Hollywood Is Like High School with Money Read online

  into my bag and pointed myself toward where I thought the bar might be, wending my way

  through men in silky Hawaiian shirts and women in minuscule, shimmering dresses. It wasn't

  easy to walk on the sand, and I almost spilled the rest of my mai tai on a short guy in a white

  suit who looked like he'd stepped right off Fantasy Island.

  The bamboo bar, which was strung with colored lights and flickering fake torches, was packed

  with people. As Kylie would say, Quel surprise.

  I positioned myself at the back of what looked like a line, next to a boyishly handsome guy in a

  linen jacket, holding a martini glass. He wasn't much taller than me, with wavy dark hair, a

  prominent nose, and bright blue eyes.

  "Is this the line?" I asked.

  "It was the line," he replied. "About ten minutes ago, before people realized they have Grey

  Goose. Now it's just every man for himself. Top-shelf liquor brings out the worst in

  everybody." He held out his hand. His fingernails were cleaner, shinier, and more perfectly

  shaped than mine would ever be. "Brett Duncan," he said, shaking my hand. "I sense a fellow

  assistant."

  "Taylor Henning," I said, smiling. "You sensed right."

  Brett took a sip of his alarming-looking chartreuse cocktail. "And what would Taylor like to

  drink?"

  "What's good after a mai tai? I always forget those rules." To my great regret, I almost added,

  thinking about the time I'd reversed the liquor/beer order and ended up vomiting outside Chi

  Psi, wearing my shoes on my hands.

  Brett flagged down a passing waiter carrying a tray of chicken skewers and ordered a Grey

  Goose gimlet straight up with a lime. The waiter nodded and walked away.

  "Friend of mine," Brett confided with a wink. "It pays to come to a lot of these things."

  I raised my eyebrows. Considering how easily he'd won me over, I figured Brett Duncan was

  friends with a lot of people. The waiter returned with my drink in record time, and Brett steered

  me over to a red leather banquette, where he leaned back comfortably and told me that he was

  the assistant to development at an independent production company on the Paramount lot.

  "We're very arty," he confided. He grew up in Kentucky, he was a Brown graduate, and his

  current pop-culture obsession was the Floridian plumber who sang bluegrass versions of

  Journey songs on American Idol. I laughed and let him talk; he was charming. Every third

  person who squeezed past us set off a wave of "What's up, man?" and "Let's do drinks," which

  only served to prove my initial hypothesis correct: Brett was a bright, beautiful social butterfly.

  He told me, once he'd learned where I worked, that Iris had the best taste in the business. "So

  what scripts is she looking at?"

  "Unfortunately, I wouldn't really know," I said, gazing into my gimlet.

  "Ah," Brett said, mimicking me by contemplating his very green cocktail. "So you're second

  assistant."

  "How'd you guess? My sarcasm or the circles under my eyes?"

  "I've been there, honey. And there were times I wished I were selling shoes at Nordstrom.

  But," he said, placing his empty glass on the tray of another passing waiter, "it's still a job. And

  in the immortal words of you-know-who, you have to make it work. Are you on a tracking

  board?" he asked, narrowing his blue eyes.

  Behind him, someone was setting up a limbo bar under one of the coconut trees. Surely no one

  was going to use that, I thought. I mean, really, were we on the set of Cocktail? Was Tom

  Cruise going to pop up behind the bar with a big goofy grin and a couple of martini shakers in

  his hands?

  "A what?" I asked, tearing my eyes away from the limbo preparations.

  "A tracking board."

  I shook my head, picturing some kind of dry erase board with... well, with I didn't know what

  on it.

  "It's a message board," he said, waving to someone across the room. "For development people.

  It's where everyone gets bitchy on which scripts have just come out, which ones are good, and

  which ones are a total waste of time. It essentially tells people exactly how to think, and it can

  ruin writers in an instant. But for us, they're great. My tracking board has a drinks thing once a

  month at Tiki Lounge, and we get very sloppy."

  "So how do I get on one?" I asked, realizing that Kylie had to be on one of these. I thought of

  just yesterday, when Kylie had slipped into Iris's office for a tête-à-tête on some war drama I'd

  never heard her mention before. Was this Kylie's secret weapon?

  "I'll work on it, darling," Brett said, seeing my desperation.

  I raised my gimlet and toasted him gratefully because, in addition to being a social butterfly, he

  was also the kind of person who'd be happy to help a sad-sack second assistant out. Quinn's

  clothes clearly didn't fool Brett--he knew I was in over my head.

  Across the room, I spotted a dark-haired girl I recognized from Metronome. She wasn't on our

  floor, so I didn't know her name, but I recognized her Joan Crawford figure--she was all

  shoulders and bust--and the handbag she always carried, which I now recognized as Fendi. I

  gave a little involuntary shudder; she was a friend of Kylie's. The chances that she'd notice me

  and rat me out to Kylie were slim, but still.

  "What's the shiver for, doll?"

  "That girl works at my office," I said, pointing as subtly as I could. "And she's as mean as all

  the others, I'm sure."

  "Oh, her? That's Andrea. She's all right. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but

  honestly, with that look, who cares? Do you know her? No? Well, if you ever meet her, just

  compliment her on her hair. She's extremely proud of it. You'd think she'd starred in a Pantene

  commercial or something."

  "Thanks for the tip," I said, watching Andrea begin to shake her narrow hips. Her famous hair

  was in a messy updo, but I'd actually noticed it before and thought the very same thing.

  "Look." Brett gazed into my face over the rim of his martini glass. "My last little friend like you

  had a nervy b and moved home to Wisconsin to eat cheese all day long while wearing

  sweatpants and watching reruns of Judge Judy. But you--you look stronger than that. You've

  got a mean glint in your eye, I can see it. So what do you say? Are you going to let this town

  drive you batshit crazy too? Or are you going to make it? And more important," he went on,

  "do you want a new gay boyfriend or what? Because I'm pretty sure I can help you."

  I threw back my head and laughed. He linked his arm through mine and I grabbed two drinks

  off the tray of a passing waiter and gave one to each of us.

  "To us!" I cried.

  "To us," he agreed.

  We tossed our drinks back, and then he reached for my hand. "Now let's go to the real party.

  You're never going to meet anyone important down here."

  "Except you, of course," I said.

  He giggled. "Except me."

  He pulled me through the crowd, across the sand, and past the impromptu limbo game that had

  just begun. A steel-drum band next to the volcano began to play "Stir It Up." The first

  contestant was a bronzed woman in a micromini that would have made Amy Winehouse proud.

  "I don't know when beavers became the new accessory," Brett hissed as we passed.

  Upstairs, a hulking bouncer who was a dead ringer for Refrigerator Perry tried to stop us f
rom

  walking in, but Brett waved him off.

  "She's with me, Ruben," he said as he led me into a dimly lit lounge.

  I'd left Hawaiian limbo land for a Moroccan opium den, it seemed. The lights were dim and

  red, and all around people lounged barefoot on low, velvet sofas or sat on fat pillows around

  candlelit tables. Jewel-colored mosaic tile decorated the floor and the grottolike walls.

  "Better, huh?" Brett asked as he led me inside. "Come on, my friends are in back."

  As we walked through the room, I spotted someone reclining on a sofa whom I knew but

  couldn't quite place. He had brown, slightly wavy hair, and he was handsome in that

  wholesome, boy-next-door way. He was wearing a gray ribbed sweater and talking animatedly

  to a girl who also looked vaguely familiar. I couldn't remember his name, but I gave a small

  wave anyway, just to be friendly.

  "How do you know James McAvoy?" Brett whispered.

  I almost choked on the last of my drink. As I took a closer look around, I realized that everyone

  was familiar to me not because I knew them but because they were famous. There were actors,

  television personalities, reality TV stars--if you can call them stars, that is--and models I'd seen

  in countless Vogue ads. It was a paparazzo's dream.

  Finally, we reached a table where another familiar handsome-but-not-too-handsome face

  greeted me.

  "Taylor?" said Brett. "Tobey. Tobey, Taylor. She works with Iris Whitaker at Metronome."

  I smiled, momentarily terrified as I locked eyes with Spiderman. "Hi," I said and left it at that.

  Tobey Maguire was sitting next to Jessica Biel, who was calling across the room for Justin

  Timberlake.

  I leaned over to Brett as surreptitiously as I could. "These people are your friends?" I asked.

  "Just ask them about them. It's their favorite subject," Brett whispered, and he pulled out a chair

  for me to sit down.

  "I think I can handle that," I whispered back. Maybe it was six years too late, but I felt like I

  was finally heading to the prom--in the cool kids' limo.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Here's what I want to know," Peter Lasky, the charismatic but temperamental head of

  Metronome, barked into the phone line. He always sounded authoritative, but when he was

  angry--like right now--his voice made you feel like you ought to apologize just for existing.

  Even though he was talking to Iris, not me, I wanted to take off my headset and duck under my

  desk.

  He took a deep breath, probably to gather volume, and then continued. "I want to know why

  six months ago you told me that this movie was going be our Atonement, and now the Muslim

  Anti-Defamation League or whoever it is wants my balls cut off. I mean, I'm trying to enjoy a

  golf game here, and my fucking cell is ringing off the hook!"

  "Now Peter, let's not get carried away," Iris began calmly.

  "Don't talk to me like you talk to your teenage daughter, Iris! This is supposed to be our Oscar

  film, goddamn it!"

  I winced and pulled the headset away from my ear for a second. Sometimes being on Iris's calls

  made me wonder if my dream career was such a dream after all. I mean, what if one day I got

  to be as powerful as Iris, and once a week I got my ear shrieked off by someone who was

  more powerful than I was and who called me from a golf course because he was too important

  to spend any time in his office?

  "We're working on it, Peter," Iris said soothingly. "I'm looking at several candidates for a

  rewrite as we speak--"

  "Ah Christ, some asshole's playing into me, I have to go," Peter said. "Are you fucking blind?

  I'm on this hole!" he screamed, and then the line went dead. Somewhere on the course at

  Hillcrest in Beverly Hills, Peter Lasky was taking out his rage about Camus's Nightmare on an

  unsuspecting fellow golfer.

  I put down my headset. At least that was over until next week. I glanced down at the still

  relatively neat surface of my desk. There were some scripts, a few back issues of Variety, and,

  of course, my Good and Bad lists for the last few days. I'd actually done a decent job lately. I

  was getting the hang of call-rolling, I knew the numbers to Iris's favorite restaurants by heart,

  and I'd memorized the schedule of her regular weekly meetings like it was a holy text.

  GOOD THINGS

  Brett Duncan, my new gay boyfriend.

  Discussion with Jessica Biel about astrology; she says all Tauruses are crazy!

  Quinn's clothes.

  My iPhone. (I drew a lot of hearts after this one.)

  Finally learned rhyme: liquor before beer, never fear; beer before liquor, never sicker.

  Did not break copier because made Julissa make copies.

  Do not feel like firing is imminent.

  BAD THINGS

  Cabbage still smells like sewer.

  Kylie still bitch on wheels.

  Kylie still bitch on wheels.

  Kylie still bitch on wheels.

  The funny thing was, even though there were really only two things under the Bad column,

  they seemed to outweigh the Good. At least Kylie was off gossiping with Cici and Amanda

  right now. With her gone, the air in the room felt easier to breathe. And it wasn't just because

  every time she left, I blew out that awful candle of hers.

  Just then my beloved phone buzzed. It was another text from Quinn, and this one was even

  more cryptic than the last:

  Lesson #4: Lunch is a battleground. Good allies are key.

  I would have written back right then--something really eloquent, like "Huh??"--but I figured I

  ought to attend to my work duties first. I knocked politely on Iris's door. "I have those scripts

  from Endeavor you wanted," I said.

  The midafternoon sun slanted through the office window at an angle that made me squint as I

  approached Iris's desk. It lit the jungle of plants along the window, turning them a brilliant jade

  green, and fringed the edges of Iris's hair, which was swept off her face with a pair of goldtipped wooden hair sticks.

  "Here you go," I said, sliding the scripts onto Iris's black lacquer desk, in between her open

  New York Times and a stack of daily Variety s.

  Iris screwed up her face, opened her mouth, and then delivered a room-quaking sneeze.

  "Goddamn Santa Anas," she muttered, pulling a clutch of tissues from the box on her desk.

  "Every October." Her eyes were uncharacteristically puffy and wet.

  "What does that mean?" I asked at the risk of sounding stupid. "I mean, I know they're winds,

  but why does everyone hate them so much?"

  Iris laughed. "I forget sometimes how new you are here." She dabbed at her nose. "We love to

  complain about the Santa Anas in L.A. They're second only to traffic." She balled up the tissue

  and tossed it in the waste bin by her feet. "They come from the east, and we hate them because

  they push dust and pollen and mold and all sorts of horrible things right into our faces, making

  us look like this." She pointed at her red eyes and nose. "But I can see they don't bother you."

  "Maybe next year?" I said hopefully.

  "Better hope not," Iris chuckled.

  I took another little step closer toward her desk. "So I've been doing some reading," I ventured,

  "and I think I may have found the perfect person to rewrite Camus."

  Iris opened a box of Claritin on her desk. "Why I decided to buy that movie I'll never know,"

  she said, pushing another
tablet through the foil.

  "Well, I read this guy's spec last night and I was really impressed. His name is Steven

  Udesky."

  Thank you, Brett Duncan, I thought to myself. The day after we met at the movie premiere, he'd

  e-mailed me a password to Story Tracker, Hollywood's most exclusive tracking board, with a

  note: Here's a little prezzie for my favorite Cleveland girl! Remember, no Judge Judy!

  XXXOOO.

  Story Tracker was an entirely new world. Thanks to its bulletin boards, I no longer felt like a

  kid at the back of the class with a dunce cap on her head--I finally knew what people were

  talking about. I could read that a CE at Warner Bros. had loved a Legally Blonde-esque

  comedy, and I could watch the fluctuating fortunes of a screenwriter named Adam Johnson,

  whose tender and ironic portrait of a divorcing couple was adored by half of the people on the

  boards and lambasted as stinking tripe by the other half. I couldn't get my hands on every script

  I wanted to read, but at least Story Tracker let me know what was out there, and if I happened

  to be on the phone with an assistant to an agent who repped a lot of writers, all I had to do was

  ask.

  That was how I'd found the script for Echo Park, which Iris was now staring at, sniffling.

  "Kylie already told me about this," she said. "Just a couple days ago. Haven't read it yet, but

  she said it was worth looking at."

  "Oh," I said, deflated. "Well, that's good."

  Kylie strode confidently into the room at that very moment, as if trying to prove the saying

  "speak of the devil." She wore a floaty, poppy-colored minidress that showed off her toned

  calves, and she seemed incredibly pleased about something.

  "Here's the breakdown from production on the fall slate," she said, breezing past me as if I

  weren't there. She slid a thick black dossier onto Iris's desk. "I had them rush it for you."

  Iris opened it and scanned the first page, her gray green eyes flicking back and forth as she

  leaned her chin into her hand. "Great," she said, looking up. "Thanks, Kylie."

  "And you told me to remind you about writing the speech for your achievement award at the

  Association for Women in Entertainment luncheon next week. And you're all set for six-thirty

  tonight with Drew Barrymore at Mozza," she added, smiling beatifically. Then she turned to