This is West Hollywood: the playground people hit once the Hollywood sign goes dark. Sure, the place is crawling with movie folks, but directors live behind the screen. Plenty of people have heard the name Joey Grant and know she's that "fallen genius," but most wouldn't recognize her face in a lineup. Directors aren't movie stars.
Unfortunately, today Newsweek decided to run a little hit piece on her. She's not the kind of name that pops up in the tabloids every week; as a director she's supposed to stay backstage. But her train-wreck life is just too juicy for gossip columns, and the media loves dragging her out every once in a while so everybody can point and laugh.
She was walking past a newsstand and grabbed a copy on impulse; her own bleary-eyed face was right on the cover.
The photo looked like it was snapped a few nights ago at some friend's party. She'd been hammered, sprawled half-conscious in the passenger seat while her fiancé, Hughes, stared straight ahead like a statue behind the wheel.
The headline screamed: "The Classic Hollywood Story: Wasted Talent."
The article went something like, "Remember Joey Grant, the director who got slapped with 20 hours of community service for DUI just last month? Looks like she's leveling up. Sources say she had to be carried out of a private villa party clearly high as a kite, only for fiancé Hughes to swoop in and drive her home. This fallen -American star seems determined to add more chaos to her already messy life: blowing cash like it's going out of style, living large, and a personal life that's one hot mess. Maybe this is the Hollywood dream she always wanted."
Total hatchet job. They flat-out said she was on drugs and had to be carried out. Truth? She was just drunk. She skimmed a couple paragraphs, rolled her eyes, and stuffed the magazine into her bag.
She'd seen this crap a million times in her last life. In Hollywood, being a female director with yellow skin means you're wearing invisible target signs. Nobody says it to your face, but the second they get an opening, they unload.
She hadn't gone ten steps before she overheard two women at the newsstand gossiping.
"This director Joey? Gotta hand it to her; after one decent debut, everything she's touched has bombed, yet somehow the heir to the richest family in Hollywood has stuck around for seven years."
"Right? No clue what that Redstone great-grandson sees in her. The guy's loaded, connected, not bad-looking, and he picks this Asian chick? Sorry, not my thing."
"If it was her 'talent' he liked, that ship sailed years ago. Everything she's made lately is trash. Nothing on Rotten Tomatoes over 40%."
"I'm telling you, it's not gonna last. Look at that photo; she looks totally strung out. No way Summer Redstone is okay with a granddaughter-in-law like that. DUIs, drugs, partying non-stop, can't direct her way out of a paper bag…"
The other lady smirked, all smug satisfaction. "That's why the headline called it a 'classic Hollywood story.'"
Joey pulled her trench coat collar up over half her face and kept walking. Not because she was mad; because she was ashamed.
They weren't wrong. She really had wasted the last seven years. And yeah, she really didn't deserve Hughes.
She wandered aimlessly down Sunset Boulevard, catching glimpses of famous faces in the crowd but not bothering to place them.
She stopped in front of a comedy club she used to hit all the time; prime West Hollywood real estate, the kind of spot where celebrities show up to do sets or heckle from the bar.
The Hollywood night has a way of pulling you in. She was standing there zoning out when a tall guy stumbled out the door, clearly a few drinks deep himself.
Next thing she knew, her shoe got crushed under his loafer, leaving gray scuff marks across the shiny leather.
She looked up; Jude Law. The British actor who'd come to conquer Hollywood, famous for that perfect "last English gentleman" face.
He glanced at her, threw out a lazy "Sorry," and brushed right past.
She opened her mouth to say "no worries," but he was already gone. The look he gave her said he knew exactly who she was, and he had zero interest in talking. Even the "sorry" felt polite but dripping with superiority.
If she'd been James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, or Spielberg, she's pretty sure he would've lit up and started chatting.
That's Hollywood for you: kiss up, kick down. How else do you survive?
She didn't blame him. Respect is earned, and right now she was just a washed-up, discarded director nobody wanted to be associated with. She hadn't earned anyone's respect in years.
(Not that she had much love for a guy who famously cheated on Sienna Miller with the nanny, loved threesomes, and then got cuckolded by Sienna and Daniel Craig. Dude's receding hairline practically screamed "mid-life crisis waiting to happen.")
Joey just shrugged, gave a little laugh, and kept walking.
Beep-beep.
Her phone.
She jolted like someone had shocked her. She'd been lost in memories of a city she hadn't seen in fifty years; she barely remembered what her phone even looked like or where she kept it.
She finally fished it out. "Renee" on the screen.
Her one real friend since childhood, a struggling stage actress.
In her last life, Joey had ghosted her completely after running away from Hollywood. Pride, mostly.
She answered. "Hey, Renee. What's up?"
Renee was practically yelling on the other end. "Joey, why are you still wandering around? I just got a call from my friend at the bank. If you don't pay back that loan this month, they're foreclosing on the Santa Monica Canyon house!"
Joey didn't know what to say. In her last life, she'd lost that house too.
Renee kept going. "I should've stopped you! I know no studio will touch you right now, but if you'd just laid low a few years, something would've come up. You were already broke; why on earth did you mortgage your last asset for one last swing? If Harvard Memories doesn't sell, you're done!"
Joey sighed, heavy. "There's no avoiding bankruptcy at this point. I borrowed three million from the bank for that movie. No way I can pay it back."
Renee went quiet, then: "Wait… you're telling me not a single company wants it? Not one?"
"Nope." She said it flat, because she already knew how her last life ended; she'd begged every studio in town and got laughed out the door.
She didn't blame them. The movie sucked.
Renee wailed, "Oh my God, is it really over? I checked your email; nothing but rejections. Even those tiny indie producers who used to kiss your ass are acting like you're radioactive."
Joey gave a tired laugh. "Can't blame them. Look at the mess I've become."
Renee started brainstorming. "Okay, okay; go talk to Hughes. The guy's loaded. He'd cover the three million in a heartbeat, and you wouldn't have to go bankrupt. I still can't believe you kept this from your own fiancé!"
"No!" Joey snapped, louder than she meant to. "He can't know. I don't want him looking down on me."
Last life or this one, she still had that stupid pride when it came to Hughes. Plus, he was about to dump her anyway; what kind of loser begs the guy who's breaking up with her for a bailout?
Renee groaned. "Then what are we supposed to do, just wait for bankruptcy? That's it? Joey, you're so young; your career should be just getting started, not ending!"
Joey exhaled. "I need to think."
Renee hesitated, then said gently, "Look, I hate to say it, but if there's really no chance here… don't torture yourself. Come do stage directing with me; I can get you in with the theater. Or go get a teaching credential and lecture at film school. Anything's better than letting the critics and tabloids rip you apart every day."
She paused. "They say you blow money, live wild, sleep around; yeah, you party, but you've been totally faithful to Hughes. Yeah, you got that DUI, but you already did the community service. And the weed stuff? I can't stand these papers."
"No, Renee," Joey cut in. She knew Renee meant well, but if she gave up now, what was the point of being reborn? "Listen. This time I'm not quitting. Yeah, I screwed around for years. But I'm awake now. Maybe I'll still get beaten down and crawl out of Hollywood on my knees one day, but not today. If I quit today, then my life really is over for good."
Renee clearly had no idea what she was talking about. "Girl, what are you even saying? How do you know what's going to happen to your life? Whatever; if you're sure, I've got your back. But what do we do right now?"
Right now?
Her brain was still spinning. She'd just come back from the future; her only clear thought was "don't run away this time," but she didn't have a plan yet. Studios slamming doors in her face, about to be homeless and bankrupt, zero reputation left, no money, no allies… First things first: she needed to not end up on the street.
Oh, and getting dumped. She suddenly remembered today's date. She was actually on her way to meet Hughes right now… and the breakup was scheduled for tonight.
She checked the time. "Renee, I gotta go; I've got a date. We'll talk when I get home."
She hung up and kept walking down Sunset.
After fifty years in hiding last time, she was pretty much over Hughes; romantically, anyway. She wouldn't fall apart like before. Everything coming was her own fault.
Still, her feelings were a tangled mess; especially knowing that five years from now he'd die in a car crash.
When that happened last time, she'd walked around like a zombie for years. Time eventually dulled the pain. Now? She couldn't even label what she felt for him. Too complicated.
She knew the second they broke up, the tabloids would have a field day. They'd spin her and Hughes into yet another "classic Hollywood story."
"The ruined genius destroyed by Hollywood" and "the golden couple who split because they were too different"; both perfect tabloid bait. She was basically a walking collection of every tragic Hollywood cliché people love to watch burn.