I'm with Cupid (20 page)

Petey pouted. “I hate that bumper sticker. But I'll try it, Corliss, if that's what you want.”

“Thanks, Petey.” She linked her arm in his and gestured that they should head back to the set. “I happened to come across your file today when I was doing payroll—so I know your eighteenth birthday is just around the corner. You know what that means?” Petey shook his head. Corliss patted his arm maternally. “It means it's time to let go of the stuff that's not working for you and grow up and be a professional.”

“Ya think?” Petey didn't look so sure.

“I'm a big believer in you, Petey,” she said. “Any high-school dropout who can pass himself off as a Harvard grad
has
to have something going for him.” Petey, basking in this praise, broke out in the biggest smile Corliss had ever seen on him.

“Okay, Corliss, thanks for your honesty,” he said, gazing at her like she was heaven in a halter, “whatever you say.” With that, Corliss gave him a nudge in the direction of the writers' trailer and off he ran, a blur of black. “Phew,” she said, relieved that that was over.

But her relief didn't last long.

“Hey, wait up!” It was JB. She had not spoken him to since their disastrous Jacuzzi encounter
three days ago
. She'd been waiting for him to call—or text or e-mail—an apology! But an apology hadn't come.

“Oh, hello, JB,” she said in her coolest voice possible.

“Hiya and salutations!” he said, laughing like nothing was wrong. “So, I've been meaning to call you, Cor.”

“You have? That's interesting,” she said nonchalantly.

“Yeah, but there was a big
Star Wars
convention in San Diego yesterday and since I wasn't called to work I just, you know, zoomed on down.”

She couldn't believe he was making excuses. It had been
three days
. Not to mention the fact that the evening of the disastrous Jacuzzi encounter was the
second
time he'd run away from her. He couldn't pick up his phone and make one lousy call? She'd bawled her eyes out and now she simply had to toughen her heart. “JB, I'm in a bit of a rush, here. I've got something very important to do in Max's trailer and, well, these
are
work hours.” It killed her to talk to him like this, but she had no choice.

“Oh, right. I understand, Cor. Maybe we should talk later?”

“I don't know if I'll be free to talk later.”

“Um, is something wrong? I know things between us were a little wonky the other night at Uncle Ross's. Maybe I should explain.”

“No need to explain, JB. You probably had to run off to see your friend Jack Osbourne. Or talk to Rocco about his buttery biscuits.”

“Cor—”

“No, I get it,” she said, wanting to put an end to the conversation. “We're
all
busy people. It's just the way life is, right? So if you'll excuse me, JB, I have to get back to work.” With that, she turned and headed for Max's trailer, despondent. Turning back briefly, she could see JB walking in the other direction. The sight of his bony little body moving into the distance filled her with despair. In fact, she thought she felt something deep in her heart crack—and then split in two.

Ten

Corliss was in heaven. Her entire world had done a complete 180-degree turn in the span of ten minutes. Meteors were bursting open in her head—and life would never be the same.

She'd just read The 'Bu-hoo and saw the blind item about JB
liking her
! Could it possibly be true???? She was in a tizzy. She ran up and down the length of Max's trailer trying to calm herself. How could MBK know JB's true feelings? Who was MBK?? More important, who was JB?!? He'd been passing himself off as someone not so interested, but that Chuck E. Cheese reference was plain as the pepperoni on their Super Combo pizza.

Suddenly, the door swung open. Corliss gasped. It was him. JB. The most adorable little geek the San Fernando Valley had ever produced, a bundle of twigs in board shorts.

“JB! What are you doing here? This area is off-limits to everyone but Max, me, Legend, and Olga.” Her heart was beating ferociously through Anushka's lacy halter.

“I—I—I—” he stammered. “I have to run lines and my trailer is being fumigated because of termites.”

“It is? Why didn't I get that memo?”

“I don't know,” he said.

Corliss looked at JB's hands, which were decidedly empty. “But how can you run lines? You don't have your script.”

“I don't?”

“Nuh-uh,” said Corliss. There was a momentary pause and then something came over them both. In a flash, those empty hands of JB's were suddenly all over Corliss! Before she had time to think, they were making out. Wildly. On Max's soft leather couch. Tumbling all over each other like laundry in the spin cycle.

It was magic, wonderful, messy. In fact, Corliss had her tongue so far down JB's throat she thought she tasted his larynx. Not that she knew what a larynx tasted like—or even cared! She just couldn't stop what years of teenage hormones had bottled up. It was erupting all over—and it seemed like that for JB, too. They wrestled each other this way and that, trying to get a better angle, mashing their faces even farther into each other, pressing their underdeveloped bodies closer and closer together. Basically, trying to swap as much spit as possible.

“Excuse me???” said Max. He was standing in the doorway.

“WHA-OH-WAH!” shouted Corliss, knowing it wasn't even a word.

“WHA-OH-WAH!” echoed JB, flailing about as he took in his director.

“What,” said Max, “is going on here? In
my
trailer?”

“Um, see, the thing is—” said Corliss, disentangling herself from JB. “JB lost a, uh, contact, right?” She threw JB a pleading look that said, “work with me here.”

“Rrrright!” said JB, all Tony the Tiger. “That's what happened! And I think I lost it on Corliss's neck! I mean, the floor!”

“The floor is what he meant!” said Corliss as she and JB simultaneously got on their hands and knees and pretended to tear through the shag carpet for a contact JB didn't lose.

“Get up,” said Max. They stood as commanded. “Now sit down.” They sat as commanded. “I had a hunch this was going on with you two—but I refused to believe it. And in my
trailer
, no less!—which you know, Corliss, is sacrosanct. It's bad enough that I have to spend the entire morning listening to Michael Rothstein blow a gasket about this Virgin America thing . . . But then to find my most trusted assistant in my own trailer breaking my edict . . .” Max trailed off. He looked exhausted. As if the worst transgression in the world had taken place.

“I'm so sorry, Max,” said Corliss, looking at JB for backup. “What can I say?”

“Nothing at the moment,” Max said. “Report to the set in the next half hour and we'll discuss this further. I don't have time now.” With that he stepped down from the trailer and left the new couple speechless.

“You know what?” JB finally said.

“What?” said Corliss.

“I'll tell you what, m'lady,” JB said, standing with his hands on his hips. “It really ain't none of his flipping business!”

“JB!” said Corliss, shocked. “But it's his trailer and—and—he's our boss . . . and I was the one who had him make that rule in the first place because Petey kept hitting on me. Not that it helped. I still ended up having to tell him that there wasn't a snowball's chance in Malibu he and I would ever get together. He just stood there in the parking lot looking so sad . . .”

JB slapped himself on the forehead. “Wait, wait, wait—that was
Petey Newsome
you were talking to in the lot?”

“Yeah, why . . . ?”

JB rocked back and forth, holding his stomach because he was laughing so hard.

“What is it?”

“I saw you guys out in the parking lot but without my contact I couldn't make out who that dude was!” JB rolled around on the sofa laughing. “But it wasn't some dude—it was Petey Newsome, the King of Lack of Personal Hygiene!!!”

“Hey, it's not that funny. Petey wouldn't be so bad if he showered, brushed his teeth, and got himself on a good antidepressant.”

“I'm sorry, Corliss,” JB said, calming down. “It's just a little ironic that because of Petey Newsome, I thought I was losing you. Before I ever had a chance to have you. Which completely KO-ed me in the heart department. And
that's
how I knew I was totally crushed out on you.”

Corliss's heart fluttered around in her chest like a bird set free. “Do you really mean that, JB?” JB nodded. “And do you really mean it's none of Max's business? Because that was really, um . . . masculine when you said that.”

“It was? Masculine? Me? Wowzer. I guess I'll try and figure out a way to say more things like that.”

“I hope so,” said Corliss, tingling all over her body. “And now I really need to make out with you again.”

“Your wish is my command!”

And with that, the tonsil tasting resumed.

Relief was finally kicking in. “Thank God you're here,” said Max to Olga, who was just approaching, moving confidently through the technicians prepping the next shot.

“You call, Olga come.”

“It's been a terrible day. I very much need your advice.”

“You ask, Olga gives.”

“I'm here, too, Max!” said Legend, appearing from behind Olga like a little angel.

“My God, Legend!” said Max. “I still can't get over how great it is to hear you say
Max
, not
Maxth
. . .”

“I told you,” said Olga. “Olga cure lisp for good.”

“Legend,” said Max, overjoyed. “How ‘bout if you try saying, ‘Sally sells seashells by the seashore'?”