“Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow”

After the photo shoot, my next task was to go develop all the pictures at a one-hour place, so she could look through them over the weekend. Guess how many pictures there were… eight-five? A hundred and fifty? Three-hundred and eighty-seven! Luckily, digital cameras are around; can you imagine what a waste of film that would have been otherwise? (I know this sounds mean, but come on; 387 pictures?!) I get the 387, 4”x6” photos developed and hand them off to Chloe; she looks happier than I’d ever seen her. She tells me she’ll see me Monday morning.

On Monday, she hands me her favorite fifty three. Yes, only fifty-three. She wants 8 ½” x 11” ones made of these, “So I can decide which one I like the best,” she says. The rest, she wants me to make a collage of, get framed, and put up in the office she and I share. So if we subtract fifty-three from three hundred and eighty-seven, we get three-hundred and thirty-four pictures… of herself. I laugh to myself (and only myself) and do as I am told…

The framing of all the snapshots alone costs nearly a thousand dollars. I love how people spend oodles of other peoples’ money. Such insanity. Her poor husband. And she hasn’t had an audition in weeks… She sends me to the grocery store (for everything from sugar-free ice cream to organic chives) as she goes through the fifty-three headshots with the magnifying thingy she insisted I buy for her, just like the ones real photographers use.

I come back to find that she has chosen her ten favorite photos (after telling me how difficult it was to choose). One of them is the photo where she’s hanging upside-down from the monkey bars, remember? (Combine how funny that is, in and of itself, with her ridiculous-looking hair extensions, and you’ve got a real winner. By the way, I should mention that her hair extensions have not gotten any better looking since last week; she still looks like a drag queen… I suppose wearing less make-up would help remedy this, but that’s a whole other blog entry.)

Then she tells me that she has a new project ready for me. (Yippee!) She wants me to make fifty, 4”x6” photos of each picture and use them as postcard invitations for a party she’s having… for her new hair. Yes, she wants to have a “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow” party, complete with my writing that in calligraphy on every invite. I can’t wait… I remind myself it’s better than buying her and Dean condoms… and better than accidentally setting their bedroom on fire… and leave with the stack of pictures in an envelope under my arm.

The eighty-thousand dollar hair…

I quickly got back into the plank pose… or tried to, at least. “Fake it ‘til you make it” kept running through my head as I tried to balance the best I could. “Um… okay,” I said in response to Chloe telling me I would be her assistant for a while. “I have a million and one things to do today,” she said, “so you can have the day off.” I drove here for this, I wondered? I immediately lost my pose again and fell face-down into the grass again.  

I stood up, wiping the random strands of grass and dirt from my face. I wanted to say, “Are you sure?” but I reminded myself that when you offer something to someone, there’s a chance they will take you up on it. And the truth was, I wanted another day off. “Okay, thanks,” I said as I started to walk back to my car. “See you tomorrow at seven,” she said. But tomorrow’s Saturday… Already, this doesn’t look good… And I know, I know… you all warned me… 

* 

The next morning, I meet Chloe at seven-fucking-o’clock in the morning. I know I should have questioned it, but a job is a job (and I was too young and naïve then to know how to say no to people in the ‘biz, for fear of getting fired; which, again, I know would have been better than getting up at dawn on a Saturday). 

She texted me to meet her at some French-sounding hair salon. Okay. They weren’t even open; a janitress let me in. “Avery, there you are!” she exclaimed. She was sitting in a chair, getting her short hair shampooed. What am I doing here?!

“Do you like my hair, Avery?” What?? “Yeah,” I say. WTF am I supposed to say to that? And, even if I don’t, how do I tell her that? “How ‘bout on a scale of one to ten?” she says. For Pete’s sake, I think. This is absurd. “It’s super cute,” I say. “I really don’t like rating things, but I’d say a nine-and-a-half for sure.” I can’t believe I’m even having this discussion… no less, at SEVEN FUCKING A.M. 

“Well, I’m about to make it above a ten,” she says. Then, as if on cue, the shampoo girl stops shampooing and her hairdresser walks in, holding long strands of blonde hair. Down-to-your-waist long. I jump back a bit, wondering why he has someone’s hair in his hand without the someone. It’s not a wig, though it’s definitely hair. “Italian,” he says in his French accent. “Feel.” He holds the hair out to me.  

I just look at it. It’s like someone asking me to pet their cute little kitten… but I find this kitten really gross. Repulsive. Chloe gives me a look, insisting I feel it. I do. “Nice,” I say. “Raphael, let me,” she says. He brings the hair over to Chloe, where she pets it like the kitten it should be. She is much more excited about this than I. Is she on drugs? If not, maybe she should be. 

“They’re Italian extensions,” Chloe says. How do they differ from American ones? “Dean’s always liked long hair, but he’s never seen me with it, so I decided to get these and surprise him. Why wait?” Yeah, I think to myself. Why wait? Why be like a normal person who does wait for their hair to grow out? 

Then Jacques, Raphael’s right-hand man, comes out, holding extensions in a more reddish color. “The strawberry, madame,” he says, holding them out to Chloe. She proceeds to pet them, too, and wants me to, as well. I try not to roll my eyes as I pet… If only my friends could see me now… living out my Hollywood dream… 

During the petting zoo (a zoo in so many ways), Chloe continually asks me which strands I like best, and I tell her (which basically means agreeing with her, as she has a way of making you do so and downplaying everything you say until you see things her way). She decides to go with the strawberry blonde ones. Horray! (Meaning, I could care less; I still resent that she can’t just wait for her hair to grow out. Besides, don’t extensions always look fake, anyway?! I mean, everyone’s going to know her hair didn’t grow down to her butt overnight.) 

I spend the next several hours (far too many to keep track of) watching Jacque and Raphael and a team of other people extend Chloe’s hair. I read every hair magazine (twice). I go get her lunch at the café next door. I return, read all the magazines again. I know I nod off a few times, too, but luckily the magazines were a good buffer between my closed eyes and Chloe’s open ones.  

When it’s all done, I see Chloe gloating in the mirror, loving her new look. I, on the other hand, am horrified: she looks like a drag queen. I am sure I cannot tell her this… It looks like she’s wearing a wig a man would wear on Halloween in West Hollywood. How much did this procedure cost Chloe, again? Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case will soon be), I soon find out: $80,000. $80,000?!?! She could have paid off my student loans… and then re-enrolled me in college again. I am going to be sick… 

The next few days are spent with Chloe posing all over the yard, my taking pictures of her and her new hair. In one, she draped herself over the Jacuzzi… another, she hung upside-down from the girls’ monkey bars (I was surprised she’s so flexible at her age; must be all the yoga). She had turned into the model she had never quite become (at least not for a living, even though she claimed she used to be a model in Utah… hmm).  

Between flashes once, Dean walked through the yard on his way inside. Chloe screamed out for him not to look yet. He didn’t, but he and I exchanged a look — and I thought he even smiled. This is the first contact we’d had since the fire. Better a glance than nothing, right? He gave me a thumbs-up and kept going until he got into the house and never looked back. I wish I could follow him, then exit the front door and drive off, back to the Midwest. But I didn’t.  

I’m still thinking about the eighty-thousand dollar hair… the hair that brings a whole new meaning to “bad hair day” and all the bad hair days that lie ahead for Chloe… and for me, to have to look at it. And I wonder how “surprised” Dean will be…

Promoted… or demoted??

As much as I hated to go back, about fifteen minutes later, I found myself driving over to Dean and Chloe’s house. I’ll see what they have to say, I thought… and maybe make some ground rules as to what I will and will not do as part of this job anymore (assuming they are taking me back). Or maybe I should just quit… life is too short for the crap they want me to do, right?? In between picking Spring and Summer up from school and getting berated from the other moms about their inappropriate outfits… buying my boss’s wife condoms… and accidentally setting my boss’s bedroom on fire, I don’t know how much more I can take – especially for the meager $500 a week they’re paying me. Don’t personal assistants usually make more? And if I quit, who will pay my rent…? 

I found Chloe in the yard, doing strange yoga poses (or what I imagine was yoga). “Avery!” she called to me as I got out of the car, wondering how awkward it would be to see Dean again… “Over here!” she yelled. I went over to her, her head now facing the ground as she spoke to me, which was funny for several reasons, though I tried not to laugh. “So Dean and I have been talking…” She stuck her head up for a moment now, then changed poses, so she was now lying face-down on the ground, her face sticking up, and her feet on her head (it hurts just thinking about it; in yoga-speak, I think this is called the “locust” as my yoga instructor friends later told me). I nodded. “And I told him we’re going to double your salary.” Um… so maybe I’m not quitting just yet? “Okay,” I stammer out, shocked… but then immediately wonder what more I will have to do for them… will it be double the work? Or double-y hard?

Before I could decide, Chloe went into another pose, this time lying on her back as though she were dead (the “corpse pose,” I later learned; convincing, I have to say). I wondered if she was okay. I was about to ask when she started to do some loud breathing exercises. “Chloe—“ I started. “Hang on,” she said between extra-loud breaths. I stood there for what seemed forever, until I finally sat down.  “Why don’t you join me?” she said. “I’m not much of a yoga person,” I replied. “Not yet,” she said as she sat up and put me into some strange position (the “tree pose,” I later learned) as she got into a similarly odd position (the “warrior”). I don’t know why so many people like yoga… this KILLS. These positions are supposed to feel good?! I could just imagine my mother asking me what I did at work today and I say, “Yoga.” I guess it’s better than telling her I was out buying condoms… but still. Plus, where was Dean? “If you’re wondering where Dean is, he had to go to set.” How does she read my mind like that?! “One of the PAs is helping him out for a while,” she added. Lucky them, I thought to myself.

She then helped me get into the “plank pose,” which looks like I’m about to do a push-up… but harder. How long do I have to stay like this, I wondered. She got into the same pose, not even flinching. I really am out of shape…  

“So you’ll be working for me for a while,” she said… I immediately lost my balance and fell on my face… even though all I wanted to do was go into the corpse pose… for good.

After being laid off…

So I just got laid off. Part of me is relieved, yet part of me wants to cry. Who the fuck is he to lay me off, I think… and using his wife as a messenger? Pathetic.  

I guess I didn’t say anything after Chloe gave me the news, because next thing I know, she says, “Avery? Are you alright?” I tell her I’m fine, though it sounds like I am about to cry. And I do (just a couple tears, but still). How embarrassing. I just feel like such a loser, getting fired from this job that is awful, anyway. It’s not worth crying over, I think to myself. (I know that’s what my friend’s therapist would tell me; my friend Amy always gives me her therapist’s advice and I try to apply it to my life, since a therapist is the last thing I have money for — though probably the first thing I need right now; that, or my college guidance counselor… although she sure didn’t steer me well in regards to Hollywood). I should be crying out of happiness, not out of rejection.  

Chloe hugs me, saying, “It’s just temporary.” I mutter back, “I know,” through a few more tears. “I really am sorry about what happened, Avery,” she adds. I hope she is. She gets up and, just like that, is out the door. She doesn’t even do the glance-back. Ah, well. 

I decide to make a list of what I want to do out here… and what I don’t want to do. What I can do quickly for money… and what I won’t do quickly for money. 

Some of the “can do” things include:

-Type (i.e., temp).

-Waitress (although, in L.A., it is near impossible to get a waitressing job, even with my years of experience in the Midwest).

-Pet sit.

-Baby-sit.

-Plant sit. (Plant sit?!)

-Too many other ridiculous ideas to mention here… I decide to do none of the above and sleep through the next three days, instead. And is it ever nice… And the good thing about sleeping the day away is that it’s free – you don’t spend any money. Although I guess it actually ended up costing me money… for those were three days of not working. But when you add up the money I saved on not buying groceries… it almost comes out even. 

On my fourth day of unemployment, I forget to silence my phone and, around 9 a.m., it starts to ring off the hook. Thinking it must be my long-distance mother (she always forgets about the time change, “I’m two hours earlier, Mom”) – who else would call so obsessively – I pick up. And, yep, you guessed it – it’s Chloe.  

“Avery? Is that you?” she says. (Don’t you love when people say that, even though you both know damn well that they called your phone, so who else would it be?!) “Yes, it’s me,” I say. “Good. What are you doing around 9:30?” she asks… I decide not to say sleeping, smile that I am wanted (like when a guy still wants you when you no longer want him), and tell her I’ll see her at the house then… and she promises to leave the door unlocked this time. : )

At least they didn’t arrest me…

Thankfully, Chloe does get me out of this mess. She tells the “I told you so cop” that it’s her fault; she’s the one who told me to set up all the candles, etc. I think this is awfully nice of her, considering the fact that she did not tell me to leave burning candles unattended (even the matchbook had warned me about that) — and also considering the fact that she is taking my side, not her husband’s.) The annoying cop keeps asking if she’s sure she does not want to press charges. Shut up, already, I think. She’s sure, she says.  

Chloe then motions Dean over, but he refuses. I ask her if I should go apologize to him again. She says no, as he needs some time to cool off. “He’s trying to work on his anger issues,” she also throws in. I’d be angry, too, I think, if some assistant burned down some of my bedroom and my beloved Joe DiMaggio photo (or, in my case, Justin Timberlake poster (I was going through a phase)).  

Chloe says I should just get my stuff and have the rest of the day off. I say, “Happy Anniversary” again as I go to my car…  

I start my car, drive further up into the hills, pull over, and cry. I feel awful. I am a bad, bad assistant. How will Dean ever forgive me? Finally, my best friend calls, asking when I’m getting out of work. I tell her I’m out… maybe forever. I go meet her and cry some more, feeling sorry for my excuse of an assistant life… or a life of any sort, for that matter.

 * 

Later that night, Chloe texts me and asks me to meet her the next morning to “talk about everything.” Um… okay. 

I meet her at a local café, where she proceeds to lay me off. “Just temporarily,” she says with a smile. “Dean just needs some time to cool off.” (Guess last night wasn’t enough, I think to myself; and, again, I don’t blame him.) Fuck, though. I have rent to pay. I can’t borrow money from my nice, Midwest family… again. How will I even explain this to them? “Mom?… Hi… Ya know that personal assistant job I got a couple weeks ago?… Yeah, that one… Well, when I was out buying condoms for my boss… Yes… condoms… ultra ribbed… yes, I know what a condom is, Mom… Yes, I’m still going to church… No, I’m not having sex before marriage…” Um… no. Guess I need to find another job… fast.

My boss’s bedroom is on fire — and it’s MY fault

Where was I…? Right – setting my boss’s bedroom on fire. He just stands there, while his wife comes and gives me the biggest hug ever. (Maybe she’s not as bad as I had previously thought.) At the same time, my boss still just standing there like a statue, looking at his burned bed frame and once- pristine autographed Joe DiMaggio photo, firemen burst in, telling us to get the hell out of there. By this time, the sprinklers had done there job, but I guess the firemen feel they need to do their job, too. 

My boss stays with them as Chloe and I go out for some air. Cops keep coming up to me, asking a thousand and one questions at once. I am too overwhelmed to answer them (not to mention too overwhelmed with wondering how the f*** I got myself into this mess of a job in the first place). I see Dean off to the side, talking to some other cops and motioning to me every other word. Fuck. What could he possibly be telling them?! 

And, then, one of the cops comes up to me… the same one from last week, who had accused me of trying to break into my boss’s house. “First breaking and entering, now arson,” he says to me as he takes out his cuffs. WTF? I look at Dean, who just looks away, as I hear Chloe telling the cop that it isn’t how it looks, then looking at me and saying not to worry — she’ll get me out of this. (Just like she got me into this, I wonder?)

The other cop from my last criminal “incident” – the one who had warned me that this job of mine was crazy – stood to the side and gave me an “I told you so” look. Lot of good that does me now, buddy… I cannot be cuffed again… I start to move away, but it’s too late. They cuff me…

Still decorating my boss’s bedroom for sex…

So, as we learned last time, I am screwed either way – if I continue decorating my boss’s place for the surprised anniversary sex he and his wife will soon have… or if I stop decorating for a while and go buy them the condoms my boss’s wife insisted upon (so she does not get pregnant again and lose her size two figure; her words, not mine – see previous blog entries for more).  

I toss a few more rose petals on the satin sheet-covered bed, light a few more candles in addition to the others, and decide to run down to the local 7-11 for the condoms (the “ultra ribbed” ones, remember). I have exactly forty-eight minutes until their expected arrival… 

I get to the 7-11… they have sheepskin, and ribbed, and flavored… but no ultra ribbed. Damnit. The guy behind the counter suggests a neighboring 7-11 (What? Do they have less ultra ribbed sex there, I wonder?). I decide not to risk it and opt for the local Rite-Aid, instead… which isn’t exactly “local,” I might add. By the time I get there, I only have thirty-three minutes before my boss’s impending arrival… 

Luckily, Rite-Aid has everything I need – and more. I’m so relieved to have found the right condoms that I throw in a can of whipped cream, too (on me, not their petty cash). As the fifty-ish female cashier rings me up, she gives me a wink (this is the first time I get embarrassed, as I had gotten so wrapped up in my “ultra ribbed” find, I had totally forgotten what I was buying; and, unfortunately, it wasn’t even for me). I smile sheepishly, hoping she won’t tell my mom (my poor, super-Catholic mother would die).  

I get back to the house with twenty-one minutes to spare… phew. I am good, I think. That is, until I walk in to hear a loud piercing sound. It sounds like the smoke detector. Did Spring or Summer make it go off by making Smores on the stove again, I wonder (which is an obvious ploy for spoiled-rich-kids-needing-attention, by the way)? But, unlike last time (as their old assistant had told me, since the girls hadn’t tried that trick on me yet), the noise was coming from upstairs.  

I dart up the stairs, condoms and whipped cream in hand, I might add, and find the detector that’s beeping. It’s the one in the hallway. I hop up on a nearby table and start smashing it with the can of whipped cream when I see it… smoke, billowing out of the bedroom. What the… 

I jump down and am about to open the bedroom door when I suddenly have a flashback to fourth grade. Is it good – or bad – to open the door? Isn’t letting more oxygen into the room bad? But fuck it, right? This is my millionaire boss’s bedroom we’re talking about… I open the door a crack and it zooms open (the open window helped). I see ash where lovely rose petals once did lay. Black, black ash all over the place. Fuuuuuck. As well as melted red and pink candles and their wax stuck to the carpet. Great. How did they even get onto the floor? I guess the open window had something to do with it. I look at the ceiling — shouldn’t the sprinklers have gone off by now? I mean, what’s the point of having all these amenities if they’re not even going to work…?  

As I survey the room, thinking this is the coup de gras and not knowing what to do next, the overhead sprinklers start to finally work. I start laughing, looking up at them, never having envisioned taking a shower (with clothes on, no less) in my boss’s bedroom. I shake my head in disbelief – do I keep laughing, or should I start crying? Yes, I should start crying. I look at the clock – eleven minutes to go… 

“Avery, what the hell is going on?” I hear. Shit. It’s Dean. My boss. And, next to him, his wife, Chloe, who had me arrange all this stuff in the first place. Not knowing quite what to say – I wasn’t even here when the fire started, remember – I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Happy Anniversary?” I mutter in a rain-soaked-dog-that’s-just-gotten-his-muddy-footprints-all-over-the-new- carpet kind of way. They just stand there, staring at me. And, now, I really do start to cry…

Decorating my boss’s house for sex…

I wake up to my alarm and all I want to do is go back to bed. But it is after 2 p.m. now (by the time I snooze a few times) and Chloe had texted me to start arranging everything by 3. 

I start to remove the flowers from my tub. I put on more Band-Aids from the damn rose thorns than you can imagine (I even had to run to the corner store to buy more). I make twenty-six trips from my bathtub to my car (yes, you read that correctly – twenty-six).

Finally, at almost 4 p.m., I arrive at my boss’s house. (Transferring flowers from my tub to my car takes longer than you’d think.) Chloe has whisked Dean away, so I am free to decorate their house with rose petals and azaleas for the next two hours.  

She tells me to look in her lingerie drawer (the third drawer from the bottom in her second (of three) walk-in closets) for a detailed list of where to toss each petal. I don’t know what’s weirder – setting the scene for my boss’s night of sex with his wife… or going into my boss’s wife’s lingerie drawer (and with her prompting, no less). But I do as I’m told and find all kinds of contraptions in there (like leather bras – how do you even get that on – or keep it on; it seems so uncomfortable – and those fur-trimmed handcuffs you see in the window at Hustler but wonder who actually buys them; now we know). Does she do this kind of stuff (like when she pulled down her underwear the other day, remember?!) just to get a reaction from me? Hmm.  

I turn on the stereo and drag all the flowers inside, oblivious to the puddles of water from the melted ice that trail my every move around the house. It’s like I am in Hansel and Gretel and the drops of water are my breadcrumbs; only, this fairytale is much, much worse.  

About forty-five minutes into decorating their bedroom and Jacuzzi tub with flowers and candles (she left a bunch of these in her lingerie drawer, too), I get an urgent text from Chloe, asking me if I got the condoms. Shit. I forgot… I guess I should leave and run down the street for them, although she wanted me to leave the candles burning for at least at hour, so their scent would be fragrant enough by the time they get home – and I haven’t even lit them yet (and I am running behind, due to all my alarm-clock snoozing before).

So I light a few candles as I debate whether to get the condoms now… or finish “decorating” first (which, oddly enough, is kind of fun; I start to wonder if I could quit this personal assistant job and become a “sex decorator,” instead). If I am gone too long and they come back early, before I’m finished decorating, I am screwed… and if I do finish decorating and they get back early to screw sans condoms, I am screwed… Hmm… Any thoughts?

I GUESS buying flowers is “personal”…

If you’ve been reading my blog regularly, you know that I’m a personal assistant to a TV producer/director (Dean) in the great (or not-so-great) land of Hollywood. Only, today, his wife (Chloe), is my boss, not him. (Who knows where he is…) The below is a continuation from last week…

Chloe just texted me about the flowers: tulips, roses, azaleas, and poppies (“If you can find them”). She wants all red and pink; how cliché. She wants me to get at the flower mart at 6 a.m., but how will she know if I’m late? I’m not supposed to be at their house ‘til ten, so I decide to sleep in. Besides, after yesterday, I deserve it, right?… Absolutely.   I finally get up a bit after seven and head downtown. If you’ve never been to downtown L.A., you’re not missing anything… except a lot of weird people selling drugs as I get out of my car, double – then triple – check that I locked my car doors. Then, paranoid, I decide to park someplace else, perhaps on a street where I won’t be bothered by drug dealers selling “candy” and “X” before eight a.m. This takes over forty-five minutes… It is about eight when I finally enter the flower mart – and it is amazing. Any kind of flower you could possibly want to put in a vase (or Jacuzzi, as is Chloe’s preference) is there. I am in awe… and then Chloe calls. Do I answer? I should have been done by now… I decide I don’t want her to hear the ambient noise around me and let my voicemail get it.  She leaves a message saying that I probably went back to bed (and that she doesn’t blame me) and hopes the flower-buying went well and that I should not come to the house until after 2 p.m. WTF? This is great, yet not – WTF am I going to do with all these flowers? But let’s look at the bright side — at least she didn’t find out I hadn’t even bought them yet… I go back in and start picking out different bunches of flowers from my list… To spend five hundred dollars means a LOT of flowers. How am I even going to get them all back to my car? Hmm. I have about two hundred dollars’ worth when I learn that they have no more pink tulips… or red roses. This must be some kind of joke, I think. “You should have come at six,” a male Chinese vendor tells me in his broken English. “But—“ I start. “Six o’clock,” he says again. FUCCCCCCCK. Now what? “How about yellow?” he says. Last time I checked, yellow is nowhere near red, so I say no. He tells me to come back tomorrow for red ones. I say tomorrow is too late, cursing myself for having slept in. “Just tell them we ran out,” he says. If I had a normal boss – or boss’s wife, in this case – this would be a viable option. But it’s not.  I walk around, seeing if any of the red and pink flowers left even resemble roses or tulips… Nope. Shit.   A nearby vendor, after trying to talk me into getting fuscia roses – you know, the spray-painted, bad Vegas wedding kind – finally makes me a list of local flower shops to go to for red roses. I buy the $267.39 worth of tulips, roses, and azaleas I did get and go on my way. I stumble around the streets, trying to remember where I parked (guess I didn’t have enough coffee). I swat the drug dealers away with my bouquets, saying, “No, I don’t want any ‘X,’” far too many times for the early morning hour that it is.    I drop off the flowers in my 100-degree car and head to the barely legible flower shops on my list… Two hours later, I have gone to ELEVEN shops. Holy fuck, am I tired.  I add the $232.61 worth to my car and call it a morning. A few of the flowers from the mart look like they’re in bad shape, but maybe I can do some botanical CPR on them later. It’s a little after 10 a.m. now and I have nearly four hours before I need to be at my boss’s house. What’s a girl with a backseatful and trunkful of flowers to do? Should I buy coolers and ice them? But I don’t have any money left for coolers. Why didn’t I think of this yesterday? I’m sure Chloe and Dean have more than enough coolers in one of their five garages… I stop for some jugs of Arrowhead and a pair of scissors. I make makeshift vases for the wilting flowers, positioning the bottles carefully in my backseat, lest they spill. I then race home - as though I am racing to the E.R. to save these poor tulips’ lives - and decide to do what any economically conscious person would do… I take them to my apartment’s bathtub. Only, I get home to find the elevator out of order. Are you f’in kidding me?  I go downstairs. As I start to remove the flowers, I realize the backseat of my car is soaked (guess my vases weren’t so good, after all). I make over a dozen trips up four flights of stairs to my bathtub, dropping off armful after armful, cutting my fingers on dozens of roses in the process. At this point, I want to lie down in the bathtub with the flowers. I then realize I forgot the ice. Fuck and double fuck. Shit. I tell them to hang on for their lives and leave again…  

I get home with two dozen bags of ice, ten pounds each (I couldn’t imagine carrying the twenty-pound ones up all my flights of stairs). I ice the flowers, add some cold water, and take pictures of the insanity that has become my poor bathtub. It is about noon now, so I set my alarm and go lie down. And, just think, I get to do this all again in a couple hours when I take them to my boss’s house…

My boss’s wife just showed me her underwear…”

I just sit there, sipping my wine, hoping someone will walk in and change the subject. I mean, why is she even wondering if I find her husband (my TV director boss, may I remind you) attractive or not? Please, somebody… anybody – walk in and distract her. But as much as I glance around the room and doorways, no one comes. And, all the while, Chloe just stares at me expectantly, waiting for my reply. I take another sip. Shit. “Well…?” she says. “Yes. Yes, I do,” I say. She smiles a bit as she looks me right in the eye and, seeming pleased, takes a sip of her wine in reply. “Good. Me, too,” she says, still looking right at me, making me feel even more awkward (if that’s possible).

The truth is, readers, her husband is not the least bit attractive (not to me, at least). He is not the Ken to her Barbie. She deserves a hotter, younger one, who drives her around in a Barbie convertible, not in a suburban SUV. But I certainly can’t tell her this… at least not just one glass of wine in. : ) And what is the point of this conversation, anyway?

“I went shopping today,” she adds. When did she find the time, I wonder? I thought she was at an audition all day… “Really?” I say. I really could care less… especially when it comes to what a rich-person-who-doesn’t-work buys. “Aren’t these cute?” she says as she unzips her very tight jeans (they look as though they’re painted on) and points out her bright pink thong. Um… WTF? I mean, it is cute. There’s a little black butterfly placed precariously in the center, but… MY BOSS’S WIFE JUST SHOWED ME HER UNDERWEAR. And where is he, anyway? I came over for this?

Just then, as though all my silent praying to be saved worked, her cell phone rings. She quickly zips up and holds up a finger to me as if to say, “Hang on a sec,” as she answers. “Brilliant” is all she says into the phone and hangs up. She smiles at me.

“I have good news and bad news,” she says. “Which do you want first?” What a choice, I think. “Bad,” I say. “I would LOVE if you could start at six tomorrow,” she says. Not much different than today, I think… but at least this time she gave me some warning instead of waking me up and demanding that I come right over. “Okay…” I start to say. She interrupts. “I need you to go to the flower mart downtown and get about five hundred dollars’ worth of flowers. I’ll make a list of what kinds later and text you.” And she thought this was a bad task?! It’s nothing compared to the last few days of hell this personal assistant job has been… getting yelled at by her one moment, flashed the next… getting yelled at by her kids for losing homework I had never even seen one second to going to my boss’s (her husband’s!!) Sex Addicts Anonymous the next… Flowers and the flower mart, I can handle…

“No problem,” I say. After all, I’ve always liked flowers – how bad could this be? “I’ll then need you to come decorate the house with them – mainly, our bedroom and the Jacuzzi tub (she winks), you know, throw some petals around – while Dean isn’t home tomorrow,” she says. “Sure,” I say. “The only thing is, he will be home tomorrow, so you need to find a way to get him out of the house,” she says. “Okay,” I say again, becoming very aware of the fact that I say “okay” waaaay too much. “And try to hide the flowers somewhere in the meantime. The mart has the best ones only in the morning, they run out fast, so please don’t be late. And I don’t want them wilting in your car while you’re waiting to get rid of Dean,” she adds. “Fine,” I say. “No problem.”

She hands me five one-hundred dollar bills as she stands up. She holds up her glass, “Cheers, Avery,” and starts to head out. “Oh. And while you’re out, can you please pick us up some Trojans? The ultra ribbed kind? I don’t need anymore kids right now – I just got back into a size two,” she says as she motions to her tight-ass jeans. “Just use petty cash – Dean won’t mind.” And she’s gone, me left staring after her. Is she for real? And shouldn’t she just be on the pill? But who am I to argue? I’m only her husband’s assistant, after all… So when did I become hers? I gulp down the rest of my wine in one huge swallow, convinced it will overflow out of my mouth… but it doesn’t. Wasn’t there supposed to be some “good” news, too?

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