Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (15 page)

I longed to close my eyes and drift off to sleep on the couch, but there was too much commotion in the room for that. The stylists had unpacked their makeup kits near the two tables with mirrors. One blew Christa’s hair out with a round brush, giving her bouncing, gleaming curls. She then clipped fake locks underneath it all to give Christa even
more
hair. It was getting closer, so much perilously closer to when we’d all have to step out onto that stage in front of a real audience and sing the cheesy theme song together. Only this time we’d perform without Erick reminding us of the steps. Once I was out on that stage performing the opening number, time was going to shift into warp speed and then it would be my turn to sing—
alone.

One of the stylists told me to fetch my outfit for the broadcast from the rack out in the hallway. I stepped out of the stiflingly warm Group 2 holding room and was surprised to find that the hallway had turned into a major thoroughfare. Production assistants hurried past, chatting on their headsets. Mark, the director, rushed past in his baseball cap and plaid flannel, followed by a stream of other guys wearing heavy tool belts, all talking at once. A glimpse down the hall revealed that the prep room for Group 1, Chase’s team, was just twenty feet down the hall across from ours. I imagined what might happen if Elliott stepped through that door. Seeing those turquoise eyes once more before I had to venture out on the stage alone would be some kind of good luck, I figured. I was so caught up in my little fantasy that didn’t notice until I was stepping back into the Group 2 prep room with my outfit on a hanger that the
wrong jacket
had sent.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. I couldn’t wear the wrong jacket on stage. The cropped one that had been sent made me look stumpy and childish. The thought of wearing it on stage made me feel sick to my stomach, and performing under those hot lights with nothing over my paper-thin black t-shirt was also out of the question. It was practically see-through, and I was wearing my most un-fancy, uncool bra. When I’d gotten dressed that morning, I never considered that all of America would probably see my underwear right through my shirt on television.
How could Aubrey have sent the wrong jacket?
I had specifically insisted on the
other
jacket with the studs, and she had
agreed
that it was a better choice.

My eyes darted around the prep room wildly. Everyone but Eunice and I
had changed into their “wardrobe selection” for the broadcast. The men looked far more stylish and hip than they had all week. Brian wore a leather vest, which made him look significantly less like a nerdy bookkeeper from Dallas. Jarrett looked like an actual hip hop star, wearing a black button-down asymmetrical shirt by Maison Martin Margiela and dress slacks he was trying not to wrinkle. A savage torrent of panic shook me. How was it possible that only
my
outfit had gotten messed up?

“Are you going to get changed, hon?” a stylist wielding a curling iron asked me. “It’s after three. We should get a move on your hair.”

“There’s a problem,” I said hoarsely. “Someone sent the wrong jacket. I can’t wear this one.” I couldn’t possibly perform wearing the shirt I'd put on that day, a threadbare t-shirt I’d gotten on Field Day during my freshman year at Pacific Valley. I would have sworn that I noticed Robin and Christa exchange smirks when they overheard me, but I didn’t pay their response any mind. The stylist assured me that she’d request a production assistant to fetch the right jacket. That made me feel a lot better, but I should have known there wasn’t any way someone was going to drive over from Studio City in less than an hour at the start of rush hour. But naïve and trusting fool that I was, I changed into my black t-shirt and jeans, and stepped into the boots. I sat down in the stylist’s chair so that she could apply a thick layer of foundation to my face.

By four o’clock, Marlene had joined us in the prep room to warm up our vocal chords. She’d brought with her a contraption that she explained was a portable facial steamer so that we could take turns inhaling steam before taking the stage. She guided us through some diaphragm stretches, singing scales up and down a few octaves, and some lip rolls. Our room had taken on a pungent odor of barbecue sauce, coffee, and fried hair thanks to the curling iron, and Jarrett opened one of the windows for a little fresh air. He turned back toward all of us with a blockbuster smile on his face and said, “Hey, guys. Come over here and take a look at this.”

We flocked to the window. A swell of noise from the crowd that had gathered below along Highland Avenue greeted us. This was the studio audience, people who had bought tickets online and had, from the looks of it, been lining up for hours. The line extended to the end of the block and wrapped around the corner. Some of the people in line looked upward at us with curiosity, but they had no idea that we were the contestants they’d paid good money to watch perform.

Although the show was being broadcast live from Hollywood at five o’clock, it would air first on the East Coast. A taped version would be broadcast in Los Angeles three hours later. The time periods for when each television viewing audience could vote was broken up by time zone. We’d be sequestered at the studio until eleven o’clock at night while the votes from the West Coast were tallied. The Expulsion Series would be taped that very night and put on the Center Stage! website, and the four contestants who’d been expelled would appear on the Billy Hall Late Nite talk show on Monday night.

Our moment of wonder was interrupted by a production assistant, who burst in with static blasting from his walkie-talkie to fetch us. “Alright, everyone. I need you to fall into formation for the opening act. We’re going to head backstage because we’re on in fifteen.”

On in fifteen.
My heart simultaneously swelled and sank. No one had brought my jacket to me. I had no choice but to take the stage in the ugly, snug-fitting one, at least for the opening act. Everyone else in Group 2 formed a single-file line in the order that Erick had dictated for the group dance performance. I lingered in the back, out of place, wringing my hands with worry.

“What’s the matter, star material?” Marlene asked, noticing that I was dawdling.

I explained how I had chosen a different jacket, but then how—bafflingly—the wrong one had been brought to the theater. Marlene pressed her lips together in a straight line. Something told me that she knew
exactly
how the wrong jacket had made its way to the theater.

“Wear whatever you’ve got for this opening number,” she commanded. “No one knows who you are yet, and you’ll just be a face in a crowd. I’ll take care of this.”

Marlene scurried out of the prep room. This time I was
certain
that Robin and Christa had been watching my conversation with her closely. Christa shrugged at me with a smile that was both angelic and threatening.

My entire body went cold with jitters as soon as we left the prep room. Group 1 made its way backstage alongside us, and out of the corner of my eye I scanned the line hoping to catch a glimpse of Elliott. Not that I especially wanted him to witness me wearing the hateful leather jacket, but I just needed to
see
him. I was curious about what kind of phony hipster outfit the stylists had selected for him. Had they gelled back his unruly mop of hair? Had he allowed them to put pancake makeup on his face to take some of the red bite out of his acne?

“I see you managed to avoid sequins.”

My limbs tingled at the sound of his voice. I turned to find him—Elliott—just a few feet behind me, lagging behind the rest of his group. He wore his usual shy smirk, along with what appeared to be his customary dirty skinny jeans and Jack Purcells with filthy soles. He’d resisted makeup although his hair looked like it had been moussed and twisted into a more organized disaster than its natural state. Someone had convinced him to wear a dark, denim button-down shirt, which looked freshly-ironed.

“No sequins,” I agreed, not wanting to reveal to him how much I’d come to treasure even the tiniest bit of affection from him in the course of just five days.

“Let’s get this mess over with,” he joked as we both stepped into the darkness of the backstage area. Our groups split off in different directions, and I didn’t dare allow my eyes to trail after him as he veered to the right.

The production assistant urged us all to be quiet, although we needed no urging. The studio audience was already filling in the rows of seats in the theater. I wondered if my parents had arrived and taken their seats yet in the area that had been roped off for families. My mind wandered over to Pacific Valley School. I imagined all of my friends crowding around tables in the cafeteria before I quickly remembered that they wouldn’t be watching for another three hours, when the show aired in Los Angeles.

Everything started happening super quickly. The theme song roared through the theater, and the audience responded with thunderous applause. Danny Fuego bounced past us all with a microphone headset attached to one ear. He welcomed the studio audience, as well as the at-home viewers. When he wrapped up his introduction with our cue, “…and I’m pleased to present this season’s
Center Stage!
contestants!” the production assistant waiting backstage with us emphatically motioned for us to move, move, move!

The lights lowered and shifted to a violet hue, and we sang the lyrics we’d committed to memory as we advanced out onto the stage in unison with the other groups. My lips seemed to move without any orders from my brain, and the song poured out of my throat. I visualized Erick St. John dancing in front of us and found that I didn’t even have to think too hard to remember the simple dance steps we’d learned. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed one of the television cameras that reminded me a little of the walking machines from
Star Wars
closing in on me. Somehow, I summoned a smile for it.

And then, in the blink of an eye, it was over. We froze in the final positions of our dance routine. The lights fell, the audience clapped, and product assistants hurried us off-stage. I hadn’t had time to think about my ill-fitting jacket, or search for my parents among the outlines of heads in the audience. It hadn’t even occurred to me to steal a peek at Elliott for whatever amount of enjoyment I would have gotten out of witnessing him dance.

Once we were back in the Group 2 prep room, tensions were high. The show was on a live commercial break, and as soon as it was over, Danny Fuego would welcome the very first contestant from Group 1 to the stage. We expected that Jarrett would be the first of us to take the stage because of the order we’d been assigned for rehearsals. He hunkered over the facial steamer in the corner to prepare himself. My mobile phone buzzed like crazy in my bag, but I ignored it. Exchanging text messages with Nicole and Lee would do little to calm my nerves.

“Alright, guys.” Rob, the evil production assistant, burst into our prep room carrying a clipboard and an armload of lanyards with laminated numbers clipped to them. “Here are your assigned numbers. Ian Jacobson, number two.”

Confusion and protest erupted in our room as the television monitor indicated to us that the commercial break was ending. “But we already have numbers,” Robin said defiantly with her hands on her hips. “We were given our order on Wednesday.”

“That was for
rehearsals,
” Rob explained impatiently. “These are your numbers for tonight. You have to perform in this order because this is how your video introductions have been arranged. No changes.”

Ian snatched his lanyard from Rob, and Jarrett hastily surrendered the steamer to him. Ian began dramatically huffing the steam. He didn’t have time to dispute the order; he’d be under the hot lights in fewer than five minutes.

I was handed the lanyard with #34 on it just as I noticed the lanyard with #14 dangling from Christa’s fingers. She stared me down with pure hatred in her eyes.

“I demand to speak to someone about this,” she barked at Rob. “Where’s Nelly? This isn’t how the show’s supposed to work!”

“Little lady, I’ve been working on this show for the last four seasons, and this is how it’s always worked in the past,” he informed her. “Jacobson! Let’s go.”

On the television screen, video footage of Contestant #1’s life back at home in Palo Alto, California was playing. One of her co-workers at a start-up digital company was telling the entire country, “All of us here at Car-Z have always known that Caroline’s going to be a star. She’s just that kind of girl.” The editors cut back to Chase Atwood, who was beaming at the coaches’ table.

Once Rob had pushed Ian out of the room and left us to quarrel among ourselves, I realized that I’d gotten my wish from earlier in the week. I’d be singing toward the end of the broadcast, exactly as Christa had suggested that typically the performers expected to win did. But I was still unconvinced that this meant the coaches or producers thought I had a higher than average shot at winning. After all, Robin would be singing sixth, the second from Group 2 to take her turn. She seemed completely unconcerned and continued stretching her arms and touching her toes, keeping herself limber as if she were about to do a gymnastics routine out on the stage. I shot Lee a worrisome text message informing him that kids from school should
not
cast votes for contestant #14.

We only paid attention when Ian sang because he was the first of us. During his video introduction, we gathered around the television in rapture and watched footage of Ian leading the
Center Stage!
location camera crew through his neighborhood in Brooklyn, past aluminum-sided row houses and into a bar where his band was warming up. His segment certainly suggested that he was already a bit of a local star back at home. Ian’s performance was pretty solid. He lost his rhythm only once and sang his absurd assignment with conviction, even though it was ludicrous that such a big, tough guy would be happy that it was raining men.