I'm with Cupid (10 page)

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 her 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 . . .”

Five

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 down 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.'”

“Naw, Cor—it was two tons o' fun. I'm just real sorry I went missing there at the end. Not cool!”

“Yeah,” said Corliss, still hurt that she had to travel home alone in Uncle Ross's Bentley with the driver asking her where her date had gone. “I was kinda wondering about that . . .”

“Well, see, I went to the restroom and got into this long discussion with Jack Osbourne, who was in the stall next to me. Apparently, he's just as much into
Star Wars
as I am!”

“Wow,” said Corliss, not knowing what to say. “That sounds really interesting.”

“It was! But next thing I knew, I came out and you were gone. I feel like a Class-A bonehead. Is there any way I can make it up to you?”

Corliss studied JB's expression. He looked sincere enough. In fact, he looked pretty cute this morning in his faded Le Tigre polo and his madras shorts. She quickly asked herself what Uncle Ross would do.
Forgive and forget
, came the answer. And then
Ask him out again
. “Well, I guess we could try, um, hanging out again, maybe? If you wanted? If you had the time?” She tried patting down her hair again.

“Sure!” JB said quickly. “What did you have in mind?”

Emboldened by his fast response, she searched her mind for an innocent-seeming activity they might both enjoy. “You like putt-putt golf?”

“Um, you mean those miniature golf courses that have themes like giants or animals, or giant animals?”