Escorting the Actress by Leigh James
Lowell
"It's viral. It's absofuckinglutely viral," my agent, Shirley, said.
She was sitting on one edge of my bed while Tori, fidgeting and holding a mug, unhappily sat on the other. Between them was a laptop, a bottle of Advil, and a box of Kleenex.
I peered at them through one squinting eye, thoroughly confused. "Wass that?" My tongue felt thick and dry. I had no idea what day it was or what time.
"Your incident with the police last night. The video's gone viral," Shirley said, louder than was either necessary or nice.
I squinted at her through both eyes now. Scenes from last night came back to me through a deep, insidious fog.
"Coffee?" Tori sounded miserable as she nervously handed me the mug. She watched my face. "I'm so sorry. I royally fucked up last night."
I sat up and took the coffee from her, wincing at the pain in my head, sharp and jagged. "If I remember correctly, you told me to stay in the car."
I reached for the painkillers and took one. Looking as though she disapproved of my very existence, Shirley handed me a bottle of water to wash the pill down.
"Who posted it—one of the officers?" I asked. The specifics of last night were coming back to me in jagged, ugly pieces.
"No," Tori said. "They were actually really nice about the whole thing. They just gave me a warning. It was… someone else. Just some random person on the sidewalk. They heard you yelling, so they filmed it. When they realized you were Lowell Barton, they sold it to XYZ."
I groaned. XYZ was a gossip website that seemed continuously out to get me. They were the ones who had posted that most recent picture of me, scowling in my gym clothes, getting ready to fight off my fat.
"Show it to me," I snapped. I swallowed another Advil and chased it with coffee.
Shirley pushed the laptop toward me, and I watched myself in the video, horrified. I was wobbling and shouting and slurring. My carefully hidden Southern accent kept popping out like a flasher opening his coat.
I even said y'all.
I even said mansplainer.
At least they'd bleeped it out when I said absofuckinglutely. Still, I had a sinking feeling that the Disney role I'd been called about was no longer on the table.
I closed the screen and buried my face in my hands. "Fuck me. Stupid margaritas. And I totally puked on her shoes."
"It's all my fault," Tori wailed, throwing herself across the bed. "I made you get drunk. You never drink that much."
"S'okay. This isn't your fault, Tor." I patted my best friend's head. "My issues obviously run a little deeper than a couple of margaritas. But do you mind sending Officer Deborah some new shoes from me? And some flowers with a thank-you card?" I needed to apologize to both of the officers. A trip to their precinct, with a large amount of cupcakes and coffee and humility, was in order.
Tori nodded and tapped something into her phone while Shirley glared at me.
"What the hell is a mansplainer?" my high-powered agent spat. Her frosted, multi-layered bob was fluffed out in odd spiky clumps, as though she'd been running her hands through it in frustration.
"It's a man who thinks he can explain everything," I mumbled. "'Cause he's a man."
"Well, that's just fucking brilliant," she said, getting up and pacing. "I'm sure Lucas Dresden and all six of the producers on your movie will love that little term. Since they're all men."
"And they're all totally mansplainers," I said under my breath.
Shirley stopped pacing and turned to me, her hands on her hips. "I don't know what you want from me, Lowell. You tell me you want to work. I help get you jobs. You tell me you want to be a star. I worked hard to get you your last two parts, and now you're on the verge of becoming a headlining actress. An A-lister. Then you go and pull a stunt like this."
I looked up at her pleadingly. "I made a mistake. You know how much I want this."
She just shook her head and closed her eyes as if she had a migraine.
"Shirley, I'm sorry. I got drunk because Lucas told me I need to lose weight." It sounded ridiculous and childish, but there it was. "And when that cop told me I was prettier in person than he expected, I just lost it."
"But why?" Shirley looked flabbergasted. "You knew going into this movie that Lucas wanted you in great shape. You also know that people see your pictures online and will be critical about how you look. It's part of this life. What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is that all anyone in this town cares about is what my ass or my face looks like." The words tumbled out angrily before I could rein them in.
"Lowell, you sound like a child who isn't getting her way," Shirley said, her tone a warning.
"This isn't a temper tantrum." I got up and paced even though moving hurt my head. "All I'm saying is—I'm an actor. I take my work seriously. I'm not just a face that may or may not scowl too much, attached to an ass that may or may not look like it weighs too much. There are more important things to worry about, but that's all I ever hear about. It's frustrating, and it's demeaning. Is that too difficult to understand?"
Shirley glowered at me while Tori pretended to read texts on her phone and not listen.
"Yes, that is too difficult to understand," Shirley said. "This is Hollywood. This is the deal. If you want to be paid millions of dollars for your 'craft,' or whatever you want to call it, you have to live with the way things are. You have to deal with people commenting on your face, your weight, your dating status. That's the trade-off."
I sat back down on the bed. "Of course. I know you're right."
"If you want to keep the role you've got right now and ever have the chance of getting another one, you have some serious damage control to do. I'm hiring a PR team to take over from here. I should have done it sooner—I can see that now. You're just about to get to that next level, and I'm not going to kiss all my hard work with you good-bye. We're going to get your image whipped back into shape ASAP."
I felt Shirley studying my face, which I was struggling to keep neutral. I didn't want to cry. I also didn't really want a PR team—I didn't want to admit that my image was out of my control.
I can fix this. I have to fix this."What do I do?"
"You need to rehabilitate your public image. Immediately," she snapped, grabbing her cell phone and car keys. "You have Lucas to worry about, and you have the premiere for Hearts WideOpen coming up. You need to pull a rabbit out of a hat, Lo. Today. I'm calling my people. They'll figure something out."
"Like what? And where are you going?" I wailed. I needed her help, and she was heading toward the door.
"This business is for the hungry. I'm hungry, Lo. So I'm going back to my office to do some work for clients who don't take me for granted by throwing up all over their careers in public," she called over her shoulder. "The PR team will take care of everything. I'll set up a meeting, and we'll be in touch later today. In the interim, don't do anything stupid."
She slammed the door, and I just sat there, opening and closing my mouth as if I were a stunned guppy.
"She's a little harsh, huh?" Tori asked.
She got up and started organizing my closet, a nervous habit of hers. She was my best friend, but right now, she was doubling as my personal assistant while she was on break from the series where she worked as an apprentice lighting technician. Now that I was paying her to answer my emails, sort through my schedule, and help me keep on top of my finances, she felt the need to constantly be doing something instead of just hanging out. I'd hired her because I trusted her with my life and because she was hyper-organized, but sometimes I just wanted her to sit still. Instead, she was color-coding my closet.
"Shirley's all about tough love," I said.
I could just picture my agent white-knuckling the steering wheel of her Mercedes sedan, barking at another client on her Bluetooth on her way back to her office. She was angry and disappointed, and I couldn't blame her.
I blew out a deep breath. "Wow. I'm really managing to fuck this all up, aren't I?"
"No. You made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes." Tori continued color-coding my closet. "But we need to think of something, stat. Shirley's mean, but she's got a point."
"I know she does," I said, "but I have no idea how to fix this. I don't want to leave my life up to some PR team I've never worked with. That makes me nervous. I have no idea what they'll have me do."
"You could also just admit that you're a control freak."
I arched my eyebrow at her as she refolded a pair of skinny jeans and carefully hung them up. "Uh, takes one to know one." I continued to pace while Tori continued to organize. Finally, I turned to her. "I'm just gonna call Lucas. I'm going to be direct and just say that I'm sorry, that I messed up."
Tori looked at me, her face pale. "I'm gonna go clean your kitchen. And give you some privacy."
I nodded grimly and watched her flee from my room. I took a deep breath and called his cell.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me, Lowell," he answered.
My heart sank. "Hey, Lucas." I felt sweat forming on my brow.
"I hired you because you were a good girl, okay? Because I thought you'd be a hard worker. Because you weren't the type to go out and snort coke and dance on tables. I fought for you—then you fuck me like this? The producers called me last night and woke me up. They are furious. They want to fire you, and I can't even come up with a good reason why they shouldn't."
"Please don't fire me," I begged. My mind, still fuzzy, tried to remember the terms of the contract and all of the scenes we'd already shot. If the producers wanted to fire me at this stage of production, they must really be livid. It would cost them a small fortune to redo the work we'd already completed. That meant they thought this movie would lose money now, big time—because of me. And they were just trying to cut their losses.
Lucas sighed. "Give me a reason not to, Lowell."
I took a deep breath. "I'll make it right. Do you want me to come in on Wednesday?"
"I don't know," Lucas said. "I really don't know."
Tori peekedthrough my door a little while later, after my sniffling had subsided.
"You okay?" she asked.
"I'm fucked. I have a catastrophic PR problem, an upcoming premiere, and a director who hates my guts. My ass is genetically designed to stay its size, my agent's about to cut me loose, and I have a raging hangover. Not to mention that little video that everyone's one-clicking. So no, I'm not so good."
She sat next to me on the bed. "What did Lucas say?"
"That the producers want to fire me and I have to come up with a viable reason why they shouldn't. By the time we shoot next."
"Which is the day after tomorrow, right?" she asked.
"That's unfortunately correct." I rolled over and put a pillow over my face. As if that could block out the ugly truth of how fucked I was.
Tori was quiet for a second. "Shirley said you need to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Right?"
"I know, I was here."
Tori hopped up, meeting her threshold of sitting time. I peered around my pillow and watched as she tore through the jeans in my closet. She appeared to be organizing them by wash.
"I think it means you need to do something drastic to distract the press and the public," she said, her brow furrowed as she inspected my denim. "It has to be something bigger than how drunk you were last night. And everything you said."
"That's a pretty tall order. It would have to be some huge news—like I'm pregnant or getting married."
Tori looked at me and smiled enthusiastically. "The press loves marriage and/or a baby bump! Let's do that!"
I scrunched up my face at her. At this rate, I was going to need another Advil. "I can't be pregnant or get married! Because I'm not pregnant, and I don't even have a boyfriend to marry!"
"So how about a hot new boyfriend?" she asked. "That you might eventually marry? And get pregnant with? That'd keep the press happy."
"That would be great. For all sorts of reasons." I winced as I thought of how long it had been since I'd been with a guy. "But there's one problem: I don't have a hot boyfriend. Or a new boyfriend. Or any boyfriend. Or any prospect of a boyfriend, for that matter."
"Well, we could get you one," Tori said. "What about Troy?"
"Troy?" I practically spit out his name. "He dumped me, remember? Right after I told him I was serious about him and brought him to all those premieres? Troy is out."
Tori nodded. "Sorry, that's right. In all the excitement, I forgot he was such a douche." She scrunched up her face in thought. "How about Kevin? That hot agent?"
"Engaged. Recently."
"Bummer."
I rolled over and sighed. "Besides, it couldn't just be any guy. I'd need someone who seemed crazy about me, someone so totally hot that the press would go nuts over him. I need Charlie Hunnam. Or Joe Mangiello. Or Channing Tatum. And I need them to fawn all over me."
"Yes!" Tori squealed, clapping and jumping up and down with excitement. "Yes, yes, and yes! This is awesome! Let's do it! Oh my God, I'm finally gonna meet Channing Tatum!"
"You're crazy, you know that?" I asked, sitting up and staring at her in disbelief. "That's not gonna happen. Charlie's taken. Joe's engaged. Channing's married—and plus, I don't know any of them!" I snorted and sank back down on the bed. "Even if I did… I need someone to commit to me. To be in love with me and flaunt it. Today. That's not gonna happen. No one owes me a favor that big."
My situation was dire. I was imagining how many hits the video was getting on XYZ as I sat there, spinning my wheels. The enormity of the trouble I'd gotten myself into was sinking in. The press, my director, the producers, and the people putting together the new film I was up for would want nothing to do with me from here on out. I had the premiere and press junket coming up for Hearts Wide Open, and I was sure everyone associated with that movie wanted to kill me. Even with the impending arrival of Shirley's PR team, I was toxic for the near future. They wouldn't be able to save me. The paparazzi would be ruthless, following me everywhere, taunting me. I knew myself too well—I would snap under that sort of scrutiny.
Then it would all be over. Everything I'd worked for. Everything I wanted so badly.
I wish I did have a new boyfriend to throw at them. Then I sat up again. "Hey. Huh. I just thought of something."
"What?"
"Something my mom always says. Whenever she has a problem, she says she just throws some money at it. Like it'll magically make the problem disappear."
"That's because she's throwing your money. Or one of her ex-husbands'."
"But what if I did that? What if I threw some money at this?" I paced again. "What if I threw enough money at this that I could make it go away? Or at least obfuscate it?"
"Huh?" Tori looked at me as if I was crazy. And she had every right.
If I was attempting to apply my mother's "logic" to my problem, I was in deep, deep trouble. "What if I hired someone to act like my boyfriend and paid him enough so that he kept his mouth shut?"
"Who would you even ask? George Clooney? Chris Pratt?" She looked so excited, I was worried she was going to hyperventilate.
"I wish. But they're both married. I don't know… I don't know anybody I could ask." My mind racing a hundred miles a minute, I stared out the window at the tiny, pretty backyard of the house I'd saved and planned for.
What I needed was a body. A hot, handsome, strapping male body. I needed a showstopper of a guy to redirect the press. A super-hot guy who would do exactly what I said. I was pretty sure that didn't exist in real life, but this was Hollywood, and sometimes illusions seemed real here.
Huh.
I had a crazy idea about what I could do. Not only was it crazy, it was risky. Although I wasn't normally a risk-taker, I wasn't a quitter either. I'd clawed my way up over the past five years, doing a mindless sitcom and a string of pseudo-brooding indie movies, to get to where I was today—on the verge of real commercial success. I refused to watch my career crumble without putting up some sort of fight.
"I could always hire someone, I guess…" Maybe that would be easier than an actual boyfriend.Less messy. Less emotional. More of a business transaction.
"What?" Tori asked. "I'm not following you."
"Just give me a minute." I threw myself onto the bed and fired up my laptop.
I exited out of the XYZ screen so I wouldn't have to see that image of myself, my blond hair plastered against my forehead as I looked belligerently at the officer. Then I did a quick Internet search and found exactly what I was looking for.
What I couldn't believe I was looking for.
"Bingo," I said, finding a site for a service located in LA. "Tori, can you throw me my phone?"
