Hollywood Girls Club (5 page)

“Okay,” Mary Anne paused—fear bumped away the excitement in her belly. Her agent? She didn’t have an agent! Could she get an agent? Would Lydia still hire her if she knew that she was unrepresented?

“Mary Anne?” Lydia interrupted Mary Anne’s scrambled thoughts. “Who does your deals? Who represents you?”

“Oh, aah … My, aah, I, aah .” Mary Anne hung her head, shame and sadness replaced her fear. So close—and yet the dream was still dead. “Lydia, I don’t have an agent.”

“For fuck’s sake! I cannot believe someone with your talent is sitting out there in the world without an agent. I’ll take care of it; I know a few. What dumbasses. No wonder the movies are for shit.”

Excitement once again blossomed in Mary Anne’s chest. “Oh, thank you, Lydia,” Mary Anne said. “No wonder.”

“Okay,” Lydia said. “So script in one hour, agent in two, Worldwide Business Affairs after that. And do you think we could sit down tomorrow? Talk about the script? Is your schedule clear?”

“It’s clear.”

“Great. I’m going to jump onto this other call, but Toddy, my assistant, is on the line. She’ll schedule a time with you for tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”

“See you then,” Mary Anne said.

It was
the
call. The call that the hopes and dreams of every Hollywood busboy, bartender, and waiter (also known as struggling actor, writer, and director) were built upon. And after Mary Anne had gotten
the
call from Lydia Albright just eight weeks ago, everything—everything—in her life had changed. One point-five million dollars would do that (Mary Anne had sent the bus money and a celebratory bottle of champagne to Michelle in Minnesota after her first writing check cleared).

Kim, the assistant to Jessica Caulfield (Mary Anne’s new agent), messengered Mary Anne ten copies of the
Daily Variety
announcements that ran two days after Lydia’s call. MEYERS MEETS
MIDNIGHT
read the headline. Mary Anne sent five copies to her family in St. Paul. For the first time, she felt that her parents, Mitsy and Marvin, were proud. The story of Mary Anne’s success ran on the front page of the St. Paul paper, the
Pioneer Press
. Her father actually started telling people his daughter was a writer. Strong praise from a man who’d never read anything Mary Anne had written. Maybe Marvin would even see the movie? Of course he’d see the movie; she’d invite him to the premiere.

Mary Anne was living her dream. She was writing. For the first time in her life, she was writing and someone was paying her to write. Jessica handled the deal. First Worldwide paid five hundred thousand dollars against one million for
The Sky’s the Limit
for Lydia, because she wanted to produce that film as soon as
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
was finished. The numbers were confusing to Mary Anne at first, until Jessica explained that she would get five hundred thousand dollars now and five hundred thousand more if and when
The Sky’s the Limit
went into production.

Then Worldwide paid Mary Anne another $350,000 to rewrite
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
, and an additional $175,000 to polish the script. (A polish was meant to be less work than a new draft, but it was really the same amount of work.)

First, Mary Anne spent four weeks rewriting
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
for the director, Zymar—no last name, just Zymar. That was before Zymar disappeared to Belize. Or was it Bali? Then Mary Anne did more character work for Bradford Madison (the star) before his drunk-and-disorderly arrest. Finally, she’d spent the last seventy-two hours making the Raphaella part bigger and sexier, now that Celeste Solange had signed onto the film.

How had this happened?
Mary Anne Meyers from St. Paul, Minnesota, was writing a bigger and sexier role for the biggest star in the world, Celeste Solange. From homeless to millionaire with one phone call. Only in Hollywood.

Everyone in this town was a gambler, an addict, only the stakes were much bigger than in Vegas. In Vegas you gambled your money, but here, in this town, you gambled with your dreams. Mary Anne was now one of the winners. She’d hit the jackpot; she was one of the success stories that fueled the never-ending fire. And now Mary Anne was finished with the script.

She glanced at the clock; it was six-thirty A.M. She needed some sleep. Lydia’s office would call by ten and they’d want her to come in so that she and Lydia could go over the new draft this afternoon. The start date for shooting the film was only a week away (assuming Zymar returned from overseas and Bradford completed rehab). Lydia wanted Mary Anne on set every day. She needed her there for production writing. That was another seventy-five thousand a week to add to Mary Anne’s flourishing bank account.

Mary Anne padded down the hall past the guest room (she had a guest room!). She glanced in the mirror hanging in the hall.

Her green eyes looked tired. Her light brown hair, earlier pulled into a ponytail, now stuck out at odd angles (she had a habit of pulling on her hair while she wrote). Dark under-eye circles were evident even through her freckles. “You look like the girl next door!” Celeste Solange had exclaimed yesterday, the first time they met, flashing her effervescent world-famous smile.

Mary Anne had been starstruck; it was the first time she truly understood the word. How did you speak to someone you’d watched on a twenty-foot screen since you were twelve years old? This woman had won a Golden Globe! What could
she
, Mary Anne Meyers from Minnesota, possibly have to say that could interest Celeste Solange?

“Just be yourself,” Lydia had whispered into Mary Anne’s ear prior to Celeste walking into the room. “She’s a person. Think of her like you would your neighbor or a cousin. Don’t treat her differently; they get tired of that.”

Some cousin!

But Mary Anne tried to act normal—tried not to be speechless, flounder her words, gush, stare, beam … all those things Hollywood newbies and tourists were guilty of doing. She tried to call Celeste Cici, as the star had insisted. She also tried to focus on the person Celeste was, not the persona she presented.

Mary Anne guessed that there was a piece of herself that Celeste held back—a piece that wasn’t for public consumption. When everyone wanted a piece of you, didn’t you
have
to retain something for yourself?

Mary Anne walked into her bedroom. Painted lavender, the room was calming. Her giant king-sized bed, draped in a paisley-flowered duvet, called to her. Mary Anne sat on her bed and slid off her fuzzy bunny slippers. She placed them next to the three-foot pile of scripts that Jessica had messengered to the house. Each screenplay sent from a producer clamoring for Mary Anne to rewrite his or her script.

“Lydia must have a lot of faith in you,” Jessica had said. “First-time writers never do production work. I know Lydia thinks you’re talented.”

Mary Anne lay back onto her bed and tried to soften her mind for sleep; all she needed was a couple hours, but her mind wouldn’t stop spinning. Once you worked for Lydia Albright, you could work for any studio in town.

It was difficult for Mary Anne to wrap her mind around her success—she spent almost a decade trying to break into the film business, thinking that nobody wanted her and that she wasn’t very talented. Now, with just one phone call, just one person believing in her the whole town was banging on her door.
Where had they been the past nine years?

“Basically, it’s an industry full of lemmings,” Jessica said. “Point them to the sea and they’ll go. Even if there’s a big cliff.”

Mary Anne shut her eyes.
Enjoy it
, she thought, drifting off to sleep.
At least you’re not a rodent.

Chapter 5

Chanel Sandals by the Pool

“A divorce?! Celeste, you do not want a divorce,” Damien said.

Celeste lay on a chaise lounge next to their Olympic-size swimming pool, sipping fresh-squeezed guava-mint-orange juice and while she attempted to maintain her calm cool façade anger seethed within her clamping hard in her belly. A knife—she wanted a long, sharp and jagged blade if not to kill her husband then to make him suffer—or at least scare the son of a bitch.

Damien dried the droplets of water off his silver-haired torso. She’d watched him complete fifty laps (his morning ritual for twenty years) and wondered at each turn how she might successfully drown her philandering husband without ruining her new Chanel pool sandals. Now Damien stood before her, glistening and blocking the morning sun. At fifty, he still had a phenomenal body. Tall, lean, and tan. Damien was vain, priding himself on his physique. He could easily pass for a man in his thirties.

“Like hell I don’t,” Celeste said.

“You’re overreacting. It was a prank by the crew on set. Those panties are not Brie Ellison’s.”

A
prank
? Damien’s claim was bullshit and Celeste knew it. But bullshit that a part of her (the part of her that still loved the prick standing before her) wanted to believe.

“We just got married, for God’s sake,” Damien said.

“I know, I was there—the one in white.”

“Yes.” Damien paused. “White. That was a stretch, even for you.” A lascivious grin lit up his tan face.

God, he had the most magnificent smile. He was an ass, but he had perfect teeth.

“Yes, and marriage, the monogamy bit, seems to be a stretch for you,” Celeste shot back bitterly.

“We are not getting divorced.” Damien sat on the edge of her lounge chair. “I just spent half a million dollars to marry you. A wedding you begged me for. We’re not getting divorced. There is nothing going on.”

“Really?” As if throwing down an ace, Celeste tossed the
Enquirer
she’d been reading into Damien’s lap. There, on the cover, were Brie Ellison’s surgically enhanced lips sucking Damien’s earlobe. He glanced down at the cover and smiled.

“A picture is worth—”

“A thousand words,” Damien finished. Leaning in,
he
rubbed his strong body against her tensed arm. “Come on, Celeste,” he whispered. “You know it’s fake. What if I believed everything this rag printed about you? Isn’t there a two-headed baby in Roswell that some alien fathered when you were abducted by a UFO?”

Celeste fumed. He was right. The
Enquirer
wasn’t enough to go on. But the
Enquirer
, the crotchless panties, and the fact that Brie Ellison was starring in Damien’s next film, well,
that
was plenty of proof.

“Cici. I love you.” He leaned in and nuzzled her neck. “You still drive me wild. You know how film sets are; they’re like high school. And they’ve gotten worse. You haven’t been on one in a while.” Damien lifted the strap of her Chanel bikini and kissed her shoulder.

Heat slid down her back and her skin quivered with his kiss. God, she wanted him and hated him both at the same time.

“I was supposed to be on one this fall,” Celeste pulled away from his touch. “Or have you forgotten?”

“So that’s what all this is about. I told you the studio won’t make your deal. They don’t want to pay your quote. Twenty million is too much for this film, and Brie is only getting paid a million.” Damien reached out and slipped his finger under the clasp of her swimsuit top. “I’ve missed you.” He pulled up the fabric and started kissing her breast. “Let’s go to the pool house.” His voice was husky and his eyes had that vacant look of lust that all men’s take on when they’re hard.

Heat simmered low in her body—a heat fueled by desire pushed aside her anger. Her body wanted to give in. Even as their marriage soured, she knew their sex life would never wane. Catching herself, Celeste once again pulled away from Damien’s embrace.

“Can’t,” she said, pulling her swimsuit top down. “I have to get to the studio.”

“Studio? What studio?” Damien looked surprised.

“Worldwide.”

“Who are you meeting for lunch at Worldwide?”

“It’s not lunch. It’s business.”

“Yeah, right,” Damien said and playfully tried to pull her down on top of him. “Come here.”

Celeste again pulled herself away from her husband. “We start shooting in a week.”

“
We
who? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Damien, my love, don’t you read the trades?
Daily Variety
?
Hollywood Reporter?
Or are they also just rags printing lies?”

He glared at her.
Score one for Celeste.

“It’s a little Lydia Albright film.
Seven Minutes Past Midnight
. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“What?! Since when? Lydia’s career is over with Arnold running Worldwide.”

“Since three days ago. If you weren’t on set pulling high-school pranks with the crew, maybe you’d know what’s going on in the movie business.”

Damien leaned back on the chaise lounge. “Worldwide won’t meet your quote. They’ve already spent twenty million on Bradford Madison plus gross points in profit participation and ten million for Zymar to direct.”

“Deal’s done. Funny you mention Bradford. Yes, hmm … Now, there is an interesting actor I haven’t worked with yet.”

“If you like them wet behind the ears and fresh out of rehab.”

Celeste bent over Damien, letting her nipples graze his arm. “Darling, rehab or no, I just like them fresh.”

Damien stopped. She’d chipped the enamel surface of his exterior, she could tell. Age was a sore spot for anyone in Hollywood; at least anyone over twenty-five. No one willingly told you how many years they’d lived. Best guess was to take whatever they said and add five years; that generally put you within seven years of the real number.

“Celeste, I know
you
do. But I guess the real question is—does Bradford?”

Fucker.

She wouldn’t let him win. Or at least
know
that he had. She turned toward the house.

“We’re having a script read-through,” Celeste called as she clipped across the flagstone to the back entrance. “Not sure what time I’ll be back.”