The First Assistant (39 page)

As I took my last-martini-before-certain-arrest from a nearby waiter, I found myself suddenly on the periphery of a group of people, one of whom was an old client of The Agency. She spotted me at once.

“Elizabeth, right?” she asked. “Hi, Jessica.” I smiled.

The group of four people surrounding her looked curious for a mo-ment, she was after all a Hollywood doyenne, until she added, “Elizabeth was my agent’s assistant.” Then all their interest beat a hasty retreat. I smiled politely and was about to try to make my escape when it seemed I’d arrived in the middle of a story. And a tragic one at that.

“I was just saying that I’m feeling terrible today.” Jessica, who was more renowned as a star with a constellation of husbands than as a great actress, was clearly channeling Laurence Olivier tonight, because the emotion was almost heartfelt. “Last night I got a phone call at midnight telling me that my oldest, dearest friend, Patrick, had died of a heart attack.”

“Poor you.” The man beside her touched her arm.

“No warning, just dropped dead.” She choked back a tear. “Was he in the business?” someone else asked.

“He was a director.” Jessica sniffled.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And while the group all looked mournful, I made my excuses and ran toward the cloakroom, where Lara was gathering her coat.

“Ready?” she asked as she dropped a couple of dollar bills into the cloakroom attendant’s dish.

“Wait, we don’t have to go.” I almost skidded across the floor and stopped a few inches from her face.

“What do you mean? You’re not going to tell me how much you love Jason again, are you? Because this isn’t about Jason, it’s now about that strumpet Carmen in there who just asked me when my next baby is due,” Lara sneered.

“No, no. I have a great idea,” I said.

“Yes?” Lara tried in vain to make her coat buttons meet their but-tonholes.

“Jessica has a friend who died last night of a heart attack,” I said, as if this was all the information that Lara would need.

“Yes?” She squinted at me.

“I thought that the dead guy might have been invited to the
Vanity Fair
party, and if he was, then maybe we can ask Jessica if I could have his ticket,” I blurted out without taking a breath.

“You what?” Lara was looking at me as if I was mad.

“Well, he’s dead. I’m sure he wouldn’t want his ticket to go to waste,” I said, my shoulders suddenly sinking. It had seemed like a good idea a minute ago; Jessica liked me, she’d have been sympathetic to my plight if I’d told her. But then again maybe not.

I delved into my bag instead and rifled through it to find my cloakroom ticket. It was only when Lara dashed off to say good-bye to Scott that I sensed that I wasn’t alone. That someone was standing close be-hind me. I turned around and saw Luke Lloyd standing with his arms folded, resting against the wall, watching me intently, looking painfully beautiful. I scrolled back over the last thirty seconds in my mind. He hadn’t heard me talking about taking the dead man’s ticket had he? Please God.
I will never again even contemplate profiting from another’s misfortune.
Luke smiled and raised his eyebrow knowingly.

“If you want to go to the party that badly, I’d be happy to take you.”

Twenty-three

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a firefly and still have enough room for three caraway seeds and a producer’s heart.

—Fred Allen

It had taken all my powers of persuasion, not to mention a modicum of emotional blackmail, to persuade Luke that he should be my date for the Award Ceremony.

“It’s the least I can do,” I told him on the phone the next morning, as I had my toenails buffed, for free, in the Beauty Boudoir at the Chateau Marmont. “You’re taking me to the
Vanity Fair
party, so I’ll take you to the awards.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll just meet you at Morton’s afterward,” Luke said in a measured voice. I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark. He had, after all, merely saved me from the jaws of potentially one of the worst cases of Oscar Fever that Hollywood might ever have seen. It wasn’t as if he’d asked me on a date, I had to keep reminding myself.

“Sure. I understand,” I said, backing off. “I just wanted to reciprocate the favor.” Did that sound impartial enough, I wondered?

“It’s not that I don’t want to come, just that, well . . .” Luke was struggling to remain diplomatic.

“You have a girlfriend?” I asked, almost kicking the pedicurist in the teeth, I was so cross that the question had slipped out of my mouth.

“It’s possibly the most boring ceremony on earth,” Luke informed me. “No!” I was incredulous. My pedicurist was mutinous.

“Darling, I’m afraid so.” Luke sounded instantly guilty for popping my bubble. “But hey, I mean, you’re nominated. It’s never going to be boring if you’re nominated.”

“I know.” I sighed as quietly as possible. “I just thought that you might want to share the night with me because it’s . . . well, it’s my big night. . . . But then why would you? I mean, it’s really kind of you to take me to the party but... it’s not as if I’m a part of your life or anything anymore, is it?” I added, with no desire to manipulate. It was the plain truth. And I don’t think I’d told Luke the truth in a while. The pedicurist forgave me and added an extra topcoat because I was so pitiful.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Luke finally conceded.

“I don’t want you to be bored,” I protested, hiding my elation.

“I’ll be fascinated from start to finish,” Luke promised sweetly. “I’ll even stay awake for foreign makeup artist and best Russian animation.”

I wanted to say, “I love you,” but instead I said, “Thank you.”

Of course I was a long way off from being certain that anything was go-ing to happen between Luke and me. Clearly he’d forgiven me for my vile lies about Emanuelle and clearly he wasn’t married to her, or even going out with her anymore. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t dating up a storm with a hundred other women like Amazing Grace. And most significantly, it didn’t mean that he wanted me to be his girlfriend ever again, even if he lived to be 148. But no matter how tenuous our date was, and how likely it was to be based solely on goodwill to all nominees, just like the free salt scrub I was about to receive, I was still excited, and suddenly longing to look my best tonight, not for the billion viewers but for Luke Lloyd.

When Luke arrived at the door of the guesthouse that afternoon I looked quite
Sunset Boulevard.
Someone named Kevin had put so much makeup on me in the Beauty Boudoir that I might as well have been wearing a burka, the real me was so obscured from view. Kevin had instructed me that three inches of foundation was obligatory if I didn’t want to look washed-out under the lights. When I opened my door it was all I could hope that Luke didn’t think I was washed-up.

“Lizzie.” He kissed me politely on the cheek and stood back for the full effect. “You look . . . lovely.”

“Do you have a flashlight?” I asked as I smoothed the satin of my dress self-consciously over my hips.

“No. Why?” He was still, understandably, a bit cautious of me. I had, after all, murdered his cat and vomited a diamond on his doorstep.

“Well, you need one to see how I’m supposed to look, I think,” I explained. “Apparently it’ll all make sense under tungsten lamps.”

“Can’t wait.” He laughed. “So have you lived here since ... ?” “Since we broke up?” I filled in the blank. “Yeah. Lara and Scott have

been great, but it’s a little small.” I flung my arm out to illustrate my point and bashed my hand on the wardrobe door.

“I’m surprised you didn’t get a place of your own,” Luke said, doubtless taking in the fact that I ate all my meals with Lara and the baby and every time I wanted to so much as buy a newspaper I had to walk through their house.

“It’s a bit retarded, I admit, but I do have a deposit on a place by the beach, it’s just not ready yet,” I said as I fixed the clasp on my purse and took a final look at what was supposed to be me, but in fact seemed to be someone else, in the mirror.

“Are you still in the same place?” I asked Luke as he smiled appreciatively at me.

“I’m in a very different place, actually.” He winked. “And for the record, you look amazing.”

“Really?” I was genuinely surprised. It had been such a long time since a man noticed the way I looked. Jason certainly had only ever noticed the way other women looked.

“Yes.” Luke nodded. “And I’m proud to be accompanying a real-life Oscar nominee to the party.”

“Oh God, I am, aren’t I?” I realized for the four thousandth time, but was still unable to take in the fact. I took Luke’s arm as I navigated the cracks in the garden path.

“I’d sell my soul to Beelzebub for a nomination,” Luke said as he slowed down to my tortoise-in-a-tight-dress-and-five-inch-heels pace.

“You’ve never been nominated?” I asked. “That’s so weird cause it feels as if you should have been. I mean you’re so important and influ-ential and.. .”

“We’re not going to start that again, are we?” Luke grimaced mis-chievously as we walked through the house. There was no sign of Lara or Scott so I assumed that Lara was putting Lachlan down for a nap and Scott was blow-drying his hair before they went off to watch the ceremony at a party at George’s house.

“Wow, I’d almost forgotten how sore I used to feel about how people never took notice of me when you were around. Maybe I’ll get my own back tonight.” I nudged him as I gracelessly got into the waiting limo. Luke had driven over in his station wagon and the car I ordered a month ago was waiting outside, which made me feel more princesslike than I’d ever felt in my life.

“Ah, that’s why you wanted me to come? In fact, is that why you got yourself nominated? Because revenge is a dish best served cold and you wanted me to come along and suffer the way you suffered when we were together?” He laughed as he climbed in beside me.

I looked at Luke when he said this and felt an unidentifiable sensation in my stomach. This man and I used to “be together.” We used to share the same bed and cook dinner for each other and go to the market together and I used to put his dirty laundry in the washing machine and we used to ar-gue and share secrets. And now I didn’t know him. I had gone from knowing what he did almost every hour of every day to not knowing whether he’d been to the moon and back in the last six months. I felt decidedly nauseous. I think because I knew immediately that I still loved him.

Even though I thought that Luke and I had left plenty of time to get to the Kodak Theatre and it was a Sunday evening, I hadn’t anticipated just how many people were heading to the Academy Awards. As we drove along Highland, we suddenly found ourselves bumper-to-bumper in a limo jam. So in an attempt to pass the time without discussing “our relationship,” and a bid to stave off the fear that we actually might miss the entire ceremony due to traffic, we reached into the underwhelming Oscar box in the back of our car and found some warm champagne to pass the time.

“You’re not allowed to get drunk, though,” Luke informed me as he filled my plastic champagne flute to the very brim.

“Why not?” I took a sip and the bubbles made my eyes water. “Just the small matter of a speech if you win.”

“I’m not going to win.” I laughed. “Anyway, it’s Jason’s movie and Ja-son’s speech. I don’t get to say anything.”

“If you win and don’t say a word your parents are going to disown you. And so will I,” he said firmly.

“Thanks, now you’ve just added a whole new level of fear to my day. Not only might I trip on my dress or go into a trance and get up and collect the award for Best Actor by mistake, but now I have to speak in front of a billion people. Honestly, why do people actually want to win awards?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Just say thank you to the Academy and thank you to the team,” Luke said. “As long as you don’t go into the list of dead relatives and grade-school teachers, you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you to the Academy and thank you to the team?” I asked du-biously. Then, after some hard thought, I said, “No, it’s too long. I’ll never remember it.”

Half an hour later, after polishing off the better part of a bottle of champagne, we finally drew up outside the theater.

“Identification please, miss,” the heat-packing security guard who opened our car door demanded before we’d even emerged into the afternoon sunshine. Luke and I handed over our IDs and stepped out of the car. So much for a smooth vehicular exit, a stroll down the red carpet amid the flashbulbs of the paparazzi. In fact we barely got to walk on anything other than sidewalk. The red carpet was reserved for the stars and TV presenters of all denominations and hair color and we were constantly ushered out of the way of people we hadn’t heard of since the John Hughes movies of our childhood; the so-called paparazzi flashbulbs were in fact simply fake flashes of light to make the whole thing look more glamorous to TV viewers, because only a very select few photographers were granted entrance to the inner sanctum for security reasons. Then, when we finally reached the door of the theater without seeing a single star or being adored by a single fan, we were subjected to metal detectors, sniffer dogs, and body searches. After which we were plunged into the dark cavity of the theater foyer, away from flashbulbs, stars, and any other form of light.

Luke and I had been planning to meet up with Jason and Carmen in the foyer but as we circulated we became so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of famous faces that we started to feel as if we were just wandering around Madame Tussauds wax museum on a rainy New York Saturday afternoon.

“Shall we just go in and take our seats?” I asked Luke as we passed Robin Williams for the eighteenth time and the security guards probably put out an APB to watch out for “those two people who nobody has a clue who they are.”

“We’re going to be sitting down for three hours as it is,” Luke said skeptically.

Thankfully, we didn’t have to make that decision because the next moment we ran into Jason.

“Hey guys,” he said. “How are you doing? Not too nervous, huh, Lizzie?” I was surprised that Jason wasn’t his usual nervous, monosyl-labic self, in fact, seeing him was just the boost I was looking for. I suddenly felt that compared to him I had nothing to be worried about. Best case scenario, I wasn’t going to have to make three acceptance speeches tonight and worst case scenario, I wasn’t going to be nominated three times and win nothing. Either way, I was in the money. Also, no matter what happened, he was my partner in crime and we were in this together.