The Actress: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

has incredible reach.”
    Maddy was flattered that he was thinking on those terms—she hadn’t come in search of a new agent, but Dan had said there would be hundreds at the festival, seeking new discoveries. “Absolutely,” she said.
    “Come to think of it,” said Zack, “my mom is having this dinner at her lodge tomorrow. You guys should come. I’ll help you drum up audience for the other screenings.”
    “We’ll be there,” Dan said, so quickly that Maddy was almost embarrassed.
    “Do you have a car here?”
    “No,” Maddy said. “We ride El Cheapo. The festival bus.” Dan glared at her, as though not wanting Zack to know they were losers, but she didn’t understand the accusation; it had been his decision not to ask the backers to cover a car rental.
    “Then we’ll send one to get you,” Zack said. After he headed away, their condo address in his phone, she wondered who “we” was. Zack, his mother, or his agency?
    It didn’t make a difference. They were going.
    H aving been to many films and bad Off-Broadway theater in his time at Bentley Howard, and countless premieres with his mother as a teenager, Zack was not easily impressed by actresses. But Maddy was different. Her performance had been luminous, thoroughly unself-conscious, and he was intrigued by her figure, which was un-Hollywood, with its small, natural breasts and enormous shoulders.
    Zack had been at Bentley Howard since right after graduating from Skidmore. His primary responsibility was to serve the needs of his boss’s clients. George Zeger was a sloppy, corduroy-wearing man who had been at the agency nearly forty years. As an assistant, Zack had listened in on George’s calls and heard him negotiate, manipulate, and rage when dealing with employers, but speak softly and gently to his clients.
    In addition to George’s clients, Zack had a handful of his own, most referred to him by Bridget, but he had come to the festival in search of more. George had said Zack could go if he paid for his own lodging. Reluctantly, he had asked his mother if he could crash. He made $49,000 a year at Bentley Howard, which meant that his mother paid the rent on his loft in Tribeca and thus kept him under her thumb, inasmuch as she could from Brentwood. He would not have access to his trust fund until he turned twenty-eight, four long years away. For his entire childhood, the contingency age had been twenty-one, but at Skidmore he’d run into problems with coke, and when he wound up at Silver Hill, she changed it.
    Zack was dizzy as he headed up the street, dialing his phone. He had stayed till five A.M. at the Rap Sheet party, playing foosball and doing tequila shots, and then a young, dorky network-comedy star offered him a few bumps, and because of the bumps, he couldn’t sleep. By the time nine A.M. rolled around, he’d decided to get a coffee in town and see the movie.
    When his mother answered, he told her about the extra invitations. “I’ll have to redo the seating arrangement,” she said with a sigh. “Who are they again?”
    “The girl from that Vermont movie. Maddy Freed. You met her at the Entertainer. And her boyfriend. He’s the director.”
    “Was she the blonde?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Are you trying to sleep with her?” she said.
    “I am not trying to sleep with her, Mom,” he said. “I want to sign her.” It was scary, what she picked up on. Zack had always had an intense relationship with his mother. As his many shrinks had reminded him, it was a by-product of his father being out of the picture. There were lots of nannies, and he had resented her absences. Lately, he was working on resenting her less. He had been in therapy on and off since he was ten, for being antisocial and later for doing drugs, and he was enjoying not being in therapy for the first time in many years.
    “Just let me have them over, Mom,” he said. “You won’t have to do anything. I’ll make sure they have a good time.”
    “Not too good a