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“You did ask me that,” I agreed. “It just doesn’t sound right.”
A long, uncomfortable pause unspooled. I chewed on the inside of my cheek to keep from filling it. Fletcher had called me, after all, and it was too soon after my conversation with my mom to have been her intervention.
“I wanted to see how your job search was going,” he said finally, his voice louder in the receiver than it had been before, like he’d just remembered himself why he was calling.
I wrestled with my pride and lost. “Not good,” I said flatly.
“Yeah? Great. I have something for you.”
“I don’t want to–”
“I know,” Fletcher interrupted. “You don’t want to work for me. This isn’tforme. Not exactly anyway.”
I decided that I’d go on into my apartment building and risk dropping the call. I pulled out my keys and let myself in through the first set of doors that led to the hallway. “What do you mean it’s not exactly for you?” I asked as I walked toward the stairs at the end of the hall.
“It’s a production assistant job for a Lewis Productions picture. A documentary. Sort of. Fuck, I don’t know. It’s some artsy piece.”
I’d gone for plenty of production assistant jobs with Lewis Productions, but it had been partly to spite Fletcher. They were his biggest rival. Considering my last name was James, that might have been why I never got the jobs. I started up the stairs, and the line began to crackle. I picked up the pace while I tried to puzzle this out in my mind.
Solution one, Fletcher respected the fact I didn’t want to work for him and was still trying to help me, even though it entailed his rival.
I snorted, and the sound reverberated off the concrete walls. Fat chance. Fletcher didn’t help anyone out of the goodness of his own heart, and he definitely didn’t put aside his own interests to do so.
Solution two…
I wracked my brain, but I came up with nothing. At the top of the stairs, the line cleared again, and I heard the tail end of his sentence.
“--still there?”
“I’m here.” I hurried down the hall and let myself into my apartment. “I’m just confused. I thought you hated Julian Lewis.”
“I wish that motherfucker dead every day of my life,” Fletcher agreed. “Did I ever tell you aboutRaul the Third?”
Raul the Third was a comedy that Fletcher James’ studio had developed, then let their option lapse, and before they knew it, Lewis Productions had snapped it up, reworked it, and ruled the box office with it and its two monstrously successful sequels. A third was in the works now. Fletcher had never gotten over it. The story was family lore that even I, on the fringes of the family, had heard a dozen times.
“Then why would you get me a job with his studio?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“You’re my kid, aren’t you? I can’t have you on the streets.”
I pointedly didn’t respond. If my mom hadn’t taken Fletcher to court to prove paternity, he’d have gone to his grave claiming I wasn’t his. I wasn’t buying this bullshityou’re my kidreasoning for a minute. The silence didn’t shame him though. I didn’t think anything could. When he spoke again, it was with an aggravated air of someone having the truth dragged out of him.
“Fine. I’d appreciate it if, when I helped you out with this job, you helped me out, too, okay? Lewis and I are about to go head-to-head again, and I’m not letting him scoop another project out from under me, okay?” Every time he said ‘okay’, it got a little more aggressive, the force of his personality shoving the word into italics.
I made a face at my cat, Camper. So, there was something in this for Fletcher, was there? Color me unsurprised. Camper flicked her bottle brush tail lazily and adjusted her paws on the couch cushion. She wasn’t surprised either. “How exactly would I stop Julian?” I asked, dropping down on the cushion next to her.
“You wouldn’t stop him. You’d just be there to feed me information, andI’dstop him.”
I couldn’t see him, but from his tone of voice, I would swear that he was rubbing his hands together with fiendish glee. “Hmm,” I said noncommittally. “I mean, I’d be a production assistant, Fletcher. I doubt I’d spent much time with the head of the studio.”
“You know Miller? Pretentious asshole documentarian who thinks he’s too good for a last name? His latest production assistant just quit. I have it on good authority that Julian is hiring his next one himself, and that he’s about to be much more involved. You get that production assistant job, and I guarantee you’ll be spending time with the man himself.”
Absentmindedly, I rested my hand on Camper’s broad back, his bulk and softness grounding me even as my brain spun itself around in circles. My first instinct was to say thanks but no thanks. It was never a good idea to indebt yourself to Fletcher James, even if you were his illegitimate, unwanted, barely tolerated daughter. On the other hand, I needed a job, and there was no reason why I couldn’t accept this one on Fletcher’s terms, and then feed him bullshit. I didn’t much like the idea of working for another guy just like him, but that was going to happen in this business. If I wanted to be in it, I’d have to start at the bottom.
This was my chance to get on the first rung.
“Let’s say I was willing,” I said slowly. “There’s no way he’s going to hire me.”
“Because you’re my kid?” Fletcher asked.
