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MICHAEL
I couldn’t believe the way the studio was treating Tinsley. After everything she’d already had to put up with from Lee, now this? It was completely unfair.
Lee had been riding the edge of stupidity for some time and now his own actions had pushed him over. Why were they punishing her?
“I can’t make it here without this job,” Tinsley had told us all. She tried to stay composed but I could see her on the verge of crumbling. “Losing this type of job is career ending. I won’t be able to work in this town again if we don’t do something.”
“Whatever it is Tinsley, we’ll do it. If this walkout doesn’t work, we’ll find something that will,” I assured her.
“Are you sure this is something you guys want to do? Is it even something you can do?” she asked.
“Why don’t I call my dad. He’s a lawyer. He handled all my stuff until recently. I’ll have him look over my contract again and let me know if it’s even a possibility,” Ryan suggested.
“Great idea!” Katie cheered. “It’s been years since I’ve read a contract.
Those things send me cross-eyed.”
Ryan stepped away to go and call his father. The rest of us gathered around Tinsley. I’d never seen her looking so vulnerable for this long. Even after the earthquake, she had quickly regained composure when the guys had all walked in. This Tinsley was shaken.
“Are you okay,” I asked quietly. “I mean I know you’re upset about getting fired but is there something more?”
“I just have worked so hard my whole life. I finally thought everything was falling into place. Not just with the job but with you guys. I felt like my life was actually on track for once. To know I could lose it all, lose you guys. It’s devastating,” she cried.
“We’re not going anywhere Miss Tinsley. What’s the point of all this movie star stuff if you can’t throw your weight around a bit. I for one am not going anywhere. I’d love you here but I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if need be,” I said, squeezing her hand.
“Do you really mean that?” she asked, tears streaming down her face. “Do you think the rest of the guys feel that way too?”
“We sure do,” said Thiago coming up behind us with Kai. “What we have can’t be separated by distance,” I remarked.
“How did I ever get so lucky?” Tinsely said, smiling through her tears. “I ask myself that every day,” Kai said.
Just then Ryan returned from his phone call with his dad. Ryan’s dad had luckily already read through the contract before when Ryan had first signed
“If your contracts are anything like mine, you can walk for a subsection under ‘creative differences,'” Ryan remarked. “It’s a bit nuanced, but my dad thinks we can make it work. Basically, it refers to things that are outside of our moral compass.
“We’d have to spin it a bit, but essentially, we’re not questioning the morals of the work but the morals of the man directing the work. And we’ve already got a bit of a background built up when you consider all that shit Michael went through with Lee and the extra.
“My dad said, there is enough out there about who Lee is to give us some grounds to call them on it. Basically if we feel that our integrity is being called into question by say a racist, misogynistice, homophobic director, we have a mans to make it work,” he said.
“Well, that’s more than easy to prove,” Kai stated. “That guy is a walking disaster when it comes to morality.”
“Yes. Basically, if they try to give us crap, we can say that Lee’s actions are calling our own reputations into question because we are tied to a film that he is directing. It’s not foolproof, but it gives us a leg to stand on and scare them while they go back to legal to see if it’s worth a damn,” Ryan finished.
“And by then the cat will already be out of the bag,” Tinsley chimed in, our confidence in the plan building her back up. “This whole thing hinges on the idea that you threaten to walk, that is the press they don’t want surrounding this movie. Whether or not you can legally walk, makes little difference in the eyes of the public.”
“Exactly! We have enough to tie up production while they sort through the legal and they don’t want that,” Ryan agreed. “We just need to give them a good scare.”
Once we had our plan, everyone got to work. Katie’s friends helped each of us to call our agents and explain the situation as well as putting together talking points for us for the meeting.
Tinsley’s assistant Alex made sure that the big wigs would be around for filming tomorrow. To make this work we would need to stage a walk out that would get their attention. Luckily we were slated to film a major action reshoot tomorrow that hadn’t been done to the studio’s satisfaction the first go round, even Ryan was supposed to be back on set tomorrow.
Just then Tinsley’s phone chimed. She looked down to read the text and was instantly horrified.
“What is it?” I asked, rushing over.
“It’s a message from Lee,” she said. “And it’s awful.”
We all gathered around as she read his spiteful words aloud.
Ding dong, the witch is dead. I told you that you would be sorry for your baseless allegations against me. And now look, you’re fired. No more Tinsley nonsense. I may have been the one to have made a scene but you’re the one that got canned. Enjoy the poorhouse. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before you accuse someone of having a drinking problem.
I wanted to kill Lee. He’d gone beyond too far this time. I’d had enough of him harassing women, especially women that I held dear. He thought he was untouchable. Well one way or another he was going down. How dare he send that text.
Ryan was just as pissed as I was. “Well, if we didn’t have a leg to stand on before, we certainly do now,” Ryan said.
“Tinsley what is he talking about? Baseless allegations?” Thiago asked. “Tinsley reached out to Lee just before Utah. She and I had been
monitoring Lee’s activities. He got a bit out of hand one night at the Chateau Marmont. He said he was just sick, but it was much more than that. The paparazzi had footage of him being carried out,” said Alex.
“I reached out to him after I managed to kill the story to see if he needed help. I can basically trace all his blowups, altercations, everything to nights or days after that he’s been drinking.
“I thought if I offered to get him some help, he might take me up on it or at least that it might slow his destruction. Like I said, I’d already killed the story so I thought maybe he could finally see that I was on his side. I guess this was his way of getting back at me,” Tinsley explained.
“Tinsley, do you have proof of all this?” Ryan asked, his lawyer’s side popping out again.
“Yes, I mean I have the emails between the paparazzi and I and the email I sent to Lee to show him what could have leaked.”
“Tinsley, this is retaliation. He can’t orchestrate a plot to get you fired after you try and get him help. There are strict rules around that,” Ryan remarked.
“It’s true Tins,” said Katie. “Retaliation is a big no no. This gives us more than enough to get your job back. Unless…”
“Unless, what?” I asked.
“What if we don’t want your job back?” Katie asked, looking at Ryan and smiling.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ryan asked.
“Well can someone tell me what anyone is thinking?” I questioned.
“What if Tinsley goes out on her own. We could get her her job back, but then what? She’s still answering to some asshole that clearly cares more about kissing a studio’s ass. What if we demand that she be hired back as an independent contractor?” Ryan explained.
“Yes,” Tinsley said. “I love it! If I’m my own boss, I don’t have to worry about this kind of crap again. I can take the jobs I want and call my own shots. Let’s do it!”
It was incredibly sexy to see a woman like Tinsley coming into her own this way. Tinsley, Katie and her husband Stephen had lots to work on with Katie’s friends to get everything in place for tomorrow and so the guys, Adrienne and I, excused ourselves.
“I’m so proud of you Tins,” I remarked as I made my way out the door. “You deserve this. You deserve all the best this world has to offer.”