3-2
976 Words
AS THEY WRAP A FEW days later, Victor beckons Alex over with a crooked finger and invites him up to his office.
No matter how many times Alex has seen the inside of this space over the last few weeks, he can’t feel at ease here. He stays standing as Victor settles himself behind his desk, sitting only when Victor gestures for Alex to take the chair across from him.
The office is intimidating by design. Unlike the functional shabbiness of the space Paul shares with the other writers, Victor’s office is sleek and pristine. The walls are white, and the glass shelves built into them glitter in the light. The shelves themselves are full of the awards Victor and his shows have won. The desk, in contrast, is a glossy black, solid and sharp-edged like the shelves. Scattered across its surface is the detritus of the day-to-day business of running his empire: Scripts, a laptop, two tablets, a voice recorder, and a notebook. No technology is beyond or beneath him.
“How are you?” Victor asks. Victor is no less intimidating than his office, surely also by design. He’s not tall or particularly muscular, but he’s solidly built. His skin is a warm golden brown, his hair jet black. Alex doesn’t find him attractive, but that’s because Victor exists beyond such questions. His charisma is overwhelming and more than slightly frightening. He commands attention simply by doing nothing so much as sitting behind a desk.
Alex shakes his head. “People keep asking me that. But I’m pretty sure they don’t want the answers.”
“Because they’re being disingenuous or because the answer is terrible?”
Alex’s smile is all teeth. Something about Victor makes him profoundly aware of his canines. “Yes.”
“I can assure you,” Victor says. “I don’t ask questions I don’t care about the answer to.”
Alex collects his thoughts. Victor waits. He’ll wait for any answer he wants for as long as he has to.
Alex is surprised he doesn’t fear Victor more. Everyone else seems to. But while the focused attention of other men has always felt like danger, with Victor he is, he thinks, safe. And if not, at least he’s protected from anyone outside the room. Alex knows to take a bargain when he sees it.
“I’m in over my head. And I’m lonely,” he says.
He hadn’t meant to say that second part. But that’s what Victor does: force everyone he encounters to confession.
Alex understands why his buddies on crew are either awkward or awful with him and he should have expected the volume of people in the audience who hate Zach vociferously. The faux enthusiasm from people who are now his cast mates is harder. If Gemma isn’t jealous, he can’t understand why they are. Then again, they don’t know Gemma. Before he can manage any of that aloud, Victor speaks again.
“Did you think it wouldn’t be lonely?”
Alex blinks at him slowly. He can play the waiting game too.
Victor picks up a paper clip from the surface of the desk and uses his thumb to pry it open. “Weren’t you lonely in Indiana?”
Alex isn’t sure if the fidget is supposed to convey boredom or what Victor likes to do to other people. “I was all sorts of things in Indiana.”
“I’m sure.” Victor’s voice isn’t sharp, but he’s definitely scolding. “Now. Let’s talk about all the sorts of things you should and shouldn’t be here.”
“Like what?” Alex asks warily.
“Like don’t be the twenty year old star that gets caught having a drink at a bar. Don’t do drugs, either, but you’re not the type. Don’t f**k fans, prostitutes, or anyone who will blackmail you. Don’t get your heart broken, because no one here has any time for that, and don’t —”
“I know all that,” Alex snaps.
“Do you?” Victor raises his eyebrows in a mockery of innocence. “You’d be the first of many.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Victor leans forward over the desk. “You don’t even know what you are.”
“And you do?”
“I know what you can become. And I have no interest investing time in something that’s going to blow itself up.”
“Has that happened before?” Alex isn’t sure what he thinks of Victor calling him a thing. He is, however, sure he wants to know whether Victor has a habit of breaking his new toys.
“You’re from Indiana, what do you think?”
Alex doesn’t want to talk about Indiana. He also doesn’t want to rise to the bait. Victor hasn’t said don’t fight, but he’s pretty sure punching his showrunner is off the list of things that are allowed to him. “Fine. Any suggestions on what the hell I should do?”
“You need a team. Lawyer, accountant, agent, manager, publicist. I trust you’re smart enough I won’t have to explain why. And,” Victor looks Alex over with an appraising eye, like he’s a statue the man is considering adding to his collection. “A personal trainer.”
“f**k you.”
“No?” Victor purses his lips as if in delight that Alex is pushing back.
Alex wonders why people don’t hate the man more than they already do. “Why are you like this?” he blurts.
“Because I enjoy it, and it’s useful.” Without dropping Alex’s gaze, Victor twists the paper clip until it snaps.
—
* * * *
VICTOR GIVES ALEX A list of names and phone numbers. When Alex asks if his own team should be so blatantly comprised of people with loyalties that lie elsewhere, Victor smiles his shark smile and says to consider it a starting place.
Alex goes to Liam the next day. This new life of his is at least somewhat Liam’s fault, and he’s never seen him be cruel to anyone, only at times clumsily unaware of other people’s boundaries. Alex is by far the baby of the cast, and Liam has the fewest years on him of any of them, allowing Alex to feel a little less like a kid who needs handholding.
Liam is surprisingly helpful. His dark curls bounce as he nods thoughtfully. He understands the problem immediately, although he seems unduly amused by it. But a few days later he gets Alex a list of names that don’t represent a conflict of interest with anyone else on the show.
Putting his script aside between takes, Alex drops into his director’s chair and scans over the names, not that he recognizes any of them. “How did you come up with this?”
“I know a lot of people. All of whom are too nice to me.”
—
- Writer
