“Thanks,” Mary Anne said. She followed Jessica to the front door.
Jessica climbed into her Range Rover and waved at the front door as Mary Anne pulled it closed. The secrets just kept coming.
Rule 11: Whatever the Client Wants, the Client Gets
Kiki Dee, Publicist
Although she was still a member of the walking wounded, Kiki’s stitches had healed and her bruises were barely visible under her Laura Mercier foundation. So she was once again ensconced in her suite of offices high above Century City. Kiki watched through the huge windows from her office, called the fishbowl, as her PR minions scurried around hard at work, sporting Jimmy Choos and Chanel suits. Kiki required her worker bees to look as fashionable as the talent KDP represented, and as Kiki herself. All of the junior publicists looked as though they had stepped out of the pages of Vogue … except Boom Boom.
Kiki let her eyes drift over to the dumpy little Asian assistant sitting just outside Kiki’s office. As a favor to a B-list actor friend in a weak moment five years before, Kiki had hired Boom Boom just after Kiki’s partners had split, taking most of her A-list stars. Boom Boom was short (five-two), stocky (the word itself made Kiki shudder), and frumpy (today she wore a skirt that hit her awkwardly at the knee). Of course, Boom Boom was also brilliant (Yale class of 2007) and well connected (Sony). But the bottom line was that Kiki’s little ugly duckling had not an ounce of chutzpah, a quality that Kiki believed all great publicists needed. Loyal, hardworking, and exceptionally organized, Boom Boom possessed all the qualities any executive in Hollywood craved in an assistant … qualities for which Kiki Dee hated her. She was too perfect, in all the unnecessary ways. Boom Boom still failed to act like a publicist. An assistant, yes, but a publicist? Not even close.
When would she grow a backbone? Kiki wondered. She watched Boom Boom, per Kiki’s orders, pick pollen out of the lilies that Kiki had ordered for her office. Deathly allergic but loving the look and the smell of lilies, Kiki could have the flowers but only if Boom Boom tweezed away the offending pecks of pollen when they were delivered on Tuesdays. The pollen picking was the first step in what Kiki had labeled Operation Boom Boom Explodes. Kiki’s dirty little pleasure over the last few months had been thinking up new and ever more twisted ways to torture her ever-patient, ever-faithful assistant. What else to do between calls?
Boom Boom had done everything from walking Kiki’s dogs to walking Kiki’s bowel movement sample to her doctor’s office (“No, Boom Boom, you may not drive or messenger my poop; you must walk my shit to the doctor’s office.”). Kiki had started requiring Boom Boom to arrive at the office at five A.M. to check Kiki’s voice mail in case there were European calls. But these demeaning tasks failed to offend Boom Boom. In fact, Boom Boom’s response to Kiki’s fuck you note was the tersest tone Kiki had ever heard from Boom Boom. Even through her drugged-out fog, Kiki noticed that Boom Boom had used the word bitchy. Perhaps Boom Boom did have some spunk.
“Boom Boom,” Kiki called.
Boom Boom dropped the tweezers to the floor and looked at Kiki. “Get in here.”
Kiki watched, hopeful that perhaps today, this day, after five years, Boom Boom.would have on a pair of heels. I’ll even settle for Dior mules, Kiki thought. But as Boom Boom trotted in, Kiki stared.
On Boom Boom’s feet were generic running shoes. Generic. Not even cute Pumas.
“What are those?” Kiki asked, pointing at the offending footwear. “Shoes,” Boom Boom stammered.
“In what part of the world? Those are not shoes. Those are athletic equipment. These are shoes!” Kiki said. She threw one still-firm dancer’s leg onto her desk, letting her Louis Vuitton pump gleam in the light.
Boom Boom stood silent in front of Kiki. Yet another humiliation and still no back talk. Come on, girlie, Kiki thought. The reporters will eat you alive. If you can’t even come up with some clever repartee with me, I’ll never be able to set you loose with the press.
“I had to walk Shasta,” Boom Boom said, referring to Kiki’s pet teacup poodle, who sat on a silk pillow on the corner of Boom Boom’s desk. “I haven’t changed back.”
“You walked Shasta in those?” Kiki asked, horrified. How embarrassing for the dog. “Change them,” Kiki said, a wicked gleam in her eye, “and then walk Shasta again.”
“Again?”
“Did I stutter?” Kiki looked up and appraised her assistant from head to toe.
“But—”
Kiki gave Boom Boom a withering gaze, forcing her to be silent. Kiki then looked at her computer screen and clicked through her e-mail in-box. She felt disappointed—she’d yet to hear any news from Sherman.
“But …”
Kiki looked up. Boom Boom still stood in her office doorway. Perhaps there had been some spinal cord growth in the girl.
“Yes?” Kiki asked. She peered over the tops of her Louis Vuitton glasses.
“I can’t walk Shasta again.”
Hmm, was that back talk or an excuse? Either way it was a step in the right direction.
“And why not?”
Boom Boom stepped into Kiki’s office, glanced over her shoulder, and pulled the door shut.
“I’m waiting for a messenger,” Boom Boom whispered.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m waiting—”
“Boom Boom, I heard you. There are a dozen assistants and three interns in the office; someone else can wait for a package. Go walk the dog.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Kiki, this is a special package. It’s from Sherman.”
“What? He called? When?”
“Late last night. He left a voice mail around two A.M. saying to expect something very confidential around eleven. For your eyes only.” Kiki’s heart beat fasther with the possibility of confirmation of the salacious secret. Had he found it? Proof? She squinted her eyes and glared at her assistant, “When were you going to tell me Sherman called?”
“When the package arrived.”
“And since when do you decide which calls are important and which aren’t?” Kiki clicked on her computer screen. “I don’t see Sherman Ross on my phone sheet.”
“He didn’t need you to return the call—”
“That’s not your decision!” Kiki screeched. Boom Boom wilted before her. “I decide who I’m going to call, not you.”
“But—”
“But what?”
“I didn’t think you’d want a computer record of Sherman Ross contacting you. The voice mail is bad enough, but the phone sheet automatically backs up onto the hard drive, and I didn’t think you’d want that.”
Kiki deflated a tiny bit. Boom Boom might be dowdy, but she was also clever. “Still,” Kiki said, remaining stiff, “you should have told me.” She glanced at her computer screen again. “He said this morning?”
“Before lunch.”
Kiki glanced at the clock on her phone: 11:45, and Kiki had a 1:00 P.M. lunch at The Grill with the head of CTA, Tolliver Jones. Kiki didn’t care much for Jessica Caulfield-Fox, no matter what Celeste Solange had to say about her, and Kiki shed no tears in seeing Jessica depart from the presidency of CTA. Tolliver truly understood the idea of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
At lunch he’d most likely throw Kiki some nasty little bits about CTA’s A-list stars, which Kiki would feed to Page Six or Defamer. For that favor from Tolliver, Kiki would let him know which of her clients (or anyone else’s she heard about) was looking for a new agent. And Defamer or Page Six would owe Kiki a favor, repaying her by placing a piece for any of her stars the next time they needed some press. Every move Kiki made fed the Hollywood publicity machine.
“Do
not
open the package,” Kiki said. “Do you understand?”
Boom Boom looked at the ceiling, no longer cowed and obviously annoyed. “Yes, Kiki.”
The familiar beeping noise of two of her office lines pierced their conversation. “Don’t stand there.”
Boom Boom bustled out of Kiki’s office and Kiki put on her wireless headset. The caller ID flashed Steven Brockman, and Kiki sat straighter in her chair. Aside from Celeste Solange, Steven was her biggest client, as well as her most difficult. He was demanding, and of course there was always Steven’s little “secret” named Billy, a secret Kiki continuously worked to keep under wraps.
“Brockman on one,” Boom Boom called to Kiki. Kiki cleared her throat.
“Celeste Solange on two,” Boom Boom called out.
How did this always happen? No calls for fifteen minutes, and then suddenly her two biggest clients phoned within thirty seconds of each other.
“Tell Celeste I’m in a meeting,” Kiki said. “I’ll have to return.” Cici would wait. Now what could Brockman be complaining about this time?
“Steven!” Kiki smiled, knowing that her biggest client shouldn’t hear her frown over the phone. “Darling, how are you?”
“Kiki, have you seen the L.A. Times today?”
“Darling, no, still working my way through the trades. Up to two hundred million on your film, congratulations, my love. All the studios are slobbering to be in business with you.”
“I’m not on it.”
“What darling?”
“The new and hot list.”
“What?”
“In the Los Angeles Times today, I am not on the new and hot list.”
Kiki pressed mute on her phone. “Boom Boom,” she hissed, “get me the L.A. Times new and hot list, NOW!” Releasing the mute button, Kiki forced a smile. “Darling, how can that be? You are very, very hot.”
“Exactly why I’m calling you.”
Boom Boom rushed toward Kiki with her outstretched hand holding a copy of the list. Kiki grabbed it and scanned it. Everyone on the list was under the age of twenty-five.
“Darling, I’m looking at the list right now, and it’s obvious why you’re not on it. It’s completely beneath you. I mean, come on. Most of these people haven’t even been in a film, much less starred in one. They’re TV actors.” Steven failed to notice that all of these actors were all fifteen years younger than him.
“Kiki, I’m not getting enough exposure.”
“Steven, you just did Esquire and GQ. Vanity Fair wants you for a cover; we’re finalizing the logistics right now. Letterman was ten days ago. What else could you want?”
“But the pictures in GQ! Awful. Billy hated them. He tried to help at the shoot, but that asshole photographer just wouldn’t listen. I ended up looking like someone’s dad.”
Ah, the real problem emerged—Steven Brockman felt old.
At forty, a male star like Steven had at least another ten, possibly twenty, years of market viability if he picked the right roles and gracefully moved into the older mentor character in the action flick. Women? Unless you were Meryl, Diane, or Susan, your career happened when you were young. Once you started showing age, you might do some television, or a film every three years. Some great indies. But the paydays, the really sexy roles opposite the male stars? Those plum roles dried up at around age thirty-five.
“Who did the shoot?”
“Some British asshole, Nathan something.”
“I think that’s the same photographer who’s working with Worldwide on print ads for Cici on California Girl.”
“She did that piece-of-shit movie? I read it. They wanted me for the male lead, but it was complete tripe. Billy hated it, too.”
Billy, Billy, Billy. The very reason Kiki worked so hard for Steven Brockman. Time to change subjects. “How’s the baby?”
“Good. She and Kathy left to visit Kathy’s mother today. Took the jet. Gone for four weeks. Poor Kathy; her tits won’t ever be the same. She’ll have to get a mommy makeover if she ever wants to work again.”
“Well, she certainly won’t have to work,” Kiki said, referring to the $40-million agreement Steven had made with Kathy for her to pose as his wife, go through artificial insemination, and carry their baby to term. The contract fixed the faux marriage for ten years. And then? Well, Kathy and Steven could renegotiate, or Kathy could opt out. She’d receive the full $40 million for herself plus a bonus payment for making it to the ten-year mark and alimony on top of that. Of course Steven had created a huge trust fund for his daughter, Sylvan. He was a very doting father.
“And how is Billy?” Kiki loathed Billy, but every publicist, agent, manager, and attorney who worked for a star knew to keep the spouses close, since they were the ones whispering into the celebrity’s ear.
“Peeved at the coverage in the Times and the pictures in GQ. Kiki, did you ever find out about Billy doing the Vanity Fair shoot?”
The bane of Kiki’s existence, Billy fancied himself a photographer instead of the trophy wife he was. A former male model and London club owner turned Hollywood spouse, Billy had started photography as a hobby. He had a book that was okay, but he lacked hustle. He hadn’t done any real photography work. And now Billy wanted his first paying job to be shooting Steven Brockman for the cover of Vanity Fair?
“You know, they’re just not into it,” Kiki said. “Vanity Fair keeps a list of photographers they like to use, and they go to them over and over.” The articles editor laughed hysterically over the phone when Kiki brought up the idea. Let an unknown photographer shoot Steven Brockman for the cover of Vanity Fair? It had to be a joke.
“Then I’m not doing it.”
Kiki stopped flipping through the pages of Variety. “What?”
“Unless they let Billy shoot the cover, I’m not doing it.”
A sucker punch to her gut and the air rushed from Kiki’s lungs. The cover of Vanity Fair was a coup no matter how big a star you were, and you did not want to piss off Graydon.
“Steven, you can’t do that. You’re locked in. We’re just finalizing details.”
“Tell them if they really want me, they’ll take Billy, too.”
For fuck’s sake! Kiki could deliver the Vanity Fair cover if Billy did any real work, but this demand put her in a terrible position.
“Steven, this might get tricky. Billy’s book is good, but he doesn’t have any paid gigs. I know it’s silly, and Billy is nothing if not professional,” Kiki threw in, trying not to gag, “but they want to see some print work he’s done.”
“What about ad work in Japan?”
“That might be okay.”
“Great. We leave tonight. I’ll send you the spread as soon as we’re done.”
“We?”