Page 6 of All That Glitters

Chapter five

Cell Phones and Second Chances

The sun beat down on the asphalt of the strip mall parking lot, turning the air into a shimmering, exhaust-choked haze.

On the corner of the block, where dignity went to die a slow, sweaty death, some poor idiot stood waving at passing cars, trapped inside a ridiculous sponge-rubber cell phone costume.

The idiot, as it happened, was Tony.

He was sweltering inside the stuffy, smelly foam suit, peering out at the world through a flimsy plastic screen that was already smudged with his own breath.

This was his ‘job in telecommunications.’ This was what a college degree in beer studies bought you these days.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, holding his own cell phone up to the head-hole of his costume.

“…Wait. Say that one more time,” he said into the phone, a grin spreading across his face. “Because it sounded a lot like Debbie Campbell saying she’s moving out of her parents’ house.”

Debbie’s voice crackled back at him. “And that’s a shocker because…?”

“Because Hell hasn’t frozen over yet,” Tony said, a genuine laugh bubbling up inside him.

“I know, because I work there.” The thought of her moving there was like a sudden, cool breeze in the suffocating heat of his foam prison.

It would be like old times. His partner in crime, back by his side.

A subtle, unfamiliar warmth bloomed in his chest at the thought, a feeling he quickly filed away under ‘friendship’ and refused to examine any further.

A faded sedan slowed as it passed. Tony, on autopilot, gave a half-hearted wave.

A beefy arm shot out the passenger window, and a jumbo-sized Big Gulp cup sailed through the air, end over end, before striking him square in the chest. A cold, sticky wave of cheap cola soaked through the front of his costume.

The car sped off, its occupants howling with laughter.

“I thought you worked for a law firm,” Debbie said, oblivious to the drive-by sugaring.

Tony sighed, the foam costume now clinging unpleasantly to his t-shirt.

“Long, funny story there,” he said, deciding she didn’t need to know the full extent of his career malfunctions just yet.

“Remind me not to tell you about it.” He spotted a woman strolling past on the sidewalk, with a little boy in tow. “Hold on a sec.”

He covered the phone with his hand and, with the practiced enthusiasm of the damned, held out a promotional brochure. “Sign up for our family plan,” he chirped, his voice muffled by the foam, “and get free rollover minutes!”

The little boy took one look at the giant talking phone-creature, his eyes widening in terror. His face crumpled, and he let out a piercing wail. His mother looked at Tony as if he were a registered sex offender, grabbed her son’s hand, and power-walked away.

“Thank you,” Tony called after their retreating backs. “Have a nice day.”

“Told you it was him,” came a familiar voice from down the sidewalk.

Tony cringed. He turned his foam head to see Matt and Jeff approaching, their shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Oh, geez,” he muttered into the phone. “I gotta run, Deb. I’ll see you Friday.”

He clicked off just as they strolled up, all pretense of subtlety gone.

“Dude,” Jeff said, circling him like a shark inspecting its prey. “When you said your job was in telecommunications, you didn’t say it was literally inside telecommunications.”

“It’s only until I get enough money to pay the rent,” Tony said.

“Because dignity is so overrated,” Jeff said.

Matt shook his head. “You guys better never give me crap again about being an accountant. At least my spreadsheets don’t get sticky.”

“So I’m sure there’s a reason you guys came by,” Tony said, “which I’m really not interested in hearing.”

“You mean besides giving you crap about your life choices?” Jeff asked.

“We found your next get-rich-quick scheme,” Matt cut in. “And this one doesn’t involve making vinyl camper shells in your dorm room, or selling mail order computers.” He held up a glossy celebrity gossip magazine and handed it to Tony, whose foam hands struggled to grip it.

“Some stripper sold a screenplay,” Matt explained, “and it got made into a movie. Now she’s getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to write scripts.”

“I don’t have the legs to be a stripper,” Tony said.

“You don’t have the legs to be a cell phone either,” Jeff countered, gesturing at the costume. “But… I present Exhibit A.”

“Just read it,” Matt said.

Tony managed to get a grip on the magazine, holding it up to the plastic screen of his costume. The article was short, but the headline was huge. He skimmed the details, and slowly a subtle spark flickered to life in the back of his mind.

“What you do is write a screenplay,” Matt said. “How hard could it be?”

“There’s gotta be a catch,” Tony said, already flipping through the rest of the magazine.

He passed a photo spread of a glittering Hollywood premiere, the red-carpet teeming with beautiful people in expensive clothes.

He saw a picture of a sprawling mansion in Beverly Hills, all timber and glass, with a pool that looked bigger than his entire duplex.

“No catch,” Matt said. “You just do it.”

“And for the benefits package,” Jeff said, “check out the next page.”

Tony fumbled with the glossy page, finally managing to turn it.

The article was about some B-movie starlet named Carrie Thompson, but it was the picture that made his jaw drop.

Along with Jeff and Matt’s. It was a photo of her on a beach, laughing, her skin and blonde hair sun-kissed, and her eyes an impossible shade of blue.

She was wearing a tiny bikini and a smile that promised equal parts fun and trouble.

She wasn’t just ridiculously stunning; she seemed to embody everything Hollywood had to offer.

“Just think, Harding,” Jeff said. “You pull this one off, and we could be hanging out with chicks like that.”

A hundred miles to the north, in a canyon of glass and steel in Century City, stood a sleek, imposing high-rise.

Its lobby was a cathedral of marble and decorative plants, designed to intimidate.

On the twenty-third floor, past a set of heavy glass doors, was the office of the Starving Artists Agency.

In the reception area, a young woman named Amy navigated a switchboard that blinked with the speed of a Christmas tree on speed. Phones rang, messengers in bike shorts hustled past with manila envelopes, and the low chatter of assistants closing deals formed a constant, anxious buzz.

“Good afternoon, Starving Artists Agency, please hold,” Amy said into her headset, her voice a practiced, cheerful monotone.

She punched a button, rerouted a call, and was about to take a sip of her lukewarm coffee when the glass doors swished open.

Amy didn’t need to look up to know who had arrived.

The sudden cessation of movement throughout the reception area told her everything.

Men froze mid-conversation, their eyes locked on the new arrival.

Even the normally unflappable courier from Mercury Express stumbled slightly, nearly dropping his package.

Carrie Thompson, the girl featured in the celebrity gossip magazine Tony and his friends were drooling over at that very moment, had that effect on rooms.

Carrie didn’t so much walk into a room as take it hostage. At twenty-five, she had won the genetic lottery in every possible way, with long blonde hair falling past her shoulders in perfect waves, eyes the color of summer skies, and a figure that had inspired millions of male fantasies.

Carrie was the undisputed queen of B-movies, her filmography a collection of low-budget productions with high skin-to-plot ratios.

No one had any idea whether she could act or not, because that wasn’t why they cast her.

Men watched her movies for the obvious reasons, but women followed her too, drawn to the confidence with which she wielded her beauty like a weapon.

She strode to the reception desk and slid her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Is he here?” she asked, forgoing any pleasantries like “hello” or “good morning.”

Amy looked up from her switchboard, her professional smile locked in place. “Hi, Carrie. He’s in a meeting.”

“Not anymore,” Carrie snapped, and stormed past the desk toward the hallway of corner offices.

Amy watched her go, the smile melting from her face. She leaned toward her microphone and muttered under her breath, “Bitch.”

Down the hallway, Eli Bernstein was conducting business with the manic energy of someone powered by equal parts caffeine and desperation.

His office looked like a hurricane had hit a script library — screenplays stacked everywhere, movie posters competing for wall space, and enough energy drink cans to power a small city.

Eli himself paced behind his desk like a caged predator, his Bluetooth headset permanently attached to his ear.

“Look. Carl. Buddy,” he said. “You and I are friends, right? Real friends. So, I need you to do me a solid and get my guy a face-to-face with Steven. It’s a five-minute meeting, Carl. Five minutes.”

Suddenly, a screenplay flew through the doorway and nailed him in the head with a dull thud.

He looked over to see Carrie standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and expression thunderous.

Eli didn’t even flinch. “Hold that thought, Carl,” he said smoothly into the headset. “I’ll call you back.”

He clicked off the phone and plastered a wide, insincere smile on his face. “Hey, beautiful. Nice aim.”

“Don’t ‘hey beautiful’ me,” she said, her voice dangerously low. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at the fallen script. “What the hell was that crap?”

Eli glanced down at the script lying innocently on his Persian rug. “Land of the Babes. I thought you wanted it.”

“Hello?” she said, tapping her temple. “Is anyone in there? What I want is the Lord of the Rings remake.”