The Second Assistant

by Clare Naylor

  “That would be thanks to the Evil Princess here,” I said. “Not what you were thinking at all.”

  “Oh, really. And you know what I was thinking, do you?” More lopsided shit. Damn him.

  “No, but I know that in all probability you’re a dissolute entertainment-industry type with a penchant for actresses, cigars, and the bigger better deal.”

  “Oh, so you are psychic.” He looked a bit stung.

  “I’m sorry.” I patted his dog because I couldn’t pat him. “But I’m still a little shaky from the squirrel episode, I guess.”

  “No, shaky’s fine. Though, for the record, I can’t stand cigars.”

  “I’m Elizabeth Miller. And I apologize.”

  “Luke Lloyd.” He held out his hand, and we shook, with the dogs looking on like a still from The Great Adventure. “So will you and the princess be here again next week?”

  “I hope not.” I rolled my eyes. “I mean, not with her anyway. And without her would be a bit pointless, I guess, so, well . . . I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll take that as a gentle brush-off,” he said, and winked at me. “Nice meeting you, Elizabeth Miller.” With which he and Rocky made off for the water fountain without once looking back.

  “Damn him,” I said to Anastasia as we made our way back to the car. “Why does he have to be one of them? Why can’t he be a normal person like me?” The kind who talks to herself and abuses virtual strangers because they’re sexy.

  13

  It should take you exactly four seconds to cross from here to that door. I’ll give you two.

  —Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly

  Breakfast at Tiffany’s

  “Elizabeth, I need to see you in my office.” Scott marched by my desk without looking in my direction. I glanced over at Lara, hoping she might be able to shed some light on the matter, but she looked as puzzled as I did.

  “Maybe you forgot to renew his Lakers season ticket,” she suggested.

  “No. Did that last week.”

  “Huh, no clue then, sorry.” She gave a blank shrug. I got up and began my saunter into Scott’s office to find out exactly which variety of trouble I was in today. There were about fifteen different sorts, ranging from the amusing faux pas to the unforgivable fuckup. Being castigated for the latter was no fun at all, but thankfully I hadn’t had one for at least a month now, and my conscience was pretty clear in terms of dumb things I’d done lately. So I took a quick swig of my Diet Coke before I turned myself in to face the music.

  “I said I need to see you in my office.” Scott had actually walked over to his office door and was standing there looking either exceptionally hungover or deeply serious. I couldn’t quite ascertain which. Lara and I exchanged uneasy glances. I got the feeling this wasn’t just routine abuse.

  “Immediately, please.” He turned and headed back toward his desk.

  It was the “please” that gave it away. I had never heard him use that word before. And at once a chasm opened up in my stomach, and my legs began to buckle.

  “Could you shut the door, Lizzie?” he said as I took one last look behind me at the office. Nobody but Lara had noticed what was going on, because for once Scott wasn’t raging at us like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I nodded silently and sat down when Scott gestured to the purple suede armchair opposite his desk. I’d never seen his office from this angle before. Usually I was perched on the arm of his sofa or had my feet up on the coffee table as we all watched a teaser or a great moment in baseball or Christina Aguilera’s underwear in her latest video. Or I was standing in front of his desk desperately trying to lure him away from a phone call or a computer game for long enough to etch his squiggle on the bottom of a letter. How I wished for some of that levity now. But it was nowhere to be found. Instead of the playroom of an overgrown teenager, before me was suddenly the office of one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. And I was in trouble.

  “Listen, Lizzie, I hate doing this shit.” He had been sitting, but he was clearly uncomfortable inside, as though ants were crawling under the surface of his skin. And for once that wasn’t the cocaine. He stood up and paced around to the front of his desk. Then leaned back against it, a couple of feet in front of me. He folded his arms and looked thoughtful. “Daniel wants me to fire you.” I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d kicked the chair from under me.

  “Right,” I said. He looked at me, and I bit down hard on my lip to stop myself from bursting into involuntary tears. “Why?” I wasn’t sure if I’d said this aloud. But I guess I must have because Scott began to run his hand repeatedly through his hair.

  “You fucked up,” he said. Well, at least some things never changed around here.

  “How, exactly?” I had been so certain that I’d been sailing along. And just a week ago, when I’d been dusting down my résumé, it had been my call to leave this place. This hellhole. This job that I suddenly loved.

  Scott cracked his knuckles, and I shivered. “Last week when we finally found Tony in Tucson, you were supposed to book him on a flight to Los Angeles so that we could get him to Mexico for principal photography on Monday morning.”

  “Which I did. I had the tickets FedExed to his suite. I got the confirmation, he signed for it. I checked.” I still hadn’t learned that they don’t want to hear your defense. They’ve already made up their minds. You just have to take the beating and apologize. But I was certain that I couldn’t possibly have screwed up that particular task. In fact, I knew I hadn’t.

  “Hold on a second.” Scott’s expression was unreadable, and my insides felt as though they’d been whizzed through a blender. “He got on the flight. That wasn’t the problem. The problem started when you booked him in cattle class. Jesus, Lizzie, the guy is six foot three and hasn’t flown coach since his first movie deal. It’s in his goddamn contract.”

  I put my head in my hands and winced. “Oh, God, Scott. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, baby, that wasn’t even the start of the problems.” Scott closed his eyes in disbelief. “Where was his flight going, Lizzie?”

  “Well, Los Angeles. With a connecting flight through Las Vegas.”

  “Exactly. You booked him on a flight to Las Vegas.”

  “You said that I ought to get cheap flights because his next movie was art house and wouldn’t gross enough to buy a Pizza Hut delivery. So I booked them through Expedia.”

  “Elizabeth, don’t you know by now that most of what comes out of my mouth is bullshit? Even I don’t believe what I say. If you didn’t know, you should have asked someone.”

  What I wanted to say was that there was nobody to ask. Lara was gone three days a week writing her magnum opus, Scott was constantly in some Disneyland of the mind, and most of the time I just felt like Stevie Wonder cruising down the PCH behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

  “If the transfer was a problem, I could write him a letter apologizing,” I volunteered. I knew that this whole mess wasn’t a great scenario, but it was hardly a sackable offense. It was a flight, wasn’t it? The principle was right.

  “The transfer wasn’t the problem. The problem is that Tony’s addicted to gambling. In 2001 he lost every last cent he made. And trust me, I know, because I made his deals. And we’re talking thirty million here. Everyone knows that Tony is addicted to the dice—it was on the cover of Time, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly.”

  At this point I think I became extremely pale.

  “Where was your head, Lizzie?”

  “I had no idea.” Because at the time it was happening, I was doing an internship at the White House. You know, that place where real stuff happens, other than self-inflicted ruin by the likes of megalomaniacal, dictatorial gambling-addicted actors who are rapidly hurtling toward the tragic “but then” curve in the story of their lives. . . .

  “Thing is, Tony now earns three times what he did back in 2001. And he’s been missing in Vegas for three days. And I didn’t even know until the fucking producer called m
e this morning and tore me a new asshole.”

  “I can go get him, Scott. I promise. I’ll leave for Vegas now. I’ll buy my own ticket.” They were, after all, only seventy-nine bucks on Expedia. “I’ll find him, and I’ll deliver him to Mexico for his call time on Monday. I swear.” I was beginning to sound faintly hysterical now. My voice kept cracking, and the tears were flagrantly disregarding my attempts to keep them at bay.

  “Okay, calm down. Unfortunately I’d have preferred to handle this quietly in this office. Only Daniel’s sister happened to be at a conference in the Bellagio, and she spotted Tony at a craps table and called Daniel right away. He wigged out. Which for once is understandable, considering that back in 2001 he and I had to sign for every withdrawal Tony made for eighteen months. Which caused serious sleepless nights for him and some major narcotic numbing for me.”

  “Scott, please don’t fire me. I like this job. I love it.” And suddenly I really did. “I’ll do anything.”

  “No you won’t, Lizzie. And that’s what I like about you.” His face relaxed for the first time this morning. I contemplated the prospect of not seeing Scott’s face again. And though I never thought I’d be sad to see that day, the thought chilled me to the bone. And I didn’t want to wake up and come anywhere else but here in the mornings. I loved getting in my Honda. I loved feeling part of the hum of Los Angeles life as I sat on the freeway in traffic with the radio for company. I loved the Josés, who were like surrogate uncles to me with their unfathomable wisdom.

  But before I could lose myself in Elizabeth Miller’s Hollywood Career: A Retrospective, the phone rang and Lara’s voice drifted reassuringly over the speakerphone. “It’s Big Jack,” she said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  “Put him through.” Scott picked up the phone immediately. “So what you got for me, man?” I tuned out, thinking that Big Jack was probably his dealer. I wondered if Lara had his phone number so that I could score a little narcotic numbing for myself later. When I was unemployed on my sofa. Because I was going to need it.

  I wondered what it would be like to walk out of the assistant pool for the last time. If I were fired, I very much doubted that I’d have the will to find another job in Hollywood. What I didn’t realize then was that there was a unique concept in operation in Hollywood known as “failing upward.” Which basically meant that if you get fired and have the cojones to apply for a job above your station, you’ll probably be hired on the first interview. Because somehow the stench of failure disappears as fast as a Roman profile in Hollywood. People are allowed to reinvent themselves every day of the week. Which makes it a very forgiving town, but a scary place to meet friends or lovers.

  Scott put the phone back in the cradle. He showed no emotion, but his hand was tapping rhythmically on his desk.

  “It’s your lucky day, Lizzie. Big Jack has found Tony, and he’s put him on a flight to Puerto Vallarta.” Scott looked like a little boy who’d just hooped a goldfish.

  “Who’s Big Jack?” I asked, wondering if I was supposed to be glad in that Spirit of Communism, “for the good of The Agency even though they’re just about to fire your ass” way. Or glad because this meant that I was off the hook.

  “He’s a PI my wife uses to spy on me. Best in the business.” Guilt must have been plastered all over my face, because his lips formed a slow smile. “Oh, so you knew about that, did you?”

  “Mia mentioned it when she took me shopping for her birthday present.”

  “And I guess I have you to thank for the fact that I can’t afford to buy a new pair of pants for myself from the Gap right now.”

  “Sorry,” I said. As I decided that Elton John was definitely wrong. Far from being the hardest word, “sorry” was about the only one in my vocabulary today. Not that it was doing me much good.

  “For Christ’s sake, Lizzie, will you cut out the hangdog thing?” he said, suddenly brightening up and going back to his seat. Well, at least one of us could afford to smile. Even if that somebody purported not to be able to afford Gap pants.

  Scott sat at his desk and couldn’t resist a shuffle of his mouse. I recognized the telltale click-click-click of the Texas Hold ’Em cards being dealt out from cyberspace.

  “Right, so do you want me to pack my things up now, or would you prefer it if I worked my two weeks’ notice?” I asked as I watched him.

  “Didn’t I make myself clear?”

  Well, no, Scott, you didn’t.

  He tore his eyes away from his screen and looked at me with probably a good deal less consideration than Pontius Pilate gave to Jesus. In fact, with possibly less consideration than most people give to brushing their teeth when they’re drunk. But for Scott it was significant. He paused a moment, found himself unable to resist one lightning glance at the cards, then looked me in the eye.

  “The thing is that Lara really likes you, and she happens to be a requirement in my life. Without her I cannot seem to function. Plus, she’s so goddamn difficult to please. She hates all my second assistants apart from you, so even though Daniel wants you fired, you’re my assistant and I’m gonna make the final call.”

  “Okay.” I still didn’t know exactly where this was heading. But a girl can hope. And hold her breath until she turns blue. Praying that she’s not upstaged by three spades, one of which is an ace.

  “So I’m going to tell Daniel to go fuck himself.” He pointed a finger at me. “You think you can handle staying?”

  “Oh, my God, yes! I mean, I don’t want you to go out on a limb for me, but—”

  “Actually, I kind of like the idea of telling him to fuck himself right now. So you’re in luck. Now, get your ass out of my office. By the way, I need you to get Tony’s producer on the line, and before you hand him to me, you need to explain what happened. Make yourself seem unbelievably incompetent. Then I’ll get on and tell him how fabulous I am for fixing it.”

  “Yes, sir.” I wanted to kiss him. “And thanks, Scott.” I made do with a meaningful look, which was still too much for him. He waved me out of his office and looked embarrassed.

  “What in hell’s name?” Lara whispered to me when I sat back at my desk, my face streaked in that hackneyed mascara-and-tears combo so beloved by cheap soap operas. Courtney was practically giving herself whiplash trying to listen. Obviously the office door’s being closed on an occasion when Scott wasn’t in there alone with a honey caused her bloodhound nose to sniff out trouble.

  “I sent Tony to Vegas on a layover,” I said.

  Lara got the picture at once and grimaced in pain. “Ah, sheet,” she said.

  “But Big Jack found him, and he’s bringing him home. Daniel wanted me fired, but because of you Scott’s going to refuse.”

  “Because of me?” She looked genuinely surprised. “Because of me how?”

  “Apparently he thinks you’d want me to stay, and your opinion matters because you’re a requirement in his life and he can’t function without you or something,” I said as I pulled a packet of Advil from my top drawer and popped a couple.

  “Really?” Lara’s demeanor completely changed for one fleeting moment. Her eyelashes lowered, and she smiled softly. It occurred to me that she really never got any validation from Scott. And as she probably was human, she liked it when it came. “Well, I should hope so, given how much of my time and energy I’ve devoted to his sorry ass in the last two years.” And suddenly, fuzzy was yesterday’s news. Lara slipped her headset back on and was about to get back to her novel. With one last thought.

  “Listen, I know I haven’t been around much, and I’m not planning on being around much in the future. But if there’s ever a question, a dilemma, or a matter of protocol that you’re not sure about—call me.”

  “Thanks, Lara, that’s really good of you,” I said, the tears coming again. Out of relief and faith in the unprecedented bucketfuls of the milk of human kindness that had been shown to me by Lara and Scott in the last ten minutes.

  “If you got fired, it would real
ly set me back on the book,” she added.

  Afterward I made the call and convinced the director that I was a twit, thus making Scott seem like a superhero. It was only later, though, that I realized I’d inadvertently earned The Agency a mint. And here’s how: Just prior to making Acts of God in Mexico, Tony had decided that he was going to become the people’s actor. He was only in it for the art from now on. He was going to grow a beard and do three movies back to back with budgets of under $3 million. And, much to his management’s horror, he was going to work for SAG scale. (That’s the Screen Actors Guild union minimum, which is a side-splittingly laughable $678 per day, apparently.) However, thanks to the little detour that I organized for him and the ensuing seventy-two hours he got to spend in Vegas, Tony blew more money than you or I would know how to spend in several very comfortable lifetimes. But with a large Irish family to keep in potatoes and a livery of bodyguards that would have made Joseph Stalin look paranoid, he needed the cashola. Enough to drop his art-house affectations and replace them with two sequels and an action movie. Which little chess move on my part netted The Agency a cool $11.5 million profit. If only my bosses would have believed that I was Machiavellian instead of simply useless.

  With Scott back in his box for the moment, I was free to dash over to the Coffee Bean and have a meeting with Jason. The shock of almost being fired had instilled in me a renewed love of my position at The Agency. So like the man plucked from a fatal train crash with just a bump on the head, I was determined to achieve all the things I had dreamed of from now on. Which also meant helping Jason to make his movie.

  “Coffee?” I leaned in and asked Lara, so that nobody else could hear and demand the usual litany of beverages that would have meant that Jason was too busy with his frother to listen to me.

  “I’d love a raspberry iced tea,” Lara mouthed back.

  “Coming up.” I stole away from my desk, my wallet hidden in my hand and a hasty trip to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water planned. Any fool could see that I’d been crying, and I wasn’t keen for word to get around The Agency that I’d been spared the boot not because I was indispensable but because Lara’s Rolodex happened to contain the cell-phone numbers of every doctor in the state who would hand out prescription medication like Halloween candy. And as every good assistant knew, her Rolo was her bond. If she left, it went with her. So the way I saw it, Scott was in no position to risk Lara’s wrath. Which meant that I kept my job. But as I passed Ryan in the corridor and he stared savagely at my bludgeoned bullfrog features and fistful of Kleenex, I feared that it was too late to hope that news of my death-row reprieve wouldn’t spread quicker than his grin.