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cannot believe someone with your talent is sitting out there in the world without an agent. I’ll take care of it; I know a few. What dumbasses. No wonder the movies are for shit.”
    Excitement once again blossomed in Mary Anne’s chest. “Oh, thank you, Lydia,” Mary Anne said. “No wonder.”
    “Okay,” Lydia said. “So script in one hour, agent in two, Worldwide Business Affairs after that. And do you think we could sit down tomorrow? Talk about the script? Is your schedule clear?”
    “It’s clear.”
    “Great. I’m going to jump onto this other call, but Toddy, my assistant, is on the line. She’ll schedule a time with you for tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”
    “See you then,” Mary Anne said.
    It was the call. The call that the hopes and dreams of every Hollywood busboy, bartender, and waiter (also known as struggling actor, writer, and director) were built upon. And after Mary Anne had gotten the call from Lydia Albright just eight weeks ago, everything—everything—in her life had changed. One point-five million dollars would do that (Mary Anne had sent the bus money and a celebratory bottle of champagne to Michelle in Minnesota after her first writing check cleared).
    Kim, the assistant to Jessica Caulfield (Mary Anne’s new agent), messengered Mary Anne ten copies of the Daily Variety announcements that ran two days after Lydia’s call. MEYERS MEETS MIDNIGHT read the headline. Mary Anne sent five copies to her family in St. Paul. For the first time, she felt that her parents, Mitsy and Marvin, were proud. The story of Mary Anne’s success ran on the front page of the St. Paul paper, the Pioneer Press . Her father actually started telling people his daughter was a writer. Strong praise from a man who’d never read anything Mary Anne had written. Maybe Marvin would even see the movie? Of course he’d see the movie; she’d invite him to the premiere.
    Mary Anne was living her dream. She was writing. For the first time in her life, she was writing and someone was paying her to write. Jessica handled the deal. First Worldwide paid five hundred thousand dollars against one million for The Sky’s the Limit for Lydia, because she wanted to produce that film as soon as Seven Minutes Past Midnight was finished. The numbers were confusing to Mary Anne at first, until Jessica explained that she would get five hundred thousand dollars now and five hundred thousand more if and when The Sky’s the Limit went into production.
    Then Worldwide paid Mary Anne another $350,000 to rewrite Seven Minutes Past Midnight , and an additional $175,000 to polish the script. (A polish was meant to be less work than a new draft, but it was really the same amount of work.)
    First, Mary Anne spent four weeks rewriting Seven Minutes Past Midnight for the director, Zymar—no last name, just Zymar. That was before Zymar disappeared to Belize. Or was it Bali? Then Mary Anne did more character work for Bradford Madison (the star) before his drunk-and-disorderly arrest. Finally, she’d spent the last seventy-two hours making the Raphaella part bigger and sexier, now that Celeste Solange had signed onto the film.
    How had this happened? Mary Anne Meyers from St. Paul, Minnesota, was writing a bigger and sexier role for the biggest star in the world, Celeste Solange. From homeless to millionaire with one phone call. Only in Hollywood.
    Everyone in this town was a gambler, an addict, only the stakes were much bigger than in Vegas. In Vegas you gambled your money, but here, in this town, you gambled with your dreams. Mary Anne was now one of the winners. She’d hit the jackpot; she was one of the success stories that fueled the never-ending fire. And now Mary Anne was finished with the script.
    She glanced at the clock; it was six-thirty A.M. She needed some sleep. Lydia’s office would call by ten and they’d want her to come in so that she and Lydia could go over the new draft this afternoon. The start date for shooting the