AMERICAN IDLE
Copyright 2003 by Alesia Holliday
August, 2004
Dorchester Publishing

POP STAR LIVE! – AND THE WINNER IS . . .

            It doesn’t matter who wins.  It doesn’t matter who wins. 

I say it, but I know I’m kidding myself.  Twenty-four million votes say it matters.  A big, fat contract at KCM Records to the winner -- worth a million bucks, minimum -– says it matters.  Lurking backstage, I split my attention between the only two men who’ve seen me naked in the past two years.  Well, with the lights on, anyway.

One onstage, one in the front row. 

I’m as caught up in the drama as anyone else in the country.  More, maybe.  I’m part of it.  Me.  Jules Vernon.  People magazine’s Face Behind Reality TV. 

What a joke.

            “And, finally, the name we’ve waited all these long weeks to hear.  America’s new POP STAR LIVE! is . . . “

Concussion by sauté pan.

            How it all started.

“I need SEA SALT, you moron.  Not salt with a freaking UMBRELLA on the box.  SEA SALT!  I am a chef, an artiste.  Not a short order cook at your local diner.  Is my publisher hiring the mentally challenged, now?”

“Er, your list didn’t specify. . .”

“Of course it didn’t specify.  What kind of idiot would have to be told that you cook asparagus quiche with sea salt?  You, Julia, are a media escort.  Your job is to make my life easier.  I don’t ask for Evian water.  I don’t ask for Belgian chocolate or white roses.  I’m not some freaking prima donna.   I must have the right ingredients to do this demonstration on live television.  I don’t want all of Dallas to think I’m the kind of peasant who cooks with TABLE SALT.”

[NOTE TO SELF:  Bet she didn’t learn to use the word peasant when she was growing up in New Jersey.] 

“It’s, um, Jules, not Julia.  And I’ll try to find sea salt.  But if you have to, could you make do?  We only have seven minutes until your demo, and . . .”

When I woke up in the hospital, they said she’d smashed her sauté pan into my head.  And then (like this fact was in any way important to my concussed brain) she’d gone on to do the segment.  Isn’t that great?  What a trooper!  Even with the stress of braining her media escort with a cast-iron instrument of death, she’d made quiche on live TV.  And look, she even sent flowers.

Bitch.

I decide that this is the end of my media escort career, even before I press charges.  Two years are up; time to move on.  So I call Jerry.  Again.

“Oh, God, has it been two years already?”  At least he recognizes my voice this time.  The last time I called, he started yelling at me about missing my first day at Chuck E Cheese’s.  Now there’s a job.  The constant headache of screaming, obnoxious two-year olds.  OK, so it wouldn’t be that different from media escorting.  Except nobody at the pizza place would expect me to have hot monkey sex with them. 

Anyway, Jerry apologized by saying I have the same “little-girl phone voice” as pizza chick.  Little girl?  I was seriously ticked off at him for at least six minutes.  But it’s impossible to stay mad at Jerry, or J.B. as he’s calling himself now.  He reinvents my life every two years.

“I thought this one would stick, Jules.  I mean, what the hell could be wrong with this one?  All you’ve ever wanted to do is write a book, so you get to hang out with all these famous authors and even get paid for it.  What is it with you and job hopping?  Why can’t you see a shrink, or screw a younger guy, or get liposuction, like everybody else your age?”

My age is his age, too, but Jerry likes to play the wise mentor in spite of his mere thirty-two years.  He wears Armani suits with Seattle Mariners ball caps, and it somehow works for him.  It’s probably the tall, dark, and handsome thing he’s got going on.  We met when he was in law school, going through the mandatory phase of lusting after obscure Latin words and the idea of suing people.  He used to whisper res ipsa loquitur to his girlfriend to get her in the mood.  I wonder if he still does it with his current arm-candy of the week. 

Back then, we couldn’t go anywhere for lunch, because he was always threatening to sue.  “This rug is raised up off the floor at least one-half inch.  What if I tripped from your expository carpet-induced tortfeasance and sued for intentional affliction of emotional distress?” 

If you think it’s tough to get thrown out of McDonald’s, try taking a law student to lunch. 

I try again.  “I did see a shrink, and she made me itch.  The only younger guy I know is seven years old, and I’m not having someone vacuum fat out of my ass unless you go first.  Besides, I’m tired of playing therapist to neurotic authors.  Did I mention the concussion that Chef Francesca gave me?”

“I love her.”  He makes some noise he must think is a wolf whistle, but it sounds like an asthmatic walrus with sinus problems.  “She makes the best Fusion tiramisu in the world, and she rocks in that red dress.  Total wet dream.  What part of Italy is she from?”

I sigh.  Loudly.  “Trenton.”

 “Look, Jerry, I need a job.  You run the biggest job-hopping service on the west coast.  You owe me.”  There’s the little matter of how I covered for him back in school.  The dean of his law school still doesn’t know what happened to the bronze bust of Socrates.  “What have you got?”

“It’s career placement, Jules, and I’m running out of ideas for you.  You wanted to run the fundraiser for that community college – you could learn golf at the same time.  What happened to that?”  Jerry’s big on rhetorical questions.

“Golf is a stupid sport played by fat people in bad clothes.  Besides, it wasn’t my fault that she almost drowned. She should have said she didn’t know how to swim.”

“You don’t usually expect to have to know how to swim to go golfing.  Only you could turn a simple water hazard into the Whirling Fountain of Doom and almost drown the college president.”

“It was Halloween.  We had a haunted course theme.”  I was tired of defending myself over this one.  When I raised $25,000 more than they’d ever made before, nobody was complaining.  One teeny little near-fatality, and everybody gets their panties in a twist.

“Anyway, you’re changing the subject, Jerry.  I need a job and I need it fast.  I took two weeks off last month to heal up from the concussion, so my funds are kind of low.”  Kind of low is an understatement.  I’m reduced to hiding in the laundry room of my apartment building to keep from getting evicted.  My skin smells like bleach and fabric softener.  Trust me, Chanel isn’t going to bottle the scent any time soon.

“Heal up, Jules?  Does that translate to hanging out in your mother’s basement and getting tuna fish casserole brought to you on a tray?  You escaped to the Midwest, didn’t you?  Whenever you go to Ohio, I know you’re getting ready to bail on your latest job.” 

“Who else would go to Ohio for a life-changing catalyst?  It’s like Walden Pond, but with pot roast.  Besides, you’d be bored without me.  I’m a challenge, admit it.”

He sighs, quite theatrically for someone with zero acting ability.  Only Jerry can make a Serious Dramatic Production out of expelling wind.  He probably does it when he farts, too.

“Oh, all right.  You may be in luck.  I’ve got something bizarre that just came up.  One of those reality TV shows is in town auditioning people, and they called me in a panic about five minutes ago.  One of their production coordinators got run over on Pike Street, evidently.  Tried to cross the road against the light.  Ha!  They think New York traffic is tough.”  Jerry is taking an unseemly amount of pride in the hometown Seattle assault-by-car statistics, I think, but keep quiet.  I am asking another favor, after all, and even best friends have their limits.  I can’t milk that Socrates thing forever. . .

Copyright 2003, Alesia Holliday