Elimination Night by Anonymous

who’d just discovered the unfairness of gravity.
    Joey clapped his hands as he pulled away from me.
    “Showtime!” he announced, with another sniff. “Let’s get this baby on the air.” Then he ambled off, jewelry clanking, in the direction of his Kangen machine.
    Mu and Sue followed.
    There were more complications to come, naturally. As it turned out, someone on Team Bibi had been listening in to Len’s conversation with Joey (could it have been Teddy? Had he been hiding under the sofa?) and had informed Bibi that her Messiah-like entrance during the press conference was in fact a form of mockery, not celebration. Within minutes, the Beverly Hills attorney Karl Hurt—managing partner at Dammock, Hurt & Richardson (known in the industry as Damage, Hurt, and Retaliation)—had called Len, threatening a lawsuit for breach of contract. There was a “ridicule clause” in Bibi’s agreement with
Project Icon,
apparently. While Len dealt with the atomictempered lawyer, he shooed me back to the front line of conference room five to calm Bibi.
    “
Don’t
fuck it up this time,” he mouthed.
    Bibi was actually in the hallway, encircled by Teddy, Teddy’s four assistants, and five stylists.
    I straightened my back (I’m five eight, so taller than Bibi by five inches) and exhaled.
    “Ahem. Miss Vasquez?” I attempted.
    “Miss Vasquez is busy,” said Teddy, appearing center frame. “Very busy.”
    This was quite obviously untrue. Bibi wasn’t busy at all. The people
around her
were busy. One stylist was using a miniature spray bottle to apply toning liquid to her calves, giving them a warm, buttery texture. Another was using some kind of air gun to apply perfect distress to individual strands of hair. Meanwhile, an assistant held out an iPad upon which Bibi’s horoscope from a supermarket tabloid was displayed on the maximum zoom setting. Bibi was reading it with great interest. She’d clearly noted my arrival, yet nevertheless had enough plausible deniability to ignore me without risking any awkwardness.
    “Look, Teddy,” I began, emotionally. “I just need you to know… we all
love
Bibi.”
    “Everyone loves Bibi,” snipped Teddy, now distracted by an e-mail on his phone. As with Bibi, an assistant was holding it out for him.
Couldn’t these people do anything for themselves?
    “Of course!” I fawned. “But we think she’s, y’know, really,
really
amazing. And, er, I just want to, er—”
    “Hasn’t Len fucked you enough for one day, Bill?” Teddy interrupted, without looking up (the e-mail he was reading had come from Bibi, I could see, with Karl Hurt copied). “You really wanna get fucked again? Why not let the grown-ups handle this.”
    Grown-ups?
Oh, that was rich.
    “I mean, Len sent you over here, right?” Teddy continued, now offering me a full twenty-five percent of his attention. “And he thought you could talk to my client?” He laughed. “Len thought YOU could talk to one of the most famous, successful women alive today?
You?
With your…
boyfriend jeans
and
hiking shoes?
Oh, hilarious.”
    That was it: screw these assholes. I was all set to give up and walk away when suddenly, the stylists around Bibi parted, giving me a direct view of the star herself.
    Eye contact.
    Holy crap:
Bibi Vasquez was looking at me.
    “Honey,” she said, in a tone that suggested an attempt at warmth. “What is it you wanna talk to me about?”
    Silence.
    A crippling panic. Then irritation. What is
wrong
with wearing hiking shoes when you spend sixteen hours a day running around a set under hot studio lighting, especially if you have an abnormal big toe, like I do? Then I made a decision. If Len could bullshit Joey,
then I could bullshit Bibi.
When in hell, do as the devil does, as they say. Okay, so no one actually says that. But you know what I mean.
    “Look, Bibi,” I began. “I just want to say, as both a producer
and
a fan”—yes, I was going all the way on this—“you’re the biggest