So 5 Minutes Ago (27 page)

Told u,
I type back,
btw, cash only.

I take my Coke, down it, and head for the ladies’ room pondering the odds that if I collapse into one of the chairs in the lobby I’ll ever get up again. The Phoenix isn’t on for another half hour and there’s still a ton of awards to get through, most of which are the who-cares-except-for-their-mom-and-their-agent Best Supporting Whatever kind.

I slip into the ladies’ room with the awful pink tile, the conga line of women, stalky and bulky by turns in satin and perfume, and the Latina attendant not speaking, not meeting anyone’s eyes. I wedge in front of the mirror next to two agents with pencil-thin arms and eyes like cobras. I stand there assessing the rain damage to my hair, to my psyche, trying to remember how many of these things I’ve been to. How many more I am likely to attend. The thought is just too depressing. Growing old at black-tie events for others. I stand there for several more minutes. Until the agents move off. Until I realize if G doesn’t fire me, I’m going to quit.

When I get back to the ballroom, Rob Lowe has just won for something and is choking up onstage. I check my watch. Just past seven. I bend down to fish a program off the carpet and flip to the list of awards. I can’t make it out in the dark, but we must be getting close. Sharon Stone takes the stage to present something to someone. Or maybe just to show off her dress. Robin Williams, the show’s host or one of them, comes out and tells some more jokes. At least he’s funny, even if all that sweating is gross. Then two young blond actors I don’t recognize come out and talk about the need for diversity in Hollywood. Must be referring to brunettes. But then Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Wesley Snipes, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Halle Berry join them on the stage and the whole room lumbers awkwardly to its feet and applauds. In the dark I hear someone say, “God almighty, alls we’s missin’ is Uncle Tom.”

“And DMX,” says another voice.

There are a few TV awards involving Vanessa Redgrave and another ancient English actor I can’t recall. Finally, it’s the Phoenix’s moment. It’s so big, it comes in three parts. A lullaby of a speech by David Geffen, who looks positively spectral out of his cave. A film highlighting the Phoenix’s career that also vividly recaps her plastic surgery. Finally, the Phoenix takes the stage minus the headdress, but with the feather boa wound strategically around her body. The applause is deafening. “She’s fucking great,” I hear a voice say in the dark.

The room falls silent. The Phoenix shades her eyes with her hand and gazes out at us. “Lifetime Achievement?” she says, looking down at the statuette. “That’s a little scary. I mean, it’s kind of like saying, ‘Thanks, don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.’ ”

The audience roars.

“Plus, I have to talk
you
through it—and there’s a high bar. Remember the year Barbra won?”

The audience titters.

“I didn’t think she’d ever shut up.”

The audience explodes.

“So shit,” she says, shaking her head. “I could stand up here and talk about all my movies. My albums. My furniture line . . .” She pauses expertly and the crowd laughs again. “My ‘work,’ ” she says, making quote marks with her fingers. “But I figure, why? I’m bored to tears by it. Besides, you just saw the compilation reel, which,” she pauses again and shakes her head, “proves once again that real change in Hollywood is only skin deep.”

The audience laughs again. They’re in love.

“So instead of talking about myself and my career, as weird and great and crappy as it’s been, I thought I would take a minute to talk about this strange business we’re all in.”

The audience shifts in their chairs. Settling in for the long haul.

“People always say we’re artists. Actually, they don’t always say it.
We
say it, because we have this need to believe it. But I’m here to tell you that after all the highs and lows I’ve been through, I don’t believe we are artists. And I don’t believe Hollywood is about making art. It may have been at one time. But it’s not now.”

The audience shifts awkwardly, uncertain now.

“I would suggest to you that we’re actually athletes playing a very strange game. Sometimes you’re lucky enough to be on the winning team. Most of the time you’re not. But the thing to remember is that it
is
a game. And we’re paid—usually overpaid—to play it. A lot of people think acting is a calling, and maybe there are a few of you lucky ones out there for whom that is true. I mean Vanessa,” she says, shading her eyes again and staring out at the room. “I think we can safely say you’re probably an actor first and a celebrity second.”

“Only because I’m English,” Vanessa shouts back, and the crowd laughs, grateful for this interruption.

The Phoenix laughs too and goes on. “Right. But I would suggest that for most of us working in Hollywood, making movies and television shows is no more or less significant than playing for the Yankees. Or the Mets. And requires a hell of a lot less talent. Not less determination. But less native talent.”

She pauses and looks down. The room is dead still. I can’t tell if they’re ready to lynch her or carry her out on their shoulders.

“It took me a long time to learn that,” she says, looking up. “And frankly, the times I’ve failed were more important to my understanding than the times I’ve succeeded. This is a good time,” she says, staring down at the statuette again. “And I have many people to thank for my being here. And I’m sure you’ll be relieved when I tell you that they all know who they are and don’t need to be reminded of that.”

The audience chuckles, relieved to be back on familiar territory.

“So I’ll leave you with two thoughts. Don’t take yourself too seriously, because God knows in the end, nobody else will.”

The crowd laughs, bolder now, sensing the finish line.

“And loyalty. You’re less important than you think you are, but others are more important than you think they are.”

Loyalty?
She’s talking about loyalty after that speech she gave me? Either this is the biggest bunch of BS, like Troy tearing up in court, or somehow, somewhere, the Phoenix has changed her mind.

“This is a real ‘me first’ town,” she says, plunging on. “Actually, it’s a ‘Where’s mine?’ town, but let’s give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that will never change. I mean, why should Hollywood be any different than the rest of the country? But if I’ve learned anything on my way here, it’s the fallacy of that attitude. So for what it’s worth,” she says, raising the statuette over her head, “thank you all.”

The room explodes, grateful that it’s over. From where I stand, I can’t judge any more of their reaction to this wrist-slapping from one of their own. I hardly know what
I
think of it. For all I know, they think she’s an infidel or Moses come down with the tablets.

“Well, that was interesting,” I hear someone next to me say.

“Please, she knows exactly what she’s doing,” comes another voice. “That just proves you can say anything and they’ll love you, if you’ve got a twenty-million-dollar TV deal in your back pocket.”

The crowd is on its feet now, hands pumping wildly. The Phoenix starts to exit and then turns back. “In case you’re wondering about my next career move,” she says, leaning into the microphone and speaking over the applause, “I’ll just tell you that my dress, customized with any six letters of your choosing, will be available on my website in the morning.”

The after-parties, like all award show after-parties, start early—it’s not even 8:30
P.M.
PST when the lights come up—and go late. At least with the Globes, they’re all under one roof. Besides, with no Governors Ball to attend—everyone ostensibly eats during the award show, which is bullshit, because no one wants to be caught chewing on camera—everyone scatters to their home-team soiree the second it’s over.

This year, Miramax is down the hall in the Grand Ballroom, right next to NBC in Trader Vic’s. Paramount is up on the roof, as is Fox. HBO has taken over Griff’s downstairs next to the pool.
InStyle
has claimed the largest conference room off the lobby. Depending on who has won what during the show, the cachet of each party varies from year to year. Except for Miramax, which always acts like it’s the coolest girl in school no matter what pretentious nonsense it’s released.

As the evening’s big winner, the Phoenix has free reign to roam. Despite all the guys with headsets and clipboards guarding the door to each party, she will not be turned away from any of them. So far she’s hit
InStyle,
where she spent many minutes posing for pix in front of the magazine’s giant letterhead, and Paramount, because Viacom owns MTV and she needs to show the flag for her upcoming series.

Now she’s come to rest at HBO because everyone does, and here the Phoenix is holding court in a corner booth behind an invisible velvet rope. Actually, she’s picking at a plate of shrimp while greeting those few supplicants the bouncer admits to this party-within-a-party. Suzanne and G are somewhere around working the crowd, but it’s my job to stand next to the bouncer and give him the thumbs-up or -down on those seeking an audience. Mostly this is a no-brainer. Yes to Brad Grey. No to the woman in the see-through lace dress and top hat. Yes to Chris Albrecht. Okay, he doesn’t even stop, but then it
is
his party. Yes to Sarah Jessica Parker. A baby could do it. A baby should do it.

I’ve been standing here playing traffic cop for about thirty minutes wondering how many more shrimp the Phoenix can eat and whether she will actually speak to me this evening—so far I’ve been invisible—when Suzanne rolls up. “You must be starving,” she says, handing me one of the two glasses of champagne she’s carrying. “Why don’t you take this, get some food and sit down for a second, and I’ll deal with this.”

She doesn’t have to ask me twice. I’d share a table with the scary chick in the top hat if I can just sit the fuck down. I do a drive-by of the nearest food table. The usual beef-salmon-roasted vegetables that all looks even more tired than I am. There’s also a sushi table, where I scoop up about three California rolls, and a pasta table, which I give a pass to. I swing by the dessert table, grab a mini crème brûlée tart, and turn to scan the room for a chair. Any chair.

I’m about to throw caution to the wind and squeeze into a table of Biggies sitting with some
Sopranos
cast members, when I spy an empty chair adjacent to one of the several television monitors set up around the room. Great. A chair, and I don’t have to talk to anybody to get it. I all but collapse into it, take a slug of champagne, and start in on my California rolls when the TV suddenly springs to life.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Robin Williams.”

Oh God, they’re replaying the entire show now? The sound from the set is deafening. Several people are staring in my direction at the screen. Didn’t you guys see it the first time? I look around for a place to move, but there’s not a chair in sight. Fuck it, my ears will just have to suffer to give my feet a break.

I sit there, trying to tune out the show while eating as fast as I can without choking. I’m just finishing the California rolls, heading for the crème brûlée, when I feel someone jostle my leg. I slide my legs out of the way and pop the tart in my mouth. But my leg is jostled again. Oh God, what? I turn. G, squatting by my side, smiling the most lethal smile since Jack Nicholson leered at Shelley Duvall in
The Shining.

“So, Alex, here you are,” he says.

Or at least I think he does. It’s impossible to hear over the music and waves of laughter screaming from the TV. I smile and nod. Fuck you, very much. G says something else I can’t hear, but it must be serious since his smile disappears. I swallow the last of the brûlée, shake my head, and raise both my hands. Only dogs can hear you now, G.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sandra Bullock!”

G smiles, closes his eyes for a second, and then half stands and leans into my ear. “I said, you have thirty days.”

19 Girls Rule

                  The thing about getting fired is, no matter how much you prepare for it, are primed for it, for hearing those very words, it’s still a kick in the head.

And it is. Or it would have been, if it had ended there with my mouth full of crème brûlée and G literally screaming my epitaph in my ear. It doesn’t matter that he has no grounds to fire me. No grounds except what he was reading into the Phoenix’s dress and the fact that he couldn’t dispose of Suzanne. Or at least, not yet. And of course, the fact that he is my boss, or one of them, and can technically fire me at any time.

I don’t know. Maybe there is a God. Or maybe we all have our
Wizard of Oz
–like moments of clarity and salvation. But, like Billie Burke materializing out of a bubble, my own glittery Glinda the Good Witch chooses that exact moment to wander by.

Actually, the Phoenix is heading for the ladies’ room and needs me as her guard dog, but never mind. The result is the same. “Alex, where’ve you been?” she says, the HBO partygoers parting like Munchkins before their queen. “We’re leaving.”

“Where’ve I been?” I say, leaping up, nearly kicking G over in the process. You mean besides being ignored by you all evening? “Why, just here,” I say blandly. “Getting fired.”

I don’t know what I am hoping for exactly. Maybe nothing. Or maybe just the exhilaration that comes from speaking the truth. Finally. Of no longer being afraid. Of saying what needs to be said, and not what’s expected. Certainly, I’m not anticipating a house landing on G, although with the Phoenix, God knows you could never be too sure.

“Oh, please,” she says, looking at me and then down at G. “Do I know you?”

G stands up and sputters something about Jerry Gold and the agency. And having been next to her for most of the evening. Like that mattered.

“He’s the
G
in BIG-DWP,” I say.

“Oh, I have you right here on my ass,” she says, nodding over her shoulder. “So as the
G,
you’re in a position to tell my publicist she’s not doing her job?”

G smiles, clears his throat. “You know, this is really not the time or place for office matters,” he says, coming toward us. “I think this is something that—”

“Office matters?”
the Phoenix says, shaking her head so the crystal and jet beads hanging from her wig clack together. “Look, I may have just given a speech about the bullshit nature of celebrity. But let’s not kid ourselves. We both know how it works here. So I suggest you rethink your decision, because if you fire her, I’ll fire you and hire her to be my personal publicist.”

“Now, why would you want do that?” G says, taking a step closer.

Even I know the answer to that one.

The Phoenix looks at him and then the crowd. “Because I
can.
”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome David Geffen,” blares from the television.

“And while you’re at it,
G,
turn that shit down,” she says. “I can’t stand to see myself on camera.”

If this had been a movie, my own personal movie of which I was, finally, the star, this is where the audience would cheer, someone would toss G into the pool, and the sound track—maybe Gloria Gaynor, although she’s so eighties, or maybe Dorothy’s anthem, “You’re out of the woods, you’re out of the dark, you’re out of the night”—would swell. But given that it’s just a Globe after-party, and late at that, with everyone looking a little the worse for wear, it’s a lot less cinematic.

Having dispatched G, the Phoenix turns for the exit. “Are you coming?” she says, in the tone of voice that reminds me that if her scenario comes to pass, I have just exchanged one boss for another. Still, I follow her and hold her feather boa and her purse in the ladies’ room, where the conga line of women is nonplussed to find the Phoenix coming in to pee just like the rest of them.

And then the evening is pretty much finished. The other parties are deemed unworthy, thank God, and it’s just a cell-phone call to the driver and a short hop to the Toyota. And, like Cinderella back in her coach, or actually I’m so tired I can’t keep my metaphors straight, it’s over.

“Did you mean what you said?” I say, bending down by the passenger door.

“When?” she says.

“Back there. When you said you’d hire me if he fires me.”

“Yeah, I meant it.”

“But I thought I was history after our last meeting.”

“Yeah, well, I thought better of it,” she says with a shrug. “After what you said. Besides, there’s going to be a ton of stuff with the show coming up and somebody’s got to deal with it. Might as well be you.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “But I think you should get a new job one way or another. That guy looks like a jerk.”

And then she is gone. A tiny black limo creeping down the hotel’s rain-slicked driveway. Like Glinda floating away, leaving me almost, but not quite, where I started.

“So you go, then I’ll go,” Steven says, when I reach him on my cell as I’m driving home.

“Actually, the only place I’m going is home,” I say, turning onto Wilshire. “Where are you?”

“Still on the roof at the Fox party,” he says, and I make out the roar of laughter in the background.

“Is Troy still there?”

“No, he split hours ago. I think he left with Sandra Bullock. Weren’t they an item at one time?”

“No, that was Matthew McConaughey,” I say, turning off onto Santa Monica. “Look, I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, but the short version is that G fired me.”

“He fired you?”

“Well, he tried to.”

“Wait, does that mean I’m fired too?”

I guess the Phoenix was right. This really is a “Where’s mine?” town. “No. Or I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think I’m even really fired because he gave me thirty days and—”

“Just until the Oscars. Nice, G.”

“But the point is, the Phoenix intervened.”

“And hit him with her feather boa?”

“Offered me a job.”

“Oh, man, can I come too?”

“Look, I don’t even know how this is going to shake out. If I’m fired or hired or if I even want to do this anymore. I just know that I’m too tired to think about it now.”

We make noises about talking tomorrow. In the office. Figure it all out then.

“By the way, I bumped into Rachel,” he says. “She said she had one word for us:
tomorrow.
”

“No kidding,” I say. So the other shoe’s about to drop. Perfect fucking timing. “Look, I’m making a detour,” I say, heading up Beverly toward Sunset, toward Laurel Canyon and the twenty-four-hour newsstand in the Valley. Unless I miss my guess, Monday’s
L.A. Times
should be hitting the sidewalks just about now.

The day after an award show is like a snow day in Hollywood. Everyone is so wiped they either stay home or straggle in bleary-eyed sometime after noon. Unless your clients won, then you’re up at it early, cranking out releases and dealing with the press, which is in feeding-frenzy mode.

I am at my desk by 8
A.M.
I’m in jeans, an old black cashmere crew neck, and my hair’s in a ponytail, but I’m here, writing my releases, reading the wires, and generally readying myself for the onslaught to come. Suzanne is the first through the door.

“I know you knew about this,” she says, tossing the
Times
business section onto my desk.

I glance up. “Yes, I read that. Last night. Picked it up at the newsstand on my way home. Interesting.”

“
Interesting?
Oh, it’s a lot more than interesting.”

“Yes, it is,” I say, looking up. “And we should probably have some sort of statement ready. Unless G’s already prepared one.”

She looks at me and shakes her head. “Why didn’t you just come to me about all this? We could have handled it in-house.”

I don’t even bother challenging her assumption that I’m the “BIG-DWP publicist who insisted on remaining anonymous” named in the story. That I have broken the cardinal publicist’s rule: Never tell the truth. At least not in print. As for why I did it, I could say that I did it for her. That she asked me to save her job and I did. Or I could tell her I did it to screw G. But I didn’t do it for either of those reasons. In fact, I’m still not sure why I did it.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess if I’ve learned anything here, it’s that there are times when things really are wrong, and not just a matter of spinning it.”

She looks at me like she’s never seen me before. “This business is so different from when I started twenty-five years ago, I don’t even know what’s appropriate anymore,” she says. “I don’t know if I should thank you or suspend you.”

“Well, if it helps you any,” I say, turning back to the computer, “G fired me last night, although God knows what that means. I mean, now.”

There’s a commotion outside my door. Steven, still in his tux, carrying a copy of the
Times
like it’s on fire. “Jesus, I didn’t know you actually talked to the reporter. . . . Oh, sorry,” he says, catching sight of Suzanne.

“I suppose you knew about this as well?” she says.

Steven looks at me, then Suzanne, and then back at me.

“He’s trying to decide if he’s going to get blamed or praised,” I say, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair. “Come on. Final answer.”

Steven looks down, pulls his tie from his shirt, and then looks up. “Yeah, I did. I knew about it.”

No one says anything for a minute. Down the hall, the phones begin to ring. It’s already starting. The unraveling of BIG-DWP. Or at least part of it.

“So what happens now?” Steven says, looking at us.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Suzanne says, shaking her head and heading for the door. “I haven’t a clue.”

It happens fast, actually. As things do when the words
Hollywood
and
kickback
appear in a headline on the front page of the
L.A. Times’
business section. By tomorrow the trades will have it. Depending on what happens, if G pulls a Mike Ovitz and goes postal, blames the gay mafia, or in this case the girl mafia, it could make the national papers.

At the very least, he’s finished here. There’s a lot you can get away with in Hollywood, but not all of it. And not if it gets out. Last year, a CAA agent got the ax after the papers got wind of his kickback scheme involving a Beverly Hills real estate agent and the sale of his clients’ houses. G’s sins are bigger. A lot bigger.

In fact, everything Rachel, Steven, and I had suspected back at Tom Bergin’s was there in black-and-white. It had started with my talking to the reporter about Troy and G and my suspicions about G and Jerry, but the other break was finding a weak link in Jerry Gold’s office. Another disgruntled employee who was more than happy to help connect the dots. How G had plotted with Jerry to bleed DWP dry before he even bought us out. How G had already paid Jerry a “good faith deposit” for taking Carla out of DWP. How G planned to revive the agency once Suzanne and the other original partners were gone and sell it to the highest bidder. Apparently, G had lined up an investment-banking house to drum up possible suitors. Opening bids were expected to be north of ten million.

“I had no idea we were worth that much,” Steven says, after Suzanne leaves and he’s reread the story for something like the fourth time. “Maybe I should go to business school.”

“Maybe you should go home and change your clothes.”

“I’m serious. There’s a lot of ways to make money in this town if you just think about it the right way.”

“Or the wrong way. Do yourself a favor. Go to law school. You’ve already watched so much
Law & Order
you might as well.”

“Well, now that you mention it . . .”

“What?” I say. Assistants grow up to be publicists. Happens all the time. It’s supposed to happen. Like the children of Mormons, because who in their right mind would convert? I guess I just thought Steven would always work here. He just wouldn’t take my messages anymore.

“I have applications to USC, UCLA, and Stanford law schools at home. I’m thinking of filling them out and seeing what happens. I mean, it’s late, but—”

“You’ll get in,” I say, shaking my head. “You’ll make a hell of a lawyer.”

“Well, they say it’s always good to have a lawyer in the family,” he says, balling his tie up in his hand. He looks at me and smiles a smile I can’t really read. “Here,” he says, coming toward me. He drapes his tie around my neck and wraps it loosely into a bow. “Okay.” He stands back to admire his handiwork. “Now I’m going out for lattes. Like I always do.”

I turn back to my desk. Take several congratulatory calls about Troy’s upset win last night. And many more from the tabs and the fashion press wanting to know about the Phoenix’s dress and if it is, in fact, on her website, www.phoenixgarb.com. Apparently, a few have already tried to find it. But mostly it’s fallout from the
Times’
story. Everyone is shocked, shocked to learn gambling has been going on here in Casablanca.

Peg calls, sputtering about mistrust, miscreants, and men in general. “I never liked that guy,” she says. “I always figured he was going to raise your rates.”