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When Harper found me sometime later, I was sitting cross-legged on the desk with tissues sticking out of my ears, which didn’t help at all to muffle the barking. As soon as he opened the door, Pepe ran past him and disappeared down the hall, and Harper frowned and said, “I’m surprised he didn’t remember you.” He was cradling his favorite chicken in one arm, because of course he was.
“I’m sure he recognized me. He always acted like that.”
I pulled the tissues from my ears and tossed them in the trash can before climbing off the desk. Then I sat in the office chair and gestured at the blank calendar on the screen as I asked, “Where’s your current schedule?”
“I’ve just sort of been keeping it on my phone since my last assistant quit.” He looked apologetic as he dropped onto one of the two chairs on the other side of the desk. The scrawny white chicken just looked confused, but that was nothing new.
When he handed me his phone, I asked, “Same password?” Not surprisingly, his lock screen was a picture of the chicken he was currently holding. Harper nodded, so I typed in the chicken’s name and pulled up the calendar as I said, “Should I even ask what you did to get your last assistant to quit?”
“Nothing, really. I was just…me.”
I pulled up the calendar app on the phone and turned the screen to face him. “This is blank, too.”
“Yeah, I know. Whenever I need to remember something, I text it to myself.”
I stared at him long enough to make him fidget, then pulled up his texts. Sure enough, there were dozens of reminders, from buying toothpaste to RSVPing to Elton John’s Oscar after-party, and everything in between. The Oscars were a month ago, and I wondered if he’d ever actually RSVPed to that party. Not that it really mattered. All he had to do was show up and flash his dimpled smile, and he’d be welcomed just about anywhere with open arms.
I said, “This is a terrible system. You know that, right?”
“See why I was so desperate to hire you back?”
I put down the phone and turned to the computer. “I’m going to check the emails from your publicist so we can see what you’re supposed to be doing next week. Is this the same password?”
“No. I changed it to ‘password’ so I’d remember it.”
“You’re kidding.”
The hen was starting to squirm, so he put her on the desk. I changed the password and wrote the new one on a sticky note for Harper, and the chicken immediately pulled it off the pad. Then she got flustered, because it stuck to her beak. She squawked and half-flew, half-tumbled to the floor, then started dashing around with the neon yellow note flapping like a sail.
While he dove onto the floor to help the chicken, I told him, “You have over two thousand unread emails.”
“Yeah, but a lot of those are junk.”
“And a lot of them aren’t.” I searched by his publicist’s name and discovered her messages ended abruptly two weeks ago. The last message was a tersely-worded resignation letter, and I exclaimed, “Oh man, you made Julia quit! She was really good.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“If you wanted her to stay, it probably would have helped to actually show up for the events she kept arranging for you.”
He returned to his seat with the sticky note and muttered, “I showed up for some of them.”
I opened the last email Julia sent before the resignation letter. Then I glanced at the calendar and said, “Please tell me you know you’re supposed to appear on Tommy Allen’s show tomorrow, and that you already booked a flight to New York.”
He looked confused. “Am I? But I’m not promoting any movies right now.”
“He’s celebrating forty years on late night, and this is a huge deal! You’re one of a very select group of A-listers who’ve been invited to his anniversary show. It looks like Julia confirmed your attendance before she quit, so they’re expecting you on set at ten a.m. tomorrow for rehearsal, and taping is at one p.m.”
Harper’s green eyes went wide. “Shit. I really shouldn’t miss that.”
“Oh yeah, no way in hell are you missing it. Tommy Allen is a national treasure. It’d be like standing up Santa Claus.” I flipped through the contacts on my phone as I said, “I’m going to talk to Tommy’s people, and then I’ll book you a flight for this evening. Go find your luggage and your best suit and tie. Don’t forget dress shoes, you always do that.”
He picked up the skinny white chicken and asked, “Can Loco come along?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But—”
“It’s just for two nights. Kel’s perfectly capable of looking after her.”
He asked, “Why two nights? Why not come right back after the taping?”
“Because you’re flying all the way to New York, and while you’re there you know you’ll want to do some networking.”
