I'm with Cupid (5 page)

“Can you take me to the little boyth room?” he asked at the top of his voice.

“I mean,” said Tanya, plowing on, “if I was beheaded I couldn't talk and say my lines. Right?”

“Tanya,” said Max, “I didn't say you were
beheaded
. I said you should creatively visualize—”

“Max,” Anushka interrupted from across the room. “I want the light to hit my right side where the henna tattoo is. This dude”—she pointed at one of the grips—“is lighting my left side.”

“Light Anushka's right side, please,” said Max to the grip as his eye began to twitch. Anushka turned her head to better show off her tattoo. The grip did as he was told.

Legend once again tugged on Max's pants. “Boyth room, boyth room!”

“Okay, Legend,” whispered Max, trying to keep it together, and wondering desperately how Corliss was doing on the nanny search. “But didn't you just go to the boyth—I mean boys—room?”

“That wath for number one,” Legend shouted, even louder than before. “Now I hafta do a big poop.”

The cast giggled. Max went red. “Legend,” he said, bending down and lowering his voice further. “That's not a word we say when we're not at home.”

“Thorry.”

“JB,” said Max, “would you mind taking Legend to the bathroom? You're not in the first part of this scene and I'm almost in my clear space.”

“Sure thing,” said JB, finishing a series of sit-ups. He'd been furiously pumping his once scrawny, now slightly less scrawny muscles all morning as the technicians had been setting up. He got to his feet, then lifted his bony little arms in the air. Two enormous semicircles of sweat clung to his pits. “Uh-oh, Max, I think the Jeebster needs to change shirts again . . .”

Max sighed and looked around for the costume crew. “JB, why do you insist on getting all sweaty before we shoot? This is the second time this morning we've had to pull you another shirt because of your overactive endocrine system.”

“Sorry, Max,” said JB, hopping from foot to foot. “Just trying to keep myself busy. Put the ol' excess energy to good use—if you know what I mean. Wouldn't you rather have me working out my poppin' bod than sinking all my moolah into bad stock trades and giving the blogosphere more bad publicity ammunition?” He smiled impishly.

Before Max could reply, Legend tugged at his pants again. “I really have to poop!” the shrunken preschooler yelled.

“Yes,” said Max, rubbing his temples, “we all got that particular news flash, Legend. JB, can you please take your stinky pits and my stepbrother to the restroom?”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” said JB, saluting. He took Legend by the hand and they scampered off down a hallway. Max texted Corliss: NANNY SEARCH???

Anushka was cracking up. “Gotta love a kid who screams ‘poop.'”

One of the grips shot Max a look. “Anushka, can you
please
keep still while they light you?”

“Max,” said Rocco, approaching. He looked incredibly fit after his rehab stint in Sicily.

“Yes, what is it, Rocco?” said Max, backing up a little as he did whenever Rocco came his way.

“I'm genuinely looking forward to today's shoot. The writing on this episode is a lot stronger than usual. Better character development, more innovative plot twists . . . It's quite an improvement.”

“Thank you, Rocco,” said Max, who felt a bit confused; he was so much more used to Rocco giving him attitude than praise. In fact, Rocco still totally intimidated Max. Rocco was wicked smart, hyperarticulate, built like a wall of bricks—and related to the famous Bellucci family. Four things Max was not. “I'm glad you're looking so well, by the way, Rocco. I've got a few ideas about how we're going to shoot this scene. I know you're interested in directing someday, so maybe you'll learn a little something.”

“I'm sure I will, Max,” said Rocco with an out-of-character humility. “And let me add I'm greatly looking forward to hearing your ideas.” He bowed a little in Max's direction.

“Thank you, Rocco,” Max said, bowing back a little. He knew he had to play it cool to keep Rocco's respect, but inside his stomach crumpled. The truth was, Max had zero ideas about how to shoot the scene. He was going to wing it like he always did.

A cold sweat broke out on his forehead as he was once again reminded just how giant a fake he was. He went to bite his cuticles, but then he realized he'd spent four hundred dollars on them the day before, so he signaled one of his assistants to bring him a bowl of wasabi peas instead. The assistant ran off and Corliss ran up.

“Corliss! Has there been any luck with the nanny search? Legend is so up in my grill I need a—a—”

“Grill protector?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“Well, I did just get a lead on an
amazing
nanny who comes highly recommended from the Scientology Celebrity Centre International. I'm just waiting for a call back from her agent.”

Max was overjoyed. “A nanny with an agent? Endorsed by L. Ron Hubbard? She sounds perfect!”

“Fingers crossed,” said Corliss. “While I'm waiting for the call, do you mind if I hang out and watch the scene?”

“Not at all, you know your presence is usually a comfort to me.”

“Thanks. I think . . .”

“Okay, people,” Max said, seeing that the grips had finally bathed the cast in a perfectly golden otherworldly glow. “Let's have a look at you.” They looked, in a word, dazzling. Especially Anushka. Bald and hennaed, she cut a striking figure in an off-the-shoulder Michael Kors midnight black cocktail dress. Lately she'd been looking less and less like America's Naughty Sweetheart, and more and more like a sophisticated woman of the world.

“Anushka,” said Max, marveling at her transformation, “I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but someone should have put you in a bald cap a long time ago. You look simply amazing.”

“Right?” she said. “I am
owning
this chrome dome!”

“It looks so good on you, you might even consider going hairless to the Emmys,” said Max, circling her approvingly.

“Uh, don't think so, Max—but good try. I'm featuring full hairification for the Emmys, thank you very much.”

“That reminds me, people,” said Max, consulting the tickler file on his iPhone. “Everyone needs to submit the name of their Emmy date to Michael Rothstein's office by Friday for security clearance.”

“I submit Trent!” yelped Tanya.

“And I submit her,” said Trent, pointing deliriously at Tanya.

“Ha!” said Anushka. “Big surprise. As for little ol' bald me, I'm probably going to bring that pretty stoner model Tyler. He's always good for a few laughs.”

“I'm bringing my cousin Patrizio,” said Rocco, “who will be visiting from Italy. He's fascinated by American pop culture, so the evening should be interesting for him.”

“JB?” said Max. “Have you asked someone yet?”

“Me?” said JB, looking helpless. “Good one! Naw, no girly yet. How's 'bout you, Cor? You figured out who you're going to ask?”

“Jeez, no,” she said, “I'm still getting over the shock of being invited.”

Was it Max's imagination or was Corliss batting her eyelashes at JB?

“Okay,” Max said, banishing the thought from his head as he saw that the camerawoman was ready. “We'll begin momentarily, but an announcement before we do. I have decreed, with the support of the front office, that there is to be
no dating
among anyone involved in the production of
The 'Bu
.” Tanya opened her mouth to protest, but Max cut her off before she had the chance. “Tanya, you and Trent got in under the wire. There's nothing we can do about your, er, relationship now.”

“Thanks, Max!” she said, clapping.

“But everyone else will have to look
elsewhere
for any romance. It's too disruptive and potentially damaging to morale to date the people you work with. Do we all understand one another?”

Everyone nodded—except for Anushka, who exploded in her signature, “Ha!”

“What is it, Anushka? Will this rule be hard for you to comply with?”

“Uh, don't worry, Max. There's a
total
lack of sexual tension among this group, that's for sure.”

“Exactly what I want to hear,” said Max. “Now please get in your places. We're ready to shoot. I want you to put yourself in the emotional states of these characters. Anushka's character Alecia has survived the Malibu Canyon fire, recovered from amnesia, and just returned from an ashram in Mumbai to find her parents have been killed in a plane crash. The rest of you are here to comfort her and encourage her to go on with her life.”

The cast nodded thoughtfully. The camerawoman took her place behind the camera. The sound was rolling. The slate was prepped.

Max still had absolutely no idea how the scene would go. So he did the only thing he knew how to do: He creatively visualized general fabulousness and called out,
“Action!”

Three

“What is it, my darling?” asked Uncle Ross as he searched the depths of his fridge for a missing jar of olives. “I haven't seen you this blue since I told you it wasn't a good idea to wear stripes with plaid.”

Corliss sighed as she prepared Uncle Ross's third martini. She was spent. Beat. Wiped out. The last thing she needed was Uncle Ross's sarcasm. Her day had been filled with Legend's nanny search—and by the end of it there was still no nanny in sight. “I'm just really down in the proverbial dumps, Uncle Ross. I mean, I deferred a full scholarship to study psychology—at Columbia University, no less!—to work in television.
Television!
”

“Isn't that what you're doing?” Uncle Ross replied, finding the jar of olives behind some leftover diver scallops from the Hungry Cat.

“No! That is exactly
not
what I am doing, Uncle Ross. What I'm doing is interviewing ex-cons and debilitated members of society to see if they want to be Legend's nanny!” She was so riled up she was shaking Uncle Ross's martini furiously.

Uncle Ross frowned and rescued the martini shaker from Corliss. “Dearest niece, I asked you to shake my martini, not choke it to death.” He poured the martini out, plunked two plump olives in the liquid, and took a long sip. “Ah, my evening is now complete.”