Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (26 page)

Elliott was right. The show was rigged. Not
completely
rigged; the audience votes still set the course for the show’s progress, but the producers very carefully kept it moving in the direction of their choice. I’d been worrying about Nelly for nothing. Well, not for
nothing,
because in my desperate attempt to outwit her, I’d created a social media buzz for the show unlike any other season had ever experienced. The realization made me feel nauseous because it meant that I’d been wrong to blow up at Elliott. It was inconsequential whether we had a genuine relationship or if the show’s editors were just constructing a storyline to make it seem like we were.

Right then, standing in the hallway of the Dolby Theater, I knew I had to figure out if Elliott’s interest in me was genuine, or just part of his larger strategy to win the grand prize.

Be proud of yourself,
I commanded myself inside my head on the bus ride back to the hotel. Christa’s sobbing in one of the furthest seats in the back was a serious distraction. It hadn’t occurred to me before, not even when I was videotaping my mail-in audition, that if I were to win on the show, everyone else would
lose.
I’d been sad when Brian was voted off, but he was the first of thirty-nine others who would all be sent home empty-handed by the end of the season. That meant that thirty-nine people across the United States would blame
me
for destroying their dream if I were named the winner. Even if I became rich and famous and ended up having a singing career that spanned decades, somewhere out there, former contestants on
Center Stage!
would still hate my guts. It was simply a part of winning, but a part that troubled me.

Later that night, I tried to explain my internal conflict to my mom. “I feel like I’m putting bad karma into the world by wanting to win so badly,” I admitted, trying to use terms she’d understand. Mom is big on karma and positivity.

“Wanting to win isn’t a bad thing,” she assured me. “Just think about all of the good things you could do in the world if you pursue your talent. There are a lot of well-known people who dedicate significant portions of their time to charity. In fact, if you wanted to come and sing at the party St. Ambrose is throwing at the Children’s Hospital, I’m sure the kids would be thrilled to meet you. The head nurse we’ve been working with tells me that the kids who are well enough to visit the TV Lounge watch the show every Friday night.”

For a split second an image formed in my head of myself singing in person for kids in hospital gowns and robes. I really, really wanted to tell my mother that I’d do it. But, of course, there was no way the producers would ever let me do something like that. The other contestants would have considered it a desperate attempt for favorable media coverage. It was easy to imagine Robin convincing the producers to fly her to some third world country with a camera crew to visit orphans so that we’d be even. “I don’t think the producers will let me,” I said glumly.

Mom sighed. “I know it hurts to be the target of jealousy, honey, but you could consider this an opportunity to challenge others to improve themselves.”

“You don’t get it, Mom. They all
hate
me.”

“That’s
their
karma, Allison. Everywhere you go in life there’s going to be someone who’s better than you at
something.
Smarter than you, funnier, prettier. You can either choose to celebrate their gifts or get angry at yourself for not having them. And if you choose to make yourself feel lousy for not being the best at everything, you’re going to spend a lot of your life feeling lousy.”

Elliott hadn’t been on the bus with us back to the hotel. Although I kept one eye on the parking lot until it got late, he never arrived in Chase’s Hummer, either. I hadn’t texted him back yet, but I longed to rectify whatever was left between us if I could. Maybe I couldn’t stand the thought of throwing the contest so that he could win, but I also couldn’t bear the thought of enduring another eight weeks of production without his affection. As far as I knew, there was no such thing as a cure for wanting a boy to kiss you.

The next morning, through my sheer drapes I saw a limousine pull into the parking lot. Christa rolled her suitcases out of the lobby, and her face was puffy from crying. She was bound for a different hotel in Hollywood, where she’d spend the weekend seething with hatred for me. On Monday night, she would appear as a guest on the Billy Hall talk show. Then she’d board a plane at LAX bound for Tennessee, probably hating me exponentially more.
 
Despite my mom’s pep talk, the thought of Christa simmering with disgust for me in Nashville for the rest of the season made me feel hollow.

That weekend, I was forbidden by Claire from leaving the hotel to attend Kaela’s Halloween party even though I insisted that there wouldn’t be any paparazzi, and my friends were trustworthy.

“Maybe you haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on across the internet,” Claire said, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned in the doorway of my hotel room early on Saturday morning. “But anywhere you go, photographers are likely to follow. We just can’t risk someone taking a picture of you that could be perceived as negative. And besides, there’s plenty to do here, at the hotel. Why don’t you watch scary movies with Elliott to celebrate the holiday?”

I reacted to that suggestion with a frown and a groan. “We’re not speaking.” Of all of the staffers on the show, I’d grown to trust Claire the most. Having no one else to talk to about my fight with Elliott, I admitted, “We got into sort of an argument, and he was right, but now I think it’s too late to fix things.”

Claire sighed like a babysitter who was trying to convince kids to brush their teeth and go to bed. “Allison, it’s not even the middle of the season yet. You should go up to the seventh floor and clear the air. You guys obviously like each other. You’re going to regret it if you let this go on for too long.”

All of my friends sent me images of their real-time trick-or-treating experience. I sat in my suite alone, attempting to console myself with reassurances that missing out on holiday fun was a small price to pay for future fame and success. I did yoga for the first time since moving into my suite. My primary inspiration was boredom, but I also guiltily suspected that my mother would have been horrified by how long it had been since I’d practiced my poses. A paper flyer taped to my door announced that the production assistants staying at the hotel and the other contestants were having a pizza party in one of the hotel’s conference rooms. I chose instead to catch up on homework.

On Sunday night, when I’d gone just about as long as I could stand without hearing Elliott’s voice, I was reminded of Claire’s advice. I worked up the nerve to walk up to the seventh floor and apologize for my behavior on the night of the fake fire. Taking the stairs, I reasoned, instead of the elevator, would give me ample time to reconsider just in case I changed my mind about trying to rekindle things with him. Instead of chickening out, as I ascended the steps I grew even more certain that I wanted to set the record straight. It was only fair. Elliott had been trying to warn me about the show’s devious production practices all along.

When I stepped onto the quiet seventh floor, I heard the distinct sound of female laughter emanating from one of the guest rooms. As I inched closer to Elliott’s room, 708, I became acutely aware that the laughter was coming from in
there.
Behind
Elliott’s
door. I froze mid-step and felt my eyes pop open comically in outrage. A girl! It couldn’t have been!

Like a true stalker, I actually put my ear to his door and listened. After a second, I jerked my head away. It would have been very, very bad if someone were to have seen me resorting to such an amateur spying tactic.

There was unmistakably a girl in there. The low rumble of Elliott’s voice said something indecipherable in response to her higher-pitched voice. A filmstrip of the faces of all the other female contestants on the show ran through my head as I tried to figure out the identity of his companion. Maybe she was the rocker chick from Tacoma who had dropped out of college to appear on the show, or the girl from Santa Fe who had been training as a classic opera soprano. Or maybe she was someone from Elliott’s hometown, perhaps the girl he’d crooned about in his audition song. The one who’d lied to him and broken his heart.

All of the processes in my body felt like they were slipping into sickening slow motion. My heartbeat slowed down. Elliott had a girl over in his room, and I didn’t need to hear him say the words to know the truth: someone had replaced me in his heart. In my suite, I threw myself down on my bed with every intention of crying, but the hurt was so deep that my eyes remained stubbornly dry.

Even though I’d thought Week Four was about as emotionally grueling as the competition could get, I was in for a steady stream of rotten surprises on Monday. In the cafeteria, one of the younger women in Group 3 paused at the table where I ate alone to ask, “Where’s your boyfriend?” in a snide voice. If the other contestants knew that Elliott was seeing another girl on the show, they were bound to torture me with that information.

Claire stepped into our voice coaching room after lunch, carrying her clipboard as if it were a defense shield. “I have some surprising news for you,” she said timidly. “Marlene is leaving the show, and we hope to have a permanent replacement for you as a vocal coach before the end of the week.”

My horror deafened me to the rest of Claire’s words. No one else in my group seemed particularly disturbed by the announcement. They all probably thought their odds of winning increased with Marlene’s departure since she’d made no secret of the fact that I was her pet pick to win. It seemed like Christa hadn’t been the only victim of my performance on Friday night. Nelly had found a way to punish me that hurt almost as much as getting kicked off the show would have. She removed the one person from my daily routine who believed in my talent.

Our challenge for the week was announced that afternoon. We would be singing ballads on Friday’s show. Marlene’s temporary replacement, a woman who professionally sang commercial jingles, tossed out a number of reasonable suggestions to me, but none of them felt right. I couldn’t focus; my mind kept wandering to an imaginary scene of the producers informing Marlene that the show no longer needed her services. I wondered what reason they had given her, and what her reaction had been.

By mid-afternoon, I had such an intense headache that I asked if I could be excused from vocal coaching to go to the production office and ask for a cab back to the hotel. Robin and Jarrett snickered as I stepped out of the room. They were delighted that all of their cold shoulder tactics were starting to break down my will.

In the hallway, the throbbing between my temples intensified under the fluorescent lights. I gripped the wall to steady myself. Just then, I saw a familiar silver head of hair exiting the production office down the hall. “Marlene!” I called, and practically sprinted to catch her before she left the studio.

“What perfect timing,” she said when she saw me. I wanted to throw my arms around her and beg her not to go but had to remind myself that I was sixteen, and that kind of behavior would have been totally childish. “I stopped by the studio this morning to see if I could at least inform the group myself that I was leaving. But the producers thought it would be best if I didn’t.”

A lump formed in my throat, and I feared that if I asked her all of the questions I had, my voice would sound strangled and false. Marlene was supposed to help me switch to another coach’s team. She was supposed to help me win. “It’s not fair,” I managed to say without crying. “They’re only making you leave because of what I did on Friday.”

Marlene waved her hand to dismiss my suggestion. “Oh, no, Allison. It’s not your fault. I haven’t seen eye to eye with the producers since the beginning of the season. I only stuck around as long as I did because I wanted to be watching backstage the night you win.”

My chin wrinkled. The tears were close. “I don’t have a shot without your help.”

Marlene barked out a hardy laugh, a laugh that came from the bottom of her belly. “Now, that’s just not true. You’ve got more natural talent than any of these yucks. You’ve got a real gift, young lady. No matter what happens on this show, you’ve gotta know in your heart that you’re the best because you are. Believe me, I’ve been around this block a million times. There’s no prize or title that can turn you into a winner if you don’t believe in your heart that you deserve it.”

A tiny earthquake struck my lower lip. I wanted to thank Marlene for kicking my butt and making me work harder. For delivering on her promise to make me a better singer. For singling me out and seeing something special in me. But I couldn't force my lips apart; they were holding back a sob that desperately wanted to jump out of my body. Saving me from having to say anything, Marlene gave me a big bear hug, pulling me into the envelope of smoky-smelling perfume she wore. 

She handed me a silver envelope, and I would have sworn I saw her wipe a tear out of the corner of her left eye with the back of her hand. “I brought this today hoping that the producers would get it to you, but it’s a lucky thing we bumped into each other. Open it when you feel like the time is right. You keep it real, star material. I'm expecting great things from you, and I mean,
after
the season finale. You've got a future in this game if you want it."

“One more time, and softer at the start. Sadder.”

Nelly had taken
  
a distressing interest in personally coaching me that week, and had decided that I’d perform
“Total Eclipse of the Heart”
on Friday’s show. The song was so great it gave me chills, and internet research revealed that it had been an enormous hit. Which gave me reason to wonder… why had Nelly assigned a cool song to me?

On what was probably my thirtieth run through the song that afternoon, she stopped right as I was about to break into the booming chorus. “I can see your body tensing up. You’re storing all your energy in your abdomen, and it’s affecting your posture.”

I unintentionally huffed a little. “That’s how Marlene taught me to prepare for volume.”

“Well, I’m sorry to inform you, but you look like a professional weightlifter, straining to lift a dumbbell,” Nelly said with a flippant sigh. “You can hit those notes without digging too deep. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but the booking manager of The Grand Ole Opry is
real
hot to get you on that stage after this show wraps. So you need to improve your stage presence. Let’s try it once more, and this time, watch yourself in the mirror.”

The Grand Ole Opry? My technique for knocking Christa off the show had completely backfired.
 
Now, with Christa gone, there was nothing to stop Nelly from forcing my metamorphosis into her replacement. Bobby began playing the piano, and instead of starting on my cue, I just stood there, staring at my slumped shoulders in the mirror. “Sorry,” I said for Bobby’s benefit after his notes drifted to a stop. “I just need a second to prepare.”

“Come on, Allison. We haven’t got all day. I have four other contestants to coach this afternoon.”

Even though it was only the first week of the entire season that Nelly had done any actual coaching, she was certainly acting like a martyr about it. She never missed an opportunity to proclaim how tired she was or
how much
she was giving of herself to our improvement as artists. I blocked out Nelly’s voice and tried to imagine what advice Marlene would give me. I was pretty sure she’d tell me that I needed to power through that chorus with volume and emotion.

“I know, I know,” I mumbled apologetically. “Maybe I should just practice by myself for a while. It’s hard for me just to forget everything Marlene taught me and I don’t want to waste your time.”

This pushed Nelly’s buttons. “Marlene taught you how to 
sing
.
 
If Marlene knew anything about being a star, she would have been one a long time ago.”

Nelly was insulting Marlene and not me, but her bitter words stung just as badly as I imagined a snakebite would. I hung my head, not wanting the expression on my face to give away my disgust in the mirror.

“There are a lot of important things in this business Allison, and it may shock you to learn that having a fantastic voice isn’t necessarily one of them. We already know you can sing. Now, you have to start convincing everyone that you can sell records and pack concert arenas.”

I stepped into the hallway, my face blooming pink with anger.

On Wednesday, we were all wary when Rob, the production assistant, led us back to the studio’s main office building.
 
I knew something fishy was going on the second we walked in and Martha, the hair stylist who’d been at my house in September, waved at me from across the room.
 

Claire told us sheepishly, “Part of the narrative of the show is to reveal your progressive transformation into stars. In case you hadn’t already guessed as much, your first makeovers were intended to make you look a little less polished. Our hope was that if you lasted this long in the competition we could give you the Hollywood treatment.”

As I waited for my turn with my arms crossed over my chest, I wasn’t sure whether to be appreciative or enraged. I’d been on
national television
with a hideous haircut. The whole country probably thought I had no style sense whatsoever, and it was the producers’ fault! I imagined that Christa would be even more incensed when she watched the show on Friday night and realized that she’d missed out on the
real
glamor makeovers.
This
time,
the cameras were present as the stylists created our new looks. They captured Eunice’s delighted reaction in the mirror when Martha spun her around in the salon chair to reveal the new light brown braided extensions she’d added.

When it was my turn, and I took a seat in Martha’s chair, I couldn’t deny that I was excited, but concerned at the same time. So much of my hair had already been hacked off; I didn’t want it cut any shorter.

“Wow, they sure did a number on you,” Martha commented, fluffing my hair up to examine the length of the layers.

With sudden hope, I blurted, “Can I get extensions? They cut off too much last time.”

Martha ran her hands through what remained of my hair with a hesitant expression on her face. “Your hair is too fine. I’m afraid extensions will fall right out.” She pulled my hair back from my face, examining the shape of my head. “You’ve been killing it on the show. My husband and I have been watching all season. I had a feeling about you when we taped at your house back in September.”

Her compliment did little to put me at ease about the future of my hair until she continued, “I think we should do something gutsy with your hair. Let’s cut a bob and give you rainbow streaks.”

Rainbow streaks! My gut reaction was:
are you insane?
But after I imagined how it would look on television that Friday night, I nodded eagerly. “That would be awesome.”

Second-guessing my instantaneous agreement to such a drastic change, Martha cautioned, “Are you sure? It’ll be pretty bold.”

Bold was what I needed. I wanted a look that matched my voice and made me stand out more from the other contestants. I wanted to surprise Elliott and make him regret blowing his chances with such a wild, cool girl. I wanted to look like the kind of girl who would open for an All or Nothing concert. My heart fluttered with anticipation inside my rib cage. “Totally sure,” I promised her. I knew my mother was going to flip.

A black shawl was wrapped around my shoulders and snapped between my clavicles. My hair was washed in one of the black sinks at the back of the room. Martha gave me a scalp massage with her fingertips and knuckles that practically lulled me into a state of hypnosis before leading me back over to the salon chair. Just as she had combed my hair straight and was about to start trimming, Nelly appeared in the reflection of the mirror into which I was staring. She stood directly behind me, hands on her hips.

“I need Allison to look like a classic pop star,” Nelly said. “She could use a perm and maybe softer bangs around her face.”

My face scrunched in reaction to Nelly’s suggestion. I could visualize what Nelly was describing. I saw myself as if I were posing on the cover of a Country-Western CD, wearing huge earrings and a fringed cowgirl jacket just like
her
. To my horror, Martha nodded in agreement. “So take a little off around the sides, like this?” She pinched the hair on both sides of my face back between her fingers.

“No!” I practically shouted. “I
do not want
a perm. We just decided how to do my hair, and I like our plan better.”

Martha ran the idea past Nelly, who remained obstinate. “Look, Allison. I know brightly colored hair is probably all the rage at your high school, but teens in the Midwest and South East where our ratings are highest won’t vote for a teenager who looks punk rock.”

I remained unconvinced, glowering in the mirror.