"What did she tell you..when you went?"
"She told me I would find the one."
"You're shitting me."
"Yeah I'm shitting you. She wasn't very favorable in my case, as I remember. But I don't believe in Oracles—do you?"
"Then why did you take me to see one?"
"Because it shows in your reaction," K says.
"I get it. Did I react well to your oracle shunning me?"
"Oh very well."
"You want to get some dinner? I'm buying..Jack in the Box. That's our budget at the moment."
"Whatever you say, boss," Kristen said into the 2-way mode of our phones. It came through loud and clear in my pocket.
And eating double cheeseburgers with this woman, I had no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that my guerilla-style interview session at the Border's coffeehouse had turned up as good an assistant as there was in Hollywood. She was smart and sexy—but not so sexy that her sexy would get in the way of our business. I couldn't have her buying me a coffee and unable to do so because she was so damn attractive that some spud kicker couldn't give the bitch an espresso.
No, K meant business.
She had something about her that had given up trying to be the lead actress in a film, and she was hard and realistic, and I loved the little cunt.
She ate a burger like a troll.
"Be careful, you missed some on your chin."
She licks it up.
"If I was a lesbian I'd eat your pussy so hard."
She looks at me.
"You would, wouldn't you?"
"If I was a lesbian."
"Too bad," she says.
"What are you?" I say.
She says: "I take what I can get."
A true Hollywood scavenger.
"So what can you get me? You know stars? You know agents?"
"All I can promise you," Kristi says, "is I'll make whatever phone calls you want." She chews. "But if you want agents all you need is IMDB Pro."
"Really?"
"Yeah it's like über cheap for you. You get everyone's agent contact info and you can send like scripts and shit."
"See that's good, Kristi. I didn't know that."
"Hollywood common knowledge."
"And what's your dream?" I say.
"You want to know what my dream is?"
"Yes I do."
I set down my cheeseburger.
"Genuinely, you do?"
"Genuinely, I do."
"Alright, Lauren, I want to write screen. I'll write your picture but I got pictures of my own I want to make, and..and..I don't believe I can die before I make them."
"I know exactly what you mean," I say—quoting Morpheus.
"You do?"
"Why do you think I'm in Hollywood?"
"To buy a Porsche?—I don't know."
"I'm here because before I die, I'm going to make a movie—that's the movie you're going to help me with."
"And after that?" Kristen says.
"Don't worry about after that..just help me with this one."
"What do you want me to do?"
We sit at the ArcLight, drinking gin at the bar.
"I'm gonna share this document with you."
"Ok."
"Your first job—"
"Right."
"Kristi, you're interrupting me."
"Right, ok."
"Just be quiet and no more gin for her."
"Yes, miss."
"Kristi."
"Yes, Lauren."
"Just copy the address and open the document."
"Shouldn't I ask you your credentials?"
"Yeah my credentials are that I want to make a movie but I can't do everything myself so would you please open the document and make my piece of shit scrap work Final Draft idiocy into a real movie? That's what I'm paying you for, not to drink gin, by the way."
"Are we on the clock?"
"We're always on the clock. The minute I met you, the clock started. From now on I pay you 24 hours a day, and I need you to be available to me on that same schedule. Understood?"
"For realz?"
"For realz, girl. I'm going to be calling you at 3am with script changes."
"No I mean for realz you're going to pay me 24 hours a day?"
"Yeah, I mean that."
Kristi tries to flag down the bartender for more gin.
I wave him on.
"That's like a three-dollar raise!"
"A three-times raise, yes—"
"That's what I meant—"
"But you were styling it."
"Of course I was."
"How old are you, Kristi?"
"Twenty," she says, as if it were a death sentence.
"God damn," I say. "I'm twice your age. It seems like yesterday."
"Well I'm kind of past it here," she says.
"A place on Earth," I say, "where a 20 year old feels past it because of her age of two decades. Don't you listen to a thing, Kristi—if you can manage to stay alive, life has more to offer you past 20. Swear to my motherfucking god, you haven't even met men who can rock your pussy yet."
Kristen giggles.
"I'm serious. Teenage sex is ok—ok it's great. But you won't even meet the man who can make you cum till you cry until you're 30. Don't give up, yet, you know James Carville was over 40 before he ever went to Washington."
"Who's James Carville?"
"Well, that's the difference between me and you. You probably don't know who David Mamet is, either—do you?"
Kristi sadly shakes her head.
"Your first assignment is to read Sexual Perversity in a public place. The stacks at Borders. The coffeehouse. Try to read that shit without laughing like you were six years old."
"Is that seriously my assignment?"
"Don't make me repeat myself, girl!"
"I have to get home."
"Stay at my place," I say.
"This isn't some kind of lesbian thing?"
"I'm not trying to fuck you, I'm trying to save you getting raped on some cross-town LA bus—"
"Ok I will."
"You will?"
"Yes."
"Good. Plus. I want you to get used to my work style."
"Which is what?"
"Well," I say, throwing away my fast food trash, "it usually involves weed, alcohol, lots of weed, lots of alcohol, more weed and more alcohol—"
"And somehow we write a script," K says.
And I say, "Right."