Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi (read me like a book .TXT) 📕

for the tip, Joshua. But I’m already here. Might as well go for the save.”

“All right, fine,” Joshua said, “We’ll try to be back before you get home, then.”

“Joshua, don’t go. It’ll only be a couple of hours. Really.”

“La la la la la la la,” Joshua said. “I’m not listening. Bye.”

“At least take a phone,” I yelled, but he had already hung up. Which was just as well. I didn’t know how he would carry a phone, anyway. Probably the battery would leak into his insides. I parked, got out, headed towards the set.

Pacific Rim was nominally supposed to take place in Venice Beach, but the majority of it was filmed in Culver City. One day a week, the cast and crew decamped to Venice Beach for location shots. Today was one of those days. It made for an interesting set, if only because the vast majority of extras were in bikinis and Rollerblades. On one end of the set, a blocked-off section of the Venice boardwalk, an assistant director was blocking a shot with a pair of buxom Rollerbladers — apparently Rollerblading was harder than it looked. On the other end, Elliot Young had his script out and was conferring with the director, Don Bolling. Their conversation became more intelligible, as it were, the closer I got.

“I don’t understand what I’m doing here,” Elliot was pointing to a page in the script. “See, look. I’m running after the girl, screaming, ‘Helen! Helen!’, right? But Helen’s dead. She was killed in the aquarium scene on page 5. Isn’t that a continuity problem?”

“Elliot,” Don said, “I know that Helen gets killed on page 5. The reason you’re running after this woman, screaming Helen’s name, is because you think she’s her. And, as it happens, it’s not Helen, but it is her identical twin sister. Which you would know, if you ever bothered to read the script before we shot it.”

“But don’t you think that’s confusing?” Elliot said. “You know, this identical twin sister thing.”

Don let out an audible sigh. “Yes, I do. That’s the point, Elliot. It’s called a plot twist.”

“Well, that’s just it,” Elliot said. “It’s a plot twist, but now I’m having a hard time following the plot at all. I want people to be able to follow what I’m doing on the show when I’m doing it.”

“All right, Elliot,” Don said, “what do you suggest?”

“Well, it’s obvious,” Elliot said. “When he chases the other woman, the other woman shouldn’t look like Helen. It clears up the confusion.”

“If we do that,” Don said, “then it doesn’t make any sense that you’re running down the street, calling her Helen. She would just be another woman.”

“They could still be sisters,” Elliot said.

Don looked pained. “What?” he said.

“Sisters. They could still be sisters. Sisters look a lot alike. They’re related. They could even still be twins, just not the kind that look alike. What are those called?”

“Fraternal,” I said. They both looked at me. I waved, cutely.

“Yeah, fraternal,” Elliot said, turning back to Don. “Personally, I think that makes a lot more sense.”

“Tom,” Don said, “Please help me out here.”

“I don’t even know what’s going on,” I said. “Except that it involves sisters.”

“In this episode, a marine biologist named Helen that Elliot’s dating witnesses a mob hit and gets killed,” Don said.

“She’s thrown in with the electric eels,” Elliot said.

“….Right,” Don said. “So Elliot’s despondent, and then several days later, he sees another woman who looks just like Helen. So of course he’s confused,” — Don whipped the word at Elliot, who took no notice — “since he knows she’s supposed to be dead. It turns out to be her twin sister.”

“Who is of course also seen by the mob killers, so he has to protect her from them, and during the process he falls in love with her as well,” I said.

“How about that, Elliot,” Don said to his star. “Your agent figured out what was going on, and he didn’t even have to read the script. My count shows him two up on you.”

“You don’t find that confusing at all?” Elliot asked me.

“It is confusing,” I admitted. “But it’s a good kind of confusing. It’s the sort of confusing that viewers actually like, especially as I assume it gets explained at some point during the action. I’m right about that, Don?”

“It happens not far past the place where you stopped reading the script, Elliot,” Don said.

“Well, there it is, then,” I said. “It works out well for everyone.”

From the other end of the set there was a wail followed by a crash. One of the buxom Rollerbladers had careened out of control and impacted against a Steadicam operator. The resulting collision managed somehow to dislodge her bikini top. The Rollerblader appeared momentarily flummoxed, deciding whether to cover her nipples or to grab at the rapidly swelling knob on her forehead, where her skull connected with that of the cameraman. Her right arm switched between both locations, dealing with neither very effectively. In the wash of pain and embarrassment, she seemed to have forgotten that she had a whole other arm that she could deploy.

The Steadicam operator lie sprawled on the pavement, out cold. None of the predominately male crew was paying even the slightest bit of attention to him.

“Oh, look,” Don said. “An actual legitimate crisis.” He turned to Elliot. “When I get back, I would really like to shoot this scene. Please try to have all your philosophical problems with it resolved by then.” He sauntered toward the scene of the accident, angling towards the girl rather than the cameraman.

“Exciting day,” I said, to Elliot.

He was gnawing on a thumb, still looking at the script. “Are you sure that this isn’t going to be a problem with this? I’m still sort of lost.”

“It’ll be fine, Elliot. Stop worrying about it. And stop gnawing on your thumbnail. You’re going to make your manicurist miserable. Look, you said you wanted to talk. Here I am.”

“Yeah, okay,” Elliot said. He seemed distracted as we went back to his trailer.

As we entered his trailer, I was greeted by a life-size cutout of Elliot in his “beach volleyball” costume and shades, grinning toothily and holding a bottle of cologne. I had a brief flashback to my earlier conversation with Joshua. “Who’s the handsome guy?” I said.

“Oh, that,” Elliot said. He bent down to get a bottle of water out of his refrigerator. “The production company thinks we ought to branch out into other markets. So we’re making a Pacific Rim cologne.”

“Well, if Baywatch can do it, so can you,” I said.

“Ours is different than the Baywatch cologne. It’s made with real human pheromones.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No, man, really.” Elliot reached up into an overhead compartment, grabbed a sample-sized cologne bottle, and handed it to me. “They’re actually my pheromones, too.”

I unscrewed the top and took a whiff. It smelled like I expected Joshua would smell like if he was left out in the sun too long. “Powerful,” I said. “How did they get your pheromones, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“They put me on a treadmill and then collected my sweat,” Elliot said.

“Sounds delightful,” I said.

Elliot shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad. They let me watch videos while I exercised. Listen, I think we should see other people.”

“What?” I said.

“I think we should see other people,” Elliot said.

“Elliot, we’re not going steady,” I said, putting the top on the cologne and placing it on the near table. “Shucks, we’ve never even dated.”

“You know what I mean,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my future recently, and I sort of want to explore my options. See what else is out there. Tom, you know there’s a lot of wild rumors going around about you at the moment.”

“Great,” I said, flopping into a chair. “The one week everyone reads The Biz is the week I’m on the cover.”

“The Biz?” Elliot said.

“Yes, Elliot,” I said. “You remember, the place where you read all those wild rumors.”

“I didn’t read anything about it,” Elliot said. “I heard about most of it from Ben.”

I sat up. “Who?”

“Ben,” Elliot said.

“Ben Fleck?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Elliot said. “You know him?”

“I can’t believe this,” I said. “I’ve been cherry-picked by Ben Fleck.”

“He said that you’ve cracked up lately,” Elliot said. “That you’ve been handing all your clients to other agents because of the stress. So I figured, if you’re doing that anyway, might as well at least stay in the same company, where they know me.”

“Elliot,” I said. “I’m not cracking up. I’m fine. And I still want to be your agent. Look where you are now, Elliot. You’re doing pretty well for yourself. Which means that I did pretty well for you. You don’t just chuck that away because Ben Fleck calls you up and tells you I’m cracking up. You don’t even know Ben, Elliot. He’s an incompetent agent. Trust me on this one.”

“Yeah,” Elliot shrugged again. “Well, he says that he can get me into film, that I’m ready for the big film roles.”

“Of course he would say that, Elliot. He knows that’s what you want. That’s what everybody wants.”

“Well, what do you think? You think I’m ready for film roles?”

“Sure, some,” I said, conveniently ignoring my previous plan to keep him strictly on television for the next season. “But you still need to build your base. You remember what happened to David Caruso when he jumped too soon. He had two flops and then he was squashed.”

“Uh-huh,” Elliot said. “Look, Tom. I know you don’t think I’m a rocket scientist, but I’m not totally dumb. I’m 32 years old. I’m only making $50,000 an episode. I’ve got another four seasons on my contract. Where does that leave me?”

“With five million dollars?” I said.

“I can make that off of one movie, man,” Elliot said. “32 is prime time in the movie business. I’ve got to strike now. Ben’s ready to back me up on this, and I think I ought to take him up on that. You’re right, it is what I want. I’m sorry, Tom.”

There was a knock on the door. “We’re ready, Elliot,” Don said, through the door. “Put down that MENSA test and get on the set.”

“Elliot,” I said. “Think about this, all right? Don’t decide anything right now.”

“I got to go,” Elliot said. “No hard feelings, Tom? It’s just business.”

It was my turn to shrug. I could see where this was going. “Sure, Elliot. No problem.”

“Great,” he said, and opened the door. “You know, you can keep that bottle of cologne.”

“Thanks,” I said. He smiled, closed the door behind him. I picked up the bottle of cologne and stared at it for a minute before I threw it against the far wall of the trailer. It shattered quite nicely.

*****

Ben’s administrative assistant, Monica, beamed at me prettily as I strode up.

“Hi, Monica,” I said. “Ben wouldn’t happen to be in at the moment, would he?”

“He is, but he’s with a prospective client.”

“Really,” I said. “Anyone I know?”

“Do you know any Playmates on a personal basis?” Monica asked.

“Afraid not,” I said.

“Then you don’t know her,” Monica said.

“I’ll learn to get past the disappointment,” I said.

“That’s the spirit,” Monica said. “You want me to tell him you dropped by?”

“That’s all right,” I said. “This will just take a minute.” I stepped past her desk and walked into Ben’s office.

Ben was sitting at his desk with the aforementioned Playmate in the guest chair. He smiled expansively at me. “Tom,” he said. “What a surprise.