Page 42 of All That Glitters
“Oh, hell no,” Veronica protested. “I’m not hiding in a garbage can!”
The siren grew louder, and flashing blue lights rounded the far corner.
“Fine, enjoy jail,” Debbie said from inside the can.
With a groan of defeat, Veronica climbed into the can with Debbie, pulling the lid closed over them. They huddled together in the dark, surrounded by the eye-watering stench of rotting food.
A moment later, they heard the police car slowly cruise past, its siren fading as it continued on down the street.
“Are they gone?” Veronica whispered.
Debbie ducked lower, pressing her ear to the side of the can. “I can’t tell. We should give it a couple minutes.”
“This is, without a doubt, the worst hangover activity ever,” Veronica grumbled. “Next time, let’s just eat greasy food and watch bad movies like normal people.”
A moment later, a loud grinding roar filled the air. A massive garbage truck rounded the corner and pulled up beside their hiding spot.
“What’s that noise?” Veronica asked.
Before Debbie could answer, a giant mechanical arm extended from the truck, clamping around the can. The world tilted as the arm raised them up, up, and over the truck, dumping them and the entire contents of the can into the cavernous, reeking back.
Hours later, Debbie and Veronica staggered back into their apartment, covered from head to toe in filth. Coffee grounds, banana peels, and things they didn’t want to identify clung to their clothes and hair. Veronica reached up and tugged a wad of pink bubble gum from her bangs.
“That’s it, roomie,” she said. “Any more drunk dialing, and you’re on your own.”
Chapter seventeen
Mechanical Sharks and Other Bright Ideas
Tony sat in the rear car of the Universal Studios tram that afternoon, watching out the side as the tour rumbled through the studio’s sprawling backlot and amusement rides. A backpack lay at his feet, packed with a dozen copies of his screenplay. On each of them was a glossy Starving Artists Agency cover sheet.
Plan E — pretend to have an agency-sanctioned script — was officially a go. The thought process (if you could call it that) worked something like this: since producers wouldn’t read his script without a referral from someone in the industry, he would use the cover sheets to provide that referral. All he needed now was to find a bunch of producers and directors to hand his scripts to, and what better place to find them than a studio. And that’s how Tony found himself on the Universal Studios tour that afternoon, about to embark on the craziest idea (up to that point anyway) in a long line of crazy ideas.
The tram guide, a perky aspiring actress named Brittany, cheerfully pointed out famous landmarks as the tram rumbledalong. “And on your left, you’ll see the clock tower from Back to the Future! Isn’t that heavy? Great Scott!”
Tony barely paid any attention to the narration; his focus was entirely on finding the right spot to make his stupendously brilliant move.
As the tram rounded a corner and slowed to a stop, Brittany’s voice chirped through the speakers. “And now, folks, prepare to get a little wet as we experience the awesome, forty-thousand-gallon power of a flash flood!”
A torrent of water swept down the fake Mexican street set with surprising force. This was it, Tony thought; it was now or never. While the tourists whipped out their phones to film it, Tony slipped on his backpack and leaped from the tram into the ankle-deep river.
“Sir! Sir, you can’t be out there!” Brittany yelled, her perky Disney-princess demeanor cracking for the first time. “That’s a union-mandated splash zone!”
But Tony was already gone. He splashed off through the fake flood and disappeared behind a row of prop storefronts labeled ‘Cerveza’ and ‘Pescado’.
A portly security guard named Dave lounged in his golf cart eating a donut. He thought he’d seen everything before that day, but as he counted down the minutes till his lunch break, he spotted a wild-eyed man with a backpack barreling down the street. He blinked several times to make sure it wasn’t a sugar-induced hallucination, but nope; it was real. He snatched up his radio.
“Uh… we’ve got a runner,” Dave said with disbelief into his radio. “He’s heading east from the flood zone. Looks like he’s got a… a very full backpack.”
Tony raced across the backlot past facades of houses and gazebos. He dodged a golf cart carrying a group of bewildered-looking actors in Roman Centurion costumes, who were all checking their phones. He vaulted over a stack of prop crates labeled ‘ACME,’ and ducked into the first open soundstage he saw.
Inside the dark, cavernous space, a movie was being filmed. Lights, cameras, and a full crew watched an actor in a spacesuit bounce up and down on a wire harness across a set that looked like Mars. The director, a serious-looking man with a headset and a tiny, pretentious goatee, stared at his monitor when suddenly a crazy person in a backpack raced across the shot.
“Cut! Cut!” the director yelled, his voice echoing through the silent stage. “Why is there someone on Mars?”
Tony didn’t miss a beat. He jogged over, unzipped his backpack, and pulled out a slightly damp copy of The Frat.
“Special delivery from Starving Artists,” he panted, handing the script to the director. “It’s about a vampire fraternity. Great stuff. Funny, scary, sexy. Guaranteed Oscar winner.”
