The Second Assistant

by Clare Naylor

  “I’m sorry to stare, but who did your breasts? They’re so natural. I mean, look at the gentle curve.”

  And before I knew it, she had both her hands on my tits and was squeezing them like I was a prize Holstein cow competing at the county fair.

  “Donny, come over here and feel these.” She smiled reassuringly as her platinum wig slipped a little in all the excitement. “Don’t worry, Donny’s my husband.” Well, that made it all okay, then.

  Donny was there in a heartbeat, and his wife took his hand and placed it on my breast. I recognized Donny immediately. Possibly because he was wearing Michael Jackson’s clothes but had taken off his creepy rubber postsurgery-Michael mask, so I got to see the real Donny. Who, despite his slightly ravaged skin and failing hairline, was still the undisputed heartthrob of my teen years. He used to be one of those delicate, New Romantic heroes of the eighties, without a chest hair in sight and with every lock on his head gelled as carefully as a Michelangelo sculpture. If I recalled correctly, he’d been a one-hit wonder discovered on Star Search. I’d have to call my parents in the morning and see if they could find the signed poster of him that used to hang on my bedroom wall.

  “Amazing job.” Donny looked and groped, and then his other hand joined in the party. I was frozen to the spot. I didn’t want to seem like a prude or too tightly wound, but I soon realized that this was obviously one of their parlor tricks, and if I didn’t put an end to this now, after another cocktail I might find myself adding a bit of spice to their conjugal bed. Even though I was all for experience, and when I was fourteen would have traded in my roller skates to have Donny manhandle me and take me home, wiggy Marilyn wife or no wiggy Marilyn wife, I was considerably older now, Donny was considerably less attractive, and I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them anyway, even if I’d wanted to. So I smiled amiably and removed their wandering hands from my breasts.

  “Lovely to meet you both.” I stood up. “They’re real, by the way,” I added. Which was mercifully all the shock factor that was required to leave them speechless and give me enough time to escape through the creaking gate to the terraced poolside, where the epicenter of the party suddenly seemed to have shifted.

  I stepped out onto the patio and found myself in the middle of a milling crowd staring up toward the roof of the house. They were discussing some crazy girl who was walking on the roof. They were speculating as to whether she was the pièce de résistance in the entertainment or if she was for real. I looked up at the cloudy night sky and saw silhouetted against it an eighteenth-century updo, and even though I hadn’t seen Lara in an hour or so, I was pretty sure I recognized that wig even from three stories down.

  I turned to the vampire standing next to me. “How long has she been up there?”

  “About ten minutes. She keeps yelling something about always having wanted to dive into a pool from a rooftop. I hope her wig’s pinned tightly, though.”

  “Jesus Christ, has anybody gone upstairs to try to get her down?” I said in a panic.

  He looked at me like I’d just arrived from Uranus. “I didn’t give her the drugs. What do you want me to do?”

  I bolted back into the house and sprinted as fast as I could to the grand staircase. I took three steps at a time until I reached the top floor. There were many doors, so I threw them each wide open as I called out Lara’s name, hoping to find the window she’d used to climb onto the roof. Then I realized that there was another staircase leading to the attic. The light was on, and when I reached the top of the stairs, I could see Lara through a small open window, prancing around and laughing in her full skirts on the badly damaged tile roof. It looked precarious from here, and I was still a good twenty yards away. I stopped running and began a calm walk in case I startled her.

  “Lara. It’s Elizabeth,” I called out as gently as I could, and edged toward the window. “Lara, what are you doing up there? Do you mind coming off the roof for a second?”

  Lara swung around at such a speed that her left foot slipped. But she righted herself quickly, just as I was about to dive out to catch her.

  “Elizabeth, is that you? You’ve got to come out on the roof. It’s so fun. You can see the Hollywood sign—it’s amazing!”

  “Okay, honey, I’m coming. Just give me a second.” I climbed up onto the window ledge and sat with my bottom firmly planted on the inside of the window frame. I smiled bravely at Lara.

  “That’s right, just come out and join me. My God, we’re having some fun tonight. We’re going to forget everything and have a fresh beginning. That’s why I’m going to jump into that pool down there. A new start, a spiritual rebirth.”

  I held on and looked down at the pool. It was a speck of shimmering blue in the concrete landscape. I knew all about the lure of a swimming pool at a party, but thankfully mine had just been a subconscious bid for professional suicide. Lara’s just might end up as the real thing if she jumped.

  “Lara. That’s too far. You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “Don’t be such a pussy, Elizabeth. You have to live dangerously. Anyway, I’ve done it before.”

  “Not from here, you haven’t. Can you just come inside for a second? Please. I really want to talk to you about something.”

  She laughed again recklessly and took a step closer to the mossy slate edge of the roof. I looked frantically into the attic for inspiration. I’d been hoping for a safety net or something polelike that I could reach out and guide her in with. Or even a stray partygoer, perhaps. Naturally, there was no such thing. All that was in the attic were old boxes, books, and furniture. They’d obviously cleaned out the house but never discovered the attic.

  “He doesn’t care if I live or die anyway.”

  My attention was drawn back to the roof, where Lara was now peering down intently toward the minuscule rectangle of water.

  “Who, Lara?” I needed to get her back in the house before (a) she jumped or (b) someone realized she was serious and called the police. Then it would hit the newspapers and become an absolute fiasco. No one would ever believe that it wasn’t sheer misery from working at The Agency.

  “My boyfriend. You’re so good and moral you’ll think I’m evil, Elizabeth, but he’s married.” She started to cry.

  “Lara, why don’t you come over here, and we can talk about it?”

  Lara laughed scornfully behind her tears. “I don’t want to die, Elizabeth. I just wanted to have fun. Forget for a while.”

  “Well, whether you’re planning it or not, if you put so much as a foot wrong out there, you’re history,” I warned.

  She turned sharply to me. “I’m history anyway. See, I’m dressed as Marie Antoinette.”

  “Okay, time for jokes is up, Lara. Now, please just come in, and we’ll talk about your married man.”

  “I still might do it,” she warned with a defiant toss of her head. The wig went tumbling down the slope of the roof, dropping into the pool. A shocked groan drifted up on the chilly evening breeze from the crowd below. And, terrifyingly, at that moment I believed she might really do it.

  What I needed was a distraction, something to take her mind off whatever she was trying so hard to forget. I glanced into the attic and noticed the books again. They looked like old classics. I swung my legs back inside and went to check out the volumes. I picked one up and brought it closer to the window.

  “Wow, Lara! Look at this. It’s an old copy of Anna Karenina. Oh, my God! Check out the binding. It’s so beautiful.” I pretended to be entranced and flipped carefully through its delicate, yellowing pages. It was a shot in the dark, but, miraculously, Lara was by my side a moment later.

  “Let me see.” She sat down on the outside of the window next to me and took the book from me. “It is beautiful,” she said as she opened it and read out loud, “ ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,’ ” from the title page. I breathed a sigh of relief as Lara melted into a veritable swimming pool of tears. I glanced out the window, and, after a moment of vertigo, I saw th
at the crowd was already dispersing. Thank God for short attention spans. No one would remember it in the morning. Or the ones who did would assume it was just a struggling actress trying to get attention in order to land herself representation or a part in a movie.

  Now that she was peaceful again, I reached into the room and dragged out a couple of fur coats that were tumbling from a wooden chest. I wondered whether the real Marilyn might have left one of these behind after a party so many moons ago. I draped one around Lara’s shoulders and one around my own.

  “So, sweetie, what’s really the matter?” I asked Lara.

  “Well, I’ve been going out with this married guy for the last two years. Then I broke up with him yesterday. He’s always cheated, even on me, and it hasn’t always bothered me, but now I think he might really be into someone else who he works with.” She looked distraught. I put my arm around her and led her inside. “Anyway, it just wasn’t happening, and it’s not who I am. I want more for myself.” She collapsed on the dusty wooden floor clutching her book.

  Amid hiccupping sobs, Lara explained how she’d met her married man at a nightclub when she was still in graduate school at UCLA. She’d been bartending to make ends meet, and he’d come in and made her laugh. He was a freak, but a charming one, and their affair didn’t start for another year.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m up and down, colliding between joy and despair. It’s miserable. I can barely have fun because I’m so confused.”

  I untied my maid’s apron and handed it to her to use as a Kleenex. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Lara. You’re just in a difficult situation.”

  “It’s just that whenever I think about living my life without him, I lose all interest in life itself. I know it sounds so stupid and absurdly romantic. I know he’s bringing me down. But every time he promises to swear off other women, he stumbles. I just wish life could be different. I wish I could learn to follow my own advice.” Then she fixated on her nails and said, “I’m a hypocrite, Elizabeth. He’s in the industry.”

  “He is?” I had a moment of nausea. “His name isn’t Luke Lloyd, is it?” I asked.

  Lara looked at me quizzically. “The producer of Wedding Massacre?”

  Shit, I’d seriously blown my cover, but she couldn’t be mad at me anymore, not after that revelation. “Yeah. I just met him and . . .”

  “He’s not married, Lizzie, so even if you did break all the rules and sleep with him, you’d be way ahead of me, babes.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing like that. I just keep seeing him. And he’s nice to me and remembers my name. But he’s way out of my league.”

  Lara delivered a swift kick to my shin. Which really hurt. “No one is out of your league, you stupid girl. Elizabeth, you stop traffic. He’d be lucky to so much as stalk a girl as intelligent and sane as you.”

  “Thanks, Lara.” I’d pore over that thought later. “But what are we going to do about your situation? Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She shook her head miserably. “I wish. But I guess I’ll just keep writing my book. I can put all my pain and heartache into the pages, and maybe this entire mess will have had a purpose.”

  “Your book’s going to be great.”

  “If I ever finish it. Time to get serious and stop being so damn self-indulgent. I just thought I could come here tonight and have fun, meet another guy who would make me forget him. But every guy that makes a pass at me, I want to kick in the teeth or knee in the balls. They all seem so trivial.”

  Lara stood up and dusted off her skirt. Her mascara had run down her cheeks and left her with enormous raccoon eyes. I put my hand on her shoulder and stopped her.

  “Come here, you’ve got mascara everywhere.” I licked my finger and tried to rub it away but only succeeded at pressing the inky smudges more deeply into her pale skin.

  “Oh, it’s okay. Just leave it. It’ll add to the ghostly effect. Anyway, I think I’m ready to go home. Enough fun for one night.” She clutched tightly to her Anna Karenina. “Do you think anyone would notice if I took this one?”

  “To be honest, I don’t think anyone knows this stuff even exists. I’m sure there’s a heap more undiscovered treasure up here. Like old love letters from Rudolph Valentino or Greta Garbo.” I stuck a hand into a box and was certain something moved. I snatched it back quickly. “Maybe we’d better just go. I’m kind of tired, too.”

  We stood up and linked arms as we made our way down the stairs and back to the party.

  “Yeah, best to stay out of boxes on Halloween in case all the evils of the world fly out,” Lara said melodramatically.

  “But we’d still have hope,” I reminded her. “That was what was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah, we have to have hope,” Lara said as we reached the bottom of the staircase. “Hope is definitely the way forward.”

  19

  The only way you’ll ever get me to follow another of your suggestions is to hold a bright object in front of my eyes and twirl it.

  —Cary Grant as David Huxley

  Bringing Up Baby

  Even if Jason Blum hadn’t been talented, I would have been fooled into thinking that he was when I entered his apartment for the first time. All the way up the staircase were framed stills from Roger Corman movies. Apparently Corman was a cult B-movie horror director whose credits went on for days and whose eye for talent had ensured that the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Jonathan Demme, to name but a few, had all worked for him early in their careers. So as Jason waited for me on his landing in his shapeless gray sweatpants, an even more so Peruvian sweater, and on his feet a pair of woolen slipper-socks, I had to pass by gruesome scenes from Swamp Women, Bucket of Blood, and Attack of the Crab Monsters.

  “Hi, Lizzie,” he greeted me, then led me through to his living room, which was similarly a shrine to cinema. There were DVDs, books on Visconti, reels, and piles of obscure moviemaking magazines, and I could be wrong, but I swear the place smelled of popcorn.

  “Wow, anyone would think you liked the movies!” I laughed as I dropped my bag on the floor and eased back into one of his red velvet—no surprise there—chairs.

  “I guess I’m a geek,” Jason said. “Can I fetch you a Coke?”

  “Perfect,” I said, and pulled some new pens and my copy of the script out of my bag, “This is like doing homework, isn’t it?”

  Jason reappeared from the kitchen and handed me a can. No such luxuries as a glass around here. Jason was suddenly not the smiley, happy-to-help coffee-shop hand but rather an auteur in the making. His hair was unwashed, and I was just an observer of genius, here for the ride.

  “I guess,” he said as he sat down on the floor in front of me and began laying out fifty or so index cards, all marked up with the scenes from the script. Clearly it wasn’t like homework, then. It was far more serious. The expression on Jason’s face suggested that we’d just created the H-bomb and now had to think hard as to whether we shared our secret with the world or burned the plans. “So I thought we’d begin by plotting the character arc of his mother. I think her back story is vital to the major expositions in the first act.”

  “I agree,” I said. And I did. I just might have put it a little differently myself.

  Several hours later Jason and I collapsed with aching backs, fingers bruised from scribbling, and blurry eyes. I took out my ponytail, which was making me feel like I was being slowly and deliberately scalped. Jason clicked his knuckles one by one and turned on a table lamp beside him. We had been working so intently that we hadn’t even noticed that it had grown dark outside.

  “I feel like my ass died at about the time of the dinosaurs,” I said as I shook out my hair and rubbed my lower back.

  “It was great, though. We really nailed some of the major scenes, I think. We cut all those superfluous interstitial moments, and it’s much, much tighter. Thanks, Lizzie.”

  “Not a problem,”
I said as I stood up to stretch out my legs. “I think we should definitely give the new draft to a few more people. Some new agents. And I’m going to look into financiers. What do you think?”

  “That’d be great. Though you’re the producer—those decisions are in your hands. I couldn’t do any of this without you, Lizzie. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m just the grunt worker, don’t mind me,” I said. “The only thing I have been thinking is whether we’re a bit heavy-handed with the intensity in the story. There isn’t much laughter in here, is there?” I said, motioning to where the script sat, discarded on the floor. It was something that had been worrying me for a while. Because Jason’s work really was an exercise in unrelieved seriousness. Levity was not his forte.

  “Why would I want it to be humorous?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Because life can be funny.”

  “It can also be terrible.”

  “Think of Mike Leigh,” I suggested.

  “I’m Jason Blum,” he said. And I think I knew at that moment that Jason was going to make it. Big. Huge. Enormous success.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. The tone’s perfect.”

  Later, as we ate pizza and talked about the movie and planned our assault on the major talent agencies and purse holders in town, I caught Jason looking for a moment too long at my face. I was tugging a piece of wayward, stretchy cheese off my finger and trying to coax it into my mouth. I didn’t let him know that I’d noticed his lingering gaze, but I did wonder whether I would have liked him to kiss me. Or something. It had been so long since I’d had any romantic contact with a man. Well, one that I liked anyway, and Jason was so unlike the usual horrors about town, the Jake Hudsons and Bob Davieses and Scott Wagners, that he made them seem like living, breathing Roger Corman movies all on their own. Definitely he was a little earnest for me, but he was so dedicated and passionate about what he loved that it would have been quite something to have Jason Blum in love with you. Quite a production, I imagined fondly.