So 5 Minutes Ago Read online

  “Six more and we can call you Snow White.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Meanwhile, in another part of the enchanted forest, am I going to the photo shoot or are you?”

  “Which shoot?”

  “Troy and the Babes in TV Land.”

  “It’s the day after tomorrow,” I say. “And yes, I am going. The day after tomorrow.”

  “Actually, TV Guide’s photo editor called and they had to move it to today. Some scheduling mix-up.”

  “What!” I’m seriously pissed. Two days ago Troy’s shoot was all set. Now, apparently, it’s all fucked, and I’ve spent hours on the phone with the magazine setting up the story after Troy’s manager wrangled him a guest-star stint on one of the hottest new drama series—an anorexic chick law show that I can’t bear to watch but that has become the “flash point of the postfeminist cultural zeitgeist.” Or that’s how The New York Times put it.

  Normally TV is no-man’s-land for movie stars. But ever since Michael Douglas and Matt Damon went on Will & Grace and Brad Pitt carried the flag for Jen by doing an episode of Friends, stunt casting, as it’s known—especially for a highly promotable sweeps episode—no longer means your career is coding. So Troy is easing back into the public eye via prime time. At least it gives me something to promote until his next movie comes along. Besides, one of the series’ stars, Val Myers, an ex-Broadway chorine who plays one of the nerdier women on the show (which means she actually weighs what a five-eight, thirty-three-year-old might weigh) is already one of my clients. The shoot was to have been an easy twofer for me: Troy would have an hour or so at the same shoot for the magazine’s cover story on Val and her two costars.

  “When did we find this out?” I snap, knowing I’ll have to rearrange my whole day and I hate baby-sitting shoots, the endless fussing with the lights and the clothes and the hair and then the catering and the music and scented candles. It’s a daylong party for those involved—or it’s supposed to look like a daylong party—but for publicists it’s like jury duty. You have to sit there for hours trying to look interested or at least awake. It’s even worse if the client’s manager shows up and starts throwing their weight around. Meanwhile you still have to work, return a million calls on your staticky cell. It’s just a pain.

  “Unclear,” Steven says, waving a message slip. “As far as I can tell, the photo editor called either at midnight or six this morning.”

  “Typical,” I say. Returning calls at god-awful hours is now a standard way to deliver unwelcome news in Hollywood.

  “At least Troy already knows,” Steven says, dropping a second message slip on my desk. “Or I should say Troy’s manager knows. Peg called this morning to say he—and she—would be there by noon.”

  “Noon?” I look at my watch. It’s ten-thirty. I have barely an hour to rearrange my entire day.

  “Yeah, I know,” Steven says. “But if you hurry you can get there before the caterers replace the muffins with the pasta salad.”

  For a second, I’m tempted to send Steven—officially you can always send your assistant to cover a shoot unless the client is Tom Cruise caliber—and get reception to pick up my calls. I have a bunch of releases to edit, and I’m expecting a call from the features editor of Vogue, which is the PR equivalent of getting a call from the pope. Besides, I’m wearing new mules that have already given me blisters just walking from the parking garage. The thought of standing around Smashbox is not appealing. But Troy is a new client and still a big enough star that I need to show the flag. For Val too, as long as I’m there. Besides, if Troy’s manager is tense enough to go, I have to go.

  “All right, but call me later with some emergency so I can leave.”

  “I’ll tell you your house is burning down—in Spanish,” Steven says. “That should do it.”

  Smashbox is the Fred Segal of photo studios, a chic sexy white space with the requisitely louche employees in cargo pants and T-shirts and bored-looking stars. InStyle, Vanity Fair, People, they all shoot here. It’s publicists’ Ground Zero. Smashbox is so hip it even has its own makeup line.

  What it doesn’t have is a big enough parking lot. By the time I pull up, the minuscule lot is already full and the valet waves me off. Great. Street parking. Not only do I have a fresh blister by the time I get to the door, but I’m sweating from walking three blocks in the blazing sun and my nice little blow-dry from the morning is shot to hell. By the time I hit the Black Box, Moby is blasting out the door. Inside it’s the usual chaos, a million cables snaking across the floor, lights blazing as the crew guys in jeans and spike haircuts hump them around the room. The photographer, Blake Hashbein, a short, balding guy who shot a lot of those hip Gap commercials, is sitting on a lipstick-red sofa in the middle of the room ignoring it all, flipping through US Weekly, drinking coffee, and idly tossing a ball to two dogs wrestling in the corner.

  Troy and the show’s stars, of course, are nowhere to be seen. Probably still in makeup, one of the little rooms down the hall that will be lit like an airport runway and packed with its own personnel—the dewy-faced makeup artist, usually a gay guy wearing foundation, tight black jeans, and an air of fastidiousness; the hairdresser, another gay guy or an older (meaning thirty-plus) woman with great hair; and the stylist, who will already be getting an earful about the clothes. When forced to baby-sit a shoot, I usually wind up hanging with the stylist—not because stylists are always heterosexual women with great taste and good shopping tips, but because they also have little patience for actors’ whims but have to satisfy them anyway.

  “Better to get this over with,” I say, taking a deep breath and picking my way across the cables toward the high-pitched chatter down the hall. As I round the corner, I pass the catering station with the requisite muffins, fruit, and coffee dispensers—regular, decaf, and latte. An ice chest holds bottles of water and sodas. That’s the other thing about shoots. Unless it’s with some nut case like Kirstie Alley who writes it into her contracts that the catering has to consist solely of unlimited trays of tuna sashimi, you just know you’re going to eat a muffin—at least the top—or a cookie. Just to keep your spirits up.

  “Hi-eee . . . . !”

  I’m just reaching for a muffin—pumpkin, for the beta carotene—when I hear a squeal and the clatter of high heels behind me and brace myself for impact. “Alex, thanks for coming,” Val says, flinging herself at me. “This means so much to me,” she says, shaking her blond hair off her heart-shaped face. Like a lot of actors, Val has an unnaturally large head and just now, out of the makeup chair with her exaggerated Kewpie-doll eyes and pouty, cherry-red mouth, it looks even larger than usual. I have to rear back just to keep her face in focus.

  “Hey, I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “I know, but my first cover, I just really want it to go well.”

  I’ve been to enough shoots to know that well is a relative term. In fact, if there’s any rule about shoots, it’s that something will always go wrong, especially with a group shot. Although I’ve gone around and around with the photo editor over the choice of the photographer and the stylist and am praying it will all work out, I don’t have to wait long for the bad news.

  “Can I show you the clothes?” Val says, right on cue, tightening her grip on my arm and steering me toward the bulging racks. “I’m just not sure.”

  Not sure in this case means a knee-length flared red satin skirt Val is supposed to wear during one of the setups. There are to be three group shots of the three stars, each with its own color scheme—red, white, and blue, and the last two involving the red sofa. The white clothes are apparently fine with everyone, and Val especially likes her blue outfit, a tight, short sheath, but she hates the red skirt. It makes her look like a “fat cheerleader,” she says, yanking it from the rack.

  I close my eyes and take a breath. I’ve only been here what, five minutes, and already Val is on me to fix something? “Let me talk to the stylist,” I chirp. “There must be another re
d thing you can wear. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”

  I pry myself away from Val and head down the hall, keeping an eye out for Troy as I hunt down the stylist. The one thing I’ve learned: Never get between an actress and her wardrobe. So far Troy seems to be running late. As usual. I’m about to pull out my cell and call his manager, when I almost collide with the stylist wrestling with some sweaters on the floor. At least she seems even more exasperated than I do.

  “Don’t get me started about Val,” she hisses. Not only is Val throwing a fit about the red skirt, which is meant to somehow evoke Happy Days, but the show’s anorexic star—whom Steven dubbed “Leggo” during one of his more inspired moments—is freaking about the entire wardrobe. Too DKNY and not enough Dolce or something. She is now locked, suspiciously, in the bathroom after inhaling three muffins in a row. “I’ve got to get her out of there and into some different outfits,” the stylist mutters with a shake of her head.

  “Prada?” I say helpfully.

  “Sleeves,” she says, giving the sweaters a shove. “I mean, she’s so fucking thin. Airbrushing isn’t going to take care of it.”

  I make noises about one less cook in the kitchen, and head off to look for Troy. Val will just have to deal with the clothes on her own. I’m about to take another detour by the craft services table to bolster my flagging energy when I spot not Troy but Peg, his manager, coming through the door. She’s dressed for battle, with her shades clamped on, something like three cashmere sweaters wrapped around her shoulders, and her headset wired for sound. Fuck. What is she doing here before Troy’s even arrived?

  “Davidson!”

  Love being called by my last name. So needlessly butch. Like being back on the intramural field hockey team in college.

  “Hi, Peg,” I say, mustering a smile as I pick my way back over the lighting cables. Peg is one of the female leviathans Hollywood secretly breeds. You’d never know they exist unless you dig below the surface, but their numbers are legion among agents, managers, and publicists. Tough as nails, most of them could run a small country, and none of them are above just fucking with you because they can. Between their bulk and their need to control things, including whoever crosses their path, they are giant vortexes that just suck you in.

  “What’s the holdup?” Peg snaps, dispensing with any pleasantries as well as any acknowledgment that I’ve landed her client the damn shoot in the first place. “I thought Blake was one of the pros,” she adds, glancing at her watch.

  “Holdup?” She knows as well as I do no shoot ever starts on time. They’re like the Caribbean, or Mexico: things start and stop with no relation to the clock. Besides, Troy isn’t even here yet and he’s supposed to go after the girls.

  “Troy’s been here an hour,” Peg snorts, unhooking her earpiece. “I told him to get here early, because he’s got an audition this afternoon. He called me when he arrived.”

  Troy’s been here an hour and I haven’t seen him? As far as I can tell, no one has seen him. For all I know Troy is out in his Porsche getting stoned.

  I feel my pulse jump. Actually that scenario isn’t that far-fetched. Oh Jesus, let Troy have enough sense not to be getting stoned at his first photo shoot in more than two years. “Uhm, where did Troy say he was when he called you?” I ask Peg. “Where, exactly?”

  “Here. At the shoot.” Peg gives me a look like I’m speaking in tongues. “I thought you’d be with him.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m actually headed in that direction now,” I say briskly. The more I think about it, the more I fear Troy has to be in the parking lot.

  “I’m going to check in with the stylist and see what she’s got lined up for him,” Peg says, moving off. “Grab me a water, will you?” she says, nodding at the craft services table. “And a muffin.”

  Like that’s going to happen. Ignoring her directive, I head toward the bathroom. I don’t want Peg on my trail and I need to clear my head. If I hadn’t quit smoking under the misguided assumption that L.A. was obsessed with health, I would have two cigarettes in rapid succession. Now, a pee and fresh lip gloss will have to suffice.

  I stare at myself in the mirror. It’s not even one yet, but I already look exhausted, with mascara pooling under my eyes and my hair a mess. Wiping away the smudges, I root around in my bag until I find a pen to anchor my hair in a makeshift ponytail. I need to hunt down Troy and assess the damage. If he’s halfway sober—or can fake being halfway sober—and Peg throws her weight around and manages to snap everyone in line, I might get away after the first setup and salvage something of the day.

  Heading out of the bathroom, I pass one of the emergency exits propped open and catch a whiff. Oh God, I was right. I push open the door and scan the parking lot. It’s a sea of cars gleaming in the midday sun. Across the lot, the red-vested valets are milling around the entrance like birds waiting for a handful of seeds. I can follow my nose, or I can cut to the chase and ask where Señor Troy’s car is parked.

  “Excuse me,” I say, shielding my eyes from the glare as I pick my way toward the valets. “Excuse me, but do you know where Mr. Madden’s car is parked? I need to leave him something in it.”

  “Maadaan?”

  “Yes. Troy Madden. Tall, young guy. Blond. I think he drives a Porsche.”

  “Many Porsche today, lady. Many, many.”

  Yes, there would be many Porsches. Okay, let’s try another tactic. “Troy Madden. The movie star?”

  Blank stares. Yes, many, many movie stars today and bigger ones than Troy. Quick, which of Troy’s movies would these guys have seen? God, even I’m blanking for a minute, it’s been so long since he had a bona fide hit. “’Blow Your Mind’ Games?” I say in desperation.

  Bingo. Maybe I don’t need to know Spanish after all.

  “Sí, sí, sí. Señor Troy!” There is a flurry of laughter and a frantic hunting among the keys on the valet’s board. Finally I am pointed in the direction of the far corner of the lot. I set off, the blister on my foot springing to life with each step. I’ve bailed my share of clients out of tight spots before, but it usually involved a phone call to an editor or a few choice words with a hotel concierge. I haven’t had to physically intercede on anyone’s behalf since I used to baby-sit for the neighbors’ kids back in Upper Darby and for a time became very experienced at wiping up other people’s shit.

  Any hope I’m harboring that Troy is just—I don’t know—napping in his car, dies when I hear the thudding sounds of some techno anthem penetrating the air. I sidle between a gleaming SUV and one of the old-model oversized BMW’s and come up on Troy’s Porsche from the rear. It’s rocking slightly from the music and from what I can see is Troy’s frantic drumming on the dashboard. He’s in the passenger seat with a lit joint in his mouth, his eyes closed, fists pounding to the music. And he was supposed to be A-list at one time? I take a deep breath and knock on the window. Either Troy can’t hear me or he’s too out of it, but he keeps on pounding. Oh, fuck it. I yank open the door. A cloud of smoke, a crashing of drums, and Troy’s entire right side hits me simultaneously.

  “Hey, what the hell,” Troy says, flailing for the door frame to pull himself upright. “Hey, man,” he says, turning in my direction and squinting up at me. So far I’m not registering. “Oh hey, Alex, isn’t it?” he says, a sleepy smile crossing his face. “Yeah, Alex. Hey, come on in, the party’s just starting.”

  “Actually, Troy, the party’s inside,” I say, shouting over the music. “What do you say we go in and join the others? I’ll go with you.” Suddenly Val and her stupid skirt issues are looking like a cakewalk compared with getting Troy in photographable shape. His eyes are completely red and he seems even more unable to focus than he usually does. You’d think after all the dope he’s done he wouldn’t be so wasted.

  “Party?” Troy says dumbly.

  “Actually, it’s the photo shoot,” I yell again. “For the magazine.” The music is starting to get on my nerves. Actually all of it’s getting on my nerves,
but the music is the easiest to fix.

  “Listen,” I say, ducking down and reaching into the Porsche and across Troy to turn down the volume. “Listen, they’re waiting for you inside and it’s my job to get you in there,” I say, fumbling for the knob. At least one problem is solved. I’m just backing out of the car when I feel Troy’s hand on my thigh. Okay, just don’t go there, guy. Just don’t fucking go there.

  “Well, if they’re waiting, let’s give ’em a reason to wait,” Troy says in his slow drawl. For some reason all I can think of is how many women would love, just love to be in my position right now—bent over Troy Madden with his hand on my naked thigh.

  “Okay, Troy,” I say, wriggling backward. “Troy, look—” But my wriggling only causes Troy’s hand to crawl further up my thigh. “Troy!” I say, reaching back to dislodge his hand, a move that causes me to lose my balance. I feel myself start to careen toward the dashboard, where the right side of my face lands with a thud, and I whack my head on the edge of the steering wheel.

  “Ow. Okay, Troy—” I say, fumbling for my balance with my free left hand, which I realize has no other place to go than onto Troy’s own thighs, which are thankfully fully clad in denim. I’m just righting myself when I hear my cell burble.

  “Is that you or me?” Troy mumbles sleepily.

  “It’s me and actually I’m going to take it,” I say, finally shaking myself free of him and up out of the car.

  “Hello,” I say a bit breathlessly.

  “Alex?”

  “Charles?” Charles!

  “Alex, where are you? You sound out of breath.”

  “Oh, me? Uhm, at a photo shoot. With a client. I was, uhm, just lifting a few things,” I say, turning away from Troy and rubbing my head, which is starting to ache where it hit the steering wheel. “Just helping the stylist carry a few clothes, you know. Where are you?”