Bootycall 2 - J. D. Hawkins Page 0,30

I guess it’s not all bad if they let me go now. I have half a month to scratch up the rent still. Maybe they’ll give me some kind of severance package before they let me go. I’ll need to work on my resume though – and the fact that I may become known solely as ‘the girl Dylan Marlowe fucked’ won’t do me any favors.

Who am I kidding? I’ll probably end up moving back in with my dad. Either that or going the whole hog and finding a crappy room to rent someplace downtown by the train tracks and becoming a crazy cat lady. I do like cats, and I’m not too far off from going crazy.

“Sit down, Gemma,” Michael says, when I knock and open the door. His hands are joined in an arch in front of him, ready to slice and whip the air in order to express how truly disappointed in me he is.

I nod and sit. Clenching my muscles as I brace for what’s to come.

“Any idea where Dylan is?” he asks, his words flying through the air like they’re razor-edged.

I shake my head. “He won’t pick up his phone or return my texts or calls. He’s not at his house, his bike is gone…I don’t know what else to do.”

“Great,” he says. “Just fucking fantastic. Another day of pointless work. Another fuckload of cash just dumped into the ocean. The supporting cast are very happy – we’ve already had to add an entire subplot just so that we don’t completely fucking waste all the time Dylan is…doing whatever the fuck he’s doing. But we don’t have a movie if that asshole doesn’t get back here soon. You really have no idea where he is?”

I shrug and shake my head again.

“No. Of course not. It was only your job to keep track of him. It was only the very fucking thing that we asked you to do. Why would you know? Why would you do your job?”

“Michael,” I say, leaning forward and clasping my hands like I’m begging in a silent movie, “I know. It was my job to watch him. But I can’t stop him from doing stuff like this. How could I? What was I supposed to do? Nobody knew this news would break.”

“Wrong!” Michael shouts, his hands shooting out in front of him like he’s just caught an imaginary basketball. “Wrong, Gemma! We knew! We knew some shit would happen with Dylan, and that includes this kind of shit. We never expected you to handcuff him to you, but the problem is, you have no idea where he is! No clue when he’ll be back, and no way of getting through to him!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Are you? How much of this is because you were screwing him, Gemma?”

I stare at him, shock spilled all over my face.

“Oh yeah,” he says, nodding. “We know all about that. I saw the pics of you two leaving your apartment looking very fucking cozy. I had to pull in every favor with every piece of shit in town to stop them from putting those pics out. A lot of fucking money too.”

I gasp for air for a few seconds before speaking. “Really? Thank you! Oh God, thank you, Michael!”

“Don’t thank me!” he says, as if offended at the gratitude. “I didn’t do it for you! I did it for the company! You represent us¸ Gemma. If they knew we were fucking the actors we’d lose even more money than we already are – which is way too fucking much by the way.”

I hang my head, the silence feeling almost as crushing and as humiliating as the shouting. I wait for the final blow, hoping that Michael will just make it quick and simple. No discussion, no weird vibe, just tell me I’m fired and let me go back to my Ben and Jerry’s.

“Well,” he says, his voice dropping a few decibels, but still forcefully loud, “what are you going to do about it?”

I look up, confused.

“Do about it?” I somehow manage to mumble.

Michael nods. “Yes. Do about it. What? Did you think we would just let this go?”

“No, I thought—”

“’Oh, I happen to have lost the star of the picture.’ ‘Ok, Gemma, why don’t you pop back to accounts then and make yourself busy.’”

I shake my head. “I thought you’d just fire me.”

“Fire you? Get a grip, Gemma! You’re the only chance we’ve got at fixing this right now! You need to find whatever rock Dylan