“You’re only saying that because Ember’s little tips on playing up to your teenybopper fans are keeping you in the contest, Rick. Even Fawn can see you’re a talentless hack now. Once Ember stops pretending you’ve got a chance, you’ll be on the next flight back to New York City.”
Ember frowned. Try as she might, she couldn’t like this contestant and comments like that didn’t help. Neither did the fact that Hillary was wearing the same old torn up jeans and muscle tee she’d worn at the initial meet and greet. Even her haircut was the same spiky mess it had been the very first show.
“Hillary, please don’t tell me that that is the best wardrobe could do for you?” Ember asked her. She considered her words a gentle prodding, but could see from the derisive flash of anger in the woman’s eyes that Hillary viewed them as a full out assault.
“Unlike some people, I am not going to sell out who I am just to try and buy a few votes with some makeup and some cleavage.”
Ember wasn’t sure if Hillary was referring to her career as a teen idol or to the other contestants, but Rick certainly was. His eyes flashed with anger as he stepped between Ember and the other contestant. “Back off, Hillary! You have no call to speak to Ember that way. She’s already accomplished everything we’re setting out to do here and then some.”
Hillary snorted. “Maybe she’s done everything you’re setting out to do, Rick, but I aspire to more than crashing and burning in a haze of sex and drugs.”
Ember felt a flash of rage and barely resisted lashing out at the woman. Zach took a step back from the group, clearly shocked at what the woman had said.
Rick, however, was not going to stay quiet. “That’s enough! She’s one of the judges. Show some respect or—”
“Rick!” Ember cut in. She had to step around him so that she could confront Hillary without Rick’s body between them. She could only imagine how it must look to the others to have Rick playing knight-in-shining-armor for her. “Please, stop. There’s no need to make a scene.”
Unfortunately, it was too late for that. Everyone was watching the back and forth, including Fox Atwood. Ember had to do something to shape this argument or it could spill out and make them all look bad. Unfortunately, Rick was still maneuvering to keep himself between the two women.
“Hillary, I really get where you’re coming from,” Ember told her, hoping she was pitching her voice correctly. She didn’t want to sound condescending. This was a moment for her to play mentor with the younger contestants. Fox would definitely like that. “You don’t like the glitz and the glamour. You think the cinematic parts of our profession are cheap frills—distractions from the music that is the core of what we do. I’ll bet you see yourself as the new Bob Dillon or Sinead O’Connor.”
From the stubborn set of Hillary’s jaw, it was quite obvious to Ember that that was exactly how Hillary Tempest viewed herself.
“But Hillary, Sinead, and Dillon made it because of their lyrics. They got peoples’ brains spinning in a way that created its own show without lights and sexy costumes and all the special effects that make rock shows so much fun. Maybe you can do that someday too. I don’t know. I’ve never heard you sing one of your own songs. But on this show, it doesn’t matter if your songs are going to win Grammies one day. Here we judge you on your performance singing other peoples’ music. Here we judge you on your ability to reach out and touch the audience. And if you can’t learn to do that better than you are right now, you’re almost certain to go home.”
Fawn had entered the room while Ember was talking and now she stepped up beside Hillary to offer her two cents. “Maybe that’s how you judge people, Ember, but Mitch and I are more concerned with the quality of our contestants’ vocals. This is a talent competition, after all.”
If Fawn had expected Hillary’s gratitude for defending her, she was quickly disappointed. “As if your opinion could matter to anyone,” Hillary said, almost spitting her derision at Fawn. “You’re even worse than Ember. You like everyone!” She paused for a moment and reconsidered her words with a jerk of her thumb at Rick. “Except him, of course. I guess you can get it right once in a while.”
Fawn began to shake with fury. “You can’t speak to me—”
“That’s enough everyone!” Fox Atwood announced. He did not look happy at the tension bubbling up behind the scenes of his flagship show. “Let’s put on our smiles and get this photo shoot done.”
Fawn couldn’t let it go. “But she just—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” Fox snapped. “If you’d been here when you were supposed to be, we’d already be half way through the shooting.”
Fox’s estimate was so far out of bounds with reality that Ember couldn’t even term it wishful thinking, not that she minded him giving Fawn a hard time after all of the nonsense the woman subjected her to last week. Any enjoyment Ember might have felt, however, was instantly muted by the superior smirk twisting Hillary’s face. The contestant sauntered off across the room as if she thought that Fox had just come to her defense, rather than simply express the natural impatience exhibited by any successful producer when he was forced to stand around getting nothing done.
Rick surprised her by slipping his arm into hers and escorting her to the photo set. “Hey, Mr. Atwood,” Rick called out. “Do you think when the group photos are finished we could get some individual shots with the judges?”
Fox looked surprised by the question and Ember hoped her own chagrin was not showing on her face. What did Rick think he was doing?
Mitch Daniels could never let the opportunity to plant a stinger slip past. “Is that all of the judges you want a picture with, Rick? Or just your favorite?”
Rick affected to look surprised by the question. “Just my favorite, Mitch!” Laughing, he pulled his arm free of Ember’s, ran over to Mitch, and threw his arms around him. “You know how I’ll want to remember our special time together forever.” He attempted, but not too forcefully, to plant a big sloppy kiss on Mitch’s cheek, but the judge successfully ducked away and eluded him.
“Watch the hair!” Mitch tried to growl his answer, but that was difficult because he was laughing.
So was everyone else in the room. Even Hillary Tempest found a smile.
Rick stopped goofing off. “Seriously, Mr. Atwood, Mitch, Ember and Fawn have become the most important people in our lives these last few weeks. I’d love to have pictures with all of them.”
There was a general chorus of agreement from the rest of the contestants.
Gina Hartley also joined her voice to the chorus. “I’m sure our publicist wouldn’t mind having the extra photos for promotional purposes.”
Fox gave a decisive nod, a genuine smile creeping onto his face. “I don’t see why not, so long as it doesn’t interfere with our schedule tonight.”
Rick flashed his cocky smile and caught Ember’s eye, obviously very pleased with himself.
“Don’t let Hillary get to you,” Rick whispered into Ember’s ear as he nonchalantly placed his hand on her waist where no one else could notice it.
He and the other male contestants were standing behind the three judges while the female contestants were sitting or kneeling in the front row before the camera. “First she rips you down, then she builds you up. Maybe our little Tempest has a secret desire to leave show business and become a Marine Corps drill instructor.”
Ember couldn’t help it. The comment was so completely unexpected that a burst of laughter escaped her mouth just as the camera started flashing.
“Ember!” Fox started to reprimand her from the sidelines.
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Atwood,” the photographer, Leon Skursky, cut him off. “I can use that one.”
Gina Hartley also came to Ember’s defense. “Leon’s right, Mr. Atwood. The people love to see candid shots behind the scenes. Ember and Rick laughing together during the shoot will make a great picture.”
Fawn turned and glared at the two of them but before she could say an
ything, Hillary Tempest barked out her own complaints. “Can we get on with this? My knees are starting to hurt.”
“Ten-hutt!” Rick whispered just a little louder this time.
Ember started laughing again. She couldn’t help it. Just like she couldn’t stop herself from briefly covering Rick’s hand on her waist with her own. His fingers felt hot beneath hers—almost as hot as the inferno roaring to life inside her.
Beside Ember, Mitch twisted about to look at Rick. The mean judge liked Hillary, but even he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You know, Rick, I thought you were all blue eyes and smiles. I didn’t realize you had a sense of humor too.”
“Maybe he should share the joke with the rest of us,” Fox suggested. He did not sound amused.
Mitch answered for all of them. “Oh, I don’t think so, Sir. Some things are definitely better when they’re not repeated.” His gaze fell on Hillary Tempest’s stern and disapproving features and he started laughing again.
Leon Skursky kept clicking pictures.
Rick leaned slightly forward so Ember and Mitch—and hopefully no one else—could hear him. His breath tickled her ear when he spoke. “She’s got the scowl down perfectly, too.”
Ember wanted to stop laughing but she just couldn’t help herself. She and Mitch sagged against each other, trying to keep from falling.
“Rogers!” Fox shouted the word. “This isn’t Last Comic Standing!”
Rick tried to sound chastened. He’d pulled his hand back from Ember’s waist and tried to adopt a choirboy’s contrite expression. “I’m sorry, Mr. Atwood! I’ll be good. I promise!”
“Or General Fox will make the whole platoon do KP duty.” Ember laughed. She hadn’t censored herself and the words were loud enough for everyone to hear.
Rick and Mitch doubled over again, unable to contain themselves as the laughter spread to people who didn’t understand the whole joke. Kim’s face lit up as she started to chuckle and Zach Donderhue—this season’s oldest contestant—looked like a fourth grader trying not to laugh when the teacher was yelling at him.
Leon just kept snapping pictures.
“Well, that was almost a disaster,” Mitch whispered.
Ember immediately checked to see that Mitch’s microphone was off. They’d been lucky so far this season but Murphy’s Law suggested that it was only a matter of time before Mitch grew careless again. When she was certain it was clear, she answered Mitch. “What are you talking about? Hillary sang great tonight. She really showed off her range. It was everything you’ve been talking about.”
Mitch waved Ember’s comment away dismissively. “Not that, I’m talking about her haircut.”
“Her what?” Ember called up an image of the young woman in her memory and tried to recall if she’d noticed anything different about her, but unlike all of the other contestants, the thing that was different was that Hillary alone had refused to change. She continued to wear her hair in punk spikes that simply didn’t mesh with her insistence on relying solely on her vocal talents. After a few seconds of trying, Ember conceded failure. “I didn’t notice anything.”
“Good! Because I was afraid that the whole concert hall was going to realize I was about to break out laughing.”
Ember felt more confused than ever. “Break out laughing? Why?”
Mitch looked to be on the verge of losing it again. His body reddened with suppressed merriment. He put a hand on Ember’s shoulder and tried to keep his voice down. “Because of that ridiculous little wannabe boyfriend of yours. I kept remembering what he said about Hillary secretly wanting to be a marine.”
Evidently Mitch could see that Ember still didn’t understand the point he was making. “I kept picturing her without any hair!” he said just before his sense of hilarity finally got the better of him.
Fawn’s eyes widened as she tried to figure out what was happening.
For her part, Ember practically had to bite her tongue to keep from breaking out with Mitch in new peals of laughter.
“Well, Rick,” Mitch said. “We’re almost halfway through this competition and I frankly don’t understand how you’re still in it.”
“Oh, come on, Mitch,” Jonathan King interrupted. “Did you hear the crowd tonight? Rick was on fire this evening!”
“I agree completely,” Mitch said. “It was clearly his best performance so far and I still don’t understand how he got this far.” He grinned and added, “Maybe the problem is I’m not a teenage girl.”
The audience booed and Rick played to them, making a give me more gesture with his hands.
Rick’s growing confidence pleased Ember. “That is what you keep missing in all of this, Mitch. A Rock Idol has to be able to play to the crowd. If you want the single dimension performance you keep talking about, maybe you should consider opera. Rick is connecting to his audience better than anyone else we’ve seen tonight and he’s taking all of their emotion and pulling it back into his music.”
The audience went crazy—or at least the young girls in it did.
Mitch shook his head. “I still think you have to pay better attention to the basic mechanics, Rick. Right now there are only nine of you left. You’re running out of time to perfect the music portion of your performance.”
Jonathan King pushed the analysis along. “Ember still supports Rick and Mitch would like to burn all his not-yet-recorded records,” he summarized. “Let’s see what our final judge thinks. Fawn, last week you shocked America by criticizing Rick. What did you think this week?”
Fawn cleared her throat in a most unladylike fashion. “I’m unmoved, Jonathan. I’m still with Mitch on this. If you can’t sing, get off Rock Idol.”
The crowd booed and Fawn Fields squinted her eyes in fury.
Week Seven
“You know I was pretty angry with you and Mitch over all of that laughter at the photo shoot last week,” Fox announced.
Ember and he were having lunch in his office—take out, as he termed it—but Fox Atwood didn’t do take out like the rest of America. His conference table had been draped with an expensive burgundy cloth and set with beautiful china dishes like a five star restaurant. His glass was filled to overflowing with Bollinger and a two-inch thick porterhouse dominated the plate in front of him.
For her part, Ember alternated between sipping tea and grazing on a colorful salad while she tried to figure out why the producer had asked her to join him for his midday meal. Could he possibly still be angry that she’d laughed at Rick’s jokes? That couldn’t be contrived as a scandal, could it?
“And then when I saw you and Mitch start laughing together at the judge’s table,” Fox continued, “I got even more furious! The only thing that let me keep my temper was the fact that you two were doing it during a commercial break.”
Ember took another sip of her tea to help disguise the growing discomfort she was feeling. Fox was really over the edge if a little teasing between the judges was getting him upset like this. She wondered again why he’d called her up here—and why Mitch wasn’t being called on the carpet with her.
“Then I realized I was going too far,” Fox continued.
Ember put down her teacup and smiled, hoping she looked like an old friend and not a relieved employee. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Fox. You know how much I respect you. If you tell me that the joking and teasing has to stop, then it will. But honestly, I think it helps the show if there’s some chemistry between the judges, and for the first time in three seasons, Mitch and I have started doing something that isn’t adversarial.”
Fox nodded emphatically. “I agree completely! And so does Max, my new publicist.”
“Good,” Ember said. She felt relieved that this was all that Fox’s concern amounted to, but wondered again why he’d insisted on telling her this over lunch. Maybe her old friend was just lonely and wanted some company. She hadn’t seen any of his twenty-something girlfriends around lately. She picked up her fork and took a bite of romaine and carrot.
>
“It’s better than good,” Fox said. “Max did some instant polling and there’s a surprising degree of interest in you and Mitch dating.”
“What?” Ember was so shocked and outraged, her mouthful of food almost went tumbling back onto her plate.
“I know!” Fox told her. “It shocked the hell out of me too when Max said it like that, but it’s not that they really want you two together. After all, they like you and hate him. But they find the situation,” he paused and searched for the right word, “well, horrifying is too strong, but they’re interested and they’re eager to watch the situation develop.”
Horrified wasn’t too strong to describe Ember’s response to Fox’s suggestion, but her mouth was still full and so she had to contain herself.
“I don’t pretend to understand it,” Fox confided. “My guess is you and Mitch don’t understand it either. But since you’re together now, Max thinks we should try and capitalize on it so I gave him the go ahead to leak a couple more pictures and start some rumors. The fact that we’re doing this when the show’s on top of the ratings will keep it from looking like a cheap trick. It should be a big win all around.”
Ember finally managed to swallow her mouthful of salad. “Fox, what are you talking about? Mitch and I aren’t dating. We don’t even like each other!”
Fox froze, then slowly began to relax again. “You don’t have to play coy with me, Ember. It’s Fox, remember? I’ve seen you go through this a lot of times before.”
“Seen me go through what?” Ember asked.
“Falling in love,” Fox said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The first sign is you start laughing a lot more. I don’t know if you relax enough to let your guard down, or you just convince yourself that your current beau is a natural comedian, but I’ve seen it happen half a dozen times since I discovered you all those years ago.”
Ember was still having trouble wrapping her mind around the idea that anyone could think she would date Mitch Daniels. “Fox, we’re really not dating. I mean, ewww! Can you really picture Mitch and me together?”
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