The Receptionist Read online

  I perched at the edge of my club chair and opened the pitch deck on my phone. “We’re missing revenue,” I said. Dr. Maryn looked alarmed. “Maryn, you are the face of mental health in America. Why not get a cut of everything? I’m sure other people have talked about building you more or different apps, but why stop there? We can build a whole fucking app store. The Dr. Maryn Store.”

  She raised one eyebrow, then the other. “I’m intrigued.”

  “I need more than intrigued. If we do this, we’ll have to jump to a bigger agency. You know RFG Entertainment? Has its hands in everything. I’ve already got three of my clients on board.”

  Stan slapped his thigh and yelped. “This is the big time, baby!” Dr. Maryn called for her housekeeper and asked if I would like a glass of iced tea.

  I stole eleven clients from my old boss, Frank, and brought them to RFG, my sparkling Beverly Hills firm with billion-dollar everything: film packaging, gaming platforms, celebrity branding. I didn’t even bother with parting words for Frank or trying to see his face as he realized what I’d done.

  I knew in my heart I’d screwed him over. That was all that mattered.

  Dr. Maryn and Stan flew out to the RFG office to kick off the app-store development. My whole department was invited to the meeting, and I paused with my client just outside the door of the glass-walled conference room. I took in my new colleagues. The agents at the table looked exactly like my former coworkers—sharp eyed and clad in dark neutrals—but these here were impenetrable specimens. Their bodies were even more compact, more perfectly sheathed inside the agile fabrics of the one percent. I touched the break line on my jacket, a double-knit jersey blend of cashmere and wool, feeling like an exile returned from a land of cheap knockoffs.

  Stan and I moved to our spots near the head of the table and watched Dr. Maryn make her entrance. She took over the room, waving and winking at the team members, who were all trying to catch her eye, hoping to lodge themselves in this famous woman’s consciousness. She stopped for a one-on-one with my new boss, clasping his forearm and nodding in an unblinking display of active listening.

  “Thanks, everyone, for being here,” I said as people settled. “No one has made a celebrity app store before. We’ve got a lot of room to innovate.”

  Dr. Maryn stood and rapped her knuckles on the table. “For good luck!” she said. Her face brightened. “Shall we start with a brainstorming session?”

  Stan gave Dr. Maryn’s shirtsleeve a tug. “What about the interns?” he mumbled.

  Dr. Maryn cupped her hand to her ear and gave the room a wide-eyed sweep, like she was addressing a group of preschoolers. “What’s that, dear?” she asked.

  “We talked about including interns.”

  Confusion hovered. Several lower-level employees sat up, glancing toward their superiors. I pointed at my assistant. “Interns!” I said. “Get them in here.”

  “Mail room too!” said Dr. Maryn. “I want to know what the kids think!”

  After a few minutes, four interns shuffled in. A mail guy tried to bring his cart into the room and was given a harsh, whispered “No!” by a higher-up near the door. No one brought chairs. The extra people stood, shifting on their feet, for the next hour as the assistants recorded the ideas of the people sitting around the table: therapy chat / anchor with pharmaceutical companies / confidentiality as marketing tool.

  I was participating, monitoring, noting who among the staff had the most useful ideas, when someone suggested branching out into cardiology, maybe even dentistry. Then I heard an unsettling voice in my mind: my mother’s. My mom was always there with me, lingering in the background, visiting in conscious thought every so often, like a recurring dream.

  What about the teeth? I could hear my mom asking.

  She’d always wanted to know about the teeth. The guests on The Dr. Maryn Show were often missing theirs. It was one of the first items on the casting questionnaire: How many teeth do you have, and where are they? The show had an on-call dentist who’d do cut-rate fixes that lasted about as long as it took to get the guests’ problems on tape. We’d treat the dysfunctional, the addicts and abusers, to stays in high-class hotels and all-you-can-eat craft services. In return, they’d spill their secrets for our national audience, unaware their dental work would last only slightly longer than Cinderella’s pumpkin coach.

  “Do they ever try to sue?” my mom used to ask.

  I always laughed in response. “We make them sign over their firstborn before we let them on the show.” Sometimes I enjoyed her troubled, bewildered expression after I said such things. It was a sign of how far I’d come, watching this small-town lady from a simpler time grapple with what the world had become. I was in it. I was thriving.

  “Emily?” Dr. Maryn was staring. So was everyone else. I’d been spacing out. I gave a vague nod.

  “I’m thinking ahead,” I said.

  “And?”

  I could feel the room sharpening, the junior agents leaning forward, these savvy little shits just discovering their ability to sniff out prey. Dr. Maryn stood behind me and squeezed my shoulder.

  “Emily’s a tough cookie,” she said. “The best. Let me tell you about our trip to Kenya. We were doing an episode on one of those shoe handouts—you know the organization that gives moccasins to poor, shoeless children around the world? So we’re in the back of a beat-up truck about two hours from Nairobi with this team of fresh-faced idealists, and we come roaring into this cement block village. And you know, the children in these places, they love it when strangers visit, so this mob of kids comes running out to meet us.” Dr. Maryn put her hands up like a director mapping out a panorama. “The cameraman is filming, and the African sun is setting, and we’re tossing out these plastic bags of moccasins, and the children are jumping and clapping, and we’re all thrilled with how it’s going. And do you know what Emily says to me? In the middle of this? She says, ‘Shit. They’re already wearing shoes!’”

  The room erupted in laughter.

  “She went up to the director to tell him,” Dr. Maryn said. “He wouldn’t listen, so she fired him on the spot. Took over the shoot. She yelled, ‘Back it up, everybody! You kids go behind that building and take off your shoes. Then I want you to run toward us again in your bare feet!’”

  Dr. Maryn and Stan took me to lunch after the meeting. We went to a farm-to-table restaurant on the border of Century City and Beverly Hills, the same place where Dr. Maryn had met with my competition. They sat me at the banquette and pulled their chairs together across the white tablecloth.

  “I’m worried about you,” said Dr. Maryn. Her tone had a touch of the overwrought compassion she reserved for the guests on her show. Stan picked at the label on his bottle of sparkling water. “I need you focused.”

  I opened my eyes wide. “Maryn, I’m one hundred percent here for you.”

  Dr. Maryn and Stan looked at each other. She reached across the table and put her hand on mine. “How’s your personal life?”

  She knew. She knew everything about me. She’d set me up with my last boyfriend, a CFO of a health care consortium who’d let me down easy after I’d spent four months showering him with access to film premieres and VIP rooms. He said he wanted a quieter life.

  “Things are fine,” I said.

  “We think you could use a little stability.”

  Stan pointed at me. “You should get married. Doesn’t matter to who. All you kids, you’re holding out for ‘the one.’ There’s no such thing. Just pick someone and settle down.”

  I gave a chuckle, pretending this was friendly advice from an older person, not a warning. “I’ll get right on that,” I said.

  I met Doug soon after.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’d just negotiated my first victory for the Dr. Maryn Store. A pharmaceutical company agreed to sell their dosing apps exclusively with us in exchange for Dr. Maryn promoting their new children’s antidepressant. It had been a delicate negotiation. We had to clear it with
three legal departments: the network’s, the pharma company’s, and my agency’s. RFG’s head attorney was Gayle, a powerfully maternal woman in her midfifties who delivered the news to me in person, in my office. Not only had the deal gone through, but the pharma company had agreed to buy ad time on the show if Dr. Maryn prescribed their children’s antidepressant on camera.

  “Yes!” I shouted and jumped up from my desk.

  Gayle crossed her arms and considered me. “Congratulations,” she said in a monotone.

  I stared at the empty doorway after she left, resisting the urge to chase after her, to demand, Excuse me? Are you judging me?

  Of course on some level, I knew what we were doing was wrong. Not that it would get me arrested, but it could turn into a scandal if not handled properly. Even with legal cover, it would take only one kid with a bad reaction to the medicine, one investigative news segment, to hurt Dr. Maryn’s credibility, make it seem like her loyalty was to Big Pharma, not her patients.

  I sat back down and buzzed my assistant, Travis, a recent mail room graduate with remnants of acne around his nose. He popped his head in with an eager smile.

  “Which market research firm do we use?” I asked.

  “Doug Markham’s firm, Beyond the Brand.”

  “Right. Ask them to design a study on how it would affect Dr. Maryn’s likability if she started prescribing drugs on her show. Tell them we want to cover antidepressants, schizophrenia drugs, and all that.”

  Travis took a step backward and asked, “Can I get a pen?”

  I stared at him. He froze. Why did these people have to make me act like a bitch?

  “Don’t ever come in here without a way to write,” I said firmly. “Oh, and kids. Tell them to ask if people would have a problem with Dr. Maryn prescribing antidepressants to children.”

  I waved him out the door. There, I thought. I’m handling it. I could hear Travis at his desk outside my office, relaying the details of what we needed for the survey. He remembered everything. I buzzed him again.

  “Good job,” I said. “Can you get me an iced coffee?”

  It was lunch. I pulled a salad out of my minifridge. I’d skipped breakfast that morning, saving my calories so I could enjoy two tablespoons of balsamic vinaigrette. Travis buzzed me. Doug Markham was on the phone.

  “Doug Markham? Are you sure?”

  “He said it was regarding the Dr. Maryn survey.”

  I looked down at my salad and sighed. I was starving. But Doug was the CEO of Beyond the Brand. He’d worked on a presidential campaign. He’d had a TED Talk go viral. I picked up the phone.

  “Don’t do it, Emily,” was the first thing out of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry?” I hadn’t even said hello.

  “Your doctor has the public’s trust. Don’t do anything sleazy with it.”

  Sleazy. I’d already had to suffer the silent moralizing of that fucking lawyer. I thought of hanging up on him, but he was quasi-famous. My overriding instinct was to appease.

  “Dr. Maryn prescribes antidepressants all the time in private practice,” I said. “I can’t believe we haven’t featured this aspect of her job before.”

  “Right. I get it. Let’s talk about it over drinks.”

  I met him at a hotel bar near the Strip, a white Gothic-type place lined with gold-framed, mottled mirrors. A group of younger men was parked near the entrance, decked out in aggressively casual hoodies and retro sneakers. In what was becoming a familiar humiliation, they completely ignored me as I made my way past the host stand. It was hard to say exactly when it happened, my transition from attractive woman to well-groomed lady at the bar. I’d only just vowed to stop dating players, but the issue resolved itself without my having to do anything.

  I saw Doug. I recognized him from his TED Talk. He was kicked back on a patent leather couch, looking more vibrant in person, alert, with a full head of dirty-blond hair and the rugged tan of an aging surfer. He didn’t see me at first. He just sat comfortably in his skinny jeans and Paul Smith trainers, watching the scattered people at the bar, totally at ease without a phone or drink in his hand. I tightened my abs and smoothed the front of my jacket.

  “Emily! How are ya?” He stood when I approached and opened his arms for a hug. I leaned in for an air-kiss. “What are you drinking?”

  “Just a cranberry and soda,” I said. “I’m heading out after this.”

  He laughed. “You don’t have dinner plans.”

  I jerked my head back. “Oh, really?”

  He gestured to my body. “Don’t tell me you go out at night in a suit.”

  I had an impulse to tell him to fuck off. Instead, I smiled. “Okay, Detective.”

  Doug called the waitress over. “What do you want, wine?” he asked.

  I ordered a rose hip negroni off the cocktail list. Doug asked for a Red Bull. I looked at him. He grinned and held up three fingers like a Boy Scout. “Twelve years sober,” he said. In his TED Talk, he’d mentioned past substance abuse, hallucinogens. I nodded.

  “I saw your talk. You were a Deadhead in college?”

  “Actually, I was a cokehead.” He leaned toward my ear and spoke in a low voice. “But that’s not something I share with everyone.” It was such a move, letting his bass notes resonate near my neck. Only the most skilled seducer, man or woman, would dare slither into someone’s personal space like that.

  The waitress came back. She was wearing a low-cut top and leaned forward as she handed him his drink. He winked at her. I sat up, shifting into attentiveness. There was another woman, in spaghetti straps, throwing him louche eyes from the bar.

  He took my cocktail from the waitress and placed it in front of me. I looked more closely at him, trying to pinpoint his appeal. He was handsome, sure, but that wasn’t enough to explain such overt flirting from these women. He seemed rich. That could have been it. There was also something simmering about him, the way he lifted his glass, leading with his forearm. He was masculine.

  “Cheers,” he said. The waitress glanced back as she walked away. He cleared his throat. “So in terms of Dr. Maryn. I’ll gladly take your money to do this survey on giving kids the antidepressants. I stand to make a lot of money helping with all the ethics headaches that’ll crop up.”

  “It’s not about ethics,” I said. “I’m worried about perception.”

  “You know what you are, Emily? You’re a converted cynic.”

  “Excuse me?” I held up my index finger. He smiled, inviting me to turn my annoyance into something playful. The lounge turned darker, louder. A pretty girl at the edge of the crowd glanced at us and tugged at the hem of her micro mini.

  He leaned into my ear again. “Cynicism doesn’t come naturally to you, I can tell.”

  Oh yes, it does, I wanted to shoot back. I ruined anyone who messed with me. I mean ruined them. I wanted to tell him about getting a backstabbing sister kicked out of my sorority or how, in my assistant days, I’d turned the whole office against a credit-stealing rival. But I’d long since learned to keep those stories to myself.

  “Growing up, we had these neighbors from Vietnam,” Doug said. “And the dad was so into America, talking about freedom all the time. It was weird. Anyway, I think a lot of you guys in entertainment are like this. You’re like converts to this kind of ruthless business style.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Everyone loves to hate agents. You’re like ten times more successful than I am.”

  “But I grew up with money,” he said. “A sense of entitlement isn’t a bad thing. I don’t have to psych myself up the same way I see other people doing.”

  “That’s it!” I sat up and squared off to him.

  “What?”

  “Your vibe. All these women checking you out. Don’t tell me you don’t notice.”

  His lips twitched. He was suppressing a smile.

  “You have a feeling of ease about you,” I said. “You look like you have an easy life.”

  I barely knew this man, but sitting
beside him was a thrill, like I was a passenger on some ride to wherever his charisma wanted to go. Everything in my life was so painstaking, so carefully constructed. There was nothing about me that wasn’t deliberate. I wanted what he had.

  I slid closer to him on the sofa, leaving just a few inches between me and the crook of his arm. “Have you done much television?”

  He grinned and made a scolding motion with his finger. “I already have an agent.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket and swiped through his photos until he came to a picture of something dark and spidery against a stark white background. “Here, check this out.” He handed me the phone. “You’re not the only one moving into technology.”

  I squinted at the screen. I didn’t know what I was looking at. It was shiny, a domed strip of onyx sprouting a dozen thin and ominous-looking prongs. The whole thing assumed the vague outline of a bike helmet.

  “I just bought a start-up,” he said. “A wearables company.”

  “This goes on your head?”

  “It’s an EEG.” He pointed to the small round disk at the end of one of the prongs. “The sensors pick up the electrical activity in the brain.” I nodded, picturing a hospital EEG with its white wires and sloppy, gel-covered mesh. “We’ll get people to wear these in their everyday lives,” he said, “sell it as a wellness tool. Biofeedback, measuring their stress levels, you know? We’ll pair it with an app. It’ll give us a whole hell of a lot of data on people.”

  “Branching into tech,” I said. “You and I are doing the same thing.”

  Doug tapped his index finger to his forehead. “Follow the money,” he said.

  He understood. The world had changed. The tech sector was gobbling up everything, making those of us in other industries seem like dinosaurs and ruining LA with rising real estate prices. Being comfortably rich wasn’t a safe option anymore. For real protection, for power, for whatever the future looked like, I’d need the type of wealth that could separate me, insulate me completely. There were only a few ways to get there, and joining tech was the most logical. I raised my glass. “Here’s to becoming super rich.”