The First Assistant (17 page)

With night shoots dominating the last ten days, I was averaging about three hours of sleep a day. I’d developed a twitch in my left eye that seemed to start every time the next day’s call sheet was slipped un-der my door. Shooting nights meant that Emerald’s call time was seven in the evening, hence mine was six, leaving me just enough time to get Emerald out of her massive four-bedroom villa and into her car to arrive on set in a timely manner. But by the time we returned home at three in the morning and I’d tucked Emerald into bed, dealt with all the e-mails and phone messages, and organized my to-do list for the next day, it was eight in the morning. I’d collapse into bed comatose only to be woken at eleven by Emerald or, more often than not, someone who wanted something from Emerald. The demands seemed to keep com-ing and I was supposed to be her Great Wall of China. It was endless:

another magazine cover, publicity for her last movie, endorsements, fan mail. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of Emerald Everhart.

I was starting to understand why celebrities lost touch with reality. The sifters, like me, were necessary to allow a star to have any kind of normal life, but that was the catch-22. By sifting out all the humdrum annoyances and realities of real life, it was nearly impossible to remain grounded no matter how hard I imagined they tried. And even worse were the sycophants. They seemed to spring up in every nook and cranny wanting to be friends with Emerald in hopes that some of her celebrity would rub off on them. And not a single one of these new
friends
would tell Emerald a word of truth. If she asked the wardrobe assistant, Kelly, a new friend, what she thought of a pair of shoes she owned, Kelly would first gauge how Emerald felt about them and then just confirm Emerald’s opinion. So when Emerald asked my opinion and my answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear, she’d canvass the sycophants and use them to prove me wrong. Which was incredibly infuri-ating as the ass kissing was rampant from Kathy and Fred all the way down to the PA at the production office.

I’d always thought it was pathetic that all the stars seemed to be best friends with their assistants, but the longer I worked for Emerald the more sense it made. Before you took a job for a star, you had to sign a confidentiality agreement, so no selling their story to
Star Magazine.
The assistant was a safe haven in potentially shark-infested waters. I mean, even family members couldn’t be counted on. Another reason Emerald was in a bad mood this week, besides the plethora of greens, was because she’d received bad news from her lawyers. Her mother had been trying to publish a book called,
My Precious Gem: Emerald Everhart’s Most Embarrassing Moments.
Emerald had managed to get a temporary injunction halting the publication, but the court upheld her mother’s right to publish and the book was coming out next month. Needless to say they no longer spoke. So it made sense to befriend your assistant if you were in Em’s position; as you were already paying them, they were legally prohibited from spilling your deepest darkest secrets, and they were with you at all times, since, as a busy actor, you spend half your life away from home. But it was certainly no walk in the park trying to navigate the minefield of being the hired best friend.

I walked into Emerald’s villa, grabbed a plate from the kitchen, and divied up the sprouts between us both, then wandered out to the pool. I found her lying in the sun on a chaise.

“ ’Morning, Emerald!” I tried to sound cheery, though the look on her face was anything but. She didn’t respond, just glanced up at me holding the two plates of sprouts and turned back to her copy of
People.
“I’ve got your sprouts, cooked just how you like them.” I put one plate next to her right hand and stood there like a drug dealer at an elementary school. “Don’t you want to even try one? You must be hungry. Look, I’m eating mine. Yum.” I stuck one in my mouth and struggled not to gag.

I should have just dropped off the sprouts and left the building, but I wanted to see her eat at least a few of them. I hadn’t seen a sprout cross her lips in twenty-four hours. I was getting concerned that I had forced her to join the Rexy files as she was losing weight at an enormously rapid rate.

“Come on, Emerald, you have to eat if you’re going to have the strength to perform.”

She turned to me in defiance, picked up the plate, and sent it flying like a Frisbee right into the pool. Great, I thought. I got out of bed for nothing. I watched the sprouts bob up and down in her private plunge pool and all I could think of was how they were going to get stuck in the filter.

“I’m supposed to be a POW, Lizzie. Imagine what my character Betsy ate? Probably zilch. I’m method acting. Can you order me some green tea ice cream from Nobu in LA and have them send it over? That’s part of the green diet, right?” She looked at me challengingly as I absentmindedly stuffed another sprout in my mouth. But somehow I couldn’t chew it. It just sat there whole, polluting my tongue as I stared blankly at Emerald.

I’d lost all ability to react. She could shrivel up and die at my feet and all I’d be able to produce was the vacant expression that was on my face now. I had been surviving on no sleep and Brussels sprouts for ten days, and this was supposed to be my day off. It was Sunday and I had been dragged out of bed to force sprouts down the throat of this horror. A strange noise escaped from my mouth, a mix between a snort and a sneeze, and out popped the Brussels sprout, hitting Emerald right between the eyes. It wasn’t intentional, but I certainly found it funny. I tried desperately to hold in my laughter, but I just couldn’t control my-self. I was far too exhausted. I picked up my plate of Brussels sprouts and dumped them in the pool with hers, all the while hysterically laughing. Emerald watched me like I was an escapee from the loony bin, and if there’d been a qualified professional around that’s probably where I would have ended up.

“Emerald,” I choked out between bouts of hysterical giggles, “you’re right. This diet is foul. It’s my day off.” I was now just plain snorting like some bizarre pig on speed. “And I’m going to the beach.” Then I turned around and left the villa.

My stomach hurt from my bout of hysteria, but I felt an enormous weight lifted from my shoulders at the thought of spending an Emerald-free twenty-four hours. I walked into my gorgeous grass hut and slipped into one of my fabulous bikinis. I’d spent a week’s pay on three to-die- for bits of cloth under the delusion that I’d be spending half my time getting native. But the only action they’d seen was when I ran out of clean bras and wore one under my clothes to the set one evening. And thanks to Emerald’s diet, I was looking pretty good in my bikini and I didn’t even mind that my pasty white legs were covered in their usual mysterious bruises. I’d lost ten pounds and they happened to be the ten pounds I’d been trying to lose since I hit puberty. I packed a little bag, slipped on a sarong and my favorite fruit-covered flip-flops, and off I went to explore. I’d grab a ride into Phuket and maybe catch a boat to PhiPhi Island. I remembered seeing
The Man With the Golden Gun
as a kid and dreaming of going to that tropical paradise. And here I was on my day off just a boat ride away. Maybe if I talked to enough backpack-ers, they could tell me where the mythical “beach” was.

I managed to get about ten feet from my front door when a very helpful man in a lovely pressed-white outfit approached me and offered me the most comfortable looking sun lounger I’d ever seen. It beckoned me like a temptress and I followed him dumbly toward the lone chair. It was perfectly positioned all by itself in the shade under a palm tree. I settled myself onto the clean white towel and kicked off my flip-flops. Then I made the fatal error of ordering myself a large rum cocktail. It arrived innocuously enough dressed in fruit and umbrellas and went

down so smoothly I felt the need to order another. But by the time the second arrived, I was off with the fairies. I hadn’t had anything to drink in a month, and losing ten pounds and missing two weeks’ sleep had made me an official lightweight.

I woke to someone unlatching my bikini top and rubbing lotion into the skin on my back. I was still in a daze and it felt so good I just couldn’t possibly resist. Still technically in a dream state, I imagined that it was Luke who gently caressed my shoulders and that I wasn’t really taking care of a teen monster in Thailand. I rewound the clock to the moment in the car when he’d been about to propose. And instead of being the slightly neurotic girl that I am, I was normal and secure in his love and adoration for me. And now we were in Thailand on our honeymoon and we were bliss-fully in love. We were going to live happily every after and have the six kids we’d both always wanted. Well, I’d wanted three and he’d wanted six, but for the sake of my fantasy I gave him everything
he’d
dreamed of. I’d al-most succeeded in deluding myself and was making embarrassingly plea-surable little moans under the masculine hands of Luke when the person hooked my bikini top back up and literally snapped the strap with a painful crack against my skin. I sat up and turned around furious, confused and wide awake, only to be faced with Chris, the guy from the set who had saved Emerald. I’d seen him zip by running his crew almost every day since, but he’d made no effort to speak to me and I’d generally assumed that he had no idea who I was. He was the key grip, the guy in charge of every piece of machinery on the set from a sandbag to the scaffolding and happened to own it all as well. He had a team of about fifteen men that physically would set up every shot Ken wanted to make. I was about to yell at him, but all my ferocity drained from my body as he just stood there smiling at me with an annoyingly sexy little grin.

“What are you doing?” was all I brilliantly managed to get out. “Obviously something right since you were clearly enjoying it.”

“I thought ...I thought . . .” What had I thought? That it was Luke? I certainly couldn’t say
that.
Chris did the gallant thing and saved me.

“Lizzie, I was only teasing. I tried to wake you but you weren’t budging.” He nodded his head at my empty cocktail glass and the second full one sitting there wilted in the sun.

“It’s my day off,” I said defensively, still completely disoriented.

“Listen, I wasn’t passing judgment. If I had to do your job, I’d have a flask of whiskey on me at all times. Actually, I do anyway.” He smiled again, putting me at ease.

I took a deep breath and turned over, but as I leaned back against the chair I screamed in pain.

“Jesus. Owww!” I howled.

“That’s why I was trying to wake you. Your back is the color of a lobster and not when they’re nice and happy floating in the tank.”

“But I was under the palm tree in the shade,” I said dumbly, noticing that the shadow of the palm tree was now a good five feet to my right. “Ah yes. The earth moves,” I said. Trying not to seem like a complete idiot.

“Oh, so you felt that, too?” Chris said with an absolutely straight face. Whatever wits I was starting to recover went out the window.

“Your face is even redder than your back now,” he said calmly.

Unable to come up with a response I jumped up from the chaise. “I’m going for a swim.” I marched into the water with such purpose and speed that I stepped on a shell. I tried to ignore it, but my limp was obvious as I hobbled farther out. Though my foot was throbbing, the cool sea was relieving my singed skin. I closed my eyes and disappeared under the wa-ter, holding my breath, letting the cool saltiness wash away my mortification. I hoped if I stayed under long enough I’d reemerge and Chris would be gone and I could continue with my day of solitary pleasure. I could no longer hold my breath, so I launched up to the sky above. I was gasping for air and couldn’t help but smile at the exhilaration. And happily when I looked to the beach, there was no Chris in sight.

“If it’s bleeding you should probably let me look at it,” I heard a voice from behind me say. I swung around and there was Chris watching me from a few feet deeper in the water. I had no idea how he got past me without me seeing, but he certainly looked good with that messy thatch of wavy black hair glistening around his brown face. And once again he seemed to take the words right out of my mouth.

“Before you think I’m stalking you, I just want to explain that I was concerned for your well-being. You have a sunburn, you’ve been drinking, you haven’t slept, and I’ll bet that was a pretty sharp shell you stepped on when you were running away from me. Though you did handle the pain remarkably gracefully.”

At that I started to laugh.

“Well, I’m used to it. I spend my days taking pain gracefully. I had to have dinner with Ken and Emerald last night.” The ice was broken and we both just stood there bobbing in the water.

“I’m Chris Hanson,” he said as we shook hands.

“I know who you are. You own all the equipment and are willing to take it all and get back on a plane to LA.” I quoted his outburst to Ken. For once it was Chris’s turn to be at a loss for words. And it felt much better to have the shoe on the other foot, as it were.

“Well, I don’t usually lose my temper like that. But that guy was behaving like a real fucking ass and I’d had enough.”

“So you’re into saving damsels in distress?” Oh I
was
warming up.

“I like distress but I like the damsels even more when I have an ex-cuse to remove their bikini tops in their sleep.”

I hit the water, intentionally splashing him in the face. “Think you need to cool off there, mister.” I laughed.

“I wasn’t the one moaning,” he said. I couldn’t believe this guy. He was outrageous. I hadn’t had this much fun flirting in ages. I’d forgotten how thrilling it was.

“Be careful, if your ego inflates any more you might not be able to dive under the water. Anyway, I was dreaming and it wasn’t about you.” “I’ll just have to change that then,” he said as he picked me out of the

water like a feather and tossed me over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I screamed as my bikini started to do a persistent crawl up my backside. “Put me down!” But he was already stomping out of the water.