Lipstick Jungle

She looked at the digital clock on her desk that had a readout that recorded not only minutes and seconds, but tenths of seconds. She had now been on this conference call for fifteen minutes, thirty-two and four-tenths seconds. If she was going to keep to her schedule, she would have to end it in three minutes, twenty-seven and something seconds. Her math wasn’t quite up to calculating tenths of seconds.

“You still need more story, boys. More plot,” Wendy said into the receiver. It was Thursday morning. Thursday morning was the time allotted for conference calls to discuss the progress of various screenplays Parador had under development. At any time, this number might range from forty to sixty, and out of those sixty, she would greenlight thirty to be put into production, and out of those thirty, probably fifteen would be hits, meaning they would make money. Most studios could count on ten hits per year. Her numbers had always been a little better than average.

But only because she put more time into her screenplays!

“The story is this kid’s existential discovery. Of life. Like, what is the meaning of life?” one of the screenwriters, Wally, interjected.

Good question, Wendy thought. She sighed. What the hell did two twenty-seven-year-old guys know about life? “What do you mean by existential? Exactly?” she asked. Why oh why had she bought this screenplay on a pitch? she wondered. Because she’d had to. Wally and his partner, Rowen, were considered the hot screenwriting team of the moment. They’d actually written two hit movies, which Wendy was now beginning to think was a fluke. Either that, or success had gotten to them and they were smoking pot all the time, probably driving around L.A. in Porsches and Hummers, and thinking they had all the answers.

“That’s the question, you know?” Rowen said. He and Wally droned on in this vein for another minute. Wendy motioned through the open door to where her third assistant, Xenia, was sitting, listening in on the call. Reading her mind, Xenia grabbed a small copy of Webster’s Dictionary and rushed in, holding the page open to the “E’s.”

“Existentialism,” Wendy read aloud, interrupting either Wally or Rowen, she couldn’t tell which, “is a philosophy centered on individual existence and personal responsibility for acts of free will in the absence of certain knowledge of what is right and wrong.” She paused. Somehow this seemed to be a perfect summation of her own life right now. She had no idea what was right or wrong, and she was responsible for everything. Including Wally and Rowen’s mess of a screenplay. “It’s an admirable idea, but unfortunately, no one in the audience knows what existentialism is. Nor do they go to movies to find out. People go to movies to see a story. To identify with a story that somehow connects to their own emotional thoughts and feelings.” She paused. Christ, she was as full of shit as they were. No one really knew why audiences embraced certain movies and not others. No one really knew anything. But you had to pretend.

“I think you boys”—she secretly relished calling them “boys”—“need to go back to the beginning and work out a beat sheet.”

Silence from the other end. They were probably fuming, Wendy thought, not trusting themselves to respond.

Three and two-tenths seconds ticked by. They wouldn’t dare contradict her, Wendy thought. The movie business was like the court of Louis XIV—talking back to a superior meant imprisonment or death. There was no way Wally and Rowen would challenge the president of Parador Pictures. But they would probably hang up the phone and call her a bitch.

She didn’t care. She was right—or at least more right than they were—and that’s why she was the head of Parador and they weren’t.

“We’ll get that beat sheet to you right away,” Wally said.

“Thank you so much,” Rowen said, all charm and acquiescence. “We really appreciate it.”

“Wendy?” Her first assistant, Josh, broke into the line. “I’ve got your next call.”

“Thanks, Josh,” she said. This call was with a director and screenwriter who were working on an action-adventure film that was in preproduction. Her basic instructions were that they needed more bangs in the third act. “First act, one bang,” she said. “Second act, three bangs. Third act, five big bangs, one right after another. Bang. We’re done, we’re out of the theater, and hopefully we’ve had a thirty-million-dollar opening weekend.”

The director and screenwriter giggled in anticipation of such loot.

While she was on the phone, her second assistant, Maria, came scuttling in with a note. “Charles Hanson has to cancel lunch,” it read. Wendy looked up curiously. “His plane was delayed from London,” Maria mouthed.

“Damn him!” Wendy wrote on the bottom of the note. “Reschedule ASAP,” she added. She went back to listening in on her phone conversation while thinking that the delayed plane was probably a ploy to give Charles Hanson another day to put off closing their deal. He was probably entertaining offers from another studio. “Investigate Hanson,” she wrote on a large yellow lined pad that was always on her desk.

She did two more conference calls. In the middle of one of them, Shane called. Maria rushed in with “SHANE?” written on the same type of yellow pad she had on her desk. Wendy nodded.

She kept Shane holding for four minutes, forty-five and three-tenths seconds.

“Yes?” she said coldly.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Working,” she said pointedly.

“I mean, to me,” he said.

This comment was so egregiously self-centered that Wendy didn’t know what to say.

“You took all the money out of our joint account,” Shane said accusingly.

“Yeah?” Wendy said. “Glad you noticed.”

“Don’t be a bitch, Wendy,” Shane said. “Magda’s twelfth birthday is coming up. I need to get our daughter a present.”

“Try getting a job,” Wendy said, and hung up.

She did three more calls. Then it was one o’clock.