion. And Iris gets to make the final decision about who gets it, so you're already a step

  ahead of Wyman or whoever. Wouldn't it be great if you got to be a CE and I got hired as an

  assistant? I'd actually get a paycheck!" She was practically bouncing up and down.

  I smiled gently. "In a perfect world," I said. Meanwhile I was thinking, Yeah, right--I'm the

  newest hire and Julissa is a total spaz. What, really, were the chances?

  "Melinda'll be gone in two weeks. You should see it out there. Wyman and Amanda are

  already in a fight. It's like Game on. " She giggled. "Oh, and I did those scripts last night.

  Coverage is clipped to the front." She waved and skittered away down the hall.

  I got another Red Bull out of the fridge and popped the top. I'd always prided myself on having

  high but reasonable expectations about life, and usually I'd been justified. I wasn't valedictorian,

  but I was salutatorian (which was better, really, because I didn't have to give a speech); I didn't

  get into Princeton, but I did go to Wesleyan; and I hadn't driven down the Sunset Strip with the

  wind blowing through my hair, but I had at least learned how to find the damn street in my car.

  To hope for a promotion to CE after only a few months of work seemed pretty unreasonable to

  me, and I told myself to put it out of my mind. I pretty much had too, until I went into the

  copier room and saw the Holden MacIntee Vanity Fair perched on top of a pile of scripts,

  including Psycho Killer Pigs, in the recycling bin.

  Holden MacIntee, I whispered. Journal Girl. Michael Deming.

  Everything became clear in an instant. All I had to do was pitch Holden a movie with Michael.

  Hot Hollywood stud, meet your reclusive idol. Reclusive idol, meet critical acclaim.

  And Taylor, meet your new job title: creative executive.

  Okay, Holden had a multimillion-dollar asking price, and Deming lived in a log cabin... so

  maybe it wasn't going to be a breeze. But suddenly it seemed like a promotion wasn't so far out

  of reach.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hi, is Bob Glazer there please? It's regarding Holden MacIntee. This is Taylor Henning," I

  added, just in case the assistant on the other line didn't recognize my voice after three days of

  messages. I felt a little ridiculous, but as my mother always said, "Persistence removes

  resistance!" As a kid, I'd pictured resistance as a laundry stain.

  "Oh... hi," he said limply. "I don't think I can get him right now."

  "Are you sure?" I chirped, tapping my pencil on my desk. "I'll hold."

  The assistant sighed. "Let me see if I can get him," he muttered and put me on hold.

  I stared at the clock on the wall. Kylie had blown out her candle and left for the day while I was

  still here, pestering this poor assistant with my pushiness. Not surprisingly, getting a meeting

  with Holden MacIntee was proving to be as impossible as getting a table at Sushi Roku on a

  Saturday night.

  "Bob Glazer," a voice suddenly said in my ear.

  "Hi, Bob, this is Taylor. I'm calling from Metronome," I said, eagerly leaping into my spiel,

  "and I was wondering if there's any chance that I can--"

  " Who are you?" Bob asked, as if I were a small child who had wrestled the phone away from

  her parents.

  "Taylor Henning. From Metronome."

  "And you're a creative exec?" he asked.

  "No, actually," I said reluctantly, "I'm an assistant, but I may have a project to discuss with

  Holden." It would have helped if I'd dropped Iris's name, but since I couldn't risk this getting

  back to her, I kept my mouth shut.

  "Sorry, he's committed through 2010," he said. "And we don't dea
l with assistants." Then he

  hung up.

  I threw down my headset on top of my list of Good Things and Bad Things. ( Good Things:

  my brilliant movie idea; lost three pounds by following lead of salad-bar girls. Bad Things:

  possibly allergic to Kylie's aromatherapy candle; Cabbage peed on my favorite bra when I left

  it drying in the bathroom.) Zero for three, I thought. Now that I'd run through the Holy Trinity

  of Hollywood gate-keepers--agent, publicist, and manager--I was out of ideas as to how to

  reach Holden MacIntee. What was I supposed to do? I briefly wondered how the paparazzi

  always knew how to find their prey. Should I hang out at Winston's and hope he showed up?

  Should I figure out where he lived and then stake out his house? God, I thought, I was starting

  to sound like a stalker. And not a nice, harmless, epistolary one either.

  I glanced at my IM buddy list and saw that Brett was still at work, too--he was often my

  partner in late-night drudgery. We'd chat on IM and, when things got really bad, pick up the

  phone (who else would sing me an ABBA song in totally off-key falsetto?).

  JournalGirl07: Hey, I need your help

  Bduncadonk: Anything for you Miss Thing!

  JournalGirl07: Thx. Need to reach Holden MacIntee. Already tried the holy trinity.

  Bduncadonk: I heart you but... you're screwed. Drinks later?

  JournalGirl07: Sigh. Yeah.

  I watched the cursor blip back and forth, feeling helpless. But then I had a thought.

  There was still my sixteen-year-old secret weapon. Maybe Quinn knew him. Hell, it wouldn't

  surprise me if she'd dated him. I took out my iPhone and dialed her as I turned off my

  computer and readied myself to leave the office.

  "What?" Quinn asked when she picked up.

  "How do you get a celebrity to talk to you?" I walked past the magenta and violet pulsing walls

  toward the front door. Honestly, if I had to look at those all day, I think I'd go insane. Or start

  reading Us Weekly all day long, which would really send me to the loony bin.

  Quinn laughed a short barking laugh. "Depends on who it is."

  I hesitated. "Holden MacIntee."

  "Are you high?"

  I could just imagine the look on Quinn's face: the rolling eyes, the raised brows, the pursed,

  incredulous mouth. "I don't have a crush on him, I just need to talk to him. About work."

  I proceeded to explain the Melinda Darling situation, and how her departure meant that I

  needed to pitch Holden a Deming project.

  Quinn interrupted my story. "Friday Darling?" she crowed.

  "Focus!" I cried. "Focus."

  Quinn stopped laughing, and her habitual coolness returned. "What makes you so sure he's into

  this director?"

  "My roommate. She saw him at Buddha Ball," I said, zipping down the stairs so I wouldn't

  lose reception in the elevator. I noticed that on one of the walls, someone had written My job

  makes me feel like my head is going to explode. I smiled, feeling a certain kinship with the

  anonymous scrawler.

  It sounded like Quinn was banging the phone against something hard. "Duh," she said when

  she came back on. "Take the class. But don't stalk, you know? Never pretend you don't know

  who someone is, either, because that's totally lame. Just be cool. Do you think you can manage

  that?"

  I rolled my eyes and pushed out the door into the L.A. evening.

  "And hey, even if he's not there, your triceps will thank you." Ouch. If I didn't owe her

  everything, I'd give that girl a piece of my mind. "Toodle-oo!" I cried into the phone, just to

  annoy her a little.

  She made a hissing noise and hung up.

  "Have you done Buddha Ball before?" The woman behind the check-in desk had short,

  platinum hair, a tattoo of a Japanese symbol on her popping bicep, and a no-bullshit

  expression.

  "Definitely not," I said, smiling in a way that I hoped was ingratiating.

  The pale green waiting room was lined with merch, for those who liked to shop after they

  exercised: shelves of jade Buddhas, aromatherapy candles, handmade soaps, and cute little Tshirts. On the walls, someone had hung posters of extremely limber men and women in yoga

  poses that looked, to a neophyte like me, slightly terrifying. Were they going to expect me to be

  able to put my feet behind my ears? I certainly hoped not.

  The woman checked off a box on a clipboard. "Any martial arts training?"

  I shook my head, feeling somewhat concerned.

  The woman checked another box. "How about boot camp experience?"

  "You mean the army or a gym class?"

  The woman gave me a funny look then handed me a thin white towel. "Thirty dollars, plus two

  for the towel. Take off your shoes and socks before you go in, and you'll need to sign this

  release."

  She handed me a clipboard with a page of small print on it. The words "bodily harm," "severe

  injury," and "death" leapt out at me. Was I ready to sign my life away for a shot at a

  promotion? I thought about this for a little while as the peroxided blonde tapped her fingers

  impatiently on the desk. I picked up the pen. Yes, I was.

  I removed my shoes and socks and tiptoed into the exercise room, wishing Magnolia were here

  for a little moral--or physical--support. Too bad she'd developed a bad bout of what she called

  groomer's elbow.

  "First I had to walk a totally psychopathic sheepdog, poor thing, and then I had the world's

  hairiest man," she'd moaned from her place on the couch. "I mean, I was like, is your uncle a

  yeti or an orangutan, because it's obviously one or the other." She'd been holding a bag of

  frozen peas to her right arm while Cabbage and Lucius milled around on the floor, whining.

  "I'm thinking of asking for worker's comp," she sighed.

  I looked around me at my fellow Buddha Ballers. According to Quinn's guidelines ( Actors

  have better faces than they do bodies; for porn stars, it's the other way around ), I would be

  risking life and limb with three actors, two stars of adult films, and a handful of hyperfit, very

  tanned women who'd obviously made a career out of going to gym classes and tanning beds.

  There was no Holden MacIntee, however. I crossed my fingers in the hope that he was just

  late.

  Sitting cross-legged on the shiny wooden floor, his back to the long mirrored wall, sat our

  instructor, a whippet-thin man wearing nylon runner's shorts and a lilac tank top. He seemed to

  be either meditating or asleep. I took a mat from the pile, feeling a growing sense of dread. It

  was one thing to face serious bodily harm if Holden were alongside me--but to do so for

  nothing? Not a chance. I set the mat back down and was getting ready to duck out the door

  when the instructor opened his eyes. "All right, class," he said, flopping his knees up and

  down. "My name is Ted. I'll be leading you on your journey tonight."

  "Hi, Ted," the class said in unison.

  "Excuse me, you there, in the back," Ted called out to me. "Aren't you staying?"

  I slowly turned around. "Actually, I just realized that I--"

  "Please. Join us. Better yet, come up front. With me." He beckoned to me with his wiry arm.

  "Come up there?"

  "Yes, please. As Yogi Shankativi said, it is often best to meet reluctance with a direct

  challenge." Then he pressed his hands together in prayer position.

  I wasn't really sure what Ted--or Yogi whoever--meant by that, bu
t I could hardly disobey a

  direct order. I picked my purple mat back up and went to join Ted near the front of the room.

  One of the porn stars snickered. She wore a shirt that said silicone free, which was very clearly

  false advertising. I shot a little deathstare in her general direction.

  Ted smiled beatifically at all of us and announced that it was time for the confessional. "This is

  when we release negative energy before our practice," he intoned, his voice turning soothing

  and singsong.

  The confessional was how Magnolia had learned that Journal Girl was Holden's favorite

  movie. What I learned, however, was far less useful to me. I got one tale of woe after another: a

  blown audition, a demanding boss, a negative reading from a psychic, a colonic gone awry. It

  was like group therapy, except that everyone was in spandex.

  Finally it was my turn. "Why are you here?" Ted asked, turning his wide, earnest eyes to me.

  "What negative emotions do you want to neutralize?"

  Obviously I couldn't admit the real reason, because I'd offend Ted and I'd look like a stalker. I

  thought about it for a moment. "Fear," I said. (And this was true--I was very much afraid that I

  would snap a tendon in class.) "And, um, maybe a little anger."

  Ted nodded encouragingly and so I went on. "My roommate is turning our apartment into the

  West Hollywood ASPCA, I hate my coworker, and I feel like I'm stupid for even coming

  here." All of which was true.

  "Perfect," Ted said gently. "I hope that felt freeing to you. You unburdened your soul just now,

  and maybe you feel just a little bit lighter."

  I nodded vigorously. I didn't feel lighter, but maybe I would after an hour in this sweatbox.

  And a little white lie wouldn't kill me.

  "I believe," Ted continued, "that today the class will follow your lead in addition to mine." He

  held up his hand, stopping my protests before they were even out of my mouth. "If you don't

  think you belong here, then this is how you learn that you do," he said. His voice wavered

  between meditative and commanding. "If everyone's following your example, then you'll see

  how important your presence here really is." He picked up a medicine ball stamped with the

  image of a fat Buddha and handed it to me. "Now, let's start in Warrior Three. But the ball stays