Love, Loss and Living

Ebb and Flow of Life Chapter 27

A long moment passed. "Thanks for letting me know. I have a trip planned back to Toronto to wrap up the this season. It is good to know what I am walking into. So, back to that assistant job." Tina gave Shelly a reassuring smile. "I'll talk to to HR, but like I said, I don't think you will be able to start until next month sometime."

"That's okay, I still need to get myself settled. I am staying with a friend right now, but I need to find my own place... I had forgotten how expensive Los Angeles is for rentals." Shelly sighed.

"Why don't you come up to my office and we can talk more. I am expecting an important call and I was only planning to be down her for a few minutes." Tina smiled as she stood up.

Shelly smiled and followed Tina out the door of the cafeteria, but had to pick up her pace as Tina was walking quickly. The sound of the click clack of her heels echoed through the hallway with Tina's purposeful walk towards her office.

Tina walked by her assistant, "Hold all my calls except for Alan Ruxford, I am expecting his call and don't let anyone past you." Tina said as she walked into her office with Shelly a few steps behind her. She collapsed into her chair. Tina looked at her desk phone, "Good, no calls." Tina smiled tucking her blonde stands behind her ear as she looked up at Shelly who had settled herself in a chair across from Tina. Tina reached in her desk and pulled out her business card. She flipped it over and wrote a number on the back, then pushed it across her desk towards Shelly. "Here is my office and work cell number, just in case you don't have it already and I wrote my personal cell number on the back."

Shelly reached in her bag and pulled out a scrape piece of paper and scribbled her number on it and gave it to Tina. "Here is mine, in case you don't have my personal anymore." Shelly had worked with Tina the entire time Tina was in Toronto. Working for Tina by far was better than any other executive she had ever worked under. Tina was fair, liberal with her knowledge and always took time to answer questions. Sure there was getting coffee, picking up dry cleaning, but there was also scheduling meetings with top players in the movie and tv industry and mitigating problems and smoothing ego issues. In Toronto, Shelly had helped Tina put together production teams.  She had to know the personalities of the players in order to figure out who worked well together. Tina allowed for her to have her hand in every pot, except the actual writing, but that was fine with Shelly. Writing was definitely not one of her strengths and she new it. She liked knowing every part of the machine that made a movie and there were a lot of moving pieces for sure. She had never gone to film school, falling into a low level temporary secretary job right out of college. But look where she is now, about to start a job with an up in coming executive producer. Shelly didn't know why Tina would even give a second thought to the gossip. Tina was talented, her name was being tossed around many studios and often came up as a fixer when there were problems on a production. Tina may not know it, but she was headed towards the big time and it was only a matter of time, Shelly thought. Working for Tina in her new position, would be the next step in Shelly's career. An opportunity to network, to make connections that would eventually help her when she moved on from this job. Yeah, coming to Los Angeles may have been inconvenient and a little scary because she had never lived out of Canada, but she was hooking herself on to the skirt tail of a mover and shaker.  She was going to learn as much as she could from Tina Kennard and she was very excited about this new adventure in her life. 

Tina's phone rang.  She grabbed her head set and started talking.  She smiled at Shelly and mouthed "Call me later."

Shelly stood, nodded her head as she smiled and quietly left Tina's office.  I need to find a place to live she said to herself, as she exited out the main entrance of the studio office building.