‘THE FIRING’

It was a relatively quiet Friday morning at McQuewick’s. Terrance had cleared his calendar for a friendly game of golf with James Cameron and was set to leave as soon as he had taken care of a few things his assistant couldn’t postpone. A commotion outside of his office made him look up. His latest assistant Sugar, a feisty and busty blonde, was trying to stop an irate Blaine Anderson from entering Terrance’s office. Even though Sugar was taller than the actor, thanks to her fuck me heels, he seemed to tower over her, his eyes blazing. In his hand, he was holding the latest edition of US Weekly, which the actor was waving in Sugar’s face. With a sigh, Terrance got out of his two thousand dollar office chair and opened the glass door separating his office from Sugar’s desk.

“Blaine, did I forget about a meeting?” he greeted his client with a smile on his face, before he turned to his assistant. “Call Cameron and tell him I’m going to be late.”

The actor ignored him and marched into Terrance’s office. Terrance followed him and closed the door behind them.

“How can I help you, Blaine? Did you like any of the scripts I sent over?” Terrance asked, pretending not to know why his client had showed up unannounced.

Blaine slammed the copy of the magazine down on Terrance’s desk. It was open to a picture of the actor and actress Rebecca Quinn. “This is your doing, isn’t it?” he accused Terrance.

Terrance quite liked the picture. After all, he’d set it up. Rebecca had told his client some made up story about her dead dog, and predictably Blaine had held her hand and tried to comfort her. The paparazzi Terrance had paid to stalk his client, had snapped a picture of the intimate gesture and sold it to the highest bidder. The headline over the picture stated: ‘With LLM cancelled, can we root for an off screen happy ending?’.

The door opened behind Blaine and he was joined by his manager Wesley ‘Wes’ Montgomery and his lawyer David Thompson. He’d gone to high school with both of them and had followed them out West once he’d graduated two years after them. He’d tried his luck with music first, sleeping on his older brother’s couch who had made a name for himself in the adult film industry after his regular acting career never took off. For two years, he played every coffee shop that would let him and worked as a singing waiter in a Disney themed restaurant. One day, he performed for a casting director who invited him to audition for a new musical comedy set in high school. The rest was history. Wes, who had just graduated from Stanford, became his manager while David, who was about to start law school, offered him legal advice.

“It’s a good picture of you and Rebecca,” his agent said, a fake smile on his face, “but if you’re mad about it, I’m not sure how I can help you. I’m your agent, not your publicist.”

Terrance McQuewick owned the oldest talent agency in Los Angeles. He’d only come out of retirement after firing his former partner Ari Gold for trying to steal clients. Ari had taken their most promising client, Vincent Chase, with him and so, when Blaine Anderson had walked into the agency five years ago, looking for representation, Terrance had decided to fight fire with fire and do with Blaine Anderson what Ari had done with Vincent Chase. Only problem was, as Terrance discovered during their first face to face, that Blaine Anderson was gay. He was also very naiv about it, because the first thing he told Terrance was that he didn’t want to be in the closet. He’d watched Jack McPhee come out on Dawnson’s Creek when he was sixteen and it had inspired him. The now twenty year old had just booked a role on a musical comedy set in a Kentucky High School and Terrance  was certain that if Blaine Anderson actually came out, he would never turn him into the cash cow Vincent Chase was. He convinced Blaine that staying in the closet was for his own good. He told him the horror stories about actors who had come out to producers and hadn’t worked since. He told him that if he came out, his career would be over before it even began. His character would probably be written off the show or killed tragically. In the end, Blaine agreed, but he wasn’t happy. Afraid that his new client would crumble under the pressure, Terrance advised him to tell any nosey reporters that his private life was private and that he wouldn’t talk about relationships. Secretly, he made sure that Blaine was photographed with a young starlet every other week and paid the bouncers in ‘Boyztown’ to confiscate the cellphone of anyone who owned a camera phone. If anyone talked about Blaine’s visits to gay bars, his publicist would make sure those stories were buried and changed to stories about Blaine sleeping with his female co-stars. Blaine’s show Loser Like Me had just been cancelled and Terrance was trying to get him on the big screen. The last thing he needed were rumors about his client’s sexuality. Blaine Anderson was his less tall, but equally talented and equally good looking Vincent Chase. He needed girls to think they had a chance with him so those girls would badger the networks and studios about Blaine’s next projects. Rebecca Quinn, Blaine’s former co-star and on screen girlfriend had agreed to the set up immediately, as she hadn’t had any offers yet and was desperate to keep her name in the papers. Terrance had not only paid the paparazzi,  he’d also written off the dinner as company expenses. In his office, in front of his irate client, Terrance proved that he wasn’t such a bad actor himself when he told Blaine he had no idea why he was so angry.

“Cut the crap, Terrance,” Wes took over. “It was you who wanted to meet with Blaine and Rebecca to discuss a project they both would be perfect for and then you didn’t show because your assistant messed up your schedule. If that’s true, why is she still working for you? You’ve fired people for less.”

“She got a second chance,” Terrance said tersely. “But I admit, I had ulterior motives when I brought you and Rebecca together. There was no project, but now that your off screen romance is - let’s say official, every fucking romantic comedy wants to work with the two of you. We already signed her yesterday so we can sell you guys as a package deal,” Terrance smiled and patted himself on the back. If the boy would just listen to him, he could make both of them millions.

“So this has nothing to do with Blaine thinking about coming out now that LLM has been cancelled,” David interjected.

Behind his smile, Terrance was grinding his teeth. Why couldn’t they just let this go? When he had started out, no actor would have thrown away his career over something like sexuality. His motto was, do whatever you want behind closed doors, but in public you are who I tell you to be.

“I wasn’t aware of that development. But obviously now isn’t the best time for that.”

“Why not?” Blaine challenged him. “Neil Patrick Harris came out like three years ago and he’s still super successful. Why can’t that be me?”

Terrance wanted to strangle the ungrateful brat. “Your show just got cancelled. His show’s just been picked up for another two seasons. And he also wasn't publicly dating one of his female co-stars when he came out,” Terrance pointed at the picture. “You can’t do that to the poor girl.”

Blaine smiled and for the first time since the meeting had begun, Terrance was a little worried. Because the smile on his client’s face was nearly manic.

“I fired my publicist this morning, because clearly he’s working for you instead for me,” Blaine explained as he leaned back in his chair. “As of an hour ago Shauna Mazar has taken over and I’m afraid poor Rebecca will find out from TMZ that we’re just two good friends who tried to prank a group of paparazzi.”

“As your agent, I have to tell you that that wasn’t very smart,” Terrance sputtered.

Blaine’s smile widened. “Then you’ll be happy to hear that as of,” he checked his watch, “eleven forty-three, you are no longer my agent.”

“What?” Terrance asked incredulously. Behind the glass door, the rest of Blaine’s entourage - his drivers and personal assistants Nicholas ‘Nick” Duvall and Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Sterling held up two large signs.

‘You’re fired’ was printed on them in bold letters.

“You’re going to regret this,” Terrance seethed. “Without me, you are nothing!”

Blaine shrugged as he got up to leave. “I’d rather go back to being broke with no one knowing my name than letting you dictate my life any longer.” As he walked out of Terrance’s office, Wes and David lead the way, while Nick and Jeff formed a line behind him. Outside, they were greeted with a group of reporters Shauna had called. Blaine smiled into the cameras.

“Looks like I’m in the market for a new agent.”