By A.J. Llewellyn
I was forced to take some part time work this week, owing to the fact that my studio work dried up and as much as I love it, my writing work does not pay the bills.
So, thanks to my best friend Tracy, I landed a gig as a celebrity assistant, starting yesterday.
"I warn you," he said, from his Beverly Hills office, "she's a wacko, but she'll pay you. She can't keep an assistant, but I figure you can handle her. You dig crazy people."
"No, I don't!"
But Tracy reeled off the weirdos I'd worked for - and a couple I'd dated. Crumbs! There was something in his argument.
I called the celeb, let's call her Loonie, and in spite of a circuitous phone conversation I chalked up to her handling too many things at once, I agreed to show up for four hours per day, Monday through Friday.
Our agreement was I would help her "make calls" as she said several times. She also wanted me to write letters, help handle her dogs - oh and she wanted some help writing a diet book. I could do that.
Driving the 45 minute journey to her house in the Palisades, I listened to my hero Taj Mahal and the Hula Blues Band on my ITrip Auto, convincing myself I would still have enough time to do my work around her schedule. I could do it, even losing the travel time each day.
A deer leaped across my path on the mountain road up to her house and I was heartened by that. I'd be working in nature. She had dogs. We were gonna bond!
And then I arrived at Loonie's house.
Chaos doesn't begin to describe what I encountered. Her four teacup Schnauzers attacked me as I entered the house via the open garage door, per her instructions. I was in agony. trying to fend them off, their mean little mouths leaving teeth marks like little needles in places...well, let's just say, places that really don't like being bitten.
They did not stop barking and I learned they never do. Each of them wore electronic bark collars that emitted painful zaps each time they barked so that you would catch an agonized yip between a flurry of demented yaps.
Loonie's personal trainer was there, looking exhausted as she fielded phone calls in an obnoxious way to an airline. She left her laptop on a flight two days ago and threatened bodily harm to the entire corporation unless it was returned.
She hung up on some poor flunkie and looked at me. "Do you think I'll get my laptop back?"
"No," I said and I watched as the personal trainer bit his lip in horror.
Try as he might, he could not get her to exercise. Loonie pursued my pronouncement with an aggression that shocked me. She asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement. No problem.
She handed me a check book with pre-signed signatures and told me I am to handle all her bills. What? Is she nuts giving this to a starving writer?
"Do not, under any circumstances give me the check book in any stores," she said. "My accountant said I am not allowed to spend any money."
Okies.
She asked me to type a few letters, which I did, as the personal trainer tried to interest her in a leg lift. Just one. And believe me, Loonie needed to lift her legs...judging by the way she was swallowing donuts and her belly poured over her pink tracksuit pants.
I typed the letters and Loonie scanned them. "Boy, you're fast." she frowned. "How come you removed some words from what I dictated to you? Are you deaf?"
"Well," I said as her smallest dog curled up on my foot. "In my experience, emailing a CEO of a corporation and calling him a cock-sucking maggot is not likely to get you what you want."
"Oh, all right," she grumbled, waving her hand in a dismissive manner. "You may send."
I did.
The personal trainer finally caught her eye and she told him their session was up. She docked him a considerable portion of his pay because he didn't get her to train and I thought the poor man was going to have a breakdown right then and there.
"You promised me," he said. "You promised me we wouldn't do this again. You promised you'd pay me."
A grocery delivery guy arrived, placing a bag of groceries on her washing machine, caught my gaze and put a finger to his lips. Too late. The dogs had spotted him and he ran off screaming, four bite-sized feral fur balls following him down the hill.
I "cut" the personal trainer a check and behind Loonie's back as she got into a violent confrontation with the security guard of her condo association, I paid the trainer the full amount.
She could fire me if she wanted, but I knew she'd forget in an hour that she'd decided to punish him with a lowered payment.
The trainer eyed the check and mouthed
thank you, to me.
Outside, Loonie and the dogs were in full-throttle. The trainer leaned into me. "You're a peach, so trust me on this. Don't drive
anywhere with her."
"Oh really?" I asked, startled. "Why?"
"She's consumed enough drugs to kill a horse and she can't even drive when she's not high."
Good to know.
Loonie came in, her four mutts wriggling and barking in her arms. Another phone call. Her new car was ready. The trainer looked at me.
"Promise me A.J. you will
not go with her."
Too late. I was forced to hop in the limo that arrived to pick her up and after selecting one dog to accompany her on the journey, Loonie and I drove to the Mercedes dealership and picked up her new car.
"Everyone says I am a bad driver," she huffed. "I am not. I am just an unlucky driver." She tossed her tiny dog into my arms. It was the little guy I was starting to take a shine to. The poor little guy's heart was pounding as I buckled into the passenger seat. The smell of new car was dizzying. The dog calmed a bit and Loonie, giving the dealership owner the finger after he warned her to drive safely, wielded the slick, fully-loaded silver time bomb out of the dealership and BOOM! Got us into a head-on collision.
This is what money will get you:
Money will get people to accept a wad of cash to go away. Money will get you a dealership forced to repair your third car in four weeks.
What money will NOT get you is ME as your assistant. I "cut" myself a check for my day's pay, limped up the hill with Loonie's dog in my arms, left him and the check book in her house with the new maid who was watching The People's Court on TV when I arrived.
"I quit," I told her. "She's nuts."
"Yeah," said the maid, squaffing a donut. "You should have been around when she was on a diet. She threw things."
Thanks, but no thanks. I think I just used up all the patience I can muster.
Aloha oe,
A.J.
