Chapter 4 ZACHERY’S SECRET OBSESSION
Chapter 4
Z ACHERY ’ S S ECRET O BSESSION
When I get back to my condo after the party, it’s almost four a.m. Kelsey and I tried to make a break for it after the fortune teller incident, but Desdemona found us.
We approached two more actors at her behest, wooing them to Team Demon for a TV pilot we’re currently casting. Kelsey’s mark was a hard sell, having heard rumors that Desdemona was the Disney equivalent of Ursula—she’d give you a part, but at a price.
The actress hadn’t even wanted to send in a headshot, but we convinced her to contact the office next week after our boss leaves for Cannes.
We’ve been up against this sentiment before, particularly with new actors who seem to think a casting director is a commitment, like an agent or manager.
But no, we’re hired by the producers or director and often see the actors only during the casting process, although sometimes we’re invited to the first few days of shooting.
Desdemona loves going on set and is well known for her ability to convince an actor it’s in his or her best interest to straighten up and fly right, lest they never work in this town again .
They fall for it, even though there’s a certain cachet to getting targeted by Desdemona. Casting directors like Arista and Jacobs delight in finding work for the Demon’s rejects.
I set both my cell phones on the dresser. My business one, the only one Desdemona has access to, is filled with messages. I’ll get to them in the morning. Or, I suppose, in a few hours.
The other is personal. It’s rare for any of the women I’ve dated, especially if I met them with business intentions, to move from the official phone to the private one.
But Jester’s on there. We sometimes get a beer together.
My mother. My sister. My niece, who somehow has her own phone at age six. A few of my acting school buds, the ones who haven’t gotten too big to take calls from washed-up old me.
And Kelsey, of course.
Kelsey.
I almost say her name out loud, but stop myself. I’m failing to stop myself more and more with her lately.
Stop working extra hours to be near her.
Stop making up excuses to do things together.
Truth is, she’s the person who knows me best. We text nonstop, any time of day or night. She doesn’t seem to have a life outside of Desdemona, and often, neither do I.
We’re getting too tight, though, and it worries me.
Which is why I want to push her toward dating again. I’m wrong for her. She needs to find herself someone more suitable, someone who isn’t an industry joke who made his name in gross-out comedies and then failed even at those.
My phone buzzes, the private one.
It’s Kelsey.
Jason Venetian already texted me.
This one gets me in the gut. They’d looked good together. Kelsey has that fresh-faced appeal that would have been killer for her career if acting were the direction she’d gone in. She could have played twenty-year-olds for two decades like Jennifer Aniston or Reese Witherspoon.
And Jason was way into her. I could see it from his posture, the way his eyes kept taking in that red dress.
But he’s an actor. The exact sort of man who is wrong for her.
I quickly tap out a message.
Kelsey Whitaker strikes again.
She sends a fire emoji back at me.
Which brings me back to that red dress. Now that was fire.
I strip off my shirt and pants, trying to decide between showering or sleep.
But Kelsey starts rapid-fire texting me all her ideas for Jason. Limited Fate is her priority, but the Demon has to approve pitching them to the director, which takes a bit of a dance to make her think she thought of it.
And, of course, the director gets the final say. In this case, it’s Drake Underwood. He’s got a lot of clout, but he’s old guard, like Desdemona. He’ll listen to her. If Kelsey can convince the Demon to accept her choices, it’s likely they’ll get cast.
Kelsey sends me headshots of several women she thinks will work with Jason, but she’s after that Netflix star.
I reply to every text, occasionally having to look up a long abbreviation.
FFSDYKWIM.
On days like this, I really feel the eleven years between us.
She’s ribbed me about the women I take out, some professionally, others with a thought to something more. They never pan out.
I’m in this weird place. A little famous once, but not a working actor. A stepping stone, not a ladder. And never a place to land.
The texts start to get further apart, and I think she’s falling asleep. I try to picture her in her apartment in East LA. Maybe the red dress is draped over a chair.
Nah, she’d hang it up.
There are probably sirens, even at this hour. I’ve been to her place. It’s noisy, near a major street, with a hospital farther down.
Probably she wears cute things to bed, like shorts with bears on them and a matching tank.
Now I’m moving into a fantasy about her. It’s not hard after a night like this one, champagne and laughter and her in that red dress. I let it run for a minute—her, in bed, smiling up at me.
But then around five, the texts start up again.
Kelsey: Watched some old episodes with Gayle. There’s no better girl. Desdemona has to put them together for Limited Fate.
Me: Why are you staying up all night over this pairing?
Kelsey: I want it settled before I go.
Me: Go where?
Kelsey: On my journey to find love.
I stare at my phone like it’s grown two heads.
This is my fault, completely my fault. I sent her to the fortune teller to give her a little push to try again. She’s been miserable and lonely. She thinks she’s unworthy of love. I know this. She’s told me. She clearly sees me as a big brother, and I endeavor to be that for her.
But I never wanted her to leave LA entirely. She’s too good at what she does.
Maybe I can convince her to find her great love here in Southern California.
I start and delete several replies, then give up and put through a call.
Kelsey’s voice is scratchy from lack of sleep. “Hey.”
“You believe this fortune teller business?” I ask.
“It all made sense to me. I’ve been trying to find someone here in LA, but I think they’re all too big-city for me. So many workaholics worried about their careers, caught up in the race.”
“Says the woman who is working at five a.m.”
“Oh, you know what I mean. Tell me the last time I had more than three dates with the same man.”
“Last June. That tech bro.”
“Driving him to LASIK does not count as date four.”
“Oh, right. He ghosted you after that.”
She sighs. “I think needing a driver was his sole motivation for the first three dates.” There’s the sound of a mattress creaking, and I imagine she’s flopped down on her bed.
“He was an idiot,” I tell her.
“You think so?”
“I know so.” I wander into my kitchen for a drink. “You can’t just leave Desdemona to drive across the US. She won’t stand for it.”
“That’s the thing. She’s leaving on Thursday for Cannes, then going on location for that Scotland shoot. That takes care of the rest of May. And you know how much she hates LA in the summer. She’ll be gone for two months, easy.”
She’s right. I’ve worked with Desdemona for five years, and she takes off most summers, browbeating us from other countries. It’s part of why she made us work last night’s party so hard. It was her last one of the season.
I peer into the bright light of my fridge. It’s filled with perfectly arranged meal preps from my two chefs: one for fitness, one for taste. “Where will you go?”
“The lady said to return to the land of my birth, take it slow, and meet people. I’m going to do it.”
“You’re going back to Alabama?”
“Yes. A road trip. If I go slow, only driving a few hours a day, I can stretch it out to two weeks. Or more, if I find someone along the way and I stay in his town.”
I pluck out a bottle of water and slam the fridge door. I already want to punch this hypothetical Midwest yokel in the jaw. “Will you take off work? Desdemona relies on you when she’s gone.”
“My laptop works just as well at a hotel as it does in the office. I’ll even take that tapestry with me, the one I use in my Zoom calls. I’ll hang it behind me for anything using a camera. As long as you and Jester cover for me, she’ll never know I’m not in LA.”
She’s thought this through. And fast. We talked to that fortune teller only, what, six hours ago?
I return to my bedroom. Time for confessions. “Kelsey, I don’t think you should believe that woman—”
“Why not? Zach, she was exactly right. My faith is turning to dust. And if it does, will I even be able to cast romantic leads? This could solve everything. I need to get out of LA. Find people more like how I grew up.”
“Dairy farmers?” I know all about Kelsey’s family. Four brothers and sisters. All with chores. A completely different life.
“No. I don’t want that. I left it behind, remember? But something slower than here. More authentic.”
“I don’t like the idea of you driving all by yourself.”
“I’ll be fine. I used to toss hay bales on a pitchfork!”
I picture that, only with Kelsey in Daisy Dukes. Damn. I have to shake it off. “You haven’t done any of that lately.”
“I’ve driven across the country lots of times. I just won’t be slamming through it in three days.”
She really intends to do this.
I have to tell her about the fortune teller.
But she goes right on. “I can feel it, Zach. This is the shake-up I need. I’m so grateful that I talked to her. It was weird, sure, but it’s like my tarot deck.”
“You have a tarot deck?”
“See, you don’t know everything about me.”
Obviously not. “How is it like a tarot deck?”
“It tells me what I already know deep down but have refused to acknowledge: I’m stuck here. Chained to a dictator boss and surrounded by people with agendas.”
“People in Alabama have agendas.”
“Not like Hollywood agendas.”
Well, that’s true.
Kelsey sighs. “I’m going. I want to get Jason and Gayle handled. Then I’m hitting the road for a while.”
My confession withers. There’s no point. It probably wouldn’t matter anyway. “It’s nearly dawn.”
“It is. Get some sleep, Zach. I’ll text you later. If you talk to Desdemona before I do, see if you can warm her up to my idea. Really push what a find Jason was at the party, how brilliant she was to notice him. Then I’ll come in behind you with my pairing.”
“Anything for you, Kelsey.” And I mean it.
“I know! You’re the best!” Her voice is almost a squeak, which happens when she’s tired. “Later, Zach attack!” She ends the call.
I stare at her image on the phone, a picture I took of her a year ago at a premiere party. She got invited not through Desdemona’s efforts but via an actor she’d discovered.
She wears a silver sequin gown that glides along her body like a waterfall. Her blond hair is done Old Hollywood–style, in perfect waves held back on one side with a rhinestone clip.
I stared at her so long that my date walked off in a huff and scarcely talked to me inside the theater.
I took a shot with my phone and made it her contact picture. Because we talk so much, it comes up often.
Kelsey spotted the image once and laughed, remembering the event. She’d brought a guy she barely knew because she was embarrassed to show up alone.
Maybe I should have taken her, but I felt like an old has-been, and she was so bright and young.
And right now, she’s happy talking about the trip.
So I’ll shut my trap. Keep the secret about this night.
She can’t find out that I talked to the fortune teller ahead of time and slipped her money to tell Kelsey it was time for love.
I hoped it might nudge her in a good direction. Get her to go on dates again. She’s my favorite person, and I want her to have everything. I know she isn’t for me. I’m not sure any woman needs to be saddled with an industry joke for anything more than a waltz down the red carpet and a splashy bit in the tabloids.
But with the fortune teller sending her on a romance road trip, my foolish act is going to drive Kelsey right out of my life.