by Jordan Cooke
JB was mystified by her odd behavior. “What is it, Corliss? You’ve got the Jeebster a little worried.”
“What is it? I’ll tell you!” she whispered into his ear. “The Harry Winston bracelet that Uncle Ross lent me courtesy of his ex-BF Jeremy is stuck on Teri Hatcher’s hairpiece!!!”
Sure enough, $40,000 worth of diamonds were dangling off Teri Hatcher’s updo.
“What do I do?” said Corliss helplessly.
JB had no idea. He’d never been in such a situation before. The diamond bracelet swung like a mini-chandelier from the top of Teri Hatcher. “Corliss, how on earth did you manage that?!”
“I have no idea! I think I used way too much moisturizer on my arms and the bracelet must have slid off when I was taking my seat!”
The whole episode was a public relations nightmare. There was no delicate way out of the predicament. Corliss couldn’t tap Teri Hatcher on the shoulder and embarrass her with such a revelation. Nor could she yank the bracelet from Teri Hatcher’s head without doing some serious fake-hair damage—the bracelet had already taken root.
“Okay,” said JB. “I’ve got a plan. I’ll tap Teri Hatcher on the shoulder and distract her with some light conversation. While I’m doing that, you go in and dig out those diamonds. Sound good?”
“Uh-uh,” said Corliss, looking completely overwhelmed.
“Oh, Miss Hatcher?” said JB, tapping Teri Hatcher’s shoulder. “I just wanted to tell you how much I admire your work!”
Teri Hatcher turned to thank JB—and Corliss gave a quick tug on the bracelet. Miraculously, it came loose—but with one of Teri Hatcher’s ponytails attached.
“Ohmygod!” despaired Corliss, cradling $40,000 worth of diamonds in one hand and hundreds of dollars worth of Hatcher hair in the other. “JB, what do I do with this?” She flung the hair in JB’s lap as if it were a poisonous spider.
“Well,” he said, looking down at the locks, “my first thought was that you could auction it on eBay, but those days are over for me!”
“This is terrible, mortifying. You must think I’m a total nut job . . .”
“Well, you do seem a bit strung out tonight, Cor . . .” Corliss’s face fell. “Okay, here’s what we do. I brought some bobby pins to keep my hair in place until the forming cream set—”
“You did?” asked Corliss incredulously.
“Little trick my sister taught me.” JB produced the bobby pins. “Now that Teri Hatcher and I are old friends, I’ll engage her once again in some back and forth about how faboo she is.”
“You will?” asked Corliss, weakly.
“You’ll have to work fast—I’ll probably only have her attention for a few seconds, tops.” He handed over the bobby pins and the hair extension. “Can you handle this?”
“Uh, I think.” Corliss looked like she was about to get seriously sick. She fastened three of the bobby pins to the top of the hair extension, then held it up right behind Teri Hatcher’s head. “Okay, I’m ready. I guess . . .”
JB nodded and cleared his throat. “Oh, Ms. Hatcher?” he said, tapping her once again on her beautiful shoulder. Teri Hatcher turned and smiled again. Corliss immediately went to work. “I forgot to tell you how I think you’re the absolute bestest best on the show and how I hope it runs forever!” JB said to the star. Teri Hatcher nodded politely and thanked him yet again. She then turned back in her seat. Behind her, Corliss was still trying to get one good bobby pin securely into the updo. Time seemed to slow. JB watched, as Corliss—with a look of sheer panic on her face—poked and jabbed at Teri Hatcher’s head. Her hand was shaking so much, JB wondered if it would slip, taking even more ponytails with it. And then . . . voilà. Corliss gave one final thrust, and the ponytail was back on Teri’s head. It worked! The ponytail seemed a little precarious—and not as artfully placed as it had been—but it was in there, nestled among the rest of the Hatcher hair.
“JB, I’m totally wrung out,” said Corliss, panting as she tried to catch her breath. “I don’t know how to thank you. That could have been the end of my career! Not to mention the end of our, er, ‘hanging out.’ But it’s not, is it?”
“Uh, no, Cor. There’s nothing I like more than a friend in emotional freefall on one of Hollywood’s biggest nights.” He laughed to make her feel better, but he kinda half-meant it. What’s going on with her? he wondered.
The Seat Next to Tanya—5:06 P.M.
Trent knew everyone was staring at him and Tanya, but he didn’t care. He was in deep—way deep. He got up in the morning and he thought about Tanya. He went to bed at night and thought about Tanya. He picked sand out of his bellybutton and thought about Tanya. He bent over to try and tie his flip-flops and thought about Tanya.
“I, like, think about you, like, all the, like, time,” he said for the tenth time that evening. Tanya’s face was a mask of delirious happiness. “Sometimes I even, like, think about how much I think about you and then I’m, like, whoa, that’s a lot.”
“Trent,” she said dreamily, “you can’t possibly think about me as much as I think about me.”
But he did. He thought about Tanya so much he was losing the little bit of mind he had. Mostly he was thinking about Tanya taking a bubble bath . . . or Tanya washing his Cruiser with a big, sudsy sponge in slow motion . . . or Tanya opening a gigantic bottle of champagne that sprayed all over her white T-shirt as she giggled and writhed . . .
He was a red-blooded American surfer, for God’s sake. Or at least he played one on TV. He had needs. Tanya had to have needs, too. Why is she holding out on me, he wondered. Then his mind started to wander . . . maybe she wasn’t holding out on him. Maybe she was getting her needs met elsewhere . . . Before she was revirginized, she’d had quite a time doing everyone within firing range. Maybe she was up to her old tricks!
Trent’s blood boiled as his head filled with adulterous scenarios. He squinted down the row at Rocco. Then he looked two rows over at Justin Chambers. Then turned his head and stared back a couple rows, narrowing his eyes at Raven-Symoné. With Tanya’s past, Trent thought, she could be doing any of them.
Then it hit him like a coral reef. The only way to banish such jealous thoughts from his head and get a piece of some hot Tanya action was to marry her! That way they could do it morning, noon, and night—with Jesus’s approval!
Sweat burst from his forehead. He knew he couldn’t think too much about it; whenever he thought too much about anything, the space behind his eyeballs hurt. The lights in the theater started going down. The conductor raised his baton, and the orchestra started playing the overture. Trent waited for a minute or two but then he just couldn’t hold it in any longer. He just had to kick it out and see what happened. “YOU WANNA MARRY ME OR WHAT?!” he shouted at the top of his voice.
At that precise moment the orchestra took a dramatic ten-second pause.
Every head in the row flicked Trent and Tanya’s way as the castmates gasped in unison. Tanya was stone-still at first and then finally muttered an answer—but the music started up again and drowned her out. “What’d you say?” shouted Trent over the horn section.
“I said,” Tanya said, shouting back loud enough for her entire row to hear, “can I give you an answer at the commercial break?”
Pacific Design Center—8:10 P.M.
A cavernous white tent had been stretched between the blue and green ocean-liner-sized buildings of the Design Center. Twirly neon chandeliers hung from rafters, swooping down among the crowd of Emmy-goers as they arrived at the party. An army of waiters in powder blue aprons moved stealthily among the crowd with trays of Wolfgang Puck appetizers: tuna tataki with wasabi whipped cream, smoked salmon with Iranian caviar, black and green tapenade with goat cheese crostini.
Corliss snatched as many as she could and stuffed them in her mouth. “Don’t you want any, Max?”
But Max was not hungry. He felt very strange, in fact. Something was wrong; he knew from Corliss’s maniacal expression and the way little bits of he
r hair stood up on end. “What is it, Corliss? You look like gunfire went off somewhere near your head.”
“Nothing, Max,” she said breathlessly as goat cheese squeezed out through her teeth. “I’m having the time of my life! Seriously.” She took a big swallow of tuna tataki and continued. “Well, for a minute there I thought I’d lost this gorgeous $40,000 bracelet.” She modeled it for him. “But when I tugged hard on Teri Hatcher it came right off!”
Max had never seen Corliss like this: totally out of her mind and totally gorging on food. It upset him—and he was already upset. At the last minute Michael Rothstein had called him to say he was in bed with the flu and insisted Max take his wife, Mingmei, to the Emmys. This meant Max had to cancel his date with Amy Adams, which had made him really cranky.
“Where’s Mingmei, Max?” asked Corliss as she licked tapenade off crostini.
“I don’t want to discuss it,” he said curtly. “I think I’ve lost her for the time being. She’s cornered Oprah and they’re having a chat about yo-yo dieting.”
Corliss looked over to where Oprah was backed up against a tent pole by Mingmei, who was gesturing wildly. “Hey, doesn’t Mingmei have a little thing for you, Max?”
“I said I don’t want to discuss it,” Max repeated. “I also don’t want to discuss the goat cheese schmear on your chin.”
Corliss wiped it away with an apologetic look. “Sorry. I worked at a Cracker Barrel in high school and free cheese still makes me go a little nutso.”
“TMI, Corliss,” said Max, preoccupied with much more pressing matters. “I’d rather discuss who the cast brought as dates tonight. It’s very important I know who brought whom.”
Corliss looked nervous. “Really? Why?”
“Because I got another memo from Michael Rothstein and the higher-ups at the UBC network this week. Not only do they want to make sure there is no dating among ’Bu staff members, they also want to control the PR spin about who the cast is seen with out on the town. They’ve invested too much in The ’Bu for our cast members to screw it up by dating inappropriate people.”
“Ina-a-a-propriate?” Corliss stammered.
“Yes,” said Max, staring across the space to one of the bar areas where Anushka was leaning against a table talking to a very hairy young man. “And speaking of, who is that Anushka is with? I thought she was dating that Abercrombie model Tyler . . .”
Corliss looked over. Anushka and Patrizio were wrapped around each other like anchovies in a Caesar salad. “Um, that’s Rocco’s cousin. He’s visiting from Italy. I think Tyler passed out on top of Jessica Alba . . .” Sure enough, over by the bar, Jessica Alba was struggling to get out from under one stoned A&F model.
“Okay,” said Max. “If Anushka’s dating Rocco’s cousin, I’ll need you to dig up all the info you can on him tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“But Max,” Corliss protested, “they’re just talking to each other!”
Max nodded over to Anushka and Patrizio—and raised an eyebrow. The gorgeous couple were now engaged in a serious scrimmage of tonsil hockey. “Talking now, bonking later.” Corliss nodded an understanding nod. “Which reminds me, what about Trent and Tanya? We’ve done a pretty good job keeping them cozy but not too cozy—especially after Tanya admitted on national TV that she’s a re-virgin. We have to keep her that way. What’s the status there?”
“Well,” said Corliss, proceeding slowly, “they mostly seem to be really into each other, Max. But before the lights went down they were talking really loudly about something, so maybe they’re having a little lovers’ spat?”
“Excellent. We don’t want them to get any closer until the second season—which is almost twenty episodes away.”
“Well, Max, it’s kinda hard to keep two young, red-blooded—”
Max had to cut her off. “And what about JB, Corliss? I heard whispers he actually came with a date! JB, of all people.” Max laughed as if this were the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. “Scrawny little, nerdy little JB,” he continued. “Can you imagine the kind of girl JB would bring to such an event?” Max chuckled a little more as he imagined the train wreck who might be JB’s date.
Corliss turned scarlet.
“What is it, Corliss? Are you having a blood sugar spike after all those appetizers?”
“Uh, no, Max,” she said as she twirled her borrowed bracelet and seemed to be stalling. After a bunch of huffing and puffing, she came out with it. “It’s just that—that—that—I came with JB, Max.”
Max reeled and stepped back. Such a coupling had never occurred to him. “You . . . ?” He let it sink in. “I mean, sure, I saw you sitting next to him, but I just assumed you were a seat filler until his real date came back from the ladies’ room!”
“No, Max. I was sitting next to him because I was his plus one. Now, don’t get upset. It wasn’t a date-date. At least not to me . . .” She looked a little sad about this. Then she suddenly looked crazy happy. “HA!” She was all over the map emotionally. Was his prized assistant having the kind of breakdown he himself usually had? “It was just two friends hanging out with their friends . . .” She teetered off one of her heels. “Oops.”
“Aha,” said Max, not knowing whether to believe her. She certainly looked guilty about something. “That’s good to hear, Corliss.”
“It is?”
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “You’ll recall I made a rule that dating among the staff is forbidden. Remember when Petey was bothering you?”
“Oh, yeah . . .” said Corliss, teetering off her other heel. “But—but—as I said—it wasn’t a date-date. It was so a not date-date. So no worries there. Zippo. Nada.”
Max shook his head to clear his mind. He decided to take Corliss at her word. The alternative was too odd to contemplate: Corliss and JB getting nasty? He’d keep tracking this odd little romance, but for now he’d pretend he’d never heard about it. He resumed a neutral, nonjudgmental conversational tone. “Where is JB, by the way?”
“Oh, um . . .” Corliss looked around. “He went to the bathroom.” She checked her watch. “About an hour ago . . .”
Somewhere in the Hills of Beverly—3:03 A.M., the Next Morning
The Bu-Hoo
Babes of ’Bu-land!
Get ready for some news that needs some musical
accompaniment!
CUE: NORAH JONES ON SPEED!
That devirginized and revirginized vixen
Tanya Ventura, the lovely Latina we all can’t
stop making fun of, the stick-size model from
Manhattan who still has trouble with long
division . . .
DRUMROLL PLEASE
. . . is betrothed to that yummy blond surfer,
Trent Owen Michaels! As of 2-2-2-night! Ain’t
that delish?!?!
Apparently Mr. Michaels popped the question
just before the start of tonight’s Emmy Awards
and he had his answer a few excruciating hours
later! Now those two horny children can start
planning a ceremony AND Tanya’s
de-revirginization.
Phew! I can feel the heat from here ;)p They
better start making a list and checkin’ it twice.
That couple is on fuego!
I’ll keep you posted as the big day gets closer,
but they’re talking SOON and BIG
and CELEB-STUDDED. Looks like the
wedding of the year!
Yours ’Bu-for-two-ly,
MBK
Five
Uncle Ross’s house—Corliss’s Bedroom—7:47 A.M., the Next Morning
Corliss woke up in a cold sweat. She’d been dreaming she was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, where she was paired not with a B-level TV star from the mid-nineties but with, of all partners, Legend. He was a terrible partner, stepping on her toes and shouting at her. “If you knew the stepth, I wouldn’t be thsteping on your toeth!” Corliss in turn broke do
wn in tears before the judges—and broke out in hives before the TV cameras for all of America to see. She said she had no one but herself to blame for not finding Legend a nanny and the judges scored them the lowest before kicking them off the show.
Thank God someone rescued her from this nightmare by pounding on her door. She hoped it was Uncle Ross’s cook bringing her his famous eggs Benedict on blueberry toast. She leaped from her bed, took a quick look in the mirror (her hair was still the same sprouting mess of hairspray and angst from the night before), threw her old, tattered robe around herself, and went to open the door as the knocking continued. “Hold yer horses, I’m coming!”
When she opened the door she found not a plate of yumminess on a silver platter but . . . JB. He stood in the hallway looking down at his Jack Purcells. Corliss pulled her tattered robe more tightly around herself and tried to pat her hair down. “JB . . . ?”
“Hey, Cor,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
“What are you doing here? How did you even get IN here? Uncle Ross has a security system that makes the Pentagon seem like a public park!”
“Well, I tried your phone but it went to voice mail. So then I looked for your address on the contact sheet and just came over. Your uncle Ross let me in. In fact, he was encouraging me to use the Jacuzzi if I wanted. Nice guy!”
“But,” she said, confused, looking at the clock, “it’s not even eight, and we’re not called until later today . . . is everything okay?”
“Yeah, things are aces,” he said, looking at his sneakers again. “I just wanted to . . . to . . .”
“Is this about last night?” she said, fearing he was there to tell her he never wanted to “hang out” with her again. She wouldn’t blame him. She’d behaved like a crazy person in couture. “I’m sorry I acted like a total dork last night. I just got a little nervous—because of the bracelet, of course. Not because you and I were ‘hanging out.’”
