The Next Big Thing

by Edwards, Johanna

  “You’re totally right,” I said, turning to Alyssa, our fight temporarily forgotten. “There’s got to be some way Luisa can get out of this.”

  “My comedy act is called FAT: It’s Not a Four-Letter Word,” Luisa offered, looking miserable. “The title is so bad.”

  “This show’s writers are hacks,” Alyssa said. “They wouldn’t know a joke if it hit them in the face.”

  “Well, why are there writers on a reality show, anyway?” I demanded.

  “They draft the competitions,” she said. “And somebody has to compile Jagger’s script. Though, as dumb as it is, you’d think that bozo came up with it off the top of his head.”

  “Jagger’s not so bad,” Luisa said.

  I groaned. “What are you, his cheerleader?”

  She shrugged it off. “After he interviewed me yesterday we got to talking. He’s a smart cookie. He’s got a business degree from Penn State.”

  Zaidee’s voice clicked on over the loudspeaker. “Luisa, please come to the Confession Chamber.”

  “No, not again! I’ve already been in there an hour today!” She stomped out of the room.

  “You know, Regan, I’d talk to Zaidee about letting me go on that date, if it weren’t for one thing,” Alyssa said.

  Great, we were back to this again.

  “What’s that?” I asked, heaving my shoulders in a sigh.

  “If I went, it would drive the censors wild. My date would probably be too hot for network television.” She snickered. “Some of the affiliates might even pull the show because of it.”

  “Give me a break!” I exploded. “What are you planning to do, blow some guy on national television?”

  She stared at me in mock horror. “Of course not. I’m not a slut. But things might get kind of hot and heavy, that’s all.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?” I challenged.

  Alyssa smiled. “I have that kind of impact on guys. Always have.”

  “You have that kind of impact on everybody. You’re very persuasive,” Regan said. “That’s why you’ve gotta go talk to Zaidee for me. Get her to switch up the assignments. Please, Alyssa! You can take the date and I’ll go out getting signatures. Maggie can dance with the Laker Girls. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  I glared at them. Who the hell did they think they were? They couldn’t just rearrange the game however they felt like it.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your big night out, Regan?” I reminded her. “You’ve only got half an hour until the car gets here.”

  “Alyssa,” she said, looking hopefully at her. “If you’re going to talk to Zaidee, can you do it now?”

  Alyssa shrugged. “I’m sorry, babe, but I’m going to take a pass. The more I think about it, the more I kinda want to play Britney Spears. After all, she did have that psycho period where she shaved her head and went nuts.”

  “Yeah,” I said, smirking, “You should be a shoe-in.”

  Alyssa ignored my jab and Regan went stalking out of the room, her eyes, once again, filled with tears. This time no one tried to stop her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Six-thirty came and went and my mystery date never showed.

  Over the course of my dating life, I’ve been disappointed by guys more times than I care to remember. Usually, I take it personally. In this instance I was relieved.

  I waited in the living room for what seemed like hours, drinking Perrier and gabbing with Janelle. Before long, we’d started feasting on Hershey’s Kisses and potato chips, which we’d snagged from the Tomb of Temptation. I hadn’t eaten dinner with the group since I was expecting to go out with this mystery man, so I was starving.

  Our cameramen hovered as we snacked.

  “Have you ever been on a blind date?” I asked Janelle.

  “Are you kidding me?” She scrunched up her face. “I’ve been on nearly two dozen. And that’s just in the last year.” Catching my stricken expression, she added, “Okay, I’m exaggerating—but only a little. All my life people have been trying to set me up. Everyone seems to think they know the ‘perfect guy’ for me.”

  “Tell me about it,” I groaned. “Over the years I’ve come to realize that when someone says, ‘I have the perfect guy for you,’ what they really mean is, ‘I have the perfect fat guy for you.’ People fix big men up with skinny cheerleader types all the time. Yet, nobody would ever dream of setting up a big girl with a thin guy.”

  Janelle nodded solemnly. “You know why that is, don’t you?”

  I shook my head.

  “In our society, overweight men are considered sweet and cuddly. Teddy bears, if you will. But overweight women? We’re whales.” Janelle smoothed a wrinkle from her shirt, knocking her lapel mic off in the process. Before she even had time to replace it, a voice came on over the intercom. “Janelle, please put on your microphone immediately.”

  She jumped. “Sorry,” she mumbled, hastily refastening it. We stared at each other in surprise, the realization of the cameras seeping in once again.

  “You know what they’re going to do with your blind date,” Janelle, ever the reality-TV theorist, remarked.

  “I have no clue,” I said, unwrapping a piece of chocolate and popping it in my mouth.

  “Come on, Kat, you’re hipper than that. They’ll slice and dice the footage to make it look like you were so nervous on your date you ate a mountain of food.” I laughed. I was so hungry I could have eaten a mountain. “It figures I’d do this the night before weigh-in,” I groaned. “I’m probably going to be up ten pounds tomorrow,” I said, folding up the empty bag of chips and placing it on the floor. Despite the circumstances, we were having a pretty good time. If it weren’t for the boom mic, the cameras, and the blaring lights, it could have been a typical girls’ night. On some level, I was able to fool myself into thinking that Janelle was Donna. Despite their physical differences, they reminded me a lot of each other.

  “Maybe this means you don’t have to go,” Janelle offered, munching on chocolates. “It’s not your fault if the guy canceled.”

  “We don’t know for sure that he canceled,” I said. I had gone into the Confession Chamber twice to ask what was going on, and both times Zaidee had stonewalled me.

  “As soon as I know something definite, I’ll pass that on to you. Sit tight,” she’d instructed.

  “Maybe this is a part of their master plan,” I said, taking a gulp of Perrier. “This mystery guy’s probably going to show up two hours late and have ‘forgotten’ his wallet at home.”

  Janelle giggled. “I get it. A day late and a dollar short.”

  “Right. And he’ll be dressed in dirty jeans and a wife-beater’s shirt. In the car ride over, he’ll keep picking his nose and wiping it on his pants.”

  “Gross!” she shrieked. “Person trying to eat here.”

  “Then we’ll get to some fancy-schmancy restaurant with a name like Chez Philippe, and dumb ass will order snails, and then proceed to throw them up all over the table.”

  Janelle set down her chocolates. “I think this is a lost cause.”

  I ignored her protests. I was having too much fun. “And after we have some extraordinarily expensive meal, he’ll ask me to pay.”

  “Of course.”

  “And since the show has my wallet, I won’t be able to.”

  Janelle smiled, getting into it. “You’ll have to go in the back and wash dishes for two hours to work off your escargot.”

  “Then he’ll try and grope me in the car ride back, and I’ll have to fight him off with a stick. And finally, at long last, I’ll go in for a quick peck on the cheek and he’ll try and shove his tongue in my ear.”

  “Yep,” she said, cracking up. “I bet you’re right.”

  “I know I am.”

  “This guy’s going to be a total jackass. All you have to do is kiss him by the night’s end. That’s it, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, obviously, the producers want to make that as
hard as possible,” Janelle said thoughtfully. “If the guy they send over is beyond gross, you’re not going to want to lay a hand on him.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “It’s probably going to be the date from hell and it’ll take all the strength I have not to get up and leave midway through.” I was so sure we’d nailed it.

  So when Zaidee came over the loudspeaker and called me into the Confession Chamber forty-five minutes later I figured it was to tell me my date was running behind.

  It wasn’t. In fact, Zaidee’s news totally threw me for a loop. As soon as she’d told me, I hurried back downstairs to run it by Janelle.

  “This is really weird,” I muttered, shaking my head.

  “What’s up?”

  “Technical difficulties,” I said, looking at her in bewilderment.

  “Technical difficulties?” Janelle repeated. “What, was this guy’s face so ugly he broke the camera?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know. Zaidee wouldn’t tell me anything. She just said ‘technical difficulties’ and left it at that.”

  “So when’s your mystery man going to be here?”

  “That’s the weirdest part,” I told her. “He isn’t. The date’s been postponed indefinitely. They’re going to reschedule it at a later time. Or give me an alternate task.”

  “I’d hope for the alternate task if I were you,” Janelle said.

  I had a feeling she was right.

  ***

  The next morning Regan was missing.

  “She never returned from the Lakers game,” Janelle said, waking me just before 8 A.M.

  The overhead lights had not yet switched on, though sunlight had been creeping in through the windows for hours.

  “Who?” I asked, still half-asleep.

  “Regan!” Janelle said, shaking my arm. “She never came back from cheering at the Lakers game last night!”

  “Oh,” I said, the realization dawning on me. I rolled over and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

  Sure enough, Regan’s bed was empty and, more telling, still made up from the day before.

  “That’s weird. Maybe the Lakers won and she went out with Kobe to celebrate,” I quipped.

  “Very funny. I was thinking more along the lines of she hurt herself trying to do a complicated move. Kat, what if she’s in the hospital or something awful? Or what if she got so fed up she quit the show?”

  Maybe it was callous of me, but I truly wasn’t worried. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said. “It’s not like the show is going to let anything bad happen to any of us. For legal reasons, if nothing else.”

  As if on cue, the overhead lights sprang to life.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, yanking the covers up over my head. “I can’t deal with this at the crack of dawn.” As long as we made it downstairs in time for breakfast, the producers didn’t seem to mind if we slept in from time to time.

  Janelle sighed. “You go back to sleep. I’m going to go find out what I can about Regan.”

  “Mmm hmm,” I mumbled, dozing off.

  A few minutes later Janelle was back. “I went into the Confession Chamber,” she said, ripping the covers off of my head.

  “Ahh,” I grumbled, as light flooded my eyes. “You’re not going to let me miss this, are you?”

  “Nope.” She plopped down on the foot of my bed. “It’s too good.”

  “All right,” I said, hoisting myself up on my elbows. “You’ve got my undivided attention. What happened?”

  “From the sound of it, your guess wasn’t so far off.”

  “My guess?” I repeated, confused. “You said she was probably out celebrating.”

  “Oh yeah, with Kobe Bryant. You’re kidding, right?”

  Janelle pursed her lips and shook her head. “Get this—Zaidee told me that Regan was a total smash last night, and the show gave her a special reward for going first. Zaidee wouldn’t dish on whether Regan succeeded or not. But I think it’s pretty obvious, don’t you?”

  “Damn!” I cried, instantly pissed-off I hadn’t drawn the Laker Girls challenge. “Did she say what it was?”

  “No, she said we’ll find out later, when Regan gets back. But Zaidee refused to tell me when that will be.”

  As it turned out, Regan didn’t come back until late in the afternoon, just before our first weekly weigh-in. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. I had never seen her so happy.

  “Kat,” she said when she saw me. “They love us out there!”

  “So, it wasn’t that bad?” I asked tentatively.

  “It was amazing!” she enthused. “Everyone was clapping and cheering for me. They all knew my name!”

  Since I wasn’t allowed to ask her whether she’d succeeded or not, I changed the subject.

  “What were you doing last night? You’ve been gone forever.”

  “Interviews,” she squealed. “Then Zaidee took me out for this really expensive Italian meal.” Regan twirled around happily for a minute. Then her face fell. “There’s only one bad thing.” She paused. “I think Fat2Fab tanked in the ratings Saturday night.”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked. “I mean, if everybody knew your name then it must have done well.”

  Regan looked skeptical. “When I talked with the guy from Us Weekly this morning he kept asking if I was disappointed with how the show was doing.”

  Janelle’s eyes grew large. “Where was Zaidee when he said that?”

  “I don’t know. But that other producer woman, Gigi Rucker, was sitting right next to me the whole time.”

  “And she let him talk to you about the ratings?” Janelle asked, incredulously.

  Regan shrugged. “She said I had a right to know.”

  The weekly weigh-ins were held every Sunday, just before dinner-time.

  In my first four weeks, I’d managed to drop seventeen pounds, a monumental accomplishment.

  Surprisingly, they turned out to be one of the least embarrassing things From Fat to Fabulous forced us to do.

  I had fully expected Jagger to march us out in a big group, then force us to step up on the living room scale. Instead, we got weighed in Greg’s Gym, quietly, and in total privacy. It was the one place where Zaidee allowed us to hang on to a shred of dignity.

  The decision of whether to reveal our weekly weight to the other contestants was left totally up to us. Our progress wasn’t posted on a chart, and Jagger didn’t announce it in his usual dramatic fashion.

  To be perfectly honest, this shocked the hell out of me. “How come they’re not making our weigh-ins into a huge ceremony?” I asked Greg one morning, while chugging along on the treadmill.

  “Some things are personal. So says Zaidee. Me? I think they should do it in Dodger Stadium.”

  Despite his crudeness, I was hit with a rush of exhilaration.

  “Does that mean they’re not broadcasting it on the show?” I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head, then dropped to the ground and began doing push-ups. “Nothing doing,” Greg grunted. “The viewers see everything. Zaidee just doesn’t want to embarrass you while you’re in the mansion.”

  “Oh.” I upped the pace on my treadmill, struggling to push myself past three and a half miles an hour. So far this week, I’d managed to bag four thousand dollars in exercise points. Despite my initial resistance, boredom had motivated me to seek out a regular routine. Every morning after breakfast, Janelle and I worked out for an hour on the treadmills, and then again for another hour after lunch. We did it religiously, pushing each other even when we’d rather have been perusing the Tomb of Temptation, eating brownies. I felt filled with hope. As if maybe, after so many years of trying, I’d finally found the secret to losing weight. The magic bullet.

  “You could figure it out if you really wanted,” Janelle commented, mopping the sweat off of her face. “The banks.”

  “Huh?” I asked, confused. “Jagger reveals everybody’s banks on Monday. Just do the math. Then you’ll know who lost and who gained.”


  “Still ought to be a ceremony,” Greg said, hopping onto the elliptical trainer and flying into motion. “They gotta do something to get some excitement on this show. This is supposed to be my big break. Yeah, right,” he scoffed.

  Janelle turned and looked at me. I knew what she was thinking. First the Us Weekly reporter, now Greg. There was only one thing it could mean. The ratings. From Fat to Fabulous was a flop.

  But why did Zaidee want us to know?

  “Zaidee tells me you want to be a writer?” Jagger asked, leaning back in his chair. The spacious pool glistened behind him. He smiled. “Everybody’s got a story to tell. Or, at least, that’s what my creative writing professor in college used to say.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “You took creative writing?” I asked. “I thought you were a business major?”

  “It’s a vicious rumor,” he said, laughing. “No, seriously, how did you know that?”

  I blushed. I didn’t want him to think I’d been gossiping. “Luisa told me,” I supplied.

  Jagger nodded. “Blame my father for that one. I wanted to be a writer, or even a journalist like Alyssa, but my dad was dead set against it. So I swallowed my creative jones and slugged through an accounting degree.” He stopped talking, and leaned forward in his chair, studying my face. “You’re funny, Kat,” he said. “Here I am supposed to be interviewing you and you wind up interviewing me.”

  I gave him a grin.

  “So, anyway, tell me more about this novel you’re writing.”

  “There’s nothing to tell. It was awful, so I threw it away.”

  “I bet it wasn’t that bad,” he said gently.

  “Jagger . . .” I said, letting the word roll off my tongue. I was eager to change the subject.

  “Where’d you come up with a name like that?”

  “I didn’t.” He smiled. “It was my parents’ doing. Honest.”

  “Come on!” I eyed him suspiciously. “There’s no way your birth certificate says Jagger. It’s a stage name, right?”