The Little Barmaid

by Holloway, Taylor

  Ursula hissed in her breath. Her eyes were wide, and she swallowed hard before answering me. “You’re lying.”

  I frowned. “Okay. Go ahead. Give the pictures to Clint and let my life get ruined. You’ll get to enjoy it for about five seconds before I release what I have to the press.”

  “But—” Ursula stuttered. I waved my hand to cut her off.

  But nothing.

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” I told Ursula. “Give me the pictures now or go down with Malcolm Dante. He’s toast either way. You don’t have to be.”

  “I can’t,” Ursula told me. Her eyes were wide and panicked. “Even if I wanted to, he’s too powerful. Crossing him isn’t an option.”

  I hid my laughter. “Crossing me isn’t an option either. And didn’t you hear me? He’s going down. You can join him, or not. I’ll give you my word that if you stop collaborating with him right now and give me the pictures, you’ll be spared from the media spectacle to follow. I promise.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t trust that.” She blinked. “I can’t trust you.”

  I shrugged at her. “Fine,” I told her. “Then we’ll all go down together. It’s a pity. It could have been only Malcolm.”

  I shook my head at her. That only left me with one thing, one plan, and it was nasty.

  Honesty. It’s what had been lacking all along.

  “Do whatever you need to do,” I told Ursula. “And so will I."

  47

  Derek

  I was lucky that I knew the theater. It made doing what I needed to do a lot easier and faster on short notice. As I was just finishing up cutting some wires, I heard the sound of the chorus girls arriving and turned to see Ariel and the others getting into position on stage to rehearse briefly before the performance began. We were going to be getting started in just a few minutes.

  Ariel looked at me and then away. She looked good today. I mean, she looked good every day, but especially today. The platinum blonde was gone. She’d redone her hair red somewhere between the time I saw her yesterday and now. Because the production was over, the studio couldn’t tell her what color to have her hair and she’d wasted no time. Her natural auburn hair looked much more like her than the blonde.

  I wanted to tell her that I was sorry. But I couldn’t. My plan relied, to some extent, on Ariel being surprised. So, I just nodded at her and walked away. I was shocked when she followed me into an empty hallway.

  “I just wanted to say goodbye,” she said. “I’m leaving right after this performance.”

  “You’re going home to Sacramento?”

  She nodded. “I have to. I can’t stay here anymore. I’m out of money and when the story drops, I’m going to be public enemy number one.”

  I swallowed. There was so much I wanted to tell her. An apology, for starters. But I didn’t because Mia, Ursula, and Holden appeared. They all looked worried.

  Right on time.

  “Holden!” Mia was saying urgently, “there’s something wrong with the equipment. We can’t play any of the music. Except for the microphones, everything is broken.”

  Holden shook his head. I didn’t have time to clue him in, but maybe it was better if he didn’t know. He’d never been the greatest actor. This way, his reactions were genuine. “We did a sound check this morning. You need to check it again.”

  “I did check it,” she said. “Nothing will turn on.”

  “Nothing?” Holden stammered. “The backups aren’t working either?”

  “Nothing works!” Mia said. “It was fine when we did the sound check, but now it’s not working. I already had the sound guy come look at it. He says he has no idea what’s going on. He says the rats might have gotten to it. It must have shorted out on the motherboard or something.” Her expression was panicked.

  I was, distantly, glad I slipped the sound guy a few hundred bucks. He said he could make up something that sounded plausible. Rats were plausible.

  Holden looked angry. “We don’t have time for this. The house is already full. We start in ten minutes.”

  Clint craned his head around the curtain to see how many people were waiting. “He’s right,” he reported. “There are a lot of people out there.”

  Holden nodded. “Yes, and they’re all press.”

  This was the first public look at the music and performances for ‘She Done Him Wrong.’ The studio had been hyping this day for weeks. They’d put the entire weight of their reputation and influence behind it. The idea that it might not go well had even Clint pale. After all, he was Edgar’s hand-picked successor. He needed things to go well if he ever wanted to end up in charge of the studio and he knew it.

  Ursula looked like she wanted to throw up. “We’re going to have to cancel,” she breathed. She pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a horrible headache. “I’m not feeling well.”

  Holden and Clint exchanged a look. “We can’t cancel,” Clint snapped. “It’s essential that this performance go well.”

  Clint probably knew the pictures of Ariel and I would hurt the film somewhat. It must be hard to be in his position. Not that I cared.

  “But we can’t perform if there’s no recording,” Ursula stammered.

  “Edgar is out there in the audience,” Clint said. “He’s been waiting for this.”

  “But there’s no recording,” Ursula argued. “We can’t perform without it.”

  “Why not?” I asked, shrugging my shoulders. “We’ve got everything we need.”

  Ursula stared at Ariel and then at me. “What?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Why don’t we just sing live?” I suggested. I turned to our choreographer. “Mia, you know how to play the piano. You did a ton of the accompaniment during rehearsals. I’m sure you could play the songs, right?”

  Ariel froze. Ursula looked like she wanted to faint. I grinned.

  Holden and Mia blinked at me.

  “Live?” Clint asked.

  I nodded. “Sure. We’ve got mics, right?”

  Clint exhaled in relief. “Good idea, Derek. A fully live performance will be even more enjoyable for the audience.” He paused. “Edgar will love it.”

  “We can’t,” Ursula stammered. “We can’t do it live.”

  Holden shook his head and put a hand on Ursula’s shoulder. “I know you don’t want to perform live,” he told Ursula, “but this is the only way. You’re going to have to perform live.”

  “My contract--” she stammered.

  Clint shook his head. “Your contract says that you’ll do everything necessary for the film’s success. That clause is going to trump anything else. You’re going to have to perform live.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “My, um, my throat is sore today.” She coughed unconvincingly. “I’m feeling under the weather.”

  Clint frowned at her. “Do your best,” he said. “The show has to go on.”

  “No,” Ursula said, shaking her head furiously. “My contract says I won’t ever have to sing live.”

  Clint stared at her as if in total disbelief. He was not a man that was used to being told ‘no.’ “Your contract says you’ll do your job. This is your job. Now get out there and sing.”

  “Why the reluctance?” I asked Ursula. “Is there some other reason you don’t want to sing live?”

  Ursula stared at me. She stared at Ariel. And then she folded.

  “I can’t sing.”

  Clint shook his head. “Did you not just hear me?”

  She looked at him, raising her chin up and swallowing her pride. “I can’t sing in general. I didn’t sing my own parts in the film. I was using a voice double. I was using Ariel.”

  Everybody looked at Ariel. She flushed red-purple.

  “Is this true?” Clint asked, looking confused. “We used a double?”

  Holden frowned. “Not knowingly.” He looked at me accusingly, as I obviously knew, but I just shrugged. I’d been sworn to secrecy.

  “You’re the one that sang all of Urs
ula’s songs?” Mia asked, looking Ariel up and down appraisingly.

  Ursula flinched. “Yes. But it doesn’t change anything. She’s been sworn to absolute confidentiality. The contract is ironclad and nobody needs to know that I wasn’t really singing all along.” She turned to Clint. “You just make her sing for me today. We’ll just do it the same way she did during the movie. She can sing out of sight and I can carry a microphone and lip sync. It’ll be just like in the movie. Nobody in the audience even needs to know.”

  Clint stroked his beard. “That could work.”

  “I’m not doing that,” Ariel said incredulously. “I’m not going to help you tell any more lies. I already fulfilled my end of the bargain. My work is done.”

  Clint frowned. “No, it isn't. You have the same clause in your chorus girl contract that Derek and Ursula do. You have to do whatever we tell you to do. If we want you to sing for Ursula today, you have to do it.”

  “I’m not your slave.” Ariel scoffed. “Fuck that.”

  Clint frowned. “The studio will sue you if you don’t.”

  Ariel laughed in his face, something I doubt anyone had done in the past fifty years. “Fine. Sue me. I don’t have any money. Literally. I. Am. Broke. I don’t see any reason why I should help you.” She looked at me. “Not any of you.”

  “Please, Ariel,” I said, swallowing the last of my conscience and reaching out to grab her hand. “Please help us. I know this is asking a lot, but I’m sure Clint will agree to compensate you very fairly for this last performance.”

  Clint nodded. “That I can do.”

  “You think I want money?” Ariel scoffed. “This experience has taught me that Hollywood is full of awful people who do awful things. There’s not enough money in the world to make me do this.”

  I turned back to Ariel. She was staring at me in confusion and disbelief. “Please Ariel. We’ve all worked so hard on this movie. I know things didn’t turn out the way we wanted for us. I know you’re mad at me. And I know that you have every reason to hate me.” I took a deep breath. “But if this performance doesn’t go well, everything is going to be for nothing. All the work we did, that you did, will be ruined. A lot of people worked really hard on this movie. You can save it. All you have to do is sing one song.”

  Ariel continued to stare at me. Her expression was torn. “You really want me to do this? To sing for her again?” Her voice was small.

  I nodded. “Yes. Please.”

  I saw her heart break. She hung her head. “Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you.” She turned to Clint. “But I want to make as much money as Ursula made for this film. I’ll take the money and run.”

  Clint nodded. “Fine.”

  48

  Ariel

  I’d performed live a lot of times in my life. Ever since I was a little girl dreaming of performing for the audience at Sebastian’s, I’d known that being on stage was my destiny. When I was singing, everything was always okay.

  Or at least, I’d thought so until today. Ten minutes after the frightening encounter in the hallway, I was warming up alone in the dressing room.

  My reflection in the mirror looked scared. But I wasn’t scared, exactly. I mean, I was. But mostly I was angry.

  I couldn’t believe that Derek was asking this of me. The idea that he would request that I put my pride aside, again, for the one millionth time, hurt. I’d been burying my pride for weeks. My pride could only stand so much.

  First, I had to let people believe that it was Ursula’s voice that they heard on set. I had to dance to my own voice duetting with Derek. I had to listen to everyone telling Ursula how incredibly talented and great she was while knowing the whole time that I was the one doing the real heavy lifting behind her performance. Her dancing was fine. Her acting was okay. But it was her singing that held people spellbound. My singing.

  Next, I had to turn the other cheek on Derek and Ursula’s fake relationship. I put up with the public displays of affection. I put up with seeing them in the news and on the covers of magazines. I put up with seeing them on set together. I even put up with keeping my real relationship with Derek on the down low.

  Then things got worse when the rest of the chorus turned against me. I put up with the rumors. The whispers. The sidelong looks and the little digs against my hair, my makeup, and other more personal things about my personality and sexual habits. When the bullying escalated, I put up with it. I endured having my makeup ruined and my things messed with. I put up with someone almost dropping a freakin’ stage light on me.

  But this was almost a bridge too far. Being asked to sing for Ursula live, by Derek. It was enough to make someone crazy.

  At least I knew that doing this would do something to change things. I’d be getting paid a lot. I asked for whatever Ursula was being paid on the performance and that weird, scary Clint guy had delivered. He’d presented me with a contract addendum that was going to set me up for a very long time. It almost made the nightmare feel worth it. Oh, who was I kidding? It didn’t make it feel worth it at all.

  Because it was Derek that asked me to do this at all, and that’s what really hurt.

  At the end of the day, after everything was said and done, Derek was the one who wanted me to go out onstage and cover for Ursula. He really was out for himself. His career. His image. His life. And because I could never fit into those things, I was disposable. It was what I always feared.

  When someone knocked on the door of the dressing room, I didn’t reply. I wasn’t ready yet. But it wasn’t someone from the crew coming to tell me that it was time. It was Holden, Derek’s brother and our director. We’d never so much as had a conversation before now.

  “What do you want?” I asked him, feeling sick.

  “I didn’t know,” he said. “I feel like I should’ve figured it out a long time ago, but I really didn’t know.”

  I blinked. “That I was singing for Ursula? How could you have known? Nobody knew.”

  He shook his head. “No. Not about that. Derek and I have been talking. I didn’t know how bad things had gotten for you on set.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Oh.” This was the first real conversation I’d ever had with the director. He wasn’t rude or cold to the chorus girls, he was just busy. He’d never had any reason to seek me out before. It felt strange that he was doing so now. “Yeah, well it doesn’t matter now.”

  “I heard some of the rumors that were being told about you on set,” Holden said. “I didn’t know what to think. It sounded so over the top. But I figured it was none of my business. Now I know that you were basically being tortured by Ursula and her friends and it was all happening right under my nose. I should have done more. I should have stepped in.”

  “Well, Hollywood is cutthroat, right?”

  Holden frowned at me. “That’s such a copout for our bad behavior. Hollywood is what we allow it to be. It’s not this evil thing. It’s a place. It’s just people and how we behave. We make it what we want it to be. You and Derek happened to fall in love at the wrong time. At an inconvenient time for the production. The studio thought it would be cute for them to be a real-life couple. I thought it would be cute too. But we were wrong.”

  I blinked at her in surprise. “Are you apologizing to me?”

  He nodded. “I guess I am. I’m sorry that you got pulled into all this. I already apologized to Derek, too. I never should have let this get so out of hand. There were things I could have done, and I didn’t do them. I knew that there was gossip about you on set. I knew that Derek didn’t really like Ursula much. And I should have used what I knew to try and help you. But I didn’t.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I stammered. I hadn’t realized there were good people in Hollywood. I’d started to believe that everybody was like Ursula. Or worse.

  “It’s not my fault,” Holden agreed. “But if I don’t try to make Hollywood a better, fairer, less horrible place, then it is my fault when it gets worse and more unfair down the line
. You have a lot of talent. You definitely should have been credited for your performance. I’m glad you’re going to get paid now, even though it’s overdue.”

  “Thank you,” I managed. I didn’t really know what to make of this conversation. I hadn’t even realized that I was on Holden’s radar.

  “He loves you,” Holden added.

  I froze. “Derek? I don’t think so.”

  The fact that I was now discussing my love life with a major Hollywood director just added the surreal cherry on top. Holden was the sort of man that people dream about having a meeting with. He could make or break a person’s career with little more than a word. And he was telling me that he thought Derek, his brother, was in love with me.

  He nodded his head and leveled a serious expression at me. “He does,” he insisted. “It’s obvious. I’m not sure how I didn’t see it before. But whenever he looks at you, it’s impossible to miss.” He frowned. “And he hates Ursula, and so she decided to take it out on you. I was so focused on making the movie that I really missed out on what was going on.”

  “He might love me, at least a little bit, but I think he loves his career more,” I said.

  Holden was quiet for a long time before answering. “I’m not so sure.”

  49

  Ariel

  “Thank you for coming,” Derek said to the assembled crowd. “On behalf of the studio, cast, and crew, I want to welcome you to a sneak peek performance of some of the songs from the upcoming movie musical ‘She Done Him Wrong.”

  He was wearing a smart, blue pinstriped suit that looked like it had been custom made for him. It had, of course. All his suits had been. I’d seen the custom labels on them when I poked around in his closet.

  Derek was never on my level. He’d always been above me. Far, far above me. Not only was he out of my league physically and financially, but talent-wise too. Out there on the stage in front of a live audience, he seemed almost electric. It was impossible to look away from him. Even though, at that moment, there was absolutely nothing that I wanted to do more.