We finished the script. Or: as finished as any script will ever be. It expressed my vision of violence in sexual situations, between men and women, women and women, men and men. It was filled with nudity and weapons and mostly that killer instinct in which lovemaking and sex and rape among humans parallels killing in primitive animals. A lion biting the neck of a gazelle was as much sex to me as a man biting a woman's neck while penetrating her vagina.
The only problem is I didn't know what do with it. Once you have a script—even a good one—how do you know what to do with it?
"You need to break into parties," Kristi said.
She said this wearing a t-shirt and panties. We had both taken to working this way.
Kristi turned to me with her back to my giant windows.
"I need to what?"
"Crash parties. It's the only way to make a movie in this town."
"How do you know?"
"Trust me," she said, "I know."
She ashed on my window sill. We had taken to drinking whiskey while we worked as well. When you drink while smoking, you go through phases: first you always go outside to smoke. Then you smoke inside using beer cans and coffee mugs as ash trays. Then you get so drunk that you just ash on tables, window sills, the sink. I had a maid.
"How do I crash parties?"
"First you need a dress."
"And then after the dress..how do I find parties to crash. And how do I make sure I go to parties with the right people. Kristi, I don't even know who the right people are."
"That's why you hired me," Kristi says, and she gets busy on her phone. "You get the dress. I'll get the party."
I look skeptical.
"Don't worry," she says. "This is standard operating procedure."
Next thing you know I had a dress which probably should have been black but in actuality was bright red.
And Kristi, that little vix, had a date and an address.
"How do I get there?"
"Rent a limo."
"And just walk right in through the front door."
"Look I don't know. You're going to have to figure out some of this yourself," she snaps. "I'm making this up as I go along."
"Ok," I say. "Thanks girl."
And I leave.
I get to this party. Plain building. Red carpet. Tiny black rope. No signs. No indicator of what this building is.
This is where Hollywood happens.
Tomorrow this building will be nothing.
Yesterday it was nothing.
Tonight it's the place to be.
I get out of the car, trying not to look like a country girl from Portland. I even did my hair, nails—totally out of character for me.
I was like Ethan Hunt without a mission. Your mission, if you choose to accept it..is to try to meet someone at this party with twenty million dollars to plop down on a movie that no one will want to see..that will offend every bumpkin in middle America..that will likely be banned.
I go straight up to the guy with the rope.
"Who are you?" he says.
"I'm Lauren Teacup Pritchett," I say, like it's a fact he should already know.
"I don't think so."
He shakes his head.
And I slunk away—looking stunning if I might say—and I creep around the side of the building, lean against the stuccoed wall, and light a cigarette.
Soon I'm surrounded by busboys—smoking too.
They're saying things like: "Did you see that bitch? She threw up in the bathroom."
"I heard she threw up on Madonna's couch."
"I heard Miley Cyrus told her to get her act together."
They all laugh.
I walk up to them.
"They pay you well in here?"
"Pay us as much as if we were working at Denny's!!" one guy says. "Who are you?"
"Oh, I'm nobody, apparently."
"We're nobody, apparently, too!" he says.
"Look, I'm gonna cut to the chase," I say. "Whose dick do I have to suck to get into that party?"
They all laugh.
Some of them put their arms around me.
"Hey, lady, you don't got to suck nobody's dick. As nobody ourselves, we specialize in getting nobodies into parties full of somebodies who ought to be nobodies themselves. Bum me one of those Kamels?"
"All you want is a Kamel and you'll get me in there?"
"No, I'm getting you in there anyway. I just want one of those high-class cigarettes."
I give each of them one. We all smoke together, and I know that these will be the nicest people I meet tonight—the most real. After my experiences in Hollywood, I'll take busboys over movie execs any days. In fact almost all movie people (the money ones). Especially producers.
When we're done they all start to file in the side door.
I'm left standing alone.
"Well come on, sister. I have a feeling this party isn't going to get started without you."
I toss my cigarette and follow the last busboy into the side entrance of the building.
They lead me between industrial trash cans, a fabulous kitchen which made me want to befriend all the chefs and smoke with them and get free samples and just hang out in the kitchen all night.
But I had a mission, and my favorite busboy led me to the swinging double doors that separated the masters from the slaves, and while I always identify myself as one of the ones on the bottom half of this fucked-up world, that night I straightened my dress and winked at Javier and I walked through those double doors—which Javier held open—and I walked into the room containing the so-called masters of the Hollywood universe.