Chapter 8
8
I ’d been seated at the bar of Ramen Hood for ten minutes, waiting for my agent to find a parking spot big enough to fit her supersized Rivian SUV. I used the wait to write and rewrite a message for David. It may sound ridiculous to you but bear in mind that we hadn’t just stopped talking since the breakup. We had halted all forms of digital communication as well, so this was my first text to him in more than two years. Our last text exchange had been about the division of stuff post-breakup. We had both claimed possession of the 1991 paperback edition of The Catcher in the Rye in our common bookshelf. In the end, I had lost and had to buy another used copy of the Salinger novel at The Last Bookstore.
After some drafting and redrafting, I was about to send a very uncompromising and boring text to David that read:
Should be done with my agent in 1 hour. Want to talk after that?
But I surprised myself by deleting it and writing something closer to what I really wanted to tell him.
Need you to make me scream like yesterday
Between the non-fire, the dead actor, and all the unpleasant memories, I was starting to feel the stress from the day. All I wanted was a hot shower, a phenomenal fuck, and a siesta.
“Can’t believe you actually want to meet with me today, honey,” Beatrice said, making one of her grand entrances and kissing me on both cheeks.
Well, I don’t, I caught myself thinking but not saying out loud. I wondered, once more, why everyone in Hollywood assumed I was touchy-feely and liked physical contact based solely on my country of origin. I wanted to tell them, I’ve been living in the US since I was a teenager. I have a blue passport too. I have the same qualms about germs you do. Can we please stop with the kissing and the hugging?
I didn’t say a single word though.
“How are you doing?” Beatrice continued. She hadn’t even realized I hadn’t answered her previous comment. “OMG! What a day you must have had! You need to tell me everything.”
I was going to tell her some redacted version of the story and try to see if I could make any sense of what had happened that morning while doing it. I’ve always believed in the power of vent therapy.
But in the end, it would be her telling me . How did she have more details than I did? I was there when the body was found. Well, in the proximity of it at least.
“You know they think he was killed, right?” Beatrice continued with her nonstop talking. “They’ve expedited the results of the autopsy, but it wasn’t a shooting or a stabbing. He was run over by a car and they’re treating it as a murder.”
I was about to ask something but there was no need. Beatrice had already anticipated it.
“They don’t think it was simply a hit-and-run—he still had his cell phone and wallet with all the credit cards. But his watch was missing. It was a Patek Philippe worth north of eighty grand. I guess that was difficult to leave behind...”
Although Beatrice was talking about the gruesome death of a person—and not recapping all the clients she had been able to place in the latest season of The Gilded Age —I’d have sworn my agent was enjoying herself.
“I know, I know. How did they know it wasn’t an accidental robbery gone terribly wrong? If there’s something we know in Southern California, it’s that parking lots are a total hazard!” She never missed a beat. “Apparently, there was some sort of message from Henry.”
Again, no need for me to react with a follow-up comment. Beatrice knew I was enthralled even if her gifts as a storyteller left a bit to be desired. Storytelling 101: You can’t keep ignoring your audience and their needs for the whole length of your tale. Yes, that’s my not-so-veiled manner of telling directors to stop making three-hour-plus movies. People need to pee whether you acknowledge it or not. But I digress.
“When the police notified Henry’s attorney about the death,” Beatrice continued, “he told them about a voicemail the actor had left him presumably before being run over. The message advised the lawyer to contact the cops as he suspected his life was in danger.”
“The fucking prick!” I finally managed to say. “Annoying even when he’s dead. Telling everyone what to do.”
“I gather you weren’t much of a fan?” Beatrice asked, suddenly interested in what I had to say.
“I wasn’t,” I admitted.
“I hear you’re not alone. It doesn’t look like he had many friends left. Pretty much everyone in Hollywood detested him.” That was news to me. I’d been convinced he was a well-regarded actor. His career vouched for that. “The only ones who hadn’t deserted him yet—his agent and manager—were going to ditch him now that he’s been fired from LA Misconducts . He’d long been without a publicist...”
“And I hear he was also without a lawyer,” I managed to contribute. I wondered if that was why Henry’s attorney hadn’t alerted the authorities immediately after getting his call. Henry was no longer his client, and he wasn’t picking up his calls. But there was something else Beatrice had said that called my attention. “He was fired?” I’d heard something around town but thought it was some unfounded rumor.
“Very much so.”
“What happened?”
“I’m dying to find out about it but haven’t been able to—yet,” Beatrice said. It made me wonder at her methods—or reasons—to possess so much information about Henry’s death. “But perhaps your boyfriend was right after all with that exposé article of his about Henry.”
The mention of David had blindsided me, but I was still able to react. “Not my boyfriend anymore,” I said.
“That’s right! You told me or someone else did...”
She wasn’t even remotely ashamed that she’d probably been openly gossiping about me and my relationship status behind my back.
“So, honey, we need to talk about the offer,” she said, getting in agent mode while we were served two plates of the OG Ramen with vegan eggs. And, in case you were wondering, I don’t know what the vegan egg is either.
“Tell me about the offer,” I said unenthusiastically.
“With Dashing gone from LA Misconducts , they’re gonna be wrapping the show but want to bank on its popularity. So they’re developing NYC Misconducts , and the showrunner wants you back on the team.”
“Is Fred also running this sequel then?” I said, referring to my former boss at LA Misconducts , showrunner Fred Appleton.
“He is and he loved working with you,” Beatrice said. “There’s one caveat though. Fred feels that, in order to write about the NYPD, he needs to inhabit New York. So the writers room is going to be based there.”
“Yeah, I’m not moving to New York,” I said. Even if NYC Misconducts sounded remotely attractive to me, which it didn’t, my whole family was in Los Angeles and my life had already been uprooted once. I was not going to do that again.
“I’m gonna give you a bit of time to think about it,” Beatrice replied.
“I’m not moving to New York,” I repeated, trying to sound even more assertive.
“I know you’re an LA girl, honey.” That was not even true. I was a Barcelona girl turned Angelena by her parents. I didn’t feel the need to turn into something else and become a New Yorker. “But the weather there is not that bad,” my agent continued. “I’m sure Fred will let you work from home if there’s a big snowstorm. And New Yorkers really grow on you once you get to know them. I’m a New Yorker, aren’t I nice?”
She was all fake niceness and actually from New Jersey—not that there’s anything wrong about that, it’s just not even in the same state as New York City—but I shrugged in acceptance. I avoided conflict like the plague.
“Now Elena, honey, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, especially today,” Beatrice said.
Then don’t , I thought but, again, I didn’t say it out loud.
“How are you doing on that high-concept spec of yours? What was it... Godfather meets 90210 ? Is it anywhere to be read?”
“Almost there,” I lied.
I said I didn’t lie as a narrator—I didn’t say anything about not lying as a regular person. The script about a teenage girl and daughter of a mafia leader, who moves with her family from Miami to Beverly Hills and is forced to make new friends, was nowhere near ready to be read. I was stuck with writing a story I thought the market may find amusing—and some streaming service an absolute must to produce—but I wasn’t feeling it anymore even if I tried to continue typing.
“I need something from you pronto , honey,” Beatrice said, and I’m not even going to try and describe her pronunciation of the word pronto . I can only imagine that, because she was meeting with a Spaniard, she thought its use appropriate. Never mind that I have dual citizenship, speak four languages, and my English—if accented—is more than proficient. “Either you write something extremely sellable and commercial, or you accept the NYC Misconducts offer you’re being all snobby about. But I can’t have you doing nothing for much longer. Per the conditions of your overall deal, you owe the studio something. Something they like,” she added before I could protest and bring up the four projects I’d pitched and written and they had rejected. Perhaps this was why I wasn’t feeling my latest spec script attempt. I’m perfectly aware that having thick skin is the number one quality to being a successful screenwriter, but who can take so much rejection?
“And I assume I don’t have to remind you that the overall deal runs out in three months. The chances of the studio renewing it are getting slimmer as the market for overall deals is getting colder. So take the job they’re offering you or get me something juicy.”
There it was. The not-so-veiled threat behind a mask of fake smiles and concerned honeys . Either I delivered something soon or I could start thinking about shopping for a new agent, because Beatrice was going to put me in client Siberia.