one
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BLAIR
“Who’s the hottie?”
My assistant Stella leans over my shoulder to get a closer look at my searched images of Sophia Ford, the twenty-four-year-old best actress Oscar winner, and her brother. Sophia is on my list of dream clients to represent. With any luck, I’ll convince her to sign with me before summer’s over. However, her brother should have received an Oscar for his role as the popular guy in high school who can make you believe anything he wants.
“His name is Wyatt Bradford, and he’s not that hot.”
He is that hot.
Dark blond hair, short on the sides and a little longer on the top, but in this pic, it’s slicked back. His eyes gaze into the camera and are the same ice blue I remember. Still tall and still working out, I see. That shirt is struggling to stay buttoned across his toned chest. His tan suit wraps around his body, hugging his muscular thighs, and is that a crease right there, or is that…
“Ohmygod, Blair, you can see the outline of his penis!” Stella shrieks behind me.
I slam the laptop closed, stand, and walk away from the desk to get a breath of clean, Wyatt-free air and shake his memory out of my head. I haven’t spoken to Wyatt in twelve years. He looks good. Exactly like a selfish dick who would lead you on and then stomp all over your heart. But still undeniably hot.
“Were you able to get passes for thePink Slipseason two premiere?” I ask Stella as I grab my phone. She follows me out of my office as we head down to the conference room for our team huddle.
I discovered that Sophia is obsessed with the dark comedy about managers killing off employees who aren’t meeting their potential in the office. I’ve seen a few episodes. It reminds me of aHunger GamesmeetsThe Officemashup. It’s dark but funny.
“Of course I did.” She gives me a disappointed look for daring to doubt her. “I’ll have a courier bring them to her tomorrow. You still want to go, too, right? And will you have a plus-one?”
I see the look of hope in Stella’s eyes, always rooting for me and my “one day it will happen” plus-one. I both love and hate that she’s a hopeless romantic.
“Just me.”
“Well, I’ve got something better than a plus-one for you. Sophia agreed to meet with you. She’s shooting at Everest Studios this week and can meet between her scenes.”
“The greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life was hire you,” I say while going in for a hug.
Stella started interning for me during her senior year of college, and I hired her as soon as she graduated. It’s been three years now, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. She’s my secret weapon, and some days, I think she knows me better than I know myself.
“Oh, stop it, Blair. I hate it when you get dramatic about things that are literally in my job description.” She blushes, but I know she loves the praise.
As one of the top female talent agents in this city, I have a reputation as a girl’s girl. I was in law school during the #metoo movement and had a front-row seat to the shift for women. The opportunities I had to impact and support legislature during law school were historical. Too bad I only realized I didn’t want to be a lawyer after I graduated.
So, I moved to LA, and in a moment of right place, right time, I met Lance Wynn. He’s the CEO of The Wynn Agency—a talent agency known around Hollywood as TWA. He seduced me with the idea that I could make a difference. As an agent, I could find and sell stories that might change the world, stories that might shed light on topics like poverty, discrimination, or injustice. Plus, my background and law degree would give me a leg up in the negotiation and contract process. Lance sold me when he grabbed my hands across the bistro table we were sitting at for lunch and told me he believed women were the future of this industry.
That was my first lesson about how this town works. Tell your client whatever they want to hear to close the deal. I do focus on women—I almost exclusively sign female talent—but getting Lance to take any of my projects seriously, or prioritize them, is getting harder. After the pandemic, it’s like the Hollywood mindset has reverted to “the good old days,” and the scramble to make money has the industry leaning on the tried-and-true superheroes and sequels.
But I’m determined to prove the future is female. That’s the reason for the Sophia Google search. Her current agent is an icon in the industry, and she’s old school. Rumor has it she’s retiring this fall and Sophia’s looking for someone who can capitalize on her recent accolades and prevent her from being cast in stereotypical roles.
I want to represent her. I know I would be a perfect fit for her.
If Sophia agreed to meet, then it’s my opportunity to lose. She wouldn’t entertain the conversation if she weren’t open to the idea of representation. I have some leads on a few significant projects I know she will be interested in, and I know I can convince her I’m the right choice. The premiere this week will help spotlight some of my contacts and relationships, too.
“Fine. But you know it’s true.” I take a seat at the large conference room table while Stella joins the other assistants in the chairs along the wall. The assistants are the lifeblood of this agency, but God forbid they get a seat at the table.
When I open my laptop, the image of Wyatt is still on the screen. The search took me right down the rabbit hole to Wyatt’s bio. He works for his father’s law firm, which isn’t a surprise, but he had other dreams.
As general counsel, Wyatt guides the firm’s attorneys on a wide range of matters, including client intake, legal ethics and professional responsibility, engagement management, and policy development and compliance.
Wyatt earned his Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law, where he served as an editor of theUCLA Law Review. He graduatedmagnacum laudefrom the University of California, Los Angeles, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in accounting.
My investigative skills must be lacking because I could only find his bio on the law firm’s website. It doesn’t tell me anything about if he’s single or dating or what he’s been doing for the last twelve years. Would it kill him to get an Instagram account? I’d even settle for a Linked In account.
