So 5 Minutes Ago (2 page)

The one thing I kept was Josh’s name, because it was less embarrassing than to give it up and go back to being Alex Bradford, who grew up on baloney sandwiches and went to Sunday school. I also kept it because now everyone thought I was Jewish. Like I was already in the club. Working at Yo’ Flicks, where all the partners had bar mitzvahed in the same year, Alex
Davidson
fit right in, even if I only answered phones, helped out in casting sessions, and planned a few parties—like the premiere for their documentary
Wassup Wheels,
about a group of extreme skateboarders from Bed-Stuy.

That film put the company on the map after Spike Lee, one of the executive producers, mentioned the movie during an appearance on
Charlie Rose
to talk about the Knicks. DWP was helping promote the premiere—sort of pro bono because one of the publicists was the aunt of one of the Yo’ Flicks partners. It was February, Black History Month, and Nike had been a cosponsor of the party held at Mr. Chow because a lot of rappers actually ate there. At the party, a bunch of DWP publicists showed up, including Stan Woolfe (the
W,
I realized later, and the agency’s reigning éminence grise), who, after a couple of martinis and under the impression that the party had been all my doing, offered me a job. I’d had just enough martinis myself and was also feeling just miffed enough when I saw all the Yo’ Flicks partners high-fiving each other at the bar when Dr. Dre walked in (totally coincidentally, because he was a Mr. Chow regular) that I turned to Stan and in his bleary eyes saw my own office, a six-figure salary, and a ticket out of Yo’ Flicks and said, “Yes.” It actually felt more moving than when I agreed to marry Josh, but then the whole tent-and-rabbi thing had been a lot more out there than Mr. Chow.

Now, three years later, here I was, feeling not only like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole but had somehow gotten wedged. Stuck. All the casual
whatever
s of my twenties, the endless horizon of my postcollegiate future had given way to this fluorescent-lit cubicle where I was depressingly in my thirties and even more depressingly a publicist, for real.

Publicists, as I’ve learned all too well, are at the bottom of the Hollywood food chain. Not because most of them are women, and overweight at that, or young gay guys (there’re just too many powerful gays in Hollywood for that to be true), but because power in Hollywood, like Wall Street, is tracked solely in earnings. Publicists are lowlifes because, unlike agents or managers, they don’t generate income, only exposure. It doesn’t matter whether you represent Brad Pitt or the Olsen twins. Stars pay publicists like they pay a monthly insurance bill, annoying but necessary coverage in case of disaster. Agents get stars work. Managers get stars work
and
hold their hands. But a publicist is one notch above a maid. Or a nanny. The only people we outrank are journalists, and they don’t register on Hollywood’s seismograph. And the real proof of our stupidity is that we don’t even generate real income for ourselves. Nobody, except the few senior partners in those PR agencies big enough to be acquired by a bigger agency, ever gets rich.

Sure, in a better world, we’d be as highly paid as lawyers, given all the lying we do on behalf of our clients. A star in rehab is “taking some time off.” If a star’s movie doesn’t open, he’s “trying to push the envelope.” A star who loses his production deal is “transitioning.” A star found naked wandering Sunset Boulevard, disoriented in a cornfield, or picking up a transvestite in a hotel lobby is “suffering from exhaustion.”

But, in reality, being a publicist put me in the Hollywood food chain somewhere around the level of zebras. Too many of us thundering around in circles, stirring up dust, and generally behaving as noisily and annoyingly as the carnivores expected us to. All I had to do was try not to get eaten.

I toss the trades aside and turn on my PC. E-mail. Such a great time-suck even if most of it’s just a duplicate of my call sheet, except for the scary gang message from Suzanne marked
URGENT.
There are also two from Rachel flagged
FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE
and
STILL FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE
. Rachel Chapman’s one of my closest friends largely because she’s a publicist and moved out from New York the same time I did. Although she made the jump to the studios, working as a publicist at Fox, she inhabits a no-less-demeaning circle of hell than I do, and her ambivalence about this industry outstrips even mine. I click open hers first.

To: Alex Davidson

From: Rachel Chapman

*&#$!!)-BIG. CALL ME!

The second message, sent two minutes later, is only slightly less hyper.

To: Alex Davidson

From: Rachel Chapman

GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE MICROWAVE AND CALL ME—ON YOUR CELL IN CASE G ALREADY HAS THE PHONES TAPPED.

At least I’m not the only one who’s paranoid about this merger. About working for G. I decide to live dangerously and click open Suzanne’s.

To: The DWP Staff

From: Suzanne Davis

As you know, the partners of DWP have accepted a most generous offer from our friends at BIG. Of course, this will mean many changes for us all, changes that will be discussed in greater detail in the coming days. But I speak for all of us when I say this is the beginning of a truly remarkable new chapter in our company history.

Meanwhile—and I cannot emphasize this enough—all DWP publicists are to avoid talking to the press. Doug and I are sending out a press release outlining the deal to the media outlets as well as our clients and studio liaisons. In the future, all corporate communications must be cleared in advance with one of the senior partners. Meanwhile, please join me and Doug in the conference room at 4
P.M.
for champagne and cake. SD.

I log off, too depressed to even troll the wires. I can already hear a high-pitched buzzing outside my door. The nursing home on High Alert. I’ll need more than caffeine to confront my colleagues today. I punch up Rachel on my speed-dial.

“God,” she snaps when I reach her. “Did they put you under house arrest?”

“That’d be BIG of them,” I say, pointlessly. “No, just trying to get my bearings. Tell me what you’ve heard.”

“What
I’ve
heard? What have you heard? You know G cleaned house when he was at Sony?”

“Yes, even
I
know that.” I’m starting to get depressed all over again. “I’m just trying to figure out if we still get to play by Suzanne’s rules.”

“Are you serious? You’re the ones who got bought out. Shit, Suzanne probably won’t even be there in a year. Two at the most.”

“See, you
have
heard something,” I say irritably, yanking my hair into a ponytail and anchoring it with a pencil. Most days I loved Rachel’s no-bullshit attitude. But not today. “All
I
know is they’re still working on the contracts, we haven’t even seen the new offices yet, and I have my first meeting with Troy this afternoon. But there’s cake and ice cream at four.”

“Oh God,” Rachel says, and I can tell she’s trying to be sympathetic. “Look, I’ll make some calls. There’s someone I know at Sony who survived G’s reign of terror. I’ll call you in a bit.”

“Nonfat with an extra shot.” Steven parks the familiar green and white paper cup (grande) on my desk. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing,” I say, peeling off the lid and immediately burning my tongue. “Just read Suzanne’s e-mail and was deciding which ‘media outlet’ I was going to call.”

“I have Richard Johnson’s number on speed-dial.”

“We all do. So, what’s the mood in the hive?” I say, nodding in the direction of the hall. “Am I the only one who’s going to miss little Camp Estrogen Patch?”

“What can I say?” Steven says, taking a slug of cappuccino. “Size matters. They want to be BIG.”

I love Steven. He can’t write, but no one can in Hollywood, and he’s incredibly disorganized, but he makes me laugh, which hardly anybody does out here. An entire industry devoted to entertainment and nobody has a sense of humor. But Steven can get me to laugh. Like that week after I hired him and he started answering the phone in an English accent, which pissed off Suzanne—not because his accent was obviously fake, but because the craze for English assistants was about five years out of date. Then there was his Anna Wintour phase, when he wore sunglasses for a week to celebrate the fact I got
Vogue
to do a story on one of my creakiest clients, a director who hadn’t had a hit in years but who was good friends with Tom Ford. I also love Steven because even though he inherited a pile from his lover, and lives in a fabulous house up in Coldwater Canyon, he still comes to work every day.

But I draw the line at pity.

“I can’t be the only one who doesn’t want to have a boss who’s shorter than me and wears a rug.”

“Look, you knew you were the odd man out when you joined this aging sorority,” Steven says, launching into his get-a-grip speech that he uses on me when I’m feeling sorry for myself. “With any luck you’ll get a nicer office, colleagues your own age, and you’ll just deal with the new contract. Besides, none of the clients are going anywhere. They’re not that ambulatory.”

He had me there.

“You’re right. The clients aren’t going anywhere,” I say, taking another hit of coffee.

“With our client roster we actually need to stock the office with a defibrillator. Just like the airlines.”

“You can be in charge of shaving their chests, since you’re already the expert.”

Steven waves me off. “We can roam Hollywood just waiting for stars to have a breakdown and then revive them. Courteney Cox is having a panic attack because Jennifer Aniston is having a bigger career than she is. John Travolta is having a breakdown because all his movies, not just the ones about Scientology, are tanking.”

“Hey, I like John Travolta.”

“Of course we’d have to have a special vigil outside Charlize’s house for the time when everyone wakes up and realizes she’s just a talent-free ex-model.”

Steven has hated Charlize Theron ever since she was mean to him at a photo shoot. Actually, she’d been patronizing and bossy, which didn’t actually count as mean in Hollywood, but Steven was still miffed that she’d called him Steve and asked him to walk her dogs.

“I still can’t believe she did that,” he said.

“Her assistant was busy yelling at the caterer for putting too much pasta in the vegetable salad.”

“I’m waiting for the day when Charlize goes into cardiac arrest because Harvey Weinstein stops returning her calls.”

“Stop. We could do this all day.”

“Let’s, and then we’ll go for drinks.”

I’m starting to get annoyed.

“Okay, forget the clients and forget BIG for a minute. I need ideas for my pitch to Troy this afternoon. I mean, I have to land this guy before I can fix his image problems.”

“Well, what’s his movie?” Steven says distractedly, picking up
Variety.

“He doesn’t have one. Not yet. That’s the problem. Remember
“Blow Your Mind” Games
?

“I still think the only thing wrong with that was the title. I mean, anyone looking at Troy isn’t thinking about blowing his mind.”

Now I’m
seriously
annoyed. “This town is filled with a million pretty boys but it doesn’t mean they can open a movie.”

“Okay, okay,” Steven says, dropping
Variety.
“But shouldn’t his new agent land him a movie and
then
you can promote him? I mean, even Demi Moore knew enough to stay out of sight until CAA conjured her comeback.”

“Thank
you,
” I say, grabbing the
Variety.
“But in these troubled times, we need all the clients we can get, even if we have to fake it.”

“Okay,” Steven says with a sigh. “You know the drill. Just call some editors. Tell everyone he’s been writing a novel. He’s just back from an ashram. Or Nepal. Call
US.
They’ll do a story on anybody. Will he talk about his time in rehab? Or call
InStyle
and stick him in some rental house in the hills with some borrowed dogs and framed pictures of family members. He has a foster child in Uruguay!”

“I know, I know,” I say, waving him off and pulling on my headset to attack my call sheet. “I just have to convince this guy he won’t wind up like Luke Perry.”

The rest of the morning is chewed up with calls. I confirm the stylist appointment for Saturday, turn down an editorial request from
My Generation,
AARP’s new “celeb” magazine, and another one from
Reader’s Digest
—deftly fielding all queries about BIG. I hear myself using
synergy
a lot. I spend a half an hour going through an arduous cover negotiation with
Marie Claire
for their “aging” issue, followed by a conference call with a studio marketing exec about their fall release schedule, which amazingly includes a few of our clients.

When Peg, Troy’s manager, calls at eleven-thirty to say Troy can’t make the meeting at lunch but wants to meet at seven at the Chateau, I am both annoyed and relieved. At least I have a few more hours to come up with a game plan. Or a few more hours to put off coming up with a game plan.

I have Steven order my usual take-out Cobb salad and iced tea and spend lunch going over my pitch. After staring at his credits long enough, I decide Troy needs to lose the sex-stud image and go for steady and reliable. Like Rob Lowe did with his comeback-from-the-sex-scandal gig on
The West Wing.
And Robert Downey, Jr.’s return from the Big House, playing the doe-eyed swain on
Ally McBeal.
It’s perfect, a new image but not that much of a stretch. Playing a Gary Cooper type will also help solve Troy’s off-camera tendencies to blurt out whatever crosses his pot-addled brain.

I’ve even gone so far as to work up a mock photo shoot: ranch, blue jeans, pickup truck, and lots of animals. Make that baby animals. Lose the girls in short cutoffs and their dazed “do me” gazes, and stick Troy on a hay bale holding a lamb or a calf. Might be a nightmare to actually shoot, but that isn’t my problem. If only Westerns were still hot. Still, it could work. Troy—the Classic American Hero.