The Second Assistant (29 page)

“Six-thirty. I’ll swing by and pick you up. And I’m so glad that you came instead of Lara. She’s always so uptight about this kind of thing. She’s afraid that if Daniel catches her gate-crashing, she’ll lose her job.”

“Is Daniel going to be there?”

“
Everyone’s
going to be there,” she said, and took an enormous bite of my peanut butter cookie.

Oh, the joys of sharing a house with Scott Wagner! While he was still in town in a meeting with the actor from a movie he’d seen this morning, I was in his bathroom with his products. I had put on an old Fiona Apple CD that I’d found in the living room, drawn a huge tub, and wrapped myself in one of the plush, warm towels from the linen closet. The kind that would never emerge from the washing machines in my basement—even if I lived to be 102 and inherited a fabric-softener fortune. Then I’d run up to his room and become a beauty bulimic. I’d rubbed two types of cleanser on my face, run downstairs and squeezed
half of Kiehl’s pharmacy into my bath, run back up and exfoliated, or rather grazed myself, with some sea-salt scrub, and then dashed back down, leaving a mist of vertiver in my wake. When Scott came home, I poured him a whiskey, put out a plate of cheese and crackers that I’d picked up at the market between screenings this afternoon, and swapped Fiona Apple for Van Morrison. Not that I wanted him to marry me. I just wanted him to agree to take me to the party so that I didn’t have to risk certain mortification on the doorstep if I didn’t get in—or being fired again by Daniel if I did.

And of course it worked. Scott was fine with my tagging along, as long as I elbowed him in the ribs occasionally and reminded him of people’s names. And though I think that Courtney was pissed at me for getting legal entry to the party, the two of us did hang out together and bonded just a fraction. She had her bouncer friend slide her in, and we met in the main room of Harvey’s condo. Courtney and I sipped mulled wine outside on the veranda, and after pointing out every single person in the room, giving each of them an A-, B-, or C-class status, and telling me who they’d slept with and what their particular kinks were, she regaled me with even more tales of Jake Hudson’s unsavory dating history. I actually found it hard to believe that I’d ever seen Jake as a charmingly harmless man. But ignorance is bliss, and I hadn’t known any better that day that we drove up the PCH, me with my bleeding wound, he with eyes only for my legs. He was phenomenally bright—that went without saying. The guy was the head of a major studio, and no matter how dismissive people were of Jake, he would never have gotten to where he was on just looks and smooth talk alone. He was a brilliant businessman and an irresistible lover. He just happened to be afflicted with satyriasis, which was becoming more apparent with every passing moment.

“I just hope the man-whore uses a condom while he’s sharing himself with the whole town,” Courtney said as she scoured the room over my shoulder for people to bitch about.

“Well, I guess at least he’s honest about having a good time,” I said. “Can’t do too much harm that way, can it?”

“Oh, yes it can,” she spit as she picked a cinnamon stick from her glass. “He really fucked up last summer.”

It turned out that one weekend in July, Jake had actually gotten
married to some really famous pop star one weekend in Tijuana. Sometime after their third pitcher of margaritas. Courtney barely dipped her voice as she told me the story. In fact, she may even have gotten louder.

“They were both there for some cheesy freebie thrown by one of the studios, and they got totally smashed and fooled around and then went and got married the next day. But the marriage only lasted a weekend. They both got back on Monday morning, and she decided that it’d been a huge mistake and they had to get a divorce. Before anyone found out.”

“You’re kidding?” I said. “But she’s gorgeous. Shouldn’t he have stayed married to her just for the kudos? Plus, I read in
People
that she buys cars and boats for her boyfriends all the time.”

“No way, she didn’t want to be married to someone who wasn’t famous. Or a busboy. She only does the two, no middle ground. Plus, she’s a total thug.” Courtney tossed a cigarette butt over the edge of the balcony where we were standing, and it drifted down into the snow.

“Like how?”

“Oh, she has all these bodyguards and gangster connections. She told him that if he tried to sell his story or get his hands on any of her money, she’d get someone to take him out with a lead pipe and ski mask.”

“But she’s so sweet. She has such amazing skin.” I thought of the videos I’d seen of her on MTV.

“If word ever got out that she’d gotten drunk and got married, it’d have ruined her rep with the preteens. To her it would have been worth breaking his kneecaps for that.”

“Poor Jake.” I almost felt sorry for him.

“Anyway, it’s a total secret, so don’t breathe a word,” Courtney broadcast to the whole party.

“Don’t breathe a word about what?” Jake Hudson appeared beside me holding his drink. Of course he was going to be at this party—he was Mr. Fast Pass. Access All Areas. And, as I was about to find out, when he wanted something—i.e., his friend’s girl—he was also Mr. Take No Prisoners.

“Holy shit.” Courtney burned her finger on her lighter. She might have acted as if she knew everyone in the room, but the truth was she got all her so-called information from IFILMpro. So in the presence of actual powerful people, she became unsteady on her feet.

“Were you talking about me?” Jake’s chest puffed out like a pigeon’s.

“Actually, we were discussing a movie we went to see this afternoon,” I managed.

“How are you, darling?” Jake moved in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Courtney could hardly conceal how blown away she was.

“Jake, this is Courtney,” I said. “And actually I have to go and talk to Scott, if you’ll excuse me.”

I was about to edge away from Jake, because really I hadn’t a clue what to say to him anymore. I couldn’t discuss movie stars, because he’s slept with all the women and the men were his best buddies. I couldn’t discuss movies, because that was about as interesting as discussing your hemorrhoids. And I was afraid that if I brought up politics, he’d suddenly have a eureka moment and realize that he had been here before. Then he’d lose interest in hunting me down like one of the Vegas Bambis, and, to be honest, I was quite enjoying the pathetic interest he was showing in me, even if only because he couldn’t remember that he’d actually paint-balled me before.

“Oh, hey, you don’t get away that easily.” He reached out for my arm and guided me back to his side. “Scott can come over here.”

“No, really, it’s fine. I just thought . . .” Shit, now my cover was definitely going to be blown. Scott would reveal that I was his assistant and not his girlfriend, and Jake would go over and flirt with Harvey’s wife instead.

“Scott, my buddy. Get the hell over here!” Jake yelled, and Scott slapped the guy he was speaking to on the arm and made his excuses.

“Lizzie has something to say to you,” Jake told him.

“She does?” Scott looked confused. He was probably under the impression that he was going to be asked to resolve a scintillating baseball-trivia argument.

“It’s actually private,” I spluttered.

“Aw, they’re in love,” Jake said, checking out my cleavage.

“Wassup?” Scott was looking at me expectantly. Thankfully, the room was noisy, and he hadn’t heard the news that we were in love.

“Well, I was thinking that . . .” And at that moment I saw a guy behind Scott in a god-awful beige ski turtleneck, and before I could censor myself I added, “That we could go skiing tomorrow. Only I’ve never been, and I hear it’s fun.” Dolt.

“Skiing?” Scott pursed his lips, thinking hard. “Sure, why not?” Oh, God, not the response I was hoping for. I’d forgotten that Scott had the
soul of a frat boy and would love anything that involved gear and hot showers with the guys afterward.

“Great. Let’s all go skiing,” Jake added. “I’ll come pick you kids up at about seven
A
.
M
., and we’ll go to Last Chance—it’s a great spot up the mountain. You’ll love it, Scottie, my man.”

“Do you ski, Scott?” I asked, praying that he’d veto anything called Last Chance and insist that we start on the bunny slopes. Somewhere called Soft Landing. Or, even better, that we’d sit in some Alpine theme bar and laugh into our Gluwein as we watched everyone else fall over.

“Sure I do. I went to school in Boulder. So see you in the morning, man,” Scott said, and then wandered off. Our three minutes in his company were obviously up.

Jake, on the other hand, had clearly had an empty-bed episode similar to mine last night, because he was determined to take me home. And the more mulled wine I had, the more I wondered if he might actually succeed.

“You see, there really aren’t any women you’d want to marry in Los Angeles. I mean, it’s okay for a sleazy fling, but you don’t meet classy chicks.” His drink was swinging precariously between his thumb and his index finger. “And you, Elizabeth, are a classy chick.” Luckily for me and my weak will, Courtney chose the moment that Jake began to rest his hand on the wall behind me, hemming me in close to his body, to decide that she had a migraine and that I needed to take her home.

“I’ll get you a car,” Jake volunteered to Courtney, without taking his eyes off my lips.

“No, I’ll take her. I can’t leave her alone,” I said, ducking under his arm and reappearing at Courtney’s side. For once I was really grateful that she was a demanding, jealous bitch. If he said “classy chick” just one more time, I would probably have done something that I’d regret throughout the universe and into perpetuity, as a lawyer might say.

“See you in the morning, then.” Jake looked pissed for a second, then he spotted across the room an alternate and very badly dressed means of filling his bed. Leaving me and Courtney to attempt the impossible—find a ride home in a town where you were about as likely to find a free taxi as you were to encounter a Nobel Prize–winner wandering down Main Street singing “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.

—Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel
The Wizard of Oz

“W
ould you like me to valet your skis for you, Miss?” A young man in overalls came over to me as I finally made it to the bottom of the slope. I had been suffering for about an hour and a half. Which had been divided equally between forty-five minutes on my butt and forty-five minutes on my knees. With the interstitial moments spent on my face.

“No, I’d like you to burn them, please,” I retorted bitterly. He looked alarmed. The cold had obviously numbed his sense of humor.

“Have you finished skiing for the day or not, Miss?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’m just going to get a hot chocolate from the café, and then I’ll get back to you.” Then I decided to play straight and not torture him any further, poor guy. “Oh, and just for the record, how do you valet skis?”

“We take them from you, clean and wax them, and return them to you tomorrow morning.” He gave me a friendly smile—he was back in his comfort zone.

“Wow. Great. I’ll get back to you,” I said. Then I stuck my poles in the ground and attempted to push off. Only I didn’t go anywhere. The snow now appeared to be flat and not the kind that was going to propel
me at 160 miles per hour into a killer pine tree. Which was a mixed blessing—for while I was now unlikely to die skiing, I might be stuck here until the spring thaw.

“Er, excuse me,” I called after the ski valet. “Would you mind . . . giving me a push?” But he was parking somebody else’s skis. I stabbed my poles into the ground behind me once again and thrust my body in a forward direction. To absolutely no avail. “Fuck,” I said, and a tiny cloud of breath rose in front of my face. I shuffled to the side and tried to scissor my skis like Scott had shown me this morning on my abbreviated ski course—the course that had pretty much consisted of him saying, “Just avoid trees and people, and if in doubt fall down.” And then Jake, whose pearl before swine had been, “Just don’t break anything. I’ve had sex with girls in plaster before, and while it seems like it might be kind of kinky, it’s just annoying after a while.” If my tear ducts hadn’t been frozen, I might have cried.

“You fucked a chick in a cast?” Scott was clearly impressed, and the two of them slipped onto a chairlift together, leaving me floundering like a washed-up trout on a riverbank.

I had made quite a brave go of my time on the slopes, if I do say so myself. I’d shuffled over and shimmied onto the lift and finally made it to the top of the mountain and then tumbled down. And tumbled again. And then repeated the whole chilly, chilling experience. Because, despite Scott’s having rented me a very high-tech ski outfit, which was probably designed to keep germ warfare at bay, I still managed to perform such unimaginable maneuvers that I ended up with ice packed around my knees and down my front. Guess at least I’d have hot-to-trot nipples, I had thought.

But now I’d had enough of the activities corner. I had no luck with the scissoring, so I turned back around. I thought of removing my skis, but I was in the middle of a major thoroughfare, which was only marginally less busy than the Santa Monica Freeway, so I didn’t think I’d try that.

“You wanted a push?” I turned around, thinking that the ski valet was dashing to my rescue at last.

“I’d love a push,” I replied. But it wasn’t the ski valet. It was the very same man who seemed to be making a career of getting me out of trouble—Luke Lloyd.

“You,” I said accusingly.

“Hey.” He smiled and sailed effortlessly around me, stopping smack at the tip of my skis as just the right amount of snow flew up behind him.

“Do you just hang around waiting for me to screw up so that you can rescue me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure yet whether I was pleased to see him. Would I have preferred that he were playing Casanova in Morocco with Little Miss Harem Pants, or did I want him to witness my catastrophic ineptitude in yet another arena of life?

“I can leave, if you like.” He had on a red ski hat that was less Prada Sport and more festering-in-the-back-of-the-coat-closet. But he looked fine in it. His cheeks were raw-looking, and I knew that if I touched them, they’d burn cold in that frostbitten way.

“Well, now that you’re here, I suppose I wouldn’t mind a push,” I said grudgingly. He was just a little too cocky for me to feel grateful.

“Does that mean I get to put my hand on your bottom?” He smiled.

“Did you just turn into Jake Hudson?”

“Ha, I wish. But if that’s your attitude, then I’ll just be leaving.” He turned deftly as if he were about to ski away. He was joking. I think. He seemed to have a sly, faintly perverse sense of humor that I didn’t expect coming from a Hollywood veteran.

“No, I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. I’d love a push. Truly. I
need
a push.”

“Do you really think that I’m like Jake Hudson?” He turned his head to look at me, a concerned expression on his face.

“I have no idea what you’re like. I don’t really know you,” I explained. “Listen, could you just give me a shove, please?” I said with a catch of desperation in my voice.

“If I give you a shove, can we continue this conversation in the café?” he asked teasingly.

“Yes, anything you like,” I agreed. “Only please be quick because any minute now one of these skiers is going to come flying down that slope and slice me in half like it was logging season.”

“Fine.” He picked up the pole in his left hand and poked it in my direction. “Hold on tight.”

“You’re going to pull me?”

“I’ve been trying to do that for months,” he laughed. I blushed and looked at my ski tips. “Here, catch hold.”

I did. And Luke Lloyd pulled me slowly and embarrassingly in the direction of the café, like one of the two-year-olds you see on the bunny slopes.

“I think you’re deliberately being slow,” I said as groups of slick D-girls and young filmmakers shot by us.

“It’s not as easy as you think.”

“Are you saying I’m heavy?” I was tempted to let go of his pole.

“I’m saying nothing,” Luke replied as I followed the back of his navy blue ski jacket. “Look, we’re here now.” He gave me a final tug, and we landed in front of a bench. He clicked the heels of his skis with his poles and stepped smoothly out onto the snow. Then he made his way to me and stood on my bindings.

“I guess I owe you a thank-you,” I said.

“An espresso will do the job.” He released me from my sports-equipment hell, and I was free to stumble around in my deadweight boots.

“It’s the least I can do,” I said as an avalanche of snow tumbled down my trouser leg and onto the ground between us.

“First time skiing?” He upended our skis and arranged them into a small, colorful forest of fiberglass.

“No, I was an Olympian until I lost my nerve.”

He took my gloved hand and helped me up the wet wooden steps to the café. “I just wondered what the hell you were doing on a black-diamond run.”

“Doing as I was told.” We walked to a table and eased ourselves in. Luke took off his jacket and placed it on a radiator next to us. Then he reached out for mine. “Scott and Jake Hudson came up here, and so I had to as well. The joys of being an assistant.”

“You’re lucky you’re alive.” He glanced over the menu. “Do you want some lunch while we’re here?”

“Sorry, but I’m not sure that the twenty bucks I have in my pocket will stretch that far. My wallet’s in my purse, which is in a locker in the ski lodge.” I winced. “But maybe we could both get a sandwich.”

“Okay, my treat, then.” He took in the specials board.

“But you pulled me.” I smiled at him, suddenly happy that I was here. And feeling relaxed for the first time since I’d arrived at Sundance. The café was dark and cozy, and the snow down my chest was beginning to melt.

“Exactly. Which means that I have to buy you lunch.” He was remarkably cute, even with his hair flattened to his head from his hat and his crazy pink cheeks.

“Here,” I said, and reached over to fluff up his hair. “You looked really dorky.”

“Gee, thanks,” he laughed, and turned to the waitress. “Two espressos, and what’re you having?” he asked in that melting southern drawl.

I shrugged. Anything. I’d have whatever was available. “Toasted ham and cheese sandwich,” I suggested.

“Great. Two of those,” he told the waitress, who jotted it down and walked away.

“So you think I’m cut from the same cloth as Jake Hudson?” he asked, idly moving the salt and pepper shakers around.

“I have no idea, to be honest. I was just lashing out because you always seem to catch me at the most embarrassing moments of my life. In fact, I’m really surprised you weren’t there when the elastic went in my underpants on my first day of high school.”

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t.” He raised an eyebrow. “But to set the record straight, I’m nothing like Jake Hudson.”

“You’re not a dissolute, evil-minded man-whore who shares himself with the whole town, then?” I asked, remembering Courtney’s charming summing-up of our mutual friend.

Luke laughed loudly, then looked seriously at me. “You don’t think that even slightly, do you?”

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Well, yes, actually, it does,” he replied. I was surprised. Even if he was lying.

“I honestly don’t know. I’ve only met you a handful of times, and you’ve always been sweet. But I haven’t really had very positive experiences with men in Los Angeles. We’ve always had a bit of a clunky time.”

“Clunky?”

“Yeah, they’ve all been into the usual L.A.-boy stuff—strippers, hookers, karaoke, drugs, fast cars,” I explained. “All very sexy, but I’m a bit intimidated by that. Boring old me, huh?” I wasn’t sure how we’d gotten onto discussing matters of my heart, and I tried to back off. “So have you seen any films you like since you got here?”

“Films?”

“It’s a film festival,” I informed him.

“Right. So you won’t date men in the business?”

“I was very strongly advised not to.” Thank heavens for Lara. Not that I’d followed her advice to the letter, exactly.

“Shame.”

“Why? Do you think I’m missing out?” Our drinks arrived, and we buried our cold, red noses in the steam.

“I’m not at all like those guys.” He took a sip of his espresso and looked at me over the top of the cup.

“Right.” I wondered why he thought it would make any difference to me to know this. I thought that maybe he was flirting with me, but compared with sledgehammer come-ons like Jake Hudson’s and Bob’s, I couldn’t really tell. “Well, with all due respect, Luke, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” I said.

He nodded sagely. “So how did you get here, Lizzie Miller?”

“On a G4.”

“No—here. Hollywood here. Here in your life?”

“Oh, here?” I said, and settled back into the soft cushion on the bench. “Do you really want to know?”

It turned out that he really did want to know. And that, surprisingly, his attention span was much longer than my gnat boss’s. Or even Jake Hudson’s. Or almost anyone else that I’d ever met, in fact. He wanted to know what my parents did for a living and whether I’d preferred international politics to local and if I thought that the UN should be dissolved and what I liked about my job.

“You really want to be a producer?” he finally asked as I confessed that I had a project I wanted to develop.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, yes, you’re right to be afraid. In fact, be very afraid.”

“It’s quite a good project, I think. I mean, as a movie it probably wouldn’t make much more than the price of a can of soda, but it’s interesting. For indie material.”

“So you might be showing your movie here next year?” He smiled encouragingly.

“I suppose I might.” What a thought that was. How happy would Jason be?

“I’d love to look at it. The script, that is.”

“Oh, it’s not really ready to be seen by producers yet. I mean, we don’t have representation and all, but—”

“Well, if you wanted to show me . . .” He shrugged, letting me know that the choice was mine.

“I don’t really believe in mixing business with pleasure.”

“And this thing we’re doing here . . . it’s pleasure, then?”

“Well . . . I’m not sure, but I’d hate it if you were good enough to save my life for the fifteenth time and then I made you read my script, too—that wouldn’t be fair.”

“Well, if you decide that this is pleasure, then don’t give the script to me. But if it’s business, then you must. I don’t want to miss out on a potentially great piece of material.”

“It’s a deal,” I said. Hoping that I wouldn’t have to show him the script at all. Because at that moment he had his hand up his T-shirt, flapping it around so that it dried before the fire. And . . . well, he looked sexy as all hell. And right now
Sex Addicts
could wait. I wanted this to be purely pleasure.

The ironic thing is, I don’t think that my time with Luke Lloyd would have been quite as amazingly pleasurable as it turned out to be if it hadn’t been for Jake Hudson. But it just so happened that back on the mountain he had just finished a great run of moguls and then he’d bumped into his pal Bob Redford on the chairlift. Bob had persuaded Jake and Scott to come to a cocktail party he was giving at the institute at six. Naturally, the fact that my boss had arranged to meet me back at the Wildflower Mountain Home at six did not factor anywhere in his memory at this point. And even if it had, it wouldn’t have made one speck of difference. Scott and Jake trotted off to the Sundance Institute with their friend Bob and didn’t spare me a second thought.