Page 19 of A Very Snowed In New Year
“Please don’t send me that script.”
“Too late! You gotta say yes to something, Holden. You’re the star of the highest-grossing movie, and you’ve passed on everyoffer. You gotta strike while the iron’s hot, or you’ll get left out in the cold.”
This is a conversation we’ve had ad nauseam, and she’s not wrong. I just haven’t found the right project yet. I’ll know it when I see it.
“But that’s not why I’m calling,” she continues. “Eric, I need to talk to Holden in private for a minute—hang up,” she says to her assistant. “Eric. Eric. ERIC! Oh, he went to the bathroom. I wanted to make sure you’re good with me giving Shay Nicholls yournumbah.”
There’s a long pause. “Oh, you’re talking to me?”
“Yeah, hotshot, I’m talkin’ to you.”
I have no idea who Shay Nicholls is. “Is that theVoguewriter I have an interview with?”
“What? No. Shay Nicholls the actress. You met her at the party last night. Y’know. Thin, blonde, early twenties, very cute.”
“Ohhhh, right.” She just described every single actress at that party. “You want to give her my number? What’s happening here?”
“So, her agent just jumped ship to this agency and she has the office across from mine now, okay? Follow along, because this is a story about what a brilliant agent you have. I’ve become friends with Audrey, who reps Shay, and Shay very recently became single, so she would love to attend theRiderspremiere with you in February?—”
“I’m bringing my mum to that.”
“And Audrey also represents Alex Vega, one of the top five directors you’re dying to work with?—”
“I am aware who Alex Vega is, yes.”
“—who is going to start meeting with actors next month for his next project. Now, this script…this script, Holden Archer, I swear toGawd, evenyouwill like. I haven’t read it yet and you can’t read it yet, but I know from Audrey that this scriptisInceptionmeetsStar WarsmeetsThere Will Be BloodmeetsRatatouille.”
“What?!”That makes no fucking sense, but I’m getting a little hard just thinking about it.Jesus, Rita Baskin really is a good agent. “Say more.”
“And you, Holden Archer, go to the top of the list, but only if you agree to bring Shay Nicholls to theRiderspremiere as your date.”
“Okay, there is no way Alex Vega is insisting that I take this girl to theRiderspremiere as my date.”
“You’re absolutely right—he has no idea about this piece of it, hon. The agency is packaging this project for financing. You see how it works? Tit for tat. Everybody wins. You aren’t interested, we got thirty-seven other guys in your age range Alex can meet with. But I really wanna make sure he gets a digital screener ofRidersASAP so I can get a meeting on the books in the new year. But I could also send him the screener for Timothée Chalamet’s latest…”
“I look forward to hearing from Nicole,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Shay Nicholls.”
“Even more excited to hear from Shay Nicholls. Hopefully she isn’t nuts.”
My agent laughs. Then coughs. Then laughs again. Then she yells out Eric’s name and hangs up.
I’m starting to see how all relationships and exchanges in Hollywood are transactional. And if I can figure out how to compartmentalize this and find a way to protect the parts of my life that matter, I could see myself doing this for a couple more decades to make a shit ton of money and then just disappearing to live on a farm in upstate New York or something. Hopefully with someone I love deeply. God, how am I only twenty-five? I sound fifty.
I just hope Shay Nicholls isn’t nuts or boring.
Bad news.
Shay Nicholls is boring.
Too early to tell if she’s nuts.
She’s hot, though. I realized, once I got home, that we follow each other on Instagram. I must have followed her back at some point and then forgot. She had already sent me four direct messages last night, asking me where I disappeared to. I do remember talking to her at the party. Or rather, I remember her complaining about there not being enough high-protein options being served and asking me if her teeth looked too white. Then she said she’d just seen the new Guy Ritchie movie, and she had some pretty insightful things to say about it. But then she started telling me about the winery she’s invested in with five of her friends and showed me a bunch of pictures of herself in a bikini holding organic grapes. The only reason I’m not declaring her nuts already is because she told me she saw me in the Kenneth Lonergan play I did off-Broadway four years ago and that I was brilliant in it. She’s the first person in LA to bring up that play. And she’s right—I was brilliant in it. So I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Also, she’s really hot.
SHAY:Hey, it’s Shay! So cool meeting you last night.
