I'm with Cupid (8 page)

Corliss sat on her bed, hugging her knees for dear life. She stared at her phone, which seemed to taunt her from the top of her comforter, shifting shapes, sneering at her, sticking its tongue out. She closed her eyes tight and rocked back and forth, humming to herself like a crazy person . . .

She didn't know why it was so hard! She was only trying to follow Uncle Ross's directions to call up JB and invite him to the Emmys—and pretend it was just “hanging out” with the gang.

But it wasn't working. She'd been staring at the phone for a half hour, her eyes growing bigger each minute. They were currently the size of two beer coasters. Then it occurred to her: She should just rehearse her lines like the actors on
The 'Bu
rehearsed theirs. She would imagine herself
playing a scene with JB
and that's how she'd get through this.

“Hey, JB,” she said, reciting from a script she was simultaneously writing in her head. “It's me, your coworker Corliss Meyers. I was just sitting around thinking, you know, about the Emmys and how it would be fun if we went together as just, um, two coworkers just having a good coworking time.” She let the sentence hang in the air to see how she felt about it. “Blah!” She screamed after deciding she felt completely vomitous about it.

She threw herself facedown on the bed. “I can't do it!” she shouted, mashed into a silk six-thousand thread count pillow. “Let me die a miserable virgin eating my dinners alone at Chuck E. Cheese! It's not worth the humiliation!”

But then she looked deep into her future and actually saw herself eating dinner alone at Chuck E. Cheese. Sitting there with a slice of Super Combo pizza, dressed in stripes and plaids. She was having one of her premonitions, and this one set off a hundred clanging fire engine bells in her head. This grim picture would
not
be her future, she decided. No matter how much she loved the Super Combo pizza at Chuck E. Cheese.

She roused herself, shook off her fear, reached for her phone, and called JB. As his phone rang on the other end, she saw her life flicker before her eyes. But because not too much had ever happened to her until she'd come to L.A., what flickered was basically only a replay of the last few months. Just as she was pondering how glamorous and full of possibilities (and a whole new fashion sense) her recent life had become, JB picked up.

“Why, if isn't the wondrous and talented Corliss Meyers calling. How's it shakin', kiddo?”

“Hey, JB,” Corliss said a little breathlessly. “It's me, Corliss Meyers.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Yessiree, I do believe we've just established that,” JB finally said. “Long time, no hear, m'lady. What up?”

“Oh,” said Corliss, her heart racing at what she'd set in motion, “nothing's up, you know. Just, um, the usual what upness of up . . .” She was headed toward Babble Central, so she downshifted and put her mouth in neutral.

“Ah,” said JB, “what would the world be without the distinctive phraseology of Corliss Meyers? You can turn a sentence inside out like nobody I know.”

“Thanks, JB,” she said, her mind going blank, “you too!” She was now officially entering the zombie zone. She pinched herself on the arm to make herself snap out of it. “Listen, JB,” she said, coming back to herself. “You know we've all been invited to the Emmys, right?”

“ ‘Course I do! I'm already practicing my red-carpet walk. It might not be as fetching as Heidi Klum's, but I think I'll pass muster. Why do you ask?”

“Well,” she said, ignoring his strange Heidi Klum comment (and wondering all over again if he wasn't completely gay), “we're all sitting together and I just thought it would be fun or something if we, you know, sat together.”

“Um, didn't you just say we were all sitting together? Or did I miss something?”

“Right, sure, yeah. We are all
sitting
together.” She'd backed herself into a wall. She had to think on her feet. In other words,
lie
. “But, um, here's the thing. There was a little goof up at the production office and we're short a couple tickets.”

“Social catastrophe!”

“I know, right?”

“And you're calling to tell me I'm off the list?”

“No! Totally not. I was wondering, instead of causing a big stink, if you, we—that is, you and me—shouldn't maybe, I don't know, just go together.”

There was another pause on JB's end of the line. This one was longer than the one before. Corliss timed it. “Aha,” he eventually said.

“Yeah, like friends or something hanging out—with our other friends. We could even go together, like, in the same car, to make sure there isn't any confusion when we get there. I may even be able to borrow my uncle Ross's Bentley.”

“Yeah, I could swing with that,” JB said brightly. “We'd have to coordinate our outfits, though. And I refuse to wear purple.”

Corliss held the phone away from herself and shook her head. Why was she always drawn to the weirdos? But now that JB had consented she knew she had to drive the deal home—and quickly set some terms. “Great. The ceremony starts at five o'clock. I'll pick you up at four. Deal?”

“Deal!”

“Excellent!” said Corliss, disconnecting the call before there were more negotiations. She exhaled long and hard, then threw herself against her pillows and shrieked with laughter. After a few moments, she flipped over and sighed contentedly—calling JB hadn't been so hard after all. In fact, it was kind of fun. Her eyes fluttered and she began to imagine JB, sitting next to her at the Emmys. Looking cute in that “I didn't mean to look cute” way, and smiling at her without his retainer . . .

Four

Sure enough, JB was looking cute in a “Who knows how this happened?” kind of way. He was wearing a Dries Van Noten three-button peg-leg suit with a Burberry ascot and somehow managing to pull it off. His hair was parted and slicked, which made him look fashionably geeky—not unintentionally geeky—like he usually did. He smiled at Corliss without his retainer, and although there was a piece of cilantro stuck between his two front teeth (from an hors d'oeuvre he'd eaten at the Roosevelt Hotel pre-party), the piece of gum he stuck in his mouth was bound to catch it momentarily. The whole picture was very close to Corliss's dream. And it didn't hurt that she was looking pretty fierce herself.

The Versace couture dress that Donatella had FedExed Uncle Ross was perfection. Made of clingy pink tulle that stopped just above Corliss's knee, it was cinched by a wide waistband of ribbed magenta. The whole thing said “Sexy Fairy Princess Who Isn't Afraid to Show Her Legs.” Completing the entire look was a brilliant, light-refracting diamond bracelet borrowed from Harry Winston, courtesy of Uncle Ross's ex-BF Jeremy.

The moment was almost too much. There Corliss was next to JB, seated in a row with all the other
'Bu
stars—as if she was one of them herself. She turned to JB and said the first thing that came into her frazzled-dazzled head. “Wow, isn't this amazing? Especially with you and me here as, I mean, just friends just hanging out and not anything more than that, but, you know . . . together!”

JB grinned and moved his elbow against hers. “Once again, Ms. Meyers, you state the obvious in a way that charms.”

“Ha-ha,” she laughed weakly, moving her elbow away out of nervousness, then moving it back so forcefully that she knocked JB's arm off the armrest. “Sorry! Um, what I meant to say is that it's great we're here just enjoying the night and our friends and it doesn't even matter that we're not a couple or anything.”

At the sound of the word “couple,” JB's face went white. Corliss looked for the quickest escape route. She was so mortified she could have crawled into the row ahead of them. But then she would've had to climb over Teri Hatcher's hairpiece—and that looked like a mighty hike. Six ginormous ponytails erupted out of an oversized updo on top of the
Desperate Housewives
star's head.

Corliss was trapped. Her only chance at salvation was to redirect attention away from her temporary-psychosis-induced comment. “How you think Teri Hatcher is keeping that on? My money's on double-sided Velcro.”

The color came back into JB's face and he leaned over to Corliss and whispered, “I'm not a betting man anymore, Cor, but if I were I'd say it's more like staple gun.”

Corliss laughed so hard, she snorted. JB gave her yet another weird look. She was a total wreck. She felt her forehead break out in splotches. Just her luck, her hive medicine had been recalled earlier in the week because it had given two old ladies in Florida night sweats. She'd have to take a page from Max's book and creatively visualize a smooth forehead if she was going to get through this evening in one piece—and blotch-free.

But it wasn't going to be easy. Months' worth of makeovers were coming apart at the seams in the span of a couple hours. Corliss knew she had to pull it together—and fast.

“Oh, JB,” she said, throwing her head back as she tried to sound sophisticated. “You really are too, too much.” And then she let her hand drop to JB's thigh.

JB looked at her hand. “Are you looking for a piece of gum? 'Cause it's in my
jacket
pocket, not my pants.” He produced a stick of Orbit and smiled obliviously.

Anushka's date, Tyler, suddenly sprang to attention. He'd been passed out against Anushka's shoulder, with a little train of spittle snaking out his mouth. “Wha—is it over?”

Anushka rolled her eyes and wiped the spittle from her shoulder. “It hasn't even begun, model head,” she crowed. If Tyler hadn't just landed a big Abercrombie & Fitch spread (where he was photographed naked, from behind, doing a handstand on a bale of hay) Anushka would have tossed him out of the limo on the 405. But his face—and select parts of his body—were everywhere these days, which meant Anushka could squeeze some good PR out of him.

Sure enough, they'd been met with a blinding storm of paparazzi flashes when they arrived on the red carpet. Besides, spittle or no, Tyler was his gorgeous—if not half-conscious—usual self. Wearing a tan Andrew Fezza check suit and his signature Havana Joe slides, the former farm boy was hotter than Palm Springs on the Fourth of July.

Anushka was looking pretty fierce herself, turned out in a metallic gold Alexander Wang wraparound dress with big, chunky Tarina Tarantino bracelets and necklace. She figured she was certainly in the top two percent of hotness in the room. She sat up a little straighter in her seat and, once she realized Tyler had passed out yet again, she glanced over a few seats to where Rocco sat, not with a date, but with his cousin Patrizio.

Anushka had met Patrizio in the lobby right before they were seated. She had to catch her breath the minute she did. He was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever seen: curly black hair cascading over sleepy brown eyes with full garnet lips that were formed in a perpetual pout. He had a big, Roman nose, too, which made Anushka's knees knock. Patrizio somehow managed to look at once boyish and devilish—two traits Anushka appreciated in spades.

Suddenly, he glanced her way. She coyly tilted her head in his direction and he held her gaze. A small smile appeared on his lips. She matched it with the tiniest smile of her own. Electricity flew back and forth between them in big zigzagging patterns. They seemed to be casting a spell on each other. The moment could have lasted forever had it not been broken by the piercing, jackhammerlike noise generated by Tyler's snores.

Rocco glared at Anushka. She looked away. “You can't be taken in by her, can you?” he whispered in Patrizio's ear.

“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Patrizio said in his thick Italian accent. He adjusted his yellow silk collar and slouched insouciantly in his seat.

“Anushka Peters is the worst example of unbridled Hollywood ambition,” said Rocco, who was getting hot under his Zegna collar. His cousin—who'd only been in the country for a few hours—was making eyes at Anushka, of all people. Rocco wasn't going to stand for it.

Patrizio shrugged his shoulders and glanced back at Anushka. His eyes gleamed and his lips parted. “Hollywood ambition? This is not my concern. I think she is, like . . . how you say . . . smokin'?”

Rocco took a breath and tried to explain. “Anushka is beautiful, there's no question. But she's also what we call in this country ‘ten miles of bad road.'”

“That means you shouldn't ride on her?” said Patrizio with a mischievous grin. “What a pity.”

Rocco sighed. He knew Anushka's powers over men were almost impossible to resist. What was it about her? He looked over to where she sat, her posture regal, as if a queen among her subjects. And yet there was something little-girl-lost about her, too. Covering all that was a naughty veneer that made the entire package explosively attractive.

It was maddening; Anushka was everything Rocco had always hated about Hollywood: unprofessional, untrained, unfeeling. Rocco could see his cousin's attraction, but refused to approve of it. With great effort, he decided he'd scan the crowd for someone—anyone—else to look at.

His eyes fell on Tanya. “What about Tanya?” Rocco said to Patrizio. “Isn't she more the type of woman you usually pursue?”

“Maybe yes,” said Patrizio. “This Tanya is gorgeous. But she only has eyes for that surfboard.”

Rocco looked over at Trent. “I think you mean
surfer
.”

“Besides,” said Patrizio, glossing over his cousin's correction, “I do not date girls with rosary beads.”