Private Relations

Chapter 8

The intern, whose name I couldn’t remember  for the life of me, shoved his Ipad into my hands and didn’t say a word. I tapped the  You Tube play button and waited.

“Next Week on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Ex girlfriend of Pop’s superstar Peter Bens comes clean. And a performance by…”

I felt my heart double time as a picture of Victoria’s smiling face popped up on screen. It had only been a few days, but she had already booked an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live? This woman was not playing, she needed money and she needed it now. I gave the Ipad back to the intern and looked over to see if Yi Wen had heard the audio. Judging by her wide eyes and open mouth, she had heard.

“This is bad,” She muttered with a deep, rough voice.

She wiped a crumpled tissue paper under her red, wet nose and walked over to me.

“This is really bad.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What you always have to do in situation like these. Pay her.”

“That’s it? Just make Peter pay her?”

“Of course not,” Yi Wen began, stopping to wipe her nose once more, “We draw up a contract and pay her to not speak about Peter to any press in America. She is obviously poor now and needs money as quickly as possible. If we can get Peter to pay her more than what all of the television appearances would pay, we can get this out of the way.”

“That sounds like a lot of money though.”

“That is not our problem. Our problem is her.”

“So what do we do first?”

“We call up her agent and propose the settlement. Then we call Peter and tell him to bring his check book and a good lawyer.”

“This just got so much more complicated then I thought it would be. Are all of the cases that Samantha gives you like this?”

Yi Wen rubbed her hands under her eyes and nodded “A lot of the times, yes. But sometimes people do not want the media circus and just want quiet money. That does not happen very much.”

“Do you want to call Victoria’s agent, or should I?”

“I’ll call Victoria’s agent, you call Peter and tell him to stand by.”

“Okay.”

Yi Wen nodded at me before turning away and dropping herself into her chair. She ran a hand through her hair before picking up the phone. I looked away and got to work myself. I dialed the number the Peter gave Samantha to contact him with and waited.

“Hello, this is Mr. Ben’s assistant. He’s very busy at the moment so you’ll have to call back—“

“Don’t give me that. This is Destiny Jones, his PR agent. There is something urgent that I need to discuss with your boss.”

There was silence on the line for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do.”

More silence and muffled conversations before the line was picked up again.

“Ms. Jones,” Peter began, “Samantha told me that we were not scheduled for a meeting until next week. Is something wrong?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, Victoria has decided to go to the press with her story. Jimmy Kimmel Live to be exact.”

Peter didn’t say anything for a long time; my guess was that he was vividly imagining his career going down the drain.

“What am I supposed to do?” He questioned and even through the phone I could hear his throat click with pent up nerves. The man was about 10 minutes from a panic attack.