The First Assistant (9 page)

“Great.” I nodded and picked up a packet of wipes. “And these?” “These are for use after a long day in the office. Before that special

date.”

“Okay.” I stared at the label. There was a small triangle-shaped logo. “I love your range,” I said to Nathalie as she came up beside me

clutching her glass of water.

“I’m so glad,” she said. “I really think there’s such a gap in the mar-ket. Don’t you?” But before I could answer she had moved on. “I’m go-ing to make my speech now.”

“Good luck,” I said, and stood back a few paces as she took the stage. “Okay, listen up, girls.” Nathalie was suddenly addressing what must have been at least a hundred of her closest friends and the occasional imposter, like myself. I saw Katherine Watson at the back, looking riveted. “Tonight is the launch of my new range of products.”

“Go, Nathalie!” one of the other cheerleaders chirped from the back. “LovelyLab is my pride and joy.” She smiled. I tried to move out of the way but couldn’t get by without making a commotion and stepping on the goody bags that littered the floor beside me. Shit. I wanted to exit stage left but was trapped. “I’ve been working on it for the last year and I can honestly say that no purse is complete without my beautiful pink crocodile wallet of LovelyLab products.” There was the
pop pop
of flashbulbs at the back as the reporters and photographers from
InStyle
got to work. I secretly pouted and hung my head demurely so that I

wouldn’t ruin the photos entirely.

“I want one!” Another trusty friend of Nathalie’s piped up at the back. “Well, Daphne, you can have one.” Nathalie smiled. “As you know,

LovelyLab is for the intimate part of your anatomy, that gateway to heaven, your very own cutebox.” I heard a cough and looked up.

It was Lara who was on the verge of turning puce with surprise. “Ladies, we love our labia and we want to keep them as soft and pampered and sweet-smelling as possible. But soap and water won’t do. . . .” I suddenly tuned in and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I blushed to the roots of my hair as I thought about a roomful of women who possessed “cuteboxes.” I looked at Lara who was at the back and practically bent over double trying to stifle her giggles. Oh shit, I had to get out of here.

“If we don’t love our lovely labs then we can’t really expect anyone else to, now, can we?”

I picked my way between the lurid pink goody bags—the color alone was enough to give me Freudian nightmares swirling full of intimate bits—and wove my way to the bathroom door. Lara had gotten there be-fore me. We hurled ourselves into the bathroom and locked the door behind us.

“No wonder they’re all fucking divorced,” she said in a ten-decibel whisper. “They have cuteboxes!”

“No way. Oh my God, Lara, did you see me? I turned the same color as the goody bags—labia pink.”

“Can you believe the woman has a master’s in Oriental Studies? She’s fluent in Mandarin and used to run the Lit Department of the biggest agency in the world and she’s devoted herself to making the gateway to heaven smell sweet.”

“It’ll probably sell really well,” I had to admit.

“But she has money. Imagine her poor kids. Would your son want to be the heir to the LovelyLab fortune?” Lara sat on the side of the bath and lit a cigarette. “They’re really nice, though,” I said. “I mean in a creepy Bree Van De Kamp way.”

“I know. But I think we have to go.”

“Do we have to take a goody bag? If Mrs. Mendes finds mine, I’m in trouble,” I said.

“Hell, I’m taking three. I’m going to give them to my sisters for Christmas.” Lara dragged on her cigarette and exhaled into the toilet bowl in

case of smoke detectors. “Okay, we have to go out again. We’ll wait till the end of the cutebox congratulations and then make our escape.”

“Cool,” I said as Lara wafted the door a few times to ventilate after her cigarette.

Thankfully when we went back into the room the speech was over and a hundred women were handling little bottles and spraying LovelyLab’s signature fragrance, LoLa, everywhere. Lara and I coughed and spluttered a bit and made our way toward Nathalie to thank her for a great evening. But on our way we were accosted by Amber.

“Oh my God, Elizabeth. I can’t believe you’re here,” she said. I couldn’t believe
she
was there. When I was a Second Assistant the only thing I got invited to do was to go fuck myself by Scott. But as Katherine Watson was hovering behind her, I assumed that she’d come with her mentor.

“I’m Lara’s guest,” I said, in case everyone thought I was a gate-crasher. And thanks to Amber’s glass-shattering English accent, everyone was suddenly eavesdropping.

“No silly, I don’t mean that.” She reached into her handbag. “I just thought that with everything that had happened.. .”

“What are you talking about?” Lara asked suspiciously.

“Oh don’t get me wrong, I think you’re really brave,” she said and I felt as if I was being drowned in molasses. Amber didn’t suit sweetness any more than I suited a size two pair of Marc Jacobs hotpants. The next moment Nathalie appeared beside me and handed me another glass of champagne as if she were handing over the Nobel Prize.

“Oh honey, we heard what happened, and we want you to know that we all understand.”

“I’m not sure what you think . . .” I said, suddenly worrying that they were mistaking me for someone who had recently given birth to triplets without pain relief. Admittedly I looked tired and a little thick-waisted. “But I think you’ve got the wrong person.”

“You mean you haven’t seen
People
?” Amber asked as she fished the magazine from her purse. I squinted at it as she handed it over.

“Oh my God. She doesn’t know!” Nathalie said as I blindly turned the pages of
People,
looking for who knows what.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Lara suddenly stepped forward and grabbed the magazine from my shaking hands. “Amber?”

“It’s Luke Lloyd,” Amber confided with barely concealed delight. “He’s cheating on her with Emanuelle Saix.”

“What?” Lara snapped the magazine open.

“It’s on the front cover,” Amber helpfully pointed out.

“What the fuck?” Lara glared at the picture, that I now know so well—of Luke and Emanuelle on the broodingly romantic Charles Bridge, hand in hand and mouth to mouth. She in a long Cossack-style coat, her hair perfectly tousled, he in the sweater I bought him last Christmas. The headline read, hollywood couple seal rekindled love with a kiss. There was no denying it, though I wondered for an optimistic moment whether the Eastern European light might cast weird, unfaithful shadows.

“Honey, I totally understand. My husband left me for a two-bit-slut-of-an-actress, too.” Nathalie was consoling me as if she were my mother and new best friend rolled into one lifesaving package.

“All actresses are sluts,” another woman said from somewhere in the gathering, emoting crowd.

“Thanks ladies, it’s been a great evening, but I’m sure you’ll understand if Lizzie and I head home now.” Lara took the magazine from my numb grip and led me away.

“I’ll call you,” Nathalie said when we reached the door. “We’ll do lunch.” I didn’t have any words to answer her with, so I just blinked. “Oh, and don’t forget your goody bags,” she said, thrusting two in my direction. “You’ll need LovelyLab when you’re back on the market.”

“Okay, what’s his number?” Lara said as we climbed into her car and sat with the engine off until I learned to breathe again.

“I don’t ...I mean, I can’t ...I just . . .” was all the speech I could muster.

“Pass me your purse,” Lara said as she rifled at my feet, then managed to retrieve my cell phone. She turned on the light and began to run through my speed dial until she came across Luke. “Is this it?” she asked. I didn’t look. “I’m calling him, okay? Can you speak to him?”

“No.” I didn’t have the will to even shake my head.

“Sweetheart, you really need to hear his side of this before we go any farther. I mean, this photo”—she shook the copy of
People
that was still clenched in her fist—“it could be anything. We’re not going to believe it till we’ve spoken to Luke, okay?”

“Not okay,” I said as I stared blindly at the entry phone on the front of Nathalie’s building. “Let me see that picture.”

“I’m not saying he isn’t an asshole of the highest order, I’m just saying there’s a possibility that he has an explanation for this. And as we know Luke’s a good guy at heart, we’re not going to hang him just yet.”

“There is an explanation. He’s having an affair with Emanuelle,” I said. “You don’t know that.” Lara took off her jacket and put it over my

shoulders.

“I know there’s something going on. The other night he was with her and he pretended that he was speaking to someone else. And he’s still being nice but . . . well, you know he had the engagement ring. He must just have given it to her.”

“Honey, this isn’t Luke’s style. Just because he’s thousands of miles away, you can’t erase what he’s like from your memory.”

“I don’t know what his style is anymore. I’ve hardly seen him in months,” I said. Still, I hadn’t shed a single tear. I didn’t even feel pain; it was as if someone had taken an ice-cream scoop to my insides and removed everything.

“You should definitely call him.” Lara had her finger poised to dial Luke, but I couldn’t conceive of what I’d say to him. No words would come out.

“Will you call Scott for me?”

“Scott?” Lara looked quizzically at me.

“Please?” I said as I took the phone from her hand. “Why?”

“Hold on.” I had the phone in my hand and it was ringing. I knew that what I was about to do was not rational. It wasn’t emotionally healthy, either. But I’ve always been an ostrich when it comes to confrontation and I’d rather not face up to what I knew would be the heartbreaking truth from Luke, so I stuck my head into the sand and began to burrow.

“I thought you were with my wife?” Scott answered. He was clearly in a “bar” somewhere and I couldn’t exactly hear the sound of panties falling but I sensed they were.

“I am. She’s right here,” I said.

“Wassup, then?” Scott asked, probably losing his hard-on for the pretty stripper who was settling her G-string on his lap.

“You really want that car, don’t you?” “What car?”

“The Gullwing.”

“Sure I fucking do,” Scott replied, not grasping for a moment where this was all going.

“No way.” Lara tried to make a grab for the phone but I held on to it determinedly.

“Scott”—I shot her a warning look—“I want you to exchange me for the car. I want to go to Thailand and be Emerald’s assistant.” I said this with my eyes closed because I knew that what I was doing was wrong and that Lara would be furious with me.

“You cannot run away from this, Lizzie,” she said under her breath. “Can’t I?” I challenged her, then continued. “So what do you say,

Scott?”

“She’s going tomorrow. You know that?” Scott’s voice was laced with suspicion.

“I know,” I said.

“Well, what about the car? I mean, I’m not losing out on a day without you
and
the car. I want a straight exchange. You for Gully.” Typical agent.

“I’ll go to the office now and call Emerald. I’ll arrange for a temp to cover me and I’ll have the car in the garage at The Agency tomorrow morning at nine
A
.
M
. I won’t leave the country until you have the keys,” I promised.

“Shit, Lizzie,” Scott said with admiration. Clearly the lapdancer had gotten pissed and was now sitting sulking with her friend. “Have you al-ways been this efficient?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Well, what the fuck am I doing letting you go?” he asked. “In fact, you know I’m not even sure that I want to.”

“You’ve got Amber,” I reminded him hastily. “Oh, yeah. So I do.”

“And you’ll have a temp,” I told him. Lara was now practically doing voodoo on me to my left. I could hear her snorting with rage, but she couldn’t stop me because I wasn’t in control of my right mind, and she knew that. I was dangerously unpredictable and might bite her if she made a move to stop me.

“So I will. She’d better be cute.” Scott was no doubt smiling now, wondering whether one of the girls making out with the pole in front of him might be hot at typing as well as writhing. Lara had every right to hate me.

“Of course,” I said, hoping Lara hadn’t overheard. “Okay, then it’s a deal, I guess,” he eventually conceded.

“Great. Well, see you in a couple of months then,” I told him, as the impact of my words crashed over me like a tsunami. Was I really going to do this? Was I really going to skip the country and go to Thailand without telling Luke where I was? Without calling and asking for his version of events? Without a word?

Too damn right I was.

Six

Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood . . . with the music at top volume and at least a pint of ether.

—Hunter S. Thompson

I stood in my underwear, fixated on the duffel bag by the front door. It was perfectly packed. It had taken me all night to get it just right. Unfortunately, as I waited for SuperShuttle to pick me up, I couldn’t resist ruining a good thing. But then when could I ever?

I don’t know, but there’s just something about going away for three months to work for a teenage starlet you’ve only met once in your life that makes a girl need the comforts of home. So I made the fatal error and unzipped my suitcase. Then the frenzy began. I knew there was something in the closet I had forgotten. And as usual, I was right—my sheepskin slippers. Perfect for a subtropical climate. Then I clocked Luke’s “only on special occasions” silk bathrobe. I buried my nose in it. It smelled like him. And though I hated him, it had to come. Then of course every body cream I’d never used and the six works of fiction by Salman Rushdie that I’d been meaning to read for ten years. At least if Luke and I ever did speak again I’d have jumped to another intellectual plane. But the most vital discovery was the snakebite extractor kit. I found it in the back of the guest bathroom medicine cabinet. There must be deadly snakes in Thailand. And what kind of assistant would I be if Emerald got bitten and I was unprepared? I was so caught up with extraneous objects that I didn’t even register the persistent honking coming from the driveway.