Hollywood Girls Club Read online

  “Jess, forget the Dom. I want Cristal. Cristal is off the hook,” Holden said between bites of his specially made double cheeseburger (just for Holden the Ivy added an oregano-garlic spice mix and extra cheese). “No one drinks Dom. I hear that Cristal is a deal-breaker for Tarantino.”

  Jessica bit her tongue, gritted her teeth, and tried to smile. A Harvard-educated lawyer, Jessica spent the last five years (her most fertile years) negotiating deals for actors, and she was going to spend the next thirty-six hours (while she was ovulating) arguing with the head of Galaxy Pictures Business Affairs for Holden Humphrey’s million-dollar perk list (in addition to his multimillion-dollar fee and profit participation).

  “And I want the trailer that Costner gets. You know the one, right, Jess? There are only two in the world.”

  Jessica did, in fact, know the trailer to which Holden referred. It was the same trailer that Jessica spent three days arguing with Summit Pictures’ head of Business Affairs for Holden to get on his last feature, Purple Racer. At least on this picture there was a precedent. The expansion of a star’s perk list was all about “the precedent.” If one studio gave a star the biggest trailer or cases of Cristal versus Dom, then every other studio had better pony up if they expected a star to do their film. Stars wanted the best, the most elusive, the most expensive.

  Jessica glanced over at Holden, chewing a bite of his twenty-five-dollar burger. Twenty-five dollars for a cheeseburger? Jessica remembered when she was fresh out of law school with student loans to pay and interning for free at the studio; twenty-five dollars had purchased her groceries for a month.

  Even with ketchup dripping down his chin, Holden was gorgeous. Honey-blond hair, sultry blue eyes, cheekbones that could cut steel (Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt rolled into one), a jawline that was solid—and that flawlessness was all above the neck. Holden’s body … was just as extraordinary. Yes, Holden was a specimen of physical perfection. Even for Jessica—who’d known him before he was a star— it was difficult to concentrate when Holden flashed his stellar smile. But the one thing Holden could not do, at least not yet, was act. He could barely deliver a line (he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, either).

  Jessica prayed that Holden’s business manager was smart about Holden’s money, because the gravy train that was Holden’s career wouldn’t last forever. Holden’s $15 million acting quote wasn’t going up anytime soon, and if the ticket sales from Purple Racer were any indication, then Holden’s core audience (preteen girls and middle-aged gay men) was growing tired of paying fifteen dollars a ticket to watch him wiggle his ass and grin. Holden’s career, Jessica feared, was cresting the hill on the entertainment roller coaster and poised for the stomach-piercing descent.

  “Holden, did you talk to Gary Moises?” she asked, hopeful that Holden had taken her advice and started studying his craft with the best and most exclusive acting coach in Los Angeles.

  “I’m not down with an acting coach,” Holden said and bit into his burger.

  “He’s the best in L.A.,” Jessica countered.

  “Jess, I want to feel natural. My fans want me; they don’t need that Mizel/Method crap. They want me to do my thing. Viève agrees,” Holden said, putting his arm around the babe du jour to his left.

  Jessica glanced at the tiny elfin creature now ensconced in Holden’s embrace. She nearly forgot that Viève was there—the girl had barely moved—she didn’t speak—and the creature definitely didn’t eat. A connoisseur of exotic tail, Holden always seemed to have a particularly unusual woman with him. This tiny creature appeared to be an accessory—much like a Chihuahua or Peek-a-poo or whatever extreme canine mix was the most popular purse pet.

  “Viève acts, Jess.”

  Doesn’t everyone, Jessica thought.

  “You should take a look at her reel,” Holden said, patting the tiny creature on the head.

  Jessica curled the sides of her mouth upward and ignored the irritation that spiked her heart. For the ten percent of $15 million and gross profit participation he threw her way, Holden deserved at least the semblance of a smile. Thank God for sunny days in L.A. and patio seating at the Ivy—both required that Jessica wear sunglasses. Otherwise at this very moment Holden would see the look. And if he saw the look, then he’d know the contempt that wove through Jessica for having to smile at the tramp Viève and argue for three days for Cristal as opposed to Dom Perignon so that Holden could get paid beaucoup bucks to do the one thing millions of people would give their left leg to do: stand in front of a camera and smile.

  “Is that Josh Dragatsis over there?” Holden asked, sipping his Pellegrino.

  Jessica glanced to her left. Josh Dragatsis, a young talent agent from ACA, stared at Holden like a Doberman Pinscher eyeing a piece of raw meat.

  “He’s been leaving me ten messages a day about some indie film, View of Sunshine. Like I want to do an independent film? What a dumbass,” Holden said, frowning. “I’ve got to get a new cell number.”

  “Yes, you do,” Jessica said. “Give me your cell. I’ll have Kim cancel the service and messenger a new phone to the house this afternoon.” She reached across the table and plucked the iPhone from Holden’s hand. She dodged that bullet.

  Josh, that little prick, calling a CTA-represented star ten times a day. He carried five clients of any value on his roster, and to teach him a lesson, Jess would make sure that by this time tomorrow, her cadre of CTA agents poached three of Josh’s five. She wouldn’t let a junior agent get away with hitting on Holden.

  “You know, Viève is in my Transcendental Meditation class,” Holden said, clasping Viève even tighter. “Every Tuesday and Thursday. It grounds me.”

  “I guess fifteen million dollars three times a year isn’t grounding enough?” A wry smile played around Jess’s lips.

  “Jess, you crack me up. I want Viève to be on set as my TM coach. Will you add it to the perk list? Try to get her a grand a week,” Holden said.

  “And your dad? Is he going to be your driver again on this film?” Jessica asked, knowing that this was the beginning of a long list of unemployable family and friends Holden wanted to see paid.

  “You know it. I think he got fifteen hundred a week last time,” Holden said.

  “And Tommy?”

  “Can’t leave out the little bro. He’s my rock, my trainer. Just like last time, two thousand a week.”

  “What about Cubby?” Holden had somewhere in his rise to fame acquired Cubby, a nondescript hanger-on with no ambition for his own life but to carry Holden’s bags and fuck Holden’s leftover girls.

  “Personal assistant again.”

  “That usually goes for five hundred a week, but I’ll try for seven-fifty.”

  “Jess, you rock!” Holden said.

  Jessica arched her perfectly plucked brow, and a sardonic grin crawled across her face. Magna cum laude and editor of Harvard Law Review and she “rocked,” here at this very moment. Yippy skippy, her life was complete.

  Holden was half her age, and half her brainpower, but he had ten times her bank account, and Jess’s bank account wasn’t half bad. Her annual salary as president of CTA was well into seven figures. Her career paid for a house in the Hollywood Hills, a trainer, and everything that she thought she wanted.

  Well, almost everything. Lately, an emptiness clutched at her each night as she pulled up to her quiet home. Her fiancé, Phil, was a software designer, a career that demanded he live in San Francisco during the week. It allowed her Monday through Friday to relentlessly pursue all her Hollywood ambitions—ambitions that until recently fueled her to work harder and longer hours than any other agent in town.

  *

  Immediately after law school, Jessica pushed a mail cart, assisted and finally been promoted to executive at I M FOX Productions. After a decade of work she summited as president of CTA. It was only in the last three months she’d allowed herself a view of the landscape that was her Hollywood life. Anxiousness oozed through her as she surveyed all
she achieved. Although her life was shiny, she found it lacking, like a six-carat cubic zirconia. She wondered if it wasn’t her biological clock sounding some sort of evolutionary alarm.

  While her girlfriends from high school and college were off marrying, buying houses, and filling those houses with children, Jessica was working seven A.M. to midnight pursuing her Hollywood dream. Her friends in Oregon stared at her slack-jawed when they met (maybe once a year), drinking in her stories of celebrity and fame. Incredulous at her tales, perhaps on the inside bemoaning their lot in life: paunch-bellied husbands approaching middle age, carpooling in their Dodge minivans, PTA, sticky fingers, croup, spilled syrup, laundry, unmade beds. Although they were still friends (you couldn’t turn your back on the girls who held your hair while you puked your guts out after getting drunk on tequila for the first time), their lives were irrevocably different from Jessica’s. And in part it was that very difference from them and the similarity to Cici and Lydia that had begun and cemented Jessica’s entertainment friendships. Who else would understand her frustration today while sitting at the Ivy across from one of the world’s biggest stars, but another member of the Hollywood club?

  Jessica tossed her auburn curls and inhaled. Enough.

  “Okay, so the perk list is pretty much the same, with the addition of the Cristal and, of course, Viève. Great. I’ll speak with Business Affairs after lunch. I’m sure they are going to hate the private-jet miles.”

  “What is it with these studios and their private jets?” Holden asked. “Why do they have them if they don’t want their stars flying around in them?”

  “Holden, it’s not that they don’t want you to use them. It’s how you use them. Flying from Belize to Chicago at two A.M. because you want a hot dog? It doesn’t sit well with Accounting.” Jessica punctuated her pointed words with a smile—she could say anything to anyone as long as she smiled.

  That was her job: Take ten percent and smile. For now, Holden Humphrey was a star, one of Jessica’s many. There were ten stars in Hollywood who could get any movie going anywhere, and Jessica currently represented seven of them. Plus a slew of writers and directors. It was an amazing thing. She, like all the giants before her (Wasserman, Ovitz, Berg), was an uberagent.

  It was as if she’d been struck by lightning. Signing the first star had been luck. The second’s career was in the toilet when Jessica found him an amazing small character piece, an independent film for which he won a “little gold man.” The award turned his career around, and once he was on top again, the big money offers started pouring into Jessica’s office. The third was a referral from the first, and once Jessica had three, it was a party. Everyone loved a party, especially stars. The getting was easy. Signing the star, developing their career, finding them the right role, had always been easy for Jess. Keeping the star—that was tough.

  Jessica glared at Josh Dragatsis, who still stared at Holden and salivated over his chopped salad. Poaching. Always someone trying to snatch her success away from her.

  Actors, Jessica knew from experience, were mercurial creatures. Anyone craving the spotlight enough to want to see themselves twenty feet tall in front of the entire planet had to have some sort of complex. Jess loved them for their boldness, their bravado, their bravery, their childlike love, and their belief that the entire world was their toy box and everyone was meant to be their playmate.

  Jessica had only two clients she truly trusted, two who were her friends. Second rule in Hollywood: There are no “real” friends, only business associates. But Cici and Lydia defied that rule and were two of Jessica’s closest friends. It was a bond forged through time, shared loss (you hadn’t worked in Hollywood and not lost something), and trust. Their troika had yet to be tested by the making of a film together, but it appeared this was about to change.

  If Cici hadn’t called Jessica first, she never would have believed the news. Celeste Solange working for free. Well, practically free: SAG scale plus ten percent. In any other circumstance Jess would have called Lydia and ripped her apart because, close friends or not, this was a business. Granted, Cici got a huge piece of gross profit participation, but Seven Minutes Past Midnight wasn’t a small independent film strapped together with tiny bits of financing that stars would work on for practically no money (often to the abject horror of their agents, who lived on their ten percent of the stars’ fees) because the roles were so juicy and could garner rave reviews and an opportunity to appear in front of a billion eyeballs on an awards show. No, Seven Minutes Past Midnight was a studio-backed blockbuster of a film. But this film, Lydia’s film, wasn’t about money for Cici. It was about payback and pride.

  Jessica could hear the indignity in Cici’s voice. Damien Bruckner was a dumb fuck. First Amanda, then Cici, and now this Brianna Ellison? Like she was going to be a star?

  Damien was really thinking with his dick when he cast Brie in the lead role instead of Cici. And so public! It was splitsville for Damien and Cici. Good riddance. Besides, Cici worked more when she was between men. Once Seven Minutes Past Midnight wrapped, Cici’s next film would pay her $20 million fee. Plus, with her profit participation, Cici stood to make more money on Seven Minutes Past Midnight than she’d ever made on anything if the film turned out to be a hit—and it damn well could be with the cast and director Lydia had managed to put together.

  “Jess,” Holden said, breaking Jessica’s reverie, “don’t forget my mom. She wants to be the production photographer again.”

  Jess smiled her faux smile once more, “Of course. That was fifteen hundred a week, right?”

  “Yeah. And don’t worry, this time she won’t forget to put film in the camera.”

  Chapter 4

  Mary Anne Meyers and Her Fuzzy Bunny Slippers

  Mary Anne Meyers clicked the save icon on her computer screen. Finished. For now. She glanced out the window in her home office and watched the sun creep up over the Hollywood Hills. It’d been a long night. But the script was good, solid. The story was tight. Mary Anne had incorporated every one of Lydia Albright’s story notes for Seven Minutes Past Midnight, and they were good notes. Lydia was smart; she definitely understood story structure and what made a good script.

  Mary Anne leaned back in her chair and sipped her Earl Grey tea. What a view. What a life. What a miracle. An eight-week miracle. Had it only been eight weeks?

  She’d grown so accustomed to this new life (despite the nagging fear that it was all a dream and she’d awaken soon). The life with the Mercedes, the home in the Hollywood Hills, the housekeeper, the full bank account. It felt as though years had passed since Mary Anne was: broke—with $11.87 in her checking account and an overdraft looming because of the $15.79 she’d coughed up at Ralphs to buy groceries; unemployed—having lost her second waitressing job in three weeks, and evicted—forced to sleep on her friend Sylvia’s couch. Mary Anne had called her sister, Michelle (the responsible one according to their mother, Mitsy), and begged her to wire money so she could come home.

  The dream was dead.

  After nine years of bartending, selling shoes, answering phones, walking dogs, and finally, her miserable attempt at waiting tables, Mary Anne Meyers had dreamed her last Hollywood dream, written her final word, and accepted her fate of returning to the safe (if frigid) confines of her hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota. She’d hocked her computer four weeks before to cover rent, and now the computer, the money, and the apartment were gone.

  As Mary Anne lay on Sylvia’s pea green couch staring at the cracks in the ceiling, her mind drifted to thoughts of her first week in L.A. Not much had changed since then (except her age)—nine years before, she’d been homeless and broke, too. Then the phone rang. Not Sylvia’s phone but Mary Anne’s cell phone—she had service for one more day.

  “Mary Anne Meyers, please,” said a crisp voice on the other end of the line.

  “This is Mary Anne.”

  “I have Lydia Albright for you.”

  Mary Anne’s eyes opened wide and
excitement clutched her. She sat up, bumping her head on the oversized thrift-store lamp and knocking her water glass onto the floor. Lydia Albright? The Lydia Albright? Mega-movie-producer-with-over-one-billion-dollars-in-box-office-grosses Lydia Albright?!

  “Please hold one moment,” the crisp voice continued. “Lydia will be right on the line.”

  There was a brief pause. Mary Anne’s heart pounded against her chest.

  “Mary Anne, this is Lydia. How are you? Nice to meet you over the phone.”

  “Yes,” Mary Anne—her mind jumbled she fought to find words. “You, too. Fine. Thank you.”

  “Listen, I read The Sky’s the Limit and I loved it.”

  “You did?” How had Lydia Albright gotten a copy of her script?

  “I think you have an amazing voice on the page. You’re able to capture the essence of what is real in a story. Your writing, well, it’s just extraordinary.”

  “How did you—”

  “We get everything,” Lydia answered before Mary Anne could complete her question.

  “Everything,” Mary Anne whispered.

  “Mary Anne, I have this other script, and if you’re not too busy, I was wondering if you’d give it a read. See if you can come up with a take for the story. It’s close, but still needs a little work. I had dinner at the Four Seasons with Weston Birnbaum last night, president of production at Worldwide, and I told him that I think you’re the writer to fix it. It’s called Seven Minutes Past Midnight. I think you can make the script work. Weston and I would like to go into production once this draft is complete.”

  “Too busy …” Mary Anne mumbled, in shock.

  “Dammit, you are? Because I really—”

  “No! No. Yes, send it. I’m not too busy. I’d love to see it, read it, help. Please, yes.”