The Go-To Girl Read online

  ‘It’s heavy, so I’d better get on,’ I say.

  ‘Mike’s wondering what the “top secret” meeting is all about,’ Rob says which causes my skin to go all creepy with dislike.

  ‘Is he?’ I ask sweetly. Two can play this game.

  Rob purses his lips. ‘We’re all on the same team, you know,’ he hisses. ‘Mike has thought for some time you’re not a team player, Anna. Actually.’

  ‘If Mike wants to know what the meeting’s about, why doesn’t he ask Kitty?’

  ‘I’m asking you,’ Rob says.

  ‘I can’t tell you.’ This is perfectly true, as I have no idea myself.

  ‘Well!’ he says huffily. ‘I won’t forget this, you know.’

  ‘I will,’ I say. ‘Bye, Rob,’ and swoop the groaning tray past him with an agility that will do me credit in my future coffee-shop career.

  Kitty looks up sharply when I come in. She is tapping her pencil impatiently against her desk. I really don’t think she needs any more caffeine.

  ‘Get lost?’ she inquires acidly.

  ‘No, Rob Stanford stopped me,’ I say, attempting innocence. ‘He wanted to know what this meeting was about.’

  ‘Did he indeed,’ Kitty hisses darkly. Her heavily lined eyes sweep the three of us. ‘For Mike Watson, no doubt. What I am about to tell you remains on this team. Understand?’

  ‘Absolutely! Of course,’ John gushes. ‘I would never betray your confidence, Kitty, I hope you know that…’

  She cuts him off with a wave of her blood-red talons. ‘Anna?’

  ‘Sure,’ I shrug. I can’t stand Mike anyway.

  Kitty gives Sharon a piercing gaze. ‘If it leaks, Sharon, I’ll know it was you. This information is to be absolutely private.’

  ‘OK,’ says Sharon, sulkily.

  Kitty takes a sip of her espresso just to draw out the suspense.

  ‘The company is being taken over,’ she says. ‘My sources tell me there’s interest from New York, there’s interest from LA. Serious players. Looking to take over our projects. Our people and our talent.’

  ‘Somebody from LA?’ asks Sharon, her eyes gleaming now. Visions of being discovered dancing in her head.

  ‘Of course, if any bids are made, they’re going to look at all the resources of Winning,’ says Kitty sternly. ‘Bringing in a new, fresh approach. Cutting the dead wood.’

  ‘Winnowing out the chaff,’ says John, adoringly.

  ‘And I – we – are not going to be seen as dead wood. I want a project. Something big and brash that I can bring to the table. Something with “hit” all over it,’ Kitty says. ‘Find me something I can package. I want to attach Hugh. Or Catherine. Even Jude, at a pinch. And I want a jump on—’

  ‘Your colleagues?’ asks Sharon.

  ‘The competition,’ Kitty snaps. ‘You do know, Sharon, that the first thing new management does is fire people? People that aren’t performing, people that get bad evaluations?’

  Sharon swallows drily.

  ‘Was there anything in the weekend read?’

  We all shake our heads.

  ‘Nothing?’ Kitty seems very put out. ‘Don’t give me that. Where is your coverage?’

  John and Sharon look sheepish.

  ‘I’ve done a page of coverage notes,’ John blusters.

  ‘For twenty scripts?’

  ‘It was all they deserved, Kitty, I assure you,’ he says defensively.

  She sighs. ‘Get it on my desk. Sharon?’

  Sharon blushes. ‘My notes were mainly in my head…’

  ‘You mean you didn’t read any of the scripts,’ Kitty says. ‘You’re a waste of space. You’d better come up with something fast, Sharon. Or you won’t be here long enough to meet the new bidders.’

  ‘OK,’ Sharon says meekly.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘There was nothing,’ I agree. ‘But I have two pages on each script. I’ll bring them to you.’

  ‘God, no,’ says Kitty, losing interest immediately. ‘How dull. Just get me something, Anna. Get me something. There’s something in it for the first person who does.’

  For the first time all day I feel a flicker of something unusual. Hope. That’s what it is.

  ‘What would that be?’ I ask, trying to sound all casual, like I don’t care.

  ‘Advancement,’ Kitty says in her most serious voice. ‘Your big break.’

  Ooh. Why not?

  It’s not impossible, I think to myself as I sit in my cubicle. I could be the reader that finds that one gem and champions it. Kitty backs me up, and together we find ourselves in development meetings, where I will, naturally, speak so eloquently and passionately that they’ll have to take on my project. And Kitty gets made into a Vice-President of Production, while I move up to Development Executive. With a transfer to Los Angeles. And readers of my own, and an apartment in a complex with gated security, manicured lawns, and a pool …

  Maybe not a pool. My tummy has not seen a swimsuit since I was fourteen and it was compulsory. But I could have a nice car. A convertible. I bet Brian would love to date me then.

  I look over at Sharon and John. They have already been down to the mail room for their mail. Sharon has actually swiped more scripts than usual – that’s not something you see every day. They both have a nice neat pile stacked on their desks, and are eagerly flicking through them.

  My phone buzzes.

  ‘Hi.’ It’s Kitty. ‘Come back in.’

  ‘Do you want the others?’

  ‘Did I say I wanted the others? Just you. Come back in,’ she snaps. ‘And don’t let them see you.’

  Gosh, this is all very exciting today. It’s almost like Wall Street or something. I gingerly get up and go to the kitchen for a plate of biscuits. Low-carb oatmeal, Kitty’s favourite. Though I think she’s kidding herself, because how can biscuits be low-carb?

  I sneak back towards her office carrying the plate of cookies for cover, but neither Sharon nor John even looks at me. They are too busy straining their eyes with the unaccustomed task of actually reading something.

  I shut the door behind me and sit on the couch.

  ‘Sit down,’ Kitty says.

  ‘Um, thanks,’ I say. ‘Cookie?’

  ‘What? I didn’t ask for cookies.’

  ‘It was just an excuse,’ I say.

  ‘Oh. Yes, very clever. No thank you, I’m watching my weight,’ she says with heavy emphasis, letting me know she is not fooled by the forgiving drape of my skirt, nor my long-sleeved shirt that is meant to disguise my flabby arms. ‘Now, Anna, you know you’re the only one I can trust and that I have absolute confidence in you.’

  This is news. ‘You do?’ I ask hopefully.

  ‘Oh, of course. You’re my go-to girl,’ she says. ‘And I want you to know the real skinny.’

  I bite my cheeks to stop from saying, ‘Sorry. I don’t speak American.’

  ‘Great,’ I offer weakly.

  ‘The bidder for the company,’ she says, ‘is Eli Roth.’

  I sit a bit straighter. ‘Eli Roth? Of Red Crest Productions?’

  ‘You know who he is?’ demands Kitty, her eyes narrowing. ‘How?’

  ‘I read the trades,’ I say. Like, only every day. How could I not know who Eli Roth is? He founded Red Crest as a bright Stanford MBA and built it into a mini studio, the West Coast’s answer to Miramax. He’s mostly known for two things: hit movies and cost-cutting. Red Crest are constantly buying out smaller production houses, taking their best talent and projects, and firing everyone else.

  I can see why Kitty’s anxious. We need a hit movie soon, or we’re dead.

  ‘Anna. Anna.’ Kitty snaps her fingers in front of my face. ‘Are you paying attention to me? Eli Roth is a big ideas man. We need to be ready when he comes. I’m relying on you to help me find the right project.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. How I’m going to do it I have no idea. It’s not as if I wasn’t already looking, is it?

  ‘And I have some good news for
you,’ Kitty says, lowering her voice to a paranoid whisper, though the door remains shut. ‘This will be a Greta Gordon film.’

  I perk up. Greta Gordon. Oscar-winning actress, former Hollywood uber-babe, huge in the eighties. Greta went through a My Drugs Hell and, after getting bounced off six major movies, her career in rags, finally did a stint at the Betty Ford to clean up. And then she quit films altogether, moving to England to be a recluse and escape the paparazzi.

  ‘She wants to get back into films?’

  ‘This is classified,’ hisses Kitty, as though she had handed me a folder from MI6. ‘But yes. I’ve been working on her,’ she adds proudly.

  ‘Is she still clean?’

  ‘Nothing but mineral water and the odd vitamin,’ says Kitty.

  I nod. It would certainly be big publicity if Greta returned. ‘But isn’t she a touch old?’

  Kitty draws herself up. At her, undetermined, age, she refuses to accept that any woman is too old.

  ‘She’s as vibrant and lovely as ever.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And she’s looking for a lead. A romantic lead.’ Kitty draws another circle in the air, diamond glittering. ‘Something light, she wants. A comedy.’

  ‘Riiiiiiiiight,’ I say.

  A romantic comedy lead for a 45-year-old former reclusive actress. Well, that should be easy to find, huh? In an industry where thirty equals past it?

  I want to speak up, tell her it’s impossible. But instead I amaze myself by saying, in a very small voice, ‘And then can I have a promotion?’

  ‘What?’ barks Kitty.

  ‘You know, if I find you the script,’ I say. ‘Can I be made a development executive?’

  Kitty stares at me.

  ‘Of course I’d still be working for you,’ I reassure her, ‘because you would have got promoted.’

  ‘I would,’ she purrs.

  ‘You’d be a vice-president. Out in LA. And you’d need a development girl you can trust.’

  Kitty hums, pressing her skinny lips together.

  ‘You’d need to stay in England,’ she says eventually.

  Man. She’s really agreeing? If she were just blowing me off she’d yes me to death.

  ‘You have expertise in the UK market. It’s a good source Eli’d want to keep using,’ she says, dreamily. Already he’s ‘Eli’ to her and she’s his right-hand woman.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I say, with a pang of regret for the tan and the hibiscus flowers. But hey. What would a girl like me do with a tan anyway? ‘So, that’s a deal, then? If I can get you the right script, you’ll give me a promotion?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Kitty looks deep into my eyes. ‘You have my word on it.’

  Then she spins her chair away and looks out of the window, building her empire as she stares over London.

  ‘Just get me that script, Anna.’

  3

  Why am I here?

  I’m standing on the stone steps that lead up to Vanna’s porch, having just blown twelve quid on a taxi fare down to leafy Barnes. Vanna has one of those fabulous houses, all Georgian, with grey columns around the porch, high yew hedges to shield her from the road, and pebbles all over her drive. Her Land Rover is parked next to Rupert’s racing-green Aston Martin, and behind the house is a small but glorious walled garden.

  Vanna has carved out a little slice of the country in said walled garden. The hedges are thick with dogroses, and she has wisteria planted all along the walls, a few apple trees, and bulbs planted around them, so that there are flowers all year round. For winter, she has holly bushes and Christmas roses and winter jasmine.

  My finger hovers over the buzzer. I could still run away.

  I love Vanna to bits, and I even love coming here, especially on late summer evenings – when Rupert is away, doing business in New York or Tokyo, and Vanna’s two little angels have been packed off to bed by the live-in nanny. We go out in the garden and drink chilled white wine and eat organic strawberries, or whatever I want, really. It’s like holidaying in a life you could never afford. And I try not to feel too guilty about it, because we really are best friends and there’s just no way I could possibly pay her back. I can’t even afford to bring a bottle of champagne with me every time. Though I do have one tonight.

  However, I feel totally different about evenings like this one. Rupert is here, and he’s an ass. Well meaning, but an ass. And so is some other bloke. His name’s Charles, but at least he’s gay, so Vanna won’t start one of her wretched matchmaking evenings again. But still, that’s dinner for four, and I always feel completely out of place with Vanna’s brilliant, glittering friends, many of whom I can regularly read about in Nigel Dempster or Hello!

  I so don’t want to do this, but Vanna said she was desperate for a fourth, so here I am. I press the button.

  ‘Hi! Darling!’ Vanna is there in two seconds, hugging me, pressing me into a cloud of expensive scent. ‘Winston! Get down! He’s just trying to be friendly,’ she says to me, ineffectually tugging at bloody Winston’s collar.

  ‘Yes. I know. Hi, Winston,’ I say. Winston is a huge and ancient golden retriever who could shed dog hairs for England. Once again, I have somehow forgotten this fact and worn navy, and my neat little sheath dress is now covered in yellow hairs. ‘Get down, Winston. Good boy.’

  Winston enthusiastically jumps up on me and gives my entire face a huge lick, smudging my mascara and getting dog spit on my lipstick. I think the Koreans have the right idea when it comes to dogs. Though who’d want to eat this lumpen thing I have no idea.

  ‘Oh, look!’ Vanna laughs. ‘How hysterical. Look, darling…’

  Rupert emerges from the kitchen, a martini glass in hand. ‘Ha ha ha, great look for you, Anna! Winston, you’re such a bad dog,’ he adds, giving Winston a friendly shake of the head. ‘He’s only friendly, you know, Anna.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, trying to get my mouth to twist into some sort of rictus smile. ‘I’ll just go and mend my face.’

  A man appears by Rupert’s side. He’s five foot four, slender, wiry, and wearing an expensive-looking rather dandified grey suit and a lilac silk tie. He has a neatly clipped goatee beard. And a horrified look on his face. He murmurs something to Rupert.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s Anna,’ Rupert says jovially. ‘But she scrubs up a lot better than that! Don’t you, Anna? Just got the old Winston treatment! Anna, this is Charles Dawson!’

  ‘Excuse me a sec,’ I murmur, and flee to the downstairs loo.

  Oh hell. It’s a trick, isn’t it? Vanna has sunk to new depths this time. She promised me Charles was gay. She promised me interesting and cultured conversation, and expensive Indian food catered from their local high-class Indian restaurant.

  Instead, she’s trapped me. Again.

  Vanna is always trying to matchmake me. She has made my happiness her mission in life, which is fine, but there are other ways to make me happy than to stick me next to a bunch of uptight, self-absorbed wankers, I mean bankers, and make me suffer through an excruciating meal making small talk as they all try to get away. I’ve thought to myself in the past that I should carry a little black book to record all the excuses. Some of them are highly creative and I could probably recycle them at work. ‘Have to run, got that video conference with Koyoto.’ ‘Sorry, Vanna, have to pick up my dog – I have custody this weekend.’ ‘Is that the time? Must dash, got an operation tomorrow morning, better get some rest…’ At which point, a crestfallen Vanna will plead with them to stay, see them to the door, and then come back to me and hiss, ‘That went great, I think he really likes you,’ very loudly. And Rupert will snort.

  I dab my face with some wet loo paper and get rid of most of the mascara smudge. I suppose I shouldn’t be so harsh on Winston; he’s the only male I know who really values me.

  I take a deep breath. Face repair, check. Neutral make-up, check. I’m wearing my invariable palette: foundation, the slightest bit of brown blusher, mascara and liner and that’s it. Dress, check. It
’s navy. It’s a shift. It’s lined. Discreet string of small white (fake) pearls, check. Touch of perfume, check. Chanel No. 5. Very expensive, but I have made the same bottle last since Christmas. Mum and Dad always give me Chanel No. 5. I wouldn’t mind something else, like a cool mobile phone or, say, a fifty-pound note. Or even a different, lighter scent. But it’s the same every year and I always tell them it’s my absolute favourite present, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it.

  Maybe they’re on to something, too. When you are not pretty, you have different dress requirements from everybody else. Gorgeous girls spend ages in shops, feeling the fabric of this exquisite scarf, trying on that mini dress, or selecting something long and clingy. They dress to stand out, to get noticed. They like to change their looks. They are always trying to look like a different pretty girl, they want the must-have print or the must-grab handbag.

  Ugly girls have totally different needs. We dress to not be noticed. We want to be wallpaper, invisible. Don’t notice me. I want to just blend in.

  I have shopping down to a fine art. I am usually in and out in twenty minutes or less.

  The key is to be appropriate. Like tonight. Dinner with posh friends equals nondescript navy dress in heavy and therefore forgiving fabric, control-everything tights, a little bit of sheer to give it class, a string of cheap pearls (ditto), and Chanel No. 5 is a standard scent. I have three or four dresses much like this one and they’re great. Nobody ever gives you a second glance.

  I head out of the loo, bracing myself, and instantly run into a small throng of people. Vanna is moving amongst them, her neat brown cap of hair bouncing jauntily, kissing the air on the side of cheeks, and passing out glasses of champagne (not the stuff I brought; vintage Veuve Cliquot).

  ‘Vanna.’ I grab her toned arm with a pincer-like grip. ‘What is this?’

  ‘Well, originally it was going to be just the four of us,’ she lies weakly, ‘but these are all such nice people and I thought you would have a wonderful time with everybody…’

  Vanna also believes I need a social life. This is a nightmare. I could be at home, ploughing through scripts. Watching paint dry. Anything.