I'm with Cupid (17 page)

Corliss was about to protest again when JB showed up. “Wow,” he said. “That bathroom is off the hook! Who knew Clay Aiken appeared on the cover of
People
magazine
seven
times?”

“Yeah,” said Corliss, throwing her head back and laughing so fake-hard that she started to really snort. “Who knew?!”

Corliss didn't know how she'd managed to pull it off—but there they were. JB and Corliss. Sipping champagne in the hot tub—and naked as, well, two naked teens in a hot tub. Actually, Corliss wasn't totally naked. At the last crucial moment she'd refused to part with her bikini bottom, and she kept one arm clamped tightly around what Uncle Ross called her “almost chest.” JB, however, had gone the whole way. But his fist was pressed so hard over his naughty bits that a vein throbbed in his forehead.

“This is fun,” said JB in a way that didn't seem like he was having so much fun. More like in a way that sounded to Corliss like he was about to be shot by a firing squad. Then she wondered if firing squads still existed. Because if they did, she might want to hire them to kill
her
because she was naked in a hot tub! Then she spent a few more minutes following the crazy train in her head back to what JB had said so she could respond to it without sounding like there was a crazy train in her head.

“It
is
fun!” shouted Corliss at a deafening level.

“Right?!” shouted JB, matching her ear-crushing volume. “I mean, what kid my age
doesn't
want to end up naked in a hot tub?!” He cackled like a bipolar outpatient and chugged what was left of his champagne. “Tell me again, Ms. Meyers,” he said, wiping the bubbly from his chin (since he'd missed his mouth), “how exactly did we get into this here nekkid situation?”

Corliss shrugged and tried desperately to appear like the entire business was perfectly normal—but her face kept contorting into odd grimaces that she couldn't control. The truth was, she
didn't know
exactly how it had happened. The last thing she remembered was Uncle Ross shoving his best bottle of Bolly in her hand and giving her a way-too-hard push toward the hot tub. After that, everything went entirely black.

Had she slipped on one of the Indian slate tiles that surrounded the pool and awakened to find herself the kind of girl who gets naked in a hot tub? If she had, she wanted her old self back. Her skin was starting to pucker from being submerged in 104-degree water and her bikini bottom was beginning to chafe her thigh. Not to mention her reputation, which was now officially blown to bits if JB told anyone about this.

“Beats me!” Corliss finally belted to the heavens, before slamming the dregs of her champagne. As soon as it hit her stomach, she felt a kind of wooziness she hadn't felt since the time she'd raided the fridge at Cracker Barrel and eaten three entire horseradish cheese balls in forty-five minutes. She gave JB a desperate look. He responded with one of sheer panic. Their faces froze like that until Corliss could no longer contain herself. She had to let the truth out. She had to speak her heart! Isn't that what psychology teaches, she thought, as she plunged toward revelation? That the things we keep silently inside only fester and destroy?

“Um, it just occurred to me, Cor—and I could be a complete spaz for asking such a question—but is this supposed to be a date?”

“YES, IT'S A DATE!” she shrieked, flinging her arms wide—and inadvertently revealing her almost chest. JB's eyes locked with hers. Corliss felt her heart pause, as if she had been cryogenically frozen. Their eyes twitched and pulsed in what to Corliss at least felt like an eternity of terrified silence.

“It is?” JB finally eked out, as his eyes slowly headed south toward her almost chest. Corliss responded by throwing herself underwater—where she had a direct view of JB's lap. She closed her eyes against his boy bits as her heart beat like a Timbaland hook. Had she really just revealed her true feelings? Was she actually submerged underwater just inches from JB's gonads? Wasn't the whole tacky situation entirely porno? And most important, how long could she stay underwater before blacking out?

She knew she had to pull herself together. How bad could it be? She'd clarified her intentions. If JB thought less of her because of it, that was
his
problem, not
hers
. Besides, JB wasn't all that and a can of Pringles. He belonged to the same freaks-and-geeks club Corliss did. So why was she flipping out so much?

Corliss resolved to open her eyes, look JB straight in the crotch, and wait for his response. She'd come to the brink of hot-tub nudity—not her proudest moment—but she wasn't going to turn back now. She took one gigantic breath as she emerged from under the jets, rearing back like some unhinged sea monster. What she saw in front of her gave her an immediate answer: JB's clothes—and JB himself—were gone. All that was left of him were wet footprints that led across the Indian slate toward the house. There, Uncle Ross stood on the lanai with a very sad look on his face.

“Gone?” Corliss managed.

Uncle Ross nodded. “He said he remembered something important he had to do. He seemed in quite a state so I lent him the Bentley. Somewhere on the 405 there's a wet, terrified teen heading for the Valley in a $400,000 car . . .”

“Who are these people?!” Max called to his assistants, who were standing at attention at his side. The assistants shrugged in unison at the droves of unidentified people scampering around the set. These hyperefficient strangers were taking measurements, jotting notes, and whispering among themselves with great urgency. They'd appeared out of nowhere about five minutes before and Max couldn't find Corliss to help him get to the bottom of it.

“And where is Corliss?” Max said, increasingly perplexed. She'd been missing all morning. Her car had been spotted in the lot, but so far she hadn't shown her face. She'd been behaving strangely for some time, but not showing up at all was utterly unlike her, and Max was getting worried. “Find Corliss!” he commanded, waving his hand in the air as if he were Moses parting the Red Sea. His assistants fled in various directions.

Left alone, Max tried to imagine what the swarm of whispering, note-taking beings who'd taken over the soundstage were up to. Were they dispatched from the higher-ups at the network, sent to spy on him and report back? Had they come from accounting to see if he'd gone over budget with the multimillion dollar set? They certainly seemed like they were assessing
something
; they hissed conspiratorially and regarded everything in their wake with judgmental eyes. Their every move made Max lurch into paranoid overdrive. Finally, he summoned his courage and tapped one on the shoulder. “Excuse me. May I ask you what you're doing here exactly?”

“Me?” said one of the swarmers, looking put out as he used his iPhone to grab a picture of a Tibetan finial. “I'm from Joy Etc.,” he said with his pointy chin in the air, as if that should explain it all, before grabbing another photo of one of the set's vast Moroccan rugs.

Max's eye twitched. He couldn't imagine what Joy Etc. was. Some kind of cult? If so, why hadn't his fellow Scientologists alerted him to their existence? They certainly looked like a cult: Each of them wore a light blue Hugo Boss pullover. “I'm sorry,” Max said, once again tapping him on the shoulder, “but there's no proselytizing on the set. You'll have to leave.”

The busy little man with the pointy chin and the iPhone looked at Max like he had three heads. “I think you have the wrong idea about us. Joy Etc. is the most exclusive wedding design firm in Los Angeles,” he huffed. “We've just been hired for the Ventura/ Michaels wedding.” Max staggered back. His set had been taken over by two hormonally infused teen stars—just as Anushka had predicted. “And now if you'll excuse me,” the man said, “I need to figure out how I can possibly transform this soundstage into a place of
joy
. Orchids, tulle, candles, doves,” he said, rattling off his intentions. “
J-O-Y
. And frankly, it's not going to be easy,” he continued, sniffing at the set. “It looks like Courtney Love threw up in here.” He then snapped a photo of a tufted damask hassock. “All of this is either going to have to be covered, removed, or, frankly, set ablaze. Your set designer should be
shot
.”

The little pointy man moved off to confab with his colleagues, as they all shared images off their iPhones and made horrified faces. Max watched in growing dismay as they then began to make wild gestures with their hands, as if wiping out whole portions of the set. “Tulle! Candles! Orchids!” they began to yell, conjuring all these things with their hands. And then the chanting spread across the vast space: “Tulle! Candles! Orchids!” The voices rose in unison, creating a deafening cacophony.

Max covered his ears and inhaled deeply. It was either that or start shouting in his girly voice. He knew he had to put his foot down and reclaim his directorial authority—just like Olga said—but he was bone tired. He'd been up till 4 A.M. the night before slamming Patron with six Nigerian models at the Tropicana Bar. His head throbbed as the people from Joy Etc. chanted their joy mantra.

“Can someone please find me Tanya?” he said to no one because all of his assistants were off looking for Corliss. “Oh, forget it,” he said to himself, realizing the day—like so many others in his short career—was heading south fast. Then there was a tap on
his
shoulder. He turned, half expecting one of the Joy Etc. weirdos to engage him in their demented chant.

“Max!” said Tanya, dressed head to toe in a white silk Oscar de la Renta pantsuit. “I've been right behind you the whole time! Aren't these Joy guys
so, so
talented? Their vision of my wedding is, like, totally off the hook! They want to build a hundred-foot-long portico of yellow orchids that will be, like, a place Trent and me will totally walk under! And then the whole thing will open up into, like,
pow!
—this explosion of tulle that hangs in big droopy things from the ceiling! And, of course, like, a gazillion votive candles will be suspended from that droopiness just, like, plopping down from heaven like ploppy little glowy things. That's so joyful!”

“Tanya,” said Max, taking her by her skinny elbow and steering her a few yards away. “These people are taking over the set. We cannot have that. This is a working environment—if you recall—and I'm trying to set up a shot.”

“That reminds me, Max,” said Tanya with her pouty face. “Trent and I decided to go to Bora-Bora for our honeymoon.” She folded her arms as if that were an entirely appropriate response to what he'd just told her.

“Wonderful,” said Max, straining to be patient. “I hope you have a lovely time,” he continued, his sarcasm slipping out.

“Hey, thanks!” She looked at a clipboard she'd been hiding behind her back. On it was a complicated, hour-by-hour chart of every minute of her time from now until the wedding. “But here's the thing—we wanna stay for a few weeks so that means we won't be around to film episode four.” She counted on her fingers. “Five or six, or whatever episode we happen to be on then.”

Max's left eye started to quiver, which it had been doing a lot lately. He wondered if he needed his prescription changed. It was either that or all the rage he'd been swallowing since this Trent and Tanya marriage thing first came up.

“Are you winking at me, Max? 'Cause I'm, like, about to be a married lady.” She shook a finger at him like he was being a very bad boy.

“No, Tanya,” said Max through his teeth. “My eye is on edge. And frankly, so am I. Do I have to remind you—and your fiancé Trent Owen Michaels—that you are contractually obligated to appear in
all
episodes of
The 'Bu?
Not just one or two—but each and every one?”

“Wow,” said Tanya, looking like that was news to her. “Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh,” said Max as his eye flickered into spasms.

Tanya put her hand on her hip and scrunched up her face. “Well, you know, Max, this honeymoon is
real, real
important to me so can't you just, I don't know, show a rerun or something for episode four?”

The top of Max's head felt like it was going to open up, at which point his brains would spew all over Tanya and all the workers from Joy Etc. He cast his eyes around hopelessly for Corliss, but the girl who always saved the day was still nowhere to be found. He was about to creatively visualize Tanya without a mouth when JB sauntered up.

“Max,” he droned in an uncharacteristically mopey tone, “do I have to wear this puffy, short-sleeved V-neck sweater in this scene?” He pulled at an oversized fuschia-colored sweater that hung off his still skinnyish body. “I mean, I know the Jeebster is playing Ollie, supergeek par excellence, but give a guy a break. This sweater makes me look like Lardo Retardo. And did I mention the sink in my dressing room is backed up?” he continued. “And that I was called two hours ago and so far all I've done is sit around playing with my Dumbledore action figure? Sheesh, boredom alert!”

“JB,” said Max, mystified by this peculiar outburst from JB, who was usually the very soul of cooperation. “What's wrong? You
never
complain about anything. In fact, you're the easiest cast member I have . . .
You
can't be turning on me?”

“Sorry, Max,” said JB with downcast eyes, “I'm not feeling so super today. My head aches and everything sounds louder than usual and my stomach is all gurgly.”

Max recognized those symptoms immediately. In fact, he had felt every single one this morning after waking with a Patrón hangover. “JB,” he said in astonishment, “is it possible that you—of all people—were out somewhere last night
drinking
?”