The Idea of Him by Holly Peterson Page A

about whether she is or isn’t. Just don’t start takin’ yourself too fuckin’ seriously.” He grabbed his cordless phone, started punching numbers into it, and looked at it as though it were shouting obscenities in his ear. “Goddamn it, Selena, get in here and dial this thing.”
    Selena scurried in, her Kardashian ass bouncing up and down like a beach ball, and took the phone while Murray finished lecturing me. “I want you to write more press releases on each film to create more press buzz for everything we do here. You know, groundbreaking shit lesbo senators pay attention to.”
    Selena handed him the phone and waited to be sent back to her desk. She looked at me in solidarity. Murray wasn’t finished.
    â€œGet me every goddamn cable news screamer screaming about the high-gloss, high-fuckin’-quality festival.”
    Now he was just being ridiculous. “Nobody on cable news cares about art and culture. They’re too busy yelling at each other. We’re on the right track, Murray. We’re doing fine. We’re getting good coverage already this week . . .”
    â€œMax?” he said into the phone, swatting one hand at Selena and me. “That brunette looked like she could fit your balls and your dick in her mouth!
    â€œAfter your behavior last night in A.C., you fucking owe me fifty grand and two whores, you old bastard.” Gales of laughter followed. I honestly had no idea if Murray was joking around or making a factual statement to the criminal client who seemed to be invading our lives more every day.

10
    Necessary Reckoning
    When I got back to my office, Caitlin was lounging on my couch reading a report she’d pulled out of the hot pink computer bag I’d given her for her twenty-ninth birthday last winter.
    â€œWhat was so earth-shatteringly important?” she asked.
    â€œMurray wants me to get more press for the whole film festival, since the pitch to Delsie went so well and because now he’s got Max financially invested in it,” I said as I sat at my desk and clicked on my computer screen. I scrolled though what looked like a hundred e-mails that had come in since I’d left. “You know, just more buzz.”
    â€œMurray always wants more attention,” she pointed out. “No amount will ever satisfy him, you know that.”
    â€œYes, I know that. That’s why my job sucks.”
    Caitlin sat up and threw the report onto the coffee table. “That’s a piece of crap. Anyway, whatever you did or didn’t do right, all that matters is that what you said seemed to work for him.”
    I stopped what I was doing and looked at her. “Really, Caitlin, that’s all that matters?” Caitlin and I spent so much time together all day long that we often went into sister mode. I felt like picking a fight with her just because she was in front of me.
    She tilted her head. “That’s not what I meant.” She lay back on the sofa. “You’re good at what you do, but you should be concentrating your anxiety on your other talents. Maybe you’d get further, faster, and be able to leave this place.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked, sarcastically. “You angling for my job?”
    â€œJesus, Allie. Chill,” she said. “Why would you say that, when all I’m doing is showing my support for your writing?”
    â€œSorry. I was kind of joking, or trying to,” I said. It had been unfair of me; she was right.
    She grinned, apology accepted. “I read your reports and speeches every day. They sing compared to everyone else’s around here. You should be using your clout with Wade or Murray to move your own fiction writing career along and stop worrying about the little stuff that Murray is always going to take credit for anyway.” She settled in for a little lecture. “If I had access to Murray’s connections like you do, or to Wade’s,