America's Next Star

by Katie Dozier

  We sat down on a purple loveseat and the velvet of the furniture felt smooth against my back. I pulled a red pillow with a black sequined star in front of my stomach.

  He stayed neatly folded into his side—as if he was wearing a suit and not UGA pajamas.

  “Cool room,” he said. “A lot darker than mine—I have a basketball court.”

  “In your room?”

  “Yeah, and this thing in the shape of a bison’s head that dispenses beer when you pull one of the horns.”

  “That’s crazy!” I said.

  I looked at his feet and laughed.

  “You have bulldog slippers?”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s UGA’s mascot Bubba. I got to pet her at a game once. But I guess you’re probably a big football fan too, going to FSU.”

  “Well I just started this summer, so I’ve yet to live out my days on the football field. Never been super into football.”

  “Well, don’t worry, I’m not face-painting level crazy, I guess I just like big things where everyone gets really excited and big crowds—like this show. But it’s not the competition now, so don’t go kicking me out of your room just yet, friend.”

  He gave me a corny smile.

  Friends. I liked the sound of that.

  “So are you going to show me this video or what? They took away my phone and laptop on my first night here. I bet they’ll be coming to get yours soon too—so hurry up.”

  Something was nagging me, like a buzz-less mosquito circling my messy bun. I pulled my laptop over on the table.

  The throw up in the bowl that wouldn’t flush! What if he had to use the bathroom? Without thinking I handed him my laptop.

  “Just need to use the restroom. Wait a sec.”

  I went in the bathroom, even though he knew I’d just been in there. I counted fifteen seconds— which I guessed was the amount of time it would take a more delicate girl than me to pee. I flushed as the gluten-free crumbs lost their battle in the rising tide.

  Then, I turned on one of the sinks for a few seconds.

  “Okay, sorry…”

  Then I saw him smiling before I heard my own voice from the screen.

  I guess I’d been asking for it—invited it even—by handing him my laptop where I’d just been refreshing the video before vomiting and flogging myself with the horrible comments.

  First I felt angry at him, but then I saw the smile on his face. It wasn’t one of malice. It wasn’t the way someone smiled when they watched something funny. He looked almost entranced.

  “I love it,” he said. “So nice to see a real girl get on the show for once. If I don’t win, I hope you do.”

  I bent over him and closed the tab before he could see the comments—and “real,” what did it mean? Plus-sized? Did it mean really ugly? Did it mean I couldn’t sing? Did it mean he saw my sweating?

  “That’s not the right video,” I said.

  “Well it was enough that I would’ve put you on the show. Your voice is beautiful, just so full of soul, like there is almost more going on behind your voice then you could even really get when hearing it…”

  “Thanks.” I fiddled with my necklace.

  “Is the violinist your boyfriend?”

  “Definitely not, and, hey, I haven’t heard you sing yet.”

  “And you won’t. Not tonight anyway. I can’t really sing well unless it’s with a crowd.”

  “How is that even possible?” I leaned backwards, putting a pillow in the shape of a head into my lap. “To be honest, I’m afraid of crowds.”

  For a moment, he brushed my knee with the tips of his fingers.

  “Well that’s a lot more normal than not being able to sing without one…so , can I see your real audition tape? You did promise me over red velvet cupcakes, so that is a pretty serious promise.”

  “ Okay, okay.” I clicked to find it on my computer.

  “So how’s your family dealing with this? Wait, you don’t have a scary older brother or something that’s going to punch me if I give you a hug on the show, do you?”

  “It’s just me. Well, just me and my dad.”

  “Oh.” He pulled on the string of his pajamas, and seemed stuck between whether to say “I’m sorry” or change the subject.

  And I was stuck too. Should I tell him or talk about something else? In my exhaustion, I lacked the creative ability needed to lie.

  “Not to be a downer, but my mom died in a car accident not that long ago.”

  How was he the first person that I had ever actually told that to? Tiffanie still thought Mom was a beauty queen turned florist. Guess she was going to find out otherwise before too long.

  His arms reached out and gave me a warm hug that was almost too comfortable. Like we’d hugged many times, and I really needed one. The hot chocolate of hugs, with extra mini-marshmallows. His arms were so strong and warm—he smelled like Irish Spring soap.

  I broke it off first.

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t need to thank me for hugging you—save that for when we decide to become enemies,” he laughed.

  “And your family?”

  His locked lips swiveled for a moment.

  “Afraid I’ll sound like a jerk.”

  “Well you’ve already won Mr. Congeniality out of everyone here. How many siblings?”

  “Two brothers, two sisters. My parents.” He sped through ‘parents’ as if it could soften the blow. “They both work at UGA. I’m the oldest. Now stop stalling and play your soon-to-be-famous audition tape!”

  “Ok, but I have to warn you—it’s pretty out th ere.”

  On the screen was the partially finished set of Into the Woods , and I couldn’t really bring myself to look at the screen. I studied Preston’s face as much as I dared without seeming like a weirdo, as he took in the love child of Huck’s obsession with Thriller and the Twilight series. From the little glimpses I accidentally saw, it was darker, more villainous than I remembered it.

  The dummy looked way too real when I sunk my fake fangs into him. Huck had really made me look evil. But I knew I likely wouldn’t be sitting on the couch of a mansion with a super hot guy, competing on the biggest show in the world if it weren’t for Huck.

  “That. Was. Awesome,” said Preston.

  I shrugged.

  “So your talent was turning someone into a vampire?”

  “Well, that and the dancing I guess.”

  “But how’d you do that, with the blood everywhere?”

  “It was a lucky accident with a can of red paint,” I said.

  “Well that accident might be how you ended up here!”

  Chapter Forty-One

  ♪ Heart of Glass ♪

  * * *

  “ E lla?” asked one of E.T.’s assistants, while running like a hermit crab on Cocoa Beach. “Time for an interview.” She pulled on my hoodie, leading me out of another opening sequence group rehearsal. How was I supposed to get caught up when they kept pulling me out at the worst possible moment?

  Inside the room was a giant green screen, and a single wobbly stool. I’d never liked sitting on stools. I always thought they were wannabe chairs with commitment issues.

  “Hi Ella. You’re going to sit there,” E.T. said, as he pointed to the wannabe chair. “And we’re just going to ask you some questions. Easy.”

  “Okay, great.”

  From behind him Blondie bounded up to me, but I only managed to pet her once before E.T. snapped and she was placed on a short leash out of my reach.

  “Ella, please tell us about your hometown.”

  Thankfully, I’d rehearsed this one with Preston’s help the night before.

  “Cocoa Beach is great, it’s a pretty small town known for being close to two things: NASA and Disney World. I live on the Banana River, so getting to see manatees and it being warm all the time is nice…But Christmas in Florida kinda sucks since palm trees look pretty weird lit up like Christmas trees.”

  I tried to fight my urge to con
tinue rambling like an idiot.

  “What is your former high school classmate Carrie like?”

  The camera light bore into me, reminding me that this was not just a convo between me and E.T..

  “Uh, she’s nice I guess.”

  “What was it like being so popular in high school?”

  I laughed.

  “Me? Popular in high school?”

  “Would you say you like dark things, like vampires?”

  “Well after getting into the show from dressing up as one, I love vampires. When I grow up, I want to be a vampire.”

  Had my attempt at a joke even sounded remotely funny? Blondie was whining to be let free from behind E.T..

  “So you are a goth?” he asked, as he dipped into his pocket for his box of movie theater candy.

  “No.”

  “What color do you wear most of the time?”

  “Black, I guess.”

  “And you’re wearing black eyeliner, black nail polish, and black shoes. Doesn’t that make you a goth?”

  “I am not a goth!”

  Was I shouting?

  “Okay, so tell us about what you’re studying at FSU,” E.T. continued.

  “Well I wanted to study musical theater.”

  “ Wanted ? What happened?”

  “Well, uh...I didn’t get into the musical theater program.”

  That was a stupid thing to say. Why would anyone vote for me if I couldn’t even make it into a voice program at college? Was it too late to explain this away?

  “I mean, the professors at the audition were really mean. They were making fun of everyone and only let me sing for like thirty seconds. No one got in.”

  “But isn’t Carrie in that very program?”

  “Yeah…that’s not what I meant. I meant no one got in on the day I auditioned—it was the last one.”

  “Why did you wait until the last audition? Do you tend to procrastinate?”

  “I dunno.” I may have caught my eyes rolling. Why were they making this so difficult?

  And I was asked every question except the one I’d actually prepared for, with Preston’s help. I figured they would want to capitalize on the tragedy of Mom’s death—because, well, it sounded like the kind of thing that would’ve made me root for someone to win. I’d thought they would dig for the stuff to fill a two minute sad montage for this year’s pity case contestant.

  So why didn’t they ask me anything about Mom?

  I knew that they knew because, before I left, Huck said he’d told them about Mom. He’d also admitted that he’d given them some slightly fabricated story about me being the lead in the high school spring musical, and that he may have embellished a bit. But he had left out the moment of me flying around and splatting on the ground like a damaged squirrel at least. He’d promised me that he made me look good, but I was having trouble understanding if anyone really wanted me to look that way at all. And my peeling red sunburn certainly wasn’t helping things.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  ♪ Rumor Has It ♪

  * * *

  T he next day, I was in the contemporary kitchen of the mansion with Preston, the youngest ever Comet, May, and, as luck would have it, Carrie.

  The kitchen had more stainless steel than the Banana River had manatees. The refrigerator was actually a steel room, and perhaps to offset that coldness, in the center of the huge dining table was a fireplace that glowed purple instead of orange.

  A man in a chef’s hat handed me an egg-white omelet.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Sorry about zee no egg yolks,” he said, with a French accent. “Zelina’s orders for your personal meal-plan.”

  I had a feeling that this was going to be a much different meal-plan than the one at RFOC. I sat down at the table by Preston.

  “Bacon chocolate chip pancakes,” he said, as he put a huge wedge into his mouth. “My life is complete.”

  The Chef brought over a silver pitcher and poured more maple syrup over Preston’s tall stack.

  “Keep it comin’” he said until the Chef had emptied the entire pitcher over them. The syrup shot off the sides of the pancakes in streams that smelled like when Mom used to make breakfast.

  Carrie was picking at a bowl of blackberries and watermelon.

  From somewhere distant in the foyer, we heard the echo of a Beam saying, “Late!” Levi stormed in, and sat down on the empty metal stool that had his name etched into it. His long black hair looked like it hadn’t recovered from a vicious overnight brawl with his pillow. The tiny pattern on his Beam pulsed with red light, and I realized it was made up of dozens of circles surrounding letter As—the symbol for anarchy.

  The chef put down a plate in front of him that was shrouded in smoke as soon as he poured some unknown liquid around it. Levi grabbed a pair of chopsticks and devoured the dish so fast that I only managed to catch a glimpse before the food disappeared into a gap in his wild beard.

  “Sushi?” I asked. “For breakfast?”

  “Hey it’s my favorite.” He turned as if towards a camera none of us could see. “What is time but a meaningless construct? Time can’t control when I eat what I want!” He made the rock symbol with his hands, then motioned for the Chef to bring on the next boat of sushi.

  May squeaked, “Can I please have some milk?”

  The Chef reappeared with a glass pitcher, full of milk, but as he poured it from high above May’s head, the milk turned a rainbow of colors as it cascaded downwards into her bowl of Fruity Pebbles.

  “Cool!” May said. “Thanks.”

  I turned to her.

  “It’s like magic,” I said, then looked at my little white omelet. “Well, at least yours is.”

  May pushed her bowl between us.

  “You can share. I’m not too hungry anyway.”

  Carrie picked up a blackberry between her French-manicured nails, raised it to her mouth, and then returned it to her bowl.

  “Oh,” Preston said, while passing me a spare fork. “You’re welcome to have some of mine too.”

  The Chef said, “No. Unfortunately she is not allowed to share. Pancakes and cereal is not on her meal plan.” He frowned at me. Or is it ‘pancakes and cereal are not’? This English grammar will always confuse me.”

  The sound of trumpets heralded us from unseen speakers. The purple flame in the center of the table shot up higher and turned pink.

  Zee walked into the kitchen wearing a fuzzy white dress and skyscraper go-go boots.

  “Welcome to your new home!” she said. “I hope you like how I designed it! I see you’ve all become acquainted, though of course a couple of you already know each other!”

  She passed out yellow folders that had each of our names.

  “Here are your schedules for this week. Vocal training, Supernova Schooling, costumes…It’s all in there. Of course your Beam will tell you exactly when and where to go. Only days until the first live show, so we’ve really got to push. Ella, your first vocal lesson will begin right now.”

  My Beam displayed an arrow that beeped green as I moved in that direction.

  I pushed away my omelet, hoping that my voice would be even sweeter than May’s cereal.

  I followed Zee past a colossal portrait of her—painted in bright colors and framed in blinking neon lights—to a hidden door that concealed a spiral staircase leading to a door. Zee scanned her platinum Beam, which sounded with the words, “All access,” instead of the little ding I got when I went through.

  She wedged a long acrylic nail between her skin and her Beam. “So itchy, amirite? I told them next season I am def not wearing one again. Yours is really cute though.”

  “Thanks,” I said, studying the black daggers stitched into the leather.

  “Here we are,” she said.

  A tall, thin man around Dad’s age opened the door.

  “Hey Zelina,” he said. “Ella, I’m Chris. I’ll be your vocal coach.”

  I shook his hand, and he smiled at me
, pausing for a moment to look at my eyes.

  “Alright, let’s shoot my clip first, and then you two can get to it!” Zee said. “So how this works is—I tell you the song you’re singing, then you get excited, then you try to sing it, then I give you notes. So here we go. Ella, the song I’ve selected for you this week is very special to me, in part because I love all of my Comets, and I want you to know that. The song you will be singing this week is Adele’s ‘Make You Feel my Love!’”

  “I love that song!” I said.

  “Okay, that was a fine reaction. Now sing it.”

  “But, I don’t think I know all the words.”

  “Honey, we’re on a tight schedule here. Sing any part of it that you know.”

  What escaped my lips at that moment was garbled gibberish about wind and rain set to a musical score that only existed in my head. If Adele’s real song was the equivalent of a cupcake, then what I sang was a tablespoon of lumpy expired batter.

  Without missing a beat, Zee said, “I think you will be amazing at this song if we can just find a way to make it more you. We are going to need to change it up so that it isn’t a karaoke version. I can hear it now, you will be great.”

  She gave me a hug, then said, “Alright, I think that’ll do. Good luck with your rehearsal.” She closed the door behind her, and I was left alone with Chris, slightly wobbling on my stool.

  He studied my face.

  “It’s not personal,” Chris said. “The reality is that they have her do so much for the show that she wouldn’t be able to actually train anyone.”

  “But how am I gonna learn this song?”

  He smiled.

  “That’s what I’m here for. And they showed me your audition...Your voice is very unique, kind of folksy with beautiful breath and tone. If it were up to me this week, I’d have added some trills but kept the song largely the same to showcase your beautiful voice.

  “Unfortunately though, it’s not up to me and they have you doing a dance remix version of the song, but don’t worry, you could sing the ABC's and have a better voice than anyone I’ve heard so far this season.”