Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1)

by Caitlyn Duffy

  Robin took a seat on the other side of the sofa from me after changing into her silk gown and paid acute attention to what was happening on the monitor. Just as the train approached where Tia stood on stage, it veered off its track and the first car toppled over on its side.

  Sensing something was wrong by the light laughter in the audience, Tia glanced over her shoulder and noticed the kiddie train wreck. Steam (now directed at the first few rows of studio guests) continued to pour out of the smokestack. The other cars of the train followed the first in piling up where the track had come unhinged. To her credit, Tia never permitted her voice to falter.

  Robin leaned back on the couch and crossed her legs comfortably, a smug grin spreading across her face. I had no idea how she had managed to derail a toy train without even touching it, but I was certain that she had masterminded what we’d just seen on the monitor. It was not out of the realm of possibility that she had used her long legs and breathy voice to convince the nerdy production assistants to execute her evil strategy.

  Wondering if Elliott was paying attention in his team’s prep room, I clutched my garment bag a little more tightly. It was unnerving that Robin had launched an attack on Tia. Out of all the contestants on the show, Tia had shown the least amount of fierce desire to win. The possibility that Robin had something up her sleeve for me, and maybe even for Elliott, was much more credible now. My sickening paranoia all week seemed justified.

  Robin’s stylist had dressed her in a simple white silk gown to make her look like a vision of purity. When Rob the production assistant arrived to fetch her, and she stood up from the couch, I felt a bitter twinge of jealousy. I wished I was older, taller and had a more slender frame like Robin’s. Her beauty was deceptive. Viewing audiences would never believe in a million years how much evil lurked underneath those washboard abs. If Rob had been the stagehand who’d assisted Robin in the train derailment prank, he gave no outward appearance of it as he impatiently motioned for her to get moving.

  In Robin’s video segment, she and her boyfriend argued over the phone about how she was going to miss the party in Chicago for his parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. “I mean, it seems like all you care about is winning this dumb show,” the attractive boyfriend said into his phone from his apartment in Chicago, where a location camera crew had presumably taped his half of the phone conversation. “What happens the day after the season ends, Robin? I mean, does life ever go back to normal?” The audience was left wondering if their relationship was on the rocks when the segment faded to black from a close-up on Robin’s distraught expression.

  As she crossed the stage to begin her song, the reason for the livestock trailer parked outside was revealed. For her stage design concept, Robin had requested a real, live nativity scene. A glowing star hung over the stage, a couple dressed in Biblical garb cradled a baby, and three guys wearing shepherd costumes slowly walked across the stage with actual sheep. For just a second, it was breathtaking. With Robin in the foreground looking downright angelic, the scene on stage was like an illustration from a children’s Bible.

  But then…

  The glorious vision fell apart in a way that Robin couldn’t have planned more masterfully if she’d been pranking herself. Even though she was the only person on stage with a microphone and was crooning “Silent Night” into it, the mic was picking up the bleating of the sheep behind her on the stage.

  “Bah,” one of the sheep grumbled.

  “Bah,” another sheep bleated in reply.

  Robin increased her volume. She successfully drowned out the barnyard animal chorus in the background, but the audience was already giggling. The cameras cut to a few people chuckling in the audience. I watched in awe, wondering how Robin could have been so dumb as to think that having live animals on the stage while she sang wouldn’t be problematic. Then, one of the sheep did the unthinkable as it stepped into frame behind Robin: it defecated. On live television.

  The audience roared with laughter. The actor portraying the shepherd who was responsible for the offending sheep must have smelled its contribution to the production because he rolled his eyes in disgust. He looked off-stage, presumably at a helpless production assistant, and the camera quickly cut to a close-up of Robin. The unintentional comedy of it all completely undid the solemn grace of her performance. Although everyone clapped as she finished her song, the camera still panned across rows of studio guests clutching their guts and howling.

  In the hallway on my way toward the stage, Rob led an irate Robin back to our group’s room. Her pace was so brisk that her hair flew behind her, and she swung her arms so vigorously it looked like she was punching air. “They didn’t have to be live sheep! Where were those sheep rented from? I am going to sue their handlers!”

  In my red velvet mini-dress, I pressed my back against the wall, not wanting to be within striking range as she stormed past me. Only after she sneered at me and slammed the door of the Group 2 prep room behind her did I laugh. It was like a lever had just been pressed and all of the anxiety that had been building up inside of me throughout the week was released at once. The production assistant who’d been sent to fetch me roared, as did Rob, who’d just had a door slammed in his face. The more I laughed, the more I felt unable to stop. I laughed until my gut ached, and I was practically squatting, leaning against the wall to keep from falling over.

  “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 d
edicating 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.

  Chapter 19

  A Mess of My Own Making

  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.”