The Next Big Thing

  “Kat, it’s incredibly important that you be there. Try your very, very best.”

  I assured him I would. We said good-bye and I immediately dialed Donna’s number. “Is it okay if I crash at your place next Saturday?” I asked as soon as she’d picked up.

  “Why? Is your apartment being fumigated or something?”

  “Oh, I wish!” I hyperventilated. “I’d give anything to have my apartment overrun with termites, or roaches, or ants, or armadillos! Compared to this, that would be a picnic!”

  “Armadillos? They’d eat the ants, wouldn’t they?”

  “I was trying to make a point!” I shrieked. “Can I stay with you or not?”

  “Calm down, Kat, you’re not making any sense.”

  “Nick’s coming!” I thundered. “He’s coming to Memphis a week from tomorrow! He’s going to show up on my doorstep next Saturday.”

  “Oh my God!” Donna screeched. “How do you know?”

  I quickly caught her up to speed. “So, as you can see, I’m majorly screwed.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said slowly. “I think you’re jumping the gun. What if he just ordered you flowers or something?”

  “No way. For a guy like Nick, flowers are no big deal. He wouldn’t plan that a week in advance.”

  “Well, excuse me.” Donna sounded irritated. “I didn’t realize he was a flowers every day kind of guy.”

  I felt a brief pang of guilt for bragging. As far as I knew, Chip had never sent flowers. Not even on Donna’s birthday.

  “Kat, what good will sleeping at my place do? It’s not like that’s going to change anything.”

  “Nick will never look for me there.” It was an ill-conceived plan, but it was the only thing I could come up with.

  “So, what, you’re going to let this poor guy travel thousands of miles and then leave him stranded outside your apartment?”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes. No. I don’t know!”

  “Don’t you think that’s incredibly cruel?”

  Cruel didn’t even begin to describe it. “It kind of is, yes.” Already, guilt was sinking in.

  “You’re going to have to meet him eventually, you know.”

  “Not before I get skinny,” I said firmly. “I can’t let him see me while I’m still”—I thought rapidly, trying to remember what I’d told her in the past—“almost two hundred pounds.”

  Donna didn’t say anything, so I pressed on.

  “So can I stay or not? ’Cause if your answer’s no, I’m booking a room at the Ramada.”

  Donna sighed. “Not necessary. I’ll make up the couch.”

  ***

  The following Tuesday found me back in Richard’s office. Only this time, it was under better circumstances. Instead of scolding me for not finishing my work on time, Richard was praising my efforts.

  “You’ve been a real trooper, kiddo. Ever since our little talk I’ve noticed how you’ve buckled down and gotten your act together. I know I can count on you in a bind.”

  I smiled, to show I appreciated his compliments. “Thanks. That means a lot.” It was just past 9:15 A.M. when he gave me the news. I can be certain of the time, because I was watching the second hand on his Cindy Crawford wall clock when he said it. My mind had been drifting in and out of the conversation, What will Nick do when he finds out I’m not home next Saturday, when I heard something that snapped me to attention.

  “. . . this promotion.” There were two words Richard Geddlefinger rarely said: raise and promotion. I hoped one wouldn’t come without the other.

  “Are you serious, Richard?” I asked.

  “As a heart attack.”

  Wow. I’m so . . . surprised. Can you elaborate a little?”

  It was a last-ditch attempt to get him to repeat what he’d said while I wasn’t paying attention. Fortunately, it worked.

  “Well, nothing’s official yet. I’d have to talk things over with my partner, Jake Hood, but I’d like you to start taking an active role in our presentations. In fact, I’ve got a potential client coming in a week from Wednesday. Mercer and Sons Funeral Home. Are you familiar with them?”

  I told him I was. “Only in passing reference, though, thank God.”

  He chuckled. “I want you to spend this next week getting even more familiar with them. Do some digging, compile some information.” He smiled broadly. “And then next Wednesday, you and I will sit down and sell them on our company.”

  “Thanks, Richard!” I was glowing. Landing a slot on the presentation team would be a big step up for me. It wasn’t my dream job, but still.

  “What do you want me to talk about?” I asked. “I’ll need to prepare some sort of a speech, right?”

  “Nah, that’s not necessary. I find spontaneity works best in these situations. You don’t want to sound too rehearsed.”

  We were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Excuse me,” Cindy Vander said, popping her head in. “I don’t mean to be rude, but there’s an urgent phone call for Kat. It’s long-distance.” She raised her eyebrows.

  I leapt up, nearly knocking the chair to the ground. It wasn’t unusual for me to receive long-distance phone calls; I dealt with out-of-state clients all the time. But something in the tone of her voice made me think it had to be Nick.

  “You’re answering my phone now?” I demanded, scurrying toward the door.

  She was the picture of innocence. “Oh, no. I happened to be walking by your desk when I heard it ringing. I knew you were in a meeting and I thought I’d make myself useful. So I took down a message.”

  “That’s what voice mail is for,” I groused, dashing down the hall to my cubicle. I grabbed the phone and took it off hold. It was Zaidee Panola. Funny how she always calls when I am expecting Nick. “

  Hi,” I said uneasily, caught off-guard that she had used my work number. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  “That’s no problem; the girl who answered the phone was kind enough to track you down for me.”

  Uh-oh, I thought. This doesn’t sound good. “

  You didn’t tell her why you were calling, did you?”

  “She did ask.”

  “She did?” I held my breath.

  “I told her it was personal. She was pretty persistent, but don’t you worry. I stonewalled her.”

  I laughed. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime. You girls got some kind of office rivalry going on?”

  “Something like that.” I snorted. “Let’s just say we’re not on the best of terms.”

  “Gotcha. Anyway, the reason I’m calling. First off, thanks for your pictures, Kat. I appreciate your sending them so quickly. Now, I just have a few more questions to ask, and then we can move on to stage two of the process.”

  “A few more questions” wound up taking nearly half an hour to answer. At first I tried to be discreet, flipping through a file of paperwork as we talked. At one point that tattletale Cindy Vander sidled up to my cubicle and I had to put Zaidee on hold for a few minutes. I didn’t know if she bought my act or not. It’s hard to pretend you’re on a business call when you’re discussing diet programs and plus-sized lingerie. When Zaidee finally finished quizzing me, she thanked me for my time again.

  “Okay, then, looks like I’ve got everything I need,” she concluded. “I’m about to go into a meeting with the other producers. We’ve got to compare notes and after that I’ll be calling you back before five o’clock with a firm decision, one way or another.”

  I gasped. “You mean you’re going to decide right now if I’m on the show?”

  My shock was palpable.

  “Not now, no.” Zaidee laughed. “Calm down, honey. We’re merely narrowing the field to twenty-five finalists to bring out to the Los Angeles try-out. Didn’t you read the application packet?”

  “I must have missed that part,” I said lamely. “I was in a pretty big hurry when I filled it out.” I wanted to kick myself as soon as the words left my mouth. I didn’t want her to think From Fat to Fa
bulous wasn’t important to me. “What I mean is, I didn’t find out about the show until right before the deadline.”

  “Good deal. Talk to you in a bit, Kat.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait for your call.” I

  didn’t leave my desk the entire afternoon, not to use the bathroom, not to get a drink from the water cooler, not even to go to lunch with Donna.

  Five o’clock came and went, and there was no word from Zaidee.

  “Maybe she meant five o’clock Pacific time,” Donna offered later that night as we drowned our sorrows over dinner at Buckley’s. I was mourning shattered expectations, and Donna was mourning the loss of a relationship; she’d officially broken up with Chip earlier that afternoon. A delectable meal of pasta and red wine seemed in order.

  Fuck my perpetual diet. If I wasn’t going to be on television, what did it matter anyway?

  I shook my head. “I thought of that, too. But California is only two hours behind Memphis. I didn’t get out of the office until after seven-thirty. If she’d called, I’d know.”

  “Maybe she assumed you’d gone home and tried your apartment,” Donna suggested.

  “Nope, nothing on the Caller ID. I checked.”

  I took a big bite of Italian spinach.

  “Oh.” Donna finished her glass of wine, and poured herself a fresh one. “You know how these Hollywood types are. Busy as hell! From Fat to Fabulous here you come!”

  “Shhh! Keep your voice down!” Donna shrugged in confusion. “What’s up?”

  “I’d kind of like to keep it quiet,” I whispered, looking around the dimly lit restaurant. “You can never be too careful.”

  “Oh.” Donna shook her head knowingly. “Legal reasons, right? You could get disqualified for talking about it.” She stuffed a whole piece of garlic toast in her mouth.

  “No, nothing like that. It’s just,” I paused, searching for the right words, “I guess I’m embarrassed about it, that’s all. The title alone is kind of humiliating. I don’t want people to know.”

  “It’s going to be hard to keep secret once you’re on national freakin’ television,” she snickered. Suddenly, her eyes got huge. “You know what you’ve gotta do, Kat? If you wanna get on the show, you gotta be proactive about it.”

  “Proactive?” I repeated, through bites of ravioli.

  “Don’t sit back and let this Zula woman come to you.”

  “Zaidee,” I corrected. “Whatever. Show her you mean business. Let her know that Kat Larson wants a shot!”

  When I didn’t say anything, she continued, “Call her office first thing tomorrow, pester her a little. It’ll prove how interested you are. That’s exactly what my cousin did to get her internship at that Wall Street firm. She sent their office semi harassing faxes for weeks.”

  “Somehow I think this is a little bit different. Wall Street versus a cheesy reality show,” I said, weighing the two options with my hands. “They’re not exactly in the same league, if you catch my drift.”

  Donna chugged down more wine. “Yeah, if you ask me, the reality show is a hell of a lot more interesting. Who wants to work at the stock exchange?” She scrunched up her face.

  “Well, anyway, I can’t call. The application specifically said not to.”

  Donna dismissed this. “Don’t listen to that BS. That’s the message the Wall Street brokers spewed, and they didn’t mean a word of it. Come on, I bet this will increase your chances big-time.”

  I wasn’t so sure. For Donna maybe that kind of strategy might work. But I’m just not aggressive enough to pull it off.

  “It’s a bad idea.”

  “What-ever, Kat. You’d be great! I could coach you on it.” I motioned again for her to keep it down. The wine was really starting to go to her head. Fortunately, I was the designated driver.

  “I don’t have Zaidee’s office number,” I lied.

  “Google, baby. They’ve got every commercial listing in the country.”

  “That reminds me.” I groaned, moving on to another sore subject.

  “Nick sent me an electronic greeting card today. The message read, ‘Less than a week! The big surprise will soon be en route. Love always, Nicholas J. Appleby.’ He signed his full name, which he never does. He says it reminds him of a Charles Dickens character. What do you make of that?”

  “Charles Dickens!” Donna erupted in a fit of laughter. “Dickens,” she said, emphasizing the first syllable. “Why don’t we call Richard ‘Dick’? Dick Geddlefinger. That sounds about right.”

  “Oh brother.” I stared at her. “You’re completely drunk. I can’t believe I’m bothering to ask you for advice.”

  “No, no! I’m fine Kat, I’m perfectly fine.” I pulled the bottle of wine over toward my side of the table, tucking it safely out of Donna’s reach. “Good thing I’m driving,” I said.

  Donna smiled. “I do.”

  “I do?” I repeated.

  “I do think Nicholas J. Appleby sounds like something out of a Charles Dickens novel.”

  Chapter Six

  “My head is throbbing.” Donna rubbed her temple for emphasis.

  “Serves you right,” I scolded. “You only drank a ton of wine last night.” I poured her a cup of coffee. “Have this. It’ll make you feel better.”

  She took the cup from my hands and staggered back to her desk, making a face at me as she went. I trotted over to my cubicle and began compiling data on Mercer and Sons Funeral Home, but every time the phone rang, I jumped a mile. I was still hoping Zaidee would contact me. I tried to keep my calls short and simple, though twice I got stuck on the line; the first time talking to a client about a press release, the second time talking to my dad.

  “Hello, Katrina!” he yelled, nearly blasting my ear off. Ever since moving to Denver, my father has become a shouter over the telephone. The idea that I am still able to hear him loud and clear even though he is now a thousand miles away has never quite sunk in.

  “How’s my favorite daughter?” he boomed.

  “I’m doing well, how are you and Mom?”

  “Homesick,” he griped. “Your mom can’t stop talking about Memphis. Me, I just miss the barbecue.”

  “Well, Memphis misses you,” I said, feeling like a first-class dork.

  “Your mother was looking on the World Wide Web today,” he said.

  My father is the only person I know who still calls it the World Wide Web.

  “And she found a cyber savers flight from Denver to Memphis. You know what cyber savers is, Katrina?”

  “Yes, I do,” I said, eyeing the clock. Zaidee could be trying to get through to me right this second. We have call waiting, but I don’t trust it in a pinch.

  “They do special deals where you can take a weekend trip for next to nothing. We can go round-trip for ninety-nine dollars on Northwest Airlines. Sound good?”

  I blinked in surprise. “Dad, you’ve lost me.”

  I could hear my mother shouting in the background, taking him to task for not giving me the full details. “Right, right,” he said. “Your mom and I were thinking we’d like to take a weekend trip out to Memphis—Saturday to Tuesday. Are you free this weekend?”

  It seemed a cruel irony that everyone was plotting to show up on my doorstep this Saturday. I weighed my options. If I told him no, my mom would get on the phone and hit me with a major guilt trip. I am, after all, their only child. And they aren’t getting any younger. All they want to do is come and visit me. Couldn’t I spare three days out of my busy schedule? But if, on the other hand, I said yes, they’d inevitably want to stay at my place.

  A mental image flashed through my mind: my dad, decked out in a pair of tacky boxer shorts with flounders on them, swinging open my front door and welcoming Nick inside. “Always nice to meet Katrina’s boyfriend,” he’d say, slapping him on the back. “You talk kinda funny. Where are you from? Connecticut?”

  No, it couldn’t happen.

  “Gee, Dad, that sounds awesome, there’s just one problem.”
I crossed my fingers behind my back, and prayed for forgiveness. “They’re fumigating my apartment this weekend,” I said, capitalizing on my conversation with Donna.

  “Fumigating? What’s the problem?”

  “Roaches.”

  “Roaches!” I heard my mother scream.

  She had picked up the extension. “Kat, you’ve got to go to a hotel. You can’t stay there while they spray those chemicals. I saw a special on Dateline the other day about a girl who died from staying home while her apartment was fumigated.”

  Oh, brother. Here it comes.

  “Do you need money to rent a room?” she asked. “Because if you do, don’t be ashamed to say so.”

  “No, Mom, it’s fine. I’m going to be staying with Donna.”

  “And that’s not going to inconvenience her?” she asked.

  I sighed. “Of course not. Donna’s cool with it.”

  Dad interjected, “Sorry to hear that. We can come another weekend.”

  I breathed a tremendous sigh of relief. “Thanks for understanding.”

  “Well, I’m very concerned here. How long have you had this roach problem?” my mom demanded.

  “Uh, it’s only been going on for about two days.”

  “Two days!” my dad exclaimed. “Those must be some ferocious cockroaches if they’ve multiplied enough to fumigate after only two days.”

  “They’re a special breed,” I said, “or species. Or whatever bugs are called,” I fumbled. I was a terrible liar.

  “I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Dad said.

  “Uh, yeah, these roaches are pretty rare. Humongous and impossible to get rid of, unless you wipe them out in the earliest stages. . . .”

  Around noon, it finally happened. Zaidee called.

  She didn’t mince words. “I hope you don’t have any important plans for this weekend, Kat,” she said as soon as I answered. “Because you’re coming to Los Angeles.”

  I was so shocked I actually dropped the phone. “HOLY SHIT!” I shrieked, picking the receiver back up. My hand flew up to cover my mouth. “Excuse me, I’m not usually so vulgar.”