The Next Big Thing (19 page)

Alyssa
looked thoughtful. “I have a suggestion. Let’s take a vow. We’ll all swear right here and now
not
to throw these competitions. Win or lose, we’ll all give it our best shot. Deal?”

“I’m in,” I told her.

Janelle, Luisa, and Maggie quickly agreed.

It all came down to Regan. “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “I’ll do it. But don’t expect me to be happy about it.”

“It doesn’t have to make you happy. You just have to do it,” Luisa said.

Janelle snickered. “My ex-husband Matt used to say those very words to me, every single night.”
 
 
 
 

It wasn’t until an hour later that I realized what Regan was up to.

I overheard her in the kitchen, pleading with Alyssa. “It’s fixed,” Regan griped. “Why else would Janelle—the only artist in the whole house—be the one who gets to pose nude?”

She had to be joking. “What do you mean, ‘gets to pose nude’? You say that like it’s some kind of a prize,” I said, walking into the room. Regan jumped in surprise.
Alyssa shot me a foul glare.

“Compared to cheering at the Lakers game, it
is
a prize!” Regan wailed. “I have to put on a teeny uniform and dance around in front of a crowd of twenty thousand people! I’m going to be sandwiched out there between all those beautiful girls.”

“Would you honestly rather trade places with Janelle?” I asked, in disbelief. Crowd or no crowd, getting naked in public sounded horrifying to me. The sort of thing I had recurring nightmares about.

“I’d rather trade places with
you,
” Regan snapped.

“No
kidding,” Alyssa agreed. “But Regan, I think you’re wrong. There’s no way the competition is fixed. Otherwise, I’d be the one going out with the hot young stud, not Kat. That would make for much better TV.”

“Get over yourself,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Kat’s task is the only one that doesn’t have anything to do with weight,” Regan continued. “It isn’t fair.”

“It’s
a reality show,” I reminded her. “Of course it’s not fair.”

“Don’t stress about it, Regan,” said
Alyssa, patting her on the head. “Kit Kat’s ‘hot date’ will probably be so dull they won’t even air it. My guess is it ends up on the cutting room floor.” She ran her fingers across her throat in a slashing motion.

“I’ve got a great idea!” Regan burst out. “Maybe you could switch with Kat and I could switch with Maggie,” she said, going on as though I wasn’t even in the room. “Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“We’re not allowed to trade,” I reminded her.

“I know that’s what Jagger said, but if anyone can talk Zaidee into it, you can,” she prodded
Alyssa.

“It might be worth a shot,”
Alyssa mused.

“You have this way with Zaidee,” she continued, gaining enthusiasm. “Remember when you complained about the breakfast food and the next morning she put out fruit? Come on,
Alyssa, she
listens
to you.”

“She does, doesn’t she?” It was all I could do to keep from screaming. “You two are so full of it,” I burst out. “A game’s a game! You can’t change the rules
just because you don’t like the outcome!”

“Easy for you to say,”
Alyssa criticized, at long last acknowledging me. “You’d be crying your eyes out if you had to cheer at the Lakers game. I think Regan’s handling it remarkably well, all things considered.”

“Thank you.” Regan beamed.

Alyssa tousled her hair. “Don’t worry, Regan. We’re going to tough it out together.”

“Oh puh-
leeze,
” I groaned. “You’ve got an awful lot of nerve, acting like your task is sooo hard. All you have to do is enter a glorified karaoke contest. Big whoop.”

Alyssa
glared at me. “I never said it was
hard.
I just said I didn’t want to do it.”

“Yeah, well I don’t want to go on this ‘blind date’ either,” I confessed. “So what’s the difference?”

“There’s a big difference,” Regan argued. “While the rest of us have to suffer, you get to do something fun. Who knows, you might even meet a wonderful guy and fall in love.” She sighed.

“You may think it’s fun, but I’m a nervous wreck.”

Alyssa eyed me curiously. “Kit Kat, don’t take this the wrong way, but have you been out on very many dates before? Because I get the distinct feeling that you haven’t.”

Regan cracked up.

“No,” Alyssa said, holding up a hand to silence her. “Jokes aside. I’m being absolutely serious.”

I was stung. I wanted to shout into her face, to tell her all about Nick Appleby, my sexy, wealthy, European boyfriend. But I wasn’t stupid.

“Boy, you’d love that wouldn’t you? Big old Fat Kat going on her first date on national television,” I snarled. “To answer your question, yes, I’ve been on many, many dates.”

Luisa chose that exact moment to come sauntering in. It was a good thing, too, because
Alyssa and I were gearing up to have a major fight.

“They gave me the script,” she said, waving around some papers in the air. “The jokes I have to tell.” She made a face.

“Oh, God, how bad is it?” I asked.

“Not good,” she said. “I have to talk about being a BBW, or Big Beautiful Woman. I have to give them our ‘battle cry.’ What that is supposed to mean, I don’t know.”

“What do you have to say?” Regan asked, momentarily distracted from her own impending doom.

“Ahem,” Luisa cleared her throat and began reading. “‘It’s not the size of the ocean, it’s the motion of the ocean.’”

“Yuck!” Alyssa cried. “That’s absurd. And everybody knows it isn’t even a valid point.”

“No,” Luisa agreed. “It’s not. I also have to say, ‘It’s good to be large and in charge.’ Then I have to say, ‘Once you go fat, you never go back.’”

“That’s the truth,” Regan said solemnly. “Ever since I gained weight in the third grade I haven’t been able to take it off.”

“I think they mean the guy,” I told her. “Like, once a guy gets with a fat girl he’ll never want another thin girl again, which is complete crap. Most guys hate dating bigger women and, on the rare occasion they do it, it’s a onetime thing.”

Luisa nodded. “Damn straight. Oh, I also have to go, ‘Fat girls are better because we serve up meat with our gravy.’”

“That’s enough!”
Alyssa burst out. “They can’t make you stand up and spurt this trash. It’s not even funny, it’s just plain dumb. Nobody’s going to laugh; they’re going to stare at you like you’re some kind of a moron.”

“You’re totally right,” I said, turning to
Alyssa, our fight temporarily forgotten. “There’s got to be some way Luisa can get out of this.”

“My comedy act is called FAT: It’s Not a Four-Letter Word,” Luisa offered, looking miserable. “The title is so bad.”

“This show’s writers are hacks,” Alyssa said. “They wouldn’t know a joke if it hit them in the face.”

“Well, why are there writers on a
reality
show, anyway?” I demanded.

“They
draft the competitions,” she said. “And somebody has to compile Jagger’s script. Though, as dumb as it is, you’d think that bozo came up with it off the top of his head.”

“Jagger’s not so bad,” Luisa said.

I groaned. “What are you, his cheerleader?”

She shrugged it off. “After he interviewed me yesterday we got to talking. He’s a smart cookie. He’s got a business degree from
Penn State.”

Zaidee’s voice clicked on over the loudspeaker. “Luisa, please come to the Confession Chamber.”

“No, not again! I’ve already been in there an hour today!” She stomped out of the room.

“You know, Regan, I’d talk to Zaidee about letting me go on that date, if it weren’t for one thing,”
Alyssa said.

Great, we were back to this again.

“What’s that?” I asked, heaving my shoulders in a sigh.

“If
I
went, it would drive the censors wild. My date would probably be too hot for network television.” She snickered. “Some of the affiliates might even pull the show because of it.”

“Give me a break!” I exploded. “What are you planning to do, blow some guy on national television?”

She stared at me in mock horror. “Of course not. I’m not a
slut.
But things might get kind of hot and heavy, that’s all.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” I challenged.

Alyssa smiled. “I have that kind of impact on guys. Always have.”

“You have that kind of impact on
everybody.
You’re very persuasive,” Regan said. “That’s why you’ve gotta go talk to Zaidee for me. Get her to switch up the assignments. Please, Alyssa! You can take the date and I’ll go out getting signatures. Maggie can dance with the Laker Girls. I’m sure she won’t mind.”

I glared at them. Who the hell did they think they were? They couldn’t just rearrange the game however they felt like it.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your big night out, Regan?” I reminded her. “You’ve only got half an hour until the car gets here.”

“
Alyssa,” she said, looking hopefully at her. “If you’re going to talk to Zaidee, can you do it now?”

Alyssa
shrugged. “I’m sorry, babe, but I’m going to take a pass. The more I think about it, the more I kinda want to play Britney Spears. After all, she did have that psycho period where she shaved her head and went nuts.”

“Yeah,” I said, smirking, “You should be a shoe-in.”

Alyssa ignored my jab and
Regan went stalking out of the room, her eyes, once again, filled with tears. This time no one tried to stop her.

Chapter Sixteen

Six-thirty came and went and my mystery date never showed.

Over the course of my dating life, I’ve been
disappointed by guys more times than I care to remember. Usually, I take it personally. In this instance I was relieved.

I waited in the living room for what seemed like hours, drinking Perrier and gabbing with Janelle. Before long, we’d started feasting on Hershey’s Kisses and potato chips, which we’d snagged from the Tomb of Temptation. I hadn’t eaten dinner with the group since I was expecting to go out with this mystery man, so I was starving.

Our cameramen hovered as we snacked.

“Have you ever been on a blind date
?” I asked Janelle.

“Are you kidding me?” She scrunched up her face. “I’ve been on nearly two dozen. And that’s just in the last year.” Catching my stricken expression, she added, “Okay, I’m exaggerating—but only a little. All my life people have been trying to set me up. Everyone seems to think they know the ‘perfect guy’ for me.”

“Tell me about it,” I groaned. “Over the years I’ve come to realize that when someone says, ‘I have the perfect guy for you,’ what they really mean is, ‘I have the perfect
fat
guy for you.’ People fix big men up with skinny cheerleader types all the time. Yet, nobody would ever
dream
of setting up a big girl with a thin guy.”

Janelle nodded solemnly. “You know why that is, don’t you?”

I shook my head.

“In our society, overweight men are considered sweet and cuddly. Teddy bears, if you will. But overweight women? We’re whales.” Janelle smoothed a wrinkle from her shirt, knocking her lapel mic off in the process. Before she even had time to replace it, a voice came on over the intercom. “Janelle, please put on your microphone immediately.”

She jumped. “Sorry,” she mumbled, hastily refastening it. We stared at each other in surprise, the realization of the cameras seeping in once again.

“You know what they’re going to do with your blind date,” Janelle, ever the reality-TV theorist, remarked.

“I have no clue,” I said, unwrapping a piece of chocolate and popping it in my mouth.

“Come on, Kat, you’re hipper than that. They’ll slice and dice the footage to make it look like you were so nervous on your date you ate a mountain of food.” I laughed. I was so hungry I could have eaten a mountain. “It figures I’d do this the night before weigh-in,” I groaned. “I’m probably going to be up ten pounds tomorrow,” I said, folding up the empty bag of chips and placing it on the floor. Despite the circumstances, we were having a pretty good time. If it weren’t for the boom mic, the cameras, and the blaring lights, it could have been a typical girls’ night. On some level, I was able to fool myself into thinking that Janelle was Donna. Despite their physical differences, they reminded me a lot of each other.

“Maybe this means you don’t have to go,” Janelle offered, munching on chocolates. “It’s not your fault if the guy canceled.”

“We don’t know for sure that he canceled,” I said. I had gone into the Confession Chamber twice to ask what was going on, and both times Zaidee had stonewalled me.

“As soon as I know something definite, I’ll pass that on to you. Sit tight,” she’d instructed.

“Maybe this is a part of their master plan,” I said, taking a gulp of Perrier. “This mystery guy’s probably going to show up two hours late and have ‘forgotten’ his wallet at home.”

Janelle giggled. “I get it. A day late and a dollar short.”

“Right. And he’ll be dressed in dirty jeans and a wife-beater’s shirt. In the car ride over, he’ll keep picking his nose and wiping it on his pants.”

“Gross!” she shrieked. “Person trying to eat here.”

“Then we’ll get to some fancy-schmancy restaurant with a name like Chez Philippe, and dumb
ass will order snails, and then proceed to throw them up all over the table.”

Janelle set down her chocolates. “I think this is a lost cause.”

I ignored her protests. I was having too much fun. “And after we have some extraordinarily expensive meal, he’ll ask me to pay.”

“Of course.”

“And since the show has my wallet, I won’t be able to.”

Janelle smiled, getting into it. “You’ll have to go in the back and wash dishes for two hours to work off your escargot.”

“Then he’ll try and grope me in the car ride back, and I’ll have to fight him off with a stick. And finally, at long last, I’ll go in for a quick peck on the cheek and he’ll try and shove his tongue in my ear.”

“Yep,” she said, cracking up. “I bet you’re right.”

“I know I am.”

“This guy’s going to be a total jackass. All you have to do is kiss him by the night’s end. That’s it, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So, obviously, the producers want to make that as hard as possible,” Janelle said thoughtfully. “If the guy they send over is beyond gross, you’re not going to want to lay a hand on him.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “It’s probably going to be the date from hell and it’ll take all the strength I have not to get up and leave midway through.” I was so sure we’d nailed it.

So when Zaidee came over the loudspeaker and called me into the Confession Chamber forty-five minutes later I figured it was to tell me my date was running behind.

It wasn’t. In fact, Zaidee’s news totally threw me for a loop. As soon as she’d told me, I hurried back downstairs to run it by Janelle.

“This is really weird,” I muttered, shaking my head.

“What’s up?”

“Technical difficulties,” I said, looking at her in bewilderment.

“Technical difficulties?” Janelle repeated. “What, was this guy’s face so ugly he broke the camera?”

I laughed. “I don’t know. Zaidee wouldn’t tell me anything. She just said ‘technical difficulties’ and left it at that.”

“So when’s your mystery man going to be here?”

“That’s the weirdest part,” I told her. “He isn’t. The date’s been postponed indefinitely. They’re going to reschedule it at a later time.
Or give me an alternate task.”

“I’d hope for the alternate task if I were you,” Janelle said.

I had a feeling she was right.

***

The next morning Regan was missing.

“She never returned from the Lakers game,” Janelle said, waking me just before 8 A.M.

The overhead lights had not yet switched on, though sunlight had been creeping in through the windows for hours.

“Who?” I asked, still half-asleep.

“Regan!” Janelle said, shaking my arm. “She never came back from cheering at the Lakers game last night!”

“Oh,” I said, the realization dawning on me. I rolled over and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.

Sure enough, Regan’s bed was empty and, more telling, still made up from the day before.

“That’s weird. Maybe the Lakers won and she went out with
Kobe to celebrate,” I quipped.

“Very funny. I was thinking more along the lines of she hurt herself trying to do a complicated move. Kat, what if she’s in the hospital or something awful? Or what if she got so fed up she quit the show?”

Maybe it was callous of me, but I truly wasn’t worried. “I’m sure she’s fine,” I said. “It’s not like the show is going to let anything bad happen to any of us. For legal reasons, if nothing else.”

As if on cue, the overhead lights sprang to life.

“Ugh,” I groaned, yanking the covers up over my head. “I can’t deal with this at the crack of dawn.” As long as we made it downstairs in time for breakfast, the producers didn’t seem to mind if we slept in from time to time.

Janelle sighed. “You go back to sleep. I’m going to go find out what I can about Regan.”

“Mmm hmm,” I mumbled, dozing off.

A few minutes later Janelle was back. “I went into the Confession Chamber,” she said, ripping the covers off of my head.

“Ahh,” I grumbled, as light flooded my eyes. “You’re not going to let me miss this, are you?”

“Nope.” She plopped down on the foot of my bed. “It’s too good.”

“All right,” I said, hoisting myself up on my elbows. “You’ve got my undivided attention. What happened?”

“From the sound of it, your guess wasn’t so far off.”

“My guess?” I repeated, confused. “You said she was probably out celebrating.”

“Oh yeah, with
Kobe Bryant. You’re kidding, right?”

Janelle pursed her lips and shook her head. “Get this—Zaidee told me that Regan was a total smash last night, and the show gave her a special reward for going first. Zaidee wouldn’t dish on whether Regan succeeded or not. But I think it’s pretty obvious, don’t you?”

“Damn!” I cried, instantly pissed-off I hadn’t drawn the Laker Girls challenge. “Did she say what it was?”

“No, she said we’ll find out later, when Regan gets back. But Zaidee refused to tell me when that will be.”

As it turned out, Regan didn’t come back until late in the afternoon, just before our first weekly weigh-in. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. I had never seen her so happy.

“Kat,” she said when she saw me. “They love us out there!”

“So, it wasn’t that bad?” I asked tentatively.

“It was
amazing
!” she enthused. “Everyone was clapping and cheering for me. They all knew my name!”

Since I wasn’t allowed to ask her whether she’d succeeded or not, I changed the subject.

“What were you
doing
last night? You’ve been gone forever.”

“Interviews,” she squealed. “Then Zaidee took me out for this really expensive Italian meal.” Regan twirled around happily for a minute. Then her face fell. “There’s only one bad thing.” She paused. “I think
Fat2Fab
tanked in the ratings Saturday night.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked. “I mean, if everybody knew your name then it must have done well.”

Regan looked skeptical. “When I talked with the guy from
Us Weekly
this morning he kept asking if I was disappointed with how the show was doing.”

Janelle’s eyes grew large. “Where was Zaidee when he said that?”

“I don’t know. But that other producer woman, Gigi Rucker, was sitting right next to me the whole time.”

“And she let him talk to you about the ratings?” Janelle asked, incredulously.

Regan shrugged. “She said I had a right to know.”  
 
 
The weekly weigh-ins were held every Sunday, just before dinner-time.

In my first four weeks, I’d managed to drop seventeen pounds, a monumental accomplishment.

Surprisingly, they turned out to be one of the least embarrassing things
From Fat to Fabulous
forced us to do.

I had fully expected Jagger to march us out in a big group, then force us to step up on the living room scale. Instead, we got weighed in Greg’s Gym, quietly, and in total privacy. It was the one place where Zaidee allowed us to hang on to a shred of dignity.

The decision of whether to reveal our weekly weight to the other contestants was left totally up to us. Our progress wasn’t posted on a chart, and Jagger didn’t announce it in his usual dramatic fashion.

To be perfectly honest, this shocked the hell out of me. “How come they’re not making our weigh-ins into a huge ceremony?” I asked Greg one morning, while chugging along on the treadmill.

“Some things are personal. So says Zaidee. Me? I think they should do it in Dodger Stadium.”

Despite his crudeness, I was hit with a rush of exhilaration.

“Does that mean they’re not broadcasting it on the show?” I asked hopefully.

He shook his head, then dropped to the ground and began doing push-ups. “Nothing doing,” Greg grunted. “The viewers see everything. Zaidee just doesn’t want to embarrass you while you’re in the mansion.”

“Oh.” I upped the pace on my treadmill, struggling to push myself past three and a half miles an hour. So far this week, I’d managed to bag four thousand dollars in exercise points. Despite my initial resistance, boredom had motivated me to seek out a regular routine. Every morning after breakfast, Janelle and I worked out for an hour on the treadmills, and then again for another hour after lunch. We did it religiously, pushing each other even when we’d rather have been perusing the Tomb of Temptation, eating brownies. I felt filled with hope. As if maybe, after so many years of trying, I’d finally found the secret to losing weight. The magic bullet.

“You could figure it out if you really wanted,” Janelle commented, mopping the sweat off of her face. “The banks.”

“Huh?” I asked, confused. “Jagger reveals everybody’s banks on Monday. Just do the math. Then you’ll know who lost and who gained.”

“Still ought to be a ceremony,” Greg said, hopping onto the elliptical trainer and flying into motion. “They gotta do something to get some excitement on this show. This is supposed to be my big break. Yeah, right,” he scoffed.