First Stop, New York (14 page)

“Just staring at you with their big dead eyeballs! Ewww! It makes me feel creepy-crawly all over!” Tanya wriggled around in torment.

Anushka turned off Amy Winehouse with a flick of a remote. “Excuse me, ladies, what don’t you understand about ‘I’m busy’?”

Corliss and Tanya fell silent.

There was another knock on the door. Anushka shouted at the door.

“I’M BUSY!”

But it didn’t stop Petey Newsome from sticking his head in. He held a bouquet of tulips. Suddenly the place was packed tighter than a can of tuna fish.

“Hi, Anushka, Tanya.” When he spotted Corliss, he smiled so big that his mouth pushed against his Dumbo ears. “Hi, Corliss. These flowers were a prop used in the last scene. They were just going to throw them out, but I thought, hey, I bet Corliss is a tulip kind of girl. Was I right?”

Corliss looked way embarrassed. “Me? Tulips? Oh, I’m really more like a carnation kind of girl. Those big pink ones that kind of puff up like—”

Anushka had had enough. “Okay, everybody out. This is not a halfway house for freaks and geeks.”

Tanya pouted at Corliss, who pouted at Petey, and they all turned on their heels to go. “Just wanted to make sure you got the rewrite, Anushka,” said Petey, stepping down from the trailer. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

Then it hit Anushka. “Hold it right there, writer.”

Petey stopped. Corliss and Tanya toppled into him.

“And hold it right there, Corliss.”

“I’m mashed between Petey and Tanya, I don’t think I’m going anywhere.”

“Well, unmash yourselves and everybody sit down.”

The three unmashed and moved slowly back into Anushka’s trailer.

Anushka put her hands on her bony hips and sized them up. “Okay, don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here. This guy here does a rewrite that has Tanya’s character, Tessa, giving my character, Alecia, a makeover.”

Tanya jumped up and down in her seat and clapped.

“Tans, take it WAY DOWN.”

Tanya sat on her hands.

“Anushka,” said Corliss, “can this wait? Max really needs you on set.”

“No, it can’t wait, ’cause what has happened here is this writer guy—”

“
Petey.”

“Whatever—he’s given me a chance to shed my caftans
and zinc oxide because he’s still basing my character, Alecia, on
you
, Corliss, because now
you’ve
shed your crappy gear and zinc oxide. And I want it to stop. Whatever little lovey-dovey tulip thing you two have going—”

Tanya released her hands and clapped. “Corliss—you and Petey?!”

Petey gave Corliss big lovey-dovey eyes and once again tried to give her the tulips.

“No!” shouted Corliss.

“Whatever it is,” continued Anushka, “it’s o-v-e-r,
ovah
. At least as far as my character is concerned. I can’t have my entire career rising and falling whenever Corliss dyes her hair.”

“I only did highlights.”

“Highlights!” Tanya clapped.

“TANS!”

“Sorry.”

“Corliss, you have to break whatever hold you have over—over—”

“
Petey,”
Petey groaned.

“But, Anushka, I don’t have a hold on—”

“Corliss, my comeback is too important!”

“Okay, Anushka, dismiss me from your trailer, whatever, but Max really needs you on set immediately. Everyone’s waiting to shoot the suntan-lotion accident. And it wouldn’t hurt, now that you’re back to
spectacular
Alecia, to let Max know how grateful you are. He’s totally tweaked right now and it would make a big difference to him.”

“Good idea, Cor. I’m in rehab mode now—and that goes for my sucky reputation, too. I’m gonna be good, just watch. Now everyone out of my trailer while I do one last spray tan.”

“Okay,” said Corliss, heading out and tapping her watch, “but be quick about it.”

Tanya waved bye-bye. Petey went to go, too.

“Not so fast, Petey.”

“Hey,” he said with an astonished look on his face, “you actually called me by my name.”

“Of course I did,” Anushka said, changing her tone. “Petey is a great name.” She knew she had to come up with a plan quickly. “And I think you and I need to get to know each other better…
Petey
.” She’d said
Petey
very close to his neck.

“You—you do?”

Anushka threw her shoulders back so Petey could appreciate what happened when she did. Petey avoided looking at her chest as it rose and fell. But as she moved closer to him, she noticed his eyes bulging and his teeth chattering.

“What’s the matter, Petey? Are you coming down with something?”

“N-no, I’m just a little anxious about all the r-r-rewrites I have to do today.”

“You are? Poor baby.” She knew she could easily replace Corliss in his heart. This was the only way she could insure that all future scripts showcased her magnificent lusciousness—not to mention downplayed Tanya’s rising star status.

Petey tugged at his collar. “These trailers are a little claustrophobic, don’t you think?”

“Not if you like to be close to people,” she cooed. “Don’t you like to be close to people, Petey? I noticed you like to be close to Corliss. But wouldn’t you rather be close to Anushka? Petey?”

“Boy, it’s really nice to finally hear someone call me by my name.”

“Petey, Petey, Petey,” she cooed.

“Y-yes?”

“How ’bout you and me hit Area tonight? VIP all the way. You game?”

Anushka was inches from Petey. She fluffed her hair and brushed his face with it.

Petey couldn’t speak. But Anushka felt pretty safe in taking his shiver for a “Yes.”

Hyde Nightclub, West Hollywood—Midnight

Petey could no longer keep track of the fun. It had certainly been an evening to remember—if only he could remember it. The last few hours were a blur of sushi, sake, club hopping, Veuve Clicquot, Anushka, paparazzi, and girls in microminis.

Lights swirled above him. Classic rock blared over the sound system. The backbeat rippled over his skin like a million tiny hands. “Yeah,” Petey said to no one in particular. “Dance to the music!”

He felt a little dizzy. He stopped and looked around until he could focus. He saw crocodiles. No wait, they were banquettes upholstered with crocodile skin. He saw bonfires. No wait, they were candles hanging from the pounded copper ceiling.

And was that Anushka dancing on the bar? It looked a little like her. But the tiny lounge was so packed with starlets that it was hard to tell which one was which…

“If they dropped a bomb in here,” Petey slurred to the tall model-y girl he was all of a sudden dancing with, “the CW would
have to show only reruns for the next year!” The model-y girl smiled enigmatically and took Petey by the hips. “Oh…I guess we’re dirty dancing?” The model-y girl pulled Petey closer. “Oh, wow, that’s pretty dirty. Just don’t ask me to krump, whatever you do!”

The model-y girl pulled Petey even closer and whispered in his ear
exactly
what she wanted to do next.

Petey’s jaw fell open. “Well, you m-m-might have to ask my m-m-mother’s permission about that one.”

With that, the model-y girl produced her cell phone. “Then call her.”

Somewhere Between Hollywood and Malibu—The Middle of the Night

: The
’Bu-Hoo

CUE AUDIO: I’m Bringing
‘Bu-Hoo
Back

’Bu
babies! Are you ready for some nearly-almost-maybe-not-blind items? Items even Helen Keller could spot in a dark alley? Aiiight.

Oh, mama. It’s been a rough night for a
certain Transformer Girl assistant. Last seen through the window of a certain insane director’s trailer, she was ironing his Billabong board shorts. What next? Pressing his monogrammed jock? Can you say ‘above and beyond the call of doody’?

The night has also been wicked hard on the one referred to as “Writer.” Poor kid was spotted facedown on the floor of a
certain starlet’s
limo. Starlet was still standing, screaming her head off through the moon roof, empty bottle of Bolly in hand…But Writer was lying in a pool of booze-soaked sweat calling “Uncle!”

SEE KEYWORDS: raw fish, Courvoisier, porcelain god

But bodily excretions and the late hour weren’t enough to stop these two—oh no! They kept their party on like pros.

SIGHTING: Limo with STAR4U plates heading south on the 405

But where oh where was this odd couple
going as the hands of the clock reached 2
A.M.
?

Newport Beach for a late-night swim?

Electrik Krayon Tattoo for a commemorative tat?

The starlet’s pearly gates for, well, pearls?

None of the above,
’Bu
-sters. Starlet and Writer were heading to an after-hours club so far downtown it was called Tijuana. Guess Writer’s little crush on Corliss is blown to smithereens and gone with the Santa Ana winds!

HOLD FOR INCOMING SIGHTINGS…

1) Starlet and several new friends returning to her Malibu condo in time to watch the sun rise before the after-party after-party…

2) Writer, butt naked except for a pair of black socks, being surrounded by California state troopers at a McDonald’s while attempting to order an Egg McMuffin on credit.

Oh, it’s a sad, sad scene,
’Bu
babies.
Definitely one Writer himself could never have imagined. But where is he now? And what is he wearing?

‘Bu-bye 4 now,

MBK

Zuma Beach—11:56
A.M.

Sweat streamed down Max Marx’s face. Not because he’d just emerged from a Jacuzzi. Not because it was high noon and an unforgiving sun was almost directly above his four-hundred-dollar haircut. But because Tanya, in a white one-piece cut down to her belly button, was on the tiny remains of his last good nerve.

Max moved his glistening face close to hers. “When I say ‘action,’ Tanya, what I want you do is, in fact,
act
.”

“Uh-huh,” said Tanya.

“You see, the word ‘act’ is actually in the word ‘action,’ Tanya.”

“Oh, right, wow. That’s
sooo
helpful, Max.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” he said with a sneer. “Now, do we understand each other, former model person?”

“Um, I think so, Max. Although technically I’m
still
a model. In fact, this weekend I have this
toootally
awesome shoot for
Glamour
and—”

Max held up his hand.

“Right, sorry, ‘cease.’”

“Exactly. And when I say act, how you act is this: You are
to hit your mark in the sand, say your line like someone who is not developmentally impaired, and then turn and walk
out of frame
. Is there
anything
about this you don’t understand?”

“No,” Tanya said as her lower lip started to quiver and tears formed in her eyes.

“Excellent. Then let’s please try it for the—oh, what is it now?—the
seventh
time.” Max signaled a PA, who came in with the slate.

“
The ’Bu
, climax on beach scene fifteen, take seven,” the PA said, putting the slate in front of the camera.

“And…we’re rolling!” the assistant cameraman called.

“And…action!”

But Tanya just stood there. She looked to JB, who was waiting nearby adjusting his too-big shorts. He was mouthing something—probably her line—but she couldn’t tell what he was saying. Just behind the camera, Max was making circular motions with his fingers, prompting Tanya to get going.