by Jordan Cooke
She roused herself, shook off her fear, reached for her phone, and called JB. As his phone rang on the other end, she saw her life flicker before her eyes. But because not too much had ever happened to her until she’d come to L.A., what flickered was basically only a replay of the last few months. Just as she was pondering how glamorous and full of possibilities (and a whole new fashion sense) her recent life had become, JB picked up.
“Why, if isn’t the wondrous and talented Corliss Meyers calling. How’s it shakin’, kiddo?”
“Hey, JB,” Corliss said a little breathlessly. “It’s me, Corliss Meyers.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Yessiree, I do believe we’ve just established that,” JB finally said. “Long time, no hear, m’lady. What up?”
“Oh,” said Corliss, her heart racing at what she’d set in motion, “nothing’s up, you know. Just, um, the usual what upness of up . . .” She was headed toward Babble Central, so she downshifted and put her mouth in neutral.
“Ah,” said JB, “what would the world be without the distinctive phraseology of Corliss Meyers? You can turn a sentence inside out like nobody I know.”
“Thanks, JB,” she said, her mind going blank, “you too!” She was now officially entering the zombie zone. She pinched herself on the arm to make herself snap out of it. “Listen, JB,” she said, coming back to herself. “You know we’ve all been invited to the Emmys, right?”
“ ‘Course I do! I’m already practicing my red-carpet walk. It might not be as fetching as Heidi Klum’s, but I think I’ll pass muster. Why do you ask?”
“Well,” she said, ignoring his strange Heidi Klum comment (and wondering all over again if he wasn’t completely gay), “we’re all sitting together and I just thought it would be fun or something if we, you know, sat together.”
“Um, didn’t you just say we were all sitting together? Or did I miss something?”
“Right, sure, yeah. We are all sitting together.” She’d backed herself into a wall. She had to think on her feet. In other words, lie. “But, um, here’s the thing. There was a little goof up at the production office and we’re short a couple tickets.”
“Social catastrophe!”
“I know, right?”
“And you’re calling to tell me I’m off the list?”
“No! Totally not. I was wondering, instead of causing a big stink, if you, we—that is, you and me—shouldn’t maybe, I don’t know, just go together.”
There was another pause on JB’s end of the line. This one was longer than the one before. Corliss timed it. “Aha,” he eventually said.
“Yeah, like friends or something hanging out—with our other friends. We could even go together, like, in the same car, to make sure there isn’t any confusion when we get there. I may even be able to borrow my uncle Ross’s Bentley.”
“Yeah, I could swing with that,” JB said brightly. “We’d have to coordinate our outfits, though. And I refuse to wear purple.”
Corliss held the phone away from herself and shook her head. Why was she always drawn to the weirdos? But now that JB had consented she knew she had to drive the deal home—and quickly set some terms. “Great. The ceremony starts at five o’clock. I’ll pick you up at four. Deal?”
“Deal!”
“Excellent!” said Corliss, disconnecting the call before there were more negotiations. She exhaled long and hard, then threw herself against her pillows and shrieked with laughter. After a few moments, she flipped over and sighed contentedly—calling JB hadn’t been so hard after all. In fact, it was kind of fun. Her eyes fluttered and she began to imagine JB, sitting next to her at the Emmys. Looking cute in that “I didn’t mean to look cute” way, and smiling at her without his retainer . . .
Four
The Shrine Auditorium—A Week Later—The Evening of the Emmys—4:52 P.M.
Sure enough, JB was looking cute in a “Who knows how this happened?” kind of way. He was wearing a Dries Van Noten three-button peg-leg suit with a Burberry ascot and somehow managing to pull it off. His hair was parted and slicked, which made him look fashionably geeky—not unintentionally geeky—like he usually did. He smiled at Corliss without his retainer, and although there was a piece of cilantro stuck between his two front teeth (from an hors d’oeuvre he’d eaten at the Roosevelt Hotel pre-party), the piece of gum he stuck in his mouth was bound to catch it momentarily. The whole picture was very close to Corliss’s dream. And it didn’t hurt that she was looking pretty fierce herself.
The Versace couture dress that Donatella had FedExed Uncle Ross was perfection. Made of clingy pink tulle that stopped just above Corliss’s knee, it was cinched by a wide waistband of ribbed magenta. The whole thing said “Sexy Fairy Princess Who Isn’t Afraid to Show Her Legs.” Completing the entire look was a brilliant, light-refracting diamond bracelet borrowed from Harry Winston, courtesy of Uncle Ross’s ex-BF Jeremy.
The moment was almost too much. There Corliss was next to JB, seated in a row with all the other ’Bu stars—as if she was one of them herself. She turned to JB and said the first thing that came into her frazzled-dazzled head. “Wow, isn’t this amazing? Especially with you and me here as, I mean, just friends just hanging out and not anything more than that, but, you know . . . together!”
JB grinned and moved his elbow against hers. “Once again, Ms. Meyers, you state the obvious in a way that charms.”
“Ha-ha,” she laughed weakly, moving her elbow away out of nervousness, then moving it back so forcefully that she knocked JB’s arm off the armrest. “Sorry! Um, what I meant to say is that it’s great we’re here just enjoying the night and our friends and it doesn’t even matter that we’re not a couple or anything.”
At the sound of the word “couple,” JB’s face went white. Corliss looked for the quickest escape route. She was so mortified she could have crawled into the row ahead of them. But then she would’ve had to climb over Teri Hatcher’s hairpiece—and that looked like a mighty hike. Six ginormous ponytails erupted out of an oversized updo on top of the Desperate Housewives star’s head.
Corliss was trapped. Her only chance at salvation was to redirect attention away from her temporary-psychosis-induced comment. “How you think Teri Hatcher is keeping that on? My money’s on double-sided Velcro.”
The color came back into JB’s face and he leaned over to Corliss and whispered, “I’m not a betting man anymore, Cor, but if I were I’d say it’s more like staple gun.”
Corliss laughed so hard, she snorted. JB gave her yet another weird look. She was a total wreck. She felt her forehead break out in splotches. Just her luck, her hive medicine had been recalled earlier in the week because it had given two old ladies in Florida night sweats. She’d have to take a page from Max’s book and creatively visualize a smooth forehead if she was going to get through this evening in one piece—and blotch-free.
But it wasn’t going to be easy. Months’ worth of makeovers were coming apart at the seams in the span of a couple hours. Corliss knew she had to pull it together—and fast.
“Oh, JB,” she said, throwing her head back as she tried to sound sophisticated. “You really are too, too much.” And then she let her hand drop to JB’s thigh.
JB looked at her hand. “Are you looking for a piece of gum? ’Cause it’s in my jacket pocket, not my pants.” He produced a stick of Orbit and smiled obliviously.
Two Seats Over—4:56 P.M.
Anushka’s date, Tyler, suddenly sprang to attention. He’d been passed out against Anushka’s shoulder, with a little train of spittle snaking out his mouth. “Wha—is it over?”
Anushka rolled her eyes and wiped the spittle from her shoulder. “It hasn’t even begun, model head,” she crowed. If Tyler hadn’t just landed a big Abercrombie & Fitch spread (where he was photographed naked, from behind, doing a handstand on a bale of hay) Anushka would have tossed him out of the limo on the 405. But his face—and select parts of his body—were everywhere these days, which meant Anushka could
squeeze some good PR out of him.
Sure enough, they’d been met with a blinding storm of paparazzi flashes when they arrived on the red carpet. Besides, spittle or no, Tyler was his gorgeous—if not half-conscious—usual self. Wearing a tan Andrew Fezza check suit and his signature Havana Joe slides, the former farm boy was hotter than Palm Springs on the Fourth of July.
Anushka was looking pretty fierce herself, turned out in a metallic gold Alexander Wang wraparound dress with big, chunky Tarina Tarantino bracelets and necklace. She figured she was certainly in the top two percent of hotness in the room. She sat up a little straighter in her seat and, once she realized Tyler had passed out yet again, she glanced over a few seats to where Rocco sat, not with a date, but with his cousin Patrizio.
Anushka had met Patrizio in the lobby right before they were seated. She had to catch her breath the minute she did. He was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever seen: curly black hair cascading over sleepy brown eyes with full garnet lips that were formed in a perpetual pout. He had a big, Roman nose, too, which made Anushka’s knees knock. Patrizio somehow managed to look at once boyish and devilish—two traits Anushka appreciated in spades.
Suddenly, he glanced her way. She coyly tilted her head in his direction and he held her gaze. A small smile appeared on his lips. She matched it with the tiniest smile of her own. Electricity flew back and forth between them in big zigzagging patterns. They seemed to be casting a spell on each other. The moment could have lasted forever had it not been broken by the piercing, jackhammerlike noise generated by Tyler’s snores.
A Few Seats Over—4:57 P.M.
Rocco glared at Anushka. She looked away. “You can’t be taken in by her, can you?” he whispered in Patrizio’s ear.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Patrizio said in his thick Italian accent. He adjusted his yellow silk collar and slouched insouciantly in his seat.
“Anushka Peters is the worst example of unbridled Hollywood ambition,” said Rocco, who was getting hot under his Zegna collar. His cousin—who’d only been in the country for a few hours—was making eyes at Anushka, of all people. Rocco wasn’t going to stand for it.
Patrizio shrugged his shoulders and glanced back at Anushka. His eyes gleamed and his lips parted. “Hollywood ambition? This is not my concern. I think she is, like . . . how you say . . . smokin’?”
Rocco took a breath and tried to explain. “Anushka is beautiful, there’s no question. But she’s also what we call in this country ‘ten miles of bad road.’”
“That means you shouldn’t ride on her?” said Patrizio with a mischievous grin. “What a pity.”
Rocco sighed. He knew Anushka’s powers over men were almost impossible to resist. What was it about her? He looked over to where she sat, her posture regal, as if a queen among her subjects. And yet there was something little-girl-lost about her, too. Covering all that was a naughty veneer that made the entire package explosively attractive.
It was maddening; Anushka was everything Rocco had always hated about Hollywood: unprofessional, untrained, unfeeling. Rocco could see his cousin’s attraction, but refused to approve of it. With great effort, he decided he’d scan the crowd for someone—anyone—else to look at.
His eyes fell on Tanya. “What about Tanya?” Rocco said to Patrizio. “Isn’t she more the type of woman you usually pursue?”
“Maybe yes,” said Patrizio. “This Tanya is gorgeous. But she only has eyes for that surfboard.”
Rocco looked over at Trent. “I think you mean surfer.”
“Besides,” said Patrizio, glossing over his cousin’s correction, “I do not date girls with rosary beads.”
A Few Seats Over—4:59 P.M.
Tanya was praying to God for strength. Trent looked so yummy to her, so completely and totally twelve on a one-to-ten scale of yumminess, that she was worried she’d drag him back to the Roosevelt Hotel, check in under an assumed name, and lose her virginity all over again.
“Trent, um, can you move your knee a little bit?” she said in her baby-girl voice, the voice she could get anything with. Trent obliged, smiling a dopey, love-glazed smile, and moved his knee. The minute his knee disconnected from hers, Tanya felt a cold spot where it had been, an iciness that shot up and down her leg, radiating pain and suffering and loss.
“That better?” he said, still smiling his catatonic love smile. They’d been drowning in a sea of love delirium for a little over a week. Ever since that ride up into the hills, the night Trent offered Tanya his undying love—and a Jamba Juice fiber boost.
“No,” Tanya said, in her pouty little-girl voice—the one she could get anything with. “It’s not better, Trent. Can you, like, mash your knee against mine again? Please, oh, please?”
Trent nodded, his mouth hanging open, his eyes misting over in an even foggier blanket of lust, and did as he was told. The minute his knee reconnected with Tanya’s, she felt a flush of joy explode from the top of her Imitation of Christ dress to the tips of her Jem + Kim shoes. “Jesus!” she yelped.
Everyone from Anushka on down shot her a look. “Sorry,” she said, looking apologetic. “Just getting a little prayer in before the show starts.”
She closed her eyes and made her lie real. Jesus, she silently said to the heavens, please give me the strength to, like, not be tempted like Eve was in the garden of . . . um . . . wherever that place was. I love Trent—but I also totally love you, Jesus! Even though you, like, wore a robe and bad shoes and weren’t as hot as Trent. Trent is, like, totally wearing a hot Tom Ford suit that is totally driving me completely crazy! I’ll never ask you anything again, Jesus, I swear! I just want to keep my legs crossed and be a good girl until I’m married—then I can do it all the time! Amen.
She sighed and sat back in her seat, keeping her eyes shut to make sure she wasn’t tempted by Trent’s stick-straight blond hair, hanging all choppy in front of his sky blue eyes. Or his deep, golden tan that basted him like butterscotch. Or his white, glistening teeth, framed by his kissy, scrumptious, ever-open mouth . . .
“You okay?” he said next to her.
But she wasn’t. And she didn’t want to answer. She was fighting a tsunami of desire within—and that tsunami was heading for the shore! She tried to banish Trent entirely from her mind, but in an instant he flashed behind her eyelids. First, dressed as he was sitting next to her, all red-carpet hot. Then he appeared outfitted in a cape and mask, swooping down on her like Zorro, with a rose between his teeth and a look of hunger in his eyes. Then she saw him bare-chested, paddling a canoe down the Amazon. Finally, Trent appeared as George of the Jungle, wearing the skimpiest leopard-print thong and yodeling her name as he swung past her on a big vine . . .
“Mother Mary!” Tanya called out again.
She creaked open her eyes. Once again everyone was looking at her. “Okay, Tans,” said Anushka, “enough with the praying. This is the Shrine Auditorium, not Our Lady of Hot Panties!”
Corliss’s Seat—5:02 P.M.
Corliss was in a panic. Not only was JB looking at her like she was the Queen of Looney Land because of her inept pass (which he mistook for a chewing gum grab), but she suddenly couldn’t find her Harry Winston bracelet! It was two inches wide, so she was completely mystified as to how it could have left her wrist—let alone be nowhere in sight.
She got on her hands and knees in the aisle and began to search. It wasn’t exactly a ladylike position, but what could she do when there was $40,000 of gems at stake?
“Nice view, Ms. Meyers,” said JB, speaking to her pink Versace butt.
“Ha-ha-ha!” Corliss laughed way too hard. “It’s just my program slipped down here somewhere . . .” She didn’t want to tell JB she was about to be arrested for grand larceny. She didn’t think that information would bring them any closer to a makeout session.
The Seat Next to Corliss—5:03 P.M.
JB was worried about Corliss, who was crawling on her hands and knees in the row and smiling at him like a crazy person. I
n fact, she’d been acting weird ever since she’d rolled up to his place in her uncle’s chauffeured Bentley.
“You okay, m’lady?” he ventured, then offered her his hand. He helped her back into her seat and she immediately started cracking her knuckles. She was also blinking a lot.
“Need some eyedrops?”
“No, my eyes are wonderful,” she said in the oddly formal voice she’d been using on and off that night. “Never better, in fact. In fact, I’m absolutely a-okay. Whyever do you ask?”
“Um,” said JB, not knowing how far to push it, “because you keep saying things like whyever and you were just crawling around in the row on your hands and knees in Versace couture. And now you’re smiling at me with big, crazy-person eyes.”
“I am?” she said, smiling with big, crazy-person eyes.
“’Tis true! You look a little like you just got sprung from the Cedars-Sinai psych wing with a fistful of uppers. Something on your mind?”
“No! Nothing at all!” Corliss exclaimed, her eyes growing even wider and blinking even faster. “Just excited that the show is about to begin,” she said, cracking her knuckles again.
“Are you sure?” he said. “I mean, you look like you might be having a seizure. You can tell the Jeebster if something’s wrong, ya know. We’re old friends at this point, right?”
Corliss bounced up and down in her seat like a toddler who needed to get to the potty. “Of course we are! That’s exactly what we are—friends.”
“Boy, you sure are putting a lot of words in italics,” JB said.
Corliss threw her head back and laughed way too hard again. “HA-HA-HA! Whatever do you mean, JB?” she said, her eyebrows as wild as deranged caterpillars.
