Winning Hollywood's Goodest Girl

“Give me that back!” I yell when my physical efforts prove futile.

“Do you even know how to be professional anymore?” she asks venomously instead. “It’s like the instant that guy’s dick broke through your virginal barrier, all your brains started leaking out.”

“Hey!” I snap, angry beyond what I ever have been before. There’s a line Heidi’s managed not to cross until this moment, but there isn’t any doubt her feet have landed on the other side now.

Whether she’s in large control of my schedule and activities or not, I deserve to be treated like an adult human being with thoughts and feelings of my own. To insinuate I’m no more than a brainless woman with dick-sickness is the height of slut shaming. And she’s my employee, a fact that she’s clearly forgotten at some point along the way.

“That’s enough!” I shout at the top of my lungs, and hell’s bells, it feels so good. “I put up with a lot of shit, but I refuse to put up with you speaking to me that way.” I point one stern index finger toward her shocked face. “Like it or not, Harrison is a part of my life now—a huge fucking part—and you better get on board quick, or you’re the one who’s going to get left behind.”

Heidi opens her mouth to strike back, but I hold up a defiant hand to suggest she shouldn’t.

“I know what you’ve done for me,” I say, lowering my voice just slightly, though it definitely has a shake it didn’t before. “I’m not dumb, and I realize you’ve played a major role in getting me to the place I am in Hollywood today. I appreciate it and I recognize it. But that doesn’t mean I have to subject myself to just accepting whatever you throw my way because of it. You are my employee and I am your boss. At the end of the day, I am the one who is ultimately in charge here. Not you.”

Heidi’s sigh is heavy as she raises an eyebrow, clearly mocking the fact that I think I’m in charge of when she speaks now. I don’t let it bother me, instead continuing with my speech. There’s so much to air, I’m better off getting it out of the way now that the ice has been broken.

“So, instead of vilifying me for being on my phone while you’re speaking, why don’t you try asking me what’s on my mind. What it is that I need in order to find my focus and be the best professional, as you put it, I can be. Because I can tell you now that’s going to get you a hell of a lot further than berating me like a child. All that’s going to get you in the end is fired.”

“Fine,” she concedes, only a touch of condemnation in her voice. “What is it that you need in order to be able to focus?”

“I need your acceptance of Harrison being around. I need some normalcy given to my pregnancy and recognition of the changes both my mind and body are going through. And I need…”

I take a deep breath as I think hard about where my real stresses are coming from, and I’m surprised at how easily the answer comes. With everything going on—all the mess and stress and changes—I haven’t given any real weight of thought to what actually happens at the end of it all. The actual birth.

I have to push out a baby, and all in all, I’m woefully unprepared. More than anything, I think it would bring me the most amount of peace to change that.

“I need to do a Lamaze class.”

“Excuse me?” Heidi says through a near laugh. “Maybe a private instructor—”

“No,” I say with a shake of my head, cutting her off. “I need the experience of other people. I need some normalcy. I need the parameters, to know if what I’m going through is something I’m going through alone.”

“You don’t get to have a normal life, Raquel. You signed on for this. You can’t just go to the monthly Lamaze class with every Jody off the street. I’m sorry, but you really are losing your mind if you think—”

“Stop! I don’t think I can just go to the class at the YWCA, okay? I know I can’t. But there’s got to be a celebrity, high-end, A-list type of class happening somewhere, right? I can’t be the only famous person who wants this feeling.”

Heidi frowns as she looks down at her phone and then looks back up at me. “This is what you need? This will help you find your focus again?”

I nod, but I’m not done until I make one more specification. “Yes. But I need Harrison to come with me. He needs to be there, and I need him there. It won’t be the same without him. Which means it needs to happen today.”