Dangerous Curves
DANGEROUS CURVES
Those fucking Doritos.
—BEANIE ROSEN
1995
Westman left for his home in Malibu early the next morning.
Beanie offered to make him breakfast, or coffee even, but it was a good hour drive from Nichols Canyon to Point Dume, so he needed to go. He kissed her, thanked her, and just before he left, she reminded him to read the new Bill Goldman script she’d sent him last week.
“FUCK, why did I say that?” she said, kicking herself after he’d left. Ugh, she was such a dope. She knew she shouldn’t have slept with him and hoped it wouldn’t be awkward now, but she tried to put it out of her mind as she got ready for the Women in Power luncheon. Jamie Garland was being honored and Beanie was supposed to give a speech and present her award.
After choosing a white Dolce & Gabbana pantsuit, which was still a little snug around the middle, she hopped into her steely blue Jaguar XJS, debating whether she should tell Ella about her night with Scott. Though they were partners, she decided against it since Ella had never shared the intimacies between her and Westman. And besides, it was a silly little drunken one-off, a fun frolic between friends.
“Honeeeey, they’re not our friends,” Beanie could hear Sheila saying in her mind, but either way, Beanie decided, as she drove to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel to honor the woman upon whose shoulders she’d stood, she didn’t need to burden Ella with her bad call.
Instead, Beanie left her a quick message saying how great the party was, and how everyone had asked for her, and to ring her later. Then she rehearsed her speech about women standing with each other and for each other and decided that she would present the award to Jamie on behalf of both Beanie and her longtime partner and best friend, Ella Gaddy.
The next day, Beanie rolled into her office just before 9:00 A.M. She had meant to get in earlier and deal with some East Coast business and read the trades, but the diet pills had really been messing with her sleep.
She checked in with Sheila Day who was still on a high from the Cruise of it all. He hadn’t signed with her but wanted her opinion on a few scripts.
Beanie became consumed by the fact that she hadn’t heard from Westman all day Sunday—not that she thought she would, but she needed to get back to Columbia about the Bill Goldman script and she was still antsy about the course of events. So, she called him and left a message, asking him again to read the script as soon as possible, and to please call her after he’d read.
She also left word again for Ella, whom she hadn’t wanted to bother but still hadn’t heard from since the party, and reminded her to urge Westman to read the Goldman script and also that it was Dennis Quaid’s first day of production on his new film.
She went to the motion picture meeting, followed by lunch, followed by a signing meeting, followed by a quick set visit. All the while, she kept checking back with her new male assistant, the son of a friend of her father’s, as to whether Westman had returned her call.
He had not.
That night before going to dinner she put another call in to Ella, wanting to know if she was all right. It was unusual that she hadn’t returned so many calls. But again, all Beanie got was her answering machine.
It wasn’t until late Tuesday afternoon that she really started to suspect that something was amiss. Gil Amati walking into her office and closing the door only confirmed her suspicions.
“Moze Goff,” Amati said, quietly, solemnly, “was spotted in Paradise Cove having drinks with Ella Gaddy and Scott Westman.”
Beanie, knowing that Ella was on bed rest, initially dismissed it as absurd. “Did you see them?” she asked.
“No,” Gil told her, “my assistant did. And he wouldn’t make that up.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” she said, dismissing the news and trying to focus on the work at hand. But she was unnerved. It was an odd thing for Gil’s assistant to make up, and only exacerbated by the fact that she hadn’t heard from either one of them.
Finally, on Wednesday morning, she did. By registered mail she received a letter from Scott Westman terminating Sylvan Light as his representative. Both Ella Gaddy and Harvey Khan were copied. Beanie, stunned, canceled the rest of her day and began calling Scott and Ella, panicked.
Neither answered.
Not wanting to share the news with anyone, she went down to Khan’s office where Mercedes sat outside, holding her copy of the letter.
“What’s this about?” asked Mercedes. Beanie shook her head, saying she just didn’t know. Frustrated tears came as Mercedes guided her into Harvey’s executive offices. Harvey wasn’t there, of course, and Mercedes, who was strangely consoling, led her to the couch.
“Can you do anything about this?” Mercedes asked, offering her a box of tissues.
Beanie shook her head, unable to speak, and Mercedes held her.
How odd, Beanie thought, that it would be Mercedes Baxter offering me solace.
Mercedes, sitting beside her, tried to find the words, but was at a loss. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
But Beanie just shook her head, unable to tell her what an idiot she’d been, so careless, thoughtless. Inwardly she cursed herself, hating herself, wondering how she’d let it happen.
She was still trying to piece it all together. Westman must have told Ella that they had slept together, and Ella must have been furious. But would she have been so furious to have fired Beanie and set up a meeting with Moze? That was treachery on a whole other level. None of it made sense.
Still, she wasn’t about to work it out with Mercedes Khan. Beanie stood, thanking Mercedes, and telling her that the answer lay with Ella, and she needed to find her.
It wasn’t until seven o’clock that night that she was finally able to get Ella Gaddy on the phone. She had called Ella’s assistant, Ella’s nanny, and even Stirling Cowan, begging him through tears to ask Ella to call her, telling him that she didn’t understand what had happened, and she really needed a best friend to speak to, but that, too, was Ella.
Finally, her phone rang.
Ella, sounding cold and detached, asked her to stop harassing her staff and her boyfriend. “Scott Westman has left Sylvan Light,” she said, confirming, of course, what Beanie already knew. “For the time being,” she added, “he’s the only one.” It was a thinly veiled threat that he wouldn’t be.
“Why?” Beanie asked, her heart in her throat. She both feared and needed an answer.
“I know what you did,” Ella hissed, “and I cannot and will not EVER forgive it.” Beanie, crying profusely, apologized over and over again, rambling on about the fact that it was nothing, it meant nothing, she shouldn’t have done it, they were both drunk, she didn’t think Ella would mind, he’d left the next morning.
“It was meaningless,” she sobbed, almost hysterical as Ella tried to get a word in.
“What are you talking about?” Ella asked when Beanie finally stopped for breath.
Beanie stammered, confused, “Aren’t you mad because I slept with him?”
“With whom?” Ella asked.
“Scotti,” Beanie said, not understanding. There was a long silence.
“You fucked Scott Westman?” Ella asked, aghast, surprised, disgusted. “And he fucked you ?” she said, doubling down on the insult.
But Beanie, rather than being offended, was trying to play catch-up. “Isn’t that why he terminated me?” she asked. “Isn’t that why you’re mad?”
Ella, now reeling from the depths of her partner’s betrayal, spit out her reason. “He terminated you because you invited Sheila Day to a party that we were throwing.”
Oh fuck, Beanie thought, quickly explaining that Sheila hadn’t been there for Westman, she had no interest in Westman and never spoke to him or saw him. “She was there to sign someone else,” Beanie said.
And that’s when Ella screamed that she didn’t fucking care why Sheila was there. She didn’t want Sheila to sign anyone. She didn’t want Sheila to win.
“SHE TRIED TO BLACKMAIL ME!” Ella screamed. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND? I FUCKING HATE HER.”
And Beanie stopped. She’d never heard Ella scream, she’d never heard about any blackmail, and had no idea what it was that Ella had in her past that Sheila would use in any way to barter.
“El, I’m sorry,” Beanie said, “I didn’t know. I didn’t…”
But Ella interrupted her, saying, “I told Scott that you broke a promise to me. And if you’d do it to me, you’d do it to him.”
But she hadn’t known about the sex. “And that’s the kicker,” she said, adding, “You fucked me. Then you fucked him. Well, at least you went out with a bang.”
Then she hung up on Beanie.
Beanie sat stunned, trying to gather her wits. Ella was hurt, she got it. She shouldn’t have invited Sheila, okay, bad move, but upon learning that, Ella had actually picked up a phone and called her archenemy without even giving Beanie a chance to explain.
Beanie went from being hurt to being furious to becoming enraged.
Ella knew what it would mean to lose a client of that stature, but to take him to Moze after everything that had happened between Moze and Beanie was a kind of cruelty that took Beanie’s breath away.
Initially, she wanted to call Ella back and confront her, but to what end? Ella wouldn’t answer, and even if she did, what she had done out of spite was more horrible than anything Beanie would ever do to anyone. Yes, she’d invited Sheila without thinking, and yes, she had fucked Scott Westman, but while both acts were thoughtless, neither were spiteful. What Ella did was premeditated and hateful.
Beanie gathered herself and started to formulate a plan. She was Beanie Rosen, after all, one of the most powerful agents in Hollywood, and she’d be damned to be defined by Ella Gaddy’s definition of broken promises or loyalty, not after the low blow she’d struck.
Beanie didn’t give anyone a heads-up that she was leaving, she just hopped in her Jaguar and drove toward Sunset Boulevard, calling Scott on the way. She got his voicemail, and then it occurred to her when she hit the Pacific Coast Highway that Scott often stayed at his guest house on the property nearer the ocean. She looked at her Filofax as she drove, but she couldn’t find the number, and since there was a light drizzle falling, she called her assistant and asked him to go into the Rolodex to see if there was a number for the Malibu guest house under the name Tito, which was code for Westman.
He found it and connected her.
Scott, whom she’d been trying to reach all day, answered on two rings.
Beanie, taken aback, hadn’t expected to get him so quickly or at all, and hadn’t prepared what she was going to say. So she just spoke from the heart, rambling a bit but explaining that what had happened between her and Ella was a misunderstanding between old friends. She hadn’t intended to offend her by inviting Sheila Day, but Ella hadn’t given her a chance to explain. She didn’t bring up the whole Moze thing because she didn’t want to give Moze any power, so instead she pivoted, explaining that she wasn’t asking him to choose between her and Ella. She understood theirs was a long and valued relationship.
“But at least let me explain myself,” she told him. She didn’t really give him a chance to say no, telling him she’d be there in forty-five minutes.
She was there in twenty.
Scott listened to Beanie tell the story all over again, and then told her that he and Ella had been together an awful long time, and she had been pretty mad about the whole Sheila thing, putting it to him, “It’s me or her.” Scott shrugged, telling Beanie he didn’t want to leave, but he figured if she and Ella weren’t talking, he didn’t think he should stay.
And that’s when he told her he’d met with Moze. “He’s a nice guy,” he said. “And you know, an old friend.”
The bile backed up in Beanie’s throat, but she knew enough not to act threatened. “He’s a good agent,” she told him, “I mean, I don’t think he’s me, but if that’s what you want…”
Scott thought about it a beat and then told her it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted what he had. He said that if she and Ella could work it out, he sure would like the team back.
“Me too,” she told him. “I’d meet her halfway, heck, I’d meet her three-quarters of the way if she’s willing.”
He shook his head, saying again that Ella was pretty mad.
“Yeah,” Beanie agreed, “and she’s also pretty stubborn.” Then she confessed that it might be doubly hard to put things back on track, because in her confusion as to why Ella was so angry, she’d accidentally revealed that she and Westman had fooled around.
He smiled and shook his head. “Oh boy.”
“I know,” said Beanie. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t figure out why else she’d be mad. I told her I was sorry,” she said, “and I promised that it would never happen again.”
He smirked, stood up, took her in his arms and said, “Let’s not go crazy.”
And for the first time that day, Beanie laughed.
A few minutes later Westman called Ella, told her he’d spoken to Beanie, and that he wanted the three of them to meet. Beanie overheard him saying that he didn’t want to wreck something as good as they’d had. She couldn’t hear the rest as he walked into the other room, but when he came back he was smiling and said, “Feel like going to Tahoe this weekend?”
Beanie, relieved, hugged him, thanked him, and promised to never bring Sheila Day near him again. Then she got back in her car and put her head on the steering wheel, letting out a breath she’d been holding all day.
Somehow she had averted disaster and by the grace of God put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
It was half past nine as she pulled out of Scott’s rambling estate and onto the Pacific Coast Highway, which was now thick with low-hanging fog. In all the craziness of the day, she’d forgotten to take her diet pills and was hungrier than she’d been in a while. She looked for a McDonald’s or something on the side of the road, but everything was dark. Fuck, she was hungry. She tried to distract herself, thinking about Westman and what a good guy he was, and Ella and how upset she must have been to have made that call to Moze. Beanie knew she had to forgive Ella, but she also knew she’d never forget how far Ella had gone to hurt her.
Ella’s fight was deeper than Beanie’s, and only Sheila knew why. Beanie toyed with the idea of asking Sheila what Ella was hiding, if only to get more insight into this woman she’d known for over a decade but apparently didn’t really know at all.
She spotted a Thrifty Drug Store on PCH at Topanga and had pulled in when she realized that she’d run out of her house without bringing her purse. How silly she was to be driving without a license, or money, or any identification beyond her Filofax.
I should always leave a credit card in my Filofax, she told herself, as she pulled back onto PCH, speeding so she could get home and have her houseman make her a grilled cheese.
“I fucking earned it,” she thought to herself. And then it occurred to her that there was a bag of nacho-flavored Doritos in the glove box. She had bought it at the store, then hid it the other day when picking up Miriam from her mahjong club. Miriam Spitz would not understand nacho Doritos. But Beanie, thankful that she’d salvaged them, did.
She reached for the glovebox, which was all the way on the other side of the car, and pulled out the Doritos just as her phone rang.
“Hello?” she said, trying to open the bag with one hand while navigating the phone, the turns, and the fog with the other.
It was Hawkeye calling to see if she’d heard the news.
“What news?” Beanie asked, hoping no one had said anything about the termination letter. She didn’t need that kind of gossip, and besides, everything was under control.
“Matt Stieglitz has gone to Sony,” she said, “and David Shipp is leaving to run Apple.”
“WHAT?” Beanie screamed. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?”
Hawkeye, laughing with excitement, wasn’t kidding. “Beanie,” she told her, “you’re on top. There’s no one bigger.”
Beanie didn’t know what to say.
“Hello?” Hawkeye said. “Can you hear me?” But in that moment Beanie was stunned silent, almost reverential. “Hello?” Hawkeye said again.
“I’m here,” Beanie told her, listening as Hawkeye explained that everyone was meeting up at Sheila’s house—Gil, Jamie, everyone—and they’d asked Hawkeye to get Beanie. This was big news. They needed to be together. Beanie told Hawkeye to order food from Morton’s, which was right around the corner from Hawkeye’s place, and that she’d be there in twenty minutes to pick her up.
For two minutes Beanie Rosen drove with the knowledge and clear understanding that she had done it. She had scaled the mountain, dove through the wave, and made it to the top of the pyramid. Sure, there had been near misses and some fatalities, but she’d persevered. “I FUCKING MADE IT!” she screamed, pounding the steering wheel while biting down on one corner of the Doritos bag, trying to rip it open with her teeth, and pulling the opposite corner with the other hand, unfortunately leaving the steering wheel for a moment to chart its own course.
She never saw the cliff.
Beanie Rosen’s last thought as the wheels spun in midair was, Don’t let my mother know I was eating Doritos…