The Second Assistant

by Clare Naylor

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, right. Okay.” Instantly his anger went into remission, and Scott ran an apologetic hand through his hair and weaved his way back to his office. Would that have worked if it had come from me? I wondered. I sincerely doubted it. Lara definitely had something that I didn’t.

  When Saturday came, I laid my outfit out on my bed like a new persona. Mia’s lunch party was going to provide me with an entrée into being someone who had a life in Los Angeles outside the Coffee Bean and her office. And it shimmered before me like a very appealing mirage on the horizon. For while I wasn’t exactly a home-alone-every-night-with-a-frozen-dinner recluse, neither were my fridge magnets buckling under the weight of a hundred (or even three) party invites. I also liked the idea of having an answering machine that boasted an occasional message. I liked the idea of putting on my heels instead of my pajamas some nights when I got home from work. Because even though until now I’d probably been too busy and bewildered to notice it, I think I’d been feeling lonely lately.

  I could tell I was lonely by the way I no longer considered a bottle of nail polish and a tub of ice cream the most exciting companions a girl could have on a Friday night. And while experimenting with Nigella Lawson’s recipe for ham in Coca-Cola was a very worthy way of winding down after a Sunday of script reading, it was a bit too poignant for words to have to throw the ham away on Tuesday because there was nobody to eat it all before it turned green. Now, I’m a self-sufficient girl, and I do know the difference between alone and lonely, but I felt that I had been crossing into the barren, deserty landscape of the latter recently, and I really ought to take action. Here was my chance. Lunch with new people. Not that I wanted to make friends with The Stars, by the way. As far as they were concerned, I was going to consider myself very lucky if I didn’t pour red wine on their pants or spit corn in their eye when I asked them to pass the mineral water. Their friendship was a very distant shore, and I had no intention of drowning myself in a bid to reach it. But I hoped that Mia had invited a few more nonfamous friends who might want to grab a coffee with me at Who’s on Third sometime, if all went well.

  So when I arrived at Scott and Mia’s, I was full of the joys. Eleven o’clock on the dot. I pulled up into their drive and tried to park my car unobtrusively beneath a tree. Somewhere that wouldn’t scare Scott when he saw it. Their house was beautiful in a typically Beverly Hills way and quite simply perfect, not a leaf or pebble out of place. It was a miniature château looming up amid the palm trees, with sprinklers casting rainbows all over the lawns, armed security guards lurking in the bushes waiting to shoot you (or so the little white sign on the gate claimed), and even roses twirling up the porch and walls in an almost too-fairy-tale-to-be-true manner. I tucked my car keys into my purse, headed for the arch of the oak front door, knocked the golden lion’s head, and twisted my sarong back into place as I waited.

  I had presumed that Mia had invited me earlier than the other guests because she wanted a little moral support when chopping lettuce or something. Perhaps she wanted to make sure I thought the tarragon dressing was delicious enough or that pale lemon vintage lace napkins weren’t too obvious.

  “Elizabeth, fantastic! Come in.” Mia answered the door in her off-duty-BH-housewife attire of Seven Jeans, flip-flops, and a tank top. Her hair dangled in burnished schoolgirl braids over her shoulders, but at the same time there was absolutely nothing casual about her look. Mia’s casualness was all business.

  “Hi, am I a bit late?” I asked, for want of something to say, as my watch ticked over to two minutes past eleven.

  “A bit, but that’s fine.” She smiled, and I stepped into her hallway. “Now, I’m sure you’re highly responsible, but there are a few things that I ought to tell you before you take her out.”

  “Right.” I nodded, but I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

  “Come this way.” Mia led me into the cool, oak-paneled darkness of the hallway, to the bottom of the wooden staircase, which I’m sure had been the backdrop to a few of Mia’s Scarlett O’Hara moments.

  “Oh, this is lovely,” I said as I glanced around, while trying not to appear too fascinated by the schizophrenic—sorry, eclectic—blend of Brueghels, Picassos, and Buddhas. The Biedermeier dressers side by side with the wind chimes and Navajo dream catchers, which might as well have come from an ethnic store in Venice Beach. Because for all Mia’s impeccable taste, she was unable to resist that peculiarly Californian habit of hedging your bets with the afterlife. A little Buddhism with some Kabala classes thrown in. Appease the American Indian spirits and then make a foray into Roman Catholic icons just in case someone up there really is watching. As if heaven’s a party and you’re pitching hard for an invite.

  “Now, where is she?” Mia put her head through the kitchen door. The next moment she yelled “Anastasia!” with such gale force that I almost had to clutch the banister like the nannies in Mary Poppins holding on to the railings, to stop from being blown away. “Ah, here she is.”

  And with that an Afghan hound the size of a small pony, with exactly the same shade of hair as Jayne Mansfield, trotted up to Mia and sat down.

  “Oh, she’s . . . an Afghan,” I said in a saccharine voice. Because even though I was usually able to convince myself that my filthy lies were just diplomacy by another name and survival by yet another, I still couldn’t find it in my conscience to say that this dog was anything other than what she was: an Afghan. With the most ghoulish long blond hair and freakish appearance I’d encountered since my dinner at Spago. A place where every other diner had looked a little like Anastasia. Who may have been a very sweet-natured dog, but there was simply something about that half-dog, half-slut look that gave me the creeps.

  “She certainly is an Afghan, aren’t you, my darling?” Mia said without moving a muscle to touch her dog. For which I could hardly blame her. It would have been like running your fingers through another woman’s hair. “Now, Lizzie, I thought you could take Scott’s other car, because I don’t want hairs on my seats. She needs at least forty minutes of CV workout, and don’t forget the warm-up and cool-down. And when you come back, if you could just leave her with the housekeeper, that’d be great. I’m having a lunch party, and . . . well”—she cast that eye over me again—“the girls won’t really want to be disturbed.” And with that she snapped a leash onto Anastasia’s Hermès collar, handed me a set of car keys, and sort of smiled. Well, it could have been a smile, in an alternate universe where surgeons hadn’t discovered that botulism injections were an effective way of inhibiting displays of humanity. In this world it simply looked like an unfortunate twitch.

  I hid the great crush of disappointment and humiliation behind a smile and took Anastasia’s leash. Of course Mia hadn’t invited me to lunch. It was my dumb-ass fault for not realizing how implausible a concept this would have been in the first place. Why on earth would anyone sit me between two of the finest actresses of their time and imagine that I had anything of any interest to say? What witticisms could I lend to their lunch? What wisdoms might I have imparted that made me worth my fillet of organic salmon in watercress sauce? I resumed my place at the bottom of the social ladder and led Anastasia, who in all reality was probably the rung above me, to the car.

  Scott’s other car was a baby blue and silver 1969 convertible Mustang. And as I cruised down Sunset with Anastasia next to me, the pair of us could easily have been mistaken by the man in the car behind for a couple of babes with luscious, long blond locks. Until he drew up next to us at the light and realized that one of us was an impostor from D.C. and the other was a dog. Oh, and did I mention, a dog with a death wish? Although clearly Anastasia had no interest in dying alone and kept trying to take me with her in her bids to escape the car and prostrate herself beneath the wheels of oncoming trucks. The only thing I knew for sure was that her funeral would have had much better flowers than mine.

  “Anastasia, stop it, darling.” I tried to mimic Mia’s verbal patterns, but to no
avail. So instead I grabbed her leash and employed a little brute force. Which was even less successful. She just kept turning and snarling at me in a pissed-off way. And by the time we hit the next set of lights, the darling dog and I were entwined in leather like a pair of amateur sadomasochists.

  “Okay, for fuck’s sake, sit the fuck down, won’t you?” I yelled at the top of my voice, much to the amusement of the guy on the motorcycle next to me. But amazingly enough, it worked. Clearly I hadn’t been mimicking the correct speech patterns before. I suspected that “darling” wasn’t a word much heard in the Wagner household.

  And bless her, she was so quiet for the rest of the ride that I almost began to think of her as a sister. A fellow Hollywood Honey. Which was perhaps a reflection of how much I was yearning for a friend right now, particularly after I’d been so ruthlessly snubbed by Mia and Co. From potential friend to dog walker in one easy step. Or perhaps my fondness for Anastasia could simply have been the delirium that is said to follow a near-death experience. Either way, I decided to show Anastasia that while Courtney Love–style outbursts were not appreciated, similarly sweetness and obedience would be rewarded. I reached into my purse and retrieved a few of Anastasia’s organic vegetarian dog biscuits, which Mia had slipped me just before I left. On the strict proviso that she must have only one on account of her figure, of course. Well, after the sixth biscuit, she was like a little purring kitten. Only with gross hair. But after the seventh she began to get a little too close for comfort. And by the time we pulled up in the dog park, she was practically sitting on my lap. It took an enormous amount of strength and a few more “fucks” to get her off my knee and out onto the sandy parking lot.

  I’d never owned a dog before, so I had no idea what happened at a dog park. I’d imagined that the place would be empty, stinky, and creepy, with maybe a lone pervert sitting on a bench. But then I was underestimating Los Angeles. The dog park was in fact heavenly. First off, it was so crammed with people that I could barely find a place to park Scott’s Mustang. And second, this was no slab of dirt. There was a perfectly manicured lawn planted with the latest in haute perennials, a box with plastic bags at every tree, and two water fountains, one at dog level and the other at owner level, at each end of the park. And perhaps more significantly, the place was the most highly functional pickup joint I’d ever been to. And for all those picky Angelenos, it boasted the double whammy of being healthier than sleazy bars and less dubious than Internet dating.

  But even here in Freaksville, the Prancing Princess and I must have looked quite a sight as we made our way through the cedar gates into the dog park. Because, in an ironic twist of fate, I was for once dressed as if I could actually walk into Tiffany’s and purchase something other than just a heart key ring. I looked the part. For which, read clean hair that I’d gone to great lengths to sleeken, toenails that could have advertised Chanel rather than a paint-on fungicide, and pretty kitten heels. Sadly I was dressed for the wrong part. I was kitted out for Roman Holiday, and they were obviously all starring in a Tarantino movie here at the dog park. Everyone except me was resplendent in that subghetto-fabulous, low-key-label look that consists of tummy-baring track pants, fab-ab tight little T-shirts, and an array of incognito hats bearing the legend of a movie. From Charlie’s Angels to Easy Rider, this headgear acts as a barometer of cool among the unfamous. Celebrities needed no such endorsement. Just shades.

  I slipped Anastasia off the leash, and instead of delicately sniffing the ground as I’d expected a pampered pooch to do, she fled like a racehorse at the start of the Kentucky Derby. I attempted to catch her tail and drag her back before she could inflict damage, but my heels kept sinking into the grass. So I went to call her but suddenly felt horribly self-conscious at having to bellow such a pretentious name out loud among these hipsters, whose dogs were all bound to be called Killer and Elvis and Bling.

  “Hey, doggy, come back!” I tried. Nada. Similarly, there was no response to Stash, Stasi, Sacha, or even Anna. Eventually I gave up and decided that liberating her was a kind thing and that not much harm was likely to come to her in this canine idyll.

  As most of the benches were taken by the sharpest lawyers and hottest soap stars, I found myself a patch of grass and settled down with a pile of scripts. I’d wrested them from the trunk of my car when I realized that I wasn’t going to be spending my afternoon sipping chardonnay with nice new people after all. I took off my kitten heels and opened a script that Victoria had urged upon me yesterday as we waited for the valets to bring around our cars. But though I read the first page six times, I found it totally impossible to concentrate. The sheer volume of talent here in the dog park was remarkable. And I don’t just mean talent like The Agency talent. (Although there were enough actors here with their bichons frisés to shoot a remake of a Cecil B. DeMille epic—there was Hugh throwing a Frisbee for a bounding chocolate Labrador, Gisele on her cell phone with her teacup Yorkie, and a producer I’d seen on the front page of Entertainment Weekly only yesterday. And that was just for starters.) But what I really meant were the beautiful-single-people type of talent. And probably a few taken people, too, hot for some action. All scooping and scoping at the same time. Who’d have thought that such close proximity to dog poo could have made for such a sexy atmosphere? But it did. Erogenous zones, erogenous zones everywhere, and not a moment to waste. I put down my script and basked in the virility of it all. If I couldn’t touch for fear of reprisals and certain heartbreak, I could surely look with impunity.

  However, clearly some god of retribution had other ideas, as no sooner had I tenderly cast my eyes upon a whippet-walking actor in a hooded sweatshirt than a very high-pitched, aggressive bark breached the peace. And from the bushes flew Anastasia with what appeared to be a small mammal in her mouth. Oh, hell, I thought, then immediately decided to pretend I didn’t know her. I buried my head in a script and ignored the cacophony of shrieks.

  “It’s Lilibet!” screamed a woman. “I know it!”

  “No it’s not, it’s a Chihuahua,” a man proclaimed.

  “Is it dead?”

  “No, it’s twitching.”

  “It’s Lilibet!”

  “Is that blood dripping from the dog’s mouth?”

  “No, it’s the poor thing’s intestines.”

  “Oh, God, I’m gonna vom.”

  I stared hard at a comma and ignored the chorus of disapproval until some busybody saw fit to ask, “Whose dog is it anyway?”

  At which point I contemplated scurrying back to the car and cowering until they’d all gone home. They were like a lynch mob, and if they found out that the bloodthirsty hound with innocent entrails hanging from her incisors was with me . . . well, I was screwed. So I read on. But as I turned my page, not daring to look up, I noticed that the crowd had fallen silent and there was a curious rasping noise in my left ear. I turned around, and in the same instant Anastasia dropped a headless squirrel out of her jaws and onto my script. I screamed and jumped a foot in the air, but when I regained my breath, instead of sympathy for my ordeal and my blood-splattered feet, all I was met with were evil glares.

  “It’s only a squirrel,” I said, for the benefit of Lilibet’s owner, who was probably even now calling her attorney.

  “Only a squirrel?” a woman with a humorless brown ponytail exclaimed. “How would you like it if you were the squirrel?”

  “I didn’t mean only a squirrel,” I said as I backed away from Anastasia, who looked like a fucked-up Hitchcock blonde with blood on her lips.

  “She probably feeds the dog hormones,” someone else said.

  “Poor little squirrel.”

  “Look, I’m really sorry, everyone. But she’s not really my dog, and—”

  “Jesus, she can’t even take responsibility for her actions,” quipped a man with a bad nose job.

  I stood next to Anastasia, feeling like an inappropriately dressed pariah with my head bent.

  “Okay, guys, show’s over.” From out of n
owhere stepped the guy from the movie set. Who was also the guy from the party who’d been talking to George. “We’ll take care of the squirrel, and you can all get on with walking your dogs,” he said authoritatively in what I had to concede was probably a genuine southern accent. I watched in astonishment as the livid dog walkers dispersed into a miasma of disgruntled tuts.

  “I don’t know what to say.” I looked at the producer of Wedding Massacre as Guinevere might have looked at Lancelot if he hadn’t been a misogynistic, warmongering pig. “But I think you just saved my life.”

  “Hardly, sweetheart,” he said, and bent to wipe some of the blood from Anastasia’s chops with his handkerchief. “And what was all that about, hey, Anastasia?”

  “You know her?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah, she and I go back a long way. She likes to lick my dog’s balls.” Cue a very Churchillian-looking bulldog who waddled toward us without a care in the world. “This is Rocky.”

  “Nice to meet you, Rocky,” I said, and bent to pat him. Just to prove that I wasn’t the evil charm when it came to animals. “Do they know one another from the dog park?” I asked.

  “No, I’m a friend of Scott’s. I go over there sometimes, and Rocky and Anastasia make out.” He grinned and knelt beside Rocky, whose stomach he began to jiggle. Okay, cool your jets, baby, I told myself as I found my hand involuntarily checking my hair and my chest performing a greeting ceremony all its own. This is a friend of Scott’s. He is not for you. He is not for you. He is not for you. “We’ve met before, in case you didn’t remember.” God, why couldn’t he go away and stop being so charming? And handsome. Well, offbeat-sexy handsome, lopsided handsome, not dog-walking, male-model handsome. Thank the Lord. Or not thank the Lord. In fact, curse the Lord for putting temptation in my way like this. I was a mess.

  “I do remember.” I nodded. “I’m Scott’s second assistant.”

  “With rug-burned knees, huh?” He raised his eyebrows good-humoredly and looked down at my grazed kneecaps.