The morning after the hospital visit, Catherine Zeta-Jones found herself pacing her Milsons Point apartment like a caged tiger in silk pyjamas. The harbour glittered below, Luna Park’s painted grin seemed to mock her with its frozen mirth, and somewhere in the distance, a ferry horn blared its indifference to her spiralling thoughts.
She had a plan. It was, she admitted to herself, not a good plan. But it was *a* plan, and that was more than she’d had yesterday.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Gaga: “I’ve procured the equipment. It’s very avant-garde. Also I may have accidentally adopted another cockatoo. Unrelated.”
Another buzz. Rihanna: “I’m bringing more muffins. These ones are kale-flavoured. They’re terrible. Perfect for motivation.”
Cath took a deep breath and dialled Barry’s number. He answered on the third ring, his voice cautious. “Ms. Zeta-Jones? Is everything okay? Did another pipe burst?”
“Barry,” she said, her voice dripping with the kind of honeyed urgency that had launched a thousand romantic comedies, “you need to come over. Immediately. It’s urgent.”
“What’s wrong? Is it the east wing again?”
“Worse,” Cath said, her mind racing. “It’s… it’s a blockage. A serious blockage. You said you had experience with blockages, didn’t you?”
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There was a pause. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I’m not sure I like where this is going.”
“You said there was some blockage you had to get rid of!” Cath pressed, her Welsh accent thickening with desperation. “You told me that! At the hospital! You said you wanted to fix things!”
“I meant my… my funnel,” Barry hissed, lowering his voice as if his neighbours might be listening. “Not an actual blockage. What are you talking about?”
“Yes,” Cath said smoothly, “it’s in your body. The blockage. We need you to lose twenty pounds.”
Silence. Then: “What?”
“It’ll fix your downstairs dysfunction,” Cath continued, as if explaining something perfectly reasonable. “It’s science, Barry. Or medicine. Or something. No rush… but hopefully by the end of the day.”
“By the end of the day?” Barry’s voice cracked. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I think that’s impossible.”
“That’s what you think, Barry,” Cath said, and she could hear the smile in her own voice now, the confidence of a woman who had access to things ordinary mortals could only dream of. “We’re celebrities. We have access to things that commoners don’t. Have you heard of Dr. Phil?”
Another pause. “Yes. I have.”
“Oh.” Cath’s confidence flickered. “Well, it was bound to leak out eventually. Anyway, there’s a new thing for weight loss. It’s called… exercise. I’ve never actually done it myself, but I have heard of it. Apparently it’s very effective. Gaga’s bringing the equipment.”
“The equipment?”
“She wouldn’t specify. She just said it was ‘avant-garde’ and that she may have adopted another cockatoo. Unrelated, apparently.”
Barry made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I’m a plumber. I fix pipes. I don’t… I don’t do exercise.”
“Neither do I, Barry. Neither do I. But here we are.”
An hour later, Barry stood in Catherine Zeta-Jones’s living room, staring at what Lady Gaga had assembled. It looked like a cross between a medieval torture device and an art installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art. There were pulleys. There were resistance bands. There was something that might have been a stationary bicycle, if bicycles were designed by someone who had only had them described to them over a bad phone connection. And there was, inexplicably, a trapeze.
“What…” Barry began.
“It’s a holistic fitness journey,” Gaga said, her voice reverent. She was wearing a leotard made of what appeared to be recycled wetsuits, adorned with a live blue-tongue lizard that blinked lazily from her shoulder. “I call it ‘The Funnel Method.’ Trademark pending.”
“The what now?”
“It’s about flow,” Gaga explained, gesturing dramatically. “About unblocking. About releasing what no longer serves you. Also there’s a lot of sweating.”
Rihanna emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of muffins that were suspiciously green. “I brought kale muffins. They’re disgusting. You’ll hate them. That’s the point.”
Barry looked at the muffins. He looked at the trapeze. He looked at Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was now wearing a tracksuit that probably cost more than his van and looking at him with an expression of manic encouragement.
“I think I made a mistake coming here,” he said.
“Nonsense,” Cath said, clapping her hands together. “Barry, listen. The doctor said your… your issue… could be related to circulation. Cardiovascular health. Stress. All of that. And what better way to improve all of those things than with a bespoke, celebrity-approved fitness regimen?”
“I thought you said you’d never exercised.”
“I’ve observed exercise,” Cath said, waving a dismissive hand. “From a distance. Mostly in movies. I did a boxing scene once. I was very convincing.”
“She was,” Rihanna confirmed. “I’ve seen it. Very convincing.”
Barry rubbed his face with hands the size of dinner plates. “So let me get this straight. You lied to me—again—to get me here. You told me I had a blockage. And now you want me to…” he gestured vaguely at the trapeze, “…do that?”
“Twenty pounds, Barry,” Cath said. “By the end of the day. It’s for your funnel.”
“My funnel is fine! I mean, it’s not fine, that’s the whole problem, but it’s not going to be fixed by—” he gestured at the trapeze again, “—whatever that is!”
Gaga stepped forward, her lizard shifting to her other shoulder. “Barry, I understand your scepticism. But consider this: the funnel is a metaphor. The blockage is a metaphor. The twenty pounds is a metaphor. And also literal weight. It’s both. It’s very postmodern.”
“I don’t know what postmodern means.”
“It means we’re all just… floating. On a rock. In space. And nothing matters except connection.” Gaga paused. “Also, I brought a smoothie. It’s green. It tastes like regret.”
Rihanna held up the kale muffin. “This muffin is your journey, Barry. It looks healthy. It smells terrible. But if you eat it, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something. Even if you haven’t.”
Barry stared at the three women—the movie star, the pop icon, the billionaire—and wondered, not for the first time, how his life had come to this. He was a plumber. He fixed pipes. He had a van and a tool belt and a mate named Dave who had once come out of a hospital with a different knee.
And yet.
And yet, these three absurd, beautiful, utterly ridiculous women had taken him to a doctor. Had sat with him during the interview. Had held his hand and given him muffins and told him he wasn’t broken. They had lied to him—twice—but they had done it out of some strange, misguided, deeply sincere desire to help.
He looked at the trapeze.
He looked at the green smoothie.
He looked at Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was watching him with an expression that was equal parts hope and terror.
“End of the day?” he asked.
“End of the day,” she confirmed. “No rush.”
“I’m not doing the trapeze.”
“Understood.”
“Or the lizard.”
“The lizard stays with me,” Gaga said, offended. “His name is Trevor.”
Barry took a deep breath. “Fine. Fine. I’ll do your celebrity exercise thing. But I’m telling you now: if I die, I’m haunting all three of you. Forever. And I’m bringing Dave.”
“That’s fair,” Rihanna said.
“Completely reasonable,” Gaga agreed.
Cath smiled, a genuine smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Welcome to The Funnel Method, Barry. It’s going to be terrible.”
“It always is,” Gaga said, “but that’s how you know it’s working.”
And somewhere in the distance, beyond the window, beyond Luna Park’s painted grin and the glittering harbour, a kookaburra laughed. Or maybe it was Trevor the lizard. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Barry himself, beginning—against all odds—to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could be fixed after all.