Bad Boy Boss

by Abby Chance

  We continued to trade nights cooking, and he didn’t back off; he held me all night every night. Saturday, because it was our day off, I drove all the way down to the bookstore in Crestline. I could never figure out why the smallest resort on the mountain was the only one with a bookstore. I needed a cookbook or two, and I picked up a book on acting.

  I went through the cookbooks because we were going to LA on Tuesday and I wanted to see if there were any interesting ingredients to pick up. The mountain is pretty sparse. Big Bear is the largest resort area that caters to people two seasons (they say four, but spring and autumn don’t fill the place up) and it only has two markets. Both stores are bottom level chains, and there are two drug stores of about the same caliber.

  In the meantime, Peter and I worked on the book, getting the original poses right and then taking off a bit from them. Basically a children’s book, the spare narration told of a little girl who came to the mountains with her parents from Los Angeles for the summer. Her dad worked down the hill while she stayed with her mom and big sister. The girl was nine and her sister sixteen. They loved the forest, often coming home with muddy feet and soaked clothing.

  One weekend in August, when their father was there, they came home a mess. They said they were a mess because they had been playing with the fairies in the creek that ran along the hiking trail. When their father said he’d come along Sunday to meet the fairies, the girls said that the fairies only appeared to children. So he challenged them to take pictures of the fairies and gave them an expensive camera to do it with, because he was a photographer.

  The book would be the photos the girls ‘took.’

  On Thursday, I had made a stir fry out of a can of Chinese vegetables and a new thing: thin chicken in slabs like Philly steak over crispy noodles. Over dinner, we were discussing the book.

  “I don’t like the title,” he said.

  “It’s a milk name,” I answered. “I can think of several better names. Fairies aren’t going to replace angels. People believe that there are angels; only children believe in fairies.”

  “That’s it,” he said.

  And I just clapped my hands.

  “Quote Barrie,” he said. ‘If you believe in fairies, then clap your hands.’”

  “Why not just Clap Your Hands?” I said. “Explain Barrie as an intro, or maybe as a narrator; tell the whole Cottingley fairy story as the dad, and say: ‘maybe?’”

  “Oh God, I love you,” he said.

  “And you live under the illusion that you’re not my whole world.”

  “Maybe tomorrow?” he said.

  And I said, “I hope.”

  Okay, he was careful, gentle and just incredible Monday night. Every touch was magic. NO ONE has ever been loved that way, loved that much. Every hot button I had was pushed, time and again.

  When he pulled me up into him, I knew that if God and the world itself failed me, he wouldn’t. Call it love. It’s a weak term. He was quickly becoming my world, my everything.

  We drove down to the house in Glendale. The house had three bedrooms, one staircase. It was in the Verdugo Hills above Glendale and the day was clear enough that you could see the Hollywood Hills from the windows on the second floor. I was wearing a more understated outfit that Peter bought me in Big Bear, as my clothes were, well, a little bit off the scale for interviews.

  The people, even the guard at the gate, seemed to know Peter. Except for the guard who gave us directions, no one even asked to see the letter.

  It was a suite of offices and the girl at the front desk just handed me a page of dialogue and showed me where I could sit and study it. I was with two other girls, so I supposed we were competing for the part.

  I was getting a picture of the character as I read the dialogue. You know the type; the ditz who is always saying something brilliant or coming up with a double entendre without realizing it. I was about halfway there just being myself; the character wouldn’t be much of a stretch for me.

  I was the last one to read, and I had memorized the page, so I really didn’t need to read.

  Peter was there along with Jeremy and two other people whom Jeremy introduced as Mary Patterson and Rob Carey, respectively co-producer and head writer. Rob took the other lines and we went right through it. I didn’t find it difficult, but then I didn’t know whether I did it right or not.

  “You memorized it in about twenty minutes?” asked Rob.

  “It wasn’t that hard, it was written so it sort of all flowed together, like the next line would be naturally what you’d say if you were Vicky.”

  Rob shot a mock glare at Mary. “I get appreciation from people who come in to read and none from my producers.”

  “Was I right, or was I right?” said Jeremy.

  “Since it is such a rare occurrence, I guess I’ll have to admit it,” answered Mary. “She’s good and she looks right. I guess you’ll have Dillon handle her, Alex?”

  “As soon as we leave here,” Peter responded easily. “ I clued him in and I have to talk to Jerry about the book anyway.”

  We had to stop at an office just before the gate where I got my picture taken and put on a badge with a Warner Brothers logo, below my picture it said ‘TV Cast.’ so if I ever forgot what I was doing on the Warner Brothers lot all I had to do was read the badge. I mention this because some time later, I realized that for quite a few Warner Brothers starlets, the small notation proved extremely helpful.

  The office building we drove to was very close to the studios. We parked and took a ticket, then rode up eighteen floors, which gave us a great view on what was a relatively clear LA day. The entire floor was The Aaron Michaels Agency – Representation and Management. Aaron Michaels was no longer around; his clients had been silent screen actors originally. The agency he founded, however, forged ahead into talkies, Technicolor, CGI and Digital, adding agents in literature and art to complement the thespians.

  As soon as we walked up to the receptionist, she pointed at me. “You! Mr. Michaels. Room 27, middle corridor.” Then it was Peter’s turn, but he just got a look and saccharine directive. “He’s waiting for you.” It took all my willpower not to punch her out.

  Mr. Michaels – actually Dillon Michaels… who preferred to be called Dillon – was middle aged, handsome without being striking, with a little gray at the temples. The pictures on the wall were mostly stars I recognized, and Peter’s dad was there.

  He handed me some forms. “Fill those out and you’ll be signed up here and I’ll handle the union for you; they just take their dues as a payroll deduction. We pay you from here.”

  After I filled out the forms, he passed me four pictures that had obviously been cropped from the photos Peter had been taking of me in the mountains. They were the least made up and, well, I thought I looked pretty good. On the back they read:

  Artist/Graphic Arts Model Face and Body

  DM Inc. Glendale, CA

  Photographic Model Face and Body

  Carver and Row Publishers, New York, NY

  Actress

  Sinclair Patterson Productions, Burbank, CA

  He handed me a pencil and had me initial each photo. “As you gain more credits, they get added to the back of the photo. The name of the book will be added when it’s published and the sitcom plus your character after the airdate,” said Dillon.

  “We are agents and we represent you. Alex has paid us for your contract with him, but I have to ask you to sign it for our files.” He turned it around for my signature and I signed.

  Dillon continued. “Alex will be an exception and will pay you directly because we can’t expect you to drive down here every week. The contract is renewable at double the salary for another sixteen weeks, so it will be up to you to tell us what to do then.”

  I was speechless, but it didn’t matter; he kept talking.

  “Just two more signatures and we can get you out to lunch where you belong, there are no producers in here to ogle your legs. These are both insurance form
s. You are carried on the agency’s health plan if you are not on a job with a plan, and we insure your life at our expense as a beneficiary.”

  I nodded, lost by all the necessary paperwork and the fact that a few signatures could change my life. Again. If my ignorance with the ‘Hollywood scene’ showed, it didn’t faze Dillon in the least. He just kept talking.

  “I will start circulating your pictures a week prior to your first appearance, and tell Alex I said to experience luncheon al fresco in Hollywood or Burbank and ignore the paparazzi. Now shoo, go show off your beautiful little self to some Hollywood moguls and make my job easy.”

  Peter met me at the reception desk.

  “You like Dillon?” he asked.

  I shrugged, still bug-eyed at what had transpired.

  “If I’d known you had the part, I’d have introduced you at the party.” Thankfully, Peter just plowed on, too. “He made the move with my dad and six other soap people. Jerry, the guy I met with is the literary agent; Mom was his first big break. He loves the new title and will handle it with the editor. This place isn’t just an agency, they manage you too, so you can really just concentrate on what you do. Dad did that. Our family has tons of money and assets and it was scattered all over. Dad got everyone together and they hired the management team here to handle the money. As soon as they heard about it, some of the actors wanted in, so basically the management company bought the talent agency and combined the two into a single operation. A lot of Hollywood people over the years have lost fortunes, been taken to the cleaners by managers. That doesn’t happen here.”

  “Dillon said…”

  “To eat outside, cross your legs and point them at the nearest photographer. And I’m forbidden to chase them away.”

  “All except the leg part,” I said.

  “Dillon didn’t make a leg comment?”

  “Well he did say I should leave because there were no producers to ogle my legs in his office.”

  “You had me worried for a moment. Dillon makes comments about almost any woman’s legs,” Peter explained. “Not saying something about a set of pins as spectacular as yours would probably necessitate emergency medical procedures.”

  We ate lunch at Tallyrand’s on Olive in Burbank; outdoors, as commanded, and we did get snapped a few times. Peter said that he often got snapped and that his sisters did until they got married, then it tailed off a bit for them. “There needed to be a reason beyond some reasonably good-looking young man on their arm. Why don’t we help them a bit?” he said.

  Then he yelled ‘Tommy’ to one of them and whoever Tommy was showed up with his camera and a smile.

  “Show him your studio card, dear,” Peter commanded.

  I dug into my purse and came up with the Warner Brothers card.

  “She’s going to be in Clara and Her Sisters,” he said and told Tommy my name. “Dillon at Michael’s is her agent, so you know you’ll be seeing a lot of her pretty soon. Now take some flattering pictures and lead your brethren away so that we can have lunch in peace.”

  After he’d gone I said to Peter, “Dillon specifically said you were supposed to ignore the paparazzi.”

  “That one works for a supermarket tabloid. I would have ignored the rest, but people usually try to get him. I don’t because I don’t have anything to sell really, about the only thing I did have was the art shows and they aren’t really celebrity gossip material.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “I’m a celebrity?”

  “As soon as the next issue hits the checkout stands.”

  I shook my head. “That’s sort of mind-blowing.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve been one all your life; I’m just getting my cherry popped. It isn’t something you’d understand. All your life, I’ve seen these people – mostly their pictures – and they are supposed to be special, someone we all want to be. Then, all of a sudden sitting down and eating a salad, I am one. I don’t feel any different, the world doesn’t get glitter sprinkled all over it, but there I am and every housewife in the greater LA area wishes they were me. I’m not even sure I like it, and that’s mind-blowing.”

  We spent the afternoon in Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and an Italian Specialty Grocery Store on Central in Glendale. We both had lists of ingredients, but about half of them coincided. About the only thing we were opposed about was the boneless chicken. He got breasts and I wanted the thighs, because I always thought that the dark meat had more taste.

  When we got back to the house in Glendale, there was a note on the door.

  If you get back in time, Pauley is grilling steak in the backyard, starting at six. Hope you can make it.

  A

  We had time to put everything away. The note was from Peter's sister, Anabelle. Pauley was her husband and the CFO at Disney. They lived next door and their house was considerably larger, though I never really saw the inside of it because we just walked from backyard to backyard.

  They greeted us with a beer and Pauley took our orders for steak, both of which were rare. Then we sat down for a while.

  “I assume that you are shortly going to be with the competition,” Pauley said to me.

  I nodded. “Well, starting Monday, I’ll be at Warner Brothers. According to what they told me, the character will be tested in two episodes, and then written in later in the season if she tests well.”

  “That’s the formula, unless you’re the producer’s girlfriend. Monday you can go in with Mom – she has a script in development there – and of course Dad will be around. I have two casting directors on my ass about that. I’m the bad guy most of the time, the bean counter, but let Dad show up and I’m everybody’s friend. If you want, come on Sunday and I’ll do a barbecue with the parents and the casting directors, a couple other power couples. Certainly couldn’t hurt.”

  “Why not?” said Peter, looking over at me. “We can work Saturday.”

  “Slave driver,” I said.

  “So I heard that you disowned your brother in high school,” I said to Anabelle.

  Annabelle laughed. “Disowned, swore I didn’t know him, and forbade anyone from mentioning his name in my presence,” she confirmed. “Both Sarah and I were decent, and I say decent, not really good in the sense Dad is, but Alex? Jeez, did he stink, I mean wooden. Monotone. There wasn’t a mistake he didn’t make. Really cringe-worthy.”

  “Well, it just wasn’t my thing,” said Peter. “Just because Dad is one of the best doesn’t guarantee I have to be good at it. I didn’t want to do the play, as I remember, but heredity sealed my fate.”

  “I know they pressured both Sarah and me into doing a play,” Anabelle agreed. “Sarah did two. Still, you might have at least tried.”

  “He can’t,” I said. “He can’t lie in such a way that I can’t tell. The only lie he can tell is a lie of omission, with his mouth shut. And basically, what is acting? It’s a form of controlled lying. A form of being something, someone you’re not. He’s an artist, consumed with being who he is, not who he isn’t. He can’t act because it’s the antithesis of what he is.”

  “I never heard it explained like that,” said Pauley. “And yet it makes perfect sense. An actor will tell you it’s assuming another persona on purpose, but basically it’s just lying. And if you can’t lie, you can’t act.”

  “So how about you?” asked Anabelle, looking at me.

  “Oh, I am good at it. My dad was really strict; I mean a cop and all that. If I wanted to do anything at all in high school, I had to build a whole web of lies, keep them all straight and all together or I’d get caught.”

  “And you just got a job on America’s second most favorite sitcom,” said Pauley .“Sort of makes one reconsider the value of education.”

  “There’s education,” I said, “and then there’s education. When you screw it up, they start calling it experience.”

  I asked to have my family up before I started the show so they came up on Thursday and took my cabin; my mother, father and sixteen-yea
r-old brother. My dad took a sick day, knowing I had to be in LA on Sunday. That night, Peter really showed off, smoking two ducks for Peking Duck.

  The girl next door in Sugarloaf was luscious and my brother sort of disappeared; she was stacked and underappreciated. It was a very nice visit until Saturday afternoon.

  Peter wanted to try the first of the three costumes that would finish the book, so we were coming home from the photo shoot about three and my ex, Jimmy, was leaning on his hood outside the door. I was instantly sick to my stomach.

  “Hello, Lisa,” Jimmy drawled, then went right into the reason for being here. “People around me don’t leave. It creates a bad impression.” With that, he drew his nine-millimeter.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father assess the situation. He ducked back inside and came out with his pistol.

  Peter looked, and then started walking confidently toward Jimmy, who responded by pointing the gun right at Peter

  “Look to your right, Jimmy,” said Peter. “The man with the gun is a cop. He won’t stop shooting until his gun is empty. And he’ll do that soon, if you even look like you’ll squeeze the trigger. Go ahead, shoot. I might survive, but you won’t. The only guarantee here, Jimmy, is that you won’t survive. Hand me the gun, get in your car and drive away. Okay, we both love her; I really can’t imagine a straight man that wouldn’t. I promise to do my best by her. Now hand me the gun, Jimmy. Because if you don’t, you’ll die, and neither of us wants that. And Cash happens to be my cousin, so if you fire of your whole magisine of perfect shots, you’ll still be a corpse in the making,” Peter held out his hand.

  Jimmy handed the gun to Peter, got in his black Lincoln and left.

  Peter flipped the Glock around and handed it grip first, to my dad. Dad automatically popped out the clip and made sure there were no rounds in the chamber. Once satisfied, he slipped it into his waistband. Only when it was out of sight did I begin to breathe normally again.