– which to them was anything but a baggy sweat-suit. If it were up to them, I would be cruising through Los Angeles in a burkha.
‘You’re lucky that we need someone to start immediately, and that I can’t be bothered to interview any more this morning. So I hope I don’t regret this, but I’m going to give you a shot,’ she said. ‘Welcome to the Hollywood Insider.’
Within minutes, I was signing contracts and having my social security card photocopied and being shown around a glossy set of offices by a man called Lou, Hilda’s assistant.
‘This is where the Hollywood Insider is put together. That’s just one division of the company, the one you’ll be involved with. The rest of the building is ours as well,’ Lou said, as if he’d recited the same speech a million times before.
I couldn’t help hearing snippets of conversation coming through the glass-enclosed booths, the tops of the cluttered desks filled with flat-screen computers, brightly coloured in-trays, stacks of pens and mobile phones charging. Everywhere there were photographs of movie stars – a big black-and-white shot of Jackie Chan lay on the floor, a signed picture of Julia Roberts was pinned to a corkboard. People were chatting on their phones, scribbling notes, yelling over their desks things like, ‘Harrison Ford’s guy is on line two.’ I was in the same room as people who knew people who knew Harrison Ford, who, like Brad Pitt, was famous even in India.
From what I’d seen in the movies, I had thought I would be sitting in front of a large wall repeating ‘Hold, please’ every five seconds, switching little wires in and out of sockets. Isn’t that what a receptionist did?
Instead, I was installed behind a large circular desk that had a counter above it, making me feel even smaller and more hidden. Jerry, a young man from the IT department, had come along to ask me if I had any questions about how the phone system worked.
‘Everyone here has direct lines, so most of their calls come through on those,’ he instructed. ‘But sometimes people call the main line – that’s you – and you’ll need to direct them. So here’s a list of everyone’s names, what their job titles are, and their extensions. And this row of buttons – that’s for you if you need to buzz anyone in-house, like my department, or accounting, or security. Especially security,’ he said. ‘Anyway, you think you got that?’
As soon as Jerry had gone I called Sanjay to tell him that I had got the job, was starting right away, and wouldn’t be home until evening.
‘Congrats, honey!’ he said. He had started calling me ‘honey’ recently, leading me to believe that he had been watching too much Days of Our Lives on the television in his office. ‘I’ve been a bit worried, didn’t hear from you all morning,’ he said. ‘I left a couple of messages on your mobile. As long as everything is OK …’
‘Yes, fine. Better go now,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t want them to think I’m not doing anything on my first day. I’ll speak to you later, hah?’
Hollywood Insider, as I read from a company brochure I found in my desk, was a newcomer to the world of entertainment publishing. Its purpose was to ‘provide accurate, entertaining, informative and illuminating news and features on movie stars, their films, and the world they inhabit’. The parent company, Galaxy Holdings, also published a tabloid, called Weekly Buzz, which was located two floors down. Stardom, the cable television channel Galaxy owned, was an even more recent arrival on the scene.
In between taking and rerouteing calls, I leafed through a few recent issues of the magazine. There were long interviews with major movie stars, short items about production deals gone sour and a page devoted to who was wearing what at last week’s premieres. Everyone around me was beautiful and busy, and I gazed at them from behind my desk, where I was barely visible unless I stood up. They were the kind of people that my father, in his infinite cleverness, would describe as ‘the impression-making sort’.
In the middle of the morning, a smiling redhead came up to me with a trolley.
‘Hi, I’m Deanna from the mail room,’ she said. ‘You’re new here, right? Every few weeks, there seems like there’s someone new here. Not that it’s a bad job – in fact I think it’s a great job, but people don’t seem to stick around that long. What’s your name?’ she asked, finally stopping for breath.
‘Priya,’ I said, standing up. ‘Very nice to meet you.’
‘Anything to send out?’ she asked, scanning the top of the counter above my desk. ‘I’ll be coming by a few times a day, but this is the first call.’
‘Um, nothing yet. Is there anything else I should know?’ I asked.
‘Well, let’s see. For the most part, everyone is supernice. But,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘there’s a couple of people down there,’ and she motioned with her thumb to the corridor where all the writers sat, ‘that can be really mean. Just, what’s that word, terrestrial?’
‘I think you mean territorial,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that, whatever,’ she continued, flicking my words away with her hand. ‘Some of them down there get really snippety about newcomers, think that everyone is after their jobs. I mean, so paranoid!’ she said, rolling her eyes, and fingering one of the six silver rings that lined her left ear.
‘So where you from, anyway?’ she asked, cupping her chin in her hand and leaning against the counter on an elbow. ‘You got a real unusual accent. What is it, like, Toledo?’
‘Um, India, actually,’ I said. ‘Not Toledo. Delhi.
‘Are we allowed to be talking like this?’ I asked, looking around nervously. ‘I don’t want to get caught.’
Deanna looked at me disbelievingly and giggled.
‘Where do you think you are – boarding school? It’s just an office, for God’s sake. Sure we’re allowed to talk. It’s not like we’re in some lock-up, although I guess sometimes it might feel that way!’
Lou came by, and I shuffled some papers, lowered my eyes, and said goodbye to Deanna, who shook her head, rolled her eyes and walked away.
‘You can take an hour off for lunch, between one and two,’ Lou said. ‘Just don’t forget to turn the system to voicemail, and check any messages when you get back.’
I was suddenly hungry – I hadn’t had any breakfast this morning, convinced I’d be back home in no time – so at exactly one, I made my way back down in the lift, which stopped on each floor until it was filled. I kept my eyes lowered as I heard these people in their relaxed, slurry accents talking about what had happened this morning or debating between Chinese and a sandwich. I was the last to emerge when we reached the lobby, stepped out through the big glass doors, and wasn’t sure where to go next. Everyone else had gone off in pairs and groups, leaving me standing there alone. The sun was beating down strong and hard, causing me to squint to find my bearings. Cars whizzed back and forth as I stood in the parking lot, looking out across the wide, busy boulevard. There were dozens of places to eat, and I just had to choose somewhere to go. In a way, it felt lovely to be this free; that the next hour was mine to do with exactly as I wanted, instead of having to cut short my shower, which I often had to do at home, because the aubergine might be burning.
I opened my wallet and found that I still had the twenty dollars that was left over from last week’s housekeeping money, which would buy
