The Second Assistant (27 page)

“Great, Daniel, thanks for your time.” Had I been informative? I certainly hadn’t intended to be. And did I really have to leave Jason’s script with Ryan? I wasn’t sure that I wanted to anymore. I pulled the script out of my bag and gazed at it lovingly. Could I really leave it in the hands of Ryan the cannibal? But I guessed that it would cross his path one way or another. “Thanks so much. Again. See you soon.”

I walked backward out of the office in ridiculous deference. Thankfully, Ryan wasn’t at his desk so I just smiled at Assistants Two, Three, and Four, dropped the script on the friendliest girl’s desk, and darted for the stairway. I just couldn’t handle running into Ryan in the elevator—my nerves were already too shot.

Before heading back to my office, I raced down to my car to grab the blouse I kept there in case of emergencies. I was positively damp with anxiety after that audience with Daniel. Plus, I needed a few minutes to collect my thoughts. I wondered whether Daniel really did have Scott’s best interests at heart, as he claimed to. I knew that Scott had worked under Daniel for years, and he had been the one to promote him exponentially to his current esteemed position. I collected my shirt from the trunk and slammed it shut before making my way back to the elevator. Could I really have been in this business so long already
that I could only see a friendly helping hand in a suspicious light? All I did know was that my loyalties were with Scott. Something about all that slithering on the fourth floor just didn’t sit well with me. Daniel and Ryan, the organ-grinder and the monkey. All that easy chatter and fake homeliness. It just didn’t ring true.

As I was about to press the elevator button, José approached me urgently. “Lizzie:
Donde hay humo, hay calor
.” That was an easy one. I’d decided that the Josés were in league to help me bone up on my Spanish. Perhaps so that I’d be better agent material, or maybe so that one day they could marry me off to one of their sons. “ ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,’ ” I translated proudly. “I remember that one from eighth grade.” The Josés didn’t seem overly impressed with my translation. “Be careful, little lizard,” one of them said, and then they both scurried off as two guys from the Accounting Department arrived and thrust their valet tickets onto the shelf of the booth.

I hopped into the elevator and made my way back to the sanctuary of my office. And no, the irony of my office’s feeling like a haven did not escape me. I pressed the button for the first floor and wondered what it was about the Josés that made me think they had a superhighway into the heart of goings-on at The Agency.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire
rattled around my head. Things had been strange at The Agency lately. Ryan in Scott’s office, Scott’s mystery meetings with Katherine, and then Daniel’s sudden interest in
me,
of all people. He hadn’t cared a lick about my project in the meeting. It struck me that I couldn’t afford to be such an ostrich anymore, or I’d risk appearing disloyal to Scott. I decided to talk to Lara as soon as possible and try to ascertain whether I was just suffering from routine industry paranoia or whether there was genuinely some chicanery afoot. Ought I to give Scott a heads-up on what I’d observed? I suspected so and ditched my plans to change into my clean shirt and hared back to my office.

I arrived out of breath, only to find Lara missing from her desk and Scott’s door closed to the world. I had to tell him now, before I lost the nerve, so I went straight to his office and threw open the door dramatically. He didn’t have any appointments scheduled, so he was probably just watching a game or a movie. What greeted me was not a usual sight. I blinked a few times in an attempt to identify the clean-shaven, fragrant, gray-suited man at Scott’s desk. Between this morning and now, he had transformed himself from a dodgy
Jackass
extra into a
sharply attired partner of The Agency. Scott looked up expectantly with a calm smile on his face.

“Do you have a wedding this afternoon?” I asked.

Scott smiled, a bit embarrassed. Then motioned to Katherine, sitting on the sofa to his right. “Lizzie, you know Katherine Watson, head of the Lit Department.”

I was even more astonished when I saw that Scott had cleaned himself up for the irresistible Mrs. Watson. It was really sweet in a pathetic sort of way. Thank God I hadn’t walked in on anything illicit. They were both fully clothed, and Katherine seemed perfectly in control and a good ten feet away from Scott. I stood there like a bronzed Mercury with my mouth open.

“Lizzie, is there something I can help you with?” Scott prompted me.

“Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you about something.” They both looked at me expectantly. “It was kind of private, but it can wait.” Now it was Katherine’s turn to raise an eyebrow. I turned on my heels to leave, but she stood up quickly, straightening her skirt.

“Lizzie, stay. Please. We’re finished here anyway. It was nice meeting you, and, Scott, I’ll let you know.” Know what? I wondered. Maybe what hotel they’d meet in next. Or if she was planning to leave her perfect husband, or what position she favored, or . . .

“Lizzie, what’s up?” Scott stared at me patiently as I struggled to shift my mind back to the subject at hand.

“I just had a meeting with Daniel. I thought it was going to be about this project I’m trying to produce, but . . .”

“What project?” Scott looked surprised. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Well, it’s just this amazing script I’m trying to produce that a friend of mine wrote.” I stopped speaking because Scott was looking disconcerted. Or was that hurt in his eyes?

“You had a project that you loved and didn’t bring it to me first?” he asked. I looked at him and was flooded with guilt. And regret.

“Scott, really, I didn’t mean to . . . it’s just that . . .” Then the story spilled from my mouth like a newly discovered geyser, in one serious run-on sentence. “I met Daniel in the elevator, and he asked how I was doing and if I liked working for you, and before I knew what I was saying, I’d told him about the project, and then he asked me to meet with him in his office about it, and I never thought he’d call, but then his
assistant called to set up the meeting, and then he asked me questions about you, and I wished the entire time that I’d never even been polite and said hello in the elevator in the first place.”

“Okay, Lizzie-o, take a seat,” Scott said, and guided me onto his sofa. Then he sat down opposite me in an armchair. “Let’s take this from the top. And a little more calmly this time.”

“Thank you,” I said, and inhaled.

“So you didn’t
not
bring me the project because you thought I was shit at my job?” Scott asked.

Oh, God, typical. Why was it that Scott’s insecurity was the primary thing to be addressed here when we had much more important things to worry about? Like Daniel. Like subterfuge. Like dark doings.

“Of course not. I think you’re brilliant at what you do. I just thought you were too busy, and actors seem to be your thing more than writers. Also, I didn’t want to waste your time. You can read the script if you want to. I have it in my desk drawer.” I motioned behind me to where my desk was. “Anyway, Scott, you don’t read.” There, I’d said it. I had to give the guy coverage of coverage. And then he made me read it out to him. Or pitch it if it wasn’t action or comedy.

Thankfully, Scott dissolved into laughter. “You’re right, I’m totally swamped, and I don’t read. But let me know if you need any casting ideas. Now, what did Daniel want to know?”

I proceeded to fill him in on the Daniel grilling. Scott took it all in stride and then asked me only one question.

“Lizzie, are you with me?”

“What, here? Now?” I asked. Was Scott being existential?

“No, I mean you’re either with me or against me. Not that there’s anything going on. But I just need to know.”

“I’m with you, Scott. One hundred percent.” It came out before I had a chance to think about the possible ramifications. I had just chained myself to this fantastic lunatic of a man, and now all I could do was hope and pray that he wasn’t the
Titanic.

I wish I was going someplace. I wish you were going someplace. We could go together.

—Mary Murphy as Kathie Bleeker
The Wild One

M
y mother believes that traveling in private airplanes is God’s way of telling you that you have too much money. Every time she hears on the news of one crashing, she shakes her head gravely with an I-told-you-so sigh. She’s an atheist, too, so I’m not sure where that leaves her theory, but I suspect that statistics probably bear her out. Anyway, I pushed all this to the back of my mind as I wheeled my suitcase full of sweaters and scarves and warm things behind me through the foyer of The Agency one rainy January morning. I had been invited to the Sundance Film Festival with Scott, and since it was the first business trip of my entire life, and my first time in a private plane, I was completely psyched.

Originally Lara was supposed to accompany Scott—to go along and answer his cell phone and make sure he got to meetings on time and go to the movies that he couldn’t see because of his busy meet-and-greet and party schedule. But Lara’s parents had chosen that weekend to visit from Philadelphia, and so she had to stay in town. Her loss was my gain, and fortunately it happened just when I most needed it. Everyone had told me that the industry basically went into hibernation from Thanksgiving through New Year’s, but I hadn’t really believed that life could be quite so unequivocally sleepy. Scott hadn’t done a single
deal throughout December, Lara spent her days out of the office meeting with literary agents, and even Victoria seemed to have people to buy Christmas presents for. So apart from a very busy afternoon when I’d had to try to ascertain whether to send Hanukkah cards or Christmas cards to Scott’s clients, basically making sure that those who were supposed to get Baby Jesus in a crib didn’t get a menorah card and vice versa, life had been fairly unstimulating.

Not a single agent had responded to
Sex Addicts in Love,
and I had even sent it beyond The Agency doors to people I vaguely knew at CAA, William Morris, and Endeavor. Plus, I had never heard another peep from Daniel about it. In fact, Daniel had been eerily quiet lately. I hadn’t seen him and Scott slap each other’s backs for as long as I could remember. Even Ryan seemed to have crawled back under his stone. And to make the boringness even more deadly, I had heard from Talitha that my one beacon of romantic light, Luke Lloyd, was on location in Morocco. So I couldn’t even gaze at him in the V Pages and wonder who his gorgeous date might have been at this premiere or that dog dance. Instead I envisaged him having an affair with the leading lady of his picture and imagined them secreted away in some Moorish palace feeding one another fresh figs and making love in the hot afternoons.

When close of business finally arrived, I logged off my computer, then dashed over to the Coffee Bean to say au revoir to Jason and pick up a revised draft of
Sex Addicts
. While we hadn’t managed to get anyone to read it yet, we were very far from giving up on the project and had spent countless weekends doing read-throughs of the script. I’d overcome my mortification at acting and played the parts of various hookers, mothers, and girlfriends, while Jason had sunk himself into the male roles with the conviction of a seasoned thespian. Whenever our characters were supposed to kiss, we had simply smiled shyly at one another and then skipped to the next scene. Still, though, we remained the unattached stalwarts in one another’s lives, even though any sexual chemistry had been laid to rest long ago. We went to weekend matinees together, made roast-chicken suppers at my apartment when one of us was feeling homesick, and though I didn’t hike with him ever again, we did sometimes stroll along the beach together. To all intents and purposes, we were a couple. I just never got close enough to feel the scratch of his yak-hair sweaters.

“Have fun, Lizzie,” he said as I packed the newly polished manuscript into my bag and made my way toward the door.

“I wish I could put you in my luggage, and then we could run around Sundance together and get some funding for this puppy,” I said, patting the bulge of the screenplay in my purse.

“Well, just do what you can.” Jason waved me off. “And if you need to take one for the team, then make sure you do.”

I shot him an evil stare and then laughed. “Oh, okay, then. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Our poor movie did seem to be languishing in the doldrums of late. I’d been told that the spring was going to be the time to sell it, though, and get it up and running, so all hope was not lost. I was more convinced than ever that this was a work of genius, and I’d even come around to appreciating Jason’s scratchy directorial efforts, since I’d become a little more educated in cinema through innumerable bleak afternoons watching Elia Kazan and Preston Sturges, not to mention a slew of European films that had previously passed me by as subtitled nightmares for tedious undergraduates. So the deal was that Sundance might just present Jason and me with an opportunity to get
Sex Addicts
off the ground finally, and I was planning to pitch it to anyone who’d listen.

An hour and a half later, Scott and I emerged from our limo at LAX. It was raining, and our driver was holding up a giant umbrella to shield us from the evening downpour. I looked up, and there, in front of us, was my first Gulfstream on the small airstrip. The steps were down, and a pretty flight attendant was standing at the door smiling at us. I was about to go to the trunk of the car to help pull out my luggage, but instead the driver ushered me over to a red carpet that was rolled out on the tarmac leading to the plane. I wanted to laugh, to shove Scott in the rib cage and tell him how insane the carpet was, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was on his cell phone to Katherine Watson, talking attorneys in hushed tones. Besides which, where Scott was concerned, the Gulfstream was like catching a Greyhound bus, just without the irritation of having to smell the cheeseburger being munched noisily by the guy across the aisle.

“Welcome aboard our flight today to Salt Lake City.” A flight attendant smiled at Scott, who handed her his coat as he continued talking to Katherine.

“We’re covered from all angles. I have fifteen lawyers working on the documentation, and even if he wanted to sue our asses, the board will back us up.” Scott marched toward the interior of the plane. I followed, smiling at the pilot, the five flight attendants, and the fact that I was about to enter the most exclusive echelon of travel known to man.

“Excuse me, but which one is my seat?” I asked nonchalantly, as though I did this all the time.

“Oh, you can sit anywhere you like on this plane, Miss.” The flight attendant smiled, letting me know that she was well aware that this was my first, and probably my last, trip on a private plane.

“Of course.” I blushed and looked around the plane. Scott had made his way to one of the seats at the back, like the naughtiest boy in school that he was, and the rest of the seats were free. I slung my purse over my shoulder and made my way to a plush brown sofa beside the window. Then I picked up the matching cashmere blanket and settled myself into the seat. Who cared if the cabin crew thought I was a confirmed coach passenger? I was going to Sundance, it was going to be freezing cold, I was going to be able to wear my favorite Aran sweater for the first time in a year, and I was going to have fun.

I pulled the revised draft of
Sex Addicts
out of my bag and secured my hair in a ponytail. Jason had put my name and address on the front as a contact for anyone who might like it. I only hoped that one of these days someone might actually call me back. I began to read.

INT. HARVARD AUDITORIUM—DAY

 

JACK stands alone at graduation and watches as his friends file by.

“Lizzie, honey, you got a spare pen?” Scott put his head over the back of my seat.

“Sure thing.” I reached down and rummaged for a pen in the depths of my purse, then emerged triumphant. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, doll.” He ruffled my hair, and before he could pull his hand away, a shadow fell over the pair of us.

“Scottie, my man.”

I looked up as Scott disentangled himself from my ponytail and saw the perfect frame of one Jake Hudson.

“Jake!” Scottie greeted him. “Glad you could make it, you dog.”

“Yeah, well, you were right. Sundance is always full of hotties, and, hey, we like to scout for new talent, right? Thanks for the ride, buddy.”

“Right on.” Scott and Jake banged knuckles and laughed in their handsome, uproarious way. The flight attendants practically had orgasms.

Sundance, by the way, is an independent film festival dreamed up by Robert Redford to discover and reward young talent, and every budding film director, writer, and producer in the business makes it their business to be there. So where the young and the hip go, the older and the desperate naturally follow. Hence the proliferation of studio executives and sharky agents who think that they might be able to pick up a groovy sleeper movie on the cheap. They generally regret the trip, though, because the good movies aren’t so inexpensive anymore. They also tend to break legs and humiliate themselves on snowboards, which they can’t resist because they think that since their emotional life is that of a thirteen-year-old, their sporting prowess will be, too. This is generally not the case.

I could see that Jake had paid a special visit to Prada Sport, and I couldn’t quite decide whether rabbit fur around his ski jacket’s collar made him look like a god or a geek. Either way I was glad that some of his luster seemed to have worn off a little. Thanks to my Luke Lloyd displacement activity.

“And this is . . . ?” Jake, who was large enough to make the plane feel small, pursed his lips thoughtfully as he looked down on me.

“Lizzie,” Scott said, thudding back into his seat.

“Lizzie. I’m Jake.” He held out his hand, and I didn’t flinch when I looked him in the eye and said, “Pleased to meet you.”

And for all he knew, it could have been the first time.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” he said as he dropped onto the sofa opposite me.

“Not at all.” I lowered my eyes back down to my page. I actually found it remarkably easy not to shake in his presence these days. I think it was because I’d done so much aversion therapy on myself, along the lines of:

Jake Hudson is a bad man

Jake Hudson is a bad man

Jake Hudson is a bad man

So now my emotional hardwiring was able to see, think, dream about him without any ill effects at all. What I couldn’t escape was the fact that he was quite simply the most delectable eye candy you have ever seen, and so I developed a very antisocial squint in my right eye trying to look at him over the top of
Sex Addicts in Love
.

“So you’re with Scott,” he said, leaning in toward me after about ten minutes, once he’d settled onto his sofa and strapped in. And after he’d finished flirting with the flight attendant.

“Well, no, actually I’m his . . .” I was fully intending to be honest about my status as second slave to Scott, but he interrupted me.

“Darling, we’re both well aware that you’re not the boy’s wife.”

“I know that I’m not his wife, but neither am I his—”

“It’s fine.” He reached over and put a hand on my knee. My naked-but-for-a-few-denier-of-sheer-pantyhose knee. He eased a thumb into one of the grooves. I twitched out of his way. “I understand.”

“Great.”

I tucked my knees into the brown suede of the sofa and resumed my reading, and, thankfully, a moment later the plane took off. I cast a look behind me outside the window and watched the haze of rain over the ocean as we soared. I felt elated. I was on a private jet, and sitting opposite me was the most attractive man in Hollywood. Who cared if I hated him? I could look, couldn’t I? I wondered whether when I was forty I’d look back on this dot on the graph of my life as one of the highest points or whether it would simply be the start of a charmed, successful future. I crossed my fingers for the latter but hoped I’d never become too cynical to appreciate it. Then I remembered that nobody had called back about
Sex Addicts
and that I was a second assistant, so I probably shouldn’t get too far ahead of myself.

“Would you like some lobster salad, Miss?” Above me a flight attendant was pushing a trolley of delicious dishes. “Or perhaps a cheese plate?”

“I’d love a lobster salad.” I moved my script to one side so that she could put the food down. “Oh, and a cheese plate, too, if that’s okay.”

“Wine or champagne?”

“Red wine would be lovely.” I was planning on eating and then falling asleep for the rest of the flight . . . well, I had been until Himself had appeared. Now I might be afraid to fall asleep for fear of sagging chins and drooling head lolling.

“Oh, I love a girl with an appetite.” Jake had settled himself back into his seat with a Scotch on the rocks and was looking at me as if
I
were the lobster salad.

“Got to keep up my strength,” I said mindlessly.

“Oh, yes, I’ll bet. I hear Scottie can go for hours.” He winked. I shivered. Ugh, the idea of having sex with Scott was worse than incest.

“Actually, Scott’s my—” I began again, attempting to set the record straight.

“Here’s the low-carb meal you ordered, sir.” The flight attendant shimmied down the aisle and presented Jake with his plate of lettuce with a flourish.