by JJ Knight
“I’m briefing them on the storyline,” Devon says.
Amara rolls her eyes. “Send Livia to wardrobe. Her gown is the issue. I’ll take Blitz. Devon, you can fill him in during breaks.”
Devon shakes his head. “You can see who wears the pants around here.”
“Shut it,” Amara says. “Or I’ll send you out on camera without pants.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Devon says.
Blitz sighs and gives me a quick kiss. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Then he disappears behind the door.
“This way,” the girl says.
She hurries on down the hall, but I don’t follow her just yet. I’m still stuck between the idea of a televised proposal and the lack of pants.
I stare at the door, then look down at my ring.
The girl stops and turns back. “You’ll probably want to take that off before any of the cast sees it and tweets something. The producers will be pissed if word gets out before they’re ready.”
“It’s our lives,” I say. “Our engagement.”
“Hardly,” says a cold voice.
I whirl around. It’s Hannah, Blitz’s agent. She’s standing down the hall all stark and skinny, like a coat rack.
I tense up. We haven’t spoken to Hannah since she orchestrated a comeback for the three jilted finalists, the ones who lost their chance with Blitz when I stormed onto the finale of the show and claimed him for myself.
Blitz was justifiably angry that his agent involved them, sparking a lawsuit that caused us to do a shortened season three of the show.
I still won.
But I lost a lot in the process. My anonymity. My privacy.
And, almost, access to the little girl I gave up for adoption when I was fifteen.
“Where is wardrobe?” I ask the short woman. I don’t want to talk to Hannah, especially without Blitz. She isn’t my agent. I have no business with her.
And I hold grudges too.
The girl recognizes a fight, though, and doesn’t move.
Hannah approaches, her heels ringing on the shiny floor. She’s as stilted and perfect as always in an immaculate lime green pencil skirt and matching jacket. Her blond hair sweeps her face in a smooth bob.
“Livia,” she says, “why don’t we put that ring someplace safe until it’s time for Blitz to give it to you on the air?” She reaches out a hand.
I turn away from her. “No.”
“Be reasonable. Blitz’s contract specifically states that in the event of an engagement to one of the finalists of the show, the proposal is the property of the franchise and will be aired exclusively by the network.”
“It’s my engagement,” I say.
“You’re under contract too,” she says coldly.
I look at her then. “You don’t manage me.”
Hannah sighs. “I’ll send someone to reason with you.” She waves her hands airily. “But I wouldn’t let anyone see it. I would hate for a breach of contract lawsuit to wipe out your earnings from the show.” She starts walking down the hall, the sharp tap of her shoes starting up again.
I clasp my hand around the ring. “We already got engaged,” I call after her. “You can’t erase that it already happened.”
Hannah laughs but doesn’t turn around as she calls out, “If his millions of fans didn’t see it, then it didn’t happen.”
She turns the corner and disappears.
“Great,” I say.
“Nobody likes her,” the girl says. “She’s a pill to be around.”
I gaze down at the ring. “You think I should hide it?”
“I’ve got a Band-Aid in my bag if you want to cover it.”
“I’ll put it on my necklace.” I tug the ring off my finger and unclasp my necklace, sliding the ring along the chain. Once the necklace is back in place, I tuck the ring beneath my shirt.
I can’t believe Dance Blitz has already taken over my life again.
Chapter 2
Wardrobe fits me into a pale blue dress, my signature color from the show. Kendra, the production stylist, comes to supervise the adjustments and choose shoes. The dress is rather nondescript, giving me no hint about the sort of dance we’re going to do. Definitely not ballet, though. All the shoes have heels.
I pause at the makeup chairs to give a quick hug to Cecilia, a hairdresser who is dear to me after she helped me the first time I arrived on Dance Blitz, a shy, frightened nineteen-year-old about to storm onto live television.
“So glad you’re still here,” I tell her. Her spiky hair isn’t blue anymore, but pink and green.
“It’s not the same without you and Blitz around,” she says, leaning against the back of the tall salon chair.
The other makeup and hair stylists crowd around as she fills me in about Mack and the more memorable dancers from this season.
“Any Giselles this time?” I ask. Giselle was one of the three finalists who made Blitz’s life hell during season two and during our abbreviated rematch. A tweet about her nearly cost him his career.
I’m not entirely sure she isn’t behind the boobs in the sky. It’s the sort of thing she’d do.
“Two, in fact,” Cecilia says. “But not as toxic, really. Just drama queens.”
“We’ve been watching the episodes,” I say. “But we’ve been totally out of the loop about what’s going on behind the scenes.”
“They really ramped up the bitchy behavior to try and stand out,” Cecilia says. “It’s not the same at all.”
“I did notice more interaction between the contestants and fewer dance numbers,” I say.
“Uh-huh, you got that right,” one of the other stylists says. “It’s like this isn’t even a dance show anymore.”
A pair of women enter the room, and the freeze coming off their attitudes is like a chill in the air. I recognize them as two of the current finalists, Dolly and Veronica.
“I’m not talking to you,” Dolly says, as if they’re continuing a conversation. She is strikingly tall, with dark brown hair to her waist. “Save it for the cameras.”
“Hey, Dolly,” Cecilia says. “I’ve got my instructions for your hair. We’re going to do a practice run on your style for the live show.”
I step back as Dolly sits in the chair. She sees me, and her face changes completely. “Oh my God, it’s Livia!” Her voice is sweet and false. “Does that mean Blitz is here?”
“He’s rehearsing with Mack,” I say, my guard going up immediately. What does she want with Blitz?
Veronica sits in another chair. She is extremely petite, barely five feet tall. Her blond hair is twisted in a bun and shows its dark roots.
She tilts her head at me. “I guess we’ll be doing rehearsals with you?”
“I haven’t seen the itinerary,” I say.
“Are you doing a dance with her?” Veronica asks Dolly.
“I didn’t see a number like that,” Dolly says. Cecilia starts back combing her hair. “Ouch, take it easy!” She turns to give Cecilia a dark look.
Cecilia says nothing but waits a few moments before resuming her work.
“I’m Veronica,” the blonde says, extending a hand. “It really is nice to meet you. Everyone talks about how you stormed the stage. Impressive move. You can’t buy that sort of publicity.”
I shake her hand. “I didn’t do it for publicity.”
Veronica shrugs her shoulders as if she expects me to say that. “Everyone has tried to do something similar, stomping on set during other dates, interrupting private conversations.”
“They had to keep the filming schedule secret in the end,” Dolly says. “I didn’t do any of that nonsense.”
“They eliminated those girls pretty fast,” Veronica says. “I think Mack was upset they cut Felicity.”
“Mack didn’t cut her?” I had seen that tearful episode a couple weeks ago. She had been a fan favorite.
“She got the blue card,” Veronica says.
Blitz told me about those. Anyone could r
eport another contestant, and if enough people agreed, the bachelor had to cut her.
The girl who led me to wardrobe jumps from her seat in the corner, her iPad blinking black and white. “Livia, you’re needed in rehearsal right now.”
“Nice meeting you both,” I say. “Good luck.”
“Oh, Livia, I would just love it if I could get some pointers from you before the live show,” Dolly says. Her voice has that syrupy quality again.
“Both of us,” Veronica says. “We could use it.”
I nod at them. “We’ll see how the schedules go.”
The two women glance at each other with something akin to annoyance and wave goodbye. I’m not sure I want to get either one alone. I don’t have anything I could say to help them. I had no idea what I was doing.
Still don’t.
And they’re both good dancers. The quality of the performances gets better every season. The third finalist, Beth Ann, is a stunning ballerina. She’s struggled with the contemporary numbers, same as I did. Even though the staff feel like the dance numbers have become secondary, they are still very prominent and the only part of the show I still enjoy.
The hall is busier now. A man I don’t recognize pushes a rack of costumes down the hall. A cluster of former contestants turn the corner, all decked in white swan outfits, and let up a huge squeal when they see me.
“It’s Livia!” they shout, and I’m surrounded, drawn into hugs, women holding my hands and lamenting their lack of cell phones for selfies.
“I have to get her to rehearsal,” the girl says. I really need to get her name if she’s going to be my assistant. I miss my last girl, Jessie. She got me through season three.
This one pushes through the group and leads me out. She’s tougher, for sure. More aggressive.
I’m not sure why the other contestants are so excited to see me. They’re more famous than me right now. They’ve got reporters and cameras following their every move. I’m quietly in the background.
Although I guess once the live show airs, it will be wild again.
Especially if they insist Blitz proposes.
We enter one of the rehearsal studios, and I’m introduced to a new trainer, Vince.
“You’ll be waltzing with Blitz,” Vince says, starting the music to a sweeping classical piece. “Everyone wants you the way you were. You’re like old Hollywood already.”
Old at twenty-one. Crazy.
At least the dance will be easy.
We spend an hour moving through steps and turns and sweeps. There are several lifts, but after a year of grueling ballet, none of this is hard. It’s more a matter of learning the choreography. I’ve come a long way.
Partway through, Blitz arrives and sweeps me up into his arms. “Dancing with another hot young thing already?” he says, kissing my neck.
“I am,” I say, laughing as his rough whiskers tickle my skin.
“We’ll run through it again,” Vince says.
I forget how well Blitz and I move together until we’ve launched into the dance. Vince gives us commands, and even if we don’t follow the moves exactly, we still dance fluidly with the music.
“You guys don’t even need me,” Vince says. “Amara might flip if you don’t follow her plan, though.”
“You got that right,” Amara says. We haven’t noticed her walk into the space. “That was lovely, but the show has a lot more snap to it now. We’ll want to get those extra lifts back in there.”
Even with Amara’s nagging presence, I still enjoy the next hour with Blitz. It will be nice to do a number with him again. We don’t dance together all the time like we used to. It’s how we first got to know each other.
So maybe I’ve missed the show, a little.
It will be good for us.
Chapter 3
When we arrive at the studio again the next day, there’s a new image in the sky.
There’s no mistaking who this one is from.
It’s a banana.
“This is never going to die,” Blitz says with a sigh.
White lines form the outlines of the image. Blitz’s bad tweet, the one about Giselle, said she ate him like a gorilla. Bananas became a common theme in the talk shows about the incident.
I hurry through the door and catch up with him. “You think Giselle is hiring the planes?”
“She’s not even working as far as I know,” he says. “I don’t see her throwing money away on skywriting.”
“Didn’t she get on Dancing with the Stars?”
He shakes his head as we walk down the hall toward the rehearsal studio. “No. She forgot that her contract restricts her from any other dance show for three years.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“Wasn’t she up for some other show? A drama?”
“Didn’t get it,” Blitz says, nodding at Vince, who waits for us inside the open door to the dance room. “She blew it when she stalked off my show.”
I don’t ask how he knows all this. If he’s talked to her or if someone has filled him in.
The subject of Giselle is really better left alone.
Although I wonder why she put her boobs up there yesterday.
I don’t want to know that either.
After an hour of warm-ups and a couple run-throughs, Amara fetches us to rehearse on the main stage so they can check camera placement.
Costume designers descend on us, pinning a tuxedo top to Blitz even as we’re shown the boundaries of our number.
We don’t have to dance ourselves. Vince and another girl do it for us, and a team tapes blue marks onto the stage where we’re supposed to land our lifts. Apparently there will be puffs of smoke for each landing as if we’re walking on clouds.
Cute.
And way more complicated than anything we’ve done before.
The music cuts off prematurely, but Vince keeps swinging the girl, talking us through the motions.
And lift and catch and sweep into a bend.
Devon steps up and says to Blitz, “This is where you’ll look into her eyes and decide right then and there that she will be your wife.”
I shake my head. It’s so ridiculous. I’m not an actress. How am I supposed to react to a fake proposal?
Blitz and I stand to one side of the stage, watching. The wardrobe people finally slide the pinned costume off him and he’s free to move.
“What’s after that?” Blitz asks.
“You hold while the new set comes down,” Devon says.
The music blasts back in, far too loud, and I instinctively cover my ears.
“New sound guy,” Devon says. He turns to the sound booth high over the audience seating. “Get it right or get out of my production!”
Silhouettes scramble behind the glass.
Devon takes a small towel from his back pocket and touches it to his forehead. Sweat is beading along his skin. “Live show with a new sound designer. Jesus.”
“What happened to the old one?” Blitz asks.
“Ran off with a semi-finalist,” Devon says. “We had to cut several people covering for them, too. The mixer is the only one who’s still on.”
“You couldn’t wait until the end of the season?” I ask.
“Talk to the producers. They were the ones who did it,” he says. He turns to the back of the stage. “Where’s the rainbow?”
Blitz makes a gagging sound. “Rainbow?”
“It’s your proposal set,” Devon says. “It might be a little over the top.”
A sheer scrim comes down, lit to be transparent so that you can see the scene behind it.
“And rainbow!” Devon calls.
The colors change, and the scrim becomes opaque. An iridescent rainbow slides across its surface, appearing slowly, as if the sun itself was creating it.
“That’s beautiful,” I say.
“Okay, I approve,” Blitz says.
“The lighting girl is brilliant,” Devon says. “Thank God for that.”
; I walk across the stage. Our stand-ins are still now, the dance done. I touch the scrim, and it wavers slightly. I’m always so amazed at the magic that can be done with lights.
Another wardrobe person arrives with my blue dress. She holds it against her body.
“Light test,” Devon bellows. He hurries to one of the cameras to view the scene as it will be broadcasted.
“All wrong!” he shouts. “That dress is too light! I said CERULEAN!”
The woman holding it rushes off the stage. I guess that will mean more fittings for me.
The music starts up again, and Vince and his partner begin dancing. I move out of their way and head back to the side.
Blitz hums along, then takes my hand, sweeping me into a tighter, less buoyant version of the dance.
Vince sees us and moves his partner aside to give us room. Blitz and I run through the dance, missing a couple lifts still, but generally getting it right. When we come to the dip, he gives me a silly grin. “Wanna get hitched?” he asks.
“Not until I see a rainbow,” I say.
The scrim comes down.
“I like that,” Devon says. “You insisting on a rainbow.”
Blitz and I break out laughing, and he lifts me to stand up straight.
“Am I supposed to propose in a dip or get down on one knee?” he asks.
“Oh, a knee, for sure,” Devon says. He gazes up at the scrim with the rainbow, fingers tapping against his thigh. “Yeah, we’re going to do it. Livia, you will say, ‘Not until I see a rainbow.’ And Blitz will be all astonished, as if he isn’t good enough. And then the rainbow will appear. Sheepish grin. Lift her up. Down on one knee.”
“What about the ring?” Blitz asks.
“I’ve got it here,” I say. I tug the necklace from beneath my shirt.
“A dancer will deliver it,” Devon says. “At least that’s the plan. The fantasy set makes it feel like the world was waiting for you to propose.”
Blitz sighs. “Don’t tell me. The dancer will be dressed like a unicorn.”
“No,” Devon says. “But that’s not bad.” He speaks into his headset.
Blitz groans. “We’re going to be the worst meme ever to go viral.”
“That’s what they like,” I say. “Free publicity. They’ll make the GIF themselves and plant it.”