Page 16 of Second Act
“We’ve got work to do,” he said in his best studio head tone. She wasn’t used to that yet so she was startled. “First, I need you to call Claridge’s in London, and get me a decent room for tomorrow night. They know which suites I like. And I want them to send me a car and driver at whatever time it needs to be to have me at the hotel at six o’clock.” He wanted time to shower and change when he arrived. Dash Hemming always looked like an unmade bed, but Andy Westfield didn’t. He was unemployed but he was not going to look a mess, although he was sure the restaurant Dash had picked would be casual.
“Then after you call the hotel, I want you to sit in a chair and type as much as you can of the manuscript, right up until I leave forLondon tomorrow. I want a copy of it to give a producer I’m seeing in London. And whatever isn’t typed, give me a copy of your handwritten material. He’s not picky. He’ll read it in any form, he said so.” Her deep violet eyes were wide as she looked at Andy.
“You’re seeing a producer? For me?”
“I am.” He smiled at her. She looked terrified. “One of the best. He’s an independent filmmaker, which might be the way to go for your first movie. Let’s see what he says. I trust him implicitly. I spoke to him this morning. He knows I wouldn’t come to him with anything that isn’t great. I’m having dinner with him tomorrow night. Now please call Claridge’s and start typing.”
“I wrote the last chapter last night.” Violet looked worried. “Will you look at it and tell me what you think?” Andy had suddenly become her counselor and mentor, and she trusted him. She handed him the pages she’d written the night before, and he took them upstairs to the study off his bedroom to read quietly without distraction. He was back forty-five minutes later, and she was typing furiously. Andy was smiling as he handed it back to her.
“It’s perfect. Don’t change a word. Perfect ending. How’s the typing going? Do you want a cup of tea?”
Violet nodded, amazed by what he was doing for her. “Claridge’s said that you’ll have one of your usual suites, and the car will be here at three, in case there’s heavy traffic.”
“Excellent, thank you.” He was back five minutes later, set the tea down beside her, and left her alone to work.
She stayed up most of that night to do it, and she had typed all but the last two chapters by the time he left for London the next day. The manuscript was in pretty decent shape. She handed him thecopy of the whole thing in a manila envelope, and he slipped it into his briefcase. He smiled at her before he left.
“Now get some sleep and forget about it. It’s in my hands and Dash Hemming’s. I’ll leave it with him. You can trust him.”
“I trust you,” she said in a hoarse voice. She looked as tired and anxious as she was. “I didn’t think anyone would see it this soon. Maybe it’s not ready. I should have gone through it again to polish it.”
“It’s ready. Go home and get some sleep. I won’t have any news for you when I get back. He won’t have time to read it before I leave, so don’t expect to hear from me. He’ll call us after I’m back to tell us what he thinks. I’ll be back tomorrow night. I have an appointment with my tailor before I come home.” He had made the call himself. He wanted to order some new suits. That always cheered him up, even though according to Wendy all his suits looked the same. He favored dark blue and dark gray. They were studio head suits. He thought maybe he’d buy a summer weight too, and a summer blazer.
Violet stood looking dazed as he drove away, and then she rode her bike home and went to bed.
—
The traffic was lighter than expected, and Andy got to Claridge’s at five-thirty. He signed in at the desk, and the assistant managers recognized him immediately. He thought their greeting wasn’t quite as warm as usual, but they were busy and he told himself he was imagining it. One of the new younger managers escorted him to his room, which was on the opposite side of the building than he usually liked, but they had a list of his favorite suites so he wasn’t concerned.
“We’ve been remodeling some of the rooms,” the young assistant manager told him, and stopped at a door that didn’t look familiar to Andy. He led the way into the room, and Andy saw it wasn’t a suite, it was a simple room with a queen-size bed. It had bright, cheery flowered chintzes, but the room was smaller than what he liked, and there was no living room. He turned to the manager and spoke clearly.
“I’m afraid not. This isn’t a suite, and it’s not on my list of preferred rooms. You’ll need to change it immediately. Call the front desk. Now, please.” Andy’s tone left no doubt in the young manager’s mind that there was about to be trouble.
“The house is full, sir,” the assistant manager said, almost trembling.
“Fine,” Andy said calmly. “You told my assistant I’d have one of my usual suites. If that’s not possible, then get me a car to take me to another hotel and get me a reservation somewhere for an appropriate suite. Let’s go downstairs, shall we?” There was no doubt in Andy’s mind that news had traveled in the last month and crossed the Atlantic that Andy Westfield was no longer the head of Global Studios. His rating had slipped dramatically, and he was clearly no longer on the hotel’s prime VIP list. It wasn’t a mistake, or about a full house, it was a change of status, and after all he’d been through, Andy was not going to accept being humiliated by the hotel staff too. It was a point of principle for him now.
He asked for the general manager at the front desk, while three of the assistant managers conferred in panicked whispers, looking frantically at the computer for another suite, and claimed they couldn’t find one available.
The general manager appeared, obsequious and professional, and spoke to Andy. There was a standoff between the two men, and Andy assured him it wasn’t a problem as long as the manager got him a suitable suite at another hotel, since Claridge’s couldn’t supply one, and he wouldn’t be back again, of course. Miraculously, the general manager discovered that there had been a cancellation only seconds before for one of Andy’s favorite rooms, and the GM escorted him to the suite himself, and had a bottle of Cristal in a bucket of ice delivered to the room. A voice was never raised, and Andy wasn’t rude, but there was no doubt in their minds now that there would be no change of status for Mr. Westfield’s reservations in future. It woke Andy up to the fact that he would be facing other situations like this, probably even more so in LA, where he was no one now, with no official job and no status. He wasn’t the head of anything anymore. He was the head of Global Studios who had been fired. It was yet another blow to his ego, and he told himself it didn’t matter, as he sat down and looked around the room he had fought for. It was a small victory. In the end, it was just a hotel suite, and he wondered how many battles like this he was going to have to fight to prove that he still mattered and was worthy of respect. And who was he proving it to? Himself? Even without a job, he was a thousand times more important than the hotel clerks and the restaurant waiters and the maître d’s who were going to test him and try to bring him down a notch, to make themselves feel important and Andy insignificant. It had come to that. He had won the battle, but wondered if it was really worth it. It depressed him as he took a shower and dressed for dinner with Dash. He was wearing slacks and a blazer and didn’t bother to wear a tie.
The doorman nodded when he saw Andy leave the hotel to get in his car, but he didn’t rush forward to help him as he used to. It was amazing who needed to make the point, and if Andy became head of another studio by some miracle, would they come running again? Was their obsequiousness the yardstick by which he was supposed to measure his importance in the world? It seemed pathetic, and even more so that he felt it like a blow.
He got into the car the hotel had provided for him, and he gave the driver the name and address of the restaurant.
“Of course, sir,” the driver said smoothly as the car left the hotel, and Andy wondered how people knew. Did they put it on a bulletin board somewhere when someone got fired? Or on the internet? It made Andy realize how some women must feel when their husbands left them, and they no longer had the status they’d had for years. He felt foolish that it mattered to him, but the truth was, it did. And back in the world, away from his sleepy little beach town, where he had become a recluse and was hiding, he missed being a man with thousands of employees, on the top of the mountain, running his kingdom, and most of all, he missed being king. It made him feel small and petty to admit it, but he felt like less of a man now without all the trappings of his job. He looked the same, but inside in the deepest part of him, where no one could see it, he felt different, and they knew it anyway. He was different. He no longer had an important job. He was no longer CEO of anything. He was no one now, in their eyes and his own.
He saw Dash waiting at the bar as soon as he walked into the restaurant. Dash looked as unkempt as ever, as though he had slept in his clothes. Andy smiled when he saw him and forgot about theslights he’d just experienced. In the scheme of real life and what was important, it didn’t matter. Or he tried to tell himself it didn’t.
He and Dash both enjoyed the evening, talking about the movies Dash was making and his plans for the next year, and with the help of the wine, they discussed options for Andy’s future, some of which sounded interesting, and many unrealistic. Dash still wanted to talk him into making independent movies, but Andy didn’t want to be a producer, with all the details and aggravation and stress it entailed. Dash thrived on it, but Andy felt too old to start all over again. He wanted a ready-made job at the top in a more orderly world. He wanted what he had and lost so swiftly.
“Yeah, but then look what happens,” Dash pointed out. “They put you on the hot seat and hit ‘eject’ and you’re out on your ass ten minutes later, with no empire to run. Jobs like you had come at too high a price. They kill you in the end.” It was exactly what had happened to Andy. “No one can fire me except myself. I like that better,” Dash said, and Andy smiled at his description. “Not to mention the goons who walk you to the curb and leave you there. You’re not the only one it happened to, it happens every day,” he reminded Andy. Andy knew it was true.
“Maybe I’m too old for the game,” he said. “Maybe I should retire.”
“Never, that’s instant death. You’ve got great years left in you. You’re still young. You’re in your fifties. You should try something new. You may like it better than running the world, and risk getting fired if you don’t play the politics right. The power game is dangerous, at too high a price. Your ass is on the line every single day.” Andy hadn’t realized how true that was until now.
“I noticed,” Andy said with a rueful smile. He was still licking his wounds from the sudden fall onto cement.
