The Balance Thing

by Margaret Dumas

  “I’m fine.”

  Fox. Real. Not a dream.

  He reached out slowly and moved a stray strand of hair off my face. “You did it, Becks.”

  Then he was gone, and I was blinking under the fluorescent lights of the lobby, staring at a wall of mailboxes and telling myself I did not wish he’d stayed.

  Twenty-four

  I woke to the sound of Josh’s voice, but that was only because when I rolled over to hit the snooze button, I hit PLAY on my answering machine instead.

  Over the course of four messages, Josh dropped enticing hints about the possible movie deal and offered vague inducements to call him back immediately. I resolved never to let my cell phone battery die again. His last message informed me that he’d spoken to Max and he’d see me at the show. If I had come home to change after my spa day, I wouldn’t have been so completely blindsided by his appearance at the theater. And I probably would have worn a better outfit.

  Now why did I think that? But I didn’t have time to wonder about it because the next voice on the machine sucked every other thought out of my brain. It wasn’t who was calling, it was what he said.

  “This is Joe Elliot for Rebecca Mansfield. Rebecca, I’m head of Marketing for WorldWired, and I’ve been hearing some great things about you. I’d like you to give me a call if you’re interested in exploring a fairly high-level opportunity. And if you’re not interested, call me anyway and I’ll talk you into it.”

  At this, the voice chuckled and left a local number.

  I sat up in bed and reached to make sure my head was still on. WorldWired. The foremost telecommunications firm on the planet. The leader in global wireless communications strategies. The hottest company on every list of hot companies in every hot magazine.

  And they wanted me.

  I took a minute to jump out of bed and dance around singing “They want me, they want me, they want me” until I saw my reflection in the mirror and realized that big cheese executive types who held high-level positions at WorldWired probably didn’t compromise their pre-breakfast dignity by doing the twist in their pony-print jammies.

  How could this have happened? Who did I know at WorldWired—or, more important, who knew me? Who could have put in a good word with that charming and obviously brilliant Joe Elliot? Someone I’d worked with in the past must have gone there recently and—

  And then it hit me. I sank back onto the bed. I did know someone at WorldWired. I knew their corporate spokesman. The Olympic champion, soccer star, and closeted lover of my oldest friend. I knew Phillip Hastings.

  I picked up the phone and dialed. “Max? You darling, darling man. Put the coffee on. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  VIDA OPENED MAX’S DOOR. “What’s going on?”

  I looked beyond her to Max in the kitchen. “I called Vida,” he explained. “With the amount I had to drink last night I didn’t think I could handle your level of excitement without reinforcements. Now come have some coffee and tell us what’s got you so energized at this ungodly hour.”

  Vida looked at her watch as I came in. “Maxie, it’s ten o’clock. I mean, I’m supposedly telecommuting, but don’t you have patients or something?”

  He tightened the belt on his bathrobe and gave her a wounded look. “Did you forget about last night already? I cancelled all my appointments today so I could stay home and read the reviews of last night’s theatrical triumph.”

  “Oh.” Vida gave me a “whoops” look. “How are they?”

  He gestured to a crumpled copy of the Noe Valley Voice in his trash can. “I don’t want to discuss it.” His gaze turned back to me. “Becks, you look like hell. Did you even dry your hair this morning?”

  I hadn’t. I’d jumped in and out of the shower and tossed on the most convenient clothes in my closet. Then I’d rushed right over, ignoring the fact that if I didn’t blow my hair dry, it inevitably curled into a wild mess.

  “Who cares about my hair,” I trilled, “when I have news this good?” I took the mug Max held and plopped myself down at his table, pausing only to plant a kiss on his forehead. “And when I have friends this fabulous?”

  They both looked baffled. Vida asked the obvious question. “Huh?”

  I told them about the call from Joe Elliot at WorldWired. They both made very gratifying squealing sounds, but neither of them looked particularly self-satisfied about it.

  “Come on,” I said. “Which one of you asked Phillip to say something?”

  “Phillip?” Vida contracted her brows.

  “Phillip. As in Phillip Hastings, the spokesman for WorldWired and your best new buddy from the wedding?”

  “Wow,” Vida said. “You really think he had something to do with this?”

  “Who else?”

  “Wow,” she repeated. Then she shook her head. “But, Becks, I’m pretty sure we never talked about work stuff. I mean, I told him what I did, but I never talked about you looking for a job.” She looked doubtful, as if she was searching her memory. Then she shook her head again. “No, I’m sure I didn’t.”

  We both looked at Max, who was steaming his pores over a cup of Costa Rica’s finest. “What?” He looked up. “You think I spent my valuable pillow-talk time discussing your stalled career?”

  “Maxie, you’re an absolute sweetheart. I don’t care what anyone else says.” I beamed.

  “Becks.” He took my mug and held both of my hands, looking a little haggard but completely honest. “There are many, many extremely good reasons to have sex with Phillip Hastings. But getting you a job is not one of them.”

  “I’m not suggesting you prostituted yourself on my behalf,” I explained. “I just don’t know why in the world Phillip would have said something about me to WorldWired when I never talked to him about work and he had no reason to do me any favors.”

  “Are you sure it was him?” Vida asked. “I mean, it’s a big company…”

  “I don’t know anyone else there,” I insisted. “It had to have been him.”

  “Well, maybe it was,” Vida admitted. “But not because of anything Max or I said.”

  Then who?

  “You don’t suppose…” Vida hesitated. She looked at Max.

  “Overcome with remorse for behaving like such a schmuck”—Max’s eyes widened as he picked up on her thought—“the Lord of the Manor has tried to make amends?”

  The both turned to me.

  Absolutely not. I refused to believe Sir Vile Excrescence had done me any favors whatsoever. “No,” I said firmly. “No way.”

  “Of course not,” Vida agreed. “That’s crazy. He wasn’t even real friends with Phillip, remember? It was Trinny—” She snapped her jaw shut and winced. “Sorry.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “I think we can be pretty sure neither of them would be very interested in doing me any favors.”

  We all thought it over silently for a minute.

  “I suppose,” concluded Vida, “there’s no way of knowing until you call them back.”

  “Have you called them back?” Max asked.

  “I didn’t want to look too eager. I thought I’d give it until this afternoon.”

  “Becks, this sounds like it could be the job you’ve been lusting after for your entire working life. Do you really think you should play hard to get?”

  Max answered for me. “It may take until this afternoon for her to calm down enough to set up an interview without sounding like a work-starved lunatic.”

  And with that, suddenly, I didn’t care who had suggested me to the delightful Joe Elliot of WorldWired. Because whoever it had been, it had worked. I was getting an interview.

  I felt another dance coming on, but before I could jump around the kitchen, Max asked a particularly disturbing question.

  “What did Josh say about it?”

  Shit…Josh…Vladima…Fox…Shit.

  Vida was looking at me narrowly. “Becks, you’re not just going to ditch Josh, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Bu
t it probably wasn’t a good sign that I’d forgotten all about him and the movie deal the minute I’d heard Joe Elliot’s voice. “Of course not,” I repeated. “Especially now.” I told them about Fox’s interest in Vladima and was rewarded with the morning’s second round of excited shrieks.

  They had a thousand questions, and I had exactly one answer. “I don’t know anything else.” I told them. I checked my watch. “But Josh scheduled a meeting for noon.” Which had been the very last message on my machine. “I suppose I’ll hear all about it then.”

  I WENT to the nearest coffee joint and settled in with a latte and a lemon scone, pretending to watch the dog owners in Dolores Park while trying to figure out exactly how I was going to handle telling WorldWired that I had this commitment to a cartoon vampire. Somehow, that didn’t seem as nerve-wracking as telling Josh about WorldWired.

  I kept reassuring myself that everything was going to be fine. If Fox was serious about making a Vladima movie, I could stick around until the deal was finalized, right? I could get everything squared away before making the transition. I mean, WorldWired probably wouldn’t expect me to start immediately. And, to be realistic, I hadn’t even gotten a job offer yet. But, barring any bitter ex-employees who’d pop up at the eleventh hour to accuse me of being a bitch, I probably would.

  Why did I feel like gagging when I thought about telling Josh I was dumping him? I mean, not dumping him, but dumping Vladima. Actually, not dumping anybody, just making a simple and straightforward career move. And not even doing that until I’d fulfilled my commitments.

  So why did my chest get all tight when I thought about not working with Vladima and the minions anymore? I’d gotten to be rather fond of the collection of dedicated weirdoes. I’d even gotten to be fond of the immortal vamp herself. I shredded my napkin into neat, precise strips and mentally rejected any possibility that I might also be fond of Josh.

  No, the only reason I felt the slightest bit conflicted about talking to WorldWired is that I’d made a professional commitment to help Josh with Vladima’s marketing. And really, with a movie in the near future, my work there was done. Besides, I’d never meant it to be anything other than a way to stay busy until a real job came along. A real job such as a high-level position at WorldWired, for example.

  I gulped the last of the coffee and headed for the studio.

  VLADIMA’S PAD was in chaos. Josh had planned on telling the minions all at once, in a pizza meeting at noon in the break room. But a call from the Fox exec Alan Turnbottom had been answered by Alice, the part-time office manager, and she’d whispered excitedly to Donovan, and he’d said something to Jeremy, and by the time I got there the place was a madhouse.

  Josh was standing on someone’s desk in the field of cubicles, looking like a mad conductor whose orchestra was running amok. It was clear he had zero chance of bringing the group under control.

  Suddenly, as I was swept into the bedlam, there was an unholy, earth-shattering, earsplitting scream. The anarchy ground to a halt, and everyone looked around to see what the hell had just happened.

  “Sorry!” Raven’s cheerful voice called out. “But it was the only way I could think of to shut you all up so we can hear what Josh is trying to say.” The tiny sound engineer grinned mischievously. “And by the way, that’s the new shriek for the ENTER button on the Web site.” She tried to look modest.

  “Thanks, Raven,” Josh said. “I think it works. Now will everybody just come grab some pizza so we can talk about this like normal people?”

  The meeting didn’t last very long because really there wasn’t much to say. Josh had accepted an “exploratory lunch meeting” with Alan Turnbottom for Monday, which meant we’d all have a long weekend before we even knew if anything was likely to happen.

  But the minions didn’t let that get in the way of their wild excitement or their paranoid fears. The tantalizing possibilities of fame and fortune were mixed with large doses of justifiable apprehension.

  “Suppose they do something stupid, like cast Anna Nicole or something?”

  Which led to a heated debate on the relative talents of that lady and every other well-endowed actress in Hollywood. The overwhelming consensus was that only Angelina Jolie was worthy to play Vladima.

  “Or suppose they want to turn it into some stupid kid’s cartoon?”

  Fear of the stupid seemed to be the major theme of the objections.

  Josh finally called a halt to the speculation and sent everyone home for the day. It was Friday afternoon, and there was no way anything useful could be accomplished with the state they were all in.

  “Listen,” he said, “Becks and I are going to talk to this guy on Monday, and we’re not going to let them do anything stupid, okay? Now just chill.”

  They chilled. Or at least they drifted off.

  I, on the other hand, caved. After everyone had gone but Josh and me, when it would have been the perfect time to tell him about WorldWired, I couldn’t do it. I tried to bring up the subject, but my words kept turning around and running away before I’d actually said anything.

  Eventually I noticed that Josh was looking at me as if he were afraid I was about to sprout a second head. “Are you all right?”

  I nodded. “Fine.” I swallowed hard.

  He sat on the table and faced me. “Should we talk about this?”

  This? Oh, the movie. I shook my head. “Nothing to talk about until we hear what they have to say, right?”

  He nodded, still looking at me. “Becks—”

  Who knows what he was going to say? All I knew is that I had to get out of there. For one horrible moment I thought I was going to tear up if I had to look him in the eye.

  “Josh, I’ve really got to go, you know? Give me a call over the weekend if you find out anything more, okay? Bye.”

  I ran away, too gutless to look back.

  An hour later I called Joe Elliot’s office and scheduled an interview for Wednesday.

  Twenty-five

  Between stress about Monday’s Hollywood meeting and stress about Wednesday’s WorldWired interview, I was a nervous wreck all weekend.

  “Come surfing with me,” Vida pleaded on Saturday morning. “I swear you’ll feel totally better.”

  But suddenly I felt I had a lot to live for, so I decided I’d pass on being shark bait this once.

  “It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber night at Martuni’s,” Max announced gleefully later that day. “Come with me! We’ll see how many Sondheim numbers we can sneak in without anyone knowing the difference!” Tempting, but Martuni’s meant martinis, and I thought it might be a good idea to live a pure life until Monday.

  “Come over for dinner,” Connie had begged on Sunday night. “The couple I invited canceled, and if you don’t come it’s going to be just me, coquilles Saint-Jacques, and Ian.” There was a desperation in her voice that foreshadowed an evening of hard work on my part to keep the conversation moving. I mustered up as much regret as possible when I declined.

  Finally, it was Monday.

  JOSH PICKED ME UP a half hour before the meeting. I had dressed in an impeccable fawn pantsuit accessorized with the tiniest black leather belt imaginable and a killer pair of Christian Lacroix pumps from my London shopping spree. I had also channeled my inner Shayla and done a fairly decent job on the hair and makeup. After all, Alan Turnbottom was probably used to movie stars, so I didn’t want to look like some northern California nature girl.

  Josh, of course, was in black.

  We headed for the Waterfront, a seafood bistro at Pier 7 on the Embarcadero. I’d been to the “casual” dining area downstairs before but never to the “elegant” dining room upstairs. Today we’d be lunching elegantly on Alan Turnbottom’s expense account.

  “This should be nice,” I said as the valet whisked the car away. “I just wish I didn’t feel like throwing up.”

  Josh cracked his first grin of the day. “I’m glad it’s not just me.”

  He placed his hand on the sma
ll of my back and propelled me forward to meet our fate.

  ALAN TURNBOTTOM was Hollywood. We knew him immediately by the clothes (black cashmere V-neck over pristine white T-shirt), the hair (clearly hours of artful tousling had been necessary to achieve the perfect I-don’t-care-what-I-look-like look), and the phone (minuscule and silver and permanently implanted in his left ear).

  He stood to greet us, still talking to whomever (George Clooney? Russell Crowe? these thoughts did not have a soothing effect on me). He took five more calls before the entrees came, pausing before answering each to apologize (insincerely) and tell us how fantastic it was to meet us and how he loved Vladima’s high concept.

  Josh shot me a look as the phone rang again. “At least the view’s nice,” he muttered.

  I had to admit, it was. A pretty summer day with a pretty blue sky and lots of pretty white sailboats to-ing and fro-ing under the Bay Bridge. But I hadn’t come for the damn view.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mr. Hollywood said for the umpteenth time, snapping the marvel of modern communication shut again.

  “That’s an adorable phone,” I held out my hand. “May I take a look? I’m shopping for a new one.”

  He handed it over cluelessly, and I promptly shut it off and plopped it into my purse. “There, that’s better,” I said with a bright smile. “Now we can really talk.”

  Turnbottom slipped right past astonished into amused. “Am I ever going to get that back?”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” I told him. “I get to keep the phone until dessert so we can chat about how much you love Vladima”—another smile—“and in return I’ll tell you whether the flourless chocolate cake or the crème brûlée will go better with your coffee.”

  He turned to Josh. “Does she always get what she wants?”

  That enigmatic Josh smile. “Why else would we be here?”

  “All right,” Turnbottom agreed. “It’s a deal.” He raised his sparkling San Pellegrino in a toast. “May it be the first of many.”