Chasing Dreams

by Susan Lewis

  ‘And if I don’t, you’re going to Harry’s wife?’ Jodi said, as if only by saying it herself could she believe it.

  Sandy nodded.

  Jodi shook her head. ‘You’d never do it,’ she said. ‘You’re not that evil. I know you’re not.’

  ‘Don’t put me to the test,’ Sandy said mildly. ‘It’ll only be the worse for you if you do.’

  ‘And what about Harry? Why aren’t you asking him to give you the information? He’s a senior agent, he’ll …’

  ‘Obviously he hasn’t told you yet,’ Sandy smiled.

  Jodi’s face was showing her strain. ‘Told me what?’ she said.

  ‘Harry’s going to be leaving McCann’s at the end of the month,’ Sandy informed her. ‘In time for the move into our new offices.’

  Jodi looked as though she’d been slapped. ‘You mean you’re blackmailing him too?’ she said finally.

  Sandy laughed. ‘Of course not,’ she responded, taking a sip of her drink. ‘I just offered him a better deal than he’s got at McCann’s. A full partnership, a generous profit share, the kind of room for manoeuvre that he’s not getting now and a few other things besides.’

  ‘And he accepted?’ Jodi said, hardly able to believe it.

  ‘Of course he did,’ Sandy replied, obviously still amused. ‘So would you, if you were in his shoes, because he won’t get an offer like it anywhere else. Nor will Craig, which is why he’s coming too.’

  ‘Craig!’ Jodi echoed.

  ‘Oh come on, that surely doesn’t surprise you,’ Sandy objected. ‘You know how closely Craig and I have worked, right from when I joined McCann’s.’ She paused, then said, ‘He won’t be coming until a month or so after Harry joins, but he’s already signed his new contract.’

  Jodi eyed her suspiciously. ‘You’re blackmailing him,’ she declared. ‘You know something about him …’

  ‘Jodi, even if I did, it would hardly be a good idea for me to employ him on that basis, now would it,’ Sandy pointed out. ‘I intend for my new agency to work, and I wouldn’t stand much chance of that if I started out by forcing my new partners to come and join me. But if you don’t believe me, ask Harry and Craig yourself, I’m sure they won’t mind telling you the kind of deal I’ve worked out for them.’

  ‘How come neither of them have told Michael yet?’ Jodi wanted to know.

  Sandy shrugged. ‘Maybe they have and no one’s told you,’ she suggested.

  Jodi flushed, obviously stung by the idea Michael might not have confided something so vital.

  Sandy smiled and finishing her drink, started to get up from her chair. ‘Think over my earlier proposal,’ she said. ‘I’ll be in touch in few days.’ She was already moving away when, as though suddenly remembering something she said, ‘Maybe I’ll see you at Harry’s baby’s Christening on Sunday.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re letting her get away with this,’ Jodi said, as she and Michael stood in his office watching Craig saying goodbye to the others.

  ‘The alternative isn’t an option,’ Michael responded as Zelda came in to join them.

  ‘Makes you wonder if Hollywood haven’t got it right, making their clients sign up, rather than trusting to a verbal agreement,’ Zelda commented.

  ‘Exactly,’ Jodi agreed, ‘at least then she’d only be able to take the agent instead of all the talent too. I don’t mean to be disloyal to Harry, or anything, but we’ve got more of a chance recovering from him going than from Craig, ’cos Craig’s got the best literary list in London, everyone knows that.’

  ‘True, but with the way she’s stripped Janey and Diana of half their clients too, we’re not looking too healthy on any front, right now,’ Zelda replied. ‘Except Michael’s of course.’

  Michael laughed. ‘Do you think she might try to poach me too?’ he asked.

  Jodi looked at him with something akin to pity. ‘Doesn’t any of this bother you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it should, but it doesn’t seem to the way you carry on.’

  ‘Jodi, what would you have me do?’ he said, starting to pour them all a drink.

  ‘I don’t know, match her offers, I suppose,’ Jodi responded truculently.

  Michael shook his head. ‘It’s already too late for that,’ he answered, ‘and with the commitments we’ve made to new projects, like the Australia deal, we just weren’t in a position to counter-offer. Harry and Craig know that, and there’s no bad feeling between us. Ah, Dan, great timing,’ he said as his brother-in-law came in the door. ‘What’ll you have?’

  ‘A small scotch,’ Dan answered, patting his paunch. ‘Colleen’s at me to get rid of this. Hi, Zelda, how are you? Any grisly little secrets you want to tell us about before Sandy Paull comes in with an offer you can’t refuse?’

  ‘Och, to be sure, I’m feeling most left out,’ she responded. ‘What a dull life it is I’ve been leading all this time. And if only I’d known where my indiscretions might have taken me.’

  Michael was grinning as he passed her a gin. ‘Did you speak to Angela Siddall?’ he asked.

  Zelda coughed and nodded. ‘I’m seeing her tomorrow,’ she wheezed. ‘Oh, heaven help me I can’t shake this cold. I don’t think,’ she went on, ‘she’ll be able to join us right away, because she’s on a year’s contract with Shine Connell which isn’t due to expire for at least six months.’

  ‘OK, just get the low down and we’ll take it from there,’ Michael responded. ‘And I’ve been considering getting Paul Patton out of the BBC to come and start up a new literary list here. What do you think?’

  Zelda’s eyes rounded with approval as she nodded over her gin. ‘Great idea,’ she agreed. Then, to Jodi, ‘Don’t look so aggrieved. It’s not that we don’t care about losing Harry and Craig, but life has to go on, hen, and there’s just no way she’s going to bring McCann Walsh to its knees, the way you seem to think she is, so stop worrying, will you?’

  ‘But if I hadn’t told you what was going on when Harry left,’ Jodi said hotly, ‘then none of you would be any the wiser now, would you?’

  ‘Och, I think we’d have cottoned on in time,’ Zelda assured her, ‘what with Craig going as well. But it’s true, we do have you to thank for telling us she wanted to know about the Australian tie-up.’

  ‘How much have you told her about that?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Only the stuff you fed me,’ Jodi answered. ‘Why? You don’t think I’ve been giving her anything else, do you?’

  ‘Calm down,’ Michael laughed. ‘No, of course I don’t. I just wondered how interested she still seemed, that was all.’

  ‘Very,’ Jodi stated. Then after thinking about it, ‘Actually, less so lately, but then that’s probably because I keep changing the subject and telling her about Ellen. That really bugs her, I can tell you.’

  Zelda and Dan laughed, while Michael sat in his chair and looked thoughtful. ‘You know, it might not be a good thing to wind her up about Ellen,’ he said. ‘She’s gunning for us as it is – not that she’s going to succeed – but I just don’t think it’s wise to antagonize her any more than we already have.’ Then, lifting his head and resuming his smile he said, ‘Well, I think we’ve about exhausted that subject for now, so tell me, Dan, how long have we got before Clodagh and Colleen get here?’

  ‘About half an hour,’ Dan answered, perching on the window-sill and watching Bertie fussing around Craig’s empty office opposite. ‘What are you going to do about him?’ he asked, nodding in Bertie’s direction.

  ‘Offer him to Sandy?’ Michael suggested.

  Zelda and Jodi laughed. ‘They deserve each other,’ Jodi commented.

  Michael’s eyebrows rose, then, after taking a sip of his drink he said, ‘So, providing we’re all in agreement that Jodi’s to be trusted – all right, I’m sorry, that was uncalled for,’ he apologized, when Jodi threw him a thunderous look, ‘let’s go over the latest developments with World Wide Entertainment, which is what we’re now calling the international link-up. Chris Ruskin in
New York is meeting up with an LA-based firm of headhunters some time in the next couple of weeks with a view to them searching out an agent to handle the West Coast operations.’

  ‘Surely you must know someone?’ Jodi piped up.

  Michael shook his head. ‘No one I’d feel happy trusting and Chris feels the same. Mark Bergin doesn’t know anyone in showbiz except a couple of Australians, so he’s relying on us.’

  ‘What about Ellen?’ Jodi said.

  Michael shook his head. ‘She works for ATI, remember, which would give her a real conflict of interests if we brought her in. So, for the moment we’re going with the headhunters. They’ll be given three months to come up with someone, which we’re confident they will, since Ellen assures me not everyone in Hollywood is a crook.’ He grinned to show he didn’t really mean that, but no one was convinced. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘as you know, we’ve already got an exchange programme worked out between three theatres in Sydney, three in London, four in New York and I’ve just found out today that we’re including two in LA. I know LA isn’t famous for theatre, but that’s only because it’s overshadowed by the screen world. They put on some damned good productions from time to time and it’s another way of getting more shows into the US. All that should start early next month and in the meantime we’re looking into financing a twenty-six-part series to be shot in Miami, Manchester, Perth and Singapore. It’s an adaptation of the Shirley Whitfield novel, Too Many Barriers.

  ‘Obviously, all this is costing a packet, but we’ve got some pretty strong support from a couple of banks in the US and Australia, as well as here. Am I right?’ he said, looking at Dan.

  Dan nodded. ‘The Arts Council are interested too,’ he said, ‘and we’re working on tapping the lottery for a few bob. I was in talking to our own bank manager today and though the balance sheets haven’t looked too healthy the last couple of months – and probably won’t for the next few either thanks to Harry and Craig going – no one sees any reason to worry. Incidently, it’s now pretty evident that on top of the personnel she’s availed herself of, Sandy’s defrauded the company of some thirty-five grand or more, but Michael and I have discussed it and rather than bring any more unpleasantness to bear on the situation we feel the matter is best left as is.’

  ‘You mean you’re letting her get away with it!’ Jodi cried indignantly, her eyes moving accusingly between Dan and Michael.

  Dan looked at Michael.

  ‘It was my decision,’ Michael explained, ‘which I took after the company lawyer contacted her and threatened to call in the police. She told the lawyer that if we did that she’d charge me with sexual harassment. So, all things considered, I think we’d do well to cut our losses and move past this. After all, we don’t want that kind of publicity coming down on us and I sure as hell don’t need it while we’re getting World Wide up and going. Besides, I don’t think she can hit us with much else now, can she? She’s got Harry and Craig, which is tantamount to forty per cent of the company …’

  ‘Don’t forget all the clients she took from Diana and Janey,’ Jodi butted in.

  ‘I’m not. All in all, she’s taken about fifty-five per cent of the company. But it’s only temporary, because everyone’s replaceable, even Craig, and unless Zelda succumbs to …’

  ‘Och, no, not me,’ Zelda cried, holding up a hand. ‘I go down with the sinking ship. After all, it was me who employed the little madam, so I’m responsible for …’

  ‘Let’s not get into that again,’ Michael stopped her. ‘We’ll get through this without too much trouble and when we do we’re going to be even bigger and certainly more international than before. In fact, it could well be that without even realizing it Sandy’s doing us a favour, because we could end up changing shape completely and with the way the industry’s going that’s probably no bad thing.’

  ‘So in other words, everyone’s dispensable, no matter who they are, or what they do, or how loyally they’ve worked for you?’ Jodi’s eyes were glittering with anger.

  Michael inhaled deeply. ‘Jodi, I know you think Sandy blackmailed them into joining her, but I promise you she didn’t. They went of their own free will and we just have to accept that. So let’s get back to World Wide, shall we? We’re putting just about everything we’ve got into this venture, which is a gamble by anyone’s standards, so we need the whole team to pull together, which includes you, because if it works out it’s going to turn us into more of a production house than an agency. Of course, we’ll always be an agency, but as you know it was my intention a few years back to get into producing and I think the time has now come for me to take a look at it again. I’ve got a few projects in mind and if I manage to get any of them off the ground it’s going to mean you running my part of the agency while I’m otherwise engaged.’

  Jodi stared at him. ‘But I’m not an agent,’ she pointed out. ‘I never even said I wanted to be one.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Michael replied. ‘Zelda will be taking care of my clients. What we need you to do is get more involved in running the office.’

  ‘What, you mean like a manager?’ she said.

  ‘Exactly like a manager,’ he answered, ‘if that’s what you want to call yourself. The title’s entirely up to you, the pay increase is up to us and we’ve voted you a twenty-five per cent rise effective from the first of next month. You’ll also get a company car and an entertainment allowance.’

  Jodi was boggle-eyed as she looked at Dan, then Zelda, then back to Michael. ‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Will I still be your assistant?’

  ‘Depends whether you want to be,’ he replied.

  ‘Well I’m certainly not handing over to anyone else,’ she retorted. Then breaking into an enormous grin she ran across the room and hugged him.

  ‘If I were you I’d keep this under your hat for a while,’ he warned as she let him go, ‘because the last thing we want is Sandy threatening to go to Harry’s wife again in order to get you away too. So the best thing you can do is tell her we’re already starting to struggle financially, which is more or less true as we’ve had to go into hock to the banks for a lot more than we intended thanks to Harry and Craig going, and tell her we haven’t even managed to find a replacement for Harry or Craig yet either. Embellish it with as much gloom and doom as you like, and try to keep off the subject of Ellen. Have you told her Ellen’s coming to London next week?’

  Jodi shook her head. ‘I was tempted, I must admit,’ she said, ‘but I had a feeling it might not be a good idea.’

  ‘It wouldn’t,’ he confirmed.

  Dan was frowning. ‘You surely don’t think she’d do anything to hurt Ellen, do you?’ he said.

  Michael shook his head. ‘God knows what she’d do given half a chance,’ he responded. ‘I don’t know how the woman’s mind works, but if she starts delving deep enough into my personal life we all know what she’s going to find and I for one would much rather she didn’t.’

  ‘Does Ellen know about that?’ Zelda asked.

  Michael shook his head.

  ‘But I thought it was getting serious between you two.’

  ‘We still live an ocean and continent apart,’ Michael reminded her. ‘Until we go at least some way towards closing that gap I don’t see how you can describe us as serious.’

  ‘He just calls her every day and goes over to New York twice a month to meet up with her,’ Jodi pointed out. ‘But that’s not serious. Nor is taking a three-week holiday with her in the Caribbean.’

  ‘All right, don’t get smart,’ Michael reprimanded. ‘And nothing’s been finalized on that yet.’

  ‘Well Clodagh thinks it has,’ Jodi informed him. ‘In fact, she seems to think she’s going too.’

  ‘What?’ He laughed. ‘She’ll be here any minute so we’ll disabuse her of that notion straight away. And speaking of my family, does any one know if Cavan called me back?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sorry, he did,’ Jodi answered. ‘I forgot to tell you. He rang about an hour ago
while you were talking to Craig. Sorry I didn’t interrupt, but I thought …’

  ‘It’s OK, you did right,’ Michael assured her, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll just go over to Dan’s office and see if I can get through to him now.’

  A few minutes later he was speaking to Cavan at his apartment in Leme.

  ‘Hey, you’re lucky to catch me,’ Cavan called down the line, ‘I was on my way out. How are you? How’s Ma?’

  ‘Everyone’s great,’ Michael answered. ‘The question is how are you? When I spoke to you a couple of days ago you sounded like you had something on your mind and frankly it’s not the first time you’ve left me with the impression you’re holding back on me about something. So what is it?’

  ‘There’s nothing,’ Cavan laughed. ‘You’re imagining things.’ He laughed again. ‘You’ve got to know by now that you’d be the first person I’d turn to if I was in any kind of trouble. So, take it from me, there’s no trouble.’

  ‘That’s your word, not mine,’ Michael pointed out.

  ‘OK, call it what you like. Everything’s coming up roses over here. How about over there? Colleen tells me there’s a new woman. Is it serious?’

  ‘We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you,’ Michael responded. ‘Or should we be talking about Michelle? Is that who this is about?’

  ‘Michelle’s fine,’ Cavan answered. ‘Everything is.’

  Michael knew he was lying, but short of coming right out and accusing him he didn’t know how to get him to admit it. ‘OK,’ he said in the end, ‘you’re a big boy now, you can take care of yourself. If you find you can’t, then you know where I am,’ and he put the phone down.

  As he started back to his own office he realized the call had made him much angrier than it should have and he couldn’t quite fathom why. Except maybe it wasn’t Cavan’s reticence that was rattling him, maybe it was that Cavan knew what was going on with Michelle when he didn’t that was giving him such a hard time. Whatever, something wasn’t right over there, he just knew it.