Welcome to Hollywood

Last week, I took a chance and responded to an ad on Craig's List. No, not that kind of ad, you dirty birdies, although maybe I would have had better luck down that route.

This ad was posted under Writing Gigs, placed by a boutique fashion PR firm looking for a freelance press release writer. That's right up my alley, I thought. I could whip those out in a few nights, make some quick money, and possibly some contacts in the fashion world. I sent off my resume and some writing samples, and received a call back yesterday.

The guy was eager to get me started, so he asked if I could come by their office after work tonight. They would pay me 50% up front, so, sure. I copied down the address and phone numbers for both the office and my contact's cell phone, and that was that. Shortly after, I received a confirmation email from him, and I wrote back inquiring about parking, since I could tell it was in a sketchy neighborhood and wanted to be sure there was a lot or garage nearby. I never got a response, and while that probably should have been my first sign that something was amiss, I thought, Oh, Lori, grow up - figure out the parking on your own. He has bigger things to do than spoon-feed you information, you big baby.

So I skip the gym tonight to head to the fashion office, and when I talk about a sketchy part of town, remember that scene in Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts hung out, pre-Richard Gere? Well that area is all cleaned up now; I was in its modern day equivalent. Fortunately, it was still light out, so I wasn't scared, but there were no public parking lots in sight and street parking was out of the question. Even if I could have found a spot, you couldn't have paid me to leave my car there. After driving around the block a few times, I found an underground garage in the strip mall across the street. I parked there and walked back across the street to the office.

The office itself was on the second floor, the door of which was situated in between a Korean deli and a cell phone repair shop. There were a series of buzzers on the door; however a sign told me they all were broken. Nonetheless, I dialed the suite number, 204, and someone answered. That someone told me no one by my contact's name was there. I couldn't ask what company it was because yesterday, when the contact called, he sped through the name of the company so quickly, I missed it both times. Again, I thought I would be rude if I asked a third time, so I let it go thinking I had plenty of other information. Bad call. I dialed all of the other buzzers, but received either no answer or "no habla ingles".

That's fine, I thought, I'll just call him. Except I had accidentally left my cell phone in the car across the street. So I went into the cell phone shop next door, asked to use their phone, and dialed the number I had in front me. A woman answered. I asked for my contact. She hung up. I called back. Same woman answered. I again asked for my contact. She told me no one was there by that name. I repeated the number back to her. It was correct, but there was no contact there.

The other number I had copied down was in my cell phone, so I went back across the street to get it from my car. I dialed that number, which was saved in memory, so there was no possibility I could have had this number wrong. Because, you know, at this point I am still thinking that maybe I copied the address down wrong, the other phone number down wrong, even though I am one of the most conscientious, anal retentive, stickler for details like this, the confusion must be MY fault. The phone rings, but I get a voice mail. And not a "Hello, you've reached" voice mail or even just a recorded name, but the pre-recorded sample message that could have belonged to anyone or no one. "Please. Leave. A. Message," a robot instructed me.

This is when I started to think the whole thing was a scam, even though I wasn't sure what they could be scamming me out of. Some writing samples from three years ago? All yours. I left a tense voice mail, relaying the building number, the suite number, as well as the phone numbers I had tried, asking for a return call within the next few minutes or I'd be leaving.

By that point, I'm back across the street in front of the building. Since the buzzers were supposedly broken, I took a chance and tried the door, and sure enough, it swung wide open. Who needs locks in this part of town? Inside, I wasn't sure what to expect, since I had buzzed 204 originally and they told me I had the wrong number, but I headed up the stairs anyway. At the top of the stairs was a hallway that consisted only of a row of identical doors, 202, 203, 204, one after the other, looking all the same - lonely, uninhabited. And that's when I noticed that the walls had been freshly painted. Like that day. There was no signage for any of the other tenants, including suite 204; there were only wet paint signs to let me know not to get too close.

This is creepy, I thought. Like a horror movie in daylight, the crime scene literally whitewashed, or like in that Michael Douglas movie, The Game, where one day he visits an office but the next day, when he returns, the office is gone and no one has any idea what he is talking about. That's what I felt like. Nevertheless, I knocked on 204, and knocked, and knocked. And, shocklingly - are you ready for it - no one answered.

Suddenly very spooked, I hightailed it out of there, back to my car, and actually checked in the backseat to make sure this wasn't all an elaborate ploy to kidnap the rich white girl from the west side. Why else would every piece of information I copied down yesterday turn out to be wrong or go nowhere? What are the odds? It was like the Bermuda Triangle of information, if the Bermuda Triangle was located at Santa Monica and Western.

I drove home indignant, sure I would never get a return call or answers to my questions. At the same time, I was highly relieved, sure I had dodged a bullet by missing the assignment, whatever it was. (A relative bullet, not literal - it wasn't THAT dangerous Mom, I swear!) And then he called. I ignored it the first time, let it go to voice mail. Before I could listen to the voice mail, he called again. I answered, asked if I could call him back, and he - after a pleading apology for missing me - said sure.

Once at home, I turned on my computer, and opened the email he had sent me to double check the phone number. It was the one I had dialed. That the woman answered. And hung up from. Whatever he had to say, I decided, I didn't care, no amount of money was worth this. But I was interested in how he was going to explain away all of the inconsistencies, so I let him do most of the talking first.

He had stepped out to UPS, and had an awful experience (I didn't ask) so got caught up there. He didn't think I had his cell number, so didn't take it with him. Later, he changed his story saying that he had his cell but he didn't notice my number popped up. I asked him about the other number and the woman answering, an he had no explanation for this. I mentioned ringing the buzzer, asking for him, to find out no one worked there. I mentioned knocking on the door, it being locked, but of course, he was at UPS and the assistants were out running errands. I politely but firmly told him that I thought I should take this as a sign that it wasn't going to work out, and wished him luck in finding someone else. We parted amicably, and I hung up, shaken but relieved.

Then I called my spyware superhero, SuperJux, and we Googled him. Why I didn't do this as soon as I got his name yesterday, I don't know. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble and gotten in a good workout tonight. The guy and company is legit, at least if you believe his My Space profile, and he does have wardrobe styling credits on IMDB. Of course, many of those credits are in porn films, and I don't know how much wardrobe actually gets styled there. And I don't know what any of that has to do with PR.

I do still like to give people the benefit of the doubt; I don't know that he was actually trying to scam me, at least not before I wrote anything for him. But I am more than happy to never find out.