Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (33 page)

“That was priceless,” Rob managed to say, wiping tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands. “Someone should promote that sheep to president of the network.”

Backstage, my cheeks still hurt as I hid in the shadows while my video introduction played. I hastily regretted not telling my parents before the show began that the bit about my hospital visit had all been invented by the producers. When I stepped into the spotlight, I took a deep breath and assured myself that the worst of what could happen that night on stage had already happened. There was a chance that Robin had recruited the same stagehand who’d unhinged Tia's train track to mix some offensive photos into the sequence that was being projected on the screen behind me as I sang. I didn’t dare look over my shoulder at the holiday photos even once.

Instead, I found myself imagining that I was singing directly to Elliott, as if we’d never gotten into a fight, assuring him that we’d always spend Christmas together in the future. As I reached the end of the song, I glanced up at the monitor next to the teleprompter, which displayed the live broadcast. On it, the camera cut to Elliott standing off to the side of the stage, waiting for his turn.

From the angle at which the camera captured him, he looked forlorn. The way he was staring at me longingly on the monitor made me impulsively turn toward the side of the stage to search for him behind the curtains with my own eyes. For once, he didn’t shy away when our eyes met. I missed his affection so much that my chest ached, and wanted somehow to communicate that with my voice but then remembered that trickle of laughter I’d heard coming from his hotel room. I looked back out over the audience to hit my final note and thought I spotted my parents in the first row.

Then it was over, and the screen behind me on which all of the photos that viewers had shared with the show’s marketing team retracted back up into the rafters. I lingered on the other side of the stage opposite from Elliott as Danny Fuego introduced his video segment. A video crew had followed Elliott to traffic court, where he presented himself before a judge about the unusual number of parking tickets he’d racked up in the past few weeks. One of those parking tickets was probably the one he’d gotten the night we’d gone to Milk together, I thought glumly. “Parking in Los Angeles is a lot trickier than back home,” he complained to the camera. “The street signs are like riddles.”

Women in the audience swooned as Elliott sang the Elvis Presley tune
“Blue Christmas.”
I wondered if the producers had intentionally assigned him the only Christmas-themed break-up song I could think of to make me feel bad. Perhaps it was their intention to encourage every girl in America who was already dedicating her free time to torturing me about Elliott on social media to hate me even more. Elliott had obviously gone along with the ridiculous video segments, but one way or another he’d convinced the producers to keep his feature rooted in the truth.

Laura’s video segment had been shot on location at one of the horse ranches up in Burbank. It suggested that one of her horses back home in Texas was ill, and the veterinarian was probably going to have to put poor Chestnut to sleep before Laura returned from Los Angeles. Laura’s father was adamant that she remain on the show to pursue her dream.

Both Tia and Laura delivered admirable performances. We’d reached a point in the season when talent no longer influenced the voting. Everyone still in the game had already proven that they had a great voice. Viewing audiences were voting entirely on affinity by December, whether it was for Robin’s knockout body, Tia’s story of assimilation into American culture as an immigrant, or whichever side of the lovers’ quarrel between me and Elliott they were taking. By the time we were led back out onto the stage for the Expulsion Series, I had picked off all of the glittery red nail polish Geoffrey had painted on my fingernails earlier that day.

“Robin,” Danny said warmly, in a tone insinuating that what had happened on stage with the sheep just a few hours ago was already an old joke between them. “You had a little competition from a scene-stealing co-star tonight.”

“I did, Danny,” Robin admitted happily. Her flaming-hot fury had been completely doused. “I told the sheep to act natural, and that may not have been the best advice.”

The producers would add in a laugh track at her joke before the Expulsion Series was made available online.
 
Robin had earned just a few more votes than Tia. I noticed that Tia didn’t clap very enthusiastically for Robin when her numbers were announced. She may have been the sweetest of all the contestants, but wasn’t completely naïve. The train track didn’t unhinge itself.

After Danny had tallied all of our votes, I breathed an enormous sigh of relief. I was still in second place, only ten thousand votes behind Elliott.

“Ian.” Nelly leaned toward her microphone at the coaches’ table once all the votes had been revealed. Ian stepped forward, and although his back was to me on the stage, I could see his face on the live broadcast monitor hanging overhead. He smiled tenderly at Nelly with gratitude, knowing that his time was up. “It’s been such an absolute pleasure having you on my team this season. You are enormously talented, and such an all-around terrific guy.”

“Thank you, Nelly,” Ian said, his voice quivering.

“I’m going to miss you.”

Ian was a lot cooler about being voted off the show in the first round of the semi-finals than Laura. When it was her turn, her shoulders shook with sobs the entire time Chase described how much she’d grown as an artist on his team. And besides, Chase pointed out, now she would be able to return to Texas and spend her horse Chestnut’s final few days with him. His point made me wonder if there really was a Chestnut or if the sick horse story had been the handiwork of the producers, just like the fabrications they’d created for the rest of us. If the segment was pure fiction, Laura probably regretted ever agreeing to let the show produce it. The idea of losing a beloved animal was gut-wrenching; viewers may not have voted for Laura because they
wanted
her to go home and console Chestnut.

It was an emotional night, and I figured that the following Friday was going to be pure terror considering that the only contestants who would return to the stage were Elliott, Tia, Robin, and myself. Only one of us would be voted off in the next Expulsion Series. The remaining three would battle it out on the season finale.

“Allison! Why didn’t you tell us that you passed out at the studio! When did this happen? You should have called us immediately so that we could have taken you to see Dr. Walters!”

Mom called me as soon as the show aired in Los Angeles when I was on the mini-bus bound for the hotel. I twisted my body toward the window and covered my other ear so that I could hear my mother’s voice better. “Mom, calm down. I don’t need to see a doctor.”

“Your father and I are very upset. I’m going to call that woman Claire with the production company and yell at her for not contacting us when you fell unconscious during production. You’re a minor! They have an obligation to keep us informed about your welfare.”

I sighed, pretty sure my explanation was only going to baffle my parents. “I never passed out, Mom. The producers made the whole thing up.” I hoped Elliott couldn’t hear me.

“Why would they make something like that up?”

I gave her the same explanation that Claire had given me: to increase tension on the show. To keep viewers hooked. Not surprisingly, Mom was outraged.

“Allison, I don’t even know what to say. Don’t you think it was misleading to let people watching the show think that our family’s compassionate diet was detrimental to your health?”

I
did
feel guilty. As a little kid, I’d been embarrassed to be the only one at lunchtime who had banana chips and homemade baked kale in her lunchbox instead of bags of corn chips and snack cakes. Although I occasionally indulged in treats like ice cream sandwiches, I greatly respected my mom’s belief that we had a responsibility to treat the planet and all of the living creatures on it with kindness. I could have used my position as a contestant on the show to educate viewers about why my family chose not to eat meat. Instead I’d accompanied the crew to Cedars Sinai and allowed Geoffrey to make me look ill with makeup.

“I don’t know. I guess,” I murmured.

“Then why did you go along with such nonsense?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. No one had forced me. The more I thought about it, the more evident it became that Claire had coaxed me into it. Her assurance that Robin was complying with the producers’ plans had made me assume that Ralph’s crew would think I was a difficult brat if I refused. Of course,
now,
after the fact, I desperately wished I had stuck to my guns and insisted on a feature about me and my mom at Levity.

Saturday morning, no fewer than forty bouquets of flowers were delivered to the concierge desk at the Neue Hotel from fans wanting me to get well soon. Every time I returned to my room on the fourth floor after fetching a bouquet of irises or roses, the concierge called me again within minutes to inform me that yet another delivery had arrived downstairs. On one of my trips down to the lobby, I crossed paths with Elliott, who was on his way to the pool.

“Feeling better?” he asked me suspiciously. He didn’t wait for my reply, he just swung his towel over his shoulder and exited through the doors leading to the pool area. My eyes lingered on his bare, pale shoulders and the sinewy muscles I saw shifting in his back as he walked.

In the elevator back up to the fourth floor, I deeply inhaled the smell of the Gerbera daisy and mini carnation arrangement I’d just retrieved, realizing how lucky I was considering what had happened to Laura. If viewers had believed I was
really
sick, they might have voted me off so that I’d get medical attention. My gullibility that week had almost been the end of me. There were only two weeks left in the season and I couldn’t afford to be duped into any of the producers’ ridiculous schemes again. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to win anymore if I had to keep going along with these absurd plots for ratings in order to do so. But I didn’t want to lose, either, which felt like being sandwiched between two brick walls that were slowly closing in on me.

The eleventh week of the season was a completely different format than the previous ten episodes. Since there were only four of us left, the broadcast on Friday night would feature fifteen-minute documentaries about each of us. On Monday morning, instead of reporting to our respective dance studios for exercise, Robin, Elliott, Tia and I were summoned to a meeting with Mark, the show’s director. I knew the moment I entered Tommy’s office that this upcoming broadcast was a serious matter. Tommy had a ton of paperwork on his desktop and Susan DeMott sat with her legs primly crossed at the small table near the window.

“We’re down to the final two episodes now, and this week we’re focusing on you guys, your stories,” Mark explained. Obviously, what he really meant was
our
stories, but told in Tommy and Susan’s words. Like longer versions of the ridiculous videos that had been produced the week before. “We want to show the audiences at home where you’ve come from, and where you’re going.”

For Tia, that meant an impromptu trip home to Miami to tape footage with her family and friends. When Mark said, “There’s mobile crew waiting in the lot to take you to the airport,” she hopped up on her feet, excitedly threw her arms around his neck, and did a little jig as a high-pitched squeal leaked out of her. She was escorted out by a production assistant, and the energy in the room fizzled out.

Robin’s documentary was going to be about her rigorous ballet training as a child, and how painful bursitis had brought an end to her dream of becoming a professional dancer. To fulfill one of her lifelong goals, she would be taped dancing a role in
The Nutcracker
along with the Los Angeles Ballet at UCLA that Thursday night. I’d given up on trying to tell if Robin’s emotional reactions to anything on the show were genuine or forced. But her eyes flooded with tears, and her voice cracked as she responded, “Oh my God.”

She would have to be fitted for a costume and rehearse the routine along with the ballet troupe, starting immediately. “There’s an SUV outside to take you to the dance studio,” Mark informed Robin. “A camera crew will be joining you.”

Then just Elliott and I remained. Mark fixed his gaze on Elliott. Our director was in full Hollywood mode, presenting his ideas with jazz hands and a television announcer’s voice.
 
“Elliott, we’d like to fly you to El Paso for a reunion with your father. He and his wife are very excited to reconnect with you—”

“No,” Elliott abruptly interrupted him. “No way.”

The temperature in the room dropped. I shifted in my seat, wishing I was anywhere but there. The expressions worn by Tommy and Susan revealed that they had
not
been expecting Elliott to decline Mark’s suggestion.

“Now, you have to understand, Elliott, the audience wants to know more about you. They want to see something they haven’t seen before,” Mark tried to justify his outrageous request.

“Never gonna happen.” Elliott shook his head. For once, he looked Mark right in the eye.

Tommy cleared his throat, erroneously thinking that he’d be able to change Elliott’s mind with a sugar-coated plea. “Elliott. Come on. This is a huge night of television in America. We’re down to the last two episodes. Your fans are dying to know more about you. You owe it to them to let them see a little more of your story.”

Elliott sat up straight in his seat as if he was getting ready to make a run for it.

Susan chimed in, “Whatever history lies between you and your father, this is a chance to bury the hatchet and spend a few nights at a fancy hotel. Whadya say, champ?”

Elliott’s chest rose and fell, and he said in a flat, serious voice, “Let me make this perfectly clear. I’m not getting on any planes, and I’m not dealing with that guy.” He stood up from his chair and paced around the office as if he were trying to shake off the urge to punch someone. “You’re gonna have to think of something else.” He threw the door open with such force that the knob hit the wall on the outside of Tommy’s office. The framed posters from past seasons hanging on the wall shook upon impact. But Elliott didn’t stick around to be reprimanded for his outburst. He stormed off.

“Did that leave a dent?” Tommy called out through the open doorway to the administrative assistant sitting at the desk outside.

I squirmed in my chair with the metallic taste of hatred in my mouth. I hated all of them right then… Tommy with his cheesy pinky ring and sport coat with its elbow patches, his smooth-voiced bullying tactics. Mark and his transparent big-brotherly enthusiasm intended to motivate us when all he really cared about was raking in the ratings for Tommy. Susan and her spinelessness, always eagerly agreeing with everything Tommy said. She sighed deeply and tilted her head at Tommy to suggest that their jobs were just
so
difficult.

“Okay, maybe not,” Mark said in an irritated voice. “What’s with that guy, anyway?”

“I’ll have Chase work on him,” Tommy said, waving off Elliott’s reaction. His lips formed a smile as his eyes fell on me. “Allison. It is such a pleasure to have the cooperation of you girls at this point in the season.”

The muscles in my face attempted to pull my mouth into a weak smile but didn’t quite succeed. I resented being lumped into a category of
girls
as if I had anything at all in common with Robin. My mind was elsewhere; it was traveling down the hall behind Elliott, crossing the sunny parking lot, collapsing inside his trailer. So many weeks had passed since the night of the fire alarm that I doubted he’d even want my concern if I offered it.

Before Mark proposed his idea for my video segment, my shoulders tensed up as if I were bracing for a punch. “So, for Allison,” Mark began cheerfully, “We have all this great footage from one of her friends who’s an aspiring filmmaker.”

The memory stick from Lee. I had a vague memory of Lee passing the video biography he’d edited to Ralph in my living room back in September. It had never occurred to me that Ralph might have shared it with the show’s producers. Mark’s eyes were lively with excitement about whatever he’d cooked up for me. “And you guys know about the secret show at the Fonda Theater?”

I didn’t know anything about a secret show, but Tommy and Susan acknowledged Mark with nods. For my benefit, Mark explained, “All or Nothing is doing a secret show Wednesday night in Hollywood under the name
For the Kids
. We thought we’d open the show with a video sequence of the bio your friend edited. Then have you come out on stage as the opening act since this is your hometown and that kid in the band thinks you’re cute. Your fan base in Los Angeles is huge. The kids at the show are gonna go nuts.”

It felt like there was a brick in my stomach, slowly pulling me down to the bottom of an imaginary pool. Mark’s words were fuzzy. He was offering me a chance to meet and open for All or Nothing. It was the element of the grand prize that I wanted more than anything, and I could have been doing it in fewer than seventy-two hours. As if that wasn’t tempting enough, it was an opportunity for Lee’s work to be projected in public and on national television, which he could put on his application to USC. It was simply perfect. It was the singular opportunity that the show had offered me all season to do something that I honestly
wanted
to do—but my chest felt so heavy I could barely say the word…

“No.”

Once the word came out of me, hanging in the air over Tommy’s desk, time seemed to stop. Mark, Tommy, and Susan all stared at me for a moment of uncomfortable silence. Someone’s mobile phone buzzed. I heard the distant sound of a car engine starting in the parking lot. Then, Tommy chuckled and said, “What do you mean,
no?”

My mouth twisted as it occurred to me that whatever I said next would ultimately determine whether or not I had a shot at winning the following Friday night. Depending on what I said, I might be sent home
that
Friday, even before the season finale. But I didn’t care. Even if I won the record contract and chance to tour with the band, I would have hated myself if I went along with their plan and didn’t stand up for Elliott.

“I mean… no. I’m not doing it. If you don’t come up with a different idea for Elliott, then I won’t cooperate either,” I stated. I stood on wobbly legs.

“Allison,” Susan began, sounding like she was about to reprimand me for being completely unreasonable. “Think about this for a second. Elliott’s a big boy! You’re under no obligation to negotiate on his behalf.”

I gathered all of my courage and said, “It’s not cool that you want to make him see his father. If you give him a better option, I’ll do whatever you want.”

It was quiet in my trailer, as it always was. I stretched out on my couch and watched gold flecks of dust dance in the rays of sunlight that slipped in through the blinds on the trailer’s windows. My heart hurt. I wished I could have been home in my bedroom instead of on the lot. I was sure that at any second, there would be a knock on my door and Tommy and Susan would be there, wanting to talk some sense into me. The scene in Tommy’s office replayed in my head about fifty thousand times. Maybe I’d just made the stupidest mistake of my whole life.

I’d just blown my chances of having the romance of the century with Nigel O’Hallihan and spending the rest of my life touring the world. Nicole, Kaela, and Michelle would have freaked if I’d been able to get them tickets to a secret All or Nothing show. I’d compromised a huge favor to Lee in exchange for—what? Wanting to impress a guy who didn’t care about me at all. For the last week I’d worried myself sick that Robin’s pranks would foil me, but in the end, my own silly, unrequited crush on Elliott was what was going to get me kicked off the show.

I longed to be a stoic rebel and remain locked in my trailer until the producers of the show realized that I was on strike, but by lunchtime my hunger got the better of me. The atmosphere at Da Giorgio had changed a lot since the start of the season. Of the
Center Stage!
contestants and crew, I only saw a handful of stylists eating together, and Tia sat alone in a corner next to a giant potted tree. Several other shows had started production since the beginning of the season, and bright-eyed hopeful contestants of a dance competition show all sat together. It was still early enough in their production cycle for them to all be friendly. I hoped they enjoyed the camaraderie while it lasted. After the holidays when their show began to air, they’d probably be at each other’s throats just like we were.

I walked to my afternoon lesson with Harvey, wondering if he’d even be waiting for me in the rehearsal room since Robin was all the way in Westwood meeting with a ballet company. Presumably I, too, would have been elsewhere at that hour if I’d agreed to Mark’s proposal. Not surprisingly, the rehearsal room door was locked and through the glass pane I could see that the room was dark; no one had ever raised the window shades that day. I imagined Harvey and Bobby driving down the Pacific Coast Highway together in a top-down convertible, laughing gleefully to have an afternoon off from their
Center Stage!
responsibilities.

Well, this was unexpected. I was stuck on the lot and all on my own. For the first time all season I didn’t have a song to practice, and the producers might have considered it a declaration of war if I asked the receptionist at the front desk to call a car service to take me back to the hotel. It was as good an option as any to return to my trailer and get started on the final exams my teachers had already e-mailed to me. That way, at least the producers couldn’t accuse me of mutiny.

As I wove through the cluster of trailers, I almost tripped over my own feet when I saw Chase Atwood leaning against the trailer that Christa and Liandra had shared back in September. He was casually lighting up a cigarette, and before I could duck behind another trailer to avoid having an extremely uncomfortable conversation with him, he saw me.
 
“Hey there, Allison,” he said with a wave. “Dynamite job you did on Friday night. I was proud of you.”

“Thanks,” I said,
really
not wanting to discuss the events of the previous week with him. I’d never seen him smoke before, but it was hardly shocking since Chase Atwood seemed to excel at keeping secrets.

He studied me for a moment, and I could tell that there was a storm of thought brewing in his head. “Tell your parents that I appreciate them welcoming Taylor on Thanksgiving the way they did. That was mighty kind of them. This year has just been constant upheaval for her, and I’m sure it meant a lot to her to spend the holiday in a place she considers her second home.”

I forced a smile and replied nervously, “Sure, I’ll tell them. But it’s not a big deal. Taylor is welcome at our house, whenever.” My brain sent a message to my feet to keep on walking, but I got the sense that Chase had more to say to me. My feet refused to move.

“Sometimes, Allison,” Chase began, and he paused to select his words carefully as he took a long, deep drag on his cigarette, “you find yourself right at the heart of a mess of your own making. You think you know what you want. You push yourself harder than you even thought possible to manifest that dream and make it happen. And then you find yourself in the middle of livin’ it, realizing that it’s all wrong. You just can’t keep it going. Sometimes our wildest dreams are worse than any nightmare when they come true.”

I wasn’t sure if Chase was talking about my situation on the show or his marriage to Jill and entanglement with Nelly. It was a mystery why he’d chosen me, of all people, in whom to confide. I’d been thinking very similar thoughts that morning when I woke up in a hotel suite crammed with bouquets of flowers and
Get Well Soon
helium balloons from well-wishers. Only, Chase was doing a better job of putting my feelings into words than I could have done.