by Anna Zaires, Pepper Winters, Skye Warren, Lynda Chance, Pam Godwin, Amber Lin
I spun on my heel and walked to the nearest door that led outside. I should have headed back to Deirdre. I should have gone to the ladies’ room. I should have gone to the desk. But outside looked so appealingly anonymous, as if I could walk into the darkness and disappear. Once I got there though, I had nowhere to go, and the cars speeding down LaCienega didn’t slow enough for me to cross. In any case, I couldn’t go far. Deirdre needed me.
I walked down the block as if I had a destination. I’d been foolish. I’d wanted him, spine to core, but he knew who I was. I couldn’t run away from what had happened with Daniel. Everyone knew, and any relationship I had would be painted with the brush of my humiliation. I felt that beautiful hand on my elbow, and part of my body continued forward despite his best effort.
“Wait,” he said, “you never let me finish.”
“I don’t want you to,” I said, letting him hold my elbow while I caught my balance.
“I was watching you because yes, I wanted to place the face.” I started to object, but he put his fingers to my lips and said, “And when I did, I was… how do you say?” He squinted as if trying to squeeze the word out of his brain. “Awestruck.” I pulled away and he let go of me. “Don’t go. It’s not what you think. Yes, I saw you on TV with Brower. You always stood so straight, even when they attacked you. Reporters, the other side, even your own people. And you never cracked. Then tonight, you stand up and tell me to stop hurting that man, like it’s your right under God to do it. You could run the world. Do you realize?”
I said nothing. I hated that he had observed my shame with Daniel so closely in such one-sided intimacy.
“Let me take you out,” he said. “My attention isn’t going to hurt you.”
“Look, I’m sorry. You’re nice enough. And I have to be honest, you’re handsome. Very handsome.” I couldn’t look at him when I said that. “But I’m a curiosity to you. To me, it’s still very real.” I folded my arms so he had to release my elbow. A bus blew by us with a shattering roar, sending a warm breeze through our hair. “I’m just not ready.”
“Let me take you out anyway.”
“Tee Dray!”
I spun around. Katrina jogged toward me from the parking lot, carrying a huge satchel and wearing Uggs with her leggings. She was early, and not a minute too soon.
“I’m sorry,” I said, backing away toward Katrina. “I can’t.” I felt her at my back, panting.
“Hi,” she said.
I turned around and realized she wasn’t saying hello to me. “Katrina, this is Antonio.”
“Ciao,” he said with a nod before he directed his gaze back at me. “You have my card, Contessa.”
“I do.”
“Ciao then.” He smiled, nodded, and walked toward the parking lot entrance.
Katrina spun around to watch him as he turned and waved. “Holy fucking hot fire.”
“Yes. Holy hot fire.”
“That’s not the same guy, is it?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Is he an actor? I could use him. Fuck, I could write feature films about the way he walks.”
“Lawyer. Italian. Which is nice if you’re into that sort of thing. You’re early, by the way.”
“We actually got shit done.” We started back toward the hospital. “Michael was a bruiser. He asked about you,” she said.
“Not interested.”
“How’s your sister?”
“Should be awake by now. Can you wait for me?”
“An hour. Then you drive yourself home,” she said as if she meant it. She put her arm around my shoulder and walked me in.
Chapter Six
“They’ll send a priest if you want to see one,” I said, sitting by Deirdre’s bed.
“I don’t need counseling.” My sister looked flush and healthy and energetic, despite being waist-deep in sheets. Nothing like a mainline of B vitamins to bring a woman to the peak of health.
“They can’t release you without it. And I’m sorry, but I agree with the policy. You could have died.”
“I’m a grown woman.” She threw off her sheets, exposing a blue hospital gown that matched my scrubs.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Dee, please. I’ve got your vomit all over my clothes. We can get Dr. Weinstein back if you want.”
She tucked one curly red lock behind her ear, where it would stay for three seconds before bouncing in front of her eyes again. “I want to go to work.”
“You need a break from that job. It’s turning you into a grouch.”
“I can’t do anything else,” she said. “I don’t know how.”
One of the downsides of being incredibly wealthy was the ease with which one could go through life without marketable skills. The only ability she’d developed was compassion for people who didn’t have what she had and contempt for those who did. Self-loathing went deep, a trademark Drazen trait.
“There’s a trade school around the corner,” I said. “You could learn to fix cars.”
“You think Daddy would buy me a shop in Beverly Hills?”
“Anything to get you out of social work. Heck, I’d buy you a shop.”
She put her face in her hands. “I want to do God’s work.”
I held her wrists. “God didn’t build you to see what you see every day. You’re too sensitive.”
She took her hands away from her face. “Can you go to that thing with Jon tonight? At the museum? I don’t think I can take it.”
Jonathan was only seen in public with his sisters in the hope of drawing back his ex-wife.
“If you give the counselor one hundred percent, I’ll go.”
She leaned back in the bed. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“You smell like a puke factory.”
I kissed her head and put my arms around my crazy, delicate sister.
Chapter Seven
Katrina was in the waiting room, sleeping on her binder and drooling on the breakdown script for the next day.
I sat by her head and put my hand on her shoulder. I felt guilty for calling her while she was in production, and I felt lonely for needing her so badly. “Come on, Directrix. I’m driving.”
“Five minutes, Mom,” she whispered.
By the time Katrina dropped me at Frontage, my little BMW was the only car in the lot, and condensation left a polka dot pattern on my windshield. It was a 1967 GT Cabrio with chrome detailing that wasn’t happy about water drying on it. I shouldn’t have bought it. The car was a death trap. But Daniel had gone to the automotive museum’s auction to show his face, and I’d walked out with what he called LBT, the Little Blue Tink. He’d been annoyed, but I’d fallen in love.
I wasn’t ready to end the night. Though the rising sun would end it for me, I wasn’t ready to process it. It was almost six in the morning, and my brother never slept, so I called him.
“Hey, Jon,” I said. “I saw your singer last night.”
“I heard.”
I could tell by his sotto voice and cryptic words that he wasn’t alone. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
“Bad.”
“Everything’s fine, before you panic.”
“Okay, I’m not panicked.”
“Deirdre again.”
“Ah,” he said.
“And I didn’t just pour her into bed. She had to be hospitalized. Nothing a few B vitamins couldn’t fix, but honestly, I think she has a real problem. I saw her have two drinks, but she had a flask and she went to the bathroom, I don’t know, fourteen times.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“Not by much. So I’m coming with you tonight.”
“Fine.”
“Can I be honest?” I didn’t wait for his answer. “I think your perpetual availability isn’t helping draw Jessica back.”
“Very mature, Theresa. Very mature.”
“Take a real woman, Jon. Stop being a patsy.”
I never spoke like that to my brother or anyon
e. I rarely gave advice or told anyone to change, but I was tired, physically and emotionally. I hung up without saying good-bye. I had to get Katrina home and get ready for work.
Chapter Eight
I got to my office, where Pam waited for me. My assistant had neon pink hair in a 1940’s style chignon, pierced nose and brow, and smart suit; a story of contradictions she called psychabilly. I hadn’t heard of it before or since, but when her boyfriend showed up looking like Buddy Holly with tattoos, I got the aesthetic.
“You look wrung out,” she said, as if wrung out was a compliment.
I’d cleaned up as much as I could, but make up could only achieve so much. “Thanks. I was sober for the whole thing. Did the late list come through?”
“It’s printing. Arnie wants to see you,” Pam said as she tapped on her keyboard. She chronically tapped out beats on the table and her knees.
“Did you get a new piercing?” I touched my forehead.
“Like it?” She waggled her brows and handed me a folder with the day’s check reports. “Bobby got one on his… you know.” She pointed downward.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of face I made. Something broadcasting distaste and empathy, probably.
“It’s hot,” she whispered. “And for my pleasure.”
“Grotesque, thank you.”
“The DA’s been calling you.” Pam had started calling Daniel “The DA,” since he was the district attorney, when we broke up. She said uttering his name made her sick, and though I told her I could fight my own battles, she’d never said his name again.
“What’s he want?” I said around the lump in my throat.
“Lunch. I said you were busy.”
“Set it up.”
She looked at me over her rhinestone frames.
“I can handle it. Get us into the commissary,” I said.
No one in the WDE commissary even bothered glancing at a mayoral candidate, or the mayor, or anyone for that matter. Everyone there worked in the business, so everyone had an important job. To approach someone in the commissary meant you didn’t have access to them elsewhere. No one would admit they weren’t cool enough to get a meeting with Brad Pitt. Too bad the food there tasted like cheap wedding fare.
“Your Monday three o’clock’s been cancelled,” Pam said.
“What? Frances?”
“Frances doesn’t have the clearance to cancel a meeting for you.” She pointed at a little double red flag on the time block. “Only Arnie’s girl does.”
I checked my watch. “I’m going to see him. Hold down the fort.”
“Held. I’ll set up the lunch.”
I left her wrinkling her nose while she dialed Daniel’s number.
* * *
In Los Angeles, windows separated the dogs from the bitches.
Not my saying. My sister Margie said it, and when I told Pam, she believed it so ardently she repeated it regularly. When I was moved to the only office in accounting with a window, she called me a newly minted dog.
Once.
“Oh, Ms. Drazen, you know it’s a compliment.”
“No one should ever repeat anything my sister says. She’s out of her mind.”
That one window, which took up only half the room—while all the other executives had full walls of Los Angeles behind them—could have meant the world to so many. To me, it didn’t change a thing. I’d been born into four generations’ worth of money. I had a job because I wanted one, which meant I could leave at any time. My value wasn’t in my loyalty, but in my skill, which I’d take with me if I left.
The two walls of windows in Arnie Sanderson’s office sat at right angles. Across from the north window was a twelve-foot-high mahogany shelving unit that housed antique tools of the agent’s trade. Typewriter. Approval stamp. Cufflinks. Crystal decanter and glasses. Photos of agents gladhanding household names. The only things missing were a collection of super-white dental caps and rolled up hundred-dollar bills coated with cocaine residue.
“Theresa,” he said when I came in. His jacket pulled at the gut, even though it was custom made, and his tie was held by a gold bar so out of style, it would be back in style in six months. “You all right?”
I assumed he was referring to the dark circles that screamed late night out. “Gene took some of us to see an act last night.”
“Ah, Gene. I’m sure the bill will be of magnificent proportions. Sit.” His smile, which sparkled from his white teeth to his eyes, was the product of decades of asking for things and getting them.
I sat on the leather couch. “It’s nice to see you.”
Actually, it wasn’t. Being invited to his office meant something was wrong, especially in light of my three o’clock Monday meeting’s cancellation.
“Can I get you something? Water? A drink? Hair of the dog?”
Only half the staff came in half sober on Fridays. It was the life. As if proving my unmade point, he poured himself a drink as amber as a pill bottle.
“I’m fine.”
“I hear you’re on Katrina’s set. Michael’s movie,” he said.
Agents and producers called talent by their first name whether they’d ever pressed flesh with them or not. Arnie, of course, was one of the few who’d actually earned the right that everyone else took for granted.
“Script supervising in off hours. It’s fun.”
“I imagine you’d be good at continuity. And you picked the one director we represent who’s a walking time bomb.”
“She’s my friend.” I was suddenly, inexplicably, unusually nervous, as if he could see right through me.
He sat across from me and crossed his legs, an odd gesture for a man. “She’s dangerous. She has entitlement issues. After that lawsuit with Overland, she’s poison, to be honest. Be careful.”
“Have you ever known me to be anything but careful?”
“You are famously vigilant.” He smiled, but it was reserved. He really didn’t want me working with Katrina; it was all over his face. “I wanted to thank you for getting so many of our clients off paper. Saves man hours and money. They love us for it.”
“It’s what you hired me to do.”
“Everything’s running so smoothly, I thought you might have a little time on your hands?”
“I still have to run the department,” I said. “But if you had something in mind, I’m open to it.”
“Well, it’s irregular, if you will.”
“I’m not much of a pole dancer.”
He laughed gently. “Well, as that wasn’t on your resume, I’m sure we can overlook it.” He sipped his drink. “We rep a kid right out of USC. Matt Conway. You may have heard of him?”
“Oscar for best short last year.”
“Nice kid. Shooting a little movie on the Apogee lot. They have some nice European sets over there. Mountains in the back, the whole thing.”
“I’ve seen it,” I said.
“He rented a dozen or so vintage cars. The little stupid boxy things with the long license plates. Well, the company that owns the cars has audit privileges, in case anything going wrong. It’s irregular, like I said, but they’re exercising the right, and they insisted the head of our accounting department do it. I thought they meant our internal accounting, but they meant you.”
“Me?”
“Normally, I’d tell them to go pound sand, but this isn’t some prop company. There are powerful people involved, and if I say no, the phone’s going to start ringing.”
“What am I looking for?”
“He’ll tell you,” he said.
“I have a department to run.”
“Is that a no?”
“It’s just a statement of fact.”
“Good. We have a gentleman from the fleet rental and a representative from the studio coming at three, Monday.”
Three o’clock. Of course. Arnie hadn’t taken no for an answer in thirty years.
* * *
Daniel had been to the commissary before, on bank holidays whe
n he had off and everyone in Hollywood worked. So when I got there, he was comfortably tapping on his phone, left alone for an hour during a tight campaign. Seeing him work the device tightened my chest. I’d thrown his last phone in the toilet.
“Hi,” I said, sitting down and putting the linen napkin on my lap.
He pocketed his phone and smiled at me. “Thanks for seeing me.”
I nodded, casting my eyes down. When would I stop playing the injured party? Why did I fall into victimhood so easily?
And why did he fall into the role of evildoer without so much as a blink? His hunched pose, something his handlers had trained out of him a year ago, returned. That lock of light hair, the one he used to brush away in a move the cameras hated, dropped in front of his forehead. I saw the effort he expended to not move it. I saw the extra tightness in his fingers as they wove together in front of him. I saw everything, and when I would have made an effort to relax him before, I just felt a thread of satisfaction.
I hated our dance. It made me sick. But I didn’t know how to stop the music because I still loved him. The man who let me arrange the house any way I wanted, who laughed at my stupid jokes, who rubbed lube on me when I wasn’t working right. The man who made such good but failed efforts to get me to orgasm with his fingers or his dick in me.
“How’s Deirdre?” he asked then continued when I tilted my head. “One of the admins saw a Drazen admitted and called me. She thought it was you.”
“Is that even legal?”
He shrugged. “I know people. It’s my job. Is she okay or not?”
“She’s fine.”
I’d ordered our food ahead of time, and it came to our table in wide-rimmed white dishes that would go out of style at the turn of the next century.
“How have you been?” He shuffled his food around with the heavy silver fork. Because of his childhood impoverishment, he ate as quickly and cleanly as a steamshovel on amphetamines, so he only ate when his company was distracted by conversation.
“Fine, thank you. I’m script supervising for Katrina when I can, so I’m a little tired. But it’s fun. She got Michael Greenwich for the lead, and he’s been incredible. On the strength of his performance alone, she’s hoping to get distribution.”