JESSICA (JESSIE)
8:00 A.M.
I want to quit my job.
Don’t get me wrong: Staring at the Sexiest Man Alive (according to People magazine, not me) is not the worst way to spend a morning. It’s just, you know, when he opens his mouth that we have a problem.
“So I’m a little unclear here…” I begin carefully. “You spent a hundred thousand dollars on a pair of shoes…”
“Two pairs of shoes,” Justin Hayes corrects me, then proudly flashes me his big laser-whitened smile. “Pretty fiscally responsible of me, huh?”
I want to say, “They’re shoes,” in the driest way possible, but I decide to keep my job for at least two more minutes. “It’s just that I’m wondering how such a purchase fits in with your goal to cut your expenses by thirty percent this year?”
Justin pulls out his phone and begins ignoring me to read his screen. “You should look happier, Jess. Clearly I’ve cut my expenses by fifty percent. I just told you, I got two pairs of shoes for the price of one.”
I silently breathe in a cleansing breath, then continue. “Fair enough. Can we maybe agree not to spend any more money on shoes this year?”
He looks up from his phone. “When I win an eBay auction, that doesn’t actually mean I won something, right?”
I’m afraid to ask. So instead I answer, “No. It means you were the highest bidder, and you now have to pay for whatever it is you bought.”
Justin scrunches his lips so close that they disappear. “Hm.” He shrugs, then pockets his iPhone. “So we’ll have something to talk about next month. Do you have cookies?”
I give him a tight smile. “Sure.” Then I press the intercom. “Jacquie, can you bring some cookies in for Mr. Hayes?”
“Are they vegan?” Justin asks me.
I push the intercom button again, wondering in that split second where my life went. “Jacquie can you bring us some vegan cookies?”
“What the hell are vegan cookies?” Jacquie asks through the intercom, not realizing she’s on speaker.
Seriously, how can you live in Los Angeles and not know what a vegan cookie is?
“They’re cookies without butter,” I tell her. “Or eggs.”
“Why would anyone eat cookies without butter?” she asks.
Justin knocks my hand out of the way so he can push the button. “Jacquie, honey, I made a mistake. I’m not vegan this week, I’m gluten free.”
“So you want gluten-free cookies?” Jacquie asks.
“Yes.”
“Then I amend my question: Why would anyone eat cookies without gluten?”
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Justin. “She’s new here and a little green.”
“She’s smoking hot. Do you think she’d go out with me?”
“Doesn’t your wife frown on you dating?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “Not as much as you’d think.”
Jacquie, 19 and a size 0, strides in and places a bag of (not gluten-free) Milano cookies on my desk. “These are the only cookies in the kitchen right now. Are Starburst gluten free?” she asks Justin, who turns to me for an answer (like I have any idea).
“Do you have a pot brownie?” Justin asks her.
Jacquie’s face lights up. “In my purse! Let me go get it.”
As she walks out, I return to my lecture. “Okay, so you can’t live without super-nice shoes. What red-blooded American man doesn’t feel that way? What if we got rid of your plane? You could be saving…”
“I can’t give up my plane. Then I’d have to go through the regular airport.”
“So?”
“So my wife might not exactly frown on my dating, but she does frown on TMZ taking pictures of me and my mistress coming back from Bora Bora. One-hundred-mile rule and all that.”
“You have a mistress?” Jacquie says as she glides back in and hands him the brownie. “That’s a shame. I thought you were hot.”
Justin is unfazed by the rejection, turning away from me to check out Jacquie’s backside as she returns to her desk. After she disappears, he turns back to me. “So, what other cuts can I make to my budget? Let’s keep this ball rolling.”
“Well, You own five vacation houses, each of which requires money for upkeep, insurance, etc. How do you feel about selling two of them?”
“Which two?” he asks me.
“Which ones are you not using as much?”
He looks up to think. “And by ‘as much’ you mean…”
“At all,” I instantaneously rephrase. “Which ones are you not using at all?”
Justin furrows his brow. “Okay, I’m definitely using the Miami house…”
“You don’t own a Miami house…”
“Oh. Well, that’s disappointing. Do I own one in Prague? I feel like I should own one in Prague.”
“No.”
“Should I buy one in Prague?”
“Please don’t. Why don’t we go over the five houses, and you can pick two to sell. Now the house in Bora Bora…”
Justin nearly spits out his brownie. “Wait! I have a house there? Damn! I have been wasting a LOT of money renting overwater bungalows. I mean, don’t get me wrong, women LOVE overwater bungalows.” He flashes me his sexiest smile. “If you know what I mean.”
I nod wearily and try to smile back. “You leave little to the imagination.”
Jacquie reappears. “I found gluten-free ham. Would that work?”
Justin turns to her. “Want to go to my house in Bora Bora before I sell it?”
While she makes a show of considering it, all I can think is, This is going to be a long fucking day.
9:00 A.M.
I want to quit my job.
“Time is of the essence here,” Chad, my trust fund baby client (and yes, his name really is Chad), tells me in irritation. “I only have nine hundred and sixty thousand to last me until the end of the year. So what can I cut? Are there any charities I can get rid of?”
Dear Karma: Seriously—how can you explain this guy?
I look down at his list of bills, printed out in front of me. The guy gets several million dollars a year from his family, and yet he still can’t afford to buy a house. I take a deep breath, and begin, “As you don’t actually donate to any charities, Mr. Connors, I’m afraid eliminating that line from the budget doesn’t do you much good. However, as I told you over the phone”—(when he called me at one in the morning during a bender in Vegas)—“If we’re going to cut expenses, I think we should start with your cars…”
“Babe, I’m not taking the bus.”
“I’m not suggesting that. But maybe you don’t need seven cars.”
“Oh, come on. None of them are that expensive. Why, I’m pretty sure I have a Prius in there.”
His girlfriend’s car, I’m betting.
“Fair enough,” I say, suppressing a sigh. “What’s a hyperbaric oxygen chamber?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“I thought since you bought two of them last month…”
“Then obviously I need them,” he says with a tone of disdain. Then he quickly reverses course. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m sure the girlfriend bought them as part of her healing regimen. She’s got a private yoga instructor now too. Trying to be all Zen after I gave her a gift last month that was not graciously received.”
“Did you give her flowers? Because you guys are spending an awful lot on—”
“I gave her something from Vegas. A little surprise I picked up that she was not happy with.”
“Oh. Well, can she return it? Because the money—”
“It was a disease. I have this booty call in Vegas, and apparently she sees other dudes when I’m not in town.”
I make a note on the list of bills. “Which would explain the ten-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal in Henderson…”
“She’s worth it. Do you know what the girlfriend experience is?”
I look up. “She makes you miss football on Sunday to go antiquing?”
“You’re funny, Jess. Oh … but you should be proud of me here … she’s totally comping me the next time I’m in town because of that … uh … gift she gave me.”
“Clearly, she’s a woman of character,” I tell him as I scroll down more expenses. Then I ask. “Back to the flowers. You and your girlfriend are having four bouquets delivered twice a week from the most expensive florist in Beverly Hills.”
Now Chad looks irritated. “Yeah?”
Deep breaths, Jessie. “Okay, well, for example, one of the bouquets, the peonies, cost six hundred and twenty-seven dollars. Now, if you could go for only having flowers delivered once a week…”
“Oh, please. These are minor changes. You might as well tell me not to go to Starbucks for a Venti Mocha. Give me a big item to cross off the list.”
“Big item! You got it! You spent one hundred and twenty thousand dollars last month on ‘entertainment.’ If you could bring that down to even forty thousand a month…”
Chad pulls out his phone, pressing a button as he stands up to let himself out. “You know what? I’m late to a thing. You’ll figure it out.” As he walks out without so much as a good-bye, I hear him tell the person on the other end of the phone, “Linda. Send my accountant Jessica some peonies.”
10:00 A.M.
I want to firebomb my building.
On the other side of my desk now sits Methuselah and his trophy wife, Tiffani, who’s dressed like a sex doll, and dots her i’s with hearts. (I’m not being a bitch; her official signature has hearts on it. Okay, I am being a bitch—but how can I not be? Seriously!)
“So I understand why you paid for a reverse vasectomy,” I tell Methus … Mr. Kennedy.
“He needed it so we could have children,” Tiffani practically spits out at me.
“Of course. And mazel tov, by the way. I’m sure you’ll make an amazing mother.”
And he’ll make an amazing great grandfather. Nope, need this job.
“Now what I’m unclear on is why you’re still spending money every month on maintenance for sperm you froze in the 1990s.”
Mr. Kennedy’s eyes nearly pop out at me as Tiffani asks me, “What does that mean? Maintenance on sperm he froze?”
I nervously look over at Mr. Kennedy. He pleads with me with his eyes. I take a deep breath and tell her, “My mistake. It’s just a medical expense.”
“Daddy Issues” turns to her husband. “This is why we need a man accountant. She doesn’t understand what a medical expense is.”
“Mrs. Kennedy, I assure you that any accountant in the city will tell you that Juvederm and Botox injections are not medical expenses…”
“But I need them for my job.”
“Oh. Are you working?”
“Yes. I’m his wife. I have to look good for his client dinners.”
Methuselah closes his eyes, lowers his chin, and appears to drift off to sleep.
11:00 A.M.
I wonder if it’s too late to get into hooking? Nah. I’d still have to deal with the Chads and the Methuselahs of the world.
My next client comes in with a full-on crew: including a director of photography (DP), lighting guy, gaffer, and two hair and makeup people.
Oh, and a director. Who, as the gaffer and DP set up lights around my office, tells me, “So the feeling here is aspirational. I need you to let the audience know how rich Gretchen is without actually saying it.”
Did I mention that my client is a reality star known mostly for a sex tape she made before marrying a sitcom star? Or maybe she made the sex tape with a famous sitcom star and then married her husband? Or her dad defended a famous murd … Well, anyway, only in L.A. could an accountant come back from a secret donut and two-minute coffee break to a lighting crew and a guy putting black tape on her carpet and showing her her mark.
“But she’s not rich. She declared bankruptcy last year,” I point out to the director. Then I turn to Gretchen and say gently, “You do know you’re not rich, right?”
Before she can say anything, the director says, “Love it! So just talk to Gretchen like you would any other client who’s wasting money. Maybe give her a lecture, so our viewers can feel superior, yet make it clear this is how she lives, so they can want to be like her.”
I think I can manage that.
Is it too early to start drinking?