As he leaned in to kiss her again, Ember suddenly remembered Fawn and the dressing room door. “Oh, my God, we are idiots! The door is unlocked.” She looked around wildly for a moment. “You better get your shirt on! I’ll get dressed in the bathroom.”
Without another word, she hurried into the bathroom and began to dress herself: panties, skirt, blouse—where the hell was her bra?
A rapid knock on the main dressing room door interrupted Ember’s thoughts, followed immediately by the sound of the door opening.
Ember froze. If Rick had carried a condom in his wallet he’d be pumping away inside of her right now in plain sight of whoever had just entered the room.
“Hi, Gina,” Rick said. “Ember’s in the bathroom. I think something she ate for lunch must have disagreed with her.”
“I hope she’s okay,” Gina Hartley’s voice was crystal clear as she strode deeper into the room. “Fawn said she didn’t seem like herself when they spoke earlier.”
Fawn! Ember cursed silently. And to think, even forewarned, she’d almost been stupid enough to give the bitch the opening she needed to get Ember fired.
Rick’s voice dropped in volume, still clearly audible through the bathroom door, but pitched lower so that it didn’t carry beyond the dressing room. “I’m worried about her. She ran in there in an awful hurry and-”
Ember flushed the toilet to add verisimilitude to Rick’s words. Her mind spun as she tried to figure out how to handle the situation. If she hadn’t left her bra outside, she wouldn’t worry about it, but she was afraid that Gina would notice its absence, which might lead her eyes to searching out what had happened to it.
In a flash of inspiration, Ember seized upon a plan of action. She walked to the sink and splashed water on her face, being careful to get it all over the front of her blouse.
“Ember? Are you all right in there?” Gina asked.
“Just a moment!” Ember called out to her.
She quickly pulled off the now wet garment and slipped on a robe hanging on the bathroom door. She fastened the robe securely in front of her and peaked out. “Gina?”
Fox’s petite assistant looked genuinely concerned—not suspicious. “How are you feeling? Rick says you were taken ill.”
Ember momentarily covered her mouth with her hand as if she were afraid something else might be coming up her throat. “Much better now, thank you. I made a bigger mess of myself cleaning up then I did getting sick in the first place.”
Gina placed a worried hand on Ember’s arm and coaxed her toward her chair. “Why don’t I call Doctor—”
“That’s really not necessary,” Ember assured her. “I guess it was just lunch—shellfish, you know. I’m—well I’m embarrassed but feeling much better.”
Rick cleared his throat. “If Gina’s here to look after you, I think I’d better get going.”
He met Ember’s eyes for a moment, then quickly started toward the door.
“Rick!” Ember called.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob.
Ember was acutely aware of Gina’s presence and her need to be discreet. “Thanks for…well, everything. Will you do me one more favor?”
“Anything,” Rick assured her.
Ember smiled at him. “Go knock Mitch and Fawn dead tonight! Show them what you and I think a Rock Idol is supposed to be.”
Rick continued to stare at her, very seriously, his gaze never wavering from Ember’s eyes.
“I believe in you!” she mouthed to him.
Slowly, the cocky grin reasserted itself on his face. “Count on it!” he promised. “Tonight I’m going to prove to Mitch and Fawn that I’m here to win!”
“Wow, Rick!” Jonathan King enthused. “You had me dancing on the side of the stage over there. You are on fire tonight! I wouldn’t have expected you to be a Creedence Clearwater Revival fan.”
“Thanks, Jonathan!” Rick said. “You know I have a brother who’s almost twenty years older than me and since he made the switch to CDs when I was a baby, he left all of his old vinyl record albums at home when he went away to school. That means he left behind a lot of great music for me to fall in love with—everything from Creedence Clearwater and The Who to Ms. Ember Blaze who’s sitting over there at the judges’ table.”
The audience cheered and Ember permitted herself to half stand and wave.
“That’s wonderful, Rick!” King said. “Your love of the music really shone through tonight. Let’s see if the judges had as high an opinion of your singing as I did. Mitch?”
“First a point of order, if I may?” Mitch asked. “Jonathan, are you certain you were dancing over there? From the way you were twitching, I thought you got a jolt of bug spray or something.”
King clutched his chest in mock agony at Mitch’s comment and the audience booed. Mitch acknowledged them cheerfully. “Okay, okay, I was just joking. Rick? I’m really not certain what to say to you. You know I don’t like your singing, but Jonathan is right. You were moving on the stage and there was something infectious about it. Ember was actually dancing in her seat with you and I found my foot keeping time to the music. I’m beginning to think a Rick Rogers concert might be worth the price of admission—not because you sing all that well but because tonight I finally believe you truly love what you do.”
Wild cheers erupted from the audience.
Mitch raised his voice. “Now don’t get me wrong! I still think you all should vote to send him home. But I think tonight I’m forced to admit you’re a serious contender in this competition. I still don’t quite understand why, but you’re in it for the long haul.” He turned to speak past Fawn to Ember. “Now that I’ve finally said something nice about him, America will probably vote him off.”
“I certainly hope so,” Fawn said. “Rick, you simply butchered that rendition of Proud Mary. One of the all time great songs and well … it would be unladylike to tell you what I really thought of it.”
“Oh, come on, Fawn,” Mitch said. “Don’t make me defend the young man. He did an okay job. It was his first credible performance!”
Fawn shook her head. “I’d expect that sort of nonsense from Ember, Mitch. But you have always had standards.”
King stepped in to keep the two judges from fighting. “You know, Fawn, it looks like the more America is sold on Rick Rogers, the more you want to send him back to the manufacturer. It’s unlike you, so I have to ask. What’s going on here? Is it something personal?”
Fawn shook her head and smiled. “I’m just a simple professional trying to do her job. If you want to talk about personal feelings getting in the way of good judgment, you’ll have to talk to Ember.”
The crowd erupted in hoots and hollers and Jonathan King’s eyes bulged. He was about to ask a follow up question, which Ember acted quickly to cut off. She didn’t need Jonathan bringing up the rumors that she was dating Mitch and she certainly couldn’t afford to give Fawn a chance to start spreading new stories about her and Rick. “Personal feelings usually go hand-in-hand with good judgment,” she announced. “I really like Rick Rogers and I am grooving on his music tonight. I think most of America will agree with Mitch and me on this, Fawn. I would definitely pay money to go see him in concert!”
The audience went wild!
Ember settled back in her chair wondering just how far Fawn was willing to go.
Her former friend turned to glare at her. “Almost got you,” she mouthed.
A furious Fox Atwood snagged the three of them as they walked off the stage after the show. “In my office!” he snapped before leading the way down the hall to the elevator.
Once in his office, he slammed the door. “Someone had better tell me exactly what is going on!”
Fawn was the first to speak up. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Yes, it is, Fawn,” Ember agreed, cutting the woman off. “Fawn is angry that I didn’t tell her about our little chat with you about the drug testing. She thinks it makes it look like I wanted her to fail s
o she’s trying to pay me back by making me look unprofessional.”
Clearly this was not the answer Fox had been expecting. “But you’re the one who convinced me I had nothing to worry about,” he said.
Ember spread her hands. “So I tried to tell her.”
Mitch intervened. “You know Fawn had a problem a few years ago. So did Ember for that matter, but I think Fawn is more sensitive about it now. She doesn’t feel that drug addiction fits the sweet image she’s always tried to foster to America.”
Fox kicked a wastepaper can across the room. “Neither does picking a fight with you and Ember on national television!”
He raised his finger threateningly to Fawn. “I want this crap over and done with! What did I tell you all on the first week of the competition? I want a scandal free season! You screw up like that again out there and I’ll yank your contract!”
“But Ember is sle—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” Fox shouted. “Ember and Mitch are bringing in the viewers! Giving great commentary! And helping to keep things lively! What the hell have you done for us this season?” Without waiting for a response, he stormed out of the room.
Fawn immediately turned on Ember. “Don’t you think this is over!” she shouted. “I’m going to get rid of you both!”
She ran out after Fox, shouting his name as she ran down the hall.
Confusion fogged Mitch’s face. He obviously thought Fawn was after him as well. “What the hell is going on?” he asked Ember.
“When you figure it out, make sure you explain it to me too,” Ember told him.
Week Nine
“Hey, Sexy,” Rick whispered, “want to make it with a final six contestant on Rock Idol?”
Ember let Rick nuzzle her neck for a few moments before steeling her resolve and pushing Rick away. “I’m sorry, sweetie, we can’t do this again during the competition. Fawn’s out to get me and…”
Rick immediately stop kissing her and backed away. “I’m sorry, Ember. I know you’re under a lot of pressure. It’s just when I see you all I can think about is holding you in my arms again.”
“I know, sweetie,” Ember assured him. “I want to hold you too. It’s just Fox pulled us all aside last week and—”
“That’s right!” Rick said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that all week. Gina forced us all back to the house right after the show and no one is talking about what happened.”
Ember took a deep breath and decided that Rick needed to know. “Fox balled us out for fighting on stage and Fawn tried to tell him you and I are sleeping together.”
Rick got angry fast. “That hypocritical bitch!”
“What?” Somehow that was not the response from Rick that Ember had expected.
He strode away from Ember and pounded his fist on the wall. “Of all the utter nonsense!”
Ember couldn’t figure out what was bothering him. “Rick, what happened?”
He took a deep breath. “I suppose I could be wrong, but I’m pretty certain she made a pass at me a month ago.”
“A pass?” Ember asked. “Fawn?”
“Yeah.”
“How certain?”
“She put her hand on my ass and asked if I’d ever done it with a rock star.”
Ember grabbed him by the t-shirt collar and pulled him toward her. “She did not!”
“Why would I make that up?” Rick said. “It was embarrassing. She’s got to be close to forty years old.”
This justification struck Ember as the height of inconsistency. “But I’m forty-two!” she protested.
Her announcement seemed to fluster Rick for a moment. Not that he hadn’t known her age, but that he realized—as she had—that his two statements didn’t fit together. “Yes, I know, but Ember, she’s not you. You could be ninety-five and I’d want you! But Fawn,” he shivered, “there’s something really wrong with her.”
“But she made a pass at you,” Ember repeated. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around that. She wondered if Fawn had done this before or after they’d started fighting—if Fawn had actually been interested in Rick or if her first idea about punishing Ember had been to steal Rick away from her.
Upon reflection she rejected this idea. Rick and she might have been attracted to each other back then but they certainly hadn’t been fooling around. She found the situation utterly fascinating. “What did you say to her?”
Rick looked embarrassed. “Look, I’m sorry I brought it up. Just forget I said anything.”
Ember couldn’t accept that as an answer. “I really need to know what you said.”
Rick backed further away from her. “You don’t think I took her up on it, do you?”
If she had, one look at Rick’s face right now would have convinced her otherwise. “No, I just want to know what happened. I mean, she is pretty, right?”
“I guess so,” Rick agreed. “She’s not you, but I guess there’s nothing technically wrong with her. It’s just—”
Rick was either unwilling or unable to explain what had scared him away from Fawn and Ember decided to try and turn him toward more useful information. “So what did you say? Did you let her down easy?”
“Can we forget about this?” he asked.
“No!”
“It’s just, I’m not proud of myself. I tried to make a joke of it, but it came out very wrong.”
“Just tell me!” Ember commanded him.
Rick nervously licked his lips. “I said: Not yet but I’m working on it.”
Suddenly Ember saw the problem between Fawn and her in starkly different terms. “And what did she say to that?”
Rick licked his lips again. “She said: Well, you’re in luck. Today your dream comes true.”
“Oh, no,” Ember whispered.
“And I said—you realize she took me by surprise, right? I wasn’t prepared for this. I just said the first thing that came into my head: Sorry, Fawn, you’re not the star I’m hoping for.”
“Oh, damn,” Ember said. “No wonder she has it in for us.” She eased up next to Rick and slipped her arm around his back, wondering what this rejection must have done to Fawn’s ego. “When exactly did this happen?”
“Week Three,” Rick said, “Just a few minutes before I kissed you for the first time.”
“No wonder she hates us,” Ember repeated.
Rick looked miserably unhappy with himself. “I’m sorry I didn’t handle this better. I know you two were friends.”
“We were friends on the show,” Ember corrected him. “Obviously we weren’t much more than that or none of this mess would be happening now.”
“Well it doesn’t have to come between us, does it?” Rick asked.
Ember wasn’t so certain. “We can’t pretend it doesn’t affect us. Fawn is out to get us. She wants you out of the contest and me out of a job.”
“Well, should I tell someone what happened?” Rick asked.
Ember did not like the sound of that. “Absolutely not! That will just attract more attention. And we’re the ones who’ve been making out. You and she didn’t actually do anything so she can always claim she’d been misheard or she was joking.”
“This really sucks, Ember! How is it right that Fawn can get you in trouble for actually doing what she tried to do first?””
“It may not be fair,” Ember agreed, “but it’s the hand we hold.”
Rick kicked at an imaginary pile of dirt. “Damn! And I bought a big box of condoms this week.”
His petulant expression made Ember smile. “What type?” It did make a difference.
“Trojan Ultra Thins,” Rick told her. “I may have to wear it but I want to feel everything I can.”
Ember spontaneously hugged him. “Even when the news is bad you make me feel good.”
The dressing room door opened and Hillary Tempest entered without bothering to knock first. “Rick, Fawn wants to talk to you.”
Ember let go of Rick quickly, but not before Hillary saw them to
gether.
The self-absorbed singer eyed the two meaningfully, but didn’t make a comment. She turned and started back out the door. “She’s in her dressing room. And make sure you tell her I’m not your errand girl.”
The door swung closed behind her leaving Ember and Rick staring at each other.
Rick finally broke the silence. “What do you think she wants?”
“Probably nothing,” Ember told him.
“I’m getting very sick of Fawn,” Rick announced as he left to find out what was up.
“Well, Hillary,” Mitch said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but for the first time since this competition started, I think you might have a problem.”
Had Mitch just said that the world was flat, Ember didn’t think that Hillary Tempest could look any more incredulous. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “I’m hands down the best singer in this competition. Hell, even calling it a competition is demeaning to me.”
Mitch frowned. “I almost agree with that statement and yet Rick Rogers just got half the audience to stand up and applaud and all that you got was a mostly polite round of clapping.”
Hillary sullenly acknowledged this by glaring at the audience.
“How do you explain that?” Mitch asked her.
Hillary moved her glare to Ember. “Rick’s attracting the lovesick female vote. No one who truly appreciates talent is going to support him.”
Mitch shook his head. “You know, I have sat here week after week arguing in favor of raw talent over dimples, but the simple reality is that there are a lot of stars out there with far less talent than you and Rick who are making a very good living. There has to be some middle ground. Talent alone isn’t enough. You have to have some charisma and sex appeal too. You have to be able to put on a show. If you can’t start developing those other skills immediately, I no longer think you’re going to win Rock Idol.”
Mitch sat back in his chair and passed the baton to Fawn, who took a few moments to pull her thoughts together.
“Hillary, your singing is magnificent, but it wouldn’t hurt you if the audience liked you more. It’s wonderful to stand up for your art, but it isn’t selling out to smile a little and be nice to people.”
Rock Idol (Reality With a Twist Series) Page 9