Free Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi

with.” He hung up.
    â€œWell,” I said. “That was certainly instructive.”
    â€œFuck you,” Tea said, and stared off out a side window. Miranda came in, dropped a file on my desk, and left.
    â€œWhat is that?” Tea asked.
    â€œThis is your clipping file,” I said. “Our clipping service scours the trades and the magazines and the blogs for a reference to any of our clients and sends them on to us. So we always know what people are thinking about the people we represent.”

    I separated the clips into two piles. One was very small. The other was not. I pointed to the smaller pile. “Do you know what this is?” I asked.
    Tea looked over, shrugged. “No.”
    â€œThese are your positive notices,” I said. “They’re mostly about the fact that you’re built like Barbie, although there’s one here that says you were the best thing about that Vince Vaughn flick you were in, with the further admission that that is a textbook example of damning with faint praise.”
    I thumped the other, much larger pile with an open palm. “This,” I said, “is your pile of negative notices. We have an office pool here, you know. We’ve got bets on how thick this pile is going to get by the end of the year. Right now, it’s a modest three inches. But it’s early yet, and TMZ loves you.”
    Tea looked bored. “Is this going somewhere?”
    I gave up. “Tea, I’ve been trying to find some way to put this delicately. Let me make it simple: Nobody in town likes you. No one. You’re monstrously difficult. People don’t like working with you. People don’t like being seen with you. People don’t even like being in the same room with you. Even the thirteen-year-old boys who fantasize about you know enough not to like you as a person. In the grand pantheon of legendary bitches of Hollywood, it’s you, Shannon Doherty, and Sean Young.”
    â€œI’m not anything like them,” Tea said. “ I still have a career.”
    â€œYou sure do,” I said. “And you have me to thank for it. Any other agent would have written you off long ago. You’re good looking, but that’s not exactly a rare thing around these parts. I have to fight to get you work. And every time I do get you work, I hear back about how everybody on that crew would rather chew glass than work with you again. Everyone.
They have craft service workers who won’t cater a set you’re on. My best estimate is that you have about another eighteen months before we run out of people who’ll work with you. After that you’ll have to find some nice, eighty-year-old oil tycoon you can marry and screw into a coma.”
    Tea was dumbstruck. It couldn’t last. It didn’t. “Gee, Tom. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
    â€œThe vote of confidence isn’t for you, Tea. I’m giving you two choices here. The first choice is to sit here, shut up, and do what I tell you. We may have an outside chance of saving your career if you do. The other is not to sit here, shut up, and do what I tell you. In which case, I’m dropping you and you can get the hell out of my office. It really doesn’t matter to me which you do. Actually, I’m lying. I’d prefer it if you left. But it’s up to you. What’s it going to be?”
    Tea sat there with a gaze of pure, unadulterated hate. It was unnervingly arousing. I ignored it and went on.
    â€œAll right, then. The first thing you’re going to do is apologize to Amanda.”
    â€œFuck, no,” Tea said.
    â€œFuck, yes,” I said, “or we have no deal. I realize you didn’t notice this while you were dismantling her, but Amanda may have been the only person in the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area who actually genuinely liked you. There are seventeen million people in the LA basin, Tea. You need her.”
    â€œThe hell