“Where’s your costume?,” Tony asked once Ethan and the camera had captured my reaction to my Puck makeup.
“In the poolhouse,” I said. I went to put my shirt on for the walk over, but Tony stopped me. “Oh no, girl. Nothing goes over your head or face until the end of the evening. Not like anybody around here is gonna be surprised to see you without a shirt on.”
“Yeah, but it’s cold.” That’s when I realized that it was only going to get colder at night, and I was going to have to be outside and shirtless.
We both looked out the window. It didn’t just look cold: it also looked like it was going to rain.
“Shit,” said Tony. “If it rains, remember one thing: do not – I repeat, do not get even a little wet. Even if it’s just drizzling, stay indoors. I don’t want all my hard work going to waste. You better pray they move the party indoors.”
I knew the last thing Maya wanted was a bunch of teenagers running wild in the house that the viewers watched get overhauled for a shitload of money last year. But it was too late to cancel, and the week’s episode was built around the Hallowe’en party, so I didn’t see what kind of choice anyone had.
When I stepped out of the makeup room’s door, I heard a lot of voices coming from Maya’s office. I slowed down as I passed to see if I could get an update on the weather situation.
Maya saw me in the doorway and she actually gasped. “Hunter – you look fabulous!”
I think that was going to be the word for the day.
“Come on in,” Maya said after I got a little round of applause. “We’re having an emergency meeting to figure out how to move the party inside.” She looked at me a little more critically. “Please don’t take this the wrong way…but could you not sit down anywhere?”
Heavy rain was in the forecast, so the question wasn’t if we should move the party, but how. The redecorated house was designed to look good on TV and didn’t have a room suitable for teenage parties. The final decision was to use the dining room. If the hugeass table was taken out, there’d easily be room for 30 people, although that was gonna mean finding a place for the table. The only place big enough for that was the garage, and Robert wasn’t too pleased about having to leave the Maybach out in the rain. Lucky for everybody, the dining room has double doors, just like the front door of the house. Maya was none too pleased about the table having to go out in the drizzle to get to the garage, but it was the only route wide enough. The Maybach and the table were just gonna have to take one for the team.
The dining room is the biggest room in the house, and opens off the entry hall with the big curved staircase where the Christmas tree goes. It’s also got glass doors at the other end that open onto a covered patio that reaches all the way to the grill. That was good. What wasn’t was the ginormous crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling that, when lit, has about the same lighting power as two suns. Even on short notice (it was already past 5 and the guests were coming at 7), the At Home with Maya crew is capable of some TV magic, and, within 90 minutes, they’d hung up lights and decorations that produced an eerily spooky effect that the HD cameras would be able to pick up.
I still needed my costume, but I couldn’t go back to the poolhouse to get it. Belen then turned up with a white sheet and told me to upstairs, sit on it in one of the boys’ rooms and try not to get glitter all over the place. Both Jacob and Matteo were in Jacob’s room and were about to start betting ready, but they volunteered to go get my costume first. They had to go back to get a couple pieces they missed, but I finally had it all without having gotten wet.
I struggled into the tights by myself, but the boys came in handy again when I needed another coat of the with the setting spray Tony gave me. He said to apply it every hour or I would start shedding glitter all over the place.
“I guess it doesn’t matter what I wear,” Jacob said as he finished spraying me. “You’re going to get all the attention. Nobody’s gonna notice our costumes with you looking like that.” I felt a little bad, since I didn’t mean to upstage anyone; I just thought Puck would be a cool costume. I wasn’t even in on the design process. That was all Sylvia, and Tony probably went rogue with all the makeup. He probably enjoyed slathering a straight guy in enough body glitter for several drag queens lol.
Although Jacob had a girlfriend for most of his junior year, that came to a very anticlimactic end when they went their own separate ways from one day to the next. I was expecting more drama (something more like my tragic breakup with Shoshanah), but they were totally chill about it. There’s a lot about generation alpha that I don’t understand. Now Jacob’s got another girlfriend, and they seem pretty tight. Lauren and Jacob have AP Calculus together. (Jacob may be a three sports a year guy, but Maya’s got rules about academics and getting into college just like Mom did.) She’s been over to the house to study, and she made a good impression on all of us. I certainly get the idea of a jock having a brainy girlfriend. It’s just that math seems to have replaced Shakespeare. I’m sorry, but I think Shakespeare was more romantic. At least Jacob and Lauren were coming to the party as a couple. They saw somewhere online that Harry Styles and Taylor Swift were trending as a couple’s costume, and that’s what they chose.
Matteo came home in September and announced to anyone who’d listen that he had a girlfriend. He’s 15, so I just thought it was cute, but there were people who’ve been working on the show longer than I have who were convinced Matteo was gay from the minute they met him. I may have had a few questions like that, but I always figured he would turn out the way he was supposed to turn out. Not every slightly heavy pre-teen who hates sports is going to be gay, and Matteo proved them all wrong. His girlfriend, Evelyn, is a high achiever from a Chinese family. Y’all remember holding hands at lunch? That’s exactly the phase they’re in. Told y’all it was cute. He and Evelyn didn’t plan a couple’s costume, though: Matteo’s discovered Star Wars since the last time y’all saw him (he also plays Magic: The Gathering and other stuff he admits is nerdy), and Evelyn is a little too no-nonsense to have wanted to match his plans to go as Luke Skywalker.
Just like with me and Puck, after the boys came up with their costume ideas, it became Sylvia’s job to make the costumes happen. Matteo’s costume was rented from the same place they got my D’Artagnan costume last year, but it was completed with a feathered blond wig that Ken, Maya’s hairdresser (and the person responsible for my haircut that everyone suddenly seems to hate), managed to source. I could tell it was an expensive wig, and it looked great. Just probably too great for a teenager at a Hallowe’en party, but, then, most teenagers don’t have a staff of stylists and hairdressers in their house every day. The finishing touch was blue contact lenses to complete the Mark Hamill illusion. Matteo got glasses he hated when he was 12, and contacts he really liked for the first time last year, so it was easy getting him a blue pair.
Although she didn’t get as carried away as she did with my costume, Sylvia took Jacob’s Harry Styles idea and definitely ran with it. She also sourced Lauren’s gold Taylor Swift dress so Jacob’s date would look good on TV. When it came to turning Jacob into Harry Styles, the choice was to dress him in the see-through black shirt Jacob told me he wore at the Met Gala. It’s an open secret that Sylvia’s got a team of seamstresses hidden away somewhere, and they must have sewn Jacob’s shirt. It wasn’t something they sell in Old Town. Since the shirt was see-through, he had to get a whole mess of temporary tattoos on his chest and arms – after he assured Maya that they were temporary. Maya would simply kill either or both boys if they got tattoos. She’d probably kill me too for letting it happen lol. Ken lent a hand with Jacob’s look too: he colored his hair black (Jacob’s hair is just a little darker than mine) after making it clear to Maya that the hair color was temporary, too. Tony even ducked into the room and contributed a quick guyliner application. He also brought along the final finishing touch, a big drop earring of Maya’s. I wasn’t sure if it was real, but it looked like it could be.
By the time they were finally done (just on a regular school morning, Jacob’s hair takes longer than Maya’s – and I’m not exaggerating), both boys looked terrific. More importantly, they both were really pleased with how they looked. I’m still close enough to being a teenage boy that I remembered how that doesn’t happen too often at that age.
Lucas and Eric got to the house at 6:15 and were sent upstairs to find me.
“Dude, have you thought about what Keaton’s gonna say when he sees you?,” he asked, once he’d taken in my costume.
“I think I look too cool to look gay,” I said. “And it is Hallowe’en. You’re allowed to look a little over the top.”
“Hunter, you’re way past a little over the top. Looks like Tony must have had the time of his life doing you up like that.”
Eric said nothing when he saw me and just stared. Finally he got out, “so much for my first time on TV. Nobody’s gonna notice us with you looking like that.”
“You guys look great,” I said, being sincere. Eric even brought handcuffs for Lucas to wear, but they couldn’t decide when he should put them on.
Since they were officially the hosts, the boys needed to be downstairs before the guests started to arrive. I was going to go downstairs with them, but Jacob stopped me.
“Hunter, what are you doing?”
“What do you mean, cowboy?”
“You can’t go down with us. Nobody’s gonna notice our costumes after you show up. Give us a few minutes before you blow us out of the water.”
I turned to Lucas and Eric. “Y’all go down with them. We want the hooligans to know that they’re being watched the second they get here.”
“You know our friends aren’t hooligans, right?,” Matteo asked. “Mom went over the guest list very carefully to exclude anyone who might make trouble.”
I wondered what passed for a troublemaker at Polytechnic, the fancy private school in Pasadena the boys went to, but I reckoned that rich kids can be just as stupid as kids whose parents couldn’t buy them expensive cars when they turned 16. In point of fact, more money to spend probably meant they could get in bigger trouble.
“Your mom just doesn’t want the house getting trashed,” I explained. “And, remember: absolutely no drinking. We’re trusting you guys to tell us if you see anything.“
“Of course. Underage drinking would be a ratings disaster, and we wouldn’t want that, would we?,” said Jacob, who’s developed a snarky side.
“And no drinking means no anything,” Lucas said. “That includes weed and vapes. Anyone caught with anything they shouldn’t have is gonna be made to disappear.” Lucas made that sound kinda scary, although that may have been the orange jumpsuit talking lol.
Lucas hit me one last time with the setting spray, and then the four of them went downstairs. I noticed that I’d shed some glitter on the sheet that was spread out on the chair in Jacob’s room, but I was pretty sure I had plenty of glitter to spare.
Robert came into the room, looking amazing as Gomez Addams. Tony had glued a mustache to his face (Robert can’t decide if he wants to have a beard or not; he’s currently in a cleanshaven phase) and his hair looked just like in the TV show. Ken must have used some of the black color he used on Jacob (father and son have the same hair color) and there was a ton of product in Robert’s hair to make it look super slick.
“Hunter, you look absolutely fabulous! You realize you’re going to be the star of the episode, right?”
“I didn’t plan it that way,” I said. I think I was starting to sound helpless. “Everything you see is Sylvia and Tony. I may have had the idea, but they were the ones who ran with it.”
“His gay fans are going to adore it,” said Maya/Morticia, coming up behind Robert and looking like she wasn’t going to be able to sit down in her dress. “I often wonder whether we give them enough.”
“How much more Hunter can we give them?,” asked Robert. “Unless he waives his No Speedo clause.”
“Not in this lifetime,” I said, smiling. “Bad enough they’re getting dance belt Hunter tonight.”
Robert took a step back to check out that area of my costume. I hoped he wasn’t being serious when he gave me a wink and a thumbs up.
“We should go downstairs,” Maya said, “and let Hunter make a big entrance. I’ll have someone come up to tell you when they’re ready for you. We’ve got to make sure the cameras capture the reveal.”
So they left me standing alone in Jacob’s room for what felt like a long time. I figured I was better off standing so I wouldn’t shed any more glitter, but the ballet slippers were a lot less comfortable than I thought they’d be. I reckon dancers must get used to them the way I got used to walking in cleats.
Finally, our newest PA, Aiden, came up to get me. I’m pretty sure he’s what gay guys call a “twink”. He finished film school last June, and right after he came to work on At Home with Maya. He’s real popular with just about everyone, but he does get a little, well, goofy around me. It’s so obvious that people give him shit for it, but he really can’t get a coherent sentence out when I’m in the room.
This was the first time Aiden saw me in my costume, and he clearly wasn’t prepared for it. He stopped dead in his tracks in the doorway, and his jaw pretty much hit the rug.
“They’re…they…er…Hunter….” He stopped before trying again. “You look fuckin amazing, man. I…I…”
I decided to help him out.
“Are they ready for me?,” I asked.
“Yeah…that’s it. C’mon. The cameras are waiting. Kinda like the last scene of Sunset Boulevard.” Like all the other film school graduates we’ve had working on the show, Aiden makes a lot of references to movies I haven’t seen.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I saw a camera pointed at a spot about halfway down the curved stairs. The other camera was pointed the other way to catch the crowd’s reaction. I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I just stood there, waiting to catch Ethan’s eye. When we made eye contact, and he signed for me to start going down the stairs. The ballet slippers were slippery against the wood floor, and I was terrified of falling on my ass, but I made it safely to the spot on which the camera was focused. It was about then that I realized I was “working it” big time. Keaton will probably have a heart attack when he reads this, but I was kinda enjoying myself, especially when everyone downstairs broke into applause. I mean, it’s only human to enjoy being the center of attention every once in a while.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, some of the kids (girls especially) crowded around me to get a better look .
“Watch out,” I warned. “If you come within 12 inches of me, you’re gonna get glitter all over yourselves.” I was shedding worse than Gechitzik on a trip to the vet. (Gechitzik didn’t get to come to the party since he’s a little unpredictable around strangers. So he was locked away behind the kitchen. Maybe that was for the best: I’m not sure what he’d of made of my costume.)
Y’all can watch the show Wednesday night to find out about how the party went. I think it was pretty successful, and Jacob’s and Matteo’s friends looked like they were having a good time. I didn’t doubt it for a second, but the Block Burgers were the big hit they usually are. Most of the kids seemed more into dancing than the party games that probably did seem kinda lameass. Jacob loves to dance, so he and Lauren as the two pop stars were the stars of that part of the show. There were slow dances, too, and neither me, Lucas nor Eric wanted to have to police them. The room was pretty dark, and, since a bunch of teenagers slow dancing is a really boring shot, the cameras weren’t rolling, so we decided to let the kids put their hands where they wanted. From what I did see, none of them were doing anything anyone in his right mind could complain about anyway.
I’m pleased to report that the kids behaved well, not that I expected either Jacob or Matteo would have friends who’d make any real trouble. They didn’t get their hands on any age-inappropriate substances, and, while Lucas did catch two of Jacob’s classmates making out under the patio and broke them up, that was pretty much the worst thing we had to police. The party was scheduled to break up at 11:00, and most everyone stayed to the end, which is always a sign that a party was a hit. At the end of the evening, Morticia and Gomez handed out some fancyass trick or treat bags to the departing guests. I’m sure the chocolate that the kids got was delicious, but I’m not sure it was really necessary.
Jacob was very gentlemanly in his goodnight to Lauren, while Matteo came in for Maya’s disapproval when he showed signs of wanting to be less gentlemanly when saying good-bye to Evelyn. Then Jacob hurried upstairs while Matteo stuck around to watch the crew decide to take down the lights and decorations on Monday. Belen and a sobrina of hers who comes to lend a hand when we’re having parties cleaned up the paper plates and soda cups pretty quickly, and the whole thing was a memory by midnight.
“Hunter,” Maya then said, “I have to ask…do you have a plan for getting all that off?”
I probably looked as clueless as I felt.
“Glitter is very hard to wash out,” Maya said, “especially from your hair. I don’t want you ruining good towels with the body makeup, so let me get you some old ones from the linen closet upstairs. I’ll give you some makeup remover pads, too. I’m sure a lot of the stuff Tony used on you is waterproof, and your regular cleanser won’t get it off. Trust me when I tell you you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
Maya led the way upstairs and loaded me up with towels and washcloths that looked nothing like what we’d have called old towels back home. She also gave me a whole package of makeup remover towelettes. On my way back downstairs, I knocked on Jacob’s door to say good night since he’d rushed off as soon as the party was over.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me, cowboy.” I opened the door a crack. It was dark inside, so I figured Jacob was already in bed. “I just wanted to say good night.”
“Good night, Hunter. See you in the morning.”
I was thinking I could ask him if he had a good time, but he didn’t sound interested in a late night chat. Matteo still had his lights on and door open. He was clearly still hyped up from the party, but he was on his phone (probably with Evelyn), so I just mouthed good night and took my towels downstairs.
Lucas and Eric were still in the hall when I got there.
“I thought y’all went home a while ago.”
“We’re still here because we’re good friends…and you’re an imbecile,” said Lucas.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dude, your back is covered in makeup and glitter. How do you plan to get it off by yourself?”
I clearly hadn’t thought the getting out of the costume process through at all lol.
So the three of us headed across to the poolhouse. It didn’t matter anymore, but the rain had stopped. It was also fuckin freezing to be running around wearing nothing but tights and body glitter.
“You know, man,” said Lucas when were warm indoors again, Eric should get some shots of us trying to get all that shit off you. It’d make a good end to the episode. I’m sure people are gonna wonder how you got the makeup off.”
“Did Ethan put y’all up to that?”
“I’ve been working in TV long enough to come up with my own ideas.” He got out his own phone. “Let me get a couple pictures of you first, before you destroy Tony’s masterpiece.”
“Remember my No Speedo clause covers filming me in less than a Speedo too.”
“No worries, man,” said Lucas. “You’ve already given that gay fanbase of yours images beyond their wildest dreams tonight. I don’t think they could handle your bare ass after that.”
I soon discovered that taking tights off is harder than putting them on. I realized I was going to need to sit down to get them off, but I didn’t want to sit on any of the furniture because I didn’t want to get glitter on it. Lucas came up with a good idea when he said I should use the seat in the shower. The next problem was where to put the tights, which were dripping glitter even though they were now damp as well. Eric put one of the “old” towels down on the bathroom floor and I dropped the tights, socks and dance belt on top of it.
Eric started recording with a shot of the pile on the floor before panning up towards the shower and me getting into it.
Lucas was right behind me, still in his orange jumpsuit. “Dude, you getting into the shower wearing that?”
“It’s probably waterproof,” Lucas said, “but, yeah, you’re right.” He needed Eric’s help getting out the jumpsuit, but eventually I had the shower running and we were ready to get started un-Pucking me.
“Fuck, man – that’s cold!”
I told y’all a long time ago that I prefer long cool showers. Lucas doesn’t. Since we were going to be in there for a while, and hot water would probably be better than cool at cutting through all those coats of setting spray I had on me, I let Lucas decide the temperature.
One of the coolest things about the poolhouse shower is that it’s got a whole bunch of showerheads pointed in different directions. Lucas was working to line them up with my back as best he could before he reached for my bottle of Nivea Men bodywash and a washcloth.
“Is it coming off?,” I asked after he’d scrubbed a while.
“Nope,” said Lucas. “You don’t think the body makeup could be waterproof, do you?”
“That would have been a shitty trick for Tony to play without telling me,” I said. “Maybe it’s just because of all the setting spray. You probably have to scrub harder.”
“I’m having trouble getting a good picture through the shower door,” said Eric, although the door was clear glass. “Think I can open it? Will Maya get pissed if we get water on the floor?”
“The floor’s tile and we’ve got plenty of towels to mop it up with,” I said. “Besides, if it’s for the show, she’ll think it was for a good cause. But, dude, remember: shoot only above my waist.”
“Yeah, and mine too,” added Lucas.
“They can always crop your asses out in editing,” Eric said with a slightly evil laugh.
I suspect me and Lucas had the same thought, and one of us probably would have turned the water on Eric if he hadn’t been holding his phone.
After another go at my back with a clean washcloth, Lucas said: “ok, this is whacked. How the hell is this stuff still staying on? The washcloths are covered in glitter and you look exactly the way you did when we started.”
Fortunately, me, Lucas and Eric all have good senses of humor, so we laughed a lot even though Lucas was scrubbing the skin off my back and somehow leaving makeup and glitter behind. Then I decided I’d work on my front for a while. That proved even harder, probably because there was even more glitter on my chest than there was on my back.
“Whoa,” said Lucas, looking at my stomach, “did Tony put makeup on your abs?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He said that they wouldn’t read like they usually do with all the dark makeup.”
“Either that or he was being totally gay,” said Lucas.
“Dude, when has Tony ever been anything but totally gay?”
“I think we’re starting to make some headway,” Lucas said, stepping outside to get me another washcloth. That big pile of not-so-old towels Maya gave me didn’t seem like overkill anymore. “Your torso is getting closer to the color of your legs. But I have some bad news for you, Hunter.”
“What?,” I asked.
“Your face has been in here with water spraying on it for at least 15…”
“20,” Eric chimed in.
“…20 minutes and it looks exactly the same as when we started. Even the jewel things haven’t moved.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. I took the shaving mirror I keep in the shower and looked at myself. Lucas wasn’t kidding. There was clearly going to be a lot more work to do once we finished getting my body back to normal.
Meanwhile, Lucas had gone to work on my hair. He had more bad news.
“Ok, none of the glitter is coming out. None of it.”
“Yeah, Maya said that was gonna be hard.”
At least I had plenty of shampoo, since I opened a new bottle of Haircare with Maya Shampoo for Normal to Dry Hair that afternoon. Maya’s Instagram says it’s extra gentle to your hair and scalp, but maybe she needs to think about adding a glitter removal formula to the line. I had to lather it up five times, and Lucas still told me it wasn’t all out. So I tried again another two times before giving up. I was in the shower for over half an hour, the hot water was running out, and I was starting to look like a prune.
After that much time, at least the glue from the jewels on my face was starting to come loose, and I found a few of them in the fancyass drain they put in during the remodel. There was also a ton of glitter on the shower floor, which created a problem for both me and Lucas when we got out, since it was all over the soles of our feet, too. Eric made sure to get a shot of us wiping them frantically on another of Maya’s towels. The way he was thinking about how to tell a story in images made me wonder if his talents were being wasted at the podiatrist’s office lol.
I usually wash my face in the shower, so I gave my regular cleanser a shot before climbing out, just to see what would happen. I understood why Maya gave me those towelette things when I saw myself in the big mirror. My body looked more or less back to normal, but my face looked like I was a drag queen who got caught in the rain. I noticed that my eyelashes still had the blue glitter on them (Matteo told me that Evelyn had told him that the blue glitter made me look “dreamier than usual”), so that was the first thing I attacked with the towelettes. I also had a ton of eye liner on the inside part of my eyelids, and that really was a bitch to get off. After I’d gone through like ten towelettes and stuck myself in the eyeball several times, it still wasn’t completely gone. I decided that, for the rest, I’d ask Jacob what he did to get rid of his Harry Styles guyliner when I saw him in the morning.
All in all, it took the three of us well over an hour to get me back to looking like I usually look. I knew there was still some glitter in my hair, but, by that point, I was tired and so I just said fuck it. All I wanted to do was get into bed and sleep until it was time to get up for church.
Wanna take a wild guess at what was all over my pillow and the sheets the next morning?
Glitter.
