Hollywood Girls Club (9 page)

“After what I saw tonight, anything you, Maurice, or Lydia want. Did you see her dress down that little prick Arnold? She was fantastic!”

Jessica sipped her Diet Coke. “I was standing right there.”

“I wish he’d get that bug out of his ass. That feud he thinks he’s got going with Lydia is old news. Arnold isn’t going to hold Lydia back—she’s too good, always has been.”

“I agree,” Jessica said.

“If Arnold isn’t careful, some other studio may offer her a deal on their lot that she can’t refuse.”

“I doubt Lydia would be opposed to that,” Jessica replied coyly. “Her overall deal at Worldwide is up after the first of the year.” Jessica glanced across the room. Lydia was talking to Douglas Thomas, the A-list star whose last movie had tanked. Lydia was brilliant. She got them while they were vulnerable.
Lydia’s so good and she doesn’t even realize it
, Jess thought.

“I can’t believe Robinoff gave Arnold that job. What was he thinking? Well, bad news for Worldwide is good news for Summit.” Paul bit into his albacore tuna sushi. “Hey, isn’t that Holden Humphrey over there with Josh Dragatsis? Holden’s your client, right?”

Jessica lifted her brow. “Yes. Looks like I better shoo away a pesky little bug. Send me the script.”

Jessica watched Josh Dragatsis lean in and whisper to Holden. She was pissed. Where were CTA’s junior agents who had been assigned to cover Holden at this event? Every A-list star was supposed to have a minimum of two agents surrounding him or her at premieres so just this sort of thing
never
happened.
Where the
fuck
were they?
She hadn’t spent the better part of her reproductive years working her ass off just to stand back and watch while a pissant baby agent from a B-level shop hit on one of her highest-paid stars.

“Holden, my love,” Jessica purred, strolling up and putting her arm around Holden and kissing his cheek. “Josh, trying to convince my star that he should work for free on your little independent film?”

“Nah. Just talking football. Well, that and strip clubs. You a fan, Jess?” Josh asked, his eyes sparkling with mischief.

Every female agent’s Achilles’ heel: football and strip clubs. You could get the star, put the star to work, hone his career, build his résumé, increase his quote … but
never
, as a female agent, would talking about football and strip clubs with one of your male stars (and male stars were the ones with the longest shelf life and the highest quote) ever sound legitimate.

“Not I. Me, I just like to shop for expensive shoes. But Tyler and Zane, now, they are agents at CTA who I think indulge.” Jessica waved her hand, and as if by magic two of the most beautiful (noncelebrity) men appeared. Holden’s CTA covering agents for the evening. Jessica smiled at them both, but her eyes were cold steel. Tyler and Zane would be in her office by eight A.M. so that she could scream at them for letting Josh Dragatsis get so close to a CTA star. Then she’d have them detail her car as punishment.

“Tyler, man, where’d you go?” Holden asked, smiling. “I lost you at the bar.”

Tyler sniffed and wiped under his nose. “Bathroom.”

“Josh, do you know Mike Fox?” Jessica asked.

“Uh . . well, we’ve spoken but—”

“Really? That’s too bad. Holden, why don’t you come with me? I
know
Mike would love to meet you and he’s having a private party in back.” She gave Josh the stay-the-fuck-away-from-my-star smile.

Jessica walked toward the back of the club with her hand wrapped around Holden’s arm. If she knew Mike (and she did—intimately), she knew that behind the giant red velvet drapes at the end of the room (where two bodyguards stood) he was ensconced with his stars and models. No agents allowed. She took a deep breath—she hoped Mike didn’t consider her one of the “no agents allowed.” In between the two goons, Jessica spotted a velvet rope. She was used to always being on the exclusive side of the rope and it irritated her that at this moment she wasn’t. As she approached, she noticed that each guard wore an earpiece and a microphone—very high-tech and a little extreme, even for Mike.

“Miss Caulfield.” The bouncer on the right side unhooked the rope and pulled back the velvet curtain. “Mr. Fox is waiting for you and Mr. Humphrey.”

And with that, Jess was in.

Chapter 8

Mary Anne’s First Pair of Ferragamos

Mary Anne sat in a tub of Amazonian river mud infused with Peruvian-volcanic soil. It was the exact temperature of her body (the relaxation therapist, to Mary Anne’s surprise, had taken a rectal temperature reading during her prebath rubdown). She had a citrus-mint-cucumber slice over each eye. Everything at the spa was a multi-hyphenate. It wasn’t just salt, it was Dead-Sea-salt-infused-with-Mesopotamian-river water. It wasn’t just a facial, it was a rosewater-herbal skin infusion followed by South-Pacific-kiwi-apricot exfoliation. Even for a writer, it was a lot to handle, and it was Mary Anne’s first time.

Mary Anne wiggled the mud between her toes. It was squishy and thick, and it triggered a childhood memory of stomping barefoot through summer mud puddles in Minnesota. Cici lounged in the tub next to her. (Yes, Mary Anne was finally calling Celeste Solange Cici.) After the last read-through two days before, Cici had insisted they come to Rancho des Celibre for the day. Cici’s car and driver picked up Mary Anne at six A.M. They were each assigned two relaxation guides in addition to their various teachers and technicians. They began at seven A.M. with lemon-cayenne detox. Then they practiced canyon-side yoga followed by rooftop meditation. Mary Anne hadn’t actually seen many people, except the staff, and she wondered if Cici had rented out the entire spa for the day.

The food was as exotic as the technicians. They breakfasted on blueberry-flaxseed pancakes soaked in virgin-bee honey (how anyone could tell if a bee was a virgin, Mary Anne had no idea) with mango-kiwi-passion-fruit salad. Once their tummies were full, their relaxation guides led them to a “dim” room, where they were undressed. Then it was time for side-by-side hot rock massages. Cici and Mary Anne lay on massage tables, getting their pre-mud-tub rubdowns.

“Darling, I always say get the wax first, then the mani-pedi, and then the massage,” Celeste said. “You want to relax after someone pulls out your crotch hair. You know?”

“Oh.”

“And you
have
to wax before the mani-pedi because you don’t want some stray pube flying into your nail polish.
Very
unattractive. Believe me, I know. The last Oscars—oh my God! Scrambling to find Chanel red backstage before I went on. This little hair …”

Mary Anne had tried to listen to Cici as Ferdinand pushed his thumb deep into the muscle around Mary Anne’s left shoulder blade, but Cici’s voice faded in and out as Mary Anne relaxed.

“… but we just couldn’t get in to Olivia until three P.M. I mean, she would have taken me, of course, but she couldn’t rearrange her schedule for both of us. You get what I’m saying?”

“Hmm …” Mary Anne mumbled.

“So we’ll just go to Ferragamo to relax after the wax job. Olivia does the best Argentinean.”

“Argentinean? I’ve heard of a Brazilian, but—”

“Next step, sweetie,” Celeste said.

Mary Anne flinched. She’d never even been waxed. They shaved in Minnesota. And since she’d lived in Los Angeles, she’d never had enough money (until now) for this type of maintenance.

“You know it’s impossible to get on Olivia’s client list. But now that you’re going with me, you’ll definitely be able to get into a two-week rotation. It’s
so
worth it.”

Mary Anne couldn’t imagine what “so worth it” meant to Cici, who was normally paid $20 million per film. This spa day was Cici’s treat, but Mary Anne had been speculating on price and doing the math in her head. She guessed that Cici had easily dropped eighteen grand. Mary Anne couldn’t stop counting pennies just because she had more pennies to count. Once poor, always poor. She was terrified that an accountant from the studio would knock on her door, tell her it was all a big mistake, and demand that she return all the money she’d been paid.

Cici sat up from her massage. “Mud bath next. Then we exfoliate.” Cici marched naked across the heated marble floor to the mud tub. Mary Anne watched her slip into the mud. She couldn’t stop herself from staring.
Was it possible to be that physically perfect?
It must be, because Cici’s body was. Not an ounce of fat. No stretch marks. No sags. Not even a tan line.
Jeez. That was perfection.
Feeling self-conscious (who wouldn’t next to a blond goddess), Mary Anne wrapped her towel around her body and padded over to the mud tub. Tatiana (one of Cici’s relaxation therapists) was placing cucumber slices onto Cici’s eyelids as Mary Anne slid into her tub. Perfect temperature. It was heaven.

“Do you think Bradford Madison would be a good fuck?” Cici asked a few minutes later.

The question snapped Mary Anne out of her reverie and she choked on the mango-lemon-infused water she was sipping. She cleared her throat. “He’s definitely good-looking.”

“Yes, but good-looking doesn’t mean he’s a good fuck. In fact, I’ve found it’s usually the opposite,” Cici said, turning her head and cucumber-covered eyes toward Mary Anne. “Good-looking men are usually so self-absorbed, they think you should feel grateful to fuck them. Now, the not-so-good-looking-guys, the ones that are a six or a seven on the scale,
they
are the phenomenal fucks. At least the best ones I’ve had. I guess it’s because they’re grateful to be fucking you. Right? I mean, they realize they’re going to come either way, and they don’t know for sure when the next time is they’ll be with a beautiful woman, so they make it all about your pleasure. Plus, they
really
enjoy it. And they make sure that you enjoy it, too. It’s usually the swarthy Jewish guys. They fuck like it’s a five-star meal or a bottle of Chateau de Beaucastel. So based on that, I don’t know about Bradford. What do you think?”

Mary Anne didn’t know what to think. Or what to say. She was so out of her league, in over her head … every cliche applied. Sure, she’d been in Los Angeles for nine years, but it wasn’t like she’d been speeding down the fast lane. She was from
Minnesota
. They didn’t talk about fucking celebrities or little swarthy Jewish men there—in fact, they didn’t have either in her hometown. She’d only slept with three men in her entire life. One was her high-school boyfriend, Tod, who dumped her six months after she moved to L.A. He was now married with a fat wife and three kids, running his dad’s car dealership in St. Paul. Until recently, Mary Anne’s mother, Mitsy, liked to point out that if Mary Anne hadn’t moved to L.A. she could be the one living in a five-bedroom brick Tudor with three kids and a membership to the St. Paul Country Club.

The second guy, Lewis, was an artist/waiter Mary Anne had met the first year she was in L.A. It was a quick love affair; seven weeks. It ended one day when Mary Anne came home to her apartment after work to find her stereo and television gone and a note letting her know that Lewis owed money and needed to get out of town fast. His note said he’d replace everything soon (he never did).

The third, the one she didn’t want to think about, was the main reason she’d thought the dream was dead, the final humiliation in a long list of Los Angeles’s insults. Mary Anne had met Steve at a screenplay writers’ conference; he was the computer guy. He gave a stilted and somewhat boring forty-five-minute presentation on how to make your laptop your best friend. But he was tall, gangly, quiet, and cute. Steve was also the reason Mary Anne ended up broke and homeless on Sylvia’s couch. Well, Steve and the redheaded actress, Viève, who lived next door. Mary Anne walked right in on them. What a scene. She couldn’t even talk about it yet.

“Well? What do you think ?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never slept with a celebrity or a Jew.”

Mary Anne heard Cici giggle, then snort, and one guffaw turned into a belly-rolling laugh until Cici was hooting, barely able to catch her breath.

“
Oh
my God
! Mary Anne, no wonder you are such a fantastic fucking writer! Where do you come up with this stuff?”

Mary Anne smiled and sank down into the mud tub. “They say write what you know. Just my life, I guess.”

“What a life,” Cici said, snickering and relaxing deeper into the mud.

Mary Anne could hear the smile in Cici’s voice. Yeah, what a life.

Mary Anne watched the shops and restaurants on Hollywood Boulevard fly by from the backseat of the chauffeur-driven Town Car, the sixth (or was it the seventh?) time today she’d had a driver. She leaned back into the leather seat, trying not to disturb her freshly cut, colored, and curled coif.

“That dress looks fabulous with your skin color and eyes,” Cici whispered into Mary Anne’s ear.

Mary Anne was nervous. Cici had invited her to this “event” only four hours before, while Mary Anne sat in Ferragamo watching Cici try on shoes. Shoes, Mary Anne realized, that cost more than Mary Anne’s monthly rent in her first Hollywood apartment.

“It’s a charity event.
Everyone
will be there,” Cici had said, admiring a pair of strappy leather sandals with a silver heel. “I’d love it if you’d come with me. Kiki Dee is organizing it and she’ll die if I don’t show.”

“Kiki?”

“Dee,” Celeste said, turning around to face Mary Anne. “My publicist.”

“Oh,” Mary Anne said. An
event
? Prior to moving to Los Angeles, an event for Mary Anne was a graduation, a wedding, or a funeral, the first involving a barbecue grill and shorts, the other two nude-colored panty hose, and all three, extended family. But a Hollywood event? What would she wear? What did she own that she
could
wear? Where would she shop? How long did she have to prepare?

“It’s tonight, around eight,” Cici said.

Mary Anne swallowed hard.
Tonight
? There was no way she could be ready. She could barely comprehend getting ready in seven days, much less four hours.