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“It’s my daughter’s bat mitvah tomorrow, asshole—”
“Good morning to you, too, Rudy.”
Rudy Goldstern, my agent, busts into my apartment with a briefcase and what appears to be a hastily packed overnight bag. He continues as if I didn’t say a word.
“—and do you know what I’m doing right now? Instead of helping my wife with the caterers and insuring that everything goes right and that the DJ has the correct set list—because heaven forbid he play something ‘lame’ in the eyes of a bunch of prepubescent boys and girls—”
“No, Rudy.” I smirk. “What’s that?”
He drops his bags on the floor, and makes his way to my refrigerator to pop open a diet coke. I notice his suit is rumpled, like he slept in it, and his eyes are bloodshot.
“Iam here with you,you ungrateful fuckwad, having just flown across the goddamn country on a five-and-a-half-hour red-eye flight, to find myself cooling my heels while you decided today would be a great day to not answer your fucking phone and sleep in!”
He finishes, chest heaving slightly, as he chugs the diet Coke as if his life depends on it. He finishes it in seconds, wipes his mouth on his sleeve, and collapses on my couch, head in his hands.
“God, sometimes I really miss cocaine,” he sighs.
Uh-oh. Rudy only gets nostalgic about coke when something’s really bad. I sit down in the leather club chair opposite him and wait.
Rudy’s hands move from his face to rub his bleary eyes and massage his temples. Then they start running back and forth over his shaved head.
We have a running joke that I owe him hair implants. He said he finally just decided to shave it all off, since he started losing it in clumps ever since he signed me. I sent him a head buffing kit last year for Christmas.
He wasn’t amused.
I’m just about to ask him to just tell me whenheasks me.
“Why’d you do it?”
His voice is laced with exhaustion. He sounds defeated.
I look at him as if I have no idea what he’s talking about, because I don’t. I’ve done a lot of things.
I lean back and cross my arms over my chest.
“You’ll have to be more specific,” I smirk, eyebrow cocked up in question.
He glares at me.
“Why,” he enunciates crisply, “did you decide it was a good idea to take Bob Odom’s yacht out for a pleasure cruise with a bunch of rookies, a dozen strippers—at least Ihopethey were just strippers—four members of the micro wrestling federation, and a lesser Saudi Arabian Prince!”
“It was harmless,” I scoff.
Rudy no longer looks tired. He looks furious. In fact, I’m afraid he’s about to have an apoplectic fit.
I pull out my phone, just in case I need to dial 9-1-1.
“IT WAS NOT FUCKING HARMLESS!” he screams.
Suddenly, remembering the girls asleep on the floor in my bedroom, I put my finger to my lips. “Ssshhhh.”
“Do you have a girl here?” he demands incredulously.
I shrug my shoulders, and he immediately jumps up and runs to my bedroom. Then I hear a thud and a pair of screams.
“My apologies, ladies, I didn’t see you there,” I hear Rudy say in the distance. “Right, yes, I’m Mr. Thomas’s agent, and we need to discuss some business. So, if you wouldn’t mind getting dressed—I believe these belong to you, and here’s yours—I’ll get you some money for a cab, you’ll sign this non-disclosure agreement, and you can be on your way.”
By the time Rudy has hustled the girls out the door, I am almost on the floor from laughing so hard.
