Page 6 - jesse book

The other, was as an intern for a film producer in Topanga Beach. The internship was unpaid, a hell of a commute, and one that required three interviews. By the end of each interview, the person would always caveat with various forms of “you know you’re willingly agreeing to 6 months unpaid labor?”. The end prospect was a recommendation from said film producer for any job you found. He had supposedly moved a former intern to second choice for an Executive Assistant job with just a phone call. Emphasis on “second choice”.
If you think I chose any other job besides the completely masochistic one, then you really haven’t learned anything about me at all. At the end of the third interview, a Skype interview, the producer had said, with a palpable coldness, that he looked forward to my first day on the second monday of August. I signed some forms and that was it, it was decided.
I thought with a “job” or at least a “plan” my anxiety would soften, I was so, so wrong.
My mother wasn’t ecstatic about my position either, but she kept it to herself, well at least as much as she could bear to. Unfortunately for both of us, my previous internship was also unpaid so the only savings I had were an amalgamation of hay pennies from a college bookstore job, and obligatory holiday money from relatives . My mother generously gave
me a little bit of money and told me I would pay her back by getting a job I loved. For as far as her generosity and kindness went though, there was an undercurrent of pressure to “love LA’, “love my job” and maybe, hopefully “love myself ” that came with it.
In the last week before I was supposed to leave, my mother and I were now searching frantically for a place to live. The Producer had mandated I live, at the absolute most, an hour away from Topanga Beach. Apparently other interns had done a longer commute in the past and quit from exhaustion before the 6 months was up. I heard that, didn’t see a red flag, and searched harder for the least expensive place in the surrounding area. Yet the West Side and inexpensive, were two words I was coming to realize were oil and water. I had an Aunt in Simi Valley who had a friend with a room where the rent would’ve been a hair less than an apartment in Reseda, which may as well have been named Green Acres.
Our last resort came from a close friend of my mother’s from college, whom I had met several times, and loved. Her name was Jo. She lived