Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [19]
Then Brad uttered the unthinkable: “Fortune should do it. That would be hilarious.”
“Fortune, you really are a good dancer,” Chelsea said. “We all saw you at the Christmas party. You get a little too sweaty, but you have rhythm.”
“Thank you. My mother put me in jazz dance classes when I was seven. I guess it really paid off,” Fortune replied, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“It would be fantastic,” Brad said enthusiastically. “Think how much weight you’d lose, Fortune. It would be a total transformation.”
“I bet they’d put you in Life & Style magazine and write about how you got your Dancing with the Stars body,” Tom said.
At this point, jealousy was boiling over in me. I had started to shake a little when Chelsea said, “Okay, great. So, Tom, you’ll talk to them?”
When Fortune and I returned to the office, she looked at me and said, “Heather, I know how much you want this.”
“Fortune, don’t be ridiculous. If they want you, you have to do it. Don’t worry about it. But, honestly, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Totally understandable.” Fortune put in her ear buds and began typing.
The rest of the day was very difficult. For a while things would be fine and then I’d remember Dancing with the Stars and get a major hollowed-out feeling in the pit of my stomach. When I got home that night and told Peter what had transpired, he said, “Look, Fortune is going to sprain her ankle or blow out her ACLU or something. This season alone they’ve lost like five contestants to injury. Fortune is bound to get hurt, and then they will replace her with you like they did when little Bow Wow got replaced with his dad, Big Wow Wow.”
“I don’t think his dad’s name is Big Wow Wow. I think it’s Master D or something. Anyway, maybe you’re right. But then again, Fortune is pretty flexible, and being gay helps. Lance Bass went really far in the competition.”
The next day in our meeting, the show came up again and when Chelsea said, “Tom, the people at Dancing with the Stars want to see tape on Fortune, so have Johnny film her dancing to something.”
I started to tremble. Speak, Heather! I screamed inside my head. I wanted to say, Well, can you put me on tape, too, so we can both be considered? But I was afraid the other writers would jump on me and say I was awful for trying to take something away from Fortune, so I kept my lips sealed.
“Sure,” Tom said. “We can shoot it after today’s taping in Studio Two. Fortune, you ready to put your twinkle toes to work?” Tom winked at Fortune.
“Absolutely. Thank you,” Fortune said and began to blush.
Thoughts tumbled through my head, everything from the fact that envy was a sin and it wasn’t very Christian of me to wish Fortune bodily harm when she attempted the jive, to the principle in The Secret that there is no such thing as competition because there is enough room in the universe for everyone to be successful. I kept very quiet for the rest of the meeting.
Later that day Chelsea called me into her office and said, “Heather, I know you’re upset about Fortune getting chosen over you for Dancing with the Stars, but she is really excited about it right now. It’s her time to shine. You know how I feel about everyone being equal around here, and you’ve gotten to do a lot.”
“I know. I’m happy for her.” What I wanted to say was, Equal? Then if everything is equal Chelsea Lately is Communist North Korea and you’re Kim Jong-il. Just give Fortune one of my dates where I open for you or a Cheescake Factory gift certificate. I’m willing to give all that up to be considered for Dancing with the Stars. But instead I just left her office with a fake smile.
When I returned to our office to write our jokes for the daily topics, I could feel my lip tremble. Please, Heather, do not start crying, I told myself. I realized my period was two days away and there was no stopping the tears from streaming down my cheeks.
Fortune, who had begun talking about Monster Trucks, turned her head and noticed me crying. “Heather, oh, my God,” she said as she jumped up and shut our office door.