Power Lunch

I’m a little nervous about the proposed location for tomorrow’s lunch meeting with the Big Deal Producing Partner of the Two-Time Oscar-Nominated Actor who holds my entire future in his hands. I was hoping for a big Hollywood power lunch at The Ivy or The Grill, where the agents talk in low, important voices so it’s easier to eavesdrop on the next table.  Or maybe Hamasaku, where A-list celebrities gather with Paris Hilton to pretend they hate the paparazzi, like each other and actually eat their thirty-dollar California rolls. Poolside at Chateau Marmont would have worked, although there’s the lighting issue. After thirty in this town you learn to lurk around in the shadows, like Blanche Dubois only not so openly crazy, hoping nobody notices you’re a botox-free adult sporting a deflated pair of original lips. While there’s no such thing as a “smoky enclave” in L.A., I’ve always felt the seventy-five year reign of the Hollywood Roosevelt as the place to see and be seen, sort of, owes itself to its being as poorly lit as a Moorish dungeon.

It was a very bad sign indeed when my Very Supportive Manager called to direct me to some no-name sandwich shop on LaBrea. “I’m not getting this job,” I told her.

“What are you talking about?” She’s the Hollywood insider, why did I have to share the unwritten rule that deals are sealed exclusively in A) a studio commissary, B) a recently refurbished grande dame, or C) west of Robertson, anywhere between Sunset and 3rd? “I’ve never heard that rule,” she said flatly. She then pointed out the proximity of this Hancock Park "hot spot" to my afternoon meeting at Paramount. Since it’s just like Supportive to put a positive spin on things, I Googled a restaurant review while I still had her on the phone. “It’s a ‘quiet little storefront boasting organic produce and hormone-free meats’,” I told her. “Are we going to select a free-range Kosher chicken or ink a deal?”

“Ink a deal?” she said. “Honey, you’re spending too much time reading the trades.”

“They only have twenty-four seats in the whole place,” I told her. “That kind of set-up always makes me feel extra fat.”

“Wear black,” she said. As if I’d even entertain another color. Who does she think I am, Josh Friedman, walking around town in an irreverent Juicy Couture sweatsuit? Probably not, since he works. Me, I just do a lot of overdressed meeting in out of the way, Lilliputian luncheonettes where I hope the plastic chair doesn't break under the great irony of my physical heft. "Chin up, stomach in, lips out," Supportive might have said to sign off in the event she truly understood a single thing about me. Instead she just said her mom was on the other line. "And go get 'em, kiddo."