Misery Loves Cabernet (14 page)

I try not to be offended that Whitney not only doesn’t introduce herself to me, she doesn’t even acknowledge me.

“Drew, do you need coffee?” I say as I get out of my car.

Drew turns around to face me. “Triple vanilla latte with soy.” He tells me. Then he turns to Whitney. “Where’s your craft service?”

Whitney’s face screws up ever so slightly. “Um, it’s over there,” she says, pointing to a twenty-two-year-old production assistant standing in front of a fold-out table that holds a coffee urn, paper cups, and a few dozen Krispy Kremes in their boxes. “But we don’t have lattes. Just regular drip coffee.”

Drew walks over to me quickly, Whitney following half a step behind. “They don’t have lattes!” he whispers loudly, the panic storm about to hit.

“It’s okay,” I say to him calmly. “I’ll just go to Starbucks, and get you a latte.”

Now he’s even more panicked. “You’re going to drive around this neighborhood? Alone?! I can’t let you do that!”

“Why not?” I ask.

Drew darts his head this way and that, looking around at the sleepy neighborhood. “This area is very sketchy. Do you know we’re east of La Brea?”

“I
live
east of La Brea!” I point out, huffily.

“And I have offered you countless times to sell your place, and come live with me,” Drew counters, sounding like a mother who’s just seen her daughter’s home in Berkeley for the first time.

I sigh loudly, then try a different tack. “Listen, you start shooting in an hour. I’m sure there’s a Starbucks within two miles of here.”

“How do you know that?”

“We live in Los Angeles. There’s a Starbucks within two miles of anywhere,” I say dryly. “Now let me go, I’ll get your coffee while you’re in wardrobe, and I’ll have it here for you before Vic gets you in makeup . . . .”

“Susan,” Whitney corrects me.

“I’m sorry?” I say to Whitney.

“The makeup artist’s name is Susan,” Whitney tells Drew and me.

Drew’s eyes widen, but he keeps himself from hyperventilating. “What? Where’s Vic?”

“I’m afraid we couldn’t afford him,” Whitney says offhandedly. (I note by her tone of voice that what she really means is, “There’s no fucking way we’re paying a thousand dollars a day for someone to smear down your face with foundation.”)

Drew grabs my arm, his eyes wide as he leans into me. “I can’t do a movie without Vic,” he says under his breath.

“Yes, you can,” I whisper back, noticing Whitney craning her head as she tries to eavesdrop on our conversation. “You’re a handsome man, you’ll be fine.”

“But I’m supposed to look like a movie star for this role,” Drew whines back.

“You
are
a movie star!”

“Not at seven o’clock in the morning, I’m not.”

Whitney places herself between us. “Mr. Stanton, Susan has worked on everyone from Affleck to Vaughn. Trust me, you’re in good hands.” Whitney gently pulls Drew off of me, and leads him away as she turns to me. “As long as you’re going to Starbucks, I’ll take a Venti latte, nonfat, low foam, with whip. And get Mr. Donovan a half-caf tall cappuccino with skim, Miss Tavers a tall nonfat mocha, and Mr. O’Connor a Venti cappuccino.”

As I head back to my car to track down a Starbucks, I decide I hate that bitch already.

After finding a Starbucks (one point two miles, thank you very much) and filling and delivering the coffee order like I’m Whitney’s PA, I walk around the house and try to get a feel for the place.

The few Victorian homes I’ve been in have always been dark and gloomy. But this one is light and cheery. I walk into the kitchen, which has been transformed into a makeshift production office. The room has a bright, airy feel to it, and the appliances were clearly bought by a gourmet: a stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator; a Viking stove; All-Clad cookware hanging from a ceiling pot rack. Even the various production people and their various piles of papers stacked all over the counters and kitchen table do little to detract from the room’s beauty.

I walk through the hallway and over to the drawing room, home to the first shot of the day.

The production designer has done an amazing job with this room. The cast will be shooting mostly interiors until they get to Paris, and one of the running jokes of the movie is that despite the home’s exterior being Victorian, each room in the house is decorated in a different decade: this room is from the sixties, complete with beanbag chairs, lava lamps, and peace posters.

As I look up to see some grips rigging the lighting, and blasting a giant searchlight over the pinstripe velour couch, I hear my cell phone ring.

Drew.

I pick up. “Hello?”

“I have no trailer,” Drew whispers to me.

“What?” I say, leaning into my phone. “I can’t hear you.”

“I said I have no trailer,” Drew whispers again. “I have a bathroom.”

“Well, of course you have a bathroom. SAG rules require—”

“Come up to the third floor, make a right, then an immediate left.”

I run up the two flights of hardwood stairs, make a right, then an immediate left, and open the door to find . . .

Okay, yes, I do find a bathroom. A fairly small bathroom, but exquisitely refurbished, complete with a black-and-white checkerboard floor, and a bright red stand-alone tub with gold claws.

The room would be right out of
Architectural Digest
if it didn’t have Drew sitting on the floor, wearing nothing but silk boxer shorts, and with his hand stuck in the toilet.

I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that I have to ask my boss, “Why is your hand stuck in the toilet?” in a completely nonjudgmental tone of voice, or the fact that this is the second time I’ve had to ask him that question during my illustrious career as his assistant.

Drew waves his good hand at me. “Get in here and shut the door,” he tells me in a stage whisper.

I do.

“I think I may have done something stupid,” Drew says.

I squelch my desire to either ask, “What was your first clue?” or state, “You have an amazing command of the obvious.”

Instead, I go with, “What happened?”

“What happened is that they don’t have enough money for star trailers, so instead, each cast member gets a room on the top floor of the house,” Drew answers.

And that’s it. That’s all he says to me. Apparently, in Drew’s world, the answer to the question, “How the fuck did you get your hand stuck in the toilet
again
?” is, “The film doesn’t have the budget for trailers.”

Sure. That makes sense. And the answer to, “What is the capitol of Zimbabwe?” is, “Sauté the shrimp for two minutes in lemon butter.”

Drew and I engage in a staring contest for another minute or so before I cave.

“Aaaannndddd?” I ask, dragging out the word three syllables.

“And you know how I normally like to decorate my trailer to match my religious mood?” Drew asks.

“Sure,” I answer.

“Well,
that’s
why I got my hand stuck in the toilet,” Drew concludes.

I should have gone to law school.

“Drew, do you remember geometry?” I ask him, starting to lose my patience.

“Vaguely,” Drew answers, not sure where I’m going with this.

“And do you remember how they have the theorems that state: If A, then B. If B, then C. If C, then D . . . ?”

“Yeah,” Drew says.

“You’ve missed giving me B and C again.”

“Oh, right,” Drew says, pointing to me with his good hand. “So, you know the amulet that goes through every character’s life at some point, the really expensive one they got on loan with all the ornate diamonds, and rubies, and stuff? Well, I asked the prop master if I could see it for a bit, just to sort of get the feeling you have when you hold it. I figured I’d do the room up in faux jewels, maybe get sort of a
Breakfast at Tiffany
’s vibe going. Some blue-lit glass cases with necklaces and earrings displayed on nice velvet. Audrey Hepburn’s character talks about the feeling she has when she’s in Tiffany’s. I thought I’d go for that feeling, but with a masculine twist of . . .”

I can’t help but interrupt. “You dropped the amulet down the toilet, didn’t you?”

“You’re jumping to the end of my story . . .”

“Shit,” I mutter, walking behind Drew, putting my arms around his bare chest, and trying to rip him out of the toilet. “I left you alone for five minutes!”

“You know technically, you left me alone for thirty minutes,” Drew says in his defense, as though this is really all my fault. “You were out getting coffee when the prop master loaned me the amulet.”

“That thing is worth at least fifty thousand dollars,” I tell him through labored breath as I yank on him to no avail.

“Why do you think I went in after it? I don’t have that kind of money lying around.”

This from the man who once spent forty-five thousand dollars on a foosball table.

After unsuccessfully trying to pull Drew out two more times, I take a break, and take a seat on the checkerboard floor.

“I think you need more leverage,” Drew says, his naked back to me. “What if you put your right leg up against the wall, and your left leg up against the bathroom cabinet? Then you can use your legs’ strength to pull me out.”

The fact that we’re also going to look like a picture from a book on Kama Sutra positions hasn’t even crossed his radar.

“Can I just say one thing before I try that?” I say from behind him.

“I’m not exactly in a position to oppose . . .”

“When we get to Paris, this is going to cost you two nights at the Hotel Ritz.”

“A bargain,” Drew states. “Now, get to doing the splits behind me. I’m due in makeup in less than five minutes.”

Clown college. I could have gone to clown college. Or maybe become a fisherman in Alaska. . . .

I bend my right knee, and put my right leg up waist level against the wall. Then I bend my left knee, put my left leg waist level against the cabinet, grab Drew’s chest tightly, then push off with my feet.

We land with a thud on the floor, and he’s out.

Drew opens his fist, and sees that his hand is empty. “Wait. Dropped it again,” he says, lunging for the toilet.

As I yell, “Drew, no!” he puts his hand right back in the toilet, and gets stuck again.

Oh, for Christ’s sake . . .

“Why did you do that?” I scream at him.

“I still need to get the amulet out!” Drew yells back. “Otherwise, that’s fifty thousand dollars of my money literally down the toilet!”

“Yes, but my hand is smaller,” I say, sighing in exasperation, as I spread my legs, put my arms around Drew’s chest again, and prepare for rescue number two of the day. (No pun intended.)

“I couldn’t ask you to put your hand down a toilet,” Drew says.

“You did last month!” I remind him angrily.

Drew face lights up. “Oh, that’s right,” he says brightly. With my legs sprawled about, and my arms still around him, Drew twists his upper body to face me. “What does something like that run? A third night at the Hotel Ritz?”

Before I can answer, there’s a knock on the door. “Drew, are you in there?” I hear a concerned Liam call out through the door.

I let my head fall onto Drew’s bare shoulder.

“Uuuhhh . . . yeah . . . ,” he admits.

“Is everything okay in there?” Liam asks.

“Not exactly,” Drew admits. “Maybe you should come in.”

I stammer out a quick “No!” into Drew’s ear just as Liam opens the door.

Oh, just the sight of Liam walking into a room makes me lose my breath a little. He looks positively doable in a light blue button-down shirt and nicely fitting jeans. I can’t help but picture him in nothing but boxer shorts.

Speaking of nothing but boxer shorts . . .

“This is not what it looks like,” I insist to Liam, who clearly doesn’t know what to make of the sight of me with my arms and legs around my almost naked boss.

“I can’t even imagine what it looks like,” Liam says diplomatically.

“I can,” Drew offers. “But, then again, I watch a lot of porn.”

“You want to make it a week?” I ask Drew, smacking him on the shoulder.

“Hey! I’m a starving actor,” Drew answers. “I can’t afford it.”

Liam scratches his neck self-consciously. “Can I ask what’s going on?”

“Henry over in the prop department gave me the amulet to look at.” Drew answers succinctly. “And I dropped it down the toilet.”

Liam waits for more. Nothing from Drew. I shake my head slowly. “B and C, Drew.”

“Oh, right,” Drew says, then turns to Liam. “Obviously, since it’s worth so much money, I thought I’d better go in and get it. But I got stuck. So I asked Charlie to come in here and pull me out.”

“I see,” Liam says. “Well, that sounds reasonable. But, if I’m not being too bold, can I ask you . . . why are you almost naked?”

Drew seems confused by the question. “Well, this
is
my dressing room. I needed to change.” He points up to an outfit hanging on the shower rod.

Just then, Whitney shoots past the doorway, carrying a clipboard and wearing a headset. “Mr. Stanton should be finished changing. I’m going to his dressing room now. . . .”

I hear her stop midsentence. She backs up a few steps, reappearing in the doorway, and looks at Drew. “Oh!” she says. “Mr. Stanton, what are you doing in here?”

It turned out that the amulet that Drew had borrowed was one of seven copies made for the movie: the original amulet was back in the shop of the jeweler who designed it. It also turned out that one of the grips had some sort of tool that got the faux amulet out of the toilet in ten seconds flat. So, crisis averted.

Finally, it turned out Drew’s dressing room was not a bathroom. He misheard Whitney’s instructions, and when he got to the third floor, he went to the right, then to the left. He was told to go left, then right. Actually, he got the master suite of the house.

Ten minutes later, we had him all moved in, dressed, and ready for makeup.

I now have five minutes to myself, and a promise extracted from Drew that he was still good for a two-night stay at the Hotel Ritz in Paris.

Ah, Paris. I decide to head outside for a few minutes to make a phone call.