Agent to the Stars

by John Scalzi

  Well, she was the right sex.

  By the time Michelle and I waited in Roland Lanois’s anteroom, however, any hint that I felt Michelle to be utterly wrong for the role had vanished. After a certain point as an agent, you simply stop worrying about the far-reaching implications of what you are doing and deal with the at-the-moment details. Some would call it enforced amorality. But it’s really just a matter of being there for your client, and doing what needs to be done. At the moment, I was trying to keep Michelle from hyperventilating.

  “Breathe,” I said. “Respiration is a good thing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tom,” Michelle said. She was gripping both sides of her chair so hard it looked like she might dent the metal. “I’m just so nervous. I didn’t think I would be. But I am. Oh, God,” she said. She started thumping her chest with her fist. “Oh, Tom, I’m sorry.” She sounded like a helicopter.

  I grabbed the fist before she could break her ribs. “Stop apologizing. You haven’t done anything wrong. It’s okay to be nervous, Michelle. This is a pretty big role. But I don’t think you need to bruise yourself over it. Have you read the scene Roland wants you to do?”

  “Yes,” she said, and then grinned sheepishly. “I actually memorized the whole thing. All the parts. I didn’t want to blow it. Isn’t that stupid?”

  “No, not really,” I said. “You know, when Elvis started work on his very first film, he memorized the entire script. All the parts, not just his own. No one told him there was any other way to do it.”

  Michelle looked at me, confused. “Elvis was an actor?”

  “Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far,” I said. “But he was in movies. Jailhouse Rock. Love Me Tender. Blue Hawaii.”

  “I thought those were songs,” Michelle said.

  “They are songs,” I agreed. “But they’re also movies.”

  “Oh, great,” Michelle said. “Now Elvis songs are going on in my head.” She stood up and started pacing. Watching her was making me tired.

  Rajiv, Roland’s assistant, came out of Roland’s office. “Okay,” he said. “We’re setting up the video camera, so if you want to come on in, we’ll get started right away.”

  Michelle took in a sharp intake of breath; it sounded like she was trying to inhale the ficus plant on the other side of the office. Rajiv jumped slightly at the noise.

  “Give us just a minute,” I said.

  “No rush,” Rajiv said, and closed the door.

  “Oh God,” Michelle said, wringing her hands. “Oh God oh God oh God oh God.”

  I went over and started massaging her shoulders. “Come on, Michelle,” I said. “This is what you wanted.”

  “God, Tom,” Michelle said. “Why am I so nervous? I’ve never been this nervous about an audition before.”

  “It’s because you’re finally using a script that has words longer than two syllables,” I said.

  Michelle wheeled around and pushed me, semi-hard, in the chest. “You’re a jerk,” she said.

  “Noted,” I said. “On the other hand, you’re not hyperventilating any more. Now, come on. Let’s do this thing.” I took her hand, walked her to the office door, and opened it.

  Inside was Roland, his assistant Rajiv, and a woman that I did not recognize. Roland and the woman were sitting comfortably on the couch; Rajiv was standing over a video camera, fiddling with something.

  Roland got up and strode over to us as we came through the door. “Tom,” he said. “A pleasure to see you again. I hope you are well.”

  “I am, Roland, thanks,” I said, and motioned to Michelle. “This is my client, Michelle Beck.”

  “But of course. Miss Beck. The woman who has driven my poor assistant to traitorous activity. It is a pleasure.” Roland took Michelle’s hand, and in a playfully dramatic fashion, kissed it. Michelle smiled uncertainly and glanced over to me. I gave a shrug that said go with it.

  “And now, if you’ll both allow me to make introductions of my own,” Roland said. “First, Miss Beck, I should like to introduce you to Rajiv Patel, my assistant, with whom you have had many long and interesting phone conversations. I believe somewhere in the office he may have erected a shrine to you.”

  Rajiv was dark-skinned enough that it was somewhat astonishing to be able to see his blush. “Hello, Michelle,” he said, and went back to fooling around with the video camera.

  “And this,” he said, turning to the woman on the couch, “is Avika Spiegelman, who is one of the assistant producers of the film.”

  I walked over to shake her hand. “A pleasure,” I said. “Are you related to Rachel Spiegelman?”

  “She was my aunt,” she said. “Actually my second cousin, or cousin twice removed, or whatever you’d like to call it. But we all called her ‘Aunt Rachel.’ It was simpler that way.”

  “In addition to being one of our producers, Ms. Spiegelman is acting as an advisor to the film, giving us insight into the real Rachel Spiegelman,” Roland said. “As such, I thought it might be prudent to have her give us her thoughts.”

  “I loved you in Summertime Blues,” Avika said to Michelle. “You were perfect for that role.”

  Roland and I caught the subtext of that statement; Michelle did not. Instead she smiled brightly. “Thank you,” she said. Avika smiled thinly. It was going to be a tougher crowd than I had expected.

  “All right, we’re ready,” Rajiv said.

  “Splendid,” Roland clapped his hands together and turned back to Michelle. “My dear Miss Beck, if you wouldn’t mind sitting in the chair in front of the video camera. Ms. Spiegelman will be feeding you lines while Rajiv records you. Do you have a copy of the script?”

  “She memorized the scene, Roland,” I said.

  “Really,” Roland said. “Well, that’s certainly a point in your favor, my dear. Let’s have a seat, shall we?”

  Michelle sat in front of the video camera. Rajiv fixed the focus on the camera and then stepped back. Avika opened up her script. Roland sat back down on the couch. I stood back by the door.

  Roland looked at Michelle. “Are we ready, then?”

  Michelle nodded. Roland glanced over at Avika and nodded. Avika scrolled down her page until she found the line she was looking for. “‘How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do?’” she said, tonelessly. “‘You are my wife, not my master.’”

  Michelle blinked, opened her mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “Could you say the line again?”

  “‘How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do?’” Avika repeated. “‘You are my wife, not my master.’”

  Michelle stared at Avika, then stared over to me, panicked.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Beck?” Roland inquired.

  “I … uh … I,” Michelle began, and placed her hand on her chest. Eventually she got out the words. “That’s not the scene I memorized,” she said.

  “It’s Scene 29,” Avika said, peering over the top of her script.

  “I memorized Scene 24,” Michelle said. “I thought we were doing scene 24.”

  Roland looked over to Rajiv. “Rajiv, did you tell Miss Beck we were going to be doing Scene 24?”

  “I don’t think so,” Rajiv said. “I’m pretty sure I said Scene 29.”

  “I must have read it wrong after I wrote it down,” Michelle said. “My nines and my fours look a lot alike.”

  “As do mine,” Roland said. “It’s a common mistake, I’m sure. Why don’t we just do Scene 24, then.”

  Avika was already there. “This scene only has four lines in it,” she said. “Three of them are spoken by other characters.”

  “What’s Rachel’s line?” Roland asked.

  Avika looked down at the page. “‘Yes,’” she said.

  “Hmmm,” Roland said. “Not a lot to work with.”

  “Now we know how she memorized the scene,” Avika said. Even Michelle couldn’t miss that one. She blushed and began taking in sharp breaths.

>   Roland clapped his hands together again and stood up. “Why don’t we do this. Rajiv will go get a copy of the script for Miss Beck, and we’ll spend a couple of minutes preparing Scene 29, and then we’ll be ready to give it a go. Sound good? All right. Rajiv, if you wouldn’t mind getting that script and working with Miss Beck for a couple of minutes, then. I’m going to go for a little walk.” He wandered out of the room, distracted. After a moment, Avika Spiegelman followed him. Rajiv hovered, and then went out into the main office to get another copy of the script.

  I went over to Michelle. “Don’t panic,” I said.

  “What was I thinking?” Michelle said. She ran both her hands through her hair.

  “You just memorized the wrong scene, that’s all,” I said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  Michelle rolled her eyes at me. “Tom, the scene has four lines,” she said. “Don’t you think I should have figured out it was the wrong scene?”

  “Well, I think that the fact you’re only line was ‘yes,’ should have been a tip-off,” I admitted.

  Michelle looked restless. I quickly held my hand up. “But—even so. It was an honest mistake, Michelle. You need to roll with it, and do the scene right.” I took her hand and clasped it, lightly. “You can do it, Michelle. Just be calm.”

  “Did you see how that woman looked at me?” Michelle said.

  “I get the feeling that Avika Spiegelman doesn’t get many thrills out of life,” I said. “Think of her as an object of pity, not of fear.”

  “She made me feel like an idiot, Tom. Like I’m back in grade school and the nuns are out to get me.”

  I grinned. “That’s a pretty good simile, Michelle,” I said.

  “A what?” Michelle said.

  Rajiv came back in the office with scripts in hand.

  “Listen,” I said. “Practice the scene with Rajiv. I’ll track down Roland and schmooze the man. It’s what you pay me the big bucks for.”

  Michelle smiled wanly as I exited.

  Roland’s office was tucked into a corner of the studio lot; to the left were huge sound sets. To the right was a little park in the center of a collection of offices. Roland was in the little park, standing. Avika Spiegelman stood next to him. As I got closer, it became clear that Avika was chewing Roland out over something. Before I could hear what it was, however, she saw me approach, clammed up, shot Roland a look, and walked away from him. He stood there, a rueful little grin on his face, as I came up.

  “Looks like you two had a nice chat,” I said.

  “Lovely,” Roland said, watching Avika walk back into the office. “It reminded me of some of the more painful dental experiences of my life.”

  “Up the anesthesia,” I suggested.

  “Or simply get defanged,” Roland said. “Which is, now that I think about it, the process I’m undergoing at the moment. Tom, would you mind terribly if I had a smoke?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  “Thanks,” Roland said. He fished out a Marlboro, and lit up. “I’m trying to quit,” he said. “But I’m afraid now’s not a good time.”

  “The audition is that bad?” I said.

  “Well, Tom, we haven’t really had the audition yet, have we?” Roland said. “We have to actually have lines read to see if they’re being done properly.”

  “Ouch,” I said, on behalf of my client.

  Roland picked up on it. “Sorry about that, Tom,” he said. “I don’t mean to run Michelle down. She’s a lovely girl. And I’m afraid I haven’t been straightforward with her or with you about this reading.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  Roland took a long drag on his cigarette before answering. “To be brief,” he said, “I have less than a month left on my option for Hard Memories. If I don’t have the lead cast by that time, I’ll lose the option. The buzzards are already circling, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “Yes. Well, that’s why Michelle is having a reading today, not because of your own work last week. In fact, once it became clear Ellen was going to drop, I told Rajiv to do whatever he could to encourage Miss Beck to read. I don’t really expect her to be brilliant, mind you. But if she was passable, I thought I might convince Ms. Spiegelman to let us make the attempt. Michelle is, as you say, quite a draw at the moment.”

  “Not to be rude, Roland,” I said. “But why does it matter what Avika thinks? You’re the director and producer.”

  “Funny about that,” Roland said. “One of the conditions the Spiegelman family put on my optioning the official biography was the right of refusal for the lead actress. At the time, when I had everyone from Ellen Merlow to Meryl Streep interested in the script, I considered it the least of my worries.”

  “I take it that Avika isn’t impressed so far,” I said.

  Roland used his cigarette as a pointer towards the office. “In our conversation prior to your arrival, Ms. Spiegelman declared that she’s met pets who are smarter than Miss Beck.”

  “Well, so have I,” I said, truthfully. “But they haven’t brought in $300 million with their last two films.”

  “And I wish you the best of luck convincing Ms. Spiegelman with that argument,” Roland said.

  “I didn’t realize you had so much riding on this audition,” I said.

  “That’s why I said I was sorry, Tom,” Roland said. “I wasn’t entirely honest with you on the matter. I don’t know that it would have changed anything if I had been; still, I try to be more honest than the typical Hollywood producer.”

  “You have other projects in the pipe, I’m sure,” I said.

  “No, not really,” Roland said, and brought back the rueful smile. “I’m a prestige producer, Tom. One of those fellows you hire when your studio has been cranking out one too many action films, and you need to throw in an Oscar contender to prove you still care about the art of filmmaking. None of my films actually make money. Even The Green Fields only broke even, and that after video. So I tend to work one project at a time. I’ve been thinking about that Kordus project, but you know where we are on that one. Which reminds me, have you looked at that script yet?’

  “I did,” I said. “It’s very good.” Actually, it wasn’t just good, it was astonishingly good. And written by a twenty-three-year-old film student. Reading it, I had made the mental note to myself to get him to hire me as his agent, or steal him away from whichever one he currently had.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Roland puffed a final puff on his cigarette and threw it to the ground, snuffing it out. “If I don’t manage to pull this project’s chestnuts out of the fire, I’ll have a nice long time to fiddle with it. Come on, Tom. Let’s get back for the second act.” We headed back.

  Back in the office, Rajiv had pulled up a chair and was sitting with Michelle, going over Scene 29. Avika, upon seeing Roland and me enter, pointedly looked at her watch and then at us both. “Well,” Roland said. “Are we ready to begin again?”

  Michelle looked at me, uncertain. I smiled back at her and gave her a thumbs-up signal. Rajiv rolled his chair back and took his position behind the video recorder. Roland sat down again and nodded to Avika. Avika recited her line.

  My phone rang.

  “Sorry,” I said, after everyone glared at me. I ducked out of the office.

  It was Miranda. “Carl wants to know when you’re getting into the office,” she said.

  “Probably not long now,” I said. “Michelle is self-destructing at the moment. Did he say why?”

  “He mentioned something about someone needing a dog ASAP, and that Marcella would have details,” she said. “I have no idea what that means. It sounds like code, and I’ve lost my secret decoder ring.”

  “I know what it means,” I said. “But I can’t. I have to be with Michelle this afternoon. I promised her I would go with her to have to her latex mask made.”

  “I’m just passing along messages,” Miranda said. “I can’t give you permission to defy the orders of your
CEO.”

  I sighed. “Is Carl in right now?” I asked.

  “Let me check,” Miranda said, and put me on hold. My hold music, I was shocked to discover, was Olivia Newton-John. I was going to have to have someone drag my Muzak out of the eighties. Before it became thoroughly intolerable, Miranda came back on the line.

  “Marcella says he’s in a meeting right now but can schedule three minutes for you if you really need it. She also notes that his tone indicated that you probably don’t want to need those three minutes.”

  The door to Roland’s office opened up and Roland popped his head out. “Tom,” he said. “I think you’d better come in here. We’ve had a development.”

  “Gotta go, Miranda,” I said, and snapped the cell phone shut.

  In the office, Michelle was lying on the floor. Rajiv, panting, was placing ice cubes on her forehead. He had sprinted to the bar to scoop up the cubes, proving chivalry was not dead, merely out of breath. Avika sat on the couch, not knowing whether to look concerned or outraged.

  “I don’t know what happened,” Roland said. “She was very nervous about doing the lines, but she seemed all right. And then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell off her chair.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “She’s out cold on the floor, Tom,” Roland said, his gentility cracking just for a second. “I don’t generally brain the actors at readings. I usually wait until we’re actually on the set.”

  “What a fucking nightmare,” I muttered, and then turned to Roland. “It’s her autosuggestion,” I said.

  “What?” Avika said, from the couch.

  I sighed again. “She’s been going to a hypnotherapist,” I said. “The damned fool put in an autosuggestion that blacks her out every time she gets too stressed out.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Avika said.

  I ignored her. “Give her a few seconds and she’ll be good as new,” I said to Roland.

  “What a relief that is,” Avika said, and stood up. “Well, I’ve wasted enough time for one day. When she comes to, thank her for her time and then show her the door. She’s not getting the role.”