What To Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection Part Two (44 page)

Toward the end of the day I used my phone to Google his name. I felt a little paranoid about getting caught doing some research on him after the meeting—something I should have done well before.

The first result that came up was his IMDb listing. There was one picture of him, taken at a red carpet event. It wasn’t a close-up and didn’t do him justice at all. I scrolled down to the section that listed his credits: three as a writer, nine as producer. No acting or directing credits.

I would have been in even greater awe of him during the meeting had I known then that he had written one of my favorite movies. He’d even been nominated for an Oscar.

Whoa.
This guy was a bigger deal than I realized, and I suddenly felt like a fool for not knowing. Although, Kevin hadn’t made a point of it. All he had told me was that this was one of the most important meetings he’d probably have all year. I figured it was just because we were pitching Jaqueline Mathers. Now I knew it was also because we were meeting with a true Hollywood big shot.

I scrolled back up to the top of the page and saw his birth date. He was only twenty-nine. It had to be unusual to reach his level of success at such a young age. He had seemed easy-going, friendly, and not snobbish or hung up on himself. Especially with the light-hearted comment he made to me as I was leaving his office.

By the end of the day I was completely enthralled with Max Dalton, and I had no idea how much pleasure and pain it would bring me in the coming months.

As I left the office my nerves were on edge. Not only because of Max, but because I was so new to my job, new to the entire business of Hollywood, and already I was a major part of what could be a major deal with an up and coming star and a blockbuster movie. The waiting game was on—Kevin had told me we’d probably know something next week.

To ease my anxiety, I put the top down on my new Volkswagen Beetle and let the California air blow through my hair as I drove home. The car was my first big purchase in life. I had pooled all my college graduation money for the down payment. It was a great ride all the way from Ohio to California.

When I got home I opened the door to find Krystal straddling a guy on our couch.

Krystal Sherman was two years older than me, and had been in California for three years now. She was really more my sister Grace’s friend, but when she found out I was headed to southern California she offered to let me stay there as long as I needed.

She was one of the few people who knew the whole truth about why I wanted to get the hell out of Ohio. Most people thought it was just about wanting a fresh start after college. That’s also what most people thought about my breaking up with Chris Cooper after three years of serious dating.

What most people didn’t know was that during our senior year at Ohio State, Chris cheated on me with no less than three girls. That alone was grounds for dumping him, but there was more—things I didn’t even tell my parents. The only people who knew the whole story were my sister Grace, and Krystal.

Krystal had come to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, but like so many others, she was a full-time waitress while she waited to be discovered. To her credit, she hadn’t asked me to do her any favors and try to get Kevin’s agency to rep her. She seemed determined to do it on her own merit.

When she heard the door open, she turned around. “Oh, hey.”

She didn’t move off the guy. They were both clothed, and I felt bad that I had walked in while something was just getting started. Sure, she could have been doing this in her room, but it was her condo, so I couldn’t complain.

“Hey, sorry.” I turned my back to them as I closed the door.

“No worries.”

I turned and started to walk through the den and to my bedroom, but Krystal stopped me.

“This is Marco,” she said, looking from me to him.

I smiled. “Hi.”

He looked back at me through heavily-lidded eyes. “What’s up?”

I looked back at Krystal, who had rested her head on his shoulder, still straddling him. “I’ll just be in my room.”

She slid off him. “No, no, it’s okay. We were just figuring out what to do for dinner.”

I’d had moments of indecision before about where to eat, but had never thought of trying to answer the question by straddling a cute guy. Maybe I was missing out.

“Any ideas?” she said.

“You’re off tonight?”

“Oh, yeah. They had too many servers scheduled and called and asked me if I wanted off.”

That had happened at least five times in the three weeks since I’d arrived in L.A. I wondered how Krystal afforded to take so much time off, but it was none of my business.

Marco wasn’t paying any attention to the conversation. His eyes were on Krystal. More specifically, on her boobs, which were straining against the tight t-shirt she was wearing. I got the feeling he didn’t really care about dinner at the moment.

We finally decided to go to a little sushi place. Unfortunately, Marco joined us. I wanted to tell Krystal all about Max. But I didn’t want to bring it up with Marco there. I didn’t know him. In fact, I’d never heard Krystal talk about him, either.

After dinner, she said she was going back to his place and would probably be home late.

On the way home, I wondered what I’d do with the rest of my night. I could call Grace, but it was too soon to tell my sister about Max. She would only have been negative about it, telling me to be careful around “those Hollywood types,” as she and my parents like to say.

I spent the rest of the evening watching a few of Max’s movies on Netflix and wondering when, or even
if
, I’d see him again.

I
didn’t see Max the next week. I did talk to him once when Kevin asked me to get him on the line.

Jacqueline called every day to ask if we’d heard anything about her getting the part in the movie. Kevin assured her that the wait time was normal and by Thursday he had instructed me to tell her he was in a meeting, which meant I had to take over the comforting and reassuring.

One night, after dinner and over a glass of wine, I told Krystal about having met Max.

“Max Dalton?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s that?”

I laughed. “I didn’t know who he was, either, until I looked it up. And this was after I met him.” I told her the whole story about the meeting.

“Oh, yeah. I know his movies. Hell yeah. I just didn’t know the name.”

We were in the majority. According to Kevin, and confirmed by my own experience, people rarely know the writers and producers, save for a few big names.

“And,” I said, “the worst part is, he’s hot as hell.”

“Why is that the worst part?”

“Because I have to work with him and I can’t focus when I’m around him or when he’s on the phone.”

Krystal swallowed the last of her drink, and shook her head. “You’re in Hollywood, honey. Get ready to be smitten with a lot of people.”

Krystal called the office on Friday afternoon and said, “Let’s go to Vegas!”

“What? When?”

“This weekend.”

I wasn’t up for a trip anywhere, let alone to Vegas. “For what?”

“For
what
? It’s Vegas, baby! We don’t need a reason beyond that. But if you really do need a reason, I think it would be a great way to celebrate your first month out here working in the biz.”

Krystal was the only person I knew who called it “the biz.” It made me wonder if she was trying too hard. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t been able to get representation.

I looked at the clock on my computer—4:16. “That sounds like fun, but I don’t think I have any Vegas attire, first of all, and—”

“Okay, you’re looking for excuses not to go, but you’re going.”

“Says who?”

Her voice echoed, like she’d walked into the bathroom. “Says me. It’s part of initiation. Come on. It’s just two days. Trust me, you won’t regret it.”

A few seconds of silence passed, then I thought of something. “Who’s going?”

“Just me and you.”

I was glad to hear that her new friend Marco wasn’t going. There was something about that guy I didn’t like, something about the way he looked at Krystal, and the way he looked at me when Krystal left the room. He didn’t talk much, but he sure liked to stare a lot. He was unsettling, to say the least. I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him, and I hadn’t asked. It was none of my business.

She pressed on making her case. “I’ll pay for the gas and all the other stuff. It’s all on me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t
have
to. I want to.”

“All right,” I said. “When do you want to leave?”

By nine o’clock that night, we were two hours into the roughly four-hour drive to Vegas. We had great travel weather, and little traffic, although we did get stuck behind an RV for a while somewhere in Nevada that slowed us down.

“So how’s Grace?” Krystal asked at one point during the drive.

It made me realize I hadn’t talked to my sister in over a week, a record for us. I was just so busy and so preoccupied I hadn’t gotten around to calling her. Of course, she hadn’t called me, either, so I didn’t feel guilty. Two-way streets, and all that.

“I guess she’s okay,” I said.

“You guess?”

I explained how I hadn’t talked to Grace lately.

Krystal reached to turn the stereo down. “I think she’d like it here.”

“Ha. I doubt it.”

“I know. I just mean, if she gave it a chance. If she gave
anything
a chance.”

This was my sister we were talking about, and Krystal’s tone had a little too much sarcastic negativity to it, so I just shrugged and said, “Yeah.”

What she was referring to was my sister having taken the same route as my mother. Married young, two kids, stay-at-home mom, no apparent ambition outside of those things. Honestly, I can respect that. I just wish Grace had given the world a look before she settled down. She was only two years older than me, but she acted like she was thirty years older. She acted like my mom. And seeing as how I already had two parents who’d like to make every life decision for me, the last thing I needed was a third one.

And, really, she should have known that. The pressure I’d felt to become Mrs. Chris Cooper was like a slow, constant suffocation. Several times after I broke up with him, my mom had pushed me so close to spilling the whole truth about what Chris had done. What stopped me from doing it was the sense that it would have only made them even more protective of me. And with the town being as small as it was, there was every chance in the world that my story would get around, and people wouldn’t believe me. Instead, they’d rally behind Chris Cooper, all –American church-going guy and former quarterback of the two-time champion football team at our high school. My only choice was to keep my head down and just leave.

“Oh, well,” Krystal was saying. “Her loss.”

“Yeah.”

That conversation wouldn’t have gotten far even if I hadn’t stopped it, because it wasn’t long before we saw the lights of Vegas twinkling in the distance—almost beckoning people to come there. I felt the pull of excitement.