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Thankfully Elle is clearheaded today. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Priscilla, but Sophie is the best fit and my choice for Mr. Fox. Moving on…”

It takes all my adult self-control to refrain from smirking.

As soon as the meeting wraps, Tru and I regroup in my glass-walled office. I wish I could brag that it’s a super-stylish workstation, but in all the years since I graduated from a cubicle, I still haven’t gotten around to decorating it with many personal touches. Yet after so many long hours hosting my ambition, it comfortably feels like home. And besides, my job is just as much on the road anyway, whether it’s shuttling clients to the gated studios and backlots of Burbank or Hollywood, attending press circuits (aka media musical chairs—new face, same short list of questions) in plush hotel suites, overseeing corner-booth interviews at West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont,
or dodging the “Fashion Police” on red carpets when a client’s wardrobe choices were annihilated the year before. “For tomorrow’s meeting,” I instruct Tru, “we need to research everything Billy Fox. I’m talking career, press, personal life… the works. Get Googling.”

My quirky yet highly capable assistant of the past eighteen months may not look like the usual blond and polished LA publicist, but I wouldn’t trade her selfless Midwestern drive and resourcefulness for anything.

Hours later I’m sifting through an impressive pile of clippings—from deals and box office numbers in the
Hollywood Reporter
and
Variety
to far more gossipy items in
TMZ
and
Star
magazine.
Entertainment Weekly
gushingly crowned Billy “Hollywood’s Next Golden Boy.” And with that notoriety, his personal life has been equally public. He’d been dating this pop star for a while, actually, especially by Hollywood standards, and their breakup saw major tabloid coverage for weeks. In fact the pop star’s latest single is rumored to be a thinly veiled critique of their relationship.

That’s got to suck. Breakups are bad enough without the court of public opinion.

After checking off another day’s to-do list and gathering my notes for tomorrow, it’s time to hit the road home. Pulling out of the office’s underground parking, I wave good-bye to the familiar, rotating security guard (tonight it’s Latin-Big-Flirt-with-Soul-Patch on duty) and ease into the evening traffic. In some cities families are already clearing the dinner dishes, but here in LA, seven-thirty is still peak rush hour. As long as it’s just the usual crawling traffic ahead, the commute from
Century City to Brentwood should get me home by eight-fifteen or so. My iPod lights up as I blast the new Killers album through my BMW’s stereo system. With the office shrinking from sight in the rearview mirror, I take my first deep breath of the day.

I can’t lie, I am a little stressed out. The days are rewarding but draining. There are a lot of egos, overbooked schedules, and periods of necessary hand-holding—and that’s just over lunch. Yesterday, for instance, I half-listened to a nineteen-year-old actress client (one of Nickelodeon’s fresh-faced ingénues) babble on and on about how the show’s director insisted everyone’s lunch break be shortened to forty-five minutes to help pick up the schedule. “But it’s called a lunch
hour
for a reason,” she vented to me over the phone as I tried to ignore my own stomach’s growling. “Do you know how long it takes to prepare ‘raw’?! It’s not just slicing up carrots, you know.” Never mind that I rarely find
fifteen minutes
to duck out for a bite or must ask Tru to pick up some sad salad for me to scarf down as I mute my end of a conference call.

But honestly, it comes with the territory. I wouldn’t trade my career—and it isn’t just about the hot guys and the swag. I appreciate the challenge of raising someone’s profile or working out a campaign for a client’s new independent film. Photo shoots, press junkets, launch parties, premieres… nothing is more exciting for me than taking a hardworking actor and turning him or her into a star. At this stage in my career I have earned the right to pick and choose my clients. So, for the most part, though they can be demanding, I really like and admire the people I work with. Celebrities are generally fun to hang out with because when you’re with them they treat you like
you’re their best friend, and your opinion is gold. It’s those damn managers you have to watch out for—they can be so bitchy. One wrong move and they’ll yank your star client right out from under you. But that hasn’t happened to me in a long time.

Outside Hollywood—or “the business” as it’s aptly called in LA—people may not know my name, but they certainly recognize my clients. And that’s in large part due to my hard work in getting their names and faces out there. I’ve even been mentioned in the gossip columns. Okay, well, not by name, but when you read “so-and-so’s representative was not available for comment”—that’s me! And the “unavailable” part? Completely untrue. I am
always
available for work. But sometimes the best defense for a client’s sticky situation is to pretend it doesn’t exist and wait for someone else to screw up and grab the spotlight.

Thank you, America’s short attention span.

I hear my BlackBerry pinging from its perch on the passenger seat and resist the urge to pick it up. Okay, so I am a BlackBerry addict. I know that’s a cliché even by LA standards, but I admit that I get a bit shaky if the little black box isn’t within my line of sight. I’ve burned through the keypads of two BlackBerrys already. The tech guys at Bennett/Peters didn’t even know that was possible until I came along. After the first incident (where I practically had a panic attack), I keep my I.T. person on speed dial. BlackBerry #3 was in my restless hands within only a few—but seemingly infinite—hours. This may seem a bit workaholic psycho, but to me, it’s normal. It’s business. Sophie Atwater is available by email or cell phone 24/7.

It will probably say that on my tombstone.

Not that I
can’t
take a vacation when I want to… but the few times my boyfriend, Jacob, and I have tried to go away for weekends, to Santa Barbara or San Diego, I was still returning calls and constantly emailing people. Jacob likes to half-joke about throwing my BlackBerry out the window as we sit in traffic on the 101, but he would never really do it. And it’s not like he can talk. He brings his laptop everywhere, and his nose is always buried in the newspaper. And not just the
Los Angeles Times
—he reads
all of them
. I’m talking the
Wall Street Journal
, the
New York Times
, and even Washington and Chicago papers. At first I was impressed. I bragged to all my girlfriends how intelligent and informed he was (he doesn’t even skim the Entertainment section). But like discovering news-ink stains on your fingers, it is pretty annoying to find stack upon stack of previously read papers in your breakfast nook. I own a less than sprawling one-bedroom condo. I’m lucky to
have
a “breakfast nook,” and I don’t always feel like pushing aside a foot-high pile of last week’s news just to sit down while I power through my bowl of Cheerios.

At a red light on Wilshire (home to the longest red lights on the planet), I sneak a look at the incoming emails—nothing urgent—and get in a quick text to Jacob to say I’m almost there. As you might have guessed by his non-
Variety
or
Hollywood Reporter
reading habits, he’s not an actor. That is always the first question people ask me. I suppose given that I spend seemingly twenty-three hours a day with actors it is an obvious assumption. But dating clients is strictly forbidden at Bennett/Peters, and for anyone with an ounce of common sense, not a good idea.

Nope, Jacob R. Sloane is not in the industry at all, actually.
He’s an investment banker. Don’t ask me what that means because, honestly, I have no idea. Except that it does have a sexy, grown-up sound to it. He’s gamely explained to me a couple times what he does, and I go out with him and his work buddies occasionally, but when they’re talking about “lenders” and “portfolios” and whatnot, I can’t help but tune it all out. And inevitably, I have several pending emails I should be replying to anyway. Sometimes I sip my wine and scroll through my inbox and let Jacob’s low, growly voice wash over me, trying to ignore the occasional frown I see on his forehead when he catches me discreetly, or not so discreetly, tapping away on the keyboard.

Finally I park my car in another underground garage and drag my overstuffed Louis Vuitton shoulder bag and exhausted self up the steps to my condo on the third floor. Home is my favorite retreat. Once inside my door, I let out a sigh of relief as I kick the four-inch Jimmy Choo stilettos off my screaming-red, swollen feet. I’m only five-foot-three, so I always go for the highest shoes possible. Not just to keep up with the supermodels, but because nearly everyone I work with is taller than me. I like to even the playing field as much as possible, and for the most part I am very good at walking in high heels, but today has been a really long day. I carefully replace my Choos in their tissue-lined box of honor in my closet. The relieved sigh turns into a groan of pleasure as I replace my suck-in-the-stomach black pencil skirt with a pair of Juicy sweats and my favorite bunny slippers. Now, I don’t want to lead you on with all this “Jimmy Choo” and “L.V.” talk. I do a good job of giving the impression amongst my peers that I am well off, but aside from
the money I put toward my mortgage, it’s a month-to-month existence I’ve got going here. I indulge in my “taste for the finer things” because when you’re standing next to Anne Hathaway on a red carpet, you feel bad enough about yourself as it is. At least when I’m clutching my Chloé bag I can hold my head up. Besides, if my boss, Elle, saw me show up at the office in my favorite Gap jeans, she’d never let me live it down.

The phone rings, and I have a Pavlov’s dog–type instantaneous reaction. It’s nearly impossible to turn off the adrenaline rush of crisis management. But the call is only Jacob signaling his arrival with our much-needed take-out BBQ. We’re on a mission to find the best of every type of food in LA. It’s a “travel escape” via cuisine. Right now, we’re working on Texas barbeque (you know, spare ribs, pulled pork, and all things good and heart attack), but frankly, we’ve been pretty disappointed so far. I was in Nashville last month with a client, and he took me to some delicious hole-in-the-wall place where the tea was sweet and the food perfection. I’ve been craving it ever since, but nothing local is living up to that memory. Still, we haven’t given up trying.

My kitchen is primarily used as a morning coffee station.

Jacob strides in—looking the part of athletic, former frat boy turned respectable businessman in a sharp suit and Italian leather shoes—and flashes a broad smile as he drops the aromatic bag of food on the kitchen counter.

I want to say it’s because I am an intoxicating vision of beauty tonight. But I have some idea what my hair must look like: dirty-blond straw. I have stick-straight, relatively healthy, down-to-my-shoulders locks, which can actually be blown out
to look quite pretty when I bother. But this morning was too damn early, and I’m not the one on TV anyway. So the best I could do was a tight ponytail, which gives a finished appearance but at this point in the day is no longer tolerable. I now have the ponytail holder around my wrist, and self-consciously, I tuck the man-made lighter blond highlights behind my ears as I return to flipping through our viewing options.

I don’t remember when I stopped checking the mirror before Jacob’s arrival, but I did.

“Hi, babe.” He leans over the couch and gives me a quick upside-down kiss. His chestnut-brown bangs tickle my chin. And I get a note of his warm, earthy cologne. “I got baby back ribs, smoked chicken, and corn bread. How was your day?” He disappears into the adjoining kitchen.

“Good and exhausting. We might be signing Billy Fox as a new client tomorrow. And Elle chose me to win him over.”

“The actor, right?” Jacob’s voice floats in from the kitchen along with the sound of drawers and the refrigerator door opening and closing. “You’re a pro. I’m sure you’ll wow him.”

That’s so Jacob—supportive of my career yet rarely star-struck. It’s an endearing trait and a retreat from my celebrity-saturated world. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say, hoping he’s right. “Oh, Julie at
Hollywood Tonight
says hi. She’s the one who got smashed at the Sunset Room last week, remember?”

“How could I forget?” Jacob reappears juggling a Sierra Nevada for himself and the rest of an already open bottle of wine for me, along with plates, napkins, and utensils. “She serenaded the entire bar with three choruses of ‘I Will Survive.’ Too
bad she couldn’t remember the verses. And there you were cheering her on!” He chuckles, organizing everything in front of us.

We exchange the ritual small talk as we set up dinner on the small square coffee table in front of my fifty-inch flat-screen, an unexpected client gift from Christmas. Now I would dearly love to impress you with the list of highbrow shows I watch, but while Jacob “season passes” shows like
The O’Reilly Factor
and
Meet the Press
, I am addicted to guilty pleasures. I consider them a present to myself for when I get home at night and find my brain on standby. Aside from keeping up with the standard reality TV fare, I am still attached to the soap my Theta sorority sisters got me hooked on—
Days of Our Lives
. Some people even say I resemble the longtime character Sami, which is up for debate, but I’ll take it as a compliment. And whenever I’m feeling really down, good old-fashioned
90210
(the original) and
Dawson’s Creek
repeats are the best antidotes.

But beyond the girly stuff, Jacob and I appreciate a lot of the same shows.

Our absolute favorite is
Survivor
. Seriously, it is such good TV and a useful reminder that even on my toughest days I’ve at least got takeout on speed-dial, a hot shower, and Jacob’s alliance to keep me sane. I’m no prima donna, but honestly, I’d be the first to vote myself off the island. Jacob and I have a pact that no matter how tempted, we won’t watch our favorite show without the other person. In fact, one time we got in a huge two-day fight because I thought he’d watched it without me and so I started viewing the recorded episode before he arrived.