In a quiet, secluded booth at a restaurant, Carmen Kass had her long straight hair pulled back. She set down her knife and fork and looked at Ryan with mild curiosity. "Have you been really busy lately?"
That night at the party, he had asked for her number and never once called.
She had even gone to Europe for a week of shows and come back to Los Angeles to finish an ad shoot.
Ryan picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, and said, "Work has been coming at me from every direction. My head's been spinning. I wish I could split myself in two."
If Carmen hadn't called, he probably would have forgotten about her entirely.
"Prepping a new movie?" Carmen had heard him mention it that night.
Ryan smiled. "Not just a movie. The company too. It's still in the early stages and there's too much to keep track of."
He went through it for her. "The company needs to hire staff and figure out its next development plan. The new movie needs a director, location scouting, suitable actors..."
Carmen pressed two fingers to her forehead. "That sounds exhausting. Just hearing about it gives me a headache."
Ryan stayed easy about it. "Starting something from scratch is always like this. Wasn't it the same for you when you first started modeling?"
"Hmm." Carmen's response came with a trace of something like a painful memory. Her already somewhat melancholy green eyes went a little deeper, and after a moment she said, "The competition in this industry is just as bad as Hollywood."
Ryan said quietly, "You've already made it through. I'm still in the startup phase."
Carmen looked at him. "Are all men this ambitious?"
"I can't speak for everyone," Ryan said. "But I think for men and women both, a career matters. I'm twenty years old. This is exactly the time to put in the work."
Carmen nodded. "That makes sense." She lifted her water glass toward him. "I need to work hard too."
Ryan raised his glass back, took a sip, and said, "Here's to you collecting all six blue-chip brands before long."
"That's too much to ask for," Carmen said with a small smile.
Ryan pushed her anyway. "The four major magazines, six major brands, eight secondary brands. Set your sights on all of it. Who knows, you might actually get there one day."
Carmen shook her head. "Even the five supermodels haven't pulled that off."
She said it, but she was quietly pleased. This Ryan Anderson really was an interesting person. What aspiring supermodel wouldn't want to do something no one had ever done before?
After lunch, Carmen asked, "Do you have to work this afternoon?"
Ryan thought about it and nodded, then added, "Would you want to come see the company?"
"Can I?" Carmen asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Would I be in the way?"
Ryan told her no.
The two left the restaurant and Carmen rode over to Starlight Entertainment in Ryan's car.
Only one person had been left in the office to answer phones and deal with visiting agents. Everyone else was out handling external work.
Ryan brought Carmen into his office. "Make yourself at home."
Carmen took her time looking around. Like the company itself, the office wasn't large. The furniture was plain and practical, nothing more.
"It's not quite what I pictured," she said.
Ryan poured her a glass of water. "Small company, small team, small space."
Carmen offered, "Good boss, though."
"I'm not a good boss right now," Ryan said, staying honest. "My last movie was too aggressive and nearly bankrupted the company. That's why Leonardo called me a prodigal son."
"Everyone runs into setbacks," Carmen said, and something in her expression said she was thinking of her own. "Success always comes with them."
Ryan took the encouragement and nodded. "I'm hoping this time won't be another one."
He moved around to his desk and said, "I need to get through some emails. Feel free to look around."
Carmen tilted her head. "Nothing confidential in here, is there?"
"Nothing," Ryan said, opening his computer and logging into his email. "Look at whatever you want."
Mary and George had both sent messages. Mary was handling weapon prop rentals and George was coordinating vehicles. Both emails had their latest updates.
Glen had sent one too.
Ryan had specifically brought this screenwriter on to refine and polish the script for The Purge. He knew clearly that even if young Anderson had some real talent for screenwriting, he lacked experience.
Glen's email laid out changes to two scenes and three smaller plot points. Reading through them, Ryan felt the revisions were the stronger versions.
He replied asking Glen to come to the studio the next day so the three of them, Ryan, Glen, and James, could talk it through together. Bouncing ideas off each other sometimes turned up things you wouldn't find on your own.
Ryan had read through the scripts from James and Glen, and compared to his own version of The Purge, these two experienced writers had come out ahead in quite a few areas, even accounting for his advantage of already knowing where the story needed to go.
No matter how he looked at it, he was still a newcomer without enough Hollywood experience behind him.
After clearing his emails, Ryan made a quick call, and the employee outside carried in a large stack of documents and laid them on his desk.
Carmen looked over with interest. The stack was well over two feet thick and appeared to include photos.
"Are those actor profiles?" she asked.
Ryan picked up the top portion and started going through them. "These are all profiles submitted to the company by agents."
Carmen's world in modeling had always run alongside Hollywood, so she leaned forward. "Can I look?"
Ryan gestured to the chair across the desk. "Come sit. We can go through them together."
These were all regular clients from small agencies. Nothing sensitive about any of it.
Carmen pulled up the chair and sat down, taking a file to look through. Her English was solid, but her reading pace was a little slower than his.
Ryan moved fast, tossing most of the files he'd reviewed to his right.
Watching him work with that kind of focus, Carmen found herself thinking of her early days in model training, when she had been just as serious and driven.
Being serious and hardworking didn't guarantee anything, but without it, you never had a chance to begin with.
She wasn't sure what had come over her, but she heard herself asking, "Is there anything I can help with?"
Ryan looked up at her and, without any ceremony, spoke to her like she was part of the team.
"Carmen, can you pull out specific profiles for me? Golden-blonde girls aged ten to fourteen, golden-blonde actresses aged sixteen to twenty, golden-blonde actresses born around 1960, and male actors with the same hair color born before 1960."
Carmen said, "Okay."
Ryan added, "They all need acting experience. Community theater counts."
Carmen started going through the files according to his criteria. Each one came with a clear photo attached.
The work was repetitive enough that the two fell into conversation as they went, Carmen mostly asking questions about Hollywood and Ryan answering them.
"You've got everything going for you," Ryan said at one point, half joking. "Why not cross over and act in Hollywood?"
Carmen didn't bite on that and instead asked, "Why does it have to be golden-blonde actors?"
Ryan let the earlier question go. "They're playing a family, and hair color carries through generations. It matters especially for the three actresses, who are playing a mother and her two daughters."
"Actors can dye their hair," Carmen pointed out.
Ryan nodded first. "They can, sure." Then he shook his head. "There's a tendency in Hollywood where non-blonde actresses generally don't want to dye their hair blonde."
He glanced briefly at Carmen's blonde hair but didn't say more.
Carmen picked up on it immediately. She said, a little wryly, "I've lived in the UK and the US both. It's not just a Hollywood thing. It's everywhere. A lot of people treat blonde hair as a sign that someone isn't very bright."
Ryan said, "Anyone who thinks that is the one who isn't very bright."
Carmen laughed.
With her help, the stack of files got sorted through quickly. Ryan ended up with a little over a dozen useful profiles, and a few familiar names that he circled with his pen.
"Thanks for the help," Ryan said. Then, testing the waters, "Can I take you to dinner tonight?"
Carmen turned it down again. "No need."
She explained, "I have a photoshoot tonight, and I'm heading back to Europe tomorrow."
Ryan said, "That's a shame."
Carmen added, "I'll be back in the States later on."
Ryan smiled. "I'll get to Europe at some point too."
He walked her out as the sun was just starting to drop.
Thinking back over their two meetings, he found her genuinely interesting. She kept her distance, but always left him with something on his mind.
'Is she trying to get me to chase after her?' Ryan thought.