First Stop, New York

by Jordan Cooke

  Petey noticed that Anushka seemed truly contrite for the first time. That she’d begun to realize the consequences of her actions. Maybe there was a thoughtful person deep inside that luscious tower of flawless beauty.

  “This show is too important to me,” she said, her scratchy voice sounding hurt, maybe even scared. “America wants me back and I won’t disappoint them. There is too much wonderful me to keep to myself. I have the gift of real stardom and it’s a gift that should be constantly shared.” Anushka cackled again. “Aren’t I a riot?”

  She was, but Petey felt sorry for her. He watched her chew her nails. He knew how nervous she really was. Anushka wasn’t the person she made herself out to be. Not according to his findings on Google, anyway. “Peters” was short for “Petrovsky.” Her parents owned a Russian deli in LA’s Fairfax district. She was teased through middle school for smelling like lox.

  But it’s amazing what a few years had done for her. Now her Agent Provocateur perfume, smelling of crushed raspberries and black plums, transported Petey to a place that was exotic—and just a little bit dirty. She was full of contradictions and magic. Even facing away from him she was a star—thrilling, unpredictable.

  And then there was Corliss, darting in and out of traffic like a pro—and after such a short time in LA. Stronger than she realized, and blossoming into the prettiest girl, Corliss was the kind you could bring home to Mom. And then leave with Mom when Mom started her constant, brutal criticism. Corliss could handle anything, and look cute as a Midwestern button doing it.

  Petey’s two women, they made him feel alive. His muse, Corliss, and his star, Anushka. He shook his head. He almost didn’t know where one ended and the other began…

  Am I still stoned?

  Zuma Beach—4:42 P.M.

  Corliss was splayed in the sand underneath the canopy of Max’s trailer. Every part of her was exhausted.

  “Cheers, m’lady.”

  JB was looming over her with two Arnold Palmers.

  “Excellent timing, Jeebs.”

  “Jeebs! Makes me sound like your butler. I like, I like.” He wiggled his eyebrows and knelt by her side with the drink.

  “Thanks,” she said, leaning up on her elbows and sipping the cool drink. “I could use a butler about now. You can’t imagine what Max has put me through today. Wait, maybe with your ESP you can.”

  “That Trent and Tanya stuff again?”

  Corliss sat up. “No. Hey, that’s the first time you haven’t gotten it in one.”

  “I am only human, Corliss Meyers.”

  “I know, Jeebs. That’s why you’re so sweet.” JB blushed and looked away.

  “And no, haven’t even had a chance to think about my secret Trent and Tanya mission. It’s beyond hopeless, anyway. Trent is totally crazy for Tanya. I made a complete fool of myself going over to his condo late at night and sitting next to him on his couch while he was wearing only a Speedo—”Corliss’s mind drifted back—“while a fire roared in the fireplace causing light to reflect off his strong, glistening chest…”

  JB raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry. It’s a pretty vivid memory.”

  “Hmmm,” JB said with a thoughtful look on his face. “I have another idea, if you care to hear.”

  Corliss sighed. “I’m never getting myself out of this pickle, am I?”

  “Not until you get yourself closer to Trent’s pickle—if you catch my driftwood.”

  Corliss swatted at JB. “Ick! It’s so gross! Men are never used as sex bait—it’s such a double standard.”

  “Are you kidding? I am constantly used as sex bait. Just look at this butt.” He stood up and smacked his nonexistent backside. “It might not look like much, but watch how I use it.” JB hiked up his oversize board shorts and moved his butt in a figure 8 while singing “I’m a Slave 4 U.”

  “Blech!” Corliss said, laughing. “Stop it! You look like a reject from Boys Gone Wild!”

  “I actually made the first cut,” he said, plunking back down next to her. “But I wouldn’t sign the release form.”

  “Okay, what is it? Lay this new plan of yours on me.”

  JB tapped his chin. “See, even though I’m a vegetarian, there’s nothing I love more than a nice, home-cooked meal.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “The way to a man’s heart is through his…?”

  “Gonads?”

  “No duh, Corliss, but the classier way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. You should cook Trent a meal.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Light candles, set a nice table, put on some Norah Jones. Get all domestic goddess on him. Guys find that hot.”

  “Well, I do a mean grilled cheese.”

  “I said cook, Corliss, not fry. Boy, you can take the girl out of Indianapolis, but the cheese still clings to her! You need to cook something special, and that means nothing you can heat up in a microwave at a gas station. Something that makes his mouth water.”

  “But what would that be?”

  “Well,” JB said, tapping his chin thoughtfully again, “you could make tilapia with olive and grape-tomato tapenade with a side of grilled asparagus sprinkled with parmesan, or you could do a pork loin with a balsamic and cranberry reduction as a glaze with shredded brussels sprouts and couscous with pine nuts.”

  Corliss looked JB up and down. “Are you sure you’re not gay?”

  The Beach—6:20 P.M.

  Max ran his tongue back and forth over his teeth while six wardrobe personnel oiled down JB for his big scene where his character, Ollie, almost drowns. “More oil,” he commanded. “I want Ollie to be as slippery as an accidental Exxon spill.” The wardrobe people nodded feverishly and broke open more bottles of oil on top of JB.

  Corliss ran up to Max with his phone. “An important phone call, Max. Do you want to take it here or in your trailer?”

  Max snatched the phone from her. “Max Marx here.”

  “Hey, kid. Michael Rothstein here.”

  It was the executive producer of the show. Max’s palms started to sweat. He reached behind himself for his director’s chair and sank into it.

  “Michael, how good to hear from you.”

  JB wandered in front of Max and spun around to show him how oily he’d become. Max swatted him away.

  “The thing is, kid,” Michael began. “Do you mind if I call you kid?”

  Max’s throat locked in fear, but he managed to say, “Of course not, Michael.”

  “Great. The thing is, kid, we’re getting some complaints.”

  “Really,” said Max in the tiniest voice. “From anyone in particular?”

  “Well, for starters, the Writers Guild. Apparently you’ve fired seven writers.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “Let me just say this, their severance packages alone have upped our budget half a mil. No good.”

  “I see.”

  “Thanks for the Kabbalah water, by the way. Nice touch. My wife’s into all that mystical BS, but I pray to another God—the God of UBC!” Michael roared at his own joke. “And do you know what the God of UBC likes?”

  “Uh…high ratings?” muttered Max.

  “Sure, sure. But that god also likes a budget that doesn’t balloon and a product that comes in on time. Your daily expenses are through the roof. More important, we need to show the other executives here some footage by next week.”

  “Next week?” squeaked Max, as his life flashed before his eyes.

  “Yeah, is there a problem with that? Just a few scenes. The best stuff you got. I’m looking for real ‘wow’ content. Stuff when you see it, you go ‘wow.’”

  “Of course, no, right, next week. No problem. I usually have my assistants remind me of the schedule. A few scenes with, uh, wow-ness.”

  “Be honest with me, kid. Is there trouble you’re not telling me about?”

  “No, not at all!” Max said, his voice leaping into the stratospheric registers of Mariah Carey. He looked
in his BlackBerry at his reminder to “NEVER RAISE VOICE.”

  “Now that we’ve gotten rid of the troublemaking writers, we are having a little trouble with some of the actors,” he said, whispering again. “But nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I don’t like to spend the money, but if it’s going to cut costs in the long run, then fire them. Your contract stipulates all hiring and firing of creative staff, kid. Go crazy.”

  “But I couldn’t possibly—”

  “Sorry, kid, I got Keira Knightley’s manager on the other line. Check you later.”

  The line disconnected. Max’s jaw went slack. JB returned swollen like a beach ball.

  “Dear God, what happened to you!”

  “I forgot to remember that I’m allergic to coconut oil.”

  Max put his head in his hands. “Where’s Corliss?”

  “Here, Max,” she said, looking like she’d overheard everything.

  “Can you please call the nurse to the set?”

  “She’s, uh, visiting her mother in Long Beach today.”

  Max looked despondent. “In that case, we’ll have to stop…again…until JB goes down.”

  Eight

  Corliss’s Condo at the Beach—8:32 P.M., That Evening

  Corliss had created enchantment. In the dining area of her condo, at least. Two long, tapered candles poked out of her uncle Ross’s sterling silver Jonathan Adler menorah and the table was set with sparkling Baccarat goblets, flawless Lenox china, and gleaming Oneida silverware.

  “If you harm any of this fabulous table setting, Corliss,” Uncle Ross had warned, “we will immediately file an insurance claim and buy something much nicer.”

  Corliss had decided on a simple meal for her Trent seduction: slow-roasted shoulder of lamb, baked new potatoes tossed with peas, and steamed broccolini. JB had coached her the entire way, then ducked out when Trent finally lumbered up the walk. Corliss had told Trent to come by for some rewrites, but when he got there she said they weren’t ready and asked him if he’d like to stay for dinner. He now sat across from her, looking as adorable as any mouth-breathing surfer/actor could possibly look. If not a little sad.

  “You’re not touching your lamb, Trent. And I like, um, my men to, um, be lamb touchers.” She’d wanted that to sound seductive, but it just came out weird.

  Trent made a face like a little boy who’d lost his favorite toy. “Sorry, Corliss. But we talked about this. My, like, heart, like, belongs to, like, Tanya. No offense, but I thought I’d be having dinner with her tonight and she canceled.”

  “I know how much you like her, Trent, and I respect that. It’s just I haven’t seen you two together lately, and I just kinda wondered if…”

  “Wow, this lamb is totally slammin’.” He’d taken the littlest bite of it.

  “Really? Can you tell with that tiny taste? Here, have some baked new potatoes,” she said as she passed him the bowl.

  Trent chose two of the dinkiest potatoes and then used the silver tongs to serve himself precisely two stalks of broccolini. “Dang, Corliss, you’re a good cook.”

  Corliss tucked her hair back behind her ears and tried to look humble. “It’s totally my pleasure, Trent Owen Michaels. And I really do respect your feelings for Tanya.”

  Trent sighed. “Yeah, well, you’re right about me and her. I don’t know what’s with her lately. She’s, like, all nowhere to be found. And when I, like, call her, it, like, always, like, goes to, like, voicemail.”

  Even though Corliss had been conscripted to keep them apart, she felt a little bad for Trent. Could it be that Tanya was starting to cool on his legendary charms?

  “Hey, even though you’ve been sorta creepy—hanging around for no reason at all when I’m trying to have time alone with Tanya, and then trying to, like, destroy our relationship through cooking so you can have me to yourself—maybe you’re just trying to be nice.”

  “I am,” said Corliss, sending up a silent prayer of thanks that Trent was as dumb as a bag of hammers.

  “Yeah and, like, Tanya’s like a little kid half the time. But I can tell you’re more, like, mature.”

  A piece of new potato was stuck to his cheek. Corliss pointed it out. He wiped it away.

  “See, Tanya never would have told me if I had food on my face.”

  “That’s terrible. You need someone to look out for you.” Corliss felt she might finally be getting somewhere. “So you think I’m mature?” She rested her chin on her knuckle and tried to look mature. “What else do you think about me, Trent?”

  Trent reached across the table and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I think you’ve finally achieved full babe-a-licious status.”

  “Huh,” Corliss said, batting her eyes. “I don’t know what to say, Trent.”

  Trent’s eyes glazed over. It was a look Corliss had never seen before. Something about it scared her.

  “I know what you could say, Corliss.”

  “Wh-what?”

  Trent leaned across the table, dragging his T-shirt into the gravy pot as he whispered in Corliss’s ear. “You could say dessert is being served on your naked body.”

  Corliss leaped from the table. “Ow, wow, um, nakedness and wow…You know what, Trent? I’m thinking no dessert! Like, I forgot to buy it! It was a long day and, well, I got busy! You better go!”

  “Huh? I thought—”

  “No thinking! Thinking no good! No naked dessert! I mean dessert!” She ushered Trent from the table and led him quickly across the room to the door.

  “But didn’t you want me to—? I mean, I’ve been going crazy lately, with Tanya disappearing, not to mention her being a virgin for Jesus and everything.”

  “No, Trent. Nothing, really! No wanting anything!” She deposited him on the stoop. “Night-night, Trent, you’ve got a little lamb in your front incisor.” She tried to show him where with her pinky.

  “But—?”

  She shut the door in his face and leaned against it.

  Trent’s voice came from the other side. “But Corliss—what’s an incisor?”

  Corliss started to hyperventilate. Eventually she heard Trent move away from the door. She tried to calm down but her head was spinning.

  That’s it! I am not going to become a hooker for Max Marx, for the hottest new show on television—for anything! And tomorrow I am tendering my resignation. If I’m too much of a wimp to tell Max in person, I’ll send him an e-mail. I don’t care! I swear to God this time! It’s over for Corliss Meyers and The ’Bu!

  The Beach—11:13 A.M., the Next Morning

  The sky was slate gray and the sun was missing in action.

  As the entire production ground to a halt, Max paced and paced, making deep grooves in the sand, stepping in and out of his Cole Haan flip-flops. The cast stood off to the side, tugging at their too-tight bathing suits, frowning as they waited. Behind all of them, to the delight of absolutely no one, was pudgy little Legend Marx doing cartwheels in the sand.

  “Watch me do cartwheelth!” he kept saying, even though everyone kept ignoring him.

  Max’s assistants stood at the ready with organic pomegranate juice. Corliss was out in front, trying to determine the right time to approach the maestro and tender her resignation. As everyone waited, Trent sidled up to Corliss and whispered in her ear.

  “Sorry about last night.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Corliss whispered back, trying to downplay the disaster of the previous evening.

  “Like, I came on way too strong, right?”

  “No, there was no—shh—coming on—shh—strong or—”

  “The thing is, Corliss, I’m, like, totally over Tanya and now, like, totally into you.”

  “What?!”

  “Who is whispering?” hissed Max, scanning the crowd

  “Max,” said Corliss, seeing her opening. “There’s something I really want to talk to you about, finally and once and for all.”

  “Corliss, I’m not talking to you now. You
sent me a blank e-mail this morning and I had to open it and think about why it was blank, and it wasted very valuable time.”

  “Max, please listen. What I wanted to say in the e-mail was—”

  Legend cartwheeled by, spraying Max with sand.

  “Corliss,” Max said, picking sand from his tongue, “didn’t I tell you to take Legend farther down the beach?”

  “You did, Max, and that part of my job is one of the reasons why we need to—”

  “Corliss, cease. I’m almost at my wit’s end with threatening messages from the network every five minutes and”—he turned to everyone—“please just stand by until the sun returns!”

  Anushka raised her hand like a good little girl. “But, Max, can’t we just sit in our trailers until it does? We’ve been out here a long time already and my boobs are killing me with this high-tech bikini top. I mean, it’s so much better than those Hefty Cinch Saks I used to wear. This thing lifts, separates, and shoots these boobers to the stratosphere.” She demonstrated. “But they’re exhausted. And you don’t want them exhausted for the next scene, right?”

  JB chimed in. “I’m exhausted just looking at them.”

  Rocco clamped a hand over JB’s mouth. Max rubbed his temples.

  “Can I say something?” said Tanya, sniffling and raising her hand. “I’m going through a real emotional time right now because I’ve been reading that blog and it says things about me that are just stinky nasty bad and about, like, people I thought agreed with me about Jesus and my chastity, but it turns out—” But she burst into tears before she finished.

  Max threw his hands in the air. “Enough about that blog! We all just need to put it out of our minds and remember that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “Cartwheelth, cartwheelth!” interjected Legend.

  “And, Max,” Tanya continued, “your comment to one of the crew members about me existing in a ‘talent-free’ zone got back to me! It was really hurtful.”

  “She’s sensitive to criticism,” said Trent to everyone. “That’s often the case with really great-looking people like me and Tans.”