John Scalzi - Agent to the Stars

Miranda came into the office. She had something in her hand. "Tea left looking like she was going to implode, Tom. You must have done a number on her."

"Oh my God ," I said, stopping the spin cycle. I felt pleasantly dizzy. "I've been wanting to do that for years . You have no idea how good that felt. "

"Sure I do," Miranda said. "You left the speakerphone on."

She extended her hand to me. In it was a tape cassette.

"What's this?" I asked.

"A momento of your special Tea time," Miranda said. "Sorry. I just couldn't resist."

Michelle speared a sliver of chicken from her salad. "I'm thinking of dying my hair," she said, and popped the chicken in her mouth.

"Blue hair only looks good on Marge Simpson, Michelle," I said.

She wiggled her hand at me. "Ha ha, funny guy. No, I'm going to dye it brown. You know, for the part."

"What part are we talking about, if I may ask?" I said.

"Hard Memories," Michelle said.

Now I knew why I was sitting inside the Mondo Chicken in Tarzana. Michelle and I had met there years ago, when she was a waitress named Shelly, looking for an agent, and I was newly-minted agent looking to get laid. She turned out to be the more determined one; I never did have sex with Michelle, but she got me as an agent. She took it as a lucky omen (the getting the agent part, not the part about not having sex with me); since then, any time Michelle had a special occasion to mark or an announcement to make to me, she did it at Mondo Chicken.

So far it had included six movie decisions, one double funeral when her parents died in a car accident, three engagements (and subsequent breakups), two religious epiphanies and one pet euthanization. There were a lot of memories between us, packed into one moderately overpriced eatery in the Valley. The fact that Michelle decided to tell me about wanting Hard Memories here was a very bad sign. It meant that she was determined, and that there was going to be little I could do to change her mind.

But, of course, I had to try. " Hard Memories is already taken, Michelle," I said. "Ellen Merlow's been signed for the part."

"Not yet," she said. "I called. It's only an oral agreement. I think I can make them change their minds."

"By dyeing your hair?"

"For a start," Michelle said. "I mean, it would at least signal that I'm serious. And if I look more like the part, maybe they can see me in the role. Brown hair would change my entire look." She stabbed at her salad again.

I set down my own fork and massaged the bridge of my nose. "Michelle," I said. "if you had brown hair, you still wouldn't look a 40-year-old Eastern European Jew. You'd look like a 25-year-old Californian Aryan with hair dyed brown. Look at yourself, Michelle. You're blonde. Naturally. You have Newman Blue eyes. And you have a body shape that wasn't even invented until the 1980s."

"I can plump out," she said.

"You throw up in panic when you have dessert," I said.

"I stopped doing that a long time ago, and you know that," Michelle said. "That was a cheap shot."

"You're right," I said. "I'm sorry."

Michelle relaxed. "I'll even have dessert today," she said. "I think they have non-fat yogurt here."

"It's not just how you look, Michelle," I said. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you're just not ready for that part. It's a part that's meant for someone much older."

Michelle pointed her fork at me. " Summertime Blues was meant for someone older, remember? When we first got the script, it called for a 30-year-old woman to seduce those two teenage brothers. When I got the part, it got kicked back to a 22-year-old. That's what re-writes are for, you said."

" Summertime Blues was a comedy about two kids losing their cherry," I said. " Hard Memories is about anti-Semitism and six million people dying. I think you could agree there's a slight difference in tone there."

"Well, of course," Michelle said. "But I don't see what that has to do with the main character."

I sighed. "Let me try a different tack, "I said. "Why do you want this role so badly?"

Michelle looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, what is it about the role that makes you so passionate about it? What is it about this role that's getting you so worked up?"

"It's a great role, Tom," she said. "It's so dramatic and filled with feeling. I want to do something like that. You know, something with emotional baggage. I think it's time Hollywood started taking me seriously."

"Okay," I said. "Now, how much do you know about the Holocaust?"

"I know a lot," Michelle said. "How can you not know about the Holocaust? It was terrible, everyone knows that. I saw Schindler's List when it came out. I cried."

"All right, crying at Schindler's List is a good start," I said. "Anything else?"

"I've been thinking of going to that museum here about hatred," she said. "I forget what it's called at the moment. Simon something. The Norton Simon?"

"Simon Wiesenthal," I said. "The Norton Simon is an art museum."

"I knew it was one of the two," she said.

"Did you ever read that book of poems I gave you?"

"The ones by that Christmas guy?"

"Krysztof," I said.

"I started them, but I had to stop," Michelle said. "I had to put my dog to sleep around that time, and reading those poems just made me depressed. I just kept thinking about my dog and crying."

"Right," I said. "Look, Michelle, I think it's great that you want to do dramatic roles. I think you'll be great in them. I just don't think that this is right one. Hard Memories isn't just going to take technique, it's going to take knowledge. I know you think you know about the Holocaust and about this woman's life, but I don't think you do. If you were to take this role without knowing anything about it, it's going to come back to haunt you. Melanie Griffith once did a movie called Shining Through and on the press junket she said 'There were six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. That's a lot of people!' It didn't help her film any."

"Six million is a lot of people," Michelle said. "I don't see why people would be so upset that she said that."

"I know, Michelle," I said. "That's why I think you should skip this role."

Michelle glared at me angrily and appeared to be winding up to a tirade when her eyes slipped into her skull, leaving only the whites visible. Her mouth dropped open slightly. She dropped her fork onto the table. I stared, panicked — I had made her so angry I caused her to stroke out. I was in the process of yanking out my cellular phone to dial 911 when she snapped back.

"That's better," she said.

"Jesus Christ, Michelle," I said. "What was that all about?"

"I've been going to a hypno-therapist," she said, "to help me handle my stress. He placed an auto-suggestion into my subconscious so that every time I get angry or stressed, I sort of float away for a couple of seconds. It's really helping me deal with my issues."

"Let's hope you don't have any issues while you're on the 405," I said.

"Well, I usually stress out in traffic jams, so it's not a problem," Michelle said. "I'm not moving anyway. Listen, you just made me very angry back there."

"I know that now," I said.

"You're supposed to be my agent, you know," she said, "and that means helping me get the roles I want."

"Yes, but I'm also your friend," I said, "and that means looking out for you. And also, as your agent, I have to look out for the longevity of your career. If Hard Memories flopped, it wouldn't stop you from making movies, but it would make folks think twice about hiring you for another drama. And then you would be stuck doing Summertime Blues and Murdered Earth sequels. Very profitable in the short run, but not what I think you want to do all your life."