Chapter Text
Chapter One
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I should have left earlier. I hate being late and don’t want to make a bad first impression. My best friend asked me to do this at the last minute as a favor, and I can’t let her down. But let’s be real—it’s not like I have anything else going for me at the moment.
I run up the subway stairs at 72nd Street and try to read over the dossier that was emailed to me last night. “What am I doing?” I ask myself as I quickly flip through the pages without taking in the information. I’ve never worked as a personal assistant. I’m a writer, for God’s sake! But Hallmark turned down my last pitch, and rent is still due on the first, so I guess I will be someone’s go-bitch.
So here I am, running down Central Park West toward 1 West 67th Street, a beautiful nine-story Gothic-style building from the turn of the century. For the next two months, I am going to be the assistant and New York City guide to some foreign celebrity who is in the States to film a movie.
“It can’t be that hard to babysit a celebrity,” I say as I walk into the building’s lobby.
Thank goodness the concierge at the building is expecting me. The last thing I want is to be accused of stalking a famous person I’ve never heard of. A binder and manila envelope are waiting for me. Inside the envelope is a set of keys and an access card to the elevator.
Once in the elevator, I look through the binder and see a floor plan for the apartment, a basic filming schedule from the production company, and an employment agreement. The main entry to the apartment is on the 6th floor, and as I stand in the ornate hallway, I pray that I’m the first to arrive. Just in case I’m not, I knock on the door and wait ten one-thousands before I use the key to open the door.
“Hello?” I call out into the dark apartment.
As I enter the foyer and the door closes behind me, lights come on as if on a motion sensor. “Fancy,” I comment to myself. I wander into the living room and am amazed at the two-story ceiling and gorgeous chandeliers. “Wow…” I whisper and look around, thinking five of my studio apartments could fit in the space. “So this is how the other half lives in the city?”
My phone beeps in the back pocket of my jeans, and checking the notification on my smart watch I see a text from my friend asking if I made it to the apartment. I quickly reply and then set about turning on the lights and opening the curtains on the far wall of the space.
I pull the floor plan from the binder and get my bearings around the apartment. Beyond the foyer is an open living and dining space. A baby grand piano is off to the right, along with a flight of stairs which leads to the second level. The kitchen is to the left by the dining space, and while it’s not my taste with dark wood cabinets, I shrug off the owner’s design choices.
The kitchen is stocked with cookware and tableware. There are bottles of water in the fridge and some bulk items like sugar and flour in the pantry. I hope my duties don’t involve cooking. I get by with a simple meal prep of a protein and a vegetable.
Upstairs, there are two bedrooms. The primary bedroom is on the right, with a king-size bed facing a bank of built-ins. The en suite has double sinks and a glass-enclosed shower, and I sigh longingly at the sight of the deep soaker tub.
The second bedroom has a small seating area and a queen bed tucked away behind sliding doors. There is also a second entrance through this bedroom that connects to the 7th floor of the building. The notes on the provided floor plan say that this room should be used as a dressing room. I open up the wall of built-in closets and know I will have my work set out for me unpacking and organizing whatever my client brings.
The bathroom in the second bedroom has a larger shower but no tub. The binder notes that a cleaning service will come once a week, but otherwise, I will be responsible for daily clean-up.
Standing at the top of the stairs, I look around the apartment and wonder what I have gotten myself into. Managing a household while also managing a celebrity—maybe I’m in over my head.
I look at my watch and wonder where my client is. The dossier says his plane landed two hours ago. I take a seat by the back windows, flip through the binder, and start entering important dates and times into my calendar app.
I must be lost in my thoughts because I don’t hear the door open, but a man’s voice makes me look up from my phone and then stand.
In the foyer stand two Asian men, one taller than the other. They look young, but having just turned 31, it feels like everyone is younger than me. Call it a midlife crisis, if you will.
“저 여자는 누구예요 (Who is she)?" says the shorter man.
I have no idea what he said, but judging by the confused look on his face, it seems like a good time to introduce myself. “Hi there,” I smile and cross the living room to approach the men. “The production company hired me to assist you during your stay in the city.”
The shorter man looks at the taller man as if waiting for a translation, and I bite my lip. “Oh, here!” I remember the short bio my friend asked me to write about myself. I pull it from the binder that I have clutched to my chest and give it to the shorter man whom I assume is the actor’s manager.
He takes the paper from my hands and looks over it. I don’t know if he can read English, and I want to curse my friend for setting me up for this job without knowing how to communicate.
I take a second to look them over and notice that the taller man is handsome but looks too lean to be in the action film my friend is shooting. Now that I’m up close and watching the shorter man read over my bio, I see he is also quite handsome. His eyes are large and somehow perfectly catch the light in the dim foyer. His nose is big, but it suits his face well, and when he smiles at something on the paper, I can see he has dimples.
“누나,” (Noona/Nuna), he says with a smirk and hands the paper to the other man.
Shit. How the hell am I going to do this job if we can’t understand one another? “I’m so sorry. I know your team requested someone bilingual, but something came up last minute, and well, I’m doing this as a favor for a friend; she is one of the producers for the movie, and well—“
He laughs again, and I can’t help but look at his plush mouth—because of his smile. Yes, his brilliant smile. God…he must think I’m fucking crazy.
“I downloaded a translation app! Let me just…” I reach for my phone in my back pocket and start to type when he speaks again.
“I’m fluent in English,” he offers with a smile, and his full lips and dimples become so damn distracting.
“Oh,” I look between him and the tall man who has yet to speak. “Will you be around to translate then?”
He gets a surprised look on his face that lasts for a fraction of a second, and then his shoulders relax, and his damn smile is back. “Don’t let him fool you. He speaks more languages than me, but you and I will be working together for the next few months.”
He holds out his hand, and I can’t believe my assumption was wrong. The man who stands only half a foot taller than me is my client. My cheeks heat with embarrassment, and I anxiously move the binder into my left hand while wiping my right on my jeans to rid it of any sweat before shaking his hand.
“I’m Chris. Nice to meet you,” he offers.
”I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you. I took this job last minute—“
”Right. The favor for your friend, the producer.”
”Yes,” I cringe, thinking about how I spewed the whole story out a few minutes ago.
There’s a knock at the door, and I blush even harder because I’ve been shaking his hand this entire time. He drops my hand and I tell myself to get a grip as three carts of luggage roll in.
The taller man finally speaks and directs the delivery staff to unload the luggage. I stand back and watch the unholy number of bags being placed in the foyer. I recognize the Louis Vuitton pattern on a few of them and use the moment to take in my client.
He’s dressed casually, but I can tell his outfit costs more than I would earn in royalties from selling a script. His silver, or more likely, platinum jewelry, catches the light that pours through the windows.
Coming from a very different tax bracket from him, I might sound jaded, but I don’t envy his wealth. I know celebrities get gifted items and are ambassadors for luxury brands, but the overabundance makes me curious about his character. How does fame and fortune change a person? We see it all the time with lottery winners. Most of them are flat broke within two years.
Seeing everything he travels with does make me self-conscious. I look down at my lightweight sweater, jeans, and Converse and wonder if I should have dressed up a little more.
“I’m going to wash up,” Chris’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. We make eye contact, and he continues: “Hey, Nuna, Hyung will go over my schedule with you.”
”But my name’s—“
”I know,” he says with a sly smile. “It was on the paper.”
Chris disappears up the stairs with one of LV duffles slung over his shoulder, and I don’t have it in me to yell out after him.
Story Music:
This story idea was originally for another fandom and I was going to call it 'Lies Into Fairy Dust' which is a lyric from the below song.
Title Song - 'The Side Effect (to my loneliness) Is You.'