The Next Big Thing

  “You think I weigh more than Regan?” I demanded, squaring off against her.

  “You can’t be serious,” Luisa backed me up. “Look at them!”

  Regan sniffed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “No offense, but we’re not exactly the same size,” I told her, softening my tone a little.

  “It’s my opinion, Kat,” Alyssa said. “It’s not scientific.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Fine then. If you really want to know, yes, I think you look bigger than Regan,” Alyssa huffed.

  I glared daggers at her. I would get Alyssa back if it killed me.

  When all was said and done, Maggie prevailed. “I knew all those years working for Weight Watchers had to pay off someday.” She beamed.

  “Congratulations, Maggie!” Jagger enthused. “You’re the winner of the premiere competition on From Fat to Fabulous. In addition to your ten-thousand-dollar cash prize, you are now the proud occupant of the coveted master suite. And what’s more, you have the enviable task of selecting where the other housemates will sleep.” He handed her the key to the room.

  Maggie grinned. “Thank you, Jagger.”

  “Enjoy your new bedrooms, girls,” he advised. “Remember, the fate of the game may rest in your sleeping arrangements.” He hurriedly exited the room without so much as a good-bye.

  “How would you girls like to do this?” Maggie asked. “The fairest thing might be to draw names out of a hat.”

  “No, the fairest thing would be if we went in order,” Alyssa interjected. “Luisa came in second, I was third, Kat’s fourth, Regan’s fifth, and Janelle’s last. That’s the way we ought to divide up the rooms.”

  It was obvious what she was doing. The next best bedroom after the master suite had two beds in it. If we did things her way, Alyssa and Luisa would get to share it.

  “No way,” I argued. “I think Maggie should decide. If she wants to have a random drawing, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Maggie looked exasperated. “How about we take a vote? All those in favor of doing it Alyssa’s way, raise your hand.”

  I had expected the split to go in my favor, with three out of the five people voting for a random drawing, but Janelle screwed things up. “I can’t help it,” she said, shrugging. “Alyssa’s idea is the fairest.” So there we were: me, Regan, and Janelle bunking together in the smallest of the three bedrooms.

  “This sucks,” I complained, as we dragged our suitcases upstairs and into our new quarters. I surveyed our surroundings. The room was tiny in comparison to the rest of the house, probably only measuring ten feet by fifteen. There were three small beds lined up parallel against the wall. “It’s not much bigger than my bedroom back home. We’re going to be tripping all over each other.”

  I wasn’t exaggerating. Between the three single beds, two dressers, and the ever-present camera crew, there was scarcely enough room left over for our luggage.

  Here we were in a giant mansion full of sizeable rooms and they had stuffed us into a space not much bigger than a walk-in closet.

  “Good going, Janelle,” Regan scolded. “If you hadn’t messed up the vote we’d have had a shot at getting the better room.”

  “True,” she admitted. “But then you could have gotten stuck sharing with Alyssa. This way, Luisa will have to put up with her. They may have the bigger room, but I prefer our situation.”

  That shut us up.

  “Well, who wants which bed?” Janelle asked, looking around.

  Regan snagged the spot by the window, while I settled down on the bed next to the door. That left only one option—the cramped space in the middle. Good intentions or not, Janelle was partly responsible for our situation. It seemed fitting that she get stuck with the worst sleeping arrangements.

  We spent the next half hour unpacking and making small talk. I learned that Regan had an older sister whom she hated, and that her parents had been together since they were fourteen.

  “Wow, I can’t imagine,” Janelle commented. “I’m only twenty-nine and I’m already twice divorced.”

  My eyes bulged. “Are you kidding?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I could tell you I was, but no.”

  “What happened?” Regan pried.

  “Who divorced who? And why?”

  As if on cue, a voice came over the house intercom. It sounded like Zaidee. “Janelle, please come to the Confession Chamber. Your daily diary session will commence in five minutes.”

  “Saved by the bell.” Janelle sighed. “And, to think, I haven’t even finished unpacking.”

  She started out the door, then ducked back in and asked, “Have you guys noticed how biblical this place is? They talk to us over the house speaker like God. We’ve got the Tomb of Temptation and the Confession Chamber. They might as well rename the show The Seven Deadly Sins.”

  “I think that’s already taken,” I told her.

  After she’d left, Regan turned to me. “Did Jagger ever say what the pros and cons are of the different rooms?”

  “I assume this is it,” I said, gesturing around. “Absolutely no space and a total lack of privacy.”

  “But Jagger was talking about the ‘fate of the game.’”

  “I think he was playing things up for the cameras. Maybe they’re going to give us different eating and exercise schedules based on where we’re sleeping. Or maybe in all future competitions we’ll be divided up into teams based on our room assignments. Either way, I’m sure it’s nothing to get worked up over.”

  If only I’d known then just how wrong I was….

  Chapter Thirteen

  By the end of the first week, I felt on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

  I woke at 8 A.M. every morning when the lights flickered on, showered, did my hair, makeup, and got fully dressed to make myself look presentable for the cameras.

  Then I staggered downstairs for the mandatory household breakfast. It was excruciating.

  From the moment I woke up I was in a horrible mood. I hated sharing a tiny room with two girls, hated being swarmed by cameras the second I moved, and hated pretending to have a normal, carefree meal with a group of virtual strangers.

  Eating was strictly limited to a diet of unexciting foods, and breakfast was especially miserable: wheat toast, a tiny serving of grape jelly, and some generic brand of low-sugar oatmeal.

  Sure, we could go into the Tomb of Temptation and snag a donut or a box of pancake mix, but as far as I could tell, none of us had ventured back into the forbidden pantry since our initial tour. No one wanted to be seen pigging out on national television.

  Alyssa griped nonstop about the menu. “We’re dying out here,” she complained, speaking directly into the camera one morning. “This isn’t even a balanced meal. At least give us some bananas and raisins to put in the oatmeal.”

  “Here, here!” Janelle chimed in. “Fruit is one of the healthiest things on the planet,”

  Alyssa continued. “It’s absurd to keep it from us.”

  She kept lobbying until one day she came out of the Confession Chamber grinning from ear to ear. “I threatened to sue them when I got out,” she said boldly. “Told them our electrolytes are falling from exercising and they’d better reconsider their menu before one of us gets sick.”

  “She is a liar,” Luisa whispered in my ear.

  I thought so, too, but the very next morning there were apples, bananas, and oranges on the breakfast table.

  After breakfast, we lapsed into days of nothingness, broken up only by lunch and dinner, gym time with Greg, and sessions in the Confession Chamber.

  We had no books or magazines, couldn’t watch TV, call anyone from home, or get online; all we could do was mill around the house and talk to each other.

  And after hearing about Regan’s family history and Luisa’s wild sexcapades for the umpteenth time, I was more than ready for a new hobby.

  I had to do something to distract myself, and fast. The
n it hit me. I thought my stint on From Fat to Fabulous would provide me the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: I’d get thin and rich in one go. But in actuality, I could achieve not two but three goals during my tenure on the show: beauty, riches, and success.

  I was locked in a house with nothing to do. There would never be a better time to write the great American novel. We didn’t have access to a computer, but I could write in longhand.

  The house was stocked with notepads and pencils—one of the few luxury items the producers had deemed us worthy of having. I hurried into the main hall and scooped up a stack of writing materials from the top drawer of the cabinet. With pad and pencils in hand, I encountered my first problem: where to set up shop.

  My bedroom was no good. It was far too messy, plus there were no flat surfaces on which I could place the paper. I’d have to lie on my bed, balancing the pad on my lap. The kitchen had a massive island in the middle with tons of counter space, but it was far too heavily trafficked. Ditto for the living room.

  I briefly debated going outside, but decided against it. It would have been the best place to write, but it was just past 2 P.M. Alyssa was likely to be sunbathing on one of the lawn chairs by the pool, deep-frying her skin the way she did every day.

  I could just imagine her reaction when she found out I was writing a novel. “Hey, Kat,” she’d say with mock friendliness. “I’d be more than happy to read your first draft. Offer some revisions. Being that I’m a successful journalist for the Boston Globe, I have tons of expertise.” Then she’d proceed to tell me how I sucked.

  No, I needed somewhere quiet and secluded, with few distractions. I considered going into the Confession Chamber and asking for permission to set up camp in there, but opted against it. Zaidee was a writer herself and while she would certainly understand my need for privacy, revealing that I was drafting a book would make me privy to many unwanted questions.

  I wasn’t very skilled at dodging her interrogations. Until I had the finished product, I wouldn’t breathe a word about my book to anyone.

  Eventually, I settled on the den by the fireplace. I sat on the floor, spreading my supplies out on the coffee table. My cameraman knelt down across from me. I had always envisioned myself tucked away in some atmospheric study pounding out page after page on an old-fashioned typewriter.

  I certainly hadn’t pictured myself being filmed while I wrote, but there was no way of avoiding it. Besides, I thought, this setup might have its advantages. Few novelists—if any—have a videotape documenting their creative process. I hunkered down and got to work, drumming up writing tips I’d heard. The only one that came to mind was the old adage, “write what you know.”

  Well, that was out. My novel was going to be a romance and I wasn’t about to have a fat girl as the lead character. No one would want to read a thing like that. No, my main character had to be someone with pizzazz, sass, and charisma. She would be fun-loving yet glamorous. She had to be confident, without being arrogant. Just the way I would be once I got skinny.

  It would be a page-turner about a head-turner. I smiled. I liked that line. Maybe they would put it on the cover of the book.

  My character’s name had to be commanding, and it had to convey power as well as vulnerability. I picked up my pen and jotted down a list. Lucinda. Julianne. Rosalind. None of them were quite right. Then it came to me. Cassandra. Yes, I liked the sound of that. Dignified, yet accessible.

  Once I had the lead character’s name in mind, I moved on to the most crucial part of all. The opening line. It had to be strikingly brilliant, something that would hook readers from page one. I thought this over for a while, rolling my pencil around in my hands.

  Then I wrote: Cassandra’s lips are the color of roses. I stared at it, and then scratched it out. It seemed a tad clichéd. Besides, roses come in several different colors. I didn’t want anyone to get confused and think Cassandra’s lips were yellow from jaundice.

  Furthermore, there was always the possibility, however rare, that a dirty-minded individual might assume I was referring to Cassandra’s other lips, the ones located in her nether regions. I cursed myself for hanging out with Luisa so much. Then I hastily scrawled nether regions across the bottom of the page.

  It was a keen reflection, one I might have use for later in the story.

  Flipping to a clean sheet of paper, I tried again for my opening:

  Cassandra is a modern-day Aphrodite, a woman so beauteous many a fine-looking stud has become enraptured with her elegant charms, falling under the spell of her astounding and earth-toppling feminine wiles.

  I read it over, and much as it pained me to admit it, the line was shit.

  When I’d composed the passage in my head, it had sounded so polished, so fresh. But between my brain and my hand, something had gotten lost in the translation.

  The line needed fixing, but I had no clue where to start. How could I turn what I had written into something on par with a Janet Evanovich novel? I examined the passage, struggling to analyze its contents.

  There was a lot of imagery and possibly I’d used too many adjectives. I reread the sentence again, this time wincing at how wordy it was. I didn’t want to overwhelm readers right off the bat.

  Also, I wasn’t entirely certain where I’d gotten the phrase earth-toppling, or if it was even a phrase at all. It seemed like a bit of a mixed-metaphor. Forcefully, I stabbed the pencil into the page, scribbling out the offensive text. Forget the first line. What I needed was a guidepost, something to steer me through the rough parts and keep me on track. I needed a title.

  Once I had that, the story would definitely follow suit. But coming up with a title proved to be equally challenging. I considered, and rejected, several options: The Beauteous Lover, The Able-Bodied Vixen, Coworkers of the Heart, and For the Love of a Woman, Cassandra.

  I frowned. I couldn’t remember ever having such a difficult time getting the right words on paper before. I’d written many things—press releases, for instance—and I’d never had this kind of trouble before.

  It was frustrating, but there was a consolation. I might not be able to craft a successful romance novel, but in some ways I was living one. I already had Nick, my perfect romantic hero. Now all I needed was a sleek, sophisticated body like all the heroines on the romance covers. Then I’d be all set.

  “Hey, girly, what’s up?” I leapt nearly a foot in the air, throwing my arms across the coffee table in a quick effort to shield my writing.

  Nice job, Kat, I scolded myself. Way to be inconspicuous.

  “Hi Regan,” I said, glancing up over my shoulder to see her hovering behind me. For such a heavyset person, she had a real knack for sneaking up on people.

  “Whatcha working on?”

  “Nothing, really. Just some letters to home.”

  Her eyes got huge. “Kat, you can’t send those! You know we’re not allowed to mail stuff, right?”

  “Yes, Regan, I’m well aware of that fact. Just because I write some letters doesn’t mean I have to send them. I’m going to save them until I get home. Did you need something?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  I wanted to ask her why the hell she’d come over to bug me if she had nothing to say, but thought better of it. There was no sense in being deliberately rude.

  “So what’s everybody else doing? Anything interesting?”

  “Um, let me think. Alyssa is sunbathing, Maggie’s taking a nap, and Janelle and Luisa are in Greg’s Gym.”

  “They’re working out?” I asked in surprise.

  All six of us had put in two hours that morning. When there’s a thousand dollars at stake, exercise becomes a lot more enticing. Luisa seemed especially taken with Greg—she frequently blew him air kisses and made countless jokes about how she’d give him “a real work-out” if he was interested.

  Regan’s cameraman leaned around so he could capture both of us in his shot.

  “I think they’re more hanging out with Greg than anything else.
”

  “Ah, that’s right. Luisa’s got a thing for him.” I gave an exaggerated wink, which, naturally, was lost on Regan.

  “What’s with your eye?”

  “Nothing, I was winking at you.” I did it again, for emphasis. “You know, just my way of saying Luisa’s into Greg. . . .”

  “Oh yes, he’s dope!”

  I stood up and stretched my legs. My cameraman followed suit, rising then immediately ducking so as not to block Regan’s cameraman. I wondered if they felt stupid, standing there filming us like that. Surely one camera would suffice.

  “Let’s go in the kitchen. I’m starving,” I said, retrieving my notepad and pencils.

  “God, me too. The food here is sooo not good.”

  We padded down the hallway and into the kitchen. I yanked open the refrigerator door and began scrounging around for something to eat.

  “What are you in the mood for?”

  “Surprise me with something extra tasty!”

  She had requested the impossible. “Well, let’s see. We’ve got your baby carrots, your celery, your broccoli, and your cauliflower. That about does it for vegetables. Fruits include pears and granny smith apples. We have fat-free peanut butter substitute and some fat-free, cholesterol-free Swiss cheese, both of which we could enjoy on some fat-free, low-carb crackers. Pick your poison.”

  “Kat, that’s not funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. When you think about how many chemicals are in all this fat-free, sugar-free garbage, it kind is poison.”

  She sighed. “Can you pass me a pear?”

  I took two out of the fruit box and then shut the refrigerator door. We munched quietly on our pears for several minutes, trying hard to ignore the whirring noise of the cameras.

  I had just swallowed my last bite when Regan said, “This isn’t helping.”

  “I know, they make me nervous, too,” I confessed, sneaking a peek at the cameraman out of the corner of my eye. “Try to ignore them.”