Honeeeey and the Bea … （Nie）
HONEEEEY AND THE BEA… (NIE)
The worst way to get a mentor is to go find one. The best way is to see the one that is already there.
—JEFF GOINS
1985
Though Sheila Day had a secretary, and an assistant, Beanie, as departmental trainee, was asked to help her with her transition. Naturally, Beanie was nervous. She had heard that Sheila was tough, especially on women, and feared that all the progress she’d made in getting this far could be easily and suddenly taken from her.
Sitting on the temporary couch in her temporary office, Sheila Day took a long drag off a French cigarette and assessed Beanie Rosen in her brown trundle skirt and silk blouse with a bow tied at the neck.
“Honeeeey,” Sheila said, “when God gives you hips, you shouldn’t add more.”
Beanie nodded, making a mental note to throw away the skirt.
“So,” Sheila asked, “what the hell is a departmental trainee?”
Beanie began to explain her duties, but Sheila was bored five minutes into it.
“Let’s get to the good stuff,” she said. “You wanted off Barron’s desk, didn’t you?” Her eyes narrowed as she studied this young woman whom Jamie Garland had raved about.
“Yes,” Beanie admitted.
Sheila nodded, taking another long drag. “Why?”
Beanie was noncommittal, and Sheila was growing bored.
“Honeeeey,” she said, “speak now, or forever hold his piece.”
Beanie laughed. Sheila didn’t.
The Mike Barron debacle still paralyzed Beanie with fear.
Initially Barron had felt double-crossed, submarined, and thanks to an overabundance of cocaine, deeply paranoid.
What had Beanie said? What had Beanie done? Why had they all betrayed him? And the most crippling thought of all was whether she had spoken ill of him to Sam Lesser.
Fucking cunt, he thought, spinning out on the realization that not only had he been excluded from the Nicolas Cage signing, but from any discussion about her promotion. They took her off his desk without his permission, as if he didn’t matter. Then the thought crept in: What if they were going to take away his title, take away the training program? What if they were going to fucking fire him? Could they? Did they have cause? What if she talked? She might make up stories about him. “I’ll fucking show her,” he’d said to himself as he worked through an entire eight ball alone in his Malibu retreat.
Mike Barron began bad-mouthing Beanie around town, implying disloyalty and a disregard for truth. He told people that he’d wanted her off his desk and even made an untoward association between her, Ella Gaddy, and Garry Fucking Sampson, insinuating that they were all fucking each other as they fucked him over. He had a small cadre of like-minded bullies, in and out of the agency, people who thrived on gossip, especially happy when others fell, and he made sure they’d spread the Beanie Rosen poison. Barron even went so far as to warn Gil Amati to be careful, saying that this new departmental trainee was not to be trusted, and he asked his father to say the same to Harvey Khan, urging him to convince Khan to put a stop to this promotion.
But Khan wouldn’t override Lesser’s decision and told Barron’s father that Mike should focus on his own business. And that made Mike more paranoid. What did he mean by that? Did Khan think Mike wasn’t focused? What fucking lies had Beanie Rosen told them all? And who had helped her? He instantly suspected Jamie Fucking Garland, who’d given Beanie a party after the promotion and had the balls to invite him.
Eat me, he thought, and never responded nor, obviously, attended.
Sheila pressed the intercom. “Get me an iced coffee,” she told her male secretary. She liked men to work for her; to answer her phones, type her letters, get her coffee. “It’s my own little Planet of the Apes,” she had said to Rose Liu, who’d offered her every female executive secretary she’d had. “I like to switch it up,” Sheila told her, plucking Eric out of the mailroom.
“Honeeeey,” she’d told him, “you’ll write books about this one day. And I’ll sue.”
“What the hell do you have over Mike Barron?” Sheila asked Beanie, telling her that he wanted her gone. “He’s saying it all over town.”
Oh no, Beanie thought. Now Sheila Day isn’t going to like me. Beanie, whose eyes filled, felt stupid for crying. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to get control of her emotions. She didn’t want to look weak, not in front of a woman who was so strong. But surprisingly, Sheila was compassionate, empathetic even. “Honeeeey,” she told her, “Mike Barron running around trying to get you fired only makes you more interesting to me.” She patted the seat next to her and said, “I know what he wants me to think of him. Now, tell me exactly who he is.”
And though Beanie worried she would look disloyal or disgruntled, she also understood that with Barron there was no middle ground. It would be a fight to the death. And Beanie Rosen was not prepared to die.
Sitting next to Sheila, Beanie recalled every sordid detail, from the abuse, to the complaints, to the way he would leave clients’ phone numbers with different agencies so that the client would leave Sylvan Light, making the responsible agent vulnerable, and making Barron, who held on to his own clients, more valuable. Beanie held nothing back.
And Sheila took it all in. Finally, she stubbed out her cigarette, stood up, and said, “Okay, we’re done.”
Beanie didn’t know whether it was a test, and if so, had she failed? Ella had warned Beanie not to trust Sheila, confiding that both she and Garry Sampson were wary of her, but Beanie liked her, believing that Sheila, much like Jamie Garland, was on her side.
The following week Beanie was asked to lunch with Sheila Day in a private room at Hernando’s Hideaway, the same place where Sam Lesser had signed Nicolas Cage a few months earlier. Sheila asked her to come promptly at 1:15 that afternoon, and when Beanie arrived, this time in a power suit that showed off her legs and slimmed her hips, she saw Sheila tucked away in a corner with Mike Barron.
Barron noticed Beanie immediately, shooting daggers her way.
For her part, Beanie didn’t know if this was a setup or a send-off.
Maybe Ella had been right. Maybe Sheila was going to punish her for speaking badly about Mike. She wanted to turn, run, or bypass them both and go to the restroom, but Sheila, seeing her, waved her over.
“You two know each other,” Sheila said, gesturing for Beanie to sit beside her.
Beanie, confused, stiffly sat down next to Sheila, opposite Mike, who had a strange kind of crescent smile on his face. As she subconsciously wrapped her hand around the butter knife, Beanie, whose heart was in her throat, listened to Sheila explain that they were in the middle of discussing some of Mike’s hopes for the future, and some of the stars he’d been targeting.
“Go ahead,” Sheila said to him encouragingly.
Mike looked from Sheila to Beanie. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, “but what is she doing here?”
Sheila apologized, explaining that she presumed he knew that Beanie Rosen was not only a brilliant departmental trainee but her protégé, and that she had found her to be honest, smart, and deeply informative as to the inner workings of the agents and the agency. “I’ve asked her to join me on certain lunches,” said Sheila, staring directly into his eyes, “to help me decide who should stay and who should leave.”
Then she ordered the chicken piccata.
Mike, already paranoid when invited to the lunch, was off the charts after it. Deeply shaken, he left the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, went straight to his main suppliers and bought all the cocaine they had, then went on a three-week bender, calling buyers, clients, making crazy accusations and nonsensical rants until even his coterie of like-minded bullies began to worry.
Drugs at the agency were an open secret and everyone, from Gil Amati to Phil Carter to the rich trainees who had access and means, dabbled. But this was on a different level. There were rumors that Barron was freebasing heroin, and while never substantiated, they served to fuel and expedite an ultimate decision.
“I think Barron has a drug problem,” Sheila told Lesser, who told Lonshien, who told Khan, who told Leo Barron, who recommended his son go to rehab.
One month after the fateful lunch, Mike Barron took an extended leave of absence that turned into a hiatus that turned into a mutual understanding that there might be a different career in his future. And like an Olympic diver, Mike Barron went down without a splash. There was no fanfare, no big announcement, just a whiff of powder then poof ! He was gone.