"So… I got a question for you."

Truth be told, I just had the shit scared out of me by a midget.

Okay, Trace really isn't that short. As much as Justin Timberlake likes to tease him he really isn't that ugly either. What Trace Ayala is not, however, is the kind of guy who goes around befriending everybody and anybody on a film set. That's how you can tell a rookie PA from an old pro - rookies are so desperate to fit in and be liked and get noticed that they're hyper-friendly. The kind of friendly that's just really irritating. Any PA who's been in the game a while is civil but aloof, befriending only the necessary few.

That might sound really hard ass snooty Hollywood, but in truth it's self preservation. Even members of a star's entourage can pick up hangers on, and let me tell you those things are hard to shake. If you open yourself too wide you will find yourself doing everybody else favours and never getting anything in return while pissing off the person you're actually meant to assist because you're too busy to do your job for them. After some experimentation I have found that being civil, helpful but just distant enough is the best way to operate. Stops you becoming a bitch but also saves your hide.

Don't get me wrong, I always make a couple of good friends on set. I just don't run around like Elliot Harper's PA who is so over friendly half the guys on the set think she's hit on them. Trace, on the other hand, stands out because you know he's Justin's best pal before and above his PA. Trace doesn't need to run around impressing anybody, he's got it wired.

"And what would that be?"

"First of all can I say that you're fooling nobody with that Sidekick, I saw you slacking there," he jokes. I was staring into space and as soon as I saw him coming I pretended to be checking messages, he totally busted me. "But my actual question was how come you ain't making like the rest of them and falling over yourself to be Miss Congeniality?"

Ahh, he just exposed himself. Trace may not be a rookie to the world of the PA, but he's a rookie to the movie business.

"Here's how it goes," I tell him conspiratorially. "They're all desperate to make a big impression and make connections with a view to moving up the ladder. Being a star's PA is all well and good but studio execs have more money and are less prone to diva fits and spur of the moment firing. So they run around trying to impress the bigwigs by pretending that they're everybody's PA but pissing each other off in the process because they're running into each other's territory. You with me so far?"

"Yep." It almost cracks me up - he nods intently, like he's fascinated. Hell, maybe he is. I like to think I'm fascinating.

"Well, while they're running around making fifty times more work for themselves and having to rely on caffeine pills and Red Bull to keep on running because they were too rookie to realise they're screwing themselves over, I am sitting pretty letting them take whatever the hell they want from Sophie's to do list so long as they don't get in my way."

Trace lets out this incredibly loud guffaw, and I notice that his face looks nice when he smiles. It's a very congenial smile, and his eyes crinkle up a little at the corners. Granted, he's dressed in this horribly slouchy t-shirt which I was forced to compliment because it came from his own label and his hair is way too long, but Trace is cool. We're not best buds or anything, we just say a couple of words to each other if we're passing, but I don't mind wasting a few minutes in his company. Two weeks into this already boring shoot, I need any laughs I can get.

Oh, that's the other misconception about the movie business… everybody thinks it's glamorous and that movie shoots are exciting. Actually, they consist of a lot of waiting around and an awful lot of dull repetition. Believe me when I say that the big joke that goes into all the trailers and makes everybody laugh in theatres is really, really not funny by take thirty seven. Thankfully, Sophie's got a lot of patience for this stuff. I've seen actors who can't hack it and get really irritable (umm, why did you get into this business again?) but she manages to keep her sense of humour about it. As a PA, I am eternally grateful. Bitchy actors can be very demanding.

"So that's it. And there was me thinking you were the professional."

"Says the guy who gets paid to hang for a living."

"Oh, ouch. That hurt."

"I'm kidding." He didn't need me to tell him that, he knew. Still, in Hollywood it becomes a reflex - if you don't qualify all jokes and sarcasm with an 'I'm kidding,' they take you seriously and drama happens.

"Seriously though… I didn't picture you for this kind of gig. How'd you get into it?" He leans casually against the wall of the silver Winnebago which is home to Sophie when she's on her down time on set. She likes to read a lot in there, or just outside on the step if it's nice weather.

"Majored in business in UCLA, did some electives on film and media… thought it would combine the two," I shrug. "Truth is I was doing some running for a production company for work experience, I got thrown a PA gig because somebody quit and somebody decided I was good at it."

"You didn't? Decide?" He asks.

I grin wryly. Not all of us have multi millionaires for best friends. "For the salary jump I got? They could have decided the name of my firstborn."

Okay, I sound horribly jaded and cynical all the time don't I? I swear, it's this town; it'll do weird things to your head. Still, Trace laughs and smiles - he probably understands.

"Smoke?" He offers me a cigarette and I shake my head.

"I quit."

He holds the packet out to me with a smirk. "So did I."

I take one and go through the familiar action of placing it to my lips and accepting the lighter he offers me, lighting the thing with a speed that gives away how long it's been. I was nearly at my quitting anniversary too. Oh well, at this point if cigarettes are going to kill me it will have been the twenty a day I used to smoke rather than this one. That first demon puff is like that moment of sinking into a hot, bubbly bath: a feeling of instant relaxation.

We're in comfortable silence for a few moments, both taking a second to enjoy the nicotine. Trace is slouched against the trailer with his other hand comfortably in his pocket and I'm picking a stray strand of blonde hair off my sleeve. Come to think of it, I think my highlights need doing - I may be the only natural blonde on this set but even I have a little help. It gets less comfortable as I realise I'm not familiar enough with Trace to maintain comfortable silence for too long. Also, my contacts are stinging; I'd forgotten that used to happen when I smoked… guess I'm no longer acclimatised (I'm wearing blue ones today but my eyes are actually brown).

Yes, these are the random thoughts I have while hanging around on movie sets. Exciting, huh?

I stand up straighter when I see Sophie and Justin striding over to the trailer. The naughty school girl reaction is stupid, Sophie didn't have anything specific for me to do and what I do have to get done today can be done any old time. Even saying so, she is still my employer after all. It's natural to jump if you get caught relaxing too much on the job. They've just been shooting a scene from the middle of the movie where their characters are feuding via their newspaper columns - we may be only a couple of weeks into the shoot, but they shoot movies out of order.

I can already see how perfect they'll look on the posters. Sophie is what people perceive as typically Hispanic, very dark with that fabulous naturally olive skin tone (it's a stereotype, but she works it). She makes me look horribly pale, and the lucky wench has Renaissance statue cheekbones. Justin is just the right amount taller than her - I'm five six and she's five eight - and he has piercing blues to counteract her sultry dark eyes. They look hot together, it has to be said. I do find it a little funny though that his speaking voice actually sounds a little higher than hers. I'm sure that however they measure these things the scale would tell you he's deeper, as you'd think a man would be, but it doesn't always sound that way and it cracks me up a little.

Naturally I haven't come across Justin too often. You may think that's odd, given that I've hung with his PA and that he is on the same set I am every day, but our paths don't cross much. I don't tend to watch them shooting if I can help it, and I'm on and off set all day running errands for Sophie. There're also those times I have to barricade myself in her trailer and hash out various scheduling issues for her with her agents or deal with the latest PR issue with her publicist.

That's why I'm employed - I deal with the crap and the mundane so that Sophie can concentrate on her performance. The problem with the crap and mundane, however, is that it varies between crap and mundane. It's not the most thrilling thing in the world; though at least I get some great locations and shopping out of it. Not like I'm sat behind a desk in an office building all day. That would kill me - that's why I wanted to work in movies to begin with, the travel.

"¿Por qué es usted fumando?" Sophie exclaims. "Chelsea!"

"Busted…" I mutter.

Trace and Justin are looking utterly confused, so I elaborate. "She just asked me why I'm smoking. You can infer from her tone what she thinks about that."

She looks at me and glares a little bit, though with affection. "Do you know how long it took me to get her to quit? We were so close to the año!"

"Year." I automatically translate. She always uses more Spanish when she's ticked. Most of the time I rarely hear her utter a word of it, except to her grandparents.

"I actually knew that. Wow." Justin jokes.

Sophie's looking very stern, which is not helped by her costume. She's in a pencil skirt and shirt with her hair scraped back and she's looking very sharp. Justin's wandering around in costume too, but the wardrobe people are going to lynch him for rolling up his sleeves and undoing the tie. Stuff like that is a nightmare for continuity. They'll probably yank the shirt off his back and make him stand there for a lecture while they iron it.

I love Sophie despite her many foibles, but sometimes she forgets that she's not the boss of my entire life. And even as I'm thinking that I'm distracted by Eliot Harper's PA whose name I never remember passing by and looking suspiciously like her jealous self will come interrupt. Please God no…

"Oh shit that's my cell…" See? All English that time. "Chels honey I need to take this in private so can you play watch dog for me?"

"Sure."

I wave her off casually and she quickly nods at Trace and Justin before disappearing into the air con and closing the door behind her. Normally if she wants to take a call privately it's the latest beau on the line - on this occasion that would be Marco Leone, hot new fashion designer and the embodiment of every fiery Italian man stereotype going. Except he's not actually Italian, his name is Mark Lewis and he totally changed his name and faked a background. It's a well known secret. Nobody cares so long as the dresses are hot. Thankfully, the loss of the bigger star (well, bigger movie star anyway, and we are on a movie set so she has the chops here) puts the shark off and she scurries away… or maybe Elliot beeped her again.

Now Sophie's gone, I take a long drag of my cigarette and exhale sinfully. It's only when I open my eyes again I see Trace too has taken a call and has moved a discreet distance away - guess he must have had it on vibrate - and it's pretty much just me and Justin.

You might think it weird that I find celebrities so intimidating. Truth is, I see behind the façade with Sophie, every day I see her ups and downs. When it comes to other stars, I know better than most they must have the same old flaws but I still don't see them firsthand. It's still as odd to me when Samuel L Jackson is suddenly larger than life in front of me instead of on a flat screen as it is for you - I don't know how he drinks his coffee, or what he says when his agent has pissed him off, not like Sophie. He was cool though. Seemed to realise I was terrified and graciously let me gush like an idiot about mother fucking snakes on planes.

So, yep, Justin makes me nervous whenever I'm in his presence. I have never worked out whether it's bitchy female celebrities that make me more nervous or hot males; I just know that screwing up in front of either is not my favourite thing in the world. Don't let my cynical, jaded 'seen it all before and know the game' front fool you - I have no damn idea what I'm doing. I still feel the humiliation and my cheeks still go red when I remember how I accidentally served one of the most influential directors in the business coffee from the chain that was suing him (one of his scripts made a joke, they had no sense of humour or free advertising).

How I was not fired, I will never know.

"She ask you to do stuff like that a lot?" He asks curiously.

I return the look in kind, because it seems like a weird question coming from somebody in the entertainment business. This may not be the norm for regular folk, but in celebrity land it's practically de rigeur.

"It's what I get the dinero for."

"Hmm." He shrugs affably. He's not being unfriendly or mean, but he looks unconvinced. It's this little pursing of those long lips. "Maybe it's just that Trace has known me long enough he feels free to ream my ass out if I send him on coffee runs and shit, but he does more of the business stuff and paperwork as my PA."

"Well…" I can't do much to answer that, really, so instead I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear and stub out the cigarette I'm no longer interested in. "You know. Needs must."

"Still…" he stretches his arms wide and gives me a smile. "Worse things you could be paid for, right? Sitting out in the sunshine? Wish they'd let me do that instead of press junkets."

"Right."

My laugh sounded so much more convincing in my head, really it did.