We Need a Third …
WE NEED A THIRD…
Always trust your gut. It knows what your head hasn’t yet figured out.
—SOMEONE WHO DIDN’T
1982
“We need a third,” Ella told Beanie after looking at a one-bedroom-plus-den in Los Feliz.
Beanie didn’t love the idea. While she and Ella had gotten close, finding a third roommate could be tricky. Other than Hawkeye and Barry, she didn’t really know many people at the agency, and Ella primarily kept to the crowd in Accounting, who were quite a bit older—and to Sam Lesser’s trainee, Garry Sampson.
Sam Lesser was the most powerful agent in Hollywood and worked in the corner office on the first floor. His trainees, always Waspy, and by proxy, powerful, usually kept their circles tight. But, for whatever reason, Garry Sampson had let Ella Gaddy in. They’d bonded shortly after she got hired.
“It’s a Southern thing,” Ella told Beanie, who guessed it was more than that. But Garry was too powerful, too discreet, and too private to be their third roommate, which meant they’d have to get a stranger.
“Try the new girl,” Ollie Burns suggested one morning, referring to a new “executive floater” he’d hired. Mercedes Baxter, petite, pert, and English was, Beanie guessed, six or seven years older than she and Ella.
“I think she’s sophisticated,” Ella said.
But Beanie wasn’t sure. There was something she couldn’t put her finger on, something she didn’t like about the new girl. She and Ella watched her from a distance as she waited in line at the food truck.
“She looks like Beverly Sassoon,” Ella said, referring to Vidal Sassoon’s beautiful brunette wife. Vidal and Beverly had a talk show, which Ella had watched religiously before getting her job at Light.
Beanie studied Mercedes. “Yeah, only not as pretty.”
Five foot two, with hair cut short like a boy, Mercedes was dressed in an immaculate Perry Ellis blouse with a Peter Pan collar and tailored pants with matching pumps. Her jewelry, unlike the chunky black and silver rings, bangles, and earrings Beanie wore, or the turquoise rings Ella favored, was minimal and understated.
“I’m open to it, if you are,” Ella said, heading back to Accounting.
Beanie, undecided, headed back to her desk as well. She wasn’t against Mercedes, per se, but what did they know about her? Nothing. She had not gotten hired traditionally, which wasn’t that unusual. Often, agents or executives ran into girls, usually models or actresses or wannabes, and traded desk jobs for blowjobs. Ollie called it an off-book hiring.
“It happens,” he’d say, and then they’d figure out where to put them.
But with Mercedes it was Ollie who had hired off book. He’d waltzed in a month earlier and announced they had a new executive floater.
“A what ?” Beanie had asked.
“Someone who floats exclusively for the executives.”
They had never had the need for such a position, and now suddenly they had both the need and the girl. Maybe it was coincidental. Maybe not. But Beanie wanted to be a floater and this girl had potentially taken her job.
Curious about her backstory, Beanie went to retrieve her file. Only there wasn’t one.
“I must have misplaced it,” Ollie told her.
Another coincidence? Perhaps. But Beanie smelled a rat. With an English accent. And she wasn’t ready to invite that rat into her home.
“I’m not sure,” she told Ollie when he asked again.
“She’s a good kid,” he said, adding that she needed to get out of her situation. “She’s been living with a patron,” he told her, “and she can’t any longer.”
“What the fuck is a patron?” Beanie asked Barry that weekend.
“Don’t know.” Barry shrugged. “I guess someone who sponsors someone.”
They were at her desk in Personnel going through “personal and confidential” memos from the week prior. Since Beanie had left Central Files, she’d trained the new girl who’d replaced her to leave all personal and confidential memos for her review. That way she was still able to monitor agency secrets.
“I think Ollie’s fucking her.”
“Who cares?” said Barry, reading yet another kiss-ass memo from Mike Barron to Sam Lesser.
“She basically invented her own position,” Beanie said. Or Ollie had invented one for her.
Barry looked at her, shaking his head. How could Beanie not see the irony? He held up Beanie’s new nameplate on her new desk for a new position that had not existed until Beanie invented it.
“Sounds familiar,” he said.
Beanie reddened. He was right, of course. Mercedes and Beanie were similar in that way. Maybe that’s what annoyed her. They’d both found holes in the system and filled them.
Or in Mercedes’s case, Ollie filled it. She had fucked him, Beanie was sure, and then convinced him that the agency had a need that only she could fill. But maybe Barry was right: maybe Beanie was splitting hairs, and they were just two sides of the same coin, women trying to rewrite a rulebook for a place that didn’t recognize them as players.
She decided to give Mercedes a try.
“If you lean out the window, you can see the MGM sign,” Beanie said excitedly, making room for Ella and Mercedes to look. There it was, within spitting distance, with the roaring lion in the center, just down the block from the apartment Beanie had found in Culver City.
Beanie and Ella had agreed to ask Mercedes to be a third. A half a block from the fabled studio, the apartment—a two-bedroom, one-bathroom with an eat-in kitchen and a small balcony—was huge and empty, waiting to be filled with the details of three lives waiting to be lived.
“I love it,” Beanie said.
“We should grab it,” Ella seconded.
“Where exactly are we?” asked Mercedes, who didn’t know Los Angeles, didn’t drive, and would have to share a ride or rely on the bus to get to work.
“Beverly Hills adjacent,” said Beanie, who had learned from her mother to fit truth into reality. “We can’t afford anything closer.” Ella agreed this was a steal, and while costly at $450 a month, it would be split three ways, making it affordable.
“We’re going to have great times here,” Beanie said, in an all-for-one kind of moment.
Ella agreed, hugging her. “I’m in!”
Mercedes, however, stood away from the two and just smiled.
She’s cold, Beanie thought. Icy . And then, trying not to be so negative, waved her over. “C’mon, group hug,” she said, drawing her in.
They called the landlord and told him they wanted to put down a deposit. “Ella and I will share the bigger room, and then you can get your own room for an extra forty dollars a month,” Beanie said to Mercedes, reconfirming the agreement they’d made earlier.
“Hmmm,” said Mercedes, looking around, reconsidering. “I’m not sure that’s fair.”
Beanie and Ella stopped. Uh-oh.
“If I’m providing all the furniture, cookware, and dishes,” Mercedes told them, “it’s only right that I’m given some sort of dispensation.”
Beanie and Ella looked at each other. Holy shit, Beanie thought, she’s negotiating.
“Then I think it’s only right that we see what we’re getting,” Beanie countered.
So that night, after work, they met Mercedes at her luxurious high-rise on Wilshire and Selby, which was Beverly Hills adjacent. There was a doorman, a concierge, and more orchids than either girl had ever seen. And that was just the lobby. They took an elevator up to the twenty-third floor and stepped into a private foyer.
“Jesus,” said Ella. “It’s the only apartment on the floor.”
“What the hell?” said Beanie.
Mercedes, in stocking feet, but still head-to-toe Perry Ellis, invited them into a spectacular one-bedroom-plus-den apartment with southeast-facing views showing a panorama of Southern California, from the Hollywood Hills to Century City to LAX, and beyond.
“Damn,” Ella said, “and we thought the MGM sign was something special. Would you look at this?”
The sun was setting and there was a bit of a glare, so Mercedes pressed a button and electronic silk drapes closed soundlessly.
“It’s like something out of a movie,” Ella said.
Mercedes offered them Perrier, then showed them around the chic, beautifully appointed apartment. It was a vision in pastels. Tasteful, feminine, perfect. There were two pink loveseats facing each other and lavender club chairs on either side, making a perfect square.
Beanie and Ella, who had taken off their shoes, let their feet curl on the white fur throw rugs placed over the carpet. “Are these coming, too?” Ella asked.
“Everything,” Mercedes confirmed. In the dining room was a white marble dining table with a chrome base and four white chairs accented in turquoise with a turquoise vase on the center of the table filled with fresh calla lilies. “I love calla lilies, don’t you?” Mercedes asked.
Beanie and Ella, speechless, just nodded.
There were chrome swivel bar stools at the white kitchen counter, and a black teakettle with a pop of turquoise on the spout, tying the whole room together. The den had a sleeper sofa and a large new color television with a Betamax.
“Jesus,” said Beanie, “you can actually watch movies at home?” It was less a question and more a statement as she looked around in awe. But it was what lay beyond the Betamax that took their breath away. There were all sorts of futuristic gadgets like a portable microwave, and a new answering machine that came with a beeper so you could get your messages remotely.
“I read about these,” whispered Ella, holding the cunning small beeper in her hands.
“I don’t get it,” Beanie said, asking Mercedes, “Why leave?”
“Because he needs it back,” said Mercedes.
“Who?” asked Beanie, trying to sound more curious than bitchy.
“My patron,” Mercedes told her. She opened up a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage and began to pack.
“What the hell is a patron?” asked Ella, sitting on Mercedes’s perfectly made bed.
“A patron,” she explained, “is like an uncle, except you’re not related. Really he’s just an old family friend who offered to let me stay until I could find a place of my own.”
“But you’re keeping everything?” Beanie confirmed. “Dishware, cookware, underwear, everything ? Right?”
Mercedes nodded. “He’s very generous,” she said, her icy veneer giving away as little as possible. “So, now you see why I suggest we split the rent equally.”
“Hell, I’d almost pay you to get the Betamax,” Ella told her.
Two weeks later the three women moved in together, with furnishings and gadgets that were much more Beverly Hills than adjacent.
Beanie and Ella had found their third.