I'm with Cupid (2 page)

“Guess he was worried for the reptiles,” Max whispered back. Corliss stifled a giggle.

“Excuse me with the whispering?” said Anushka, putting one hand on one exquisitely toned hip.

“Anushka,” said Max in a level tone. “Let's take ten. If we can't find Urich by then, I have some books on creative visualization in my trailer that might be of some assistance.” With that, he turned and signaled for Corliss and his identically dressed assistants to follow.

As the entourage moved toward Max's trailer, Corliss looked back. Anushka did not look happy; she
hated
it whenever people didn't take her diva bait. “I gotta say, Max, you handled that really well,” said Corliss, catching up to him. “You didn't get all frazzled and go into your girly voice. You let Anushka know who's boss.”

“Thank you, Corliss. I've realized if I want a productive set, I'm going to have to keep Anushka on a very tight leash. I'm also going to have to take testosterone enhancers to keep my voice low.”

“I think you're on to something, Max. Two things, in fact.”

“Perhaps,” Max said, approaching his trailer. “But believe it or not, Corliss, I have more pressing concerns at the moment.” His face became serious. Way more serious than it usually was. He signaled for his assistants to move off. They flew away in unison.

“Is it the fact that all your assistants always dress exactly like you? 'Cause it kinda creeps me out. How do they even know what you're going to wear every day?”

“They generally call or text me early in the morning and I tell them. I can't help it if they want to be like me, Corliss. Imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery. But no, my pressing concern has nothing to do with them.”

“Then what is it, Max?” Corliss and Max were now standing just outside his trailer.

“It's almost so terrible I can't even talk about it.” With that, Max flung open the door to his trailer. There, sitting inside the trailer on the floor, was Legend.

“Hey, Corlith!” He was just as Corliss remembered him, with a nose bludgeoned from some serious nose-picking and wearing one of his signature T-shirts. This one said I
AM
THE AFTERPARTY.

Corliss gulped. She hadn't laid eyes on the bite-sized terror in weeks. And those had been some good weeks. “Hey, Legend,” she said carefully. “What—what are you doing there?”

“Oh, nothing. Juth making a drawing on my Etch A Thketch.” He held up his Etch A Sketch. Max's face went white. Corliss gasped. She hadn't seen anything so graphic since she'd walked into a Venice Beach men's room by mistake.

“Legend,” gasped Max, “where did you learn to draw THAT?”

“From the pictureth in your creative vithualithathion book . . .” he said, looking the picture of perverted innocence.

Max swiped Legend's Etch A Sketch and shook it quickly to make the image disappear. Then he shut the door and took Corliss away from the trailer.

“Hey!” called Legend from inside. “You erathed my penith picture!”

“Sorry you had to see that, Corliss. There's a chapter in my creative visualization book about, um, making love, and I think, well . . .”

“Relax, Max, it's not the first time I've seen a penis.” The minute she heard herself say this she paused. “Except for when I wandered into a Venice Beach bathroom by mistake and—”

Max held up his talk-to-the-hand. “Corliss, way TMI. But now you see my terrible problem. It's Legend. My parents have left town again.”

“Vegas for the week?”

“South Africa for the month!” Max's voice leaped to his girly register. “They're in Botswana helping Oprah open a school for the ‘differently abled.' Legend's nanny quit on them the day they were leaving. I offered to take care of him while they're gone, but he's driving me crazy. This morning he put soy milk in my Kiehl's Olive Fruit Oil Nourishing Shampoo. That's why my hair is flat and inconsistent. Don't say you haven't noticed.”

Actually,
thought Corliss,
Max's hair did look a little mashed to one side.
“First of all, your hair looks great, Max,” she said, knowing she always had to lie where his hair was concerned. “And second, there must be a ton of nanny agencies in L.A. you could call.”

“Of course there are, Corliss, but then you have to
interview
nannies. I don't have time now that we're in production on the third
'Bu
episode. You understand the—how do I put this—
specialness
of my stepbrother Legend. Would you please do the legwork here? Call a few agencies? Check out a few nannies? Or mannies? It doesn't matter to me. Just someone appropriate for a five-year-old with behavioral issues, a chronic speech impediment, and a serious nose-picking problem.”

“But Max,” said Corliss, trying to remain calm in the face of his request—a request that had
nothing
to do with her official duties as his first assistant on
The 'Bu
. “How can I find Legend a nanny when I have to function as a liaison between you and the cast, you and the writers, and you and your identically dressed assistants? I mean, didn't I prove myself professionally by helping with the live
'Bu
episode? Isn't that why you hired me in a semiofficial capacity? I put off going to school, even! Do you really think my job description should include nanny-getting?” Corliss stood tall. She wasn't going to back down. But then she realized Mary Janes might not have been the best footwear choice on a day she needed to take a stand.

“I appreciate your sacrifices, Corliss,” said Max finally. “And thank you for saying my hair looks good just a moment ago, but if Legend is underfoot, I won't be able to do my work. Which means I'll have meltdowns. Which means I'll take it out on the cast and writers. Which means you'll have more work than you already do.”

Corliss was dumbstruck. Max was right. “The last thing I need is more work,” she said, shuddering as she pictured seventeen-hour workdays. “I've already diagnosed myself with workaholic tendencies—which has me looking at a good half-year of therapy once I can afford it!”

“Does that mean you'll help find a nanny for Legend?”

Corliss sighed. There was no way out. Either she had to find Legend a nanny or deal with an emotionally maxed-out Max. “I guess I have to help here, Max. But I could really use some man power. Can you spare a few of your assistants? With all the responsibilities I already have, I won't have time to do all the nanny research myself.”

“Avail yourself of whichever assistants you need,” said Max, taking Corliss by the arms with a look of profound gratitude. “I can't tell them apart, anyway, so I won't know who's missing. And thank you, Corliss. To show my gratitude, I'm going to ask the head office if they can swing a couple tickets for you for the Emmys. The whole cast is going—why shouldn't my first assistant go as well?”

Corliss gulped. The Emmys! And
two
tickets. “Max, are you serious? What will I wear? Who will I bring?!”

Before Max could respond, his trailer door slammed open and Legend stood there, smiling demonically, showing off his most recent Etch A Sketch masterpiece. “Hey, look what I drew!” Max's eyes bulged. Corliss had to look away.

This time Legend had Etch A Sketched a
vagina
masterpiece.

“Corliss!” screamed Max in a voice so high no testosterone in the world could lower it. “Please grab that creative visualization book from him right now!”

The place was crammed with Max's assistants, all of whom were scowling at Corliss. They all hated her because she was Max's favorite. And because she didn't feel the need to dress, act, or cut her hair like Max just to appeal to his ego. She had her brains and can-do attitude. They only had a talent for butt-kissing. Corliss immediately regretted asking for their assistance.

“Okay, here's the deal,” she said, trying her best to summon an air of authority. “Everyone search the following websites:
Nannys4hire.com
,
SoCalKidKeepers.net
, and, well, for good measure”—she consulted the list she'd made—“
Cabananannies.org
. When you find a suitable candidate to take care of Legend, raise your hand and I'll come over.”

They all made tight little smiles at Corliss—the kind that said, “None of us like you”—and then moved to the banks of computers that lined the trailer. Corliss ignored their cranky little clone faces and sat down at the big desk, the one Max usually used whenever he was in the production office. Which was never.

Okay
, she thought, signing on to the computer in front of her,
I need to find a nanny who's patient, strong-willed, and gross-out resistant. Whoever takes care of Legend is going to have to be all of the above.

The tap-tap-tapping of typing filled the trailer as Max's assistants competed with one another to see who could come up with a nanny candidate first. Corliss smiled to herself. It came pretty easily to her to give Max's assistants directions. She wondered if down the line she might have
her own
staff of clones . . . She imagined all Max's assistants wearing the sundress she'd put on that morning. They looked kind of cute in them. Even the boys. But an unwelcome sight quickly quashed her daydream . . .

“Hey, Corliss!” said Petey Newsome, as raccoon-eyed and dressed head-to-toe in black as ever. He was standing just inside the trailer.

Corliss gasped. She couldn't imagine why in the world Petey would be there. She'd thought for sure she'd seen the last of him when Max found out he was underage and his contract as a
'Bu
writer had been declared null and void. “Petey, what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean?” he said, looking as if nothing had ever happened. “I'm working, of course.”

“WHAT?” Corliss's mind did loop-di-loops. Had Petey been
hired back
? And if he had been, did that mean he'd be chasing her around the beach again, pining for her unrequited love? It was too much to contemplate. “But—but—last I heard you were a fry chef at El Coyote!”

Petey looked at the floor. “Well, yeah, but I dropped my inhaler in the fryer one night. I got fired when a piece of it turned up in George Clooney's gordita.”

Corliss's stomach lurched. The thought of George Clooney chowing down on Petey's deep-fried inhaler was way too much. Max's assistants made “Eww-that's-gross” faces and turned back to the computers. “But Petey,” said Corliss, her mind racing to make sense of this development, “you're not eighteen. You
can't
be working here.”

He smiled his crooked, weird smile at Corliss. “Well, an amazing thing happened, Corliss,” Petey droned. “I was so demoralized after the gordita incident that I marched myself over to Max Marx's office and begged for my job back. I told him I'd work for free until I was eighteen—which is only a month away. He said sure. I'm now once again on the writing staff of
The 'Bu
. Isn't that great?”

“Yeah,” said Corliss, trying to hide how not great she thought it was.

“And it's especially great to see
you
, Corliss. You look pretty in that sundress.”

Max's assistants giggled. Corliss was mortified. She certainly didn't want any rumors flying around about them. “Er, thanks, Petey, but we're a little busy in here,” she said, gesturing at Max's assistants, who were now once again furiously tapping away at various nanny sites.

“Of course,” said Petey sheepishly. “Don't let me be a bother.” He started inching out the door, but then stopped and turned back. “Um, maybe we could hang out tonight after work? Head down to the Malibu Shopping Center and get an oatmeal cookie at Marmalade Café? Or some chicken strips at Googies?”

Corliss's stomach lurched again. The thought of eating
anything
in the near vicinity of the personal-hygiene-challenged Petey made her woozy. Max's assistants started to giggle again, but Corliss shot them a look. “Um, Petey, could we talk when there aren't a whole bunch of people around listening?”

“Oh,” said Petey. “I get it—a little alone time for Corliss and Petey?”

“NO! I mean—look—I'll come find you on my next break, okay?”

“Okay,” said Petey, smiling his crooked, strange smile. “See you soon.”

As Petey stepped out of the trailer, Corliss immediately called Max. He picked up on the second ring. “Corliss, have you already found a nanny?”

“No, Max, I'm calling because I want to know why you hired Petey back! I mean, I know I did that lousy rewrite for you, but sheesh! This town is full of writers you could have hired! He's so weird with his insomnia eyes, and he makes me feel all oogy—”

“Corliss—”

“—and he's always up in my grill! Which means he always wants to go out with me, and I'm, like, blech, no way!” All of Max's assistants were once again giggling. “I'm sorry, Max,” she said. “But I can't find Legend a nanny and avoid the unwelcome advances of Petey McWeirdo at the same time! There's only so much Corliss to go around!”

“Corliss, you're having a fit. You must calm down. Try some deep breathing, or look at that creative visualization book I had you take away from Legend.”

“I did, Max, but all it did was make me think of how babies are made! I couldn't help but imagine what a baby fathered by Petey Newsome would look like, which only made me feel worse!”

“Not
that
chapter, Corliss. The chapter that tells you how to imagine yourself in a safe space. I'm imagining myself in an Internet-equipped igloo as we speak.”