Page 14 of All That Glitters
Carrie didn’t so much walk into a room as take it hostage. At twenty-five, she had won the genetic lottery in every possible way, with long blonde hair falling past her shoulders in perfect waves, eyes the color of summer skies, and a figure that had inspired millions of male fantasies.
Carrie was the undisputed queen of B-movies, her filmography a collection of low-budget productions with high skin-to-plot ratios. No one had any idea whether she could act or not, because that wasn’t why they cast her. Men watched her movies for the obvious reasons, but women followed her too, drawn to the confidence with which she wielded her beauty like a weapon.
She strode to the reception desk and slid her sunglasses to the top of her head. “Is he here?” she asked, forgoing any pleasantries like “hello” or “good morning.”
Amy looked up from her switchboard, her professional smile locked in place. “Hi, Carrie. He’s in a meeting.”
“Not anymore,” Carrie snapped, and stormed past the desk toward the hallway of corner offices.
Amy watched her go, the smile melting from her face. She leaned toward her microphone and muttered under her breath, “Bitch.”
Down the hallway, Eli Bernstein was conducting business with the manic energy of someone powered by equal parts caffeine and desperation. His office looked like a hurricane had hit a script library — screenplays stacked everywhere, movie posters competing for wall space, and enough energy drink cans to power a small city. Eli himself paced behind his desk like a caged predator, his Bluetooth headset permanently attached to his ear.
“Look. Carl. Buddy,” he said. “You and I are friends, right? Real friends. So, I need you to do me a solid and get my guy a face-to-face with Steven. It’s a five-minute meeting, Carl. Five minutes.”
Suddenly, a screenplay flew through the doorway and nailed him in the head with a dull thud.
He looked over to see Carrie standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and expression thunderous.
Eli didn’t even flinch. “Hold that thought, Carl,” he said smoothly into the headset. “I’ll call you back.”
He clicked off the phone and plastered a wide, insincere smile on his face. “Hey, beautiful. Nice aim.”
“Don’t ‘hey beautiful’ me,” she said, her voice dangerously low. She pointed a perfectly manicured finger at the fallen script. “What the hell was that crap?”
Eli glanced down at the script lying innocently on his Persian rug. “Land of the Amazon Babes. I thought you wanted it.”
“Hello?” she said, tapping her temple. “Is anyone in there? What I want is the Lord of the Rings remake.”
“Sorry, babe. No can do,” Eli said, already moving to his desk. “They signed Frenchie Marriot this morning.”
“Then find me something else.”
“Okay. Let’s see what we’ve got.” He leaned over a mountain of manuscripts that threatened to collapse at any moment. He pulled one out. “How about this? Alien Transmorphers Twelve?”
“Who’s doing it?”
“Alec Baldwin.”
“Pass,” she said flatly.
He tossed it aside and pulled another. “What about Return of the Cheerleader Vampires From Venus?”
“Dammit, Eli. No more sequels,” she snapped. “And no more movies with planets in the title. I want something good.”
Eli stopped digging and looked at her. “Define ‘good.’”
Carrie’s expression was dead serious. “Something that makes me rich and famous, so everybody worships me.”
Eli burst into laughter, a genuine, uncontrolled laughter like he’d just heard the funniest thing in his career. Then he noticed Carrie wasn’t laughing. At all.
The laughter died in his throat. “Wait. You’re serious?”
“Very.”
He sank into his high-backed leather chair and rubbed his temples, trying to stave off the migraine he could feel gathering behind his eyes.
“Would you settle for cosplaying Wonder Woman at Comic-Con and getting drooled over by fanboys?” he offered.
