Beanie in Wonderland
BEANIE IN WONDERLAND
BEANIE
So, the agent says to the studio head, “You need to cast my client in your film.” The studio head shuts him down: “Sorry,” he says, “we’ve cast this other actress.” The agent looks at him like he’s nuts. “You can’t cast her,” the agent says, “she has no talent, a huge ego, and her last gig was on Hollywood and Vine!” The studio head screws his face up in rage. “She’s my niece,” he sneers to the agent.
And without missing a beat, the agent responds, “I wasn’t finished…”
—OVERHEARD IN HALLS OF THE SYLVAN LIGHT AGENCY
1980
“I’m here for the secretarial position,” Beanie Rosen told Debbie Hawkins, the receptionist behind the large polished mahogany desk, who was both signing for an incoming delivery and handing over another on its way out.
Beanie recognized her immediately from a few years earlier when she’d gone to the venerable agency seeking representation for Fish Zuko. Thankfully, Debbie didn’t recognize Beanie. In fact, she barely acknowledged her, multi-tasking and supervising the incoming, the outgoing, the clients, the agents, the deliveries, greeting, chatting, directing with a choreography that would impress Fosse.
Ignoring Beanie, Debbie punched in an extension on her command-central phone with its three vertical banks of buttons, twenty down, four across, and a cord long enough to wrap around Beanie’s ambitions.
It was almost noon on a Monday in June 1980, and Debbie was busily manning the reception desk at the Los Angeles branch of the Sylvan Light Agency, greeting the guests in the lobby, and operating the complicated multi-extension phone lines like she was commanding an army.
“I’ve got a package for Mr. Khan,” Debbie said into her headset, then looked up. “Hi, Cush!” she said, calling to a bald man in Gucci loafers and a knotted neck scarf who walked past, waving but never looking, his diamond-and-ruby pinkie ring catching the light.
“Hiya, Puss,” he said, heading toward the glass doors that led into the inner sanctum of the first floor. He held out a hand, stopping a secretary in stilettos. “He in?” Cush asked, jerking his head toward a door, asserting his power with as few words as possible and implying a limited supply of vocabulary or patience for those who served.
“He’s behind closed doors,” Stilettos said, “in a meeting with Mr. Lonshien. But if it’s urgent, Mr. Cushman, I can take in a note,” she offered, smiling, providing an abundance of information, which further communicated subservience.
She might as well have bowed, Beanie thought, studying the exchange, memorizing every nuance. This was a new ocean and Beanie needed to understand the rules to negotiate the waves.
With great interest she watched as Stilettos, not only knowing her place but knowing Mr. Cushman’s, offered up even more information. “I can ring you as soon as he’s free,” she said with deference and a smile, as if expecting a pat on the head, or the ass.
Cush gave neither.
“Thanks, Puss,” he said, satisfied, and kept going.
This dance was subtle, a tacit understanding where power, words, and names were reserved for only those on the same level. For Mr. Cushman, all secretaries were “Puss,” and mailroom boys distinguishable only by their willingness, nay enthusiasm, to live up to the moniker of “afternoon delight.” Those that did were fast-tracked with invitations to private parties and promises of promotion, if not at this agency then at other companies with like-minded individuals who appreciated special services.
Stilettos, having completed her exchange, walked up to reception to collect the package for Mr. Khan, who Beanie knew was the president of the Sylvan Light Agency—which meant, she deduced, that Stilettos was his secretary.
Beanie studied her. She was Asian, beautiful, and looked like a movie star, Suzie Wong–like, or a model, or a very rich high-class call girl, with thick, straight black hair, elegant and delicate pink oval nails—long enough to make a point, but not so long as to make a statement—and just a hint of gardenia about her as she walked by. Breathtakingly beautiful, and immaculately put together, Stilettos, on closer look, was older, perhaps in her thirties, Beanie guessed. A career secretary, she thought, taking in the tight pencil skirt, silk blouse with matching peekaboo camisole, and the aforementioned black stilettos, showing off enough leg to make the straight men look twice.
And they did. Which Beanie guessed was the point.
Stilettos, though petite, comported herself with a dignity and import that put her atop the food chain, at least in the secretarial pool.
Beanie cut her a wide berth as she silently assessed her own outfit, carefully chosen that morning: a high-collared blue-striped shirt with tiny buttons up to the neck, puffed shoulders, and long sleeves, and a coordinating gaucho skirt that hit at mid-calf with Pappagallo pumps. She had bought the ensemble at Bullocks Fashion Square where everyone south of the Boulevard shopped, and had thought it looked smart and professional, just like the drawings in the J. Peterman catalog, only now she second-guessed herself and made a mental note about the gauchos. Still, she decided, it was smart to differentiate herself.
I don’t want to be a career secretary, she thought, I want to be an agent. Gauchos are both feminine and masculine, she told herself, reinforcing her choice, since she had none other.
As Debbie and Stilettos chatted, Beanie took in the understated and elegant lobby of the Sylvan Light Agency, with a picture of its founder on the far back wall between the elevator and the staircase. The seating area was filled with beautiful women, she guessed actresses, auditioning for roles, or agents, or both, who sat cross-legged on curved couches facing each other, divided by a large round glass coffee table covered with the latest trades, news magazines, and business weeklies. Designed for men, it was all very feminine and circular.
Beanie looked at the glass doors separating her from Wonderland. She had to figure out a way to get in, to get through, and her first point of entry was reception. Debbie, the receptionist, was beautiful, black, and ballsy, with short cropped hair, large gold hoops, thick fake eyelashes, and long squared red nails. She wore a short purple rayon dress cinched at the waist, with shoulder pads wider than her hips. Four-inch heels put her well over six feet if she stood, which she did only for punctuation.
Beanie, who had tried not to be intrusive, caught the end of their conversation: “You remember Glo from Franklin Day’s desk? She works at Bonwit’s now. They’re having a massive shoe sale.” Debbie was urging Stilettos to go.
“Can’t,” Stilettos said, picking up the package for Mr. Khan. “Let me know how it is.”
“I’m working through lunch,” Debbie said, frustrated. “Glo’s going to let me bring the shoes here, try ’em on. I thought if you were going, you could pick ’em up…”
“Sorry,” Stilettos said, heading back to her desk.
“I can go,” Beanie said, interrupting with an enthusiasm that finally got Debbie’s attention.
She turned, seeing Beanie for the first time.
“To Bonwit’s, I mean,” Beanie said, clarifying. “I overheard your conversation, and… I’m happy to help out. If you want.”
Debbie looked at her suspiciously.
“Who are you?”
Beanie smiled, handing over her résumé.
“Beanie Rosen. I’m here for a job interview. Secretarial. I have an appointment at two forty-five, but I got here early, so I’m happy, you know, if you need a hand.”
Debbie was tempted.
“I love shoes, too,” Beanie added, grinning, “so you’d be doing me the favor.”
And that made Debbie smile.
“You sure, hon?”
Beanie nodded.
“Thanks,” Debbie said, adding, “It’s Beanie, right?”
“Right,” Beanie said, and then repeated, “Beanie Rosen,” just to make sure she’d remember. Then she turned and went to Bonwit’s with the knowledge that she had dipped her toe into the Sylvan Light ocean.
Beanie was back in twenty minutes with a giant bag from Bonwit Teller filled with pairs of sample shoes. Debbie was like a kid in a candy store, or a woman at a sample sale where the sample sale came to her. She tried each on, modeled them, Beanie weighed in, and Debbie was thrilled.
“Glo, I’m taking the Ferragamos, and the Yves Saint Laurents,” Debbie said into her headset. “I’ll send the other ones back. Love them. Love you.”
Now she looked at Beanie. “And you, missy,” she said, “are going to the front of the line.”
“What line?” Beanie asked, overjoyed that she’d not only gotten past the receptionist, but had perhaps made a powerful ally. Debbie looked toward the fifteen sexy girls sitting on the sexy couches.
“That line,” she said.
“I thought they were actresses?”
Debbie shook her head no.
“They’re all here for the secretarial job?” Beanie asked, hoping there was another group of frumpy girls behind them, hidden, so as not to sully the ambiance.
“Those are just the afternoon applicants,” Debbie said, letting the full reality of the competition crash around Beanie, like dozens of stilettos piercing her over-starched, ultra-conservative outfit, which now, comparatively speaking, looked like a costume reject from Little House on the Prairie.
Just then an older woman, maybe late forties, came out holding a white paper bag. “This needs to be delivered to Dr. Israel,” she told Debbie, “while it’s warm.”
Debbie nodded, shouting at a young man who was racing out, “Fred, wait up!”
Fred, who looked to be in his early twenties, wearing the Sylvan Light mailroom uniform—white shirt, skinny tie, black pants, black shoes—was either coming from or going on some errand, in a hurry, on the make, with business too important to waste on a receptionist or her assignment.
“Whatcha got, black beauty?” he said, leaning on the counter, cluelessly racist, flirting in the way men do when they think they’re as charming as they are clever, and they are neither.
Fred was a bad boy in training, learning from the other bad boys how to act, how to hustle, how to bully, how to treat women.
Debbie held up a package.
“Mr. Kotlowitz’s stool sample,” she said.
“Fuuuuccck me,” he told her, backing away. “Give it to the new guy,” he said, heading out. “I’ll owe you.”
“You already owe me!” Debbie shouted. She had learned to tolerate and survive the boys’ club with a sense of humor on the outside, but a deep resentment within. Debbie, like Beanie, had a just-in-case box, where all the secrets from all of those who’d bullied, profiled, marginalized, and discounted her were buried, or stored.
Just in case.
She picked up the phone, punching in an extension.
“It’s Deb. I need the new guy. Stat.”
She hung up the phone and turned back to Beanie.
“Which desk are you applying for, hon? Do you know?” she asked.
“I don’t,” said Beanie, pulling out the Variety ad she’d answered with a carefully typed cover letter and résumé. “Is there more than one?”
“Two,” Debbie said. “One in television, one in motion pictures. Come back at two o’clock,” she told Beanie, winking. “I’ll send you up first.”
Then Debbie looked beyond Beanie.
“You the new guy?” she asked.
Beanie turned and saw a trainee: tall, thin, with curly brown hair. He was almost indistinguishable from all the other trainees in his Sylvan Light uniform.
“Yeah,” he said, “Barry Licht.”
“Nice to meet you, Barry Licht. Mr. Kotlowitz has a stool sample that needs to be delivered.”
“Umm, I’m at lunch,” he said.
“Ummm, I don’t care,” she responded. “Neither does Mr. Kotlowitz.” She handed Barry Licht the warm bag. “Take it to Dr. Israel in the medical office building next to Bonwit’s,” she told him, then grabbed the large bag of shoes. “While you’re at it, drop these off in the shoe department.”
“Are they for Kotlowitz, too?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yeah,” she said, staring him down, “and now we’re both full of shit.”
They looked at each other. It was a standoff. Debbie, waiting for him to challenge her directive, and the new guy, unsure, standing with two bags each containing samples, of a sort.
“Let me help,” Beanie said, opening the door.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“That’s Beanie Rosen,” Debbie said. “She’ll be here longer than both of us.”
Debbie, as it turns out, was partially right.