Free The First Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare

pandering to Emanuelle’s every whim, I knew in my heart that it was me whom he loved, and that sometimes a producer had to bend his own rules a little to keep his movie together. If that meant lying to Emanuelle about who he was on the phone with, then so be it. My backhand and I were bigger than that. We understood. So it was with a smile on my face and a very sore right arm that I got in my car and drove home to call Luke and tell him I loved him.

    Five
    Hollywood gives a young girl the aura of a giant,
    self-contained orgy farm, its inhabitants dedicated to crawling into every pair of pants they can find.

    —Veronica Lake

    It must have been a blue moon because Lara and I were having a night out. Not just Lachlan’s leftover macaroni and cheese and a bottle of red wine at her kitchen table, which was our usual, but a party for which we were required to wear something other than Nuala yoga pants. Nathalie Cook was a former president of the Lit Department at The Agency and she’d left her enormous job to launch her own line.
    “What is it that she makes again?” Lara asked as we sped up the PCH. Lara had spent the afternoon wrapped in seaweed in Santa Mon-ica in a bid to lose weight for tonight’s party. But the undesirable pounds still clung mercilessly to her hips, so she had simply draped herself in her trademark black pants. I did understand what a drag it must be for her facing a bunch of women who were so educated about good fats, bad fats, trans fats, and fat asses that they could have advised the World Health Organization on any dietetic matter on the face of the planet. Poor Lara, there was no way she was leaving this party without at least seventeen phone numbers for personal trainers and four new diets that she “had to try.”
    “I can’t remember what they’re launching.” I rummaged in my purse for the invitation. “Is it handbags? Jewelry?”
    “She was always pretty stylish. It’s bound to be some line of fabulous clothes,” I said, and Lara and I looked at each other and groaned. “Here it is.” I fished a piece of cardboard out of my bag. “She’s launching LovelyLab.”
    “Is it a spa?”
    “I have no clue,” I said as we veered off the street to park alongside at least forty Porsche Cayennes and twenty Mercedes.
    “Do you know that this party alone has probably guzzled more gas than the Chinese use in a year?”
    “You might want to keep your thoughts on that to yourself,” Lara said as we climbed down from her SUV. “These are the most powerful divorcées in Hollywood. You don’t want to alienate them.”
    Lara was right. If their cars alone could eradicate the need for the Kyoto summit, their combined divorce settlements could run an entire Third World country for several decades. And this was no exaggeration. Their influence was like an invisible web that wove its way through the lives of almost anyone you cared to think of in this town. They were the young and beautiful ex-wives of the studio presidents, the producers, and the most powerful agents. A few had been married to Talent— actors or directors—but only those divorced from the AAA list were permitted here. And even more intimidatingly, most of them lived here, in this ludicriously chic Malibu apartment building. They counseled one another on all matters alimonious, their nannies competed over their charges, and they passed as friends in a world where to copy the same dinner table arrangement was to be frozen out of the set.
    “Are you sure they won’t mind me coming?” I asked.
    “Not at all,” Lara whispered as we walked up the path toward the floodlit white façade of the building. “Anyway, you’re one of them now.” “What do you mean?” I scowled. I couldn’t see how I was like them
    in any way.
    “You’re with Luke,” she informed me. “They know you’re safe, now.” “Good God in heaven.”
    “I know. Don’t take it so seriously. They’re not ogres.” She smiled as the elevator