Taking the Lead(42)

       
         
       
        

"I'll be meeting you in London, but I'm not going to the premiere. I'm depending on you to make this work."

"What do you mean by 'make this work'?"

"I mean, you know, land yourself in every newspaper in Great Britain. Or at least all the trades. You know that saying? It's true: a picture is worth a million bucks."

That wasn't the saying, but I didn't try to correct her. I started packing a bag while she blathered on more details about the flight and where to pick up our boarding passes. Then I hung up and went to try to convince Mal of everything she had told me.

I knocked on his door.

"Come," he barked.

I opened the door to find him zipping shut a small suitcase on the foot of his bed. Apparently he'd either heard everything or otherwise convinced himself to go. "Limo's on the way," I said.

"I guess we'll sleep on the plane."

And maybe it'll keep me from fretting about Ricki. I tried to call her but it went right to voice mail and I figured she had already gone to sleep. By the time she got up, we'd be halfway there. I texted her instead so she'd see when she got up. While I was doing that, Mal drank the rest of my beer and then I threw some of my best "bad boy" clothes into a bag.

On the flight I started writing the lyrics to a song about flying and fortune and fame, but it was probably too much of a cliché to use. It was that or write about how all I wanted to do was hold her tight and keep the world at bay. Mal didn't criticize, though. He also didn't ask how she and I were getting along. I'm pretty sure from the lyrics I was writing, he could tell.


RICKI

The next morning I turned on my phone as I was finishing breakfast with Gwen before getting ready to go to work. In came a frantic-looking text from Axel that began in ALL CAPS:

SO SORRY FLYING TO LONDON VERY SUDDEN AAAAAAH-Will tell you all about it when we get back. I'll be in the air by the time you get this. Last-minute publicity appearance. I promise I'll bring you some English tea to make up for breaking our date. Sorry sorry sorry.

So that was the first thing that went wrong that morning, although I felt pretty mellow about it given how good I felt about his visit the previous night.

The next thing was at the office. I'd barely gotten to my desk when I was summoned to David Meyers's office. That could only be something very good or very bad, I thought.

He asked me to close the door behind me and I half-wondered if this was going to be another chance for a guy to hit on me. But no, he was all business.

"Ricki, I don't want you to think I don't like you or the work you do. Understand this isn't personal in any way. I consider you a part of my team and I'm actually very protective of my people." 

I nodded, wondering what he was working up to.

"I want you to stop beating the 'more movies for women' drum."

"What? Why?"

"Like I said, don't misunderstand me, but you're new here, you're still learning our corporate culture. There's concern that if we are too overt in our diversity campaigns we'll alienate our core audience."

Had he shown my proposal to some of the higher-ups? "By 'core audience' do you mean paying ticket buyers or stockholders and executives?"

"Well, I think at the heart of it is that our stockholders and executives think of themselves as people who love movies. And they assume that the audience will feel the same."

I tried to keep my tone even and reasonable. "They do realize, though, that they're men? And that half the people in this country  …  aren't?"

"Oh, I know, and they know. This isn't a sexist thing, Ricki."

Like hell it's not  …  I thought. But I tried to think back over what was just said. "So, wait, you're not telling me we shouldn't develop movies for women; you're just telling me don't  …  make such a big deal about it?"

He sagged in his chair and I couldn't tell if it was from relief that I'd gotten his message or disappointment that I hadn't, until he said, "Yes, essentially. I don't want you taking a lot of heat from above and I want you to have time to grow and accomplish what you want. So the message for now is back down a little, try to fit in, and wait for your moment. I think you'll have an easier time if you champion certain projects, perhaps, rather than make it seem like you have a political agenda."

While I understood everything he was saying, and I appreciated him having my back with upper management, it felt like he hadn't really listened to anything I'd said in our previous meetings or in the memos I had sent. "Mr. Meyers-"

"David, please."

"David. I don't mean it as a political thing, unless you want to call it capitalist. It's just good moneymaking sense to capture the money out of the neglected portion of the market."

"Is that what they teach these days at Ivy League business schools?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." I took a calming breath. "Okay, yes, if I weren't a woman it wouldn't seem political. I get that. You know what I think? If Steven Spielberg or David Geffen stood up and said, 'hey, I had an epiphany about how we can make more money! Stop driving women away and court their dollars instead!' the whole industry would applaud. But they aren't saying it, and I am."

He nodded. "I know. I get it. I get you. But I'm saying back off for a while. Lie low. You're still on the bottom rung of the ladder here, remember? You're going to make a tremendous mark on this industry. You are. I'm asking you to be patient, though, and be a team player, and relax, all right? Just chill out on the political stuff. Or," he corrected himself, "what could be taken as political even if it's not politically motivated. Understand?"

"I understand." I understood he wanted me to sit down and shut up. It was pretty obvious to me that if I were a young male executive I'd be expected to grab the bull by the horns. But because I was a woman I was supposed to be a "team player." I realized as I made my way back to my office that Meyers had never actually said he was getting static from up above about me. He had never told me he passed my proposal upstairs so I had to assume that this was him fearing the reaction he might get if he did. He hadn't even tried.



       
         
       
        

David Meyers had been a perfect gentleman and yet somehow I was more disappointed about him than I had been about Conrad Schmitt trying to get me to bend over.

They say things come in threes, right? Well, the third bad thing that happened that day wasn't to me, but I took it personally anyway. I texted Gwen at midday to ask if she'd even been seen by the casting director yet and got back a very angry-looking reply:

Seen? Seen?! I don't think they even looked up from their doodling or crossword puzzles or whatever the $%#&$ they were doing while I was up there!

I don't know how she could stand being subjected to that. But she wanted to act, she wanted to do it, and if that was what she wanted to do, I wanted to be there to support her. I called her right back.

"You know what you need?"

"What?" Her voice sounded thick, like she'd been crying.

"Consolation sushi. Sakura is friends with the chef at this place with private rooms. Let me see if she's free."

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Gwen said. "I need to learn to thicken my skin."

"Well, until you do, I swear, this guy can mend broken hearts with fish, he's that good." Plus Sakura had lots of experience with auditions. Maybe she'd have some advice. "Have Riggs pick me up on the way and I'll get my car tomorrow."

"Oh, all right. I'll get myself together. Thanks, Rick'."

So the day wasn't a total loss, since we had an excellent girls' night out, and Gwen and Sarah got to know each other better, which was a good thing because I had a feeling I was going to need all the emotional support I could get pretty soon.

I hadn't realized how soon, though, until Gwen reminded me in the car on the way home that Dad was coming out of rehab.

"What, tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow," she said, leaning back against the car's back seat and stretching. "Have you talked to him at all?"

"Of course not. I thought we weren't allowed to talk to him when he was in there."

"Well, once a week, you can. We could even visit, but you know he wouldn't want that. He wouldn't want the photos in the paper."

"Are you sure? Gwen, did you read the interview he did for TTT?"

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I kind of think maybe he didn't know he was being interviewed."

"What do you mean?"

"I think he was drunk and rambling and someone wrote it down. There's a female byline on the story. Maybe he didn't even think she was a reporter."

"Hm. I don't know if that's a case for a suit or not." I sighed. "And if the horse has left the barn already, suing them would only make even more people pay attention. There's no way to win this media game." 

She shrugged. "Did you ever think maybe it would be better to just  …  not care?"

"Do you seriously want to be splashed all over like Paris Hilton?"