Chapter 5
Celebrity Yelp
I was up early the next morning for a meeting with my team before rehearsal.
Los Angeles was not necessarily a city full of early mornings, but the industry operated on its own schedule.
I was also lucky enough that my management team at Spring Hope was in downtown LA, not far from the DTA.
So even though on regular occasions it was considered standard to meet over in Beverly Hills in one of the overly luxe meeting spaces in my agent’s building, the team made an exception today so I could make it to rehearsals on time.
A valet whisked my car away for me, and by the time I reached the door to the building, a young person from reception was holding it open for me and shooting me a deferential smile without actually meeting my eyes.
I was used to moving through the world as me, but because I occasionally brought Andy along to industry events, it was hard for me to forget the way he’d once muttered You’re too important for actual eye contact?
I hadn’t even made it to the front desk before one of my managers strolled into the reception area.
It was a different vibe than if we’d met in Beverly Hills.
Over at the Exemplar Agency, there was a sterile, sleek aesthetic that seemed designed to keep one feeling out of their element at all times.
Spring Hope, perhaps because they were a younger company or perhaps because they were on the Eastside, was brighter, warmer, less apt-to-be-confused-with-a-spaceship.
“Good morning, Tess.” Max held out her hand to shake mine, which she always did, before I pulled her into a hug, which I always did.
She was dressed in a floral-patterned short-sleeved button-down over navy pants and shiny brown leather boots.
Max was technically the newest member of my management team.
Previously she’d worked as my agent’s assistant, but she’d been the only member of my entire team to treat my new career direction seriously.
When she’d asked me to put in a good word for her at Spring Hope, I’d happily agreed—with the caveat that when hired, she’d share responsibilities with my current manager.
I’d hand-selected my entire team: my agent Joyce, publicist Erica, managers Max and Riley, theatrical agent, business manager, entertainment lawyer, security detail, assistants whenever I was on set and needed someone to handle the rest of my life.
I genuinely liked working with all of them, but once Pantheon Entertainment reached out with interest about Vindicators, a shift occurred; the full transformation from Tess Gardner to Professional Actress Tess Gardner happened in the blink of an eye.
I wasn’t a person so much as a product—a product, in fact, that stood to make people a lot of money.
(Figuratively speaking, but also literally. I was an action figure, after all.)
In the meeting room, we went through our standard greetings.
It was the usual team: Joyce, Erica, Max, and Riley.
There was a Boxed Water waiting for me next to the seat adjacent to the chair at the head of the table, where I sat by default because I didn’t like the idea of coming in like some kind of boss, and also I never felt like one anyway.
As for the water, I’d mentioned once that I appreciated that they were more ecologically friendly, and since then I’d never had a meeting without one supplied.
“How’s the play?” Joyce asked. She was always the most put-together person in the room, today in a fitted knee-length dress in shades of blue and green that made her dark skin glow.
Her black braids were in a topknot that added several inches to her height, which felt stylish as well as a power move; hair included, she was the tallest person in the room.
“Everything going all right with whatever hotshot they brought in?”
I shifted in my seat and hoped to distract the high-powered women in this room who could sniff out bullshit miles away, by slowly twisting off the water’s lid. Convincing? “Honestly, I’m not sure.”
The whole table perked up.
“Oh,” I said, leaning back in what I hoped passed for relaxed posture. “Have you heard anything?”
“Is my ear to the ground about theatre gossip?” Joyce asked with a chuckle. “I’d say no.”
“Me either,” Riley said. She was a less commanding presence than Joyce; today she was in a nondescript blue top over black pants and sensible flats, and her chin-length brown hair was blown out casually.
Riley had taken me on early, just like Joyce, and had seen me through everything so far.
As my agent, Joyce was an incredible negotiator on the terms of my contracts, while Riley and Max saw my offers in more of a big-picture way, putting my whole career together a piece at a time.
Like Max, Riley was queer, and I felt safe having the two of them on my team even if they didn’t know about me.
“Do you mind me asking what you’re getting at, Tess? ”
“With a new director,” I said in a tone I hoped was casual and neutral and in no way indicated the very not-casual and not-neutral feelings I had regarding the new director, “I wondered if there’s any reconsidering of Geoffrey Gordan’s casting.”
“I obviously can’t speak for Lauren,” Joyce said, referring to my theatrical agent, who wasn’t considered enough of a power player to be involved in this meeting, “but if you’re finding the production lacking without Gordan, we’ll get you out of it.”
“It’s a delicate situation,” Erica said. “We’d want to showcase that Tess is a believer in women’s stories, blah blah, isn’t stepping away in support of Gordan.”
“Of course not,” Joyce said quickly. “I can connect with Lauren—”
“I should say that I’m not trying to leave the show,” I said. “And I think it was the right move for DTA to bring in a female director to helm new work from a female playwright—”
“Yes,” Erica said with a grin, “you’ll say something exactly like that in the interview you do after you leave.”
“No,” I said, letting my tone dip slightly past placating. “My fear is that Rebecca—the new director—may want someone more—”
“Not famous?” Max asked, which made me laugh. Max was younger than me, cooler than me, and in another, less professional, version of my life I would have already made her my other best friend.
“No,” I said, still laughing. “Someone with a stronger theatrical résumé.”
“Tess,” Erica said, making eye contact with Joyce.
“Do you know the high DTA’s been on since you signed on?
The boost you are to their box office? That frantic press photoshoot before your rehearsals had even started?
The female director can want you out all she wants, DTA’s not giving up that box office revenue. ”
“Maybe theatre directors have that kind of pull in New York,” Riley said in a kind tone, “but you’re not going anywhere. Definitely not due to a director no one’s heard of.”
“She’s actually a bit of a name,” Max said, provoking looks from everyone else.
“Sorry, maybe just on the Lesbian Internet. That’s the only internet I’ve got, you know, but maybe we shouldn’t completely discount niche lesbian celebrities.
I agree that no one on the business end will want to lose Tess, but it wouldn’t hurt to check in with Lauren and find out if there are any rumblings. ”
“I’ll handle it,” Riley said with a heavy sigh. “Erica, I know you’re better at extracting gossip in most situations, but—”
“When one power lesbian’s involved, send in another power lesbian?” Erica raised an eyebrow, and Riley and Max laughed. So did I, but stopped when I realized Joyce and Erica weren’t laughing along. Learning to play straight was truly a lifelong journey.
“I did just get a fun script for you,” Joyce said. “If you got out of the play—”
“For the last time,” I said, it fully hitting me what I wanted, despite Rebecca, despite Michael Madden’s under-his-breath comments, despite the team of people set to make more money if I said yes, “I don’t want to get out of the play.”
“There’ll be other shows,” Riley said.
“I love this script,” I said, which was true, but there was also the fact that my next months had been carved out for this.
I walked away and I was probably on set within a couple weeks in an action film I hated.
Now that my team knew just how serious I was about theatre, I could feel how much harder they’d work to make sure I never found a gap in my schedule like this one again.
The room was silent for a few moments as my team made notes and exchanged glances that were subtle but not invisible.
There was still plenty of time left until rehearsal began, so I knew we were far from finished.
Hollywood scheduled itself into tight spaces far more often than it gave us any room to breathe.
“From the NDAs we forwarded over from Pantheon,” Joyce began, and I held my face neutrally, “I’m sure you aren’t surprised to hear there’s news on that front.”
I decided not to tell her that there were so many nondisclosure agreements in the industry these days that I hardly had a quick recall of the specifics at any given moment. “I’m never surprised when Pantheon comes calling, no.”
“The great news is that Vindicators 4 is all but green-lit already,” Joyce said, and I swallowed hard and exhaled and looked down at my lap and performed about another half dozen little acts to keep from groaning or crying or cursing.
“I’m not quite ready to commit to that,” I said.
“We’ll have plenty of negotiation room on—well, on just about everything,” Joyce said. “Scheduling’s never easy on these things, but I’m positive we’ll find something that works for you.”
“We’re aware this is a genre you’re hoping to do less of moving forward,” Riley said. “But closing out a quadrilogy is different than starting something new.”
“And we can tell that narrative in the press,” Erica said, nodding. “One more story to tell before the next chapter.”