Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (19 page)

“I guess I can understand if all of the other contestants want to give us some space,” Elliott continued.

Great. I hoped that the other contestants hadn’t made a point of watching the broadcast. If Elliott and I hadn’t been considered oddballs
before
that creative bit of editing aired; we certainly would be by Monday morning. I vowed to be a lot more careful in how I phrased my responses in the Secret Suite from then on. It seemed like the editors intended to create some romantic camaraderie between me and Elliott—the two of us against the world—when, in fact, there was only a glimmer of camaraderie. If I didn’t in with the other contestants, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

The fourth week of production marked the end of the season’s introductory period and included a little curve ball. Our fourth Friday night performance would be a little routine that the producers liked to call “roulette.” We’d each prepare three songs that had been assigned to us, and on the night of the broadcast, we’d have no warning as to which of the three would be played by the house band. We’d hit the stage about one-third as prepared as we’d been the previous three weeks.

“This week sucks, huh?”

It had been almost three weeks since Elliott had appeared in my driveway, and nearly as long since the last time we’d exchanged words. I’d pretty much given up on the idea that he might have any kind of special feelings toward me. Even though my eyes had combed the grounds of the studio lot for him just about every day, my glimpses of him were rare. That was probably a
good
thing since I practically jumped out of my skin every time I saw his mess of brown curls towering over the heads of everyone else. I would have died of shame if he knew that I fangirled over blog posts featuring pictures of him every weekend just like every other girl in America.

I agreed, “Yeah. All three of my songs are duds. It’s a lose, lose, lose situation.”

We lingered outside the Studio B, which I’d come to understand was the formal name of the warehouse in which our vocal lessons were held. It was a few minutes after lunch on Wednesday. I’d abandoned the cafeteria early since I had no reason to sit there after I’d eaten my salad and suffer the dirty looks I received from the other contestants. Even though Robin had surpassed me in votes the previous week, I was still a target of jealousy. It didn’t take a genius to realize that the men in my group would
never
be mean to Robin, no matter how much of a threat she posed to them.

“Yeah,” Elliott said, smiling as he looked at his feet. “Mine are all pretty lame, too. I’m not even sure which one I’d choose if I got to pick.”

I didn’t have much of a response to that since I wasn’t about to inform him which three songs I’d been assigned. I didn’t expect him to share his with me, either. “You skip lunch every day,” I stated.

Turquoise eyes met mine, and then darted away.

“Yeah. I’m not exactly popular in my group. Chase keeps telling me to put myself out there, stand my ground. You know, make friends. But they don’t want to be friends with me.”

 
I waited a moment, letting the silence stretch between us like a slowly expanding bubble of chewing gum. I didn’t want to seem overly eager to reply. “No one even wants to
talk
to me in my group. Nelly’s made it pretty clear that she wants me out, and nobody wants to get on her nerves by being nice to me.”

More silence. I wondered what Elliott was like at school. If he was every bit the loner he was at the studio. If we’d have been friends if he were enrolled at Pacific Valley. If Nicole would have thought he was hot if she’d met him before he’d become a reality television star.

“Hey,” he said suddenly with more energy than before. “Do you like ice cream?”

“Who doesn’t like ice cream?”

“We should go get some. Tonight. I’ll get you at your house around nine,” he said and walked away before I could object or negotiate terms.

Throughout our vocal lessons, I was in another world. The scene that had just unfolded outside Studio B replayed in my head on an endless loop. Elliott Mercer, indie-songwriting television heartthrob, had just asked me
out.
Me. Of course, there was a possibility that I had misinterpreted the invitation when perhaps he just wanted to get ice cream and talk about how hot Robin was.
That
would suck, and it would serve me right for erroneously assuming that Elliott Mercer wanted to go on a date with me.

By the time Dad pulled into the parking lot in his Volvo that evening, I had convinced myself that Elliott was going to stand me up as part of some cruel trick on which he’d collaborated with Nelly. So extreme was my paranoia that I was even certain a camera crew would be planted somewhere in our hedges to capture all the times I would forlornly part the curtains to look at our empty driveway. But, I decided, I would curl my hair and put on my tightest pair of skinny jeans after dinner anyway.

Just in case Elliott actually showed up.

Mom made one of her typical well-intentioned, high-protein, vegan dinners (tofu with peanut satay sauce). Throughout our meal, Lee texted me furiously. He was insistent that he come over that night to help me practice for Friday’s broadcast, even though I patiently explained that he
couldn’t.
The producers of the show had started reminding us on a weekly basis that we’d all signed privacy disclosures. We technically weren’t supposed to tell
anyone
about what the next broadcast would feature, not even by innocently asking for help in preparing.

LEE 7:42 P.M.

Oh come on like who am I gonna tell?

Lee didn’t seem to understand the point; it didn’t matter that he was just a junior in high school with no connections to major media outlets. He was still
a person,
and I could have been thrown off the show if anyone found out I’d accidentally told him that I had to practice more than one song for Friday. The producers could have kicked me off if they found out that he’d helped me during the first week of the season.

I was sitting on my bed returning another one of his texts, assuring him we’d hang out on Saturday when my father appeared in my doorway.

“Your friend from the show is here to see you.”

“Oh,” I said, jumping to my feet and instantly checking my reflection in the mirror over my bureau. “Actually, Dad, would it be okay if he and I go out for ice cream?”

Dad put his hands on his hips. “It’s almost nine o’clock, Allison. You know that your mother doesn’t want you out after ten.”

“Dad,
please,
” I begged. “I never get to do anything with other people from the show and they do stuff together all the time.”

The muscles in his face loosened a little even though I was sure he was considering the same thought as me: that Mom was going to kill him. “Be home in an hour,” he warned me.

Outside, Elliott fidgeted on our stoop. It was a warm night. The sky above was clear and the stars shone brightly above the palm trees swaying across the street in the light breeze.

“Hey,” he said. “Is it cool if we…” he motioned to his car.

“Yeah, I just have to be home in an hour.” I may have been a reality television star on the rise, but I still had overprotective parents. Very unsophisticated.

I climbed into the passenger seat of his Fiesta and noticed as Elliott started the engine that both of my parents were watching us through our living room window. Elliott waved at them while he backed out of our driveway. As soon as we were driving down Rosewood Avenue, and my parents couldn’t see my face, I rolled my eyes at him. “God, they’re so annoying.”

“Hey, at least they care what you’re up to. It’s cute.”

The radio in his dashboard was set to a regular, old-fashioned FM station (both of my parents had satellite radio in their cars). Classic oldies were quietly playing, which kind of surprised me. Not even my dad listened to old-timer music like that. Usually, he listened to annoying public radio discussions about the horrible effects of fracking on the environment and reviews of the latest works of literary fiction from indie presses. Otherwise, Dad either listened to classic rock (the Beatles, Zeppelin, Hendrix) or Nineties jams from his college years (Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Jane’s Addiction, and Pavement).

“Who is this?” I dared to ask, revealing my ignorance of music from the Fifties and Sixties.

“Uh, the Lettermen, maybe,” Elliott informed me. “I like listening to music from that era. The songwriting was a lot more pure, you know?”

I nodded in agreement, peeved that his knowledge of rock history went back further than my own. I practically studied my dad’s old issues of
Rolling Stone
and
Alternative Press
magazines that he stored in the garage. There was an interview with Nirvana in the October 1993 issue of
Spin
that I had committed to memory, at least the quotes from Kurt Cobain. I knew everything there was to know about the personal histories of Madonna, Adele, Liz Phair, Tori Amos, P!nk, and Gwen Stefani… but just like that, Elliott one-upped me by namedropping a band that was practically ancient history.

“I thought we could go to Milk over on Beverly. Is that place any good?” Elliott asked, turning right onto Melrose.

Truthfully, I had no idea what Milk was like over on Beverly because my parents would never have taken me out for ice cream. Taylor and I were fond of sneaking off to Millions of Milkshakes but I hadn’t been there in over a year. If my mom were ever to find out that I had intentionally consumed so much dairy and refined sugar, she would have wept tears over my betrayal. “Yeah, sure, that’s fine,” I lied.

A minute or two passed in silence. It seemed like the ball was more or less in my court to start a conversation if I wanted to have one. “So… are you, like, staying at the hotel with the rest of the contestants now? Or driving up from Temecula every day?”

Elliott shot me a goofy, indecipherable grin as he drove. “Come on, Allison. I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew.”

“Knew what?”

 
We lingered at the light on Fairfax and Elliott’s smile became a combination of wickedness and embarrassment. “That I’m staying at Chase’s place. You mean, you really didn’t know?”

Blood rushed to my face, heating it. So he was actually
living
with Chase Atwood! Was that even
allowed?
Did the producers know?
 
“Um, I thought maybe there was something going on since I saw him giving you a lift, but I haven’t heard anyone mention that you’re
living
with him.”

“Yeah, well, when I got onto the show, my mom wasn’t so thrilled. I mean she was happy for me, but it definitely complicated our lives.”
 
He slowed down on Fuller Avenue looking for a place to park as we drew nearer to the ice cream shop.

“You mean, with like, school?” I asked. “My parents were not pleased that I had to take a leave of absence. They’d be even less pleased if they knew I was barely keeping up with my homework.”

“Yeah, well, school…” he eyeballed an open spot in between cars and paused to back into it. “And work. I help pay bills around the house.”

He raised the parking brake and shut off the Fiesta’s engine. “Couldn’t really be stocking shelves at the grocery store in Temecula and be taping a television show in Studio City at the same time, you know?”

“Elliott,” I geared up to ask the question that had been on my mind since the very first broadcast of the show. “Where’s your father?”

Elliott shrugged. “That’s a good question. Last I heard, Texas. But that was maybe, ten, eleven years ago.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, wishing I’d suppressed my curiosity.

“It’s okay.
 
It’s not like I miss him or anything,” he said, and then sighed. “So, yeah. It really came down to gasoline. Even though getting by without my paycheck from the grocery store would have been hard, coming up with two extra tanks of gas a week on top of that would have been impossible. Once we did the math, I had to call Claire at the studio and say I was sorry, but that I just couldn’t be on the show,” he said.

“Oh my God. What did she say?” I asked, imagining Claire’s panic. “She couldn’t have been
happy
about that. I was there when you auditioned. I could practically
see
dollar signs in the eyes of the producers when they heard your voice.”

A strange sound escaped from Elliott, kind of like a half-hearted cough or an emphatic sigh. I’d never heard him laugh before, and it was adorable. “She said she’d talk to the producers. Then, when I got out of school that day, Chase was parked outside in his giant Hummer. He’d already worked everything out with my mom for me to stay with him in Malibu for the first couple weeks of the show.”

For a second I wondered if Taylor knew that a teenage boy was
living
with her father. Then I remembered that my brother had mentioned meeting up with her in Boston. She was back at her fancy boarding school. I didn’t know if that meant her summer on the road with Chase’s band had been fine and returning to boarding school in the fall had always been the plan, or if the father-daughter reunion hadn’t gone so well. Perhaps it had been decided that it would be best for Taylor to return to her old routine. Whichever the case, I wasn’t on good enough terms with her to reach out and ask.