The First Assistant (6 page)

When the movie finished Jason still stared numbly ahead. There was

a shuffle in the audience as people stood up, found their jackets, kicked over their empty Coke cups, and made their exit. I had expected rap-turous applause and standing ovations. In fact, I’d begun to clap myself when the end credits rolled, but it sounded so lame that I hastily turned it into a winter’s day–type hand rub.

“Let’s go and talk about it outside,” I said cheerily to Jason.

“I need a cigarette,” he said without moving his lips. I looked around for the BlackBerry-bearing studio executive whose cue it was to come racing toward us with promises of unprecedented marketing spends and Academy Award nominations, but he was pacing by the fire exit on his cell. I tugged Jason to his feet, hoping he wouldn’t notice how resoundingly he was being ignored by the powers-that-be and marched him through the audience, for whom normal life had resumed already.
Sex Addicts in Love
hadn’t seemed to alter their lives in any way whatsoever.

Once we were safely secreted away in Ben and Jerry’s on the City Walk, I gave Jason an unreciprocated hug.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much I loved it,” I said truthfully. “It was so beautiful, so inspiring, absolutely everything that I always knew it would be.”

“Diet Coke,” Jason said to the girl behind the counter without even scanning the list. “Grande.”

“I’ll have a raspberry ripple smoothie,” I said, ordering the first thing I saw on the board. “And the casting was genius.”

“They hated it,” he said flatly.

“They aren’t the people who matter.” “Everyone was supposed to love it.”

“They will. But you can’t expect people who come to test screenings to love a movie about a dysfunctional kid from New Jersey who has an affair with his stepmother,” I told him.

“I need fresh air,” Jason said as he pulled his Marlboro Reds from his pocket and headed outside. I scurried after him with our drinks and followed him back toward the movie theater, where he took up residence by a concrete pillar.

“You’ve got to believe me, Jase, it was an incredible movie.” And for the first time since the movie began, Jason looked as if he’d heard what

I said. He turned his head halfway toward me and examined me out of the corner of his eye,

“Really?” he asked quietly.

“I promise.” I leaped overenthusiastically at the breakthrough. I couldn’t bear him being depressed like this, especially as his film wasn’t bad. It was brilliant. “I really thought that it was . . .” I was about to launch into superlatives when a guy walked in the door.

“Did you just see that movie about sex addicts?” he asked, as though he recognized us from the milling throng.

“Yes,” Jason said and stood to attention, animated for the first time all day.

“Me too,” the guy said as he lit his own cigarette and took a painfully long inhale, during which time empires must have risen and fallen for Jason.

“What did you think?” Jason asked eventually, in what he clearly thought was a measured way but in reality made him sound a little like a psychopath.

“I thought it was a piece of shit,” the guy said plainly. Jason and I stared at him, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what he’d just said. I wanted to tear his cigarette from his fingers and stub it out on his tongue. Jason just blinked.

Later, after our sixth whiskey each at St. Nicks, a dark dive bar on Third, Jason’s eyes began to focus again. Until now they’d been glazed and stared longingly ahead at the innumerable bottles of hard liquor be-hind the bar.

“The thing is, you can’t expect a guy like him to know what he’s talking about. This is an Academy Award–winning movie, Jason. I know it.” “No, it’s not; it’s a piece of shit. That’s what it’ll say on the posters if

it ever gets released. Which it won’t, but it would if it did. From the director of that piece of shit,
Sex Addicts in Love.
”

“Every genius is misunderstood,” I said flatly as I waved my arm in the air to indicate to the bartender that he should bring us another round.

“Not driving are you, honey?” the campy guy asked as if he was my mother.

“Oooh no, I’m not driving. I can’t even find my legs, let alone my car,”

I reassured him. “Will you just call us a cab when the time comes?” I slurred.

“Right. I’ll call one now, then.” He nodded pertly and promptly went over to his phone.

“Asssshhhhole,” I told Jason. “If I want to get blind drunk, then I will. My best friend is in trouble.” And as I said this, Jason turned to me and looked at me as if for the first time in his life.

“Oh my God, Lizzie. That’s it,” he said. “What’s it?”

“You’re my best friend. I’m yours. You’re the most loyal girl in the world. And you’re beautiful. And.. .”

“Whoa there, Jase the Ace. I have a boyfriend,” I reminded him primly.

“No, I don’t wanna fuck you,” he said as an appalled look flashed across his face.

“Oh.” I deflated.

“I wanna make you a producer on my movie.” His eyes shone in the seedy darkness.

“Again?” I asked.

“Yes. Again. And again and again,” he said as the bartender arrived with our check and looked quite jealous at what Jason was planning to do to me. Four times.

“Your cab’s waiting,” the bartender said curtly as Jason handed over a wedge of cash.

“The Agency, please,” Jason said to the driver as we clambered into the waiting cab. “On Beverly.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “I don’t have to be at work un-til tomorrow morning.”

“What time does Katherine Watson finish work?” he asked me as we closed the cab doors and sped along Third.

“Late.” I shrugged vaguely. “Exactly.”

“Lizzie, I should have known all along that you were my champion and that to capriciously kick you off this movie would be bad karma for the project.”

“Oh come on, Jason, I don’t mind one bit,” I said as we arrived outside The Agency and Jason threw yet more cash at the driver and pulled me through the front doors of the building. It felt very weird arriving at my place of work, not just at nine
P
.
M
. but also smashed. And it wasn’t until the elevator doors opened on my very floor that I suddenly started to panic.

“I can’t get out,” I said as Jason tugged at my arm. “I have business to do,” he barked.

“Jason. No.” I dug my feet into the ground like a mule, so in the end he had to drag me bodily along the carpet.

“Come on, baby.”

“It’s okay for you. You’re a director, you can get away with being hammered and behaving weirdly. I’m an assistant here.”

“Not anymore, darling girl. You’re a producer,” Jason said triumphantly as we careered through the door of Katherine’s office.

“Jason. Elizabeth. Come in.” Katherine rose from her seat, resplen-dent in a DVF wrap dress, smiled and shook our hands as if she’d invited us to tea and we’d arrived with cream cakes and a bunch of sweetpeas. That was the thing about Katherine Watson—she was so unflappable that I couldn’t bear to be in her presence. It made me feel so ruffled and useless and unpoised that I wanted to shoot myself. Being drunk in her presence was unimaginably horrible. Even Jason was shamed into sobering up somewhat and hitching his jeans above his butt crack.

“Katherine, we just stopped by because I’d like to make an amendment to the credits of
Sex Addicts
if that’s okay?” he said.

“Well, let’s see, shall we? Why don’t you both take a seat?” Katherine went to her computer and began to look things up. I took the farthest seat from her in case she caught a whiff of my whiskey breath, not that my bloodshot eyes and mangled hair weren’t a giveaway that I was plas-tered. “It’ll depend on the studio somewhat, and the nature of the deal, but since you have sole producer credit, I think we’ll be able to arrange that for you. Who’s your lawyer?” she asked.

“Karl Austen.” Jason was now sitting upright like an obedient schoolboy.

“Good, I’ll get him on the phone. Hold on,” Katherine said. How she managed to make it to the end of the day with her hair still attached to her head, let alone wearing a dash of lipstick and immaculate mascara,

I had no clue. Having Scott as my business partner would certainly have made me tear my hair out.

As Katherine talked business with Jason’s lawyer, I made the mistake of closing my eyes for a moment. Seconds later I was spinning ever faster, around and around in my head. I opened my eyes and saw the room was still in the same place.

“I’ve got the spins,” I whispered to Jason, who now seemed to be engaged in a serious discussion with Katherine about back-ends and ceil-ings and bonuses. Or they could have been discussing what their grannies gave them for their birthdays, for all I could tell.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth, what was that?” Katherine looked at me expectantly, as if I were about to announce the reinvention of the wheel.

“So we’re all agreed that this is not a financial amendment?” she asked. “Oh, that all sounds just fine to me,” I improvised. She looked relieved.

“Okay. And Jason. You’re happy with all this? I’ll call the studio in the morning to okay it, and we can get the paperwork to you tomorrow, if so. Karl said he’d expedite it. Obviously with screenings going on at the moment, you’ll want to get Elizabeth’s name in lights sooner rather than later.” She began to stand up, her charming way of ushering us like dust balls from her office so she could get on with some real work for clients who weren’t drunken retards. “Then Elizabeth can share all the glory.” She smiled sweetly. God, could it really be that she didn’t have a bad bone in her perfect body?

“Exactly,” Jason said, with a tone in his voice that I began to recognize as my haze of alcohol burned off with the heat of shame.

Jason was being devious. I knew how he acted when he was doing something sly—after all, I’d witnessed it many times as his erstwhile— and now it seemed, reinstated—producing partner. I’d seen him use and abuse a few people along the way. And now it dawned on me what he was doing: He didn’t want to share the glory with me, he wanted to share the blame. He wanted someone to be by his side and suffer, too. “Thanks for your time, Katherine. We gotta have that lunch sometime soon,” Jason said, kissing her on both cheeks.

“We will. And Elizabeth, see you in the morning.”

“Yesshhhh,” I said as I tried to slide away unnoticed down the hallway. This was the last time I was getting drunk with Jason Blum—bad things always happened.

The next morning, I woke up and found Jason in bed next to me. I hastily closed my eyes again and replayed the evening. But before I could scream or remember details of our lurid sex games, there was a loud yawn next to me,

“It’s okay, sweetie, nothing happened. You got a little vomitty, so I brought you home, tucked you in, and fell asleep myself.”

“Yuck, I’m sorry,” I said as I felt my body to see what I was wearing and found I still had on every bit of clothing I’d set out for work in yesterday—even my pantyhose. I grimaced.

“Least I could do. You were there in my hour of need,” Jason began. “Oh yeah, about that credit for producer,” I said with a sheet over my

mouth in case I smelled as toxic as I felt.

“Don’t mention it,” Jason said as he stretched out in Luke’s place. “No, really, I mean, I’m flattered but I wouldn’t feel comfortable. I

really didn’t do much more than develop it for you. I was just a second-rate, unqualified D-girl.”

“It’s okay, you’re not getting paid or anything. You probably don’t remember, but we agreed on a nominal credit only.”

“Oh, I see.” I nodded. Jason really had covered himself. He could tell the world that it was my producing that was lousy, and I didn’t even get paid to be blamed—sounded like a great deal. Though I still adhered to the view that it was a great film, so I wasn’t going to protest too much. As it was I didn’t get to protest at all, because when I looked out over the sheet I saw the thunderous face of Mrs. Mendes staring down on me. She was the maid who used to darn Luke’s socks before I came along and threw the holey ones away and replaced them with new ones

from Neiman Marcus.

“Oh, Mrs. Mendes. Good morning,” I said as I visualized the scene from where she was standing—me, the slatternly new girlfriend who’d replaced her beloved Emanuelle in Mr. Luke’s bed, in bed with someone who wasn’t Mr. Luke. “This is my friend Jason,” I said, as if it might make the whole thing better.

“It’s none of my business who he is.” She spun on her heels on the shiny parquet floor and marched out of the room with her nose in the air.

“That’s okay, baby,” Jason said as I jumped up from my bed after her to explain. “She’ll never tell him. She’ll just shrink your cashmere and burn holes in your favorite skirts,” Jason said with surprising perspicacity.

“Really?” I stopped in my tracks and slid halfway across the room in my stocking feet.

“Sure. You’ll just have to do your own laundry from now on. It’s a small price to pay not to get found out.”

“But I haven’t done anything,” I protested.

“We could if it would make you feel better.” Jason winked at me. Had he always been such a flirt or was this a by-product of success, I wondered? He got out of bed and stood in front of the bedroom window stark naked. But before I could warn him that Mrs. Mendes was now noisily sweeping the veranda outside the bedroom window, it was too late. She’d seen all she didn’t need to see.

“Shit,” Jason said as she dropped her broom in horror and vanished from sight.

“You might want to cut off the phone lines, though, so she can’t call Luke and share the good news.”

Four

Hollywood is like life. You face it with the sum total of your equipment.

—Joan Crawford

“May I speak to Luke Lloyd, please?” I asked the woman who’d answered my boyfriend’s cell phone.

“Hold a moment, please,” she said. I thought the whole point of cell phones was that when you called your boyfriend at midnight his time and three
P
.
M
. your time, he’d answer it. It seemed that I was wrong. There was an interminable crackle and some thudding noises.