The First Assistant (38 page)

“Really?” I was surprised, I’d never seen Lara so impassioned before, certainly not about a party.

“It’s a freak show.” Lara laughed with a glint in her eye. “Can you imagine Catherine Zeta-Jones’s face when Pammy Anderson squeezes Michael Douglas’s knee? Can you imagine Angelina checking out Jen just to make sure she’s not prettier than her? Scarlett Johansson and Lindsay Lohan, who hate each other, running into each other in the bathroom?”

“No.” I shook my head. I had thought of the Oscars as a pop-up edition of
People,
just glossy stars in 3-D—not living, breathing, dysfunctioning human beings intermingling.

“Everyone has slept with someone in the room and they’re all pathologically insecure egomaniacs who are the pivotal point of their own universes until they get into a room with people who earn more money and have less Botox than themselves. Then they don’t know what to do. It’s so much fun.”

“It sounds dangerous,” I said, though I was still unconvinced that I should commit a felony in order to be admitted to the circus. Couldn’t I just read all that in Defamer, I wondered. “But not as dangerous as putting Carmen Cash’s ticket to the party in jeopardy. She’ll break my neck with her knees in a nonerotic way.”

“I’ll do it then,” Lara said. “You can drop me off after the party. I’ll run in, grab it, and we’ll call later and tell them the terms of the ransom.”

“Lara!” I protested, but I knew it was to no avail. The most I could

hope for now was for Lara to get so hammered at the party that she wouldn’t remember her name, let alone her ingenious plan. “I really don’t mind not going, honestly, I don’t care if everyone thinks I’m a loser ’cause I’m not invited. Anyway, you only want me to go so that you have someone to play with when Scott’s wiping his clients’ tears when they don’t win.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Lara sniffed. “So let’s go have some lunch and start getting ready for tonight. Where does Jason leave his invites? On the mantel? On a bulletin board?”

“Hmmm, let’s think,” I replied as I furrowed my brow and pretended not to remember.

Lara had no intention of abandoning her plan, though. She even packed a pair of fold-up shoes called Lola’s in her purse so that she could slip them on in the car and race at breakneck speed into Jason’s house for the robbery.

“I think you’re just getting a sick thrill out of this,” I scolded as we nestled luxuriously in the back of a chauffeur-driven Bentley on the way to Daniel’s house in Coldwater Canyon. Scott was welded to his cell on the other side of the car, staring out the window. “You don’t have enough excitement in your life, that’s your problem. You need to get back into your novel writing. Then you’ll be more fulfilled.”

“You don’t know what excitement is, otherwise you wouldn’t miss this party for the world.” She snapped back. “Anyway, I’m having lunch with a book agent on Monday who loves my first three chapters. So there.” The truth was I think we were both quite nervous about the whole weekend. Lara was anxious that her black couture dress, for all its cun-ning draping and darts, wouldn’t conceal her postbirth girth, and I couldn’t even begin to fathom that this time tomorrow evening my petrified face was going to be flashed onto millions of television screens

worldwide.

“Lara, what if my looks aren’t telegenic? What if my parents and all the family in D.C. are crowded into the ballroom of the Hilton, see me on the big screen, and mistake me for Charlize Theron in the
Monster
sequel?” I grimaced.

“Millions?” Scott had slyly ended his call and was now eavesdropping on my paranoia.

“Yes, millions,” I reiterated with a quiver in my voice. God, the fear of that alone was enough to break me out in hives.

“Try a billion,” Scott said and snapped his phone shut. “Don’t exaggerate, agent!” I spat.

“I’m not.” He laughed cruelly. “Close to a billion people worldwide watch the Oscars. And Charlize is dead in the sequel.”

“I know. That was my point,” I hissed. I had to open the window for some air.

“Don’t worry,” Scott blithely informed me as he dialed another num-ber. “Nobody’s going to be looking at you.”

“It’s true,” I said. “Unless I fall on my face and find myself hermeti-cally attached to Will Smith’s lips, nobody will notice me. Blink and I’ll be gone.” And you could tell I wasn’t an actor in sheep’s clothing because the idea of being anonymous made me feel much happier than I had felt a minute ago.

Daniel’s party was the zenith of decadence. The last time I’d been here I’d been organizing the festivities and I’d ended up nearly naked in the pool with the strippers and wearing a borrowed diamond necklace. Tonight I was going to make an effort to stay dry, unless I was presented with an unlooked-for opportunity to push Carmen Cash into the deep end with a piece of garden furniture tied to her ankle, in which case I’d be happy to take a momentary dunk myself.

The Bentley let us out and we walked down the rose-petal-strewn garden path, lined with Persian lanterns, and entered the house. Whereas last time it had been a jungle-themed party, tonight the place had been transformed into an Eastern paradise. Pomegranate and mint martinis greeted us, and Daniel mingled in pajama pants and slippers. “Jesus, for once I’m not the most underdressed guy in the room.” Scott went over and slapped Daniel on the back. They hugged, their chests colliding in an unspoken competition to see who’d been doing

more crunches at five a.m. with his trainer. Who was the harder man. “Scott.” Daniel turned around and looked at the Judas who had been

responsible for having him escorted by security guards from the building a year ago, and, apparently without a trace of rancor, said, “So glad you could make it, so glad you’ve put the substance abuse behind you,

and isn’t this the lady responsible for your cleaning up?” He waved Lara over. “Have you met Ridley Scott?”

Bravo, Daniel, I thought, as he managed to wreak revenge on Scott in three fell swoops:

1. This guy’s a drug addict.
   

2. He’s got a fat wife.
   

3. He needs
   me
   to introduce him to the major players in town.
   

Daniel was definitely back.

Lara and I left Scott and went on our own excited-teenager tour of the room. We tried every canapé on the way, smiling at people we didn’t know with duck pancakes filling our cheeks, and we played “who would we swap lives with” until we decided that we didn’t want to be anyone except ourselves because then we’d have to talk to people about their last movie and the marketplace and we didn’t know much about either of those things. So we circulated and gaped at every major powerbroker in town until I suddenly found myself face-to-face with Jason and the chairman of a studio whom I’d been sat next to at the Pre-Oscar Women In Film lunch last month.

“Elspeth, good to see you,” I said as I dropped a minihamburger that I was about to scoff into a potted fig tree so I didn’t have to worry about ketchup lips. She was actually nice except for the fact that she was head of a studio, had three children, and managed to do two hours of yoga every morning. The last part made
The Crucible
spring to mind a little too readily.

“So, Lizzie, do you have another project lined up?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” I said, because funnily enough since I’d left The Agency I hadn’t had a moment to dwell on the fact that I was unemployed, and possibly unemployable. I’d had two sets of highlights, about eighty lunches, I’d been shopping in Saks at three in the afternoon, and I’d finally visited the dentist to have my cavity filled. I just hadn’t gotten around to thinking “what next?” despite dreaming of everything from marrying Adrien Brody, whom I was planning to meet at the Oscars, to becoming a florist, because I loved the fresh, green

smell of a flower shop and they were advertising a position at Moe’s Flowers on Melrose, which was my favorite place in the whole town.

“You have another project, don’t you?” Jason grinned, thinking he was doing me a favor. “It’s just still under wraps, right?” I took it that he meant his new movie, which we’d vowed not to mention to anyone un-der any circumstances as it was eminently stealable.

“Not really,” I told them. “I’m thinking of changing career direction, actually.”

“Really?” Now Elspeth looked interested and Jason nervous. He was doubtless hoping that I wasn’t going to tell her about the range of panties that I’d been meaning to design when we were together. “Were you thinking about taking an executive role?” She leaned forward and because Jason looked so pathetically afraid and I felt sorry for him— even if he was a manicured pussy who couldn’t stand up to Carmen, I loved him—I lied.

I nodded. “I’m thinking about it.”

“Interesting,” Elspeth said. “Well, you clearly have great taste. I mean
Sex Addicts in Love
is a wonderful movie. Is that the sort of material you usually like?”

“Thank you. I guess so,” I said, taking a rare compliment in front of Jason, who was generously encouraging me with his smile. “I actually always wanted to make
Crime and Punishment,
but maybe updated, as a noir thriller.”

“I like your thinking,” Elspeth said, then she spotted Bill Clinton across the room.

“If you’ll excuse me I have to go say hello to an old friend, but it was good to see you again, Lizzie.” She shook my hand warmly and looked intently at my face, as if she were memorizing me so she could sketch me later. “Oh, and Jason, very good to see you, too. Good luck tomorrow night, both of you.”

“Elspeth’s nice,” I said as I watched Clinton greet her with a flirtatious kiss. “And lucky.”

“You have a crush on Clinton?” he asked with a grimace. “What sane woman doesn’t?” I sighed.

“So Elspeth was asking me a bunch of questions about you before you got here,” Jason informed me.

“Really? Why?” I was puzzled. “Maybe she wanted a threesome with me and Bill,” I concluded.

“Jesus, Lizzie, that is so inappropriate.” Jason was horrified.

“Oh and Carmen’s bush making public appearances all by itself isn’t inappropriate?” I said as I spied lover-girl, whose skirt seemed to have ridden dangerously far up her thighs, on the other side of the room chatting with a television executive. “Did you choose her crotchless, hot pink panties, Jase?”

“You shouldn’t be looking,” Jason snapped, suddenly unable to tear his eyes away from the distinctly unprivate view. “So, did you get a ticket for tomorrow night?” he asked warily.

“Not yet,” I replied guiltily. I wondered whether I ought to tell him what Lara was planning to do, so that he could avert the whole catas-trophe by being home and rendering the burglary impossible. But at that minute I overheard a couple next to us and suddenly felt more convinced of the moral rectitude of Lara’s plan,

“I have the ten p.m.
Vanity Fair
slot tomorrow, what about you?” a woman proudly asked a fellow guest.

“I’m a nine-thirty,” the guy replied in a self-satisfied way. She deflated. Lara was right, everyone was going. Maybe I was missing out af-ter all.

“Jason?” I asked my coproducer, who appeared to have torn his eyes away from Carmen’s cutebox and was now looking rather puppyishly at another girl in the corner of the room. “What time was our . . . sorry, I mean what time is
your
slot at the
Vanity Fair
party?” I enquired politely. “I think we were eight-thirty,” he said. “Hey, do you see that girl over

there?”

“Is that the best time to be invited?” I persisted. “Like once-in-a-lifetime best slot?”

“I guess it’s the earliest slot, and they only come along to nominees and superstars, yeah,” he said distractedly. The
Vanity Fair
party, you see, happens in half-hour increments, with the hottest half-hour being the earliest, right after the ceremony, when everyone arrives with their Academy Award fresh off the lectern and barely warm from being fon-dled yet. Hell, even Graydon Carter’s mother probably had to wait for a ten-thirty slot at the earliest.

“That’s Paige,” Jason said, transfixed. “Who?” I asked.

“My old girlfriend.” Jason was now holding my arm, so I glanced over at the attractive blonde in the corner. “She lives in Africa.”

“Maybe she won’t want her invite to the
Vanity Fair
party, then.” I ventured. Oh God, were these the first symptoms of Oscar Fever? I checked my ego for signs of inflation.

“She’s not in the business,” Jason stammered, flushed with color. “She works with wild animals.”

“What, like Scott Wagner?”

“Like lions,” he replied, then he drifted over to the other side of the room, leaving me wondering what Carmen would do when she found Jason talking to an ex-girlfriend who managed to look pretty without fillers. Maybe I’d get to use Jason’s
Vanity Fair
ticket tomorrow night, af-ter all, if he was going to be in the hospital with broken bones, I thought optimistically.

“So, it’s nine o’clock. Are you almost ready to go?” Lara arrived at my side, as if she’d been standing in the shadows like a traitor behind a pil-lar in ancient Rome, just waiting for Jason to go.

“The thing is, Lara, I really do want to go to the party, but isn’t there another way?” I pleaded. “Jason has Armed Response.”

“You have a key, you knucklehead.” Lara poked her elbow into my rib playfully. I scowled.

“I love Jason. I can’t steal his ticket. It’s his big night.” I looked over and saw him chatting excitedly with the lion girl on the other side of the room. She didn’t look his usual type, nothing about her was fake apart from her leopard-print scarf, and she didn’t look as if she could pole dance if her life depended on it, which was a big break with tradition for Jason.

“Sorry, honey, he let it happen to you,” Lara said unequivocally. “One more drink and then we’re out of here.”

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly. Carmen was now rubbing the thigh of a pudgy man in the corner and I had to admit that my hatred of injustice was pretty hard to quash, it was clear that she was just using Jason for his ticket. I was darned if she was going to get her hands on mine as well when I wasn’t even getting sex out of it.