TAMING HOLLYWOOD’S BADDEST BOY

by Monroe, Max

  But to my surprise, Serena nods her head in agreement. “You know, I never thought about him, but I think you might be onto something…” She pauses and looks toward Olivia Wells, her casting director. “What do you think?’

  “Maybe?” Olivia taps her pen against her lips, but it seems to me that’s a gesture born of anxiety. She doesn’t want to disagree with Serena in front of a room full of people, and I can’t say I blame her. “I mean, he was pretty good in Bad Men.”

  “I also think it should be noted,” Charles interjects. “After seeing them together in Long Road a few years ago, we know Lucy Larson and Henry Saint will have amazing chemistry together on-screen.” I don’t miss the slimy, egotistical smile he tosses my way when Serena appears happy with his second suggestion of the day.

  Are you really going to let him suggest casting for the lead actor of this project and not offer up anything better? my subconscious scolds me. What do you think will happen if his suggestion actually turns into reality?

  The pressure of my current situation starts to build an impending sense of doom inside me. Palms sweaty and heart racing, I have to rub my hands against my legs discreetly to stop myself from crying aloud.

  Good God, Billie, you have to offer up something! I mean, between the ass-kissing and actor suggestion and fucking hand-delivered croissants, you’re way behind the curve today!

  I scan my notes. I know Finn Slate is not Harry Saint, but who is he?

  I kind of hoped Serena would play duck, duck, goose—a going around the table to collect answers sort of thing, but instead, she jumps directly to me.

  “What do you think, Billie?”

  Shit!

  Think of something! Anything! You can’t just let Charles put in all the damn ideas!

  “Uh…” I start before raising a fist to my mouth, clearing my throat, and patting my chest. I don’t know what I’m supposedly choking on—maybe Charles’s come shots as he fires them all over the room in premature ejacu-victory—but it seems like the most believable way to buy time. “While Harry Saint is a fantastic actor, I’m not convinced he can live up to the role of Finn Slate. It needs someone special. Enigmatic. Someone…undeniable.”

  “Are you really saying Harry Saint isn’t enigmatic?” Charles snorts. “Did you see the money he brought in with his last big film? Audiences love him.”

  “Harry is amazing, obviously,” I expand cautiously. The last thing I need is some Harry fanatic coming after me for badmouthing him. “But he’s not the right kind of amazing. Personally, I think this role needs someone a little darker. A little less…commercial, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, but who?” he prods. “I mean, you can’t just say something like that and not offer up an example.”

  I try not to hate anyone, I really do, but if I had a fork in my hand right now, I don’t think anything would stop me from launching myself across the room and stabbing it directly in that guy’s eye.

  Serena glances back and forth between me and Charles but stops back on me.

  Give her something, for heaven’s sake!

  “Someone like…” I pause, searching the scraps and scribbles in my mind for something—anything. And instantly, my mind whispers a name—one I’m hearing for the second time in ages after not hearing it in damn near forever.

  Charles flashes an annoying smirk at me. “Someone like…?”

  “Luca Weaver.” I immediately bite my tongue so hard, it bleeds. Goddammit, Billie. Of all the freaking people in the entire world…

  Sure, he is a good fit for the role.

  Agent Zero—one of Luca Weaver’s first movies in an adult role—was dark and gritty. And he was Oscar-worthy in it.

  But the guy is a freaking ghost! my mind yells. Unless you’re a freaking psychic medium now, he’s not a freaking option!

  “Hmm…” Serena hums as she stares at me for a beat. It takes a gift from God to keep my molecules from scattering—poof!—and disappearing my body in a magical mist of flesh. “I haven’t thought about Luca Weaver in a long time.”

  The room is silent as everyone waits for Serena’s decision to drop. I’m out on a limb, scrambling for my footing, and seconds from falling to a tragic death when Callie finally extends a lifeline.

  “I can see it. Agent Zero was a fantastic movie.”

  “Yeah, and I can’t imagine anyone would see that casting decision coming. It could be genius,” Olivia adds, confidence apparently bolstered by Callie.

  “But Luca Weaver has been out of Hollywood for, like, a decade,” Charles argues, getting red in the face at the crowd’s unexpected support of me. “He’s basically MIA.”

  “Actually…he wants to come back,” I blurt out foolishly, and Serena’s eyes light up.

  Oh GOD. Where is the rewind button? Please, baby Jesus, I need a rewind button!

  “You can get Luca Weaver to do this movie?”

  My head is nodding. Why is my head nodding!? And then, one word just shoots out of my mouth like a bullet. “Yes.”

  No, no, no! You cannot! As Birdie so rudely pointed out, you do not know him! my panicked mind shrieks. Watching every episode of Home Sweet Home when you were a teenage girl does not make you a magician!

  “Done,” Serena declares, and the whole room goes up in a low titter. The guy on the potted plant is vibrating with so much energy, the leaves behind him are shaking.

  Oh God. Kill me. Kill me dead right now because my career is already on its way underground.

  “How quickly can you get in touch with him?”

  Abort! Abort! Abort!

  “I’m not sure,” I say with a shrug. When all eyes narrow in on me suspiciously, I say the first thing that comes to my panic-fueled mouth. “But probably pretty quick.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  “Who’s his agent?” Olivia asks the room, hoping someone knows the answer.

  “Adele,” I offer up because, evidently, I’m in the middle of a nervous breakdown. My mouth has gone Terminator-style rogue, but in this apocalyptic world, there’s no reassuring Arnold robot voice saying, “I’ll be back.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Adele Lang.”

  Oh yeah, Adele Lang. I nod. This isn’t the first time you’re actually hearing her last name or anything. No, not at all.

  “I can’t believe that woman is still working in Hollywood,” Callie says with a grin. “She has to be pushing eighty at this point.”

  “She’s old-school. Fucking hard-core,” Olivia adds on a laugh.

  Serena walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out toward the city and stands there for a long moment.

  Callie and Olivia chat animatedly about Adele Lang.

  Charles stares daggers into my skull.

  And, me? Well, I stay rooted in my seat, trying not to fucking piss myself.

  Holy shit. What have I done?

  I’ve just promised my boss a man I can in no way deliver.

  Billie

  Pretty sure the only thing I’m missing right now is Eminem’s mom’s spaghetti. Palms sweaty, heart racing, I hear “Lose Yourself” in my head, and let me tell you, the working motion picture to go along with it is dismal.

  My whole body shakes and my throat feels tight as I finally escape the conference room and head straight toward the elevator. No detours, no pit stops, no fucking bathroom breaks; I need fresh air, and I need it right the f-bomb now.

  Being competitive is one thing, but being so competitive that you lie about knowing a celebrity who has been MIA for eight years is batshit crazy.

  Nausea roils violently in my gut as the elevator dings its arrival, and I step inside.

  What in the hell were you thinking? You just promised a celebrity you’ve never met in your whole fucking life for a movie, with no actual way of contacting him!

  Is this what anti-money, pro-happiness people would call living beyond your means? Promising your boss a man you can’t deliver because you refuse to let your archnemesis win?

&nb
sp; Because I have a pretty big feeling this is going to bankrupt my happiness in a big way.

  Off the elevator and through the lobby doors, I find a quiet spot on the side of the building where no one can witness my shit fit. The last thing I need is an anonymous do-gooder calling the police and asking them to do a welfare check on me.

  I’ll end up in Cedars-Sinai with no access to cutlery.

  I scrub a hand down my face and type in the name Luca Weaver into the search bar on my phone.

  In mere seconds, what feels like a million search results populate on the screen.

  I have no idea what I think I’m going to find here—it’s not like Google is going to magically give me his freaking GPS coordinates—but I am a desperate woman who will snatch at any straw. Even the plastic ones, and those fuckers are banned.

  I tap the first result on the page, his Wikipedia profile.

  Luca Weaver is an American actor. He rose to prominence at the age of ten playing Sam Winston on Home Sweet Home.

  I scan through the entire bio.

  His career successes. His current age—thirty-four. His family—highlighting that his younger sister, Raquel Weaver, is also in Hollywood.

  It’s all the shit I already know.

  I tap out of the Wiki page and go back to the search results, but I’m too damn stressed out to do any more useless research on Luca Weaver.

  So, I call Birdie instead.

  Surely, she can give me some advice…

  We love to give each other shit, but we also care about each other. She’ll know what to do to help me.

  I chew at my lips as I wait for her to answer, which she finally does on the fourth and final ring. My lips probably look like those of a hiker who’s been lost in the desert with no access to water for a couple weeks after that much time tearing them apart, but I don’t care. I’ll bite these fuckers off completely and live a lip-less life if Birdie can come up with something to get me out of this cluster.

  “Hey hey,” she greets, her voice altogether too cheery for my current state. “How is your day going?”

  I pause and force myself to set aside my panic long enough to reevaluate my approach. Birdie loathes when people unload their shit onto her. She claims there’s too much transference when you accept someone else’s anxiety and stress into your world, and as a result, she responds better to people who aren’t about to lose their fucking minds. “Um…it’s…not too bad. Uh…how was rehearsal this morning?”

  “It was great. Everything is coming together nicely for our tour.”

  “That’s great! Really great!”

  Jesus, calm down. Go too far in a positive direction and she’ll see through your shit for sure. You aren’t that chippy base case.

  “All right. What in the Sam Hill is wrong with you? You sound like you’re on speed, but I think that’s a drug of the past, so I’m going to guess that’s not it.”

  I can’t help but pause long enough to make fun of my sister’s innocence. It’s sweet, really.

  “Speed is meth, Birdie. Seeing as there’s a rapidly growing epidemic of deaths due to overdose from psychostimulants, I don’t think it’s in the past.”

  “Billie, what’s going on?” Birdie challenges, seeing through my drug-fact ramble with the X-ray vision only a sister possesses.

  “I just promised my boss a man I can’t deliver,” I blurt out in a rush.

  “You promised your boss a hooker?” she questions, confusion evident in both her voice and her comprehension.

  “God, no! Not a hooker, you lunatic!”

  “Lunatic?” She laughs. “Pretty sure you’re projecting right now, sweetie.”

  I sigh. “I will never, ever forgive you for dating that psychologist and soaking up all his bullshit.”

  “Billie, what did you do?”

  “I just told my boss I could get the impossible! We’re talking, a blind man just walked into my office, and I told him I could make him see. Like, holy shit! What is wrong with me?”

  She laughs, the sadist. “Slow down, sis. You’re talking so fast, I can’t keep up.” She transforms her voice quickly, though, in a way only Birdie can do. One second, it’s cold and mocking, and the next, it’s like the warmest of blankets. “Just relax,” she coaches. “Take a breath, and slowly tell me what’s going on.”

  “Okay.” I shut my eyes. Take a deep breath. “I might have…sort of…kind of…maybe…told Serena I know Luca Weaver.”

  “Like, know his movies? Or, like, know him, know him?”

  I cringe. “Both.”

  “Lord Almighty, Billie!” she shouts so loud, I have to pull the phone away from my ear for a beat. “I’m pretty sure this is not how you go about breaking in to Hollywood.”

  “I know!” I whine. “Trust me, I know!”

  “I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, but damn.”

  “Wait a sec…” My eyes pop open if only to be able to narrow. “What do you mean, you shouldn’t be surprised?”

  “C’mon, sis. You know you have a tendency to make big promises under stress.”

  “I do not!”

  She laughs. “When Granny got pissed at you for crashing the riding tractor into the old oak tree, you told her you already had someone lined up to fix it for an insanely low price, even though you had no one.”

  “That was one time!”

  “On my sixteenth birthday, you told me Reba McEntire was going to be in town and that she was coming to my party.”

  “Because you loved that song “Fancy”! And excuse me for wanting my big sister to have the best birthday ever.”

  “I never said you had bad intentions, Billie. I said you make too big of promises.”

  “Yeah, well, no matter what I do, I’ve pretty much fucked myself.”

  The line goes silent, and I groan.

  “Birdie! This is when you’re supposed to say everything is going to be okay.”

  She laughs again. “But I can’t.”

  “Well, a little white lie never hurt anyone.”

  “Yeah, but a little white lie coming from my mouth isn’t going to make you feel any better because you and I both know your current situation is a big ole rock inside a very hard place. Although, if it helps at all, I did read a story in the paper about some artist guy getting his sight back through the first ever eye transplant in the US. So, maybe if you’re lucky, it’s not impossible. You just have to find the right angle.”

  I shut my eyes and slam a palm against my forehead. “You’re right. There has to be a way to find him. I mean, he’s not Tom Hanks in flipping Castaway. No one is completely unreachable, right?”

  “What the hell do I know? I don’t know Luca Weaver.”

  Oh my God! Just like that, it hits me. She doesn’t know him, but someone does. And I even know who.

  His agent. Because of my eavesdropping this morning, I know he is still in some sort of contact with his agent.

  That’s a start, right?

  It’s the only fucking start you have.

  “Billie? Hello?”

  “Shit, I gotta go, Birdie. I’ll call you later!”

  “Wait—”

  I hang up on my sister before she can respond.

  My phone pings with what is most likely a text message from her, but I ignore it.

  I don’t have time for pointless things like goodbyes when my career is on the line.

  My first stop on today’s flight o’crazy may have been a mental breakdown in the middle of a meeting, but my next stop is something entirely different—getting it the hell together and finding Adele Lang.

  Billie

  I don’t always offer to take it in any hole, but when I do, I make sure it’s for a good reason. Blueberry Eggos in Dorothy’s little basket, it’s been a hell of a twenty-four hours.

  The good news is, I not only have the number for Adele Lang, but I also have an appointment with her. Sure, it’s under the guise of being an actress/singer looking for representation—comically false pretenses g
iven my inability to hold a note or disguise my accent in any way—but that’s not the point of this story. The point is that my career just got a fancy new life-support machine, and the family’s agreed not to pull the plug just yet.

  After I pay twenty dollars for parking and a take six-story ride in an elevator, I step into Adele’s office with a whole five minutes to spare. I would have been much earlier—I padded in an insane amount of time due to the gravity of my situation—but LA traffic came to a complete stop on the 101, and when my old Civic saw what was ahead of her, she started to cough up a little fluid.

  I’m not proud of what I offered the mechanic at the shop off the first exit I came to in exchange for his speediest work ever, but I am thankful he didn’t expect me to follow through with any of it.

  I pull myself together and straighten my shirt as I step into the worn, eclectic space.

  A twentysomething guy with bleached blond hair a la Justin Timberlake circa 1998 sits behind a marble-topped desk, but his eyes never leave the laptop on his desk.

  Hesitantly, I close the distance and place myself directly in front of him, hoping he won’t immediately see right through me. My armpits are a dark, damp swamp—a notable result of indescribable stress.

  I don’t have to worry about him seeing anything, though, because despite my undeniably close proximity and heavy breathing, he doesn’t even look up.

  “Uh…hi?” I finally prompt when standing there starts to make me feel a little like the Grim Reaper. Oh man. If only I had the power.

  “Can I help you?” he asks, but still makes no effort to look up.

  What in the hell is he watching on that thing?

  “I’m…Billie Harris. I have a ten o’clock appointment with Adele.”

  “Oh,” he says curtly, finally tapping his finger on the space bar. His dark-brown eyes meet mine with stone-cold apathy. “Well, she’s busy.”

  “Busy?”

  “Yeah,” he says, unnaturally white teeth gleaming in a way his personality clearly never will. “She’s on a call.”