Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1)

by Caitlyn Duffy

  “Thank you so much for participating in this, Elliott,” Mom said, making a sort of obvious but genuine attempt to single him out for kindness. When I’d called Mom on Tuesday morning and asked if she could work with the church board at St. Ambrose to pull together a quick opportunity for me and Elliott to sing for some of the patients at the hospital, she had seemed surprised that Elliott was involved because I hadn’t mentioned him for a long time.

  “Yeah, of course,” Elliott said, making an effort to raise his voice and look my mom in the eye. He was trying to be polite and cordial, and he was trying for my benefit, which made me feel more goofy and fluttery than my whole afternoon with Nigel.

  “And Lee, thank you for offering your services as a chauffeur!” Mom said.

  Lee stood a few feet away from us with the camera balanced on his shoulder, already rolling. He tapped a button on the camera and looked out from around the viewfinder. “You’re welcome, Mrs. Burch. Could we try that again, and this time, pretend I’m not here? I want this to all be very cinema verité, very natural.”

  “Oh, of course,” Mom said, and flashed a very quick, very tiny smile at me to convey that she hadn’t realized Lee took his filmmaking so seriously.

  Once the camera was rolling again, Mom introduced me and Elliott to Nurse Gibbons, the head of administration at the Children’s Hospital. “We haven’t told the kids that you’re coming. We thought it might be better to surprise them,” the middle-aged woman with thick, short gray hair told us. “On this floor we have kids who suffer from genetic disorders, metabolic disorders, and some of whom are being treated for various stages of cancer. Not all of the kids can leave their rooms, but those who can have gathered in the television lounge. There are quite a few parents here, too.” She cautioned us with a warm grin. “When we notified them that you’d be coming in for a visit, they all asked if they were welcome. I hope that’s alright.”

  The hospital was intimidating, with its harsh hallway lights and overpowering antiseptic smell. It was more cheerful than I expected, with a lot of kids’ art hanging in the hallway and bulletin boards plastered with colorful flyers announcing support groups for parents and outpatient events for kids. Nurse Gibbons led all of us down a long hallway and around a corner to a glass-walled room where a bunch of kids and parents were watching a prime-time cartoon.

  “Wait right here,” Nurse Gibbons told us in a low voice. She stepped into the room with Lee and his camera, and from the hallway I heard her announce, “Good evening, everyone, and thank you for coming. I promised you a special surprise this afternoon, and it’s here.”

  “Is it pizza?” a boy’s voice asked.

  “No, it’s not pizza. But I think it’s something you’ll enjoy more than pizza. Please welcome to the Children’s Hospital—Allison and Elliott from Center Stage!”

  As Elliott and I entered the television lounge, I tried not to look right at Lee’s camera. A girl who was probably not much younger than me who’d lost all of her hair and was hooked up to an IV drip was shaking her head, muttering, “No way. No way.” Hands covered mouths in surprise. Eyes were huge with delight. Stepping into that room and seeing how much joy my presence created was even better than stepping into the hot spotlight on a stage. I remembered Nigel’s comment from a few hours ago about wondering if he’d be better off back in Dublin selling shoes. At that instant, I knew that at in my case, this was exactly where I was supposed to be and what I was meant to be doing.

  “Hi everyone,” Elliott said shyly. “Allison thought it would be cool if we came by and sang a couple of songs for you.”

  A boy with very swollen cheeks who looked to be around twelve years old in a striped robe raised his hand as if he was in a classroom. Elliott nodded at him. The boy asked, “Are you guys, like, boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  My eyes flashed up at my mom as I turned crimson. Luckily Elliott answered with a sideways glance at me, “We’re best friends. That just about covers it.”

  Elliott showed off his impressive guitar skills as we took requests from the kids. He effortlessly jammed out the chords to songs by Coldplay, the Beatles, and one annoying but obligatory round of “This Little Light of Mine,” which had been ordered by the youngest kid in attendance. Two nurses rolled in a table boasting Dixie cups full of orange Kool-Aid and potato chips (which could only be eaten by kids who weren’t violently allergic to gluten and didn’t have feeding tubes). In just about every single way, it was the least cool party I’d ever been to in my life, but it was still the best party I’d ever attended. When it was time for the kids to return to their rooms, one mother hugged me with tears in her eyes and told me that she and her daughter watched Center Stage! every Friday night together in her hospital room.

  It was critical to our plan that Elliott and I return to the hotel separately to keep the producers from suspecting that we’d met up at any point that night. Lee drove Elliott back to the hotel, and I rode back with Mom. I’d already texted Ralph to tell him that I had become ill at the Fonda Theater and that I’d told one of the production assistants—how could I be sure which one? Someone in a plaid shirt—that I had phoned my mom to come and get me.

  However, I hadn’t been completely honest with my mom about the show’s sanctioning of our impromptu hospital concert. When she asked, “Are the show’s producers going to mind that Lee shot all that video of you guys before the season’s over?” I coolly replied, “We’re just going to put some of it on social media. I mean, it was for sick kids. What are they going to do, throw us in jail?”

  A few weeks had passed since Mom and I had shared any one-on-one time. We hadn’t discussed what had happened on Thanksgiving, and she didn’t waste much time beating around the bush before grilling me about Elliott.

  “Just exactly what is going on, Allison? You are under a contractual obligation not to leave that hotel,” she reminded me.

  “I know, I know,” I said. My parents’ potential legal culpability was a big factor in the plan Elliott and I had created. We’d ruled out several potential ways of defying the producers entirely because they might have put my parents in litigious jeopardy. “There’s a lot going on with the show, Mom. I can’t even explain all of it, just—don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry!” she exclaimed as we merged onto the freeway. “How can I not worry when you’re staying at the same hotel as that—that—troublesome boy with practically no adult supervision? I knew there was something going on between you two when he showed up at the house unannounced back in September.”

  “Mom. Mom,” I interrupted her while trying to keep my voice low. “There’s nothing going on. The show just generates all these dumb storylines for publicity. And Elliott is a nice guy. He’s just shy.”

  My mom hadn’t been referring to Elliott’s reluctance to make eye contact when she chose the word troublesome to describe him. She’d been referring to his broken home, his smoking habit, his falling-apart car. Factors that qualified him as a risky potential boyfriend, but made him all the more irresistible to me. Even merely talking about Elliott made my heart beat a little faster. However potentially troublesome Elliott was, I was already blindly in love with him. Mom fell silent for a second and then asked, “You’re not really dating that guy?”

  Although Elliott and I had carefully plotted to deceive the producers, I couldn’t bring myself to lie to my mom. “We like each other, but that’s it. It’s been kind of hard to figure out what’s real and what the producers are just trying to make us think is real.”

  After I listened to my mother’s excessive cautions about not making foolish decisions while under extraordinary stress, choosing between nice boys from nice families and dangerous boys with chips on their shoulders, and most awkward of all—about safe sex and if how I considered myself ready to have a mature relationship with a boy, she’d take me to Dr. Walters to discuss options—we finally pulled into the Neue Hotel parking lot, where Elliott was leaning against a pillar near the hotel’s entrance. My mothe
r harrumphed upon seeing him as if his slouchy posture and permanent scowl confirmed every single concern she’d just voiced.

  Still mortified by mom’s lecture after hastily saying goodbye and slamming the car door shut behind me, I grinned at Elliott. He was playing with his fancy Zippo lighter, striking a flame and then catching it. “Late night smoke?” I greeted him.

  “No, just playing with my lighter. I’m trying to quit,” he replied. He waited for my mom’s car pull out of the parking lot before he placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss.

  “Why’s that?”

  Elliott pocketed his lighter and said, “There’s this girl I’m trying to impress whose mom doesn’t like smokers.”

  I stifled a giggle and pulled him closer by the collar of his plaid shirt. “Really? Tawny’s mom doesn’t like smokers? Who would have thought?”

  He shook his head in amusement at my reference to our afternoon dates. “Oh, man. There was one point this afternoon when I really and truly wished a shark would attack me so that I wouldn’t have to listen to that woman talk about herself anymore. She refers to herself in the third person. Did you know that? Tawny adores Italian food. Tawny will have the fried ravioli.”

  His impression was pretty spot-on. “Stop,” I teased, very happy to hear that he had not enjoyed his date as much as Tawny’s Selfie photos had suggested.

  “How was your date?” he asked. We hadn’t traded details in Lee’s car on the way to the hospital. It would have required more explanation about the show’s inner-workings for Lee than we could have possibly squeezed into the brief drive.

  For a split second, I considered exaggerating but couldn’t go through with it. It felt too nice to be back in Elliott’s presence and not have to pretend to be anything other than my snarky self for the first time all day. “My date was wasted,” I admitted. “Like, the whole time. He just drank and drank.”

  Elliott’s eyes lit up with relief. “God, I’m so glad that he has an unattractive drinking problem. I was worried that he was going to sweep you off your feet.”

  “So unattractive,” I assured him. “We should do something to celebrate surviving today. Like get tattoos.”

  “What’s the Chinese symbol for revenge?”

  On the other side of the mountain range separating the San Fernando Valley from Central Los Angeles, Lee Yoon was transferring all of the video he shot at the hospital to an external drive so that he could edit it into a segment in his Media Arts classroom. Everything was going according to plan. Tommy and Susan were probably at home in their mansions, having no idea that a storm was brewing for them to deal with the next day.

  Chapter 21

  The Grand Finale

  Kaela’s story about Robin’s debut with the Los Angeles Ballet ran the next morning on the cover of the West Hollywood News. While it wasn’t quite the New York Times, the article caused enough of a stir that a grim-faced Claire pulled Robin out of our vocal training with Harvey. When Robin returned an hour later, she was fuming, and an angry vein popped out on her forehead while she rehearsed her song for Friday. She left the studio early to travel across town with the production crew for her big performance, and I had butterflies in my stomach as if I were waiting for Santa to land on the roof on Christmas Eve. By lunchtime, several high-profile websites had posted commentaries on Kaela’s article and the impact of high-profile, celebrity productions on the fine arts.

  When Lee and my other friends from the Pacific Valley School took their seats in the balcony at UCLA’s Royce Hall for Thursday night’s performance of The Nutcracker, it was a lot fancier than they’d been expecting. They almost lost their nerve. The ornate coved ceiling and smell of brand new carpeting in the auditorium space were intimidating. My friends felt even more sinister for what they planned to do since the audience was mostly composed of happy families dressed in their holiday finest. But during intermission, they spotted production assistants wearing Center Stage! t-shirts out in the lobby and felt a resurgence of motivation. “Remember, this is about Allison,” Nicole reminded Kaela, Michelle, Colton, and Lee (or at least she told me later that she had taken it upon herself to keep them on task).

  Robin teetered out onto the stage on tiptoes during the Waltz of the Flowers, which was one of the last sequences in the ballet. There was a smattering of appreciative applause from the crowd, presumably from fans of the show. But just as we’d hoped, there were also some boo’s and a strong din of chitchat (most likely from ballet enthusiasts who had read Kaela’s article). As planned, Lee and Colton shot video on their cell phones from their seats as Robin pointed and spun around. Cupping her mouth with her hands and leaning forward over the balcony, Michelle bellowed in her deep voice, “Whoooo! Center Stage!”

  My friends had figured (correctly) that the staff at the theater wouldn’t call the police on them for cheering Robin instead of jeering at her, but that they’d rattle her, anyway. And rattle her was exactly what Michelle did. Robin lost her balance and then miscounted her steps. Murmurs from the audience made her lose concentration again, and by the time her sequence ended, she was woefully behind in her routine. Rather than even trying to salvage it, she just danced offstage to polite applause.

  Anyone unfamiliar with the ballet probably wouldn’t have noticed that she’d botched her routine. But after the performance, conversation in the lobby centered around why on earth the show’s director had ever agreed to allow an amateur perform a featured role.

  “Mission complete,” Nicole told me when she called me to tell me how the performance had gone.

  Local news channels mentioned the lackluster performance on their late night broadcasts, including interviews from attendees of the ballet that varied from indifferent to angry that Robin had been billed as a special guest. About an hour after Lee and Colton arrived back at the Yoons’ house in Beverly Hills, they uploaded the footage of Robin’s unimpressive performance to YouTube and Selfie. They also posted several gratuitous cuts of a ten-minute sizzle reel of the visit Elliott and I had made to the Children’s Hospital.

  I squealed with glee when I received an e-mail from Lee announcing that the video was up. He’d really knocked himself out adding vignette effects, titles, and sentimental stock music during the part when Elliott and I first arrived and met Nurse Gibbons. I’d perhaps underestimated Lee’s talent; the video he’d prepared was every bit as professional as a segment on the nightly news. His director’s cut, with a sappy montage sequence of me and Elliott singing in slow motion while kids at the hospital swayed to the music, made me get a little weepy.

  Of course, there was a good chance that our subtle sabotage on Robin’s performance would do little to influence voters on Friday night’s show. There was also a good chance that the video of me and Elliott singing to kids at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital wouldn’t be seen by enough people to counteract the broadcast of our respective dates with Tawny and Nigel O’Hallihan. As I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to sleep, I was very aware that the following night, I might be back in my bedroom in West Hollywood after having been voted off the show. But at least I’d leave the show knowing that I’d taken matters into my own hands.

  “Just what in the—what were you thinking?”

  Tommy Harper’s angry face looked like a supersized goji berry, wrinkled and scarlet. I’d never seen him as angry during the eleven weeks of the season as he was on Friday morning. From the way Susan cringed in the corner of his office, my guess was that she’d never seen him that furious before, either.

  Elliott and I both sat in Tommy’s office in the chairs that had practically become our assigned seats for admonishment. Naturally we were both quite pleased with ourselves, but couldn’t let on. Lee’s director’s cut of our jam session at the hospital had exceeded all of our wildest dreams; it had become an overnight sensation online and several national morning news shows featured it during their broadcasts. Almost one million people had “liked” it on Facebook. Lee had done such a fantastic
job of shooting and editing the video that most news outlets were claiming that the visit to the hospital and resulting video had been arranged by En Fuego Productions as if it were bonus content from Center Stage!

  This put Tommy and Susan in precisely the position we wanted them: unable to deny the show’s involvement with our charitable act without looking like total jerks. We’d gotten them. We’d gotten them good, and from the looks of Tommy, he was not accustomed to being gotten.

  “You two destroyed all credibility for the storylines we created for tonight’s broadcast. What are people going to think when they watch the show tonight?” Tommy barked.

  Elliott shrugged his shoulders and said in an infuriatingly unemotional voice, “That you guys made us go on awkward dates with weird famous people before we went to the hospital together and performed a secret show.”

  “That—” Purple, Tommy shook a finger in Elliott’s face, unable to even form a complete sentence in his fury. “You—Why—”

  Outside, in the parking lot, Elliott and I broke into a million giggles. We laughed so hard that I had to lean against the wall of the warehouse that contained Dance Studio Four. Elliott squatted and then doubled over. Erick St. John wandered by and muttered, “What have you two been smoking?” as he passed us.

  “Man, we’re really in for it now,” Elliott said as he wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes. “God only knows what they’re going to surprise us with tonight on stage.”

  We’d both known the night we stayed up in my hotel suite plotting out the revenge we wanted to exact from the producers that any offensive moves on our part would result in retaliation on theirs. But whatever they wanted to throw at me later that night when the cameras were rolling, I’d be prepared. “I don’t care if they make me sing Hungarian opera music tonight,” I wheezed, still trying to catch my breath. “I’m probably getting voted off anyway, so it doesn’t matter anymore.”