Zaza stared at the card for a long time, her mind a blank. He was saying something about it not being very glamorous, that the hours were long, it was a lot of fetching and carrying. But you learned the business, and the pay . . .
She looked up and said, “When can I start?”
He smiled then, showing teeth so perfect that her heart melted. Who had ever imagined someone’s
teeth
could make you hot?
“As you might guess,” he said, “I’m in a tight spot, or I wouldn’t be accosting strangers in bars. Could you start next week?”
Zaza nodded. “Next week. Sure. I mean—Monday?”
He sighed. “Great. Just be at that address,” he pointed at the card, “at seven a.m. Let me take your name and I’ll have the receptionist tell you where to go.”
It was all a little improbable—even, as Booley pointed out repeatedly, a little fishy. And although Zaza had presented herself at seven a.m. and was immediately thrown into a never-ending series of unglamorous fetching-and-carrying tasks, just as the man had said, one thing still remained peculiar. On her ten-minute lunch “hour,” Zaza had tried to call Leonard Falwell to thank him for the job. Of course, part of her was hoping he secretly still wanted to sleep with her, that giving her the job was a means to an end. But the receptionist who answered the phone insisted that there was no such extension as the one Zaza gave, and that there was no Leonard Falwell employed at XTV.
“No, we never had any Leonard Falwell, honey,” the girl said blithely. “I’ve been here since the beginning. I’m sorry to say it, but I think somebody’s pulling your leg.”
The whole thing was so unaccountable that Zaza had given up trying to understand it. Someday, she imagined, she would run into “Leonard Falwell” in the corridor and . . . probably be unable to meet his eye. Because the same part of her that had hoped he wanted to sleep with her was now irrationally convinced that he had special business cards for girls he didn’t want to sleep with. The production assistant type of girl, who nonetheless would, every one of them, dream of sleeping with him. Of course, that was silly and paranoid.
Now she wondered, if he had been looking for porn stars, would she have had the nerve? Her mind sketched Jared Vairy again and she thought,
Oh yes.
But he probably took one look at Zaza and thought,
Production assistant.
Still, maybe she could work her way up to be a producer or a director—something that would bring her close enough to Jared Vairy (for instance—he was only an example) that he could get to know her and see . . . well, whatever it was that made people fall in love with unglamorous girls. However, she had an awful sinking feeling that she was about to lose her job.
Finished before I start,
she thought.
So typical.
Before getting this job, she had already been expelled from two high schools, fired from three jobs, and dumped by every boyfriend she’d had. She had a perfect score of zero. The worst of it was that she could never see that what she had done was so terribly wrong. As the show ground on, the vision of Valerie’s perfect blond voluptuousness searing into her miserable mind, Zaza listed for herself her failures to date.
1.
First high school.
Surely it couldn’t have been so bad to streak down the hallways naked, when, after all, everyone had cheered her, and it was for a bet and she had won the bet? (And all the other things she’d done were so minor!)
2.
Second high school.
They couldn’t expect her to go to
all
the classes and do
all
the work, when Joe McAllihy was willing to sneak off into the study hall and make out with her for hours at a time. And they couldn’t be so mad when they walked in on Joe and her at the historic moment Joe got to third base, even if they
were
nuns.
3.
First job.
Fucking the boss was not always a good idea, not when he co-owned the business with his girlfriend. But how was she supposed to know it was his girlfriend? Was it her fault he hadn’t told her?
4.
Second job.
Oh, what was the use? She couldn’t go on.
The boyfriends were more understandable. Or, at least, a lot of girls got dumped by their boyfriends. And she wasn’t a very good girlfriend. She always had her mind elsewhere. She was always planning to move to New York, even though none of her boyfriends ever wanted to move to New York. Or she was in love with some other man she couldn’t have. Even if she didn’t say anything, they must have felt that. The long and the short of it was that she hadn’t been in love with any of them, so she couldn’t expect them to be in love with her.
But the trouble was, no one had been in love with her. In like with her, yes. In lust with her, even. But she just wasn’t the type—Valerie LeBlanc tossed her blond mane and smiled sweetly out of the monitor at her, the type in spades—to break anyone’s heart.
She shut her eyes and immediately imagined Valerie’s blue-eyed, button-nosed face in a nun’s habit. She sighed. Valerie had really, really, missed her calling. She would have been a great mean nun at a parochial school. The greatest, meanest, uptight-est . . . now the incongruously naked nun was saying, “In other news, speculation is growing that Jared Vairy, star of erotic classics like
Mile-High Club
and
Amsterdam Nights
, could be suffering from—say it isn’t so!—erectile dysfunction. Is this the real story behind his much-publicized retirement from on-screen sex? More after this break.”
Zaza’s eyes flew open. Jared Vairy. Erectile dysfunction. She met the eye of the frowning sound tech, who said, “Oh, man. Jared’s going to be here in a second with smoke coming out of his ears. Oh, man.” All the people in headphones were shaking their heads, and one woman groaned, “Val, no-o-o-o . . .”
Zaza stared at the sound tech in utter confusion. Jared with erectile dysfunction? But it was just like Valerie to make a story like that up. And Jared, here? Zaza looked down with despair at her already comprehensively rumpled clothes, which had been the wrong thing in the first place and . . .
She didn’t notice Valerie until the other woman was standing in front of her in a rage no less frightening for the fact that she was nude and only five foot two.
“Miss Jeresky,” she said in a voice that was pure ice, “I assume you know that you’re fired.”
Zaza gulped and stumbled to her feet, praying that the aroma of sex wasn’t too strong or that virgin Valerie wouldn’t know what it was. “I—I’m sorry. It was just so far to go, and I was—Honestly, I ran so fast.” In her heels, she towered over Valerie by nearly a foot. It felt especially awkward and absurd to be abject
downward
to this pocket-sized Venus.
Valerie, however, was not the least discomfited. “Go tell Babylona that she’ll have to find a replacement for you.
I
have to be back on air in five minutes, and I’ll need a replacement by tomorrow at six. Let her know. Tomorrow at six.” She raised her eyebrows and narrowed her eyes. “Do you think you can remember that?”
“But I’m sorry. I mean, it’s just makeup! I mean, you really look great. I mean, you—” It was on the tip of her tongue to say that Valerie was covered in makeup, which was true. Zaza herself had had to rub the foundation into her back.
Valerie said with condescending fury, “You can’t see my nipples on camera without that rouge. I looked like a
freak.
”
Zaza opened her mouth, but shut it again. It was no good arguing that it was only a matter of Valerie thinking that she’d rubbed some off on her robe when nobody else could see the red spot on the robe, and . . . it was no good arguing. Of course, she had been away too long. If only she was the assistant to a real porn star, who would have understood why it was vitally necessary to fuck a total stranger in the middle of an errand.
“Please . . . give me a second chance. Please?”
“I don’t have time for this.” Valerie put a hand to her own temple, miming the headache that Zaza was giving her. “Babylona’s office is one floor up. If you get lost, please have the presence of mind to ask someone. I’d appreciate it if you could be out of the building before the show finishes. I
do not
want to see you again, Miss Jeresky.”
Zaza bit her lip, trying to think of something more abject to say. But Valerie had already turned and was walking off with perfect gyrations of her perfect (and perfectly made-up) ass.
Once she was gone, the sound tech said, “God. Sorry. It’s like this every day here. It’s like working with Henry the Eighth.”
“Oh, hell,” Zaza said hopelessly, giving him a bleak smile. “I really was late. But I
can’t
go tell Babylona. I mean, she won’t even know who I am.”
“Oh, she’s all right. Don’t worry about her.” The sound tech shrugged. “Babylona’s a cream puff. And everyone knows Valerie’s . . .” Then he caught himself and looked around paranoically. He finished weakly, “Valerie can be a little hasty.”
“Thanks,” Zaza said. “You’re so nice! Everyone was so nice . . . everyone else.” Then she realized there were tears in her eyes and took flight, leaving the makeup box on the floor.
The hallway was empty, to her relief. She leaned against the wall and put her hands over her face, indulging in a moment of private tears. How was she going to face Babylona? Babylona was the number-one person Zaza had always wanted to be, and here she’d been cherishing a stupid fantasy about how they would meet and Babylona would take to her. What a stupid idiot! She had to go and fuck that guy. . . . When would she learn? No wonder she failed at absolutely everything, and everyone was angry at her all the time, and she got thrown out of everywhere. Even in porn you had to get things done. Even in porn
—
“Are you all right?”
It was a man’s voice, deep and reassuringly familiar. She rubbed her eyes and looked up, astonished, at a slightly tear-blurred Jared Vairy.
“Oh . . . no. That’s why I’m crying,” she said. Then she actually bit her tongue. The thought went through her mind:
So people really bite their tongues!
She released it and said, “But, you can just go past, ’cause it’s not important. I mean, you don’t know me, and I’ll really be all right.”
He smiled at her, that famed melting smile that transformed his otherwise hawkish good looks into a dazzling amorousness. It was really Jared Vairy, in jeans and a faded Red Sox T-shirt, just like a real person, only better-looking. “Are you working with Valerie?” he said.
She nodded, trying desperately to think.
“Well, try not to let her get to you. She’s the original woman who makes grown men cry. And
not
from a broken heart.” He put his hand on her shoulder sympathetically.
Jared Vairy was touching her shoulder. She nodded again, telling herself not to turn and nuzzle his hand—not. Then she suddenly realized what he had said. “Men must fall in love with her all the time, though.”
His face altered subtly, the blue eyes beginning to blaze with contained anger. “Well, I guess some deluded, pathetic, miserable, doomed souls might think they were in love with her, until they got to know her.”
“Oh, did you—? I’m sorry. I didn’t know that—”
“No, not me,” he said. Then he wasn’t touching her shoulder anymore. He was standing there with his arms crossed, a look of disgust on his face.
Suddenly Zaza remembered the news item Valerie had just read about him. “Oh,” she said. “I just heard that news item, too. But no one will believe it.”
“
Everyone
will believe it,” he said. “That’s the point.”
“I don’t believe it.”
He smiled again, a hint of warm amusement in his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “Just between you and me—and anyone else you can find to tell—she’s doing it for a reason.”
“Because she’s horrible?” Zaza said.
“Yes,” he said, laughing. “That’s what you’d call the ultimate cause. But the immediate reason is that she wants me to be her first, on prime time.”
“Oh,” Zaza said. For a moment she was distracted by the feeling that it was almost forgivable. Who wouldn’t want Jared to be her fi rst lover, even if it had to be on television? But to show she was on his side, she said, “That’s so selfish. You mean, she wants you to prove . . . with her?”
“She wants the most famous man she can find to do it with her,” he said with deepening disgust. “And until George Clooney starts answering her calls, I’m it. Not that I answer her calls.”
“Well, she’s just fired me,” said Zaza shyly. In spite of herself, the tears began to well again. “And it was only my first day.”
The hand was back on her shoulder. “What did you do? Breathe wrong?”
“Something like that. And now she wants me to—to go and tell Babylona myself. And I’m never going to be able to do it.” It struck her for the first time that she could just walk out. She was fired, anyway. But that would be so irresponsible. It would only prove Valerie had been right.
Then, to her amazement, Jared Vairy was hugging her. At first, she froze, only distantly feeling the hard, wonderful planes of his body. She tremblingly put her arms around him and in an instant dissolved into pure, helpless bliss. Jared Vairy was hugging her! No matter what else happened, for the rest of her life she would always be a person Jared Vairy had hugged. In her arms, he felt better than she could have imagined, warm and big and knee-meltingly male. She wondered if he could smell the sex on her. Surely that would be a good thing?
Then he was standing back from her, still holding her by the shoulders. He said, “Listen. I’ll go talk to Babylona. I’ll bet you can get a job on some other show.”
“But—”
“Ssh.” He put his finger to her lips. “You’ve just saved my life. I would have gone in there and shouted at Valerie in front of everyone. I might have even done it on camera,” he said with a grim humor in his voice. “So one good turn deserves another, right?”