The Second Assistant by Clare Naylor, Mimi Hare Read Free Book Online

entail?”
    “Will you want them to get naked and grind their ass in anyone’s face?”
    “I don’t think so. No.” Though I’d never been to a Hollywood party. I couldn’t be sure such things weren’t going to happen. “But if they do, we’ll happily pay the difference afterward, of course.”
    “Sure. Well, I’d say you need fifty girls. Enough to be visible but not to get in everyone’s face. If you’ll pardon the expression.”
    “Perfect,” I said, grateful for the pointers. Now for the awkward part. I wasn’t sure exactly how to phrase this, but I went for it.
    “And could you make that fifty girls with smallish nipples, if you don’t mind?”
    “Excuse me?” He sounded as though he’d swallowed his gum. I may just have achieved the unthinkable and actually shocked the manager of Crazy Girls.
    “It’s just that . . . well, my boss is a huge fan of girls with small nipples, and if you could manage it that’s what we’d prefer.”
    “Did you have a diameter in mind?”
    “Oh, I think just not large. Nothing that constitutes large. That would work perfectly.”
    “You’re fucking joking, right?”
    “Is that a problem?” I asked tentatively. Hoping not. I didn’t want to upset Daniel.
    “Well, if you wanna come down here and check them out, you’re welcome to. Otherwise you’re just gonna have to trust that my girls are the hottest in town, regardless of nipple size. Okay?” He sounded slightly aggressive. I decided to back down at this point.
    “I’m sure all your girls are fabulous, and if you could just try to remain within a certain small-nipple ballpark, then I’d be super grateful,” I concluded. When I looked up, Lara was walking by my desk. She smirked as she overheard the tail end of my conversation.
    “Lara,” I called after her.
    She stopped and turned around.
    “Do you think I could talk to you for a second?”
    “Sorry, I don’t know anything about nipples.” She shrugged and headed back to her desk.
    My eyes smarted, and I wished that I had stayed in D.C. I wished I didn’t have to show reverence to people who judged women on theirnipple size. I wished that Lara were still my friend and that she would tell me how all the men in this town were just high-school losers who abused their power as a way of acting out their issues with the cheerleaders who wouldn’t sleep with them back then. But she wasn’t my friend anymore. She tucked a large Saks Fifth Avenue bag under her desk and settled down on the phone.
    “I need a latte the size of a skyscraper.” Scott flew by my desk.
    “I see.” I stood up and followed him into his office. “Er, Scott. I was just wondering where I might find a latte around here.”
    “How the fuck should I know?” He was glued to his call sheet.
    “Okay. Thanks.” I backed out of his office and made my way toward Lara’s desk. But she was gazing obdurately ahead at her screen, so I ducked by and whispered to Talitha, “Is there a Starbucks or something around here?”
    “There’s Coffee Bean across the street.” She pointed behind her. “Oh, and hey, if you’re going, can you get a soy chai latte for me?”
    “Great, you can fetch Mike a double espresso, too,” Courtney said. “Please.”
    “Sure. Soy chai latte and double espresso,” I repeated. Mike was Courtney’s boss who rarely came out of his office as he was apparently waiting for his course of Rogaine to kick in. When he ventured out, it was usually in a trilby.
    “Anybody else want anything from the Coffee Bean?” Talitha called out as I shrugged my jacket on and grabbed my wallet.
    “Oh, yeah, grande coffee no sugar,” said an agent from an office across the hall who was passing by.
    “Decaf green tea and one of those fat-free biscotti,” someone else called out. The list, by the time I had written it down on my hand, was long. In fact, it ran to two palms long.
    I had to navigate six lanes of oncoming traffic to get across the street to the Coffee