The First Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare

hallway. This was the last time I was getting drunk with Jason Blum—bad things always happened.
    The next morning, I woke up and found Jason in bed next to me. I hastily closed my eyes again and replayed the evening. But before I could scream or remember details of our lurid sex games, there was a loud yawn next to me,
    “It’s okay, sweetie, nothing happened. You got a little vomitty, so I brought you home, tucked you in, and fell asleep myself.”
    “Yuck, I’m sorry,” I said as I felt my body to see what I was wearing and found I still had on every bit of clothing I’d set out for work in yesterday—even my pantyhose. I grimaced.
    “Least I could do. You were there in my hour of need,” Jason began. “Oh yeah, about that credit for producer,” I said with a sheet over my
    mouth in case I smelled as toxic as I felt.
    “Don’t mention it,” Jason said as he stretched out in Luke’s place. “No, really, I mean, I’m flattered but I wouldn’t feel comfortable. I
    really didn’t do much more than develop it for you. I was just a second-rate, unqualified D-girl.”
    “It’s okay, you’re not getting paid or anything. You probably don’t remember, but we agreed on a nominal credit only.”
    “Oh, I see.” I nodded. Jason really had covered himself. He could tell the world that it was my producing that was lousy, and I didn’t even get paid to be blamed—sounded like a great deal. Though I still adhered to the view that it was a great film, so I wasn’t going to protest too much. As it was I didn’t get to protest at all, because when I looked out over the sheet I saw the thunderous face of Mrs. Mendes staring down on me. She was the maid who used to darn Luke’s socks before I came along and threw the holey ones away and replaced them with new ones
    from Neiman Marcus.
    “Oh, Mrs. Mendes. Good morning,” I said as I visualized the scene from where she was standing—me, the slatternly new girlfriend who’d replaced her beloved Emanuelle in Mr. Luke’s bed, in bed with someone who wasn’t Mr. Luke. “This is my friend Jason,” I said, as if it might make the whole thing better.
    “It’s none of my business who he is.” She spun on her heels on the shiny parquet floor and marched out of the room with her nose in the air.
    “That’s okay, baby,” Jason said as I jumped up from my bed after her to explain. “She’ll never tell him. She’ll just shrink your cashmere and burn holes in your favorite skirts,” Jason said with surprising perspicacity.
    “Really?” I stopped in my tracks and slid halfway across the room in my stocking feet.
    “Sure. You’ll just have to do your own laundry from now on. It’s a small price to pay not to get found out.”
    “But I haven’t done anything,” I protested.
    “We could if it would make you feel better.” Jason winked at me. Had he always been such a flirt or was this a by-product of success, I wondered? He got out of bed and stood in front of the bedroom window stark naked. But before I could warn him that Mrs. Mendes was now noisily sweeping the veranda outside the bedroom window, it was too late. She’d seen all she didn’t need to see.
    “Shit,” Jason said as she dropped her broom in horror and vanished from sight.
    “You might want to cut off the phone lines, though, so she can’t call Luke and share the good news.”

    Four
    Hollywood is like life. You face it with the sum total of your equipment.

    —Joan Crawford

    “May I speak to Luke Lloyd, please?” I asked the woman who’d answered my boyfriend’s cell phone.
    “Hold a moment, please,” she said. I thought the whole point of cell phones was that when you called your boyfriend at midnight his time and three P . M . your time, he’d answer it. It seemed that I was wrong. There was an interminable crackle and some thudding noises.
    “Hello?”
    “Hello, I was holding for Luke Lloyd,” I said, trying not to sound impatient lest a rumor get spread on set that poor