The Perils of Praline (19 page)

The other two suburbanites let go of Jason and jumped Praline. Almost immediately, they began throwing punches. Praline grabbed a fist as it came at him and bit down hard on the guy’s knuckles
,
breaking the skin
.
The guy screamed and snatched his hand back. “He gave me AIDS! I can’t believe he gave me AIDS!” Praline did not bother to explain that you cannot get AIDS from a safe-sex practicing Georgian no matter how many times he bites you.

 With just one more basher to go, Praline spun around and grabbed the last one’s hair, pulling out a big patch. This enraged him and he lunged at Praline. Thinking fast, and as girlishly as possible, Praline clawed at his eyes. The young man shrieked.

Seeing his opportunity, Praline grabbed Jason and they ran down the alley as quickly as two D-List celebrities late for the red carpet. When they got three or four blocks away they stopped running. After they caught their breath, Jason said, “You probably saved my life. Thank you.”

“And…” Praline prompted.

“And what?” asked Jason.

“When you saved my life I offered to have sex with you. Both times.”

Hurt filled Jason’s eyes. “That’s not funny.”

It had been a joke, sort of, well not really, but still Praline couldn’t understand why Jason was so upset about it. A terrible thought occurred to him. Did Jason not find him attractive? No, that couldn’t be possible. Praline knew he was attractive. So what was it?

“Does it ever occur to you
not
to have sex?” Jason asked.

“You mean, you think I should be celibate?” Praline was horrified.

“You don’t have to be celibate. But you could try being selective.”

“You think I’m a slut. Don’t you? Just because I’ve made a couple of passes at you.”

“That and the five or six guys I know you’ve slept with since you got to California. And you’ve only been here three days.”

Actually Praline had had sex with a couple of people Jason didn’t even know about. Although he didn’t consider himself a slut, he felt it best to change the subject. “How’s your stomach?”

“Okay. Sore and a little crampy, but I’ll be fine.”

“I guess you’re still mad at me about the job?” Praline asked, which now that he thought about it explained the slut comment.

“Of course I’m still mad at you.”

“Are you going to let me stay at your place tonight?” Praline asked.

“Yes,” Jason growled. “And I’m going to drive you to work in the morning and I’m going to spend the day being the intern. I need the stupid job.”

As he bedded down on the uncomfortable tangerine sofa, Praline resolved to put Jason completely out of his mind. He’d come to Hollywood to find love, not pleasant diversions in the form of grumpy, hairy, former-casting assistants turned interns. He was here for Dave G. He was here for love.

Trying to put himself to sleep, Praline fantasized that his mother would send him half a locket in the morning mail, and that when he finally met Dave G. he’d have the other half of that locket which would prove that they were…brothers, eek, yuck, no it would prove that their love was fated. Because they’d been promised at birth… Hmmmm, maybe lockets were a bad idea, maybe there was another…better…different…

The next morning, as Praline tip-toed around getting his breakfast
,
Jason sat on the sofa watching the morning news and eating a bowl of cereal. Praline did his best to ignore him and instead worried about what to wear to work. He didn’t want to wear the same outfit he’d worn as an intern. He felt he ought to upgrade his wardrobe, but couldn’t figure out how to ask Jason if he could borrow something better.

He considered wearing something of Clayton’s, though it seemed awful to borrow and/or steal clothing from someone locked up in a mental hospital—not to mention all of Clayton’s clothes were very depressing colors: black, charcoal and smoky gray. Praline had already checked.

Suddenly, Jason screamed. Banana in hand, Praline hurried into the living room and gaped at him. “What?”

“Listen,” Jason said and turned up the TV.

On the TV, a haggard Tawny Garcia-Gonzalez read from the teleprompter, “The mysterious male prostitute caught on tape with Malcolm Wright has been identified…by his mother.
The National Inquisitor
reports on their Website that the young man’s name is Peter Palmetier.”

“Oh,” Praline shrugged. “Mama mentioned that when she called last night.”

“Your mother called?”

“You were busy at the time.” Praline tried not to think about Jason being licked all over by four guys in an alley. He was only wearing a pair of boxers, and if he thought too much about Jason being naked and the four guys with their hands all over, and their tongues…ooops, too late.

Jason eyed the hard-on trying easing its way out of the Praline’s boxers and told him, “Put that away.”

Praline sat down in a chair and crossed his legs. Jason stared at him, “Are you telling me you took a phone call in the middle of an orgy?”

“You didn’t notice?” Praline asked, with hurt in his voice.

“As you said, I was busy at the time.” Jason worried a moment, then said, “This isn’t good. Everyone’s going to know your name and as soon as they know that it won’t be hard to find you.”

“But my hair is blue, they won’t know it’s me.” Praline hopped on the Internet and went to the site for
The National Inquisitor
. The page loaded slowly.

“It doesn’t matter. They’ll find you.”

“Jason, I just know everything will be fine. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than you need to. Stop worrying.” Then, he scrolled down and saw the story at the bottom of the front page. Terror of terrors, his mother had given them his high school graduation photo—the one and only bad photo that had ever been taken of Praline. “Oh my gosh! How could she do this to me?”

“Wait, a second ago you were okay with it,” Jason said, confused.

“She gave them my high school graduation photo.” Praline shook his head in disgust. “It’s the end of my life. It’s just the end of my life.”

“It can’t be that bad. Let me see.”

Praline pressed the phone to his chest. “No way. The day the photos were taken I had the worst bad hair day. I mean it was epic. It was like my hair had been done by the first contestant thrown off
The Great American Hair Challenge
.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Jason. “It can’t be that bad. Show it to me.”

Praline sulked and then showed Jason the picture. Jason stared at it for a moment. He looked a bit confused, then said, “Put it away. Oh God, why did you show that to me? It was horrible!”

“I told you.”

“Well, at least no one will recognize you.”

Forty-five minutes later when they walked into the office, Jason was still talking about the photo. “Praline, are you sure that was you? It looked more like road kill.”

Praline was beginning to suspect that Jason was deliberately torturing him. Though he couldn’t understand why Jason would do such a thing. On the other hand, it had at least lifted the young man’s mood.

“Could we not talk about this anymore?” Praline begged.

“Oh, sure, no problem,” Jason said, then added, “I hope children don’t go to that site. They could be permanently scarred.”

“Will you shut up?”

“I won’t say another word,” Jason said, but kept staring at Praline as though waiting for something.

“What?” asked Praline.

“What do you want me to do today? Boss.”

“What I was doing yesterday,” Praline said, clearly annoyed.

“Okay fine, I just wanted to check and see if you had developed a new business plan.”

Unexpectedly, Madison was screaming from her office. Jason and Praline both jumped since it was nowhere near ten a.m. “JASON! Let’s roll calls!”

“I think she means you,” said Jason before walking into the intern’s office. Praline walked over to the assistant’s workstation and tried to figure out what it meant to roll calls.

“JASON!” She screamed again.

“I THINK YOU MEAN PRALINE! JASON IS NOW THE INTERN!” Jason yelled from his new office.

Praline bit the bullet and went into Madison’s office. Today she was dressed in an extreme couture outfit with a collar that stuck up above her ears and belt that cinched her waist so tightly the possibility of breathing seemed remote.

“Um, what exactly do you mean
roll
calls?” asked Praline.

With a defeated sigh, Madison explained, “We keep a list of everyone I want to talk to and everyone who wants to talk to me. It should be on the desk. Go find it and call the first person on the list. Whoever it is.”

Praline went back out to the workstation. He didn’t see any such list on the desk so he looked on the computer. When he found the file he saw that the first name on the list was Tuck Roberts. His name was typed in a bold font and outlined in red. Clearly Madison wanted to talk to him.

Praline poked at his multi-line phone until he got Tuck on the other end. Then he said, “I have Madison Harvey for Tuck Roberts.” Just as he’d heard Jason do dozens of times the day before. 

“That’s great, dude. I need to talk to her.”

Praline put the call on hold and went into Madison’s office. “Tuck Roberts.”

Madison turned red in the face and hissed, “What? No! I don’t want to talk to him!”

“But his was the first name on the list,” explained Praline.

“Of course it was! It’s outlined in red though! I’m avoiding him. We only call him when we know he’s not there! Shit what am going to do?”

“But he was just here. He said he’s a friend of yours.”

“Just because he’s a friend of mine doesn’t mean I want to talk to him. It’s bad enough he drops by and I have to distract him with access to blond bimbos, but now, thanks to you, I have to talk to him.”

“I’m sorry,” said Praline, though not entirely sure for what.

With an angry sigh, Madison picked up the phone and in a sweet, silky voice said, “Tuck, we didn’t get to talk the other day. I’ve been just distraught about that…”

Praline slunk out of the office. He sat down at his workstation and began acquainting himself with its contents. In one corner were an in-box and out-box. Mail sat in the in-box and he assumed he’d have to sort through that. He had a computer with Internet access, of course. That would be helpful, if only because it was something he understood. Plus, he could update his FaceSpace page. He wanted today’s headline to be “Praline promoted after two whole days at the Studio!” but he remembered that Jason was a FaceSpace buddy of his and he didn’t want to seem like he was rubbing it in. He’d have to think of something more generic like “Praline thinks things are looking up.” Yes, that would work, he thought
,
and then went ahead and changed his headline bar.

In the center of the desk sat a pile of memos with a Post-it on them in Jason’s handwriting, “TO DO.” The first memo was from the producer of Praline’s absolute number one favorite show
Hollywood Hospital
. This excited Praline. He hadn’t realized
Hollywood Hospital
was a Box show. They were letting Madison know they needed an actor for a small part on an upcoming episode.

The listing read: A young, attractive man becomes concerned that his penis has grown abnormally large. Naturally, Natalie considers beginning a relationship with him once she determines that his member, while certainly in the very top percentile of normal, is A-OK. Though it’s against the rules for hospital personnel to date patients, Natalie feels in this case she has to violate protocol and have sex with her patient to restore his sense of normalcy.

Wow, thought Praline, it sounded like a good episode. Instantly, he had the idea that this would be a good role for Dave G. and decided he had to recommend him for the part. Running into the intern’s office, he told Jason, “There’s a part on
Hollywood Hospital
that Dave G. would be perfect for. I’m going to point that out to Madison.”

Though actually he was hoping Madison would call Dave G. in so they could meet and fall hopelessly and endlessly in love. Not that he didn’t want his future husband to get his big break, it’s just that he was hoping they’d fall in love before Dave G. became really, really famous. That way the soon-to-be-famous actor would know that Praline loved him for himself and not his fame.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Jason asked.

“Why wouldn’t I want to do that?” asked Praline.

“Well…Madison is the casting director, not you. She’s the one he has to impress. Don’t you think he’s more likely to end up fucking her husband than to end up fucking you?”

“Dave G. wouldn’t fuck anyone to get a job,” Praline said clearly insulted. “He’s not like that.”

“Yeah, and neither are you. But look how that turned out.”

Abruptly, he heard Madison hang up her phone and scream out “NEXT CALL!”

In a fluster, Praline ran around his old desk, pushed Jason out of the way, and pulled Dave G.’s resume out of the top drawer. It was wrinkled and a little damp from all the attention he’d paid it the day before, but still it was all he had to give to Madison. He zipped back to his new desk and saw that the next call was to Sid Gaffer, the head of the TV division. He placed the call and said to Mr. Gaffer’s assistant as professionally as possible, “Madison Harvey for Mr. Gaffer.”

A moment later a gruff man who sounded like he had a mouth full of cotton balls came on the line, “Madison, what’d you—”

“Just a minute Mr. Gaffer, I’ll get Ms. Harvey.” He hit a button and ran into Madison’s office. “He’s on the line.”

She looked down at the phone. “Wait, where is he? Oh my God, you hung up on Sid Gaffer!”

“I thought I put him on hold,” said Praline.

“Why is this so difficult for you? It’s not rocket science.”

“Well, no,” said Praline. “Rocket science has a point.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Rocket science has a point. You know, to put rockets in space.”

“What are you blathering about?”

“Well, it just seems kind of a waste of time having me make your calls.” Though to be honest, it hadn’t bothered him at all when Jason was doing it.

Madison looked at him as though he’d just suggested she slaughter a kitten on her blotter. “I’m an executive. I don’t place calls.”