by Zoey Dean
Hollywood is Like High School with Money
Zoey Dean
For my mom, who got me through high school and all the years since
CHAPTER ONE
Dear Michael,
You'll never guess where I am.
I paused and turned the postcard over to look at the picture of the iconic Hollywood sign, stark
white and enormous against the bumpy range of the Hollywood Hills. As I chewed the end of
my pencil, I realized, belatedly, that the sign pretty much gave my location away. Really, where
would Michael Deming think I was--Peoria? I sighed but kept on going. After all, it was only a
postcard.
Got the job I mentioned last time. Moved out here from Middletown just last week. L.A. is
crazy and weird, and I love it!!
I hesitated for a little while over what to say next. Michael Deming had never once written me
back, though I'd sent him probably three hundred letters and notes over a period of nine years.
Some people, like my friend Magnolia, would say this made me a kind of epistolary stalker, but
I knew it just meant I was a fan. A really, really big fan. Kind of a really, really creepy fan,
Magnolia would say, but of course I wouldn't listen to her. And anyway, what did she know?
As much as I loved her, she was still trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life,
while I was here, at a movie studio, getting ready to start doing what I wanted to do with my
life.
Will keep you posted, I wrote. Love, T.
Probably the "Love" business was a little much, but I sort of felt like I could say anything to
the guy. It's easy to be yourself when no one is actually paying you any attention. Also, I'd
never signed my whole name--for some reason I'd always just put T--and the anonymity made
me bolder.
I tucked the postcard into the Fodor's Los Angeles that I kept in my purse and glanced up at the
sleek, black-haired receptionist talking quietly into her headset. The wall behind the white
crescent of her desk was a waterfall, with sheets of chlorinated water splashing endlessly down
into a basin filled with shimmering rocks. Wind chimes tinkled in the corner of the room, and
every once in a while a mist of gardenia-scented air wafted out from some invisible vent. Some
interior design team had gone to a lot of trouble to make the lobby of the creative department at
Metronome Studios look like a very expensive spa. And it was definitely impressive, although
the sound of the water made me feel like I had to go to the bathroom, even though I'd just peed.
Michael Deming would hate it, I was pretty sure of that. He'd fled Hollywood years ago and
now lived in a log cabin without running water or electricity in the San Juan Islands. Or at least
that was the rumor. Michael Deming--director, auteur, genius--was the J. D. Salinger of the
film world, except that he'd only ever made one studio movie, which had been a flop. But a lot
of people had been obsessed with Journal Girl, including me. I'd seen it for the first time at age
fifteen, as the clueless new girl at Boardman High School in Cleveland, Ohio. By the time the
credits rolled, I had discovered what I wanted to do with my life: I was going to make movies.
At first I thought I'd act, but as it turned out, I had terrible stage fright. I also developed a weird
stutter whenever I had to say a word that started with the letter S. The summer before my senior
year, my parents sent me, at my insistence, to Director's Camp, but I didn't do so well there
either. I was terrible at telling people what to do, I had no "unifying vision," as my counselor
put it, and I couldn't work an editing machine to save my life. Luckily, I ate some bad shrimp,
got food poisoning, and was sent home early.
Despite such setbacks, I did not give up. I focused instead on how to make movies without
having to be in front of the camera or manage heavy equipment. Four years in the film
department at Wesleyan convinced me that I had the talent to pursue my dreams; two years
interning for a beloved professor, shadowing him as he made a brilliant movie only a handful
of people would ever watch, convinced me I wanted to work on movies that might actually get
seen. Hence my presence in this lobby, waiting to start my first day of work as an assistant to
an assistant at a major movie studio.
Thank you, Michael Deming. You are my inspiration, even if you've never even bothered to
write me a single note of encouragement. Even if, at this very moment, you are wearing dirty
overalls and eating squirrel meat in some backwoods hovel, cursing Hollywood as a nest of
vipers, phonies, and sellouts.
I took a sip of the iced mocha I'd bought from the café down the street from my apartment-technically Magnolia's apartment, but she'd been kind enough to let me and my boxes move in-and cleared my throat, hoping the receptionist would notice me. She sighed and pushed a
curtain of black hair back from her admirably high cheekbones. "Taylor Henning?" she said
breathily.
I stood up obediently, my heart pounding in my chest.
"You can go in now. Here's your ID." The receptionist pushed toward me a laminated card that
read METRONOME STUDIOS in intimidating block letters. I picked the ID up and saw a
grainy version of my narrow face and light blue eyes staring back at me. My hair was sort of
flat, and my nose was a little shiny, but I'd certainly seen worse pictures of myself. My Ohio
driver's license, for example, which I hadn't bothered to change in six years of living in
Connecticut, made me look like a felon.
"I'm sorry--where again?" I asked. "I can't remember."
"Last corner office on the southwest side." The receptionist opened an Us Weekly to a spread of
Ben Affleck pumping gas into his car. "Stars--they're just like us!" the headline proclaimed.
Right, I thought--just like us, only richer, better looking, and constantly hounded by
photographers. As I walked away, the receptionist called, halfheartedly, "Good luck."
I turned around and smiled my best, most grateful smile. "Thanks," I said, but she was no
longer paying any attention to me.
I swiped the ID through the silver card slot, and the glass doors slid open with a hiss. If the
waiting room was a spa, the interior of the creative department was a luxury space station.
Below the high white ceilings, the illuminated walls gradually changed color, like a pulsing
screen saver, from vivid orange to deep magenta to purple and blue. It was... not tacky, exactly,
but not subtle either.
Through open office doors, I could see the creative executives, intimidatingly busy on their
BlackBerries or laptops or iPhones. Their assistants sat at desks outside the CEs' offices,
guarding their doors, acting as secretaries, factotums, and girl/guy Fridays. And in about five
minutes, I was going to be one of them.
The last corner office on the southwest side was a sleek glass cube buffered from the hallway
by an intermediate room, half office, half reception area. A shiny placard announced that I was
entering the domain of Iris Whitaker, President of Production. Iris Whitaker,
my new boss. In
the outer room were two sleek black desks, two bookcases lined with scripts, a NASA-quality
laser printer, a low white couch, and a single window that looked out onto the courtyard and
fountain in the middle of the studio lot.
I set my bag on the smaller, empty desk and looked around, feeling my pulse beating hard in
my neck. The other desk, which mine faced, was decorated with a cluster of silver photo
frames, votive candles, and a porcelain vase of pink tulips. That would be where Kylie Arthur,
Iris's first assistant, sat. Up until very recently, Kylie had been the second assistant, but now
she was basically my boss too. I'd never met her, but Iris, during our interview last month, had
assured me that we would get along.
I would have been able to see into Iris's office but for the tangle of tall plants along the glass
wall that separated her from us, her minions. There were several towering cacti, a bunch of
lush, ferny things, and even a miniature orange tree. Through the green fronds I could only
make out the occasional flash of a white blouse. But I could hear Iris's gravelly voice, and
though I didn't want to eavesdrop, I couldn't help it.
" Quinn, " Iris said. "I don't care what your father says, you know the drill: shopping on Third
Street on Saturdays only. Now don't make me get into it again." She paused, then cackled.
"Nice try, kiddo," she said. "I'll see you tonight. I love you."
I waited another moment until I was sure that Iris was off the phone and then approached the
threshold to her office. I could already feel my cheeks flushing, the way they always did when
I was nervous. (This was why I never wore blush--overkill.) I unclenched my fists, smoothed
my hair, and tried to think calming thoughts. I knocked on the doorjamb.
"Come in," Iris called, and steadying my breathing, I entered.
Iris Whitaker sat behind a desk cluttered with paper, typing furiously into her computer. The
vast rear window of her office looked over one of the ocher soundstages toward the
skyscrapers of downtown, which were, unsurprisingly, obscured by an orange brown smog.
Hesitantly, I moved a few inches further into the room, stepping onto the sheepskin rug and
admiring the marble coffee table and the slate gray minimalist sofa with its shantung throw
pillows. The office had the strange but not unpleasant smell of potting soil and expensive
leather.
Iris's computer pinged--e-mail sent--and then she turned to look at me with her dark eyes.
Copper-colored curls fell to her shoulders, and her arms were Pilates-toned. She was in her
forties, but she looked about twenty-seven--hardly old enough to be the mother of Quinn, who
Iris had told me was a junior in high school. "Taylor!" she said warmly, standing up.
"Welcome--come on in."
I leaned over the desk to shake Iris's hand. She was angular and nearly six feet tall, and her
handshake was as firm as a man's.
"Hi," I said. "Thanks." Then for some stupid reason I wished her a happy Monday.
Iris smiled, not dismissing my silly remark but not responding to it either. "Please, pull up a
chair. Actually, not that one--it's holding up that cactus there. So you made it here in one piece,
I see."
I sank so deep into the black leather chair I'd chosen that my head was barely above the
desktop. "Yes," I said. "I've been here a whole week." I tried to sit up very straight, but what I
really needed was a booster seat.
Iris twisted a large opal ring on her right hand; otherwise she wore no jewelry. I'd heard that
she'd been married to a high-powered producer but that there had been a messy divorce. He'd
run off with a starlet--someone young and malleable, not tall and fierce like Iris Whitaker, the
seventh most powerful player in Hollywood. That was what Entertainment Weekly had called
her; I'd read it on a plane trip to Florida to see my grandparents. Or at least that was what I
thought I'd read. I'd had a couple vodka tonics--I do not like to fly the friendly skies--and so I
couldn't be 100 percent sure.
Iris was smiling at me but not saying anything, and it's awkward moments like this when my
verbal floodgates tend to open. "I just have to tell you how thrilled I am to be here," I said. "I
know I said this in the interviews, but this is all I've ever wanted to do, and I can't believe I get
to be doing it. I know how lucky I am, and I want you to know that I'm grateful too. I mean-it's just incredible. And so I want to say thank you. Thank you for the opportunity." I managed
to stop myself then by biting my lip. Hard.
Iris raised her carefully plucked eyebrows. "That's great to hear," she said a beat later. "You're
welcome."
"Movies are my passion," I barreled on. "And I plan to be here for the long haul. I'm not in it to
hang out with celebrities or drop names. I don't want to party all night at Chateau Marmont or
anything. I'm in it because I've never wanted to do anything else but make great movies."
Clearly I needed a better strategy than lip-biting to shut me up this morning. Maybe a muzzle
would do it.
Iris smiled. " Great is a tall order, you know," she said, not unkindly. " Profitable is often about
the best we hope for. But we do look for great stories here, of course. If I'm doing my job
right--and if you're doing yours too--that means we're reading every script out there, plus every
magazine article and every book and every blog that might be a hit. We don't want to miss
anything that might translate to the screen. We're prospecting for gold, Taylor, and we sift
through every pebble in the river to find it." She paused. "There! That's my recruitment speech.
Not that I need to persuade you of all people. You seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid already.
Not to mix metaphors or anything."
"Of course." What she said was true--I needed no convincing.
"It's not an easy job," Iris continued, still twisting the ring. "You need to make yourself
available to us around the clock--which is where the BlackBerry you'll be getting comes in,"
she said with a wink. My stomach tingled with excitement. Not that I relished the idea of
middle-of-the-night e-mails ( I'll need that script on my desk at 8 a.m. sharp! ), but knowing I'd
soon have my very own BlackBerry--like a doctor's pager, I thought--made me feel high
powered and professional. And God knows my battered old Nokia could use an upgrade.
"Of course," Iris added, "I do lean on my assistants to help me prospect."
"Absolutely," I agreed. It was why I had wanted the job so badly. At Metronome, assistants
weren't just cappuccino fetchers; they were asked their opinions while they delivered the
cappuccino. At the agencies, you started out in the mail room.
"Enthusiasm comes in handy. But it can sometimes cloud someone's judgment," Iris continued.
She pointed her BlackBerry at me. "Not every movie deserves to be made, you know."
"Oh no," I agreed. "Of course not. I mean, half the movies that do get made don't deserve to get
made, it seems. Like that one where Owen Wilson played the one-legged horse trainer with the
pet monkey, what was that called? I'd like to meet whoever thought that was a good idea."
"Actually," Iris knit her brows, "we considered that script."
"Oh," I stammered, "I'm sorry--I mean, I'm sure it had great potential. I think--"
There was a knock at the door, and I sat back
in the chair, immensely grateful for the
interruption. In two more minutes, I would have talked myself right out of my new job, and
then what? I'd have to go back to Middletown and beg Eckert Pinckney, the professor who'd
already paid me out of pocket for the last two years, to take me back. Not that I'd left on bad
terms; he was the reason I even got this job, anyway. Of the handful of people who actually
saw Gray Area--the gritty but beautiful film I'd helped him make--Iris Whitaker was one of
them. Opportunities like this only came along once in a lifetime, as my mother was fond of
reminding me, and I wasn't about to screw it up.
A lithe blonde slid into the room on a pair of kelly green ballet flats. "Morning, Iris," she said.
"Bryan Lourd said twelve-thirty at Cut. I told them that was too late, but he insisted. Also that
weird DP called again."
The girl cocked her head while she waited for Iris to respond. She stood by the cactus, not
looking at me at all. She reminded me of Sienna Miller in the film Factory Girl, playing Edie
Sedgwick, except that her hair was long and wavy and dark gold, with butter-colored
highlights that framed her face. A jumble of silver chains around her neck tinkled as she shifted
her weight from foot to delicate foot. Her perfume smelled like lilies--really expensive ones.
"Thanks, Kylie," Iris said. "Kylie, this is Taylor. Taylor, this is Kylie Arthur, my first assistant.
She had your job until a week ago, when Christy got promoted to CE."
I'd met Christy Zeller when I flew out to L.A. from Middletown last month. I'd stayed for just
two days, with Magnolia, and interviewed at Metronome. Christy had been just an assistant
then, and now she had her own office and her own assistant. At Metronome, they nurtured
talent and they hired from within.
I heaved myself out of the chair, but Kylie didn't offer her hand. She just stood there in her
skinny jeans and her silky polka-dot tunic top and smiled. "Hi," she said. "Welcome to
Metronome." Her eyes flicked up and down the length of my body, taking in my black woolblend pants from Banana Republic and my blue ruffled shirt from Forever 21. "Cute shoes."
Involuntarily, I glanced down at my Nine West-but-look-like-Michael Kors black pumps.
"Thanks," I said, unsure if she was being snide.