Free Ginny Blue's Boyfriends by Nancy Kelly

I was feeling really bad about my breakup with Nate and trying to rationalize it at the same time. There is just no good way to end a relationship easily. It’s like that perma-goo used for do-it-yourself projects that you can purchase at Home Depot or Lowes: its sticky, its nagging, and only time really gets rid of it.
    As soon as I stepped across the threshold, Holly, my producer, started barking orders at me. She glanced up mid-directive and did a classic double take. “Jesus, Ginny,” she said, eyeing me from head to toe, a hard line etched between her brows. “You look like death warmed over.”
    “I guess that’s better than death served cold.”
    Holly gave me a long-suffering look. She never finds me funny. She’s an emaciated forty-year-old who thrives on power and all the schmoozing of old-time Hollywood. I’m the workhorse. Generally uncomplaining, I definitely still have a problem with authority and so once in a while I just kind of blow up. So far, I’ve managed to hold things together around Holly, and therefore we have a grudging respect for one another. She, also, can look tough with a cigarette hanging from her mouth, although those sharp little incision-type lines radiating from her lips have deepened with age and should soon match the one between her eyes. I swear they etch a little bit further with each hard drag on the cigarette, and as she began to rant about the cost of the crane we were going to need for the shoot, I swear I saw them draw deeper yet. She calls me Ginny; I call her the Holy Terror—although not to her face. I do need to keep working, and I try to keep my forays into self-destruction to a minimum.
    “God damn it. What the hell happened to it?” she demanded. “I thought you ordered the crane!”
    “I did. Let me call the company and see—”
    “Fuck! No! Just change everything.”
    “Change everything?” I asked cautiously.
    “Yes! Everything!”
    “You mean, you don’t want the crane, now? I thought our guy was supposed to be flying, or something, above the ocean. Like iced tea had him soaring.”
    “We’ll do it in front of a blue screen or something. Too expensive. And it’s a stupid commercial anyway.”
    No argument there. Like any liquid short of 151 proof rum could really give you that flying feeling. (Please note that she said this solely to me, someone who does not matter, not in front of the advertising company—known simply as “Agency”—and/or the client, who would have taken offense.) I thought about asking Holly if she had run this new scenario past either of them. This was, after all, their commercial and therefore their concept. But noting the glower on her face, I decided I really didn’t need to know. Holly probably knew what she could get away with anyway, otherwise she never would have lasted this long as a producer.
    After her burst of fury things sort of settled down. Called away, Holly left the office for a while so the rest of the staff made phone calls and arrangements and ordered in lunch. We had a new PA working the job; one I’d never met before. His name was Sean and he was definitely a cutie. He looked about twenty-three, and he was obviously into bodybuilding. I was momentarily horrified to learn he was a wannabe actor, but he was clearly interested in the production side of the business so there was hope for him after all. I can’t stress how much I distrust actors. And it isn’t all Mr. Famous Actor’s fault, although he carries a lot of the burden. It’s because all the actors I’ve met are such a freaky combination of charm and pure neediness, the kind of neediness that reaches black-hole levels—reaching into your soul and twisting your guts, then turning you upside down and shaking you hard before dropping you on your head. I steer clear of the whole lot of them. I swear, getting involved with Mr. Famous Actor was like scuba diving and having my arm grabbed by a Moray eel just as the oxygen tank registers empty.