I heard a scratching at the side gate. I went over to unlatch it; Ralph, the World's Oldest Retriever, was on the other side, huffing slightly. His tail was wagging feebly and he was looking up at me with a tired doggie grin as if to say,
I got out again. Not bad for an old fart.
I liked Ralph. The youngest Escobedo kid, Richie, had graduated from college and moved out about two years ago, and I suspected since then Ralph didn't get that much notice; Esteban, who owned a mainframe software company, didn't have the time, and anyone could tell that Mary just wasn't a dog person. He was fed but ignored.
Richie used to drop by every now and then with Ralph; he was only a few years younger than I was, and for a while had been thinking about becoming an agent before he got nervous and went pre-law instead. After Richie moved out, Ralph would keep dropping by. I think I reminded him of times when someone was around to pay attention to him. I didn't mind. Ralph didn't want anything other than to be around somebody else. He's like a lot of old folks that way. Eventually Esteban or Mary would realize he was gone and would come over to get him. Ralph would look at me sadly and follow the one or
the other home. A week later he'd get bored and the cycle would repeat.
I headed back to the patio. Ralph shuffled along at my feet and sat next to me when I got to my chair. I knuckled him on the head gently, and returned my thoughts to the Yherajk situation.
For some reason, a memory of my childhood popped into my head: my father, Daniel Stein, sitting at the dining room table with Krzysztof Kordus, a Polish poet who had been sent to a concentration camp during World War II after he, a Catholic, had been caught trying to smuggle Jews out of Poland. Late in life he had emigrated to America, and he hoped that he would be able to publish his poems in English.
I eventually read the poems when I was in college. They were terrible and beautiful: terrible in their themes of Holocaust and death, beautiful because they somehow managed to find moments of hope in the shadow of that terrifying destruction. I remember feeling the need to go out into the sun after reading them, crying because for the first time I was made to understand what happened.
I had had relatives who had died in the Holocaust: great aunts and uncles on my mother's side. My own grandmother had been in a work camp when the war ended. But she would never talk about it while I was growing up, and then she had a stroke that took away her ability to speak. It wasn't until Krzysztof's poems that the story was brought home to me.
The night Krzysztof and my father sat at our dining room table, however, Krzysztof had received yet another rejection letter for his book. He sat raging at my father, for not being able to sell the book, and at the publishers, for not buying the book.
“You have to understand,” my dad said to Krzysztof, “hardly anyone buys books of poetry anymore.”
“I understand
shit,
” Krzysztof said, thumping the table. “This is what I do. These poems are as good as any you will find in the bookstore. Better. You must be able to convince someone to buy these, Daniel. That is what
you
do.”
“Krzysztof,” my father said. “The bottom line is that no one is going to publish these poems right now. If you were Elie Wiesel, you could sell these poems. But you're nobody here. No one knows you. No publisher is going to throw money away publishing poems that no one's going to read.”
That set Krzysztof off for another ten minutes on the stupidity of my father, the publishing world, and the American people in general, for not recognizing genius when it sat arrayed before them. Dad sat there calmly, waiting for Krzysztof to take a breath.
When he did, my dad jumped in. “You're not listening to what I'm saying, Krzysztof,” he said. “I know these poems are masterworks. That's not in dispute. The problem is not the poems, it's you. No one knows who you are.”
“Who cares about me?” Krzysztof said. “The poems, they speak for themselves.”
“You're a great man, Krzysztof,” my father said. “But you know diddly about the American public.” And then my father told Krzysztof a plan that would thereafter be known as The Trojan Horse.
The plan was simple. In order to sell Krzysztof's poems, people had to know who Krzysztof was first. Dad accomplished this by convincing Krzysztof, after much arguing and protestations of humiliation, to take a lullaby that he had written decades earlier to amuse his daughter, and publish it as a children's
book. The book,
The Dreamers and the Sleepers,
sold millions, much to Krzysztof's horror and my father's delight.
During the publicity tour for the book, Krzysztof's Holocaust story was splashed across the features pages of every large and midsized daily in the country. From that, my father was able to wrangle a made-for-television movie on Krzysztof's story out of TNT. It was the most widely watched television show that month on cable. Krzysztof was embarrassed (he was played by Tom Selleck) but also both rich and famous.
“There,” my dad said. “
Now
we can sell your book of poems.” And he did.
I needed a Trojan Horse. There had to be some back door way to slip the Yherajk through, like my dad did with Krzysztof. But I had no idea what it was. It's one thing to sell a book of poems. It's another thing entirely to introduce a planet to the thing they've hoped for and feared for the last century.
The doorbell rang. Ralph looked at me sadly. His owners had come for him. I patted his flank gently, and then we went to answer the door.
I
glanced through the window into my office. “Tell me that's not Tea Reader I see in there,” I said.
“All right,” Miranda said. “That's not Tea Reader you see in there.”
“Thank you for conforming to my reality,” I said.
“Not at all,” Miranda said. “It's an honor and a privilege.”
I grabbed my doorknob, took a deep breath, and went into my office.
If nothing else, Tea Reader was heart-stoppingly beautiful; half Hawaiian, half Hungarian, five feet ten inches, and naturally possessed of the sort of proportions that most women insist exist only on foot-high plastic dolls. Her record company publicist once drunkenly confided in me that his company estimated at least forty-five percent of Tea's record sales were to
boys aged thirteen through fifteen, who bought them for the CD insert that featured Tea rising from the waters of the Pacific, clad in a thin T-shirt and a thong bikini bottom, both a particularly transparent shade of tan.
I drunkenly confided to him that, when I had inherited her from my former podmate, I held the poorly masked hope that she might be one of those actresses who occasionally slept with their agents. Then I got to know her. I learned to be glad that she was not.
“Hello, Tea,” I said.
“Hello, Tom, you miserable fuckhead,” Tea said.
“Always a pleasure to see you, too, Tea,” I said. I walked to my desk and set down. “Now,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“You can explain to me why I suddenly seem to be represented by Little Miss Hysterical over here.” Tea motioned to the far chair in the corner, where Amanda Hewson sat, crying. At the mention of her existence, Amanda let out an audible sob and lifted her feet, in an attempt to curl into a fetal position while still sitting. The chair was getting in the way.
“Amanda is a full agent here at the company,” I said. “And she's quite good.”
“Bullshit,” Tea said. Amanda gave another sob. Tea rolled her eyes dramatically and shouted over her shoulder at Amanda, “Could you
please
shut the fuck up? I'm trying to talk to my
real
agent over here, and it's hard enough without you crying a fucking river.”
Amanda exploded from her seat like a flock of birds flushed out of the underbrush, and attempted to flee the room. She grabbed at the door, pulled it, and whacked herself on the side of the face. I winced; that was going to leave a mark. Amanda wailed and sprinted towards her pod. Tea watched the scene
and then turned back to me. She had the expression of the cat who ate the canary and then threw it up in her owner's favorite shoes.
“Where were we?” she said.
“That wasn't very nice,” I said, mildly.
“I'll tell you what's not very fucking
nice,
Tom,” Tea said. “It's not nice to get back from Honolulu, where I've been visiting my family, and having a message from
Mandy,
telling me how excited she is to be working with me.” From her sinister stretch, Tea straightened up, preternaturally perky. Her voice became a dead-on ringer for Amanda's Girl Scoutâlike tone. “âI have your album! I love to listen to it while I'm exercising!'” Tea slouched again. “Great. Add that to the half that are whacking off to my picture on the cover, sister.”
“It's actually only forty-five percent,” I said.
Tea's eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Forty-five percent are whacking off,” I said. “Your record company's own estimate. Tea, Amanda's working with me. She's my assistant.”
“I thought Miss Bitch back there was your assistant,” Tea said, jerking a thumb towards Miranda's desk. “She almost didn't let me in to your office today. I was getting ready to smack her.”
Before getting her act together and working her way through college, Miranda spent a reasonable portion of her teen years gang-banging in East LA. One night, at a company party, Miranda showed me her collection of scars, inflicted by razors in a number of cat fights.
The other girls got it worse,
she said. I didn't suspect Tea realized how close to death she had gotten this morning.
“Miranda is my administrative assistant,” I said. “Amanda is working with me with some of my clients.”
“Well,
I
don't want to work with her,” Tea said.
“Why not?”
“Hello? Tom? Did you not see Miss Mandy in here today? What a fucking crybaby.”
“How did she get that way, Tea?” I asked.
“Beats me,” Tea said. “We were just sitting here, waiting for you, and I was just telling her that there was no fucking way on the planet she was going to be my agent.”
“How long were you in here before I got here?”
Tea shrugged. “A half-hour, forty-five minutes.”
“I see,” I said. “And you don't think being shat on for three-quarters of an hour is a good reason to get upset.”
“Hey,” Tea sat up again and jabbed a finger at me. “
You're
the one that put her in that situation. Don't get angry at
me
because I went off on her a little.”
“Forty-five minutes is not
a little,
Tea,” I said.
“What the fuck does
that
mean? I'm the one getting screwed here.” She slumped back, sullen.
I was getting a headache. “Tea, what do you want from me?” I asked.
“I want you to do your fucking
job,
” Tea said. “I'm not giving you ten percent so you can palm me off on Mandy, the Teenage Agent. I can think of about ten agents in town who'd get on their hands and knees to represent me. You're not doing me any favors, Tom.”
“Really,” I said. “Ten agents.”
“At least.”
“Fine,” I said. “Name one.”
“What?”
“Name one,” I said. “Give me the name of one of those agents.”
“Hell, no,” Tea said. “Why should I tell you who your competition is? Stay nervous.”
“Nervous? Hell, Tea, I want to call them up,” I said. “If they're so gung-ho to have you, I'll let you go. I don't want you to be unhappy. So let's do this thing. Let's get it over with. Unless you're running off at the mouth.”
That got her. “Alan Finley at ACR,” she said.
I buzzed Miranda. She came to the door. “Yes, Tom?”
“Miranda, would you call Alan Finley over at Associated Client Representation, and put him on the speaker when you get him?”
“Sure, Tom.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Oh, one other thing. After you get Alan, would you mind bringing me Tea's file?”
“Not at all,” Miranda said. “Do you want the whole file?”
“Just the clippings, please, Miranda.”
Miranda smiled slightly and glanced at Tea. “Delighted to, Tom. Tea,” she said. Tea fairly snarled at Miranda as she closed the door.
“Fucking bitch,” Tea said. “Did you see that look she gave me?”
“I must have missed it,” I said.
Miranda's voice clicked in over the speakerphone. “Alan Finley at ACR, Tom,” she said, and left the line.
A male voice piped up. “Tom? You there?”
“Ho, Alan,” I said. “How are things over there at ACR these days?”
“The land of milk and honey, Tom. We're giving away Bentleys as party favors. You want one?”
Two weeks ago, an ACR internal memo made its way to
Variety
; in it, ACR's CEO Norm Jackson offered a Rolls-Royce
to the agent who stole the most A-list clients from other agencies in the next three months. Jackson first declared it a forgery, and then tried to chalk it up as an inside joke. Nobody bit. Longtime clients were offended that they, by implication, were not A-listers, and started jumping ship. Clients in the process of being wooed by ACR stopped returning calls.
Variety
suggested that the second-place winner get Norm Jackson's job.
“I'll pass for now, Alan, but I hope you remember me during the holidays,” I said. “Listen, Alan. Got a question for you.”
“Shoot.”
“I have a client who has recently become, shall we say, dissatisfied with the quality of representation she's receiving here. She's thinking of going over there.”
“Well, aren't you just the helpful one, Tom,” Alan said. “Is it Michelle Beck? You can send her right along. I'll get that Rolls after all.”
I laughed. He laughed. Tea glared at the speakerphone.
“Sorry, Alan. The client is Tea Reader. You know her.”
“Sure. I bought her CD. For the picture on the inside, mostly.”
Tea looked like she was about to say something, but I put my finger to my lips. “Right,” I said. “So are you interested? Want to take her on?”
“Jesus, Tom, you're actually serious?”
“Sure am, Alan. Serious as a heart attack.”
“She wouldn't happen to be there at the moment, would she?”
“Nope,” I said. That, at the very least, would keep Tea quiet for a few minutes. “Just you and me. You want her?”
“Fuck, no, Tom,” Alan said. “I hear she's a harpy.”
Tea looked like she'd been slapped.
“I hear she drove her last agent insane. You knew him, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We were podmates.”
“That's right. Cracked up like Northridge in a quake is what I heard. Became a Moonie or a Scientologist or something like that.”
“Buddhist, actually.”
“Close enough,” Alan said. “No offense, Tom. I have enough clients who make me want to get religion, so I could be assured that there was a Hell for them to be sent to. I could look at Tea for hours. Wouldn't want to be in the same room as her, though. Certainly wouldn't want to represent her. How do you manage it, anyway?”
“Just a saint, I suppose,” I said. “Well, look, Alan, you know anyone over there who might want to have her?”
“Not off the top of my head. I think everybody's perfectly happy to let you represent her for as long as you want, pal. I'll remember you in my prayers, if it will make you feel any better.”
“It does, it does,” I said. “Thanks, Alan.”
“Sure, Tom. Be sure to let me know when Michelle gets bored with you. Her, I'd put up with.” He hung up.
“Well,” I said. “That was certainly instructive.”
“Fuck you,” Tea said, and stared off out a side window. Miranda came in, dropped a file on my desk, and left.
“What is that?” Tea asked.
“This is your clipping file,” I said. “Our clipping service scours the trades and the magazines and the blogs for a reference to any of our clients and sends them on to us. So we always know what people are thinking about the people we represent.”
I separated the clips into two piles. One was very small. The other was not. I pointed to the smaller pile. “Do you know what this is?” I asked.
Tea looked over, shrugged. “No.”
“These are your positive notices,” I said. “They're mostly about the fact that you're built like Barbie, although there's one here that says you were the best thing about that Vince Vaughn flick you were in, with the further admission that that is a textbook example of damning with faint praise.”
I thumped the other, much larger pile with an open palm. “This,” I said, “is your pile of negative notices. We have an office pool here, you know. We've got bets on how thick this pile is going to get by the end of the year. Right now, it's a modest three inches. But it's early yet, and TMZ
loves
you.”
Tea looked bored. “Is this going somewhere?”
I gave up. “Tea, I've been trying to find some way to put this delicately. Let me make it simple:
Nobody
in town likes you. No one. You're monstrously difficult. People don't like working with you. People don't like being seen with you. People don't even like being in the same room with you. Even the thirteen-year-old boys who fantasize about you know enough not to like you as a person. In the grand pantheon of legendary bitches of Hollywood, it's you, Shannon Doherty, and Sean Young.”
“I'm not anything like them,” Tea said. “
I
still have a career.”
“You sure do,” I said. “And you have
me
to thank for it. Any other agent would have written you off long ago. You're good looking, but that's not exactly a rare thing around these parts. I have to
fight
to get you work. And every time I
do
get you work, I hear back about how everybody on that crew would rather chew glass than work with you again. Everyone.
They have craft service workers who won't cater a set you're on. My best estimate is that you have about another eighteen months before we run out of people who'll work with you. After that you'll have to find some nice, eighty-year-old oil tycoon you can marry and screw into a coma.”