So 5 Minutes Ago Page 3

  “It’s the BIG new way. More commission, less salary. And you gotta make your quota.”

  “Great. Suzanne gets to retire and I get a quota.”

  “Well, she’s not exactly retiring,” Steven adds, dropping his voice. “Not yet, although Stan’s supposedly leaving by the end of the month. Taking his money and running. Suzanne’s sticking it out.”

  “Because she loves the business so much?” I can’t imagine staying in Hollywood if somebody pressed half a million into my hand. Or whatever Suzanne’s getting for selling the company she cofounded to G.

  “Think it’s some future deal G has cooked up. The longer she stays, the more money she gets, or more equity. I don’t know. Don’t go by me.”

  “Why not? You’re the one with your own portfolio,” I say. “I just have Barneys bills and a lease.”

  “And your new contract!” Steven says, flashing me his best fake smile.

  G is nattering on, but I’ve heard enough. Or at least enough to know Suzanne isn’t the only one whose cherry just got popped. My three-year introduction to Hollywood is officially over. This is The Show, like it or not. When you break it all down, all the bullshit, all the covers, the photo shoots, the premieres, the schmoozing and the lying, it all comes down to a sleazy guy trying to sell you something.

  When G finally quits buzzing, the room erupts into the chaos of exiting and a mad rush for the cake. “I’m going to forage,” Steven says, plunging into the crowd.

  “So, as I was saying,” Charles says at my elbow, startling me. “Congratulations on being a member of the BIG new team.” His tone is difficult to read, but it seems, or perhaps it’s only wishful thinking on my part, to be entirely ironic.

  “Thanks ever so much,” I say, aiming for the same barely detectable irony. “So you’re here because . . . ?”

  “Actually I’m in town for the transition,” he says, taking my elbow and steering me into a slightly less crowded corner of the room. “I’m making the rounds of our publicists, easing them into the new agency, as it were. Which means I have to schedule some time with you.”

  He gives me a knowing look and I realize I know next to nothing about him other than he looks totally out of his element. Like he should be on a boat. Or in a Ralph Lauren ad. He’s also not wearing a wedding ring, I notice. Perhaps I’m not the only one whose life took a wrong and unexpected turn.

  “Shouldn’t you be in a law office somewhere? Or Boston?” I blurt out and instantly regret my familiarity.

  He gives me a quizzical but not wholly unpleased look. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says. “Meanwhile, given my current corporate duties, when can you pencil me in?”

  “Uhm, I’m sure I have some time this week,” I say, fumbling for my Palm Pilot, when Steven reappears bearing two paper plates of cake. “For those of us not on Atkins,” he says before catching sight of Charles. “Oops, sorry. I didn’t realize you were entertaining.”

  “Charles, Steven. Steven, Charles,” I say, giving Steven a “Can we please do the sugar thing later?” look.

  “Good to meet you,” Charles says, extending a hand while Steven fumbles with the plates.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see G and Suzanne threading their way through the crowd in our direction. Oh, great. “Chahles,” Suzanne drawls at top volume, waving him over. “Chahles.”

  “I think Blanche and Stanley have you on their dance card,” I say, nodding in Suzanne’s direction. Charles gives me a slow smile and I have a sudden urge to grab his green tie and never let go.

  Instead, I opt for the door, making noises about finding him later. After G and Suzanne. After my meeting with Troy. After I return to the land of the living.

  It takes me most of the drive to the Chateau to get my head out of G and into Troy. Actually, it takes most of the drive to get my head out of Charles and into Troy. How had I been so oblivious to him back in New York? And how long is he going to be in L.A.? I have to give this some serious thought. After I dispatch Troy.

  But when I hit the Chateau’s lobby, Troy—typically—is no-where to be found. What now? Sit and order a drink? That bespeaks confidence and a certain casualness and God knows I could use it. Might even put Troy at ease. Or maybe it’s too casual. Not enough deference to his place in the pantheon. Oh Christ, who knows what his place in the pantheon is? He’s the one in need of help. He’s called the meeting. Sit.

  I’m eyeing the room, which is filling with insouciant actor types looking like they have too much money and too little sleep, when Troy ambles in. Three trips to rehab but he still has the right look—jeans, leather jacket, 5 percent body fat. He’s also nibbling a half-eaten apple and he has his dog, the requisite foundling from a pound, tugging at his side. The whole thing screams, “cute but dangerous.” I hate it when they bring their animals. Animals are worse than cell phones. But that’s the rule: celebrities are never alone, even when they’re alone. I once saw Marisa Tomei do a week’s worth of shopping at my neighborhood market while talking on her cell, timing it so she said “Okay, call me,” at exactly the moment she pushed away from the checkout stand.

  “Hey, meet Miss Sue,” Troy says, when his dog, some Labrador or pit bull type, sticks its nose in the direction of my thighs. Thank you! I turn quickly so the dog leaves its wet nose imprint on the side of my black Darryl K pants and not my crotch. “Hey, Troy,” I say, standing and extending a hand. I love doing that. Actors are so unused to being touched. Like they’re the Queen of fucking England: Look but don’t touch. Troy studies me for a second before he shoves the apple into his mouth and extends a slightly sticky paw. “Well, hey, and, hey, thanks for meeting me.”

  I lead the way to a corner of the lounge where we sink into a sofa, one of the hotel’s over-upholstered Victorian things that just swallows you. Why can’t the Chateau just have normal tables and chairs instead of this trick furniture? The couch is so deep, I have to wedge a pillow behind my back just to keep upright and, even so, my feet barely reach the floor. I’m still wrestling with the cushion when a spike-haired waitress rolls up and Troy trots out his laid-back famous-actor number. “She’ll have a white wine,” he says, nodding in my direction, “and I’ll have a beer and you know,” he says, winking at her, “that’ll be it.”

  I press my toes into the carpet, trying to get enough traction between the floor and the cushion to remain upright. “So,” I say brightly when I finally find my balance. “Tell me what you’re looking for from us.”

  Even before he speaks, I know how this will go. That he’s looking to make changes, that he needs to rethink his image, and that he needs to feel a more personal connection to his publicist, “his people,” than he’d had over at Baker, Osterlund and Beadle—BOB, as it’s known—one of DWP’s competitors. The public, he will say in his gosh-and-golly Midwest accent, has the wrong idea of Troy Madden. The wrong idea “after all that’s happened.”

  “I’m hoping you can help me correct that,” he says, reaching forward to fondle Miss Sue’s ears and giving me a wry smile.

  I can help little Troy Madden or I can turn the page.

  I take a sip of wine and dive into my spiel—that DWP, or rather BIG-DWP, is the kind of agency that takes a personal interest in its clients, that not only do we preserve a kind of trust among our client base, some of the most venerable in Hollywood, but we maintain one of the best, even an intimate relationship with editors. I’m rattling along nicely, only mildly distracted by Troy’s lazy grin and the suggestive way he plys Miss Sue’s ears—when I have a sudden and awful thought. Troy expects me to sleep with him. Or at least to want to sleep with him.

  “I like what I’m hearing,” he says, leaning forward, his smile widening.

  I can feel my face flush. Fuck. I should never drink, even a glass of wine, when meeting a new client. “Well, I’m glad,” I say, lunging for the glass of water thank God I’d thought to ask for. “Because I know Suzanne and I—” I pause to gulp—“and of course we’ve talked to your lawye
r, Tom, about this, and we’re pretty much”—I gulp again—“on the same page.”

  When I finish draining the glass, I realize Troy is grinning at me. “Can we get you another, ah, water?”

  Actually, he’s one step short of laughing as he turns to look for the waitress. Oh, get a grip; visions of my bonus disintegrating. Whenever I get rattled by an actor’s sheer physical presence—the one thing any of them has if they’re worth their salt—I just remember my years at Brown. By Hollywood’s usual yardstick I come up a loser 99.9 percent of the time. The rock-paper-scissors rule is celebrity beats an executive; an executive beats talent; and everyone beats a publicist or a journalist. But in my book, brains always beat sex appeal. They could even beat heat. Well, most of the time.

  “This is what I’m talking about,” I say, suddenly dropping my voice and leaning toward him. Troy swivels back in my direction with a slightly startled look. “You’ve got all this going for you,” I say, waving vaguely, “and it’s not being put to its best use, shall we say. I mean, don’t you think people have gotten the wrong idea about you, because of things you have done? I mean, not that you did them on purpose, but just unconsciously, the way a kid might react. Instinctively.”

  I pause to let this nonsense sink in.

  “I mean, the movies have been their own choices—some better than others—and no one is blaming you for them,” I say, plunging on before Troy can answer. “But we’re talking about a whole that’s bigger than the sum of the parts.”

  I lean back. “I want you to think of it . . . as us—as a partnership, overdue to say the least, but one that will, in the long run, go a long way toward rectifying all that.”

  I have him. Troy has no idea what the hell I’m talking about. I don’t even need to trot out the hay-bale photo shoot idea. Glancing at my watch, always a nice touch—not even an hour—I decide to wrap it up. Take a second meeting at lunch with his manager and close it then. “Look, I don’t to want to overwhelm you, not at our first meeting,” I say, reaching for the check. “We’ll sit down next week—I’ll work it out with Peg, come up with a game plan that not only makes sense to you but includes you in a way that I’m not sure you’ve been included before.”

  I give Miss Sue a farewell pat and flee. When I hit the safety of the Audi, I punch up Rachel’s number on my cell.

  “He doesn’t, does he?” I say when Rachel picks up. “Expect me to sleep with him?”

  “Who are we talking about? G?”

  “Sorry. Troy. I just came from my meeting, which seemed more like—”

  “A date?”

  “If I was a call girl.”

  “Hey, it’s his way of marking his territory,” Rachel says, laughing.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “Think of it as his own little fraternity initiation,” she says airily. “Go out for dinner and see what happens. God knows you need him as a client. Has he tried to put the moves on you yet?”

  “Unclear,” I say, trying to sound suddenly bored with the whole thing. Technically, petting his dog’s ears doesn’t count as moves per se. Still, I know when I’m being hustled. “But you’ll be the first to know.”

  I’m about to tell Rachel about Charles—any sighting of an available heterosexual male is always noteworthy—when I think better of it. Besides, Rachel’s on a tear.

  “Think of Troy as your first scalp on your BIG belt,” she says. “By the way, the word is he’s a beast who needs to be fed. Unless you happen to be twenty-six, blonde, and brainless.”

  “Who? Troy?”

  “G. The word from my Deep Throat is that he jumped from Sony before he was pushed. I mean, what VP leaves a studio to handle talent? He took his severance and bought his way into B-I. Now the word is that he’s on the make for a buyer for the whole company. Look, he’ll be gone in two years. Or less, depending on what happens. Just keep your head down. And, whatever you do, don’t forget his birthday.”

  “His birthday?”

  “Apparently it’s a national holiday. By the way, I saw Carrie Fisher buying shoes at Fred Segal.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say, seriously interested, or maybe just happy to stop talking about G. That’s the thing. You represent stars, know way too much about their lives, mop up way too many spills, but you still get worked up if you see them around town. Like sightings of native wildlife. “How’d she look?”

  “Like she was off drugs.”

  “Legal or illegal?”

  “Illegal.”

  “Too bad,” I say.

  “Yeah. She was pretty cute when she was thin.”

  “Weren’t we all,” I say, turning west on Sunset, suddenly anxious to find Charles.

  3 Just Shoot Me

  The Dwarf—line 2.

  The Amtell rattles to life. Peering over my Starbucks latte—nonfat with an extra shot—I type back, Que?

  Things are looking up. Or I am trying to believe things are looking up. I’ve gotten my first look at our BIG contracts—publish or perish is right—but Suzanne is promising to run interference and give us a graduated quota. Whatever that means. We’ve also done our drive-by of the new offices and Steven is right: they are better. Orchids. Aeron chairs. Brand-new computers. Scented candles in the bathrooms. All the stations of the cross. Which is how I’m trying to think of G. Just another ass to kiss. Steven has already dubbed him the G-string.

  I’ve also signed Troy, my first kill as a BIG-DWPer. And I haven’t even had to have sex with him. At least not yet. Actually, I’m too busy to see Troy. That’s the beauty part. Unless you have to serve as their walker at a junket or an award show, you never really see the clients or even speak to them. You just call their personal assistants.

  The only bad news, and it technically isn’t bad, just disappointing, is that I’ve had to make and break my lunch date with Charles something like five times in two weeks. (Twice on my part, twice on his, and once when Suzanne big-footed our plans and dragged him to some award luncheon.) Other than a few chance encounters in the office hallways, I’ve logged zip quality time with him. Or HRH, as Steven has dubbed him.

  “So HRH is another no-show,” Steven said, when our lunch was canceled for the second time.

  “His Royal Highness?” I didn’t often miss Steven’s acronyms but he had me this time.

  “The Human Resources Hunk. And don’t think you’re the only one who’s noticed.”

  What was I thinking? Of course I wasn’t the only sex-starved workaholic clawing the DWP walls. Back in New York, Charles may have been just another good-looking, slightly preppy guy—B+ material—but in L.A., a WASPy heterosexual male with a sense of humor and his natural nose approached deity status. Of course, others were hot on his trail.

  Actually, after our third broken lunch date, I’d resolved to put him out of my mind. Charles was just a colleague. Nothing more. Besides, he worked out of the New York office, where, presumably, he would be returning once his visit to Oz was over. Whenever that was going to be.

  Besides, I really was busy with work. I was also taking Spanish lessons every other Wednesday in a belated if unchic attempt to communicate with all the Latinos who come with life in L.A. Housekeeper, gardener, pool man for the diminutive hot tub that burbled out on my patio, although technically the pool guy didn’t count since he was from Encino, a dropout from UC–Santa Barbara who showed up stoned half the time. It would take more than Spanish lessons to communicate with him. Technically, nobody in my gene pool spoke Spanish. Like nobody in my gene pool ate bread. Still, life would go so much more smoothly if I could do things like explain how to work the washing machine to my Guatemalan housekeeper.

  “It’s not like you need to learn the whole language,” Steven said. “Just a few key phrases. Like, ‘Please put out that fire,’ or, ‘Can you stop the flooding?’ ”

  El Dwarf . . . ! The Amtell rattles again.

  I put down the latte and type back, What fucking dwarf?!!

  The Amtell is such a dinosaur. Everyone el
se in town has instant messaging—IM—to deal with calls, but DWP is still stuck in the Stone Age. Along with our Haitian-cotton sofas, stained Berber carpeting, and metal-framed posters of movies from the seventies—Norma Rae anyone?—we have the most antique communication equipment. In addition to our balky PC’s that are forever breaking down, we still use the stupid Amtells on our desks to communicate with our assistants. Like big walkie-talkies that are just up a notch from screaming. The only good thing is that they do foster their own coded language. After my meeting with Troy, Steven billed him as “succubus” on the Amtell until I pointed out that was a sexually depraved female demon. Okay, “succu-boy,” Steven had typed back, adding for good measure that Troy’s lawyer was now “succu-boy’s DA.”

  “You know—the Dwarf!” Steven says, suddenly appearing in the doorway. “The one you met at the party last week? The one who said he was looking for representation?”

  “Oh, that dwarf. Put him through.”

  Dwarves were hot. You couldn’t go to a party or a premiere without running into at least a couple of them. But then L.A. has always had a thing for freaks. First it was boobs. Now it’s cheekbones and butts. Even guys aren’t immune. Not with every male in town sprouting a forelock like Elvis. Why not dwarves? At least it was a new way to make studio execs, all those tiny, intense guys with their manicures and Gucci loafers, feel like big men.

  “Hi. I was hoping to hear from you,” I say, picking up. Normally I would have said something like, What can I do for you? But my client list is dwarfless at the moment and with my BIG new contract hanging over my head, the dwarf is an easy way to feed the beast. A former Disneyland employee (he was Donald Duck in the parade), the dwarf is a SAG member who’s had a walk-on in a Coen brothers comedy, done four episodes of Jackass, and gotten all the way to first callbacks on the latest Austin Powers. How hard could it be to drum up some coverage? Convince Vanity Fair to do some photo spread in their annual Hollywood issue? Put him and a few other dwarf actors in a circus setting and get Steven Meisel to shoot it? I set up lunch with the dwarf and hang up. When I finish the call, Steven sticks his head around the corner.