The First Assistant (7 page)

“Hello?”

“Hello, I was holding for Luke Lloyd,” I said, trying not to sound impatient lest a rumor get spread on set that poor Luke had a pissy girlfriend.

“Who’s speaking, please?” I wasn’t sure if it was the same woman who’d answered it the first time.

“It’s Elizabeth Miller,” I said. Then couldn’t restrain myself. “His girlfriend.”

“Okay. Hold on.” When I could have been the head of the studio, she’d been nicer to me.

When I’d dialed Luke’s number, I’d been in a loving frame of mind. I’d just caught sight of a little sandstone elephant he’d bought me on our vacation in India last year and remembered how much I loved him. When Prague and his codependent housekeeper and his huge job weren’t getting in the way. I’d snatched the moment when Scott’s office door had been shut for long enough to assume that he was napping and

Amber had been in a staff meeting taking minutes. But any minute now I knew she’d be back and overhear every sweet nothing I shared with my boyfriend.

Finally Luke came to the phone. “Hello.” “It’s me,” I said, melting on impact.

“Honey.” He sounded surprisingly mellow considering he was clearly surrounded by aggressive harpies. “Hold on a minute, I’m taking this outside.” There was more rustling and lots of people in the background. “Where are you?” I asked, trying not to sound too curious or neurotic. “Oh, we’re at someone’s place. Just all having supper. Some of the

crew, y’know.”

“I miss you,” I said. “The cat misses you. Mrs. Mendes misses you.

We all miss you.”

“Darlin’,” he said in his irresistible Southern drawl, “I miss you, too. I don’t know how I’m getting through the days without you. Why don’t you come out?”

“I’ve told you. I can’t. I have to work,” I explained gently. For the four-teenth time.

“Oh yeah, sorry, I know better than to mess with an independent woman.” He laughed.

I wrapped the phone cord around my wrist longingly. “So what have you been doing?” I almost licked the phone. I never knew how much I missed him until he was on the other end of the line.

“Oh, great news, actually, you know that my deal was up for renewal at the studio?”

“Yup,” I said, though I only knew because I’d read it a few days ago in
Variety;
we hadn’t actually managed to have a real conversation since he’d gone back.

“Well, I got all that I wanted and so much more.” He sounded like an excited child, not a jaded powerbroker. Which was another reason why I loved him, I remembered. “I got all these people working for me and the deal’s more money than I could have dreamed of. But you know what’s best of all?” he prompted.

“No, I don’t, sweetheart.”

“I get a golf cart.” I could practically hear him grinning. “A golf cart?” I repeated.

“Yup.” He waited in silence for me to share his excitement. “In what sense?” I asked cautiously.

“I get a golf cart with Lloyd Pictures on it, and I can drive it around the lot. It’s part of my deal.”

“Wow, that’s really amazing.” I smiled. Only my boyfriend would find the golf cart to drive around the lot in the best part of what was inevitably a multimillion-dollar deal with a major motion picture studio. But I guess it was the boy equivalent of getting a free lipstick in a goody bag after a party. It didn’t matter that you could afford to buy hundreds of lipsticks with the money you’d spent on the party ticket and that the color didn’t suit you. It was free!

“I’ll come pick you up from your car next time you visit me at the of-fice,” he promised.

“I can’t wait,” I said.

“So, honey, how about you?” he asked.

“Me? Well, I’ve been busy being me, y’know?” I said, not knowing whether to begin with my new role as executive producer on Jason’s movie or to broach the subject of me going to Thailand, which didn’t seem to be going away. Especially since Scott had made me spend the entire morning finding a special sort of turtle wax for the “Gully” as he called Emerald’s Gullwing Mercedes. Admittedly he hadn’t talked to me about the idea again, but then I wasn’t necessarily intrinsic to the deal, anyway. Just a pawn whose permission didn’t need to be sought.

He interrupted my train of thought. “It’s actually kinda cold out here, honey. Can you hang on while I go back inside?”

“Sure.” I waited and wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear a distinctly French accent in the background.

“Darling, would you close the door? The snow’s getting in,” the voice said. I couldn’t hear Luke’s response.

“Right,” Luke said a few seconds later, “I’m back. It’s minus twenty degrees here, by the way.”

“I see,” I said, suddenly registering somewhere around the same temperature myself. “Where exactly are you, Luke?” I asked, trying to hide the chill in my voice.

“I told you. Having dinner at someone’s place.” He sounded defensive.

“Whose?” I knew this was not the route to take, but my inner psychopath was getting the better of me.

“Emanuelle’s,” he said with a guilty cough so he might blur the news. “So, why didn’t you tell me that before?” I tried not to sound too de-monic. Especially not since Amber had just walked back into the room—mysteriously without a trace of the ink that always covered my hands and cheeks after I’d taken minutes at the staff meeting. It crossed my mind that she was a witch. “Hmmm,” I said, but as I didn’t want to make too much of a scene I reverted to passive-aggression. “I

might be going to Thailand for three months,” I said remorselessly. “What was that, baby?” he asked distractedly. I wondered if

Emanuelle was sucking his toes.

“Don’t worry, you’re probably too busy to listen. We can talk another time,” I suggested.

“No, really. I was just getting comfortable.”

“I may be going on location to Thailand for a while,” I repeated. “You’re not serious?” Luke said with the desired note of shock in his

voice.

“I know, I don’t really want to, but Scott wants to swap me for a car,” I said.

“Honey, my line’s crackling. I can hardly hear you. Are you really thinking of going to Thailand?”

“No, but I might have to,” I said. “When?” He sounded concerned.

“In a week or so,” I replied. If I were going, that’s when it would be. “But I’m home in two weeks for your birthday. We’ll miss each other and who the hell knows when we’ll be together next?” He did seem genuinely upset. That is, until I heard the dulcet tones of Emanuelle again. “Darling, I’ve poured you some more wine. Who is that, anyway?”

she asked peevishly.

“Oh, nobody,” Luke said.

“Nobody!” I yelled with enough force to knock the earth off its axis. Amber looked as happy as I’d ever seen her. Discord in other people’s lives was manna to her black heart.

“Oh Jesus, Lizzie, grow up won’t you?” Luke snapped. “She’s my leading lady; I’ve got to keep her happy.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said, feeling as if I’d been kicked.

“If she thinks I’m being all cozy with you, she’ll get upset,” he said. “You know how these actresses are.”

“Is she still in love with you?” I asked, fear gripping my throat. Now I really did have something to worry about; I no longer had to invent it. And it made me feel nauseous.

“No. Yes. No. Maybe.” Luke wrapped his tongue around the lies. “Yes,” he finally admitted.

“Are you in love with her?” I asked, slowly enunciating every word. “Of course not,” he said. Which wasn’t the “no” I wanted.

“Why ‘of course not’? She’s very beautiful.”

“I know but . . .” he began. God, he was getting this all very, very wrong. He was supposed to say, “So are you.” Or, “No she’s not. She’s ugly inside.” He wasn’t supposed to say, “I know.”

“I have to go,” I said as I realized I’d need some time to digest what may or may not be happening on the set of
Dracula’s Daughter.

“No wait, honey,” he pleaded. But it was too late. If I held on any longer I’d cry in front of the real-life Dracula’s Daughter who was sitting beside me, and I couldn’t afford to do that.

Instead I hastily closed down my computer and went to knock on Scott’s door. Only a few weeks ago, Scott had employed an open-door policy, mostly because he had such chronic ADD that he got completely bored if his door was closed and he didn’t have a full view of “cubicle life.” Even though his office was filled with every executive toy on the market and a few nonexecutive, five-year-olds’ games like Twister and a basketball hoop, he still got twitchy if he didn’t have a visitor or someone on a call. Most agents have an assistant listening in on their calls so that they can write down numbers and make notes of what scripts have to be sent and so on, but Scott actually needed coverage on three-minute phone conversations because after a minute he would get distracted and not remember a thing that had been said. Thankfully this was Amber’s job now that I was First Assistant, because if being Scott was boring even for him, having to listen to his inane flattery and “don’t fuck with me I’m the king of the world” negotiating tactics was a guaranteed narcotic.

But recently Scott’s door had been wedged shut. Even Amber, who pretended to be above such things, had had her interest piqued by the

mysterious occurrences behind the
PRESIDENT
plaque, which had replaced the old Lakers sticker on his door. For days we’d eavesdropped on the filthiest talk, which, no matter how noisily I typed to drown it out (admittedly not
that
noisily because I considered the dirty-nothings quite educational in their way), could still be heard all the way out into the hallway. Whatever was going on in Scott’s office, the chick had lungs and was getting some seriously good action. I’d contemplated telling Lara a million times, but as we never saw the adulteress in question, there wasn’t anything tangible to report just yet.

“Yeah?” Scott yelled.

“I’m going to see a screening of Tara’s new movie!” I shouted, nam-ing a B-list actress whom he’d probably struck off his Christmas card list and wouldn’t know whether she had a movie out or had moved to Tulsa.

“Then go!” he shouted back. And I swear the panting and little pussy-cat noises continued. Jeez, where was he getting his stamina? Surely it wouldn’t be long before Lara noticed his diminished sexual appetite. Then there’d be hell to pay.

“I heard in the meeting that
Dracula’s Daughter
’s going to run over. Is that true?” Amber asked with a sadistic smile as I gathered up my gym bag and ran from the room before I dissolved in tears.

“Right, let’s see you serve,” was the first thing that Zac said to me when I shuffled onto the tennis court for my first coaching session with the renowned guru who was going to change my life, not to mention my strokes.

“My serve?” I asked worriedly.

“Sure.” Zac stood with his arms folded and waited. I’d expected him to be younger. But then again he was also a zen master so I guess that had taken a few years of sitting around and trying to imagine nothing. His eyes were a terrifying blue and were a little too close together for him to look kind, as I’d imagined he would be. His leathery wallet of skin belied the fact that he was obviously as fit as a fiddle, even though he must have been seventy.

“Oh, I think there’s been a mistake,” I said. “I can’t really play tennis.

In fact, I haven’t served a ball since 1989.”

“Then why are you here?” He looked in slight bewilderment at my new white tennis skirt, pristine sneakers, and the über-racket I’d borrowed from Talitha, my old cube-mate and newly high-flying PR for everyone from Fendi to Puma. I was glad that when we’d worked together I’d never complained about the fact that she never seemed to do a stroke of work and instead spent all her days on Match.com. Now she was dating the head of worldwide distribution for Prada so she was so ecstatic with her lot in life she’d be happy to lend you her stunning body for an evening out if she could.

“I’m here because I don’t know where I’m going,” I said as I twirled my tennis racket head on the concrete. “I was told that you changed people’s lives.”

“I teach them tennis,” Zac said impatiently as he grabbed my racket from ruination.

“But you helped my friend Jason become a successful director,” I reminded him. When Jason had been about to make
Sex Addicts in Love
he’d had such a crisis of confidence that he spent the first three days of the shoot wandering the aisles of Ralphs. Eventually some bright spark at the studio hired Zac to go and pluck him from the canned goods section and focus him on the task at hand.

“Jason who?”

“Jason Blum,” I said, suddenly hoping that Jason hadn’t ended up se-ducing Zac’s daughter or some such.

“Jason. Okay. Well yeah, we did figure some stuff out for him. But his backhand showed promise from the get-go,” Zac said as he looked at me like the disaster with a ball that I was. It was as if he was X-raying me for skills and saw the bones of a not even halfway decent player.

I resorted to pleading. “I’ve been booked in for three months.” It was true. In fact, I’d rather stupidly put almost every decision in my life on hold until I got my appointment with Zac. He was supposed to help me find career direction, reassure me that someone as successful as Luke could love a mere nitwit of an assistant like myself, and help me find a way to reconcile my desire to be a good human being with working in an industry where behind every good deed there’s an ulterior motive.

“Well, let’s see what you can do,” Zac said without optimism. “I’ll hit you a few balls.”

With that Zac retreated behind the net and began to serve in my direction. I ran headlong toward the first ball.

“Oops,” I said as it skimmed past my ear and my racket plummeted down. I proceeded to miss the next seven shots and ran around like a spastic Don Quixote tilting at imaginary windmills with my arms aloft for ten minutes.

“Okay, enough,” Zac said with exasperation as he leaped over the net, his creased brown legs vaulting with the energy of a teenager.

“I’m sorry.” I hung my head and prepared to head for the dressing room. I guessed I was going to have to handle my problems myself, without the help of the legendary Zac.

“First rule of life. Don’t apologize for who you are.” Zac flashed me a lizardy smile.