“That’s not as important.” He smiled at her, vaguely curious about her for the first time. “You’re awfully serious. How old are you? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”
“Twenty-four,” she said with an air of innocence she was unaware of.
“Wow, that’s young. You have a big job for someone your age.”
“Is it really all about who you know here?” She wanted to believe there was something deeper, but he dispelled her illusions about that.
“You become famous by association. You’re important because of who you work for. I become famous if I date someone famous. I get dumped if she meets someone more important. Or I dump her for the same reason.” It seemed normal to him.
“That’s a cold way to deal with people,” Alex commented.
“It’s how it works. Those are the rules here. It’s how you get to where you want to go.”
“What if you make it on your own?”
“No one does. And that’s a lot of hard work. The shortcuts work better.”
“But the people who take the shortcuts are empty inside,” she said, but most of the people in his business were.
“If you don’t have a talent, that’s how you have to do it. L.A. makes stars out of people who’ve never had a job and don’t have a talent. The paparazzi follow them everywhere.” He named half a dozen people and she realized he was right. “It’s all cardboard and glitter, but it works. For the most part no one bothers to look behind the scenery.”
“That’s depressing,” she said, and she was pensive on the ride back to his apartment, where she was dropping him off. When they got there, he looked at her and smiled. They hadn’t had much to drink so they were both sober.
“Want to come up for some fun?”
“What kind of fun?” She could guess.
“A fun night between friends?”
“And then what?” She wanted to know what he had in mind and what it meant to him.
“We do it again if we have a good time. Or we don’t. We check it out. We play for a while till something better comes along.” He was brutally honest.
“This probably sounds crazy to you, Malcolm, but I want more than that. I had a great time tonight, but I don’t want someone ‘until something better comes along.’ I’m fine alone in the meantime.”
“Isn’t that how it works? You make do for a while?”
“Why?” she said, confused by the rules he lived by.
“What do you want? A proposal and an engagement ring before you go to bed?”
“Not really. Just someone who knows who I am, and loves me with my flaws and rough edges, and isn’t using me like a bus to get to the next stop.”
“That’s a harsh way to put it,” he said, mulling over what she’d said.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? You don’t know me. I don’t know you. I don’t want to sleep with a stranger.”
“That’s fair,” he said, and leaned over and kissed her. “You looked great tonight. See you at work tomorrow.” And then she thought of something as he stepped out of the car and she slid over to the driver’s seat.
“If I didn’t work for Alexander Green, would you go out with me, or want to sleep with me?” He considered the question for a minute and laughed.
“Probably not. I don’t do freebies. And that’s a big ticket.” It was horrifying to her, but he meant it. It was all about using who you could. Never wasting an opportunity or a chance meeting. They were all scavengers on the make.
“I thought so. Thank you for being honest.” He nodded. He wasn’t sure why he had been that open with her, but her own honesty demanded his.
“I like you, actually. Better than I expected to. You’re kind of uptight on the set.”
“I’m working.”
“He wouldn’t have you as his assistant if you weren’t smart. He knows what he’s doing. The man is a genius.” He had said it before, and as Malcolm waved and walked back into his building, Alex realized that he might have fallen in love with Alexander Green because of who he was, but not with her. In Malcolm’s eyes, as plain old Alexandra Winslow, she didn’t make the grade. And neither did he.
—
She and Malcolm had dinner several times during the filming. And there were a few close calls where she almost gave herself away, but she didn’t. The crime scenes took forever to film, but turned out well. She checked them closely in the dailies for “Mr. Green.” And Sam commented once that he wished he had an assistant like her. She had eyes like a hawk, and worked tirelessly on the set to defend Green’s interests and the book.
She had Thanksgiving dinner with the crew, since she had no friends in L.A. Malcolm was sleeping with one of the young actresses in the movie by then, and was being seen around town with her. She was an up-and-coming name and very pretty. They wrapped the film two days before Christmas, and she had three weeks off before she had to come back for postproduction, so she went home to Boston. She hadn’t been there for the holidays for two years. The nuns had decorated a huge tree in the front hall, had dinner together on Christmas Eve, and worked at a homeless shelter on Christmas Day, and she got to spend time with Brigid and the baby while she was in town. Brigid was already five months pregnant and big again by then, and tired from being pregnant with one baby and another in her arms. Alex went over to help her whenever she could. Brigid had taken an extended leave from the public school system to stay home with her babies, and Patrick’s parents were helping them financially as best they could, as they’d promised.
“We’d be starving if they didn’t,” she told Alex, but she seemed happier than ever. And this time they knew that the baby was a girl, and Brigid was excited about it.
Alex went back to L.A. in mid-January, and Malcolm was dating a different starlet by then, whom he’d met at a party over Christmas. She was glad she hadn’t gotten caught up in his games. There was nothing malicious about him, and it wasn’t personal, but there was no depth to it either, it was all tinsel. She couldn’t wait to start another book when she finished working on the movie. And she was trying to figure out where to live. Living alone in the house in L.A., and her apartments in London before that, made her realize that she didn’t want to go back to live at the convent again, as much as she loved the nuns. She talked to Bert about it, and he suggested New York.
“You’re ready for the big leagues, Alex. It’s exciting being there. You can’t hide away forever.” Rose agreed. New York was electric, and she thought it would do her good to be there, at least for a while.
Alex had saved most of her writing money, and was careful with it, and she had the money from the sale of her father’s house. Rose told her she should rent an apartment downtown, in one of the trendy areas where young people lived, and see how it felt.