The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare Page A

him all morning, made myself look even more moronic than I really was as an assistant, and come all this way to pick him up. And he was just yelling at me.
    “I need something to wear to lunch, for Chrissake. Pants? Socks? Shirt?”
    “What happened to yours?” I asked stupidly. I really had to learn when to just do and not ask.
    “Fuck, Lizzie. Not the time for twenty questions. Some bitch stole them. I need something to put on.” He paced around the dingy room, which was definitely not the Four Seasons. It smelled of sweat and smoke and every bodily fluid you didn’t want to imagine. I held my breath.
    “Okay, well I have this Juicy Couture sweatsuit that I just bought, out in the car. But it’s meant for girls—”
    “Go get it, then. I have a lunch, and I cannot wear a goddamn towel. At least not one from this motel!” he yelled, and I darted from the room. Happy to run to the parking lot and refill my lungs.
    I was less happy to part with the brown paper bag containing my brand-new Ceylon blue Juicy sweatsuit that I’d bought at a sample sale on Sunday to cheer myself up. I knew that once I gave it to Scott, I’d never see it again. Though, on second thought, I’d never want to see it again, as he was clearly going to have to wear it without underwear, and judging by where he’d been sleeping . . . well, I’d have to boil it first. I handed it over and told myself that it was only a material possession and not life or death or anything really important. But it still hurt.
    When Scott finally sat down in the passenger seat wearing my snug-fitting prize possession, I could have wept for my loss. That is until I looked at him properly and realized how eye-poppingly ridiculous he looked, and then I nearly howled out loud with laughter. The top was cropped, and he’d zipped it all the way to the neck. The drawstring pants were hanging low so that his hairy stomach was exposed, and the sleeves were about four inches too short. He just looked so un-Scott that, before I could help myself, out slipped a quick giggle.
    “Are you laughing at me?” Scott snapped.
    I bit my lip and shook my head. “No, of course not,” I said stoically.
    “You better fucking not be,” he said as he sulkily lit up a cigarette without asking if he could smoke in my car. And without opening the window. But as we headed out onto Fairfax toward the Four Seasons, Scott began to stroke the plush velour on his thigh contemplatively.
    “I look pretty faggy, huh?” he said with a curl of his lip.
    “Just a bit.” I gulped back a snicker. With that he began to crack up, and seconds later we were tearing across town in my aging banger,laughing hysterically in the bright, midday sunshine to the sounds of soft rock on the radio.
    “I just can’t believe it,” I said as I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “You’re going to walk into a restaurant wearing that and take a meeting with Steven S.”
    “Goddamn right I am,” Scott said defiantly. “Those bitches thought they’d screw me over. But I’m not gonna let them win.”
    “Which bitches?” I asked instinctively, before wondering whether grilling my boss about his sordid private life was a wise move.
    “You really wanna know?” he asked earnestly.
    “Sure.” I shrugged. “I really want to know how you came to be in that den of iniquity at eleven A . M . without a stitch of clothing and a car.”
    And maybe I shouldn’t have asked. But too late now. Scott lit up another cigarette, pushed his seat back for more legroom, and began.
    “I was planning to go straight home after the premiere last night. I’d even laid off the sauce and left the party early to get some sleep for this lunch with Steven. Which I have to say I’m fucking proud of scoring. And as I’m driving home, at a stoplight on Doheny, this woman in a black Range Rover starts checking me out. I swear to God, Lizzie, she was hot! No more than twenty-three. Little pigtail things in her hair. And