All the Way (16 page)

“No way. But they said they're just sick of no-talent people coming in here for a laugh.”

“Great.” I glanced at Emily, hoping she'd follow my train of thought and let me back out.

“Nope,” she said. “If you quit, I quit.”

“She's tough,” I said about Emily to Ariel.

“Just go for it,” Ariel said. Her face relaxed, and she smiled a little. “It was fun, actually, even though they dumped all over me.”

“Okay, okay. Wish me luck,” I said.

“Break a leg, both of you,” Ariel said. Then she wandered down the hall to wait for us.

When it was my turn to audition, my stomach was all jittery. But you know what? That was pretty much par for the course these days, so I was used to it.

Some production assistant handed me some forms to sign, another one gave me a number on a card to wear around my neck, and then they opened the door and shooed me into the torture chamber—I mean, the audition room.

The judges were just two men, not three. One guy had a name tag that said Bart, and the other one's tag said Brat. Bart was wearing bright green Prada glasses pushed up on his head. Brat had gold chains around his neck and a goatee, believe it or not. What was that—some kind of schizo fashion statement?

And how was this supposed to work, anyway, with only two judges?

“Hi,” I said nervously, glancing at the cameraman standing off to the side.

“Don't look at the camera,” Bart said. “Just look at us. So, let's see . . . you're . . .”

He read down a list.

“Carmen Salgado,” I said.

“Okay, Carmen.” He rested one cheek on his fist, like he was tired and could hardly stay awake, but then I saw him checking out my outfit. “Good look, by the way,” he said nodding at my scarf.

“Thanks.”

“So what are you going to sing for us?” Brat asked.

“I'm going to do ‘My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion,” I said.

“Not another one,” Brat moaned.

“Okay. Knock yourself out,” Bart said skeptically.

I took a deep breath and gave it my best shot, which even I knew wasn't good enough. I was pretty much flat on the last high note, and I forgot to do what Becca said, to modulate my voice on the ending.

But, hey,
I thought.
They let me get all the way to the end without cutting me off! Maybe they liked it anyway?

“No thanks,” Bart said flatly.

“No way,” Brat said.

I just stood there, staring, waiting for more.

“Okay, that's it, Carmen. Thanks for coming,” Bart said, nodding toward the door to indicate I should leave.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I didn't sleep in those seats all morning just for this. Aren't you supposed to give me feedback or something?”

Bart turned to Brat. “Why do they always ask for punishment?”

Brat shrugged. “Look, you've got a decent voice, but you haven't got enough power behind it to really make it in the music business. And you picked the wrong song for you, sweet-heart. That number is way too rangy; it's a killer. You shouldn't be asking us to compare you to Celine. And you were flat on the high note. Other than that, it was perfect.”

Bart laughed. “But you've definitely got the look going on,” he said, trying to console me. “For real, babe. We've seen a lot of people in here, and I've got to say, you have the most original vibe I've seen all day.”

“Well, thanks.” I felt marginally better.

One of the producers started to come toward me, like they thought they were going to have to physically eject me out the door or something, so I started to leave. But then I stopped.

“Hey—one more question. How can there only be two judges?” I asked. “What if you don't agree?”

“If we don't agree, we flip a coin,” Bart said, and he wasn't kidding.

Oh-kay. That's original.
Suddenly I wasn't so sorry I didn't get on the show. I had the feeling it was going to tank before they even picked a winner anyway.

Emily went in a few numbers later. Ariel and I tried to listen at the door, but we couldn't hear a thing. It seemed like she was in there forever.

“What are they doing, making her take the SATs?” Ariel joked.

“And a blood test,” I said, just to say something to calm my nerves.

Weird—I was more nervous for her than I was for me. Finally the door opened, and she dashed into our arms, waving a pink piece of paper. “I got a callback!” she said. “I'm going to New York for the next round!”

“Ahhhhh!”
we both screamed, jumping and hugging her with joy.

“What did they say? What did they say?” I demanded.

“They said . . . oh my God, I can't remember a thing.” She was shaking so hard, she couldn't think. “They, um, they said they loved my voice and my look, but that I needed to work on my presentation skills.”

“You rock!” I yelled, hugging her again and dancing around in the hallway.

Of course, inside I was partly thinking “I rock, too!” because I was the one who had pulled her whole look together. She had on the little black velour tank top I had picked out, and I'd loaned her a pair of supertight jeans that made her butt look fabulous. Plus I'd given her one of my scarves to tie around her waist like a belt. The whole outfit made her look really hot, which probably distracted the judges for a little bit from noticing how shy she was.

“I didn't look at them once while I was singing,” she confessed. “They almost sent me home for that. Bart said I should go on to New York, but Brat said I was too awkward and had no charisma. They actually flipped a coin to decide! Can you believe that?”

Anyway, the ride home was sort of a downer. We mostly slept in the car, because no one but Emily had anything to look forward to, and we were all so beat, we didn't even want to stop for anything to eat.

But at least I felt happy about one thing: my fashion design skills were solid. The way I saw it, if Emily made it, it would be partly because of me. I was designing a superstar.

So what if the whole rest of my life was a shambles? So what if the guy I'd been crushing on all year turned out to be a creep with zero interest in me and less than zero decency? So what if the prom was only six days away, and I still didn't have a date?

I had a solution for that last one.

David Ulster had just hit the jackpot. He was taking me to the senior prom.

He just didn't know it yet.

 

 

 

The floor of my room was a disaster zone when I got home Sunday night—and not because my dad was renovating the house. Before I'd left for Cleveland, I'd tried on virtually every piece of clothing I owned, working to come up with the perfect outfit. Now my best tops were strewn all over the floor in a heap.

Clean it up tomorrow, Carmen,
I told myself. I was way too wiped tonight. I was just about to head to the bathroom to brush my teeth when I noticed my duffel bag . . . vibrating.

Oh, right. I'd put my cell phone on vibrate during my audition, and then I'd stuffed it into my duffel and forgotten to turn it back to ring.

I grabbed for it and saw Rachel's caller ID. My face lit up. Well, at least she still cared about what was happening in my life . . .

“Hi,” I said, so glad to see it was her calling.

“Where have you been?” Rachel scolded. “I've been calling you all day! Well, all afternoon, anyway, since I slept till two and I'm still seriously hung over. I thought you'd want to hear about it.”

“Hear about what?”

“Don't tell me you forgot we had the prom last night!”

Oops. Yeah, I'd forgotten all about Woodward Baines's prom. “Uh, yeah. I did. Uh, sorry. How was it?”

“Oh my God, it was amazing! Absolutely perfect. I mean, so much better than last year's. It totally rocked, you should have been there, you wouldn't have believed how great the decorations were, they had a desert island theme with sand everywhere, and the DJ was so hot I almost threw myself at him right in front of Jeremy! Not really, but you know what I mean. I'm talking some serious booty, I was ready to jump him, probably because I kept thinking about whether to do it with Jeremy or not, but we didn't, don't worry, I'm still pure. Anyway, you should have seen everyone. Caroline's dress? Unbelievable! She had this red cotton dress—and yeah, you heard it, cotton!—but it was so amazing, it was like a 1950s sundress with a wild streak, because you could see right through it! Honestly, everyone was talking about it all night, and Jeff Portman got so drunk he tried to feel her up right on the dance floor in front of Mr. Duffy, who kicked him out but then let him come back in because Jeff started crying. I swear to God! It was unbelievable. Everyone looked fabulous, Jeremy got me the most beautiful corsage—you know how I hate corsages, but this one was excellent, not cheesy. And, I mean, everyone looked awesome, except Penelope, who wore a lavender satin polyester dress that she'd worn as a bridesmaid in her cousin's wedding two weeks before, and it looked it. But Mariel wore a silver knit tank top with a black velvet skirt and a long silver chain, it was so original, and Stephanie looked to die for in all-white silk with little pearls along the princess seams, but it didn't look like a wedding dress, don't worry, and Kristen actually spent nine hundred dollars on a black lace Chloe dress that didn't fit her right, but it was so pretty no one cared. Oh my God, Carmen, I wish you'd been there.”

She finally took a breath.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

“Are you okay?” Rachel finally heard the exhausted and miserable sound in my voice.

“Not really.”

“What happened? Did you go to Cleveland?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“What's wrong? You didn't get picked?” She sounded sympathetic, ready to tell me why it didn't matter because I was so great anyway, blah, blah, blah.

“I didn't get picked for anything.”

“What do you mean? You sound awful.”

I sighed. It was hard to tell her my life sucked when she was having the perfect senior year.

“Tyler reserved a motel room. He thought I'd sleep with him because he thought Joey's blog had been for real. When I said no, he dumped me for Natalie.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Rachel was great after that; she tried to cheer me up and support me, she really did. But I hung up feeling like she wasn't really part of my world anymore. She didn't know the names of the Norton mascots, she hadn't spent any time in Murphy's, she had no idea who Brenda Masserhof was, or Old Mango, she didn't care that much whether
Guys and Dolls
was a hit or a flop, and she couldn't really tell me whether I should be embarrassed to go to the prom with David Ulster or not. She just didn't know my life anymore.

And I wasn't so much a part of hers.

For better or worse, I'd moved on.

What the hell, I decided. I was going to ask David to the prom, even if it was a bit of a comedown for me. I mean, sure, he was geeky. And he could stand to lose a few pounds. And his voice wasn't exactly in the lower registers.

But he was a nice guy, and I actually could talk to him about stuff. I didn't hate the idea of spending prom night with him.

So I went up to him at rehearsal Monday after school. He was fiddling with the lighting board backstage, trying to hook it up so you could press just one switch and all the colored light gels would switch from red to blue.

“Hey, David,” I said, peering at the mess of wires in his hands. “You want to get coffee after rehearsal?”

His face lit up, and he nodded, almost stammering. “Uh, yeah, for sure. Uh, I just have to figure out, figure out these wires first, okay? I've got the transformer out, and it's . . .”

He was so nervous, he touched two wires together, and sparks flew. And then the lights onstage went out.

“Hey! We need those on!” Mr. Richards called from the darkened stage.

“Sorry,” David called, groping around in the dark for something. A minute later, he flicked on that small pen flashlight that he'd shined in my eyes the first day.

“Lights!” Mr. Richards demanded, not realizing that we hadn't just turned them off.

“I'm working on it,” David called nervously. “I think I blew a fuse.”

It took him a few minutes, stumbling around in the dark, but he found the electrical panel, flipped a circuit breaker, and the lights came back on.

He looked at me sheepishly.

“Maybe we should just go for coffee now, before you burn down the school,” I joked. He seemed relieved.

“Yeah. I can, uh, do this later.” He pointed at the mess of wires. “You want to meet at Murphy's?”

What could I say? No, I have bad memories from my two dates with Tyler there? Not cool. Besides, Murphy's was really the only place to go for coffee in Norton.

So we took two cars and met up at Murphy's three minutes later. He followed me into the place, letting me hold the door for him. Great.

I braced myself when we walked in, hoping that the barista from hell wasn't working today, and at least that one tiny prayer was answered.

Instead, Molly's friend Ursula was behind the counter, being trained as a new hire. Who knew Ursula could pass a written test to use a cash register or a coffee machine?

For whatever reason, though, she didn't give me any grief. She just filled our coffee orders and acted like she didn't notice that I was with someone whose social skills ranked right below those of a poorly trained Great Dane.