The First Assistant (11 page)

Corona.

Carol Powers swallowed hard as Emerald launched into a rather off-key rendition of “It’s Raining Men.” I hoped for all of our sakes that she didn’t have any repressed rock star dreams.

“Yes. I believe she had a few drinks. And I know she’s only nineteen. And we do have a strict twenty-one-only policy at the airline. And I’ve already reprimanded our bartender. But you see she was quite insistent and he was very starstruck and.. .”

“Duck!” I yelled and hit the ground as a shoe came sailing across the room in our direction. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Carol had clearly never been a Hollywood assistant. I knew this because the poor girl’s reflexes weren’t up to snuff. The six-inch snakeskin stiletto hit her smack in the forehead with such force it knocked her to the ground.

I heard a cackle from the direction of the bar.

“Ooops. Sorry!” Emerald squealed, and then continued on to the next verse of “It’s Raining Men.”

There was a slight moan from Carol and then an odd snuffling sound. I looked to make sure she was breathing and then scrambled over to help her stand up when the second high heel whizzed past my face.

“Carol, I think it’s best we just sit here on the floor. Let me look at your head.” I did a quick examination. There was already a bruise and a little blood but nothing hospital-worthy.

“Am I bleeding?” She sounded oddly hopeful.

“Not really. There’s just a small spot of blood from impact.”

“But there’ll be a bruise, right? A visible one? You know, one that you can see in a picture?”

I helped her up and had a good look at her pupils. They weren’t remotely dilated, so she wasn’t concussed. Then I saw it clear as day, the green in her eyes. And did I mention they were actually brown?

“I could sue her for this, you know,” she said, barely able to contain her excitement. I had to think quickly as a lawsuit on my first day of work wasn’t exactly going to endear me to my new boss.

I smiled and leaned in close to Carol as a sweater landed by my feet. I gently turned her in the direction of the disrobing starlet. “And Emerald could sue your airline for serving alcohol to a minor, resulting in potentially career-ending behavior.” I had no idea if this was true or not, but it sounded good. “Anyway, it was clearly an accident and there are all these witnesses here to give their statements.” I glanced at her again and I could see the dollar signs starting to fade. I pressed on. “I’m sure Emerald is terribly sorry. She’d love to send you an apology present. Why don’t I get your address?”

Carol looked from me to Emerald. “I always did want a pair of Manolo Blahniks,” she said hesitantly.

“How about this season’s entire collection?” I responded magnanimously. She was practically salivating. I had her hook, line, and sinker. “I’m a size nine. And you have to agree not to sue the airline,” she

said quickly.

“We wouldn’t dream of it. Now let me go and fetch Emerald before she gets that last hook on her bra undone and they shut down your lounge under the Indecency Act,” I said. I knew studying politics would come in handy some day.

But the real dilemma was how to remove a drunk nineteen-year-old from the top of the bar when she seemed to be having the time of her life. It occurred to me that she really should be traveling with a publicist, but as I neared the bar Emerald and I made eye contact for the first time that day. Her face lit up and she let out an ear-splitting screech and jumped from the bar practically into my arms. Luckily a kind man standing behind us braced me at exactly the right moment, allowing me to absorb Emerald’s hug without us both landing on our rear ends.

“Lizzie! I’m so glad you made it. I was really worried you wouldn’t want

to come. I mean, I know Scott probably didn’t give you much choice. And I know you probably think it’s strange considering we’ve only met once, but that e-mail you wrote for me was so smart and you look so much like my cousin who used to babysit me in Missouri. And I really loved her. She used to braid my hair. She was killed by a drunk driver when she was seventeen. But, anyway, I’m so glad you came. We’re going to have so much fun together. We’re going to be best friends. Right?” she screeched, barely taking a breath. The entire bar was gripped by her verbal incontinence, including me. But my heart went out to her. She was obviously sweet and well-meaning, just a little wild and a lot young. It was a hard town to grow up in and it seemed there was no one to look after her. She was a baby af-ter all, adrift in a sea of sharks.

My maternal instincts were too busy bubbling to the surface to no-tice a rather shifty-looking man enter the lounge. But he got my attention quickly enough when a bright flash went off in our faces. Then another. And another. However, before I could pounce to protect my ward, Carol flew from left field and tackled the man to the ground. I think she was gunning for a few new handbags. The security guards were there in seconds, and the man was pinned to the floor.

“I’m flying first class! You have no right to eject me from this lounge!” he was screaming as he waved his ticket in the air. Someone had obviously tipped him off and he’d gone and purchased a ticket knowing he’d be able to sell the photos for a lot more than the cost of the flight. The paparazzi were a whole new experience for me and I just stared dumb-founded as Emerald burst into tears.

“Oh my God. My publicist is going to get so mad at me. She’ll probably fire me!” she wailed. Luckily Carol took control because I was certainly incapable of doing so.

“Get that piece of scum out of here, please,” she said to the over-eager airport security guards. “And though you may have permission to be here, we have the right by law to eject anyone we please from the premises. Please read the sign at the door on the way out. It says strictly no photographs.” And with that she scooped the camera out of his pinned-down hand and opened the back, yanking the finished roll of film out and handing it to me.

“This is a violation of my Fifth Amendment rights! I’ll sue you!” the

paparazzo yelled. Carol smiled, unperturbed. She closed the camera and handed it back empty to the photographer. She gave a head motion to the guards and they pushed the man out the door.

“Thank you for flying American Airlines. It was a pleasure to serve you,” she said with a professional smile. Then she turned to Emerald and me, flashing her pearly whites again. “I was a flight attendant for thirteen years before I joined the corporate group.”

Emerald turned to look at Carol for the first time. I noticed that Emerald’s eyes were beginning to close and she was swaying on her feet a bit. She grabbed my arm for balance. “Lizzie, I don’t feel very well,” she said, slurring her words. But before I could steer her toward the bathroom, Emerald gagged and then projectile-vomited all over Carol’s well-pressed suit. Carol turned to me with that same enormous grin. “I’ve always wanted to own some Prada.”

“And you will,” I said with a pained smile.

Seven

Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.

—Walter Winchell

“Wakey, wakey, Lizzie.”

I closed my eyes tightly, hoping that I was still in the middle of a nightmare. But no matter how deeply I buried my head into the delicious down pillow, the slightly midwestern twang of my nineteen-year- old persecutor just wouldn’t fade to black. Instead the voice seemed to get closer. And then I was rudely forced to consciousness by a pair of slightly smelly feet jumping up and down inches from my nose.

“Lizzie! We’re in Bangkok!” Emerald screamed at the top of her lungs followed by a few sharp, well-placed bounces that sent me flying out of my enormous bed onto the hotel room floor.

“I was really hoping that wasn’t the case, Emerald. But I see it is,” I grumbled with my face pressed to the carpet. This seemed to take the wind out of Emerald’s sails momentarily. She collapsed onto my bed dramatically.

“We’re only in Bangkok for one night and you’re sleeping!” she stated peevishly.

I pulled myself hesitantly off the floor and grabbed one of those luxuriously thick white robes that only the best hotels know how to provide and wrapped myself in it, longing for some sort of protection. I looked around my sumptuous room and knew I wasn’t going to get a chance to admire the beautifully painted mural on the ceiling or take advantage of the decadent marble bathroom suite. I could even see one of those mirrors I loved that amplifies everything by a million.

I tried once more. “Emerald, we’ve been on a flight for twenty hours.” “I know and I slept the entire way,” she replied happily.

And in truth she had. I, on the other hand, hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. It had nothing to do with being fifty thousand feet up in the air or discomfort—the seat was enormous and went completely flat. It had more to do with sheer terror. Terror that if I took my eye off my charge for one second, Emerald would be into the stash of champagne. And more likely than not the six-foot-ten-inch man across the aisle would be into her. They had recognized each other immediately. Don’t get me wrong, not a word passed between them, but there was that “I’m a celebrity and so are you” kind of nod-thing that had happened when they both took their seats. I’d tried to ask Emerald quietly who he was but she had barely known her own name at that point and refused to cooperate. A real shame since I was certain that he had to be a basketball player. I don’t like to buy into stereotypes, but no one that unnaturally tall traveling first class could be anything else. And though I didn’t care an ounce about the sport, Luke was a die-hard Lakers fan. He turned into an adolescent when the topic came up, and he had a collection of signed shirts in his office that were his pride and joy. And though I’d sworn to never speak to Luke again, if he did have a good ex-cuse it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a little kiss and makeup present. So all I could think of as Emerald flopped around in her seat, stinking of booze, was how to ask the tall man for an autograph without breaking the “we’re all so cool and famous in first class that we pretend not to recognize one another” unwritten rule.

I’d only turned my head for a brief second but when I looked back Emerald was clutching a glass of champagne. I gave up any hope of impressing my estranged boyfriend by way of reflected basketball glory and focused all my attention on my charge. The stewardess just stood there with a bottle of icy Tattinger like Eve in the Garden of Eden. She obviously hadn’t heard about the debacle in the lounge. I realized then and there that danger lurked everywhere. Though Emerald could barely speak and she still smelled like puke from her little misadventure at the airport, she’d managed to artfully get that glass to her lips without be-ing spotted. I tried to wrest it away, but Emerald had a firm grip and our tug-of-war resulted in the glass emptying itself down my cashmere

hoodie. That sweet smell of sick and alcohol mixed with a faint stench of wet sheep gave me a distinctive odor similar to the homeless woman who lived outside of Barneys on Wiltshire. But anything was better than an international incident over the Pacific. Which I’m sure would have resulted in front-page news and the loss of my job with Emerald and The Agency as well. I was still technically on their payroll, though I had managed to force Scott into wangling me an obscene five-thousand- dollars-a-week as a bonus for agreeing to this lunacy. And though my agency job was no great shakes, I was attached to it in an unhealthy sort of a way, so the idea of getting fired filled me with absolute dread. I had never been fired before. Laid off? Yes. Fired? No. And I had no intention of bucking the trend. So while Emerald slept for twenty hours straight I sat up, my eyes shriveling into little piss holes in the snow, watching every movie available to guarantee that my little teen dream stayed put.

When we finally arrived at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok I was so exhausted I could barely put one foot in front of the other. The idea of my own room, a hot bath, and a little space from Emerald was like a fantasy come true. But that wasn’t to be. Emerald needed a playmate and I was getting paid to be just that person.

“Emerald, how did you get into my room?” I wanted to make sure that she didn’t have some special skeleton key and that I wasn’t going to be spending the next three months having to barricade my door every time I went to bed.

“Oh. I told the concierge you had a drug problem. I said you weren’t answering your phone and I was very worried that you’d overdosed. Aren’t I just brilliant?” she yelled as she started to bounce on the bed again.

Brilliant wasn’t at the top of my list. Effective. Pathological. Juvenile. Spoiled, maybe. All I could do was hope that the concierge wasn’t reporting to the production. I had yet to meet the producers of
The War Fields,
and I didn’t relish their first report being one of an addled junkie. I looked at the clock as Emerald made a mess of my bed, and I realized she’d let me sleep for all of forty-five minutes. I was filled with an intense hatred that only extreme exhaustion can engender. I literally had to take a few of those deep om breaths that Alexa had taught me. And

for the moment it worked. I felt my shoulders dropping from around my ears and I was able to put things into perspective.

“Come on, Lizzie, get dressed. Bangkok is famous for sex and I want a taste,” Emerald said with giddy excitement. A smile started to creep across my face. I had to look at this in a more positive light. She certainly had a unique enthusiasm for life. Emerald bounded from the bed like a Labrador puppy and headed straight for the bar. Before I could edit myself, the words just tumbled from my lips.

“Emerald! If you so much as crack open that minibar I am shoving you and the bottle of whatever you’ve got out the door and I’m putting on the chain. And I won’t care if you get abducted into white slavery or screw the entire hotel staff!” I yelled. Emerald stopped in her tracks and looked at me in total shock. Then her big blue eyes narrowed and she looked a lot like Mike Tyson before he bit that guy’s ear off. Obviously they were both used to getting their way. And who was I to be the stumbling block? She was my boss, after all. We stood in silence as I contemplated the twenty-hour flight back to LA. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the storm cloud faded. Emerald batted her eyelashes and gave me an Oscar-winning pout.