Authors: Melody Mayer
“May I have your attention, please?”
Steven Goldhagen banged a spoon against a martini glass and then held the spoon overhead, motioning for everyone to settle down. There were over a hundred people in the banquet room at the Beverly Hills Hotel for the production luncheon for the Rock Music Awards, and there didn't seem to be much of a response to Steven's request for the noise level to drop to where he could easily be heard.
Esme leaned toward Lydia. “They ought to let him talk. He's paying for everyone's lunch.”
“Maybe they're talking about how good it was,” Lydia replied. “Course, four months ago I was eating monkey meat, so almost anything that comes out of an actual kitchen tastes good to me.”
It was Friday afternoon; Esme and Lydia were at the RMA kickoff luncheon at the Pink Palace, which was what everyone
in Hollywood called the venerable Beverly Hills Hotel. With the award show coming on Saturday night, Steven had decided to do a morale-building luncheon for the entire production staff. At breakfast that morning, while Esme was getting Easton and Weston ready for school, Steven had expounded on his theory of show business as a team sport. That is, it was as important to build morale in your employees as it was to keep morale high on a basketball or soccer team. Hence this luncheon, for which Steven and the other producers had pulled out all the stops.
The room itself was decorated beautifully. One of the nicest banquet spaces in the hotel, it had a huge crystal chandelier and a ceiling that was easily three stories high. There were four long tables where crew members sat; each table was covered in a custom-made RMA tablecloth. Along the walls were posters from the five previous RMA shows, plus television monitors that replayed memorable moments from them. Esme had seen quite a few of these, and especially remembered the Carlos Santana and Coldplay jam a few years back. At each person's seat was a commemorative Rock Music Awards program, plus a small bag of swag. Esme had checked hers out. There was a unisex tank wristwatch, a pen-and-pencil set, and a small video recorder that could record up to thirty minutes. Everything was engraved with the latest RMA logo.
As for the food, it was just as impressive as the décor They'd started with cold oysters on the half shell, followed by a delicious tomato-spinach soup that somehow had been poured so that there were separate swirls of orange tomato and creamy green spinach liquid. Then came the main course, fresh rock-fish caught that same morning by Santa Barbara Island and
helicoptered to the hotel (this Esme knew because she'd been in touch with the caterer to help coordinate the event), plus an icy cucumber-and-dill salad from the hotel garden, and
pommes frites
—which was a swanky way of saying they served french fries. There were white and red wines from Napa and Sonoma counties. Dessert had been a dozen different kinds of mini donuts from Sweet Hole on Sunset, currently
the
place for dessert in Los Angeles. Esme had eaten half a dozen of the delicious confections. The best had been the hazelnut cream.
Now, as Steven still tried to get his crew to quiet down, white-jacketed waiters were pouring coffee from French press makers, as well as a variety of herbal teas. Lydia had opted for coffee, while Esme was content to finish her glass of iced tea. She smiled when Lydia plucked yet another mini donut from the platter in the center of the table. Lydia was one of those girls who could eat anything and everything—and she did—and never gain an ounce.
“Blackberry,” Lydia reported as she bit into the tiny donut. “Lord, I have died and gone to heaven.” She washed it down with some coffee. “Too bad Kiley is missing this.”
Esme had invited Kiley, too, but Kiley had opted to go to school instead. On the other side of Esme sat a chattering group of hairstylists, makeup artists, and dressers. It seemed that half of them were named Heather and the other half Kelly.
It turned out that there had been some advantages to being Steven's personal production assistants, which was how Steven had told Esme and Lydia to refer to themselves.
“If anyone asks, you're special assistants to the producer,” he'd instructed.
One of the Heathers and one of the Kellys had asked
immediately. The answer that Steven had provided was sort of a golden ticket. For the rest of the meal, Esme and Lydia were treated like demigods.
Up at the head table, Steven had started a discussion with a bald man in an expensive Italian suit, so everyone had started talking again.
Lydia looked at her watch. “I'm late to my English class.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”
“You shouldn't just blow off school,” Esme said.
Lydia's eyes widened. “Look who's talking.”
“I already have almost all the credits I need to graduate.”
“Almost only counts in blow darts, sweet pea,” Lydia said sweetly. “An ‘almost’ high school diploma doesn't count.”
Esme turned away. She didn't want to think about the fact that she'd dropped out of school. It was bad enough that she'd disappointed her parents; she really didn't want to be teased about it by her friends, too. Besides, as she'd told her tearful parents, she had a plan. She'd take the test for her GED, and it would be just the same as if she'd spent her whole senior year trolling through Bel Air High with the offspring of the rich and powerful, without having had to actually endure the experience.
“Hey, did I tell you I'm going out with Audrey Birnbaum tonight?” Lydia asked, interrupting Esme's thoughts.
“Twice.” She put a forefinger to her lips. “Shhh. Steven's ready.”
Finally, the crowd was silent, and Esme swung her eyes to her boss, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. As usual he'd dressed down, in jeans, a blue work shirt, and a baseball cap to cover his balding pate.
“Welcome to everyone, and everyone welcome. I'm Steven Goldhagen—and I'm producing this year's show. I'm glad you're part of my team. We've got a ton of work to do before Saturday night, but you wouldn't be here if I didn't think you could deliver. Each and every one of you, whether you're a gaffer or a best boy, a hairstylist or a dresser, a set painter or a special assistant to the producer, is important to this production.”
“He's talking about us!” Lydia said excitedly.
“So, you know what you have to do. Don't plan on much sleep between now and the show. We'll start sound checks tomorrow, costumes on Wednesday, dry tech Thursday, dress on Friday, and show on Saturday. And this goes without saying—stay out of the swag room. That's for our celebrities. I know it's tempting but I don't have time for nonsense.”
Esme knew about the swag room, where clothing and cosmetic companies, electronics companies, designers, shoe manufacturers—anyone who'd benefit from having a celebrity use their gear or even be thought to be using their gear—would donate a huge lot of their best merchandise as giveaways to the stars. Esme had heard that celebrities could go home with tens of thousands of dollars' worth of gear. Designer jeans, Wiis and Xboxes, vacation packages to Vegas—it was all there for the asking and the taking. The official name for a swag room was a “gift lounge,” but the operative effect was the same. Whatever you called it, loot was what you left with.
“So that's about it,” Steven continued. “Work hard, work out your own problems with the supervisors, and chill on the
autograph and photo requests. I promise you a kick-ass wrap party when the show's over. See you at the Kodak.”
Steven gave his crew the thumbs-up, and they responded with a cheer and a standing ovation. Clearly the worker bees of Hollywood weren't used to being treated this well, and they really appreciated it.
“This is going to be fun,” Lydia said. “Do you know what we're going to be doing?”
“I think we're on door duty to start, starting tomorrow,” Esme replied.
Lydia raised her eyebrows. “What's that?”
“The show's at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Same place they do
American Idol
finals and the Oscars and the Daytime Emmys. We'll be with security at the front door,” Esme explained. “You can't get in or out unless you're on the list.”
Lydia pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Why would security need us with them?”
“I don't know—'cause we're cute?” Esme replied. “This is Hollywood. None of it makes sense.”
“We can get our friends in, though, right?” Lydia asked. “I told Flipper he could stop by.”
“Lydia! Not the first day.”
Esme was emphatic. Sometimes she wondered how Lydia had been raised, how she got all these crazy ideas. Then she'd remember, and decided it all made sense.
Lydia sighed. “Okay, okay. Can you give me a ride back to school now?”
“Sure. Just let me go to the—”
“Esme. You're here.”
Esme froze. She knew the voice before she saw him. Jonathan Goldhagen. She knew she shouldn't be surprised. This was his father's event, he was an up-and-coming indie movie star, and he'd be a presenter on Saturday night. She'd wondered if he'd be at the lunch, and couldn't decide whether she wanted him to be or not.
Her heart pounded. She was hopeless to stop it. All she could manage for him was, “Hi.” “Hey. You got a couple of minutes? I'd like to talk.” Esme shook her head. “Gotta take Lydia back to—” “I can wait,” Lydia assured her. She rose, and hugged Jonathan hello and goodbye. “Meet me in the lobby,” she told Esme. “Take your time. I'll wait.”
Lydia didn't wait around for Esme to respond, but took off toward the main doors to the hotel behind most of the rest of the crowd, leaving Esme and Jonathan practically alone with the small army of hotel cleanup staff that was already at work on the aftermath of the luncheon.
Damn
. Jonathan. Esme had to admit, he looked great. Almost six feet tall, with the rangy build of a tennis player, short brown hair, and a scruffy three days' growth of beard, he wore a battered pair of Levi's 505s and a white Lacoste tennis shirt. She'd selected her outfit carefully that morning, on the off chance that she'd see him. She wore a straight, tight black skirt that fell to just below her knees, and very high, strappy aqua high heels. Her silk shirt was aqua too. It had cost her nearly two hundred dollars at a boutique on Montana, and that was on a half-price sale. She wasn't used to spending big
money on her clothes, and she still felt guilty about buying it. But when she saw Jonathan's eyes sweep over her appreciatively she was thrilled that she'd spent the money.
“I hear you're back home.” He slid into one of the vacant chairs that had been occupied a few minutes before by a Kelly and motioned for Esme to join him. She shrugged, and did. Her glass was still on the table. She took a sip before she turned to him.
“Yeah.” She knew she was monosyllabic. She didn't care.
“That's good for the girls. I talked to Diane before I came over here. She's happy that you're back. And she said the twins are bouncing off the walls with joy.”
“I missed them,” Esme admitted. “I'm glad they're happy.”
He looked at her cockeyed. “Are you happy?”
“Does it matter?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “To me? Yeah, it matters.”
“I came back because I was thinking of Easton and Weston. They've had so much disruption in their life already. Me leaving? That was another disruption and I feel terrible about how selfish I was. Plus they're starting first grade. No ESL. They're going to need some help. That help is me.”
“Look, Esme.” Suddenly, Jonathan lifted one of his short sleeves. “Look at this. Remember when you did this? Remember what we had?”
Esme looked. There was the freehand tattoo that she'd put on Jonathan's bicep, a magnificent depiction of a Ferris wheel, inspired by the wheel at the far end of the Santa Monica Pier, which she could see from Jonathan's apartment on Ocean Avenue.
“It looks good. You taking good care of it?”
Jonathan shook his head. “I'm not showing it to you for your assessment. I want you to remember.”
“I do remember. I remember the last time we were together.” Esme ran her fingers through her thick hair. This was hard. Very hard.
“At the coffee place in the Echo, you mean.”
Esme nodded. It had been at La Verdad coffeehouse. Jonathan had shown up to see her; he was about the only gringo in the whole joint. “You asked me two questions that day. One was whether I'd come back to work for your parents.”
“And you never let me ask the second question,” Jonathan reminded her. “That's why I'm here now.”
He seemed about to go on, but a couple of hotel workers pushing mops and chattering in Vietnamese stopped to mop around where they were sitting. He waited until they were done. Esme both longed and dreaded to hear what he'd say. As much as she didn't want to want him, she still did.
“This won't take long,” he assured her when the workers were out of earshot. “The other thing I wanted to ask you that night was, do you think we could go out again? Start fresh? So maybe you'll be my date for the wrap party after the awards?”
Start fresh
. Wouldn't it be great if such a thing was possible? But she and Jonathan would always have their history. The rich white boy-poor brown girl thing. The getting caught in bed by his stepmother—that had been one of the most embarrassing moments of Esme's life.
Now she gazed at the beautiful tattoo on Jonathan's arm, maybe her favorite one she'd ever done. But she wasn't the same girl who had done that tattoo, who'd had a crush on
Jonathan long before she'd ever admit to it. She was not the same girl who had been a nanny over the summer. She was making so much money doing freehand tats now—she was the talk of hip Hollywood. She had power, and she loved how that felt. Even her best friend, Jorge, had commented on it, and he had been dead set against her dropping out of school to pursue her art. But when she was with Jonathan, she felt that power evaporating.
“I miss you,” Jonathan continued, his voice low. “So much.”
She felt the lump in her throat as she started to speak. “I need more time.”
“For what?” His pale blue eyes were a mix of hurt and surprise. “I'm not asking you to marry me. I just want to take you to dinner.”
Esme felt so torn. She remembered Lydia was out in the lobby, waiting for her.