Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (22 page)

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I announced and rushed upstairs even though the Yoons’ had a powder room in the basement. In actuality, I didn’t need to use the bathroom; I was just getting dizzy with anger and needed to get out of the basement.

At the top of the stairs, Lee’s sister Laura crossed her arms over her chest. “Is that really Elliott from
Center Stage!
?”

I nodded.
 
“Oh man,” she said wistfully. “If I’d known he was going to be here, I would have invited my friends.”

In the bathroom, I splashed a little water on my face and carefully dabbed it off with a towel, not wanting to mess up the black eyeliner I had meticulously applied at home.
 
There was no good reason at all why I should have been hiding myself away in the bathroom during Lee’s birthday party when everyone wanted to talk to me, I knew. But the whole night just seemed so completely
unfair.
I stared at myself in the mirror and demanded that my reflection tell me what I’d have to do to one day outshine Nicole since clearly not even becoming famous had done the trick. I’d never be four inches taller, or wake up one morning and magically have the right kind of shiny, straight hair. I’d never learn how to giggle in just the right way to make a boy think I was the cutest girl in the room. The acceptance of that fact felt like a gut punch. The best part—okay, maybe the
only
good part—about Nicole dating my brother Todd for a few weeks over the summer had been that she’d briefly stopped trying to hog all the attention from every boy around for miles.

It was little consolation that I had architected my own misery by inviting Elliott to come along. I could have sent him on his way back to Chase Atwood’s house, or suggested that he and I go grab an ice cream cone alone before having Mom drop me off at Lee’s. The only thing that was abundantly clear was that if Elliott developed a crush on Nicole, it would have been entirely my own fault. The rest of the season on
Center Stage!
would suck because it wouldn’t be mine to enjoy alone anymore. I’d be sharing it in an indirect way with Nicole.

A knock on the door made me realize I’d been in there for a while. It was not suspicious at all to linger in the bathroom at the Yoons' house because it had heated floor tile, as well as a variety of fancy-smelling hand soaps. I muttered, “Just a second,” and opened the door to find Kaela waiting for me.

“Are you mad?” she asked. Kaela had always been the most sensitive of my friends. She’d learned earlier than me never to mention any boys she liked around Nicole (prior to developing her crush on Colton).

“Nicole,” I said, aware that my jealousy was petty, and not caring. “Why does she always think that she’s the only girl who boys might ever be interested in?”

Kaela nodded in sympathy. “She just never lets up.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s super jealous of you, you know. All she ever talks about at school is how you guys are best friends and how you’re going to be a famous singer, and she’s going to be a famous actress.”

Nicole had never told me she wanted to be a famous actress; the story she told parents and teachers was that she wanted to study psychiatry. Hearing that Nicole had been bragging about our friendship at school put a bitter taste in my mouth. In fairness, I’d been texting a lot more frequently with Lee, but the majority of the text messages Nicole sent me had to do with gossip at school and inquiries about Elliott. Maybe
I
was at fault; I’d withdrawn from my friends a little because I hadn’t wanted to seem like I was bragging.

“That’s odd,” I snipped, “since she practically never calls me.”

“Well, she’s been in a bad mood lately,” Kaela admitted. “She tried out for
Fiddler on the Roof
and didn’t get a part.”

We were followed downstairs to the basement by Laura and Lee’s parents. Mrs. Yoon carried a towering red velvet cake with candles blazing. All of the guests began singing “Happy Birthday” and Laura ran around her parents with a camera to snap some pictures. Nicole had positioned herself right next to Elliott. Not wanting to impose, I kept a courteous distance away from him.

So, imagine my surprise when I felt Elliott reach over and take my hand in his… right at the point in the song when he and I sang, “Happy Birthday, dear Lee,” together, in harmony. I nearly choked upon feeling the warm touch of his skin. He’d inched through the group of kids to make his way over to me, and the vibrato of our voices fell into sync. We sounded so perfect together that a chill ran through me. His hand was dry, and I was paranoid that my own palm was sweaty. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Nicole crossing her arms over her chest on the other side of the table, quite displeased with me. For the first time, it seemed, the boy I had my eye on was actually into me, as well.

“Make a wish!” Laura commanded.

Lee leaned over his cake and hesitated. He looked up just for a split second directly at me, and then blew out his candles.

My rapidly beating heart began to sink. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe Lee had a crush on me, and I was slowly, unintentionally breaking his heart by falling in love with Elliott right in front of the whole country.

“Your friend Nicole is nice,” Elliott said.

As soon as we’d said our goodbyes and stepped into the Yoons’ cobble-stone driveway (which encircled a gurgling fountain), shyness overtook me. On the drive back to my house, which was most likely out of the way for him if he was driving back to Malibu that night, my brain was firing off thoughts in two opposite directions.

1.
Elliott might
really
like me and might
really
want to kiss me and what will I do if he tries?

And—

2. Even though I should feel awesome about that, why do I feel so lousy about hurting Lee’s feelings instead?

“Yeah, sure,” I said unenthusiastically. I added, “I think she likes you,” and then cursed at myself in my head for even testing those waters.

Surprisingly, Elliott laughed his kind of quiet half-laugh. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t get me wrong, she’s cool and all. But there are lots of girls like her at my school, and none of them ever said a nice word to me before I was on TV. Now I get e-mails all the time asking when we’re going to hang out, if I’m coming back to Temecula after the season finale. It’s all, like, so fake.”

I didn’t want to let on how surprised I was by his admission. I could see a guy like Elliott existing on the fringe of high school society even at Pacific Valley… until girls heard
that voice.
“Well, all those people talking to me at the party? Half of them have never spoken to me before tonight. Ever. Some of them, I’ve known since first grade.”

Stern silence followed my comment as we drove through wild Saturday night traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Finally, Elliott said, “I guess we’re both going to have to get used to that. For a while, at least. While it lasts.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. It hadn’t occurred to me before Lee’s party that suddenly people would be so much nicer to me than before. All of us on the show had been somewhat sheltered from the outside world since taping had begun. My
parents
certainly weren’t being any nicer, and they were the only people outside of the world of
Center Stage!
with whom I interacted lately. “And then when people
stop
being nice, we’ll probably develop all kinds of personality disorders and consider ourselves failures.”

“If
they stop being nice,” Elliott corrected me with a wicked grin.

The lights in the living room window of my house were lowered by the time we reached my block, which was a sign that my parents were at least pretending not to wait up for me like museum guards expecting burglars to trip alarms. When we pulled into my driveway, Elliott took me by complete surprise by jumping out of the car while the engine was still running. He dashed around the back to open my door for me. Of course, I didn’t know what he was up to, so by the time he made his way to my side of the car, I had already opened the door and was climbing out.

“God, Allison. You’re making it kind of hard to be gentlemanly,” Elliott said.

I closed the door behind me and grimaced. “Sorry.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” he said, looking down at his feet. I was painfully aware of how close we were standing together, his face just inches from mine… just as close to me as he’d stood near Nicole earlier that night while she’d been playing pinball. “That might have seriously been the first real party I’ve gone to in all of high school.”

“Oh, come on!” I teased. “You haven’t gone to
any
parties in all four years?”

Elliott shrugged. “No, not really. I mean, unless sitting in a living room with a couple guys playing Xbox counts.”

“That counts,” I assured him, not wanting to rub his humiliation in if he was telling the truth. “Well, it was fun that you came with tonight. My friends were all excited to meet you.”

At that point, since neither of us were budging, I was practically holding my breath, waiting for Elliott to
just kiss me.
I commanded myself just to take matters into my own hands if he didn’t act swiftly. I’d count down from ten and then just plant one on him if he didn’t make a move first.
 
My brain had just sent a command to my hands to reach for him when he startled me by saying, “That guy, Lee… were you guys ever, like, a couple?”

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “No! Geez, absolutely not. We’re just friends.”

“Oh,” Elliott said flatly. “Well, I think he likes you.”

Elliott dared to look me in the eye for a split second, and then I knew I didn’t have to worry. He was going to kiss me. He was just working up to it.

I managed to eek out, “It’s not like that,” before Elliott inched a little closer. He stared into my eyes, and finally placed his lips on mine, swallowing my words as they left my mouth. For a second he just pressed his lips into mine as if testing to make sure it was okay. As we kissed, I realized how silly and childish the crush I’d harbored on Oliver Teague for the last three years had been. The way I felt about Elliott didn’t even compare; I longed to know everything about him but was afraid to ask. I desperately wanted him to like me, but had a suspicion that no matter how badly I desired our worlds to overlap, they never quite would. More than anything, as I felt his hands on my hips, I wanted to assure him that whatever bad things in his life had happened, he hadn’t deserved them. If I got to be his girlfriend, I’d always be on his side.

I wasn’t sure if I’d met Elliott prior to
Center Stage!
that I ever would have given him a second glance, but I had a strong hunch that I would have. There was just something about him and me… like even if the show hadn’t brought us together, we would have found each other anyway. I’d always believed that when I fell in love for the first time, it would be with someone who was exactly like me. Elliott and I were very different, and yet we matched. Like our voices, our personalities were simply complementary. Unlike the boys at my school, who all seemed to be one-dimensional characters caught up in following sports teams and the plots of popular television shows, Elliott was so much more
real.
Elliott’s life probably had been and would always be infinitely more interesting than those other boys,’ which made his kiss all the more precious.

And of course, it didn’t occur to me until much later that night, as I replayed our first kiss over and over again in my head (when I should have been sleeping instead) that there could only be one winner on
Center Stage!.
I couldn’t honestly vow that I’d always be on Elliott’s side if we were going to be a couple, not without forfeiting my own ambition.

Eventually, it was going to boil down to him or me.

On Sunday afternoon, Mom and Dad drove me up to the Neue Hotel with two big suitcases crammed full of stuff. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t bring too much with me, especially since I hoped to return home on weekends. But there were so many unanswered questions about how and where I’d do laundry, and what we might be asked to wear to the studio, that I ended up packing practically everything I owned. As I’d packed, I’d come across Taylor’s blue hoodie in my closet. I brushed my fingers over it, strongly sensing her absence and regretting what I’d said to her the last time we spoke.

There were tearful goodbyes in the hotel lobby. After my parents had left for home (presumably to do something without me that would have annoyed me if I’d known about it, like order pizza), I became antsy within minutes. I could vaguely hear someone in the next room talking through the wall, and I strained my ears in an attempt to determine whether he was another contestant on the show or just a tourist visiting Los Angeles. There was certainly no shortage of homework I could have been doing, but cracking open books seemed pointless. Elliott’s arrival at the hotel was at the forefront of my thoughts. It occurred to me that I could use the hotel’s gym and pool, but I was intimidated by the idea of having my activities observed by other contestants outside of the safety of my room.

When I pulled back the blankets on my bed and climbed under them in the dark, unfamiliar space, I stared up at the ceiling listening to the
whoosh
of the elevator going up and down. Eventually, I felt so creepy about sleeping in a foreign place that I switched on my nightstand lamp to its dimmest setting. Half an hour later, still sleepless, I turned on the television at a low volume and finally drifted off like that.

If I thought I was any safer after having survived the fourth Expulsion Series, I was dead wrong. During the first four weeks, one contestant from each group had been voted off each Friday. From now until the end of the season, a coach could pull a Wild Card to save all of the contestants on their team. Only three contestants were voted off weekly until the eleventh week, which technically increased my odds of surviving a little longer. However, on Monday I found out that Nelly had been concocting a perfectly devious way to get rid of me once and for all while she still could.

“This week, the producers are introducing something never before done on
Center Stage,”
she announced in her chipper-chipmunk voice for the benefit of the camera crew. It had followed us into our rehearsal room after lunch. She looked downright delighted with herself, even more than usual when cameras were rolling. There was a rather suspicious-looking glass fish bowl on top of Bobby’s grand piano behind her, filled with scraps of paper. “Each of you will be paired with a partner, and you’ll perform a duet on Friday night. You’ll be required to practice together, and while the at-home audience will cast their votes based on your individual performances, we coaches will be examining your ability to collaborate as artists.”

My jaw went slack.
Duets?
How was it going to be possible to perform a duet with someone—
anyone,
at that point—from my group when they were all avoiding me like the plague?

Groans and frowns met Nelly’s announcement. I suspected that if the camera crew hadn’t been present, the protests would have been far more uproarious. Since the cameras turned toward us to film our reactions, I tried to look enthusiastic. But internally, I was in a blind panic. A duet was like an invitation to engage in sabotage.

“Do we get to pick our duet partner?” Robin asked innocently, stealing a glance at Jarrett. The two of them, without question the best-looking duo remaining in our group, probably thought they could steam up the stage with their combined sexiness.

“Now, where would be the fun in that?” Nelly teased, putting her hands on her hips. The fringe on her peach leather jacket dangled from her elbows.
 
“The pairs have already been chosen, and you’ll flip a coin to determine which of you will select the song you’ll sing. And the best part is… since it’s our Halloween broadcast, you’ll dress in costumes for your performance!” She pointed to the glass bowl. It contained scraps of paper with names of songs written on them.

I bit my lower lip, bracing myself for the worst. As Nelly began reading off the pre-selected duos from a piece of paper with the
Center Stage!
logo on it, my heart sank lower and lower. I didn’t even have to hear the names called out to know that Nelly was confident she had already dealt me my fatal blow.

“Robin and Ian!”

Robin and Ian high-fived for the camera.

“Jarrett and Eunice!”

Jarrett winked at Eunice and she nodded at him in approval.

And of course, “Christa and Allison!”

Christa cocked her head in my direction from across the room, and offered up a knowing smirk. I gave the camera my biggest smile, even though anger oozed out of every pore in my body. Obviously, Christa had known that this assignment was coming. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Nelly had cooked up this duet gimmick all on her own and had taken it to the producers as a ploy for ratings.

Robin and Ian were called up to the front first, and Nelly provided them with a quarter to flip. Robin called heads and won. She reached into the bowl to withdraw the song she and Ian would perform on Friday’s show. “
Up Where We Belong
,” she read from the scrap of paper for the cameras.
 
Ian pulled his fist back in a
yes
motion, while Robin turned to Nelly, blank-faced. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Of course you have!” Nelly insisted. “Joe Cocker? Jennifer Warnes? It’s a classic!”

Next, Jarrett and Eunice flipped the quarter for the cameras and Jarrett pulled
“Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart”
from the fishbowl.

“Nice,” Nelly complimented them. “You guys can have a lot of fun with that.”

When I rose from my chair to approach the piano, my legs felt weak. Christa had reached the piano before I did, and as Nelly handed her the quarter, she called, “Tails,” and handed it to me. I half-heartedly tossed the coin in the air and caught it, not particularly caring if heads or tails came up. Whether I drew the song assignment from the bowl or Christa did, it was certain to be the worst song ever written for two vocalists to share.

“Tails,” Christa announced smugly for the camera after glancing at the coin on my hand. She reached into the bowl and withdrew a scrap of paper. “
Hands Off My Man
.”

It was all I could do to hold back my squeal of joy. I knew that song inside and out, backward and forward. Taylor and I sang that pop jam for an entire summer in the back seat of my mother’s car. Taylor would take the Leeza parts while I sang Tawny’s lyrics. My mom would always comment under her breath that she couldn’t believe what kind of smut was on the radio whenever I got to the line, “
That body’s so tight, get your hands off it now or there’s gonna be a fight.”
I was grateful that my mom never watched MTV or Vevo, because if she’d ever seen the music video for that song she’d never let me listen to the radio again.

I could sing the heck out of “
Hands Off My Man
.” I was pretty sure I could
destroy
Christa on Friday night… the trick was going to be holding back to make her think she had it in the bag up until the night of the show.

“Dang,” Eunice said, shaking her head. “I love that song.”

On the bus back to the hotel, Elliott confided in a low voice that he’d been assigned “
Texas Highways”
to sing along with Jermaine from his group.
Even though I was pretty sure that two grizzled old Country Western stars had been the first to perform that song, Elliott seemed psyched. I pressed my lips together and managed a resolute “hmph.” Surely Chase’d had a little something to do with making sure Elliott was assigned a decent song.

“What’d you get?” he asked me as the bus turned into the Neue Hotel lot.

“
Hands Off My Man,”
I said, careful to make sure Christa, who was sitting two seats behind us, didn’t overhear me discussing our assignment. “I’m a little scared. Nelly paired me with her mini-me, that girl Christa.”

“She’s definitely up to something,” Elliott surmised. I didn’t dare ask what he thought Nelly was plotting. “You should look online and make sure you’re familiar with every version of that song ever recorded. Just in case she tries to make you sing some crazy jazz or reggae version of it on Friday.”

It would never have occurred to me that Leeza and Tawny might not have been the only artists to have ever recorded that song, but Elliott had a good point. Lots of popular songs were remakes. If it had ever been released as a Country Western song, I was in deep trouble because if there was anything Christa could do better than me, it was deliver a convincing performance as a cowgirl.

It was already seven o’clock by the time we arrived back at the hotel. Although all of the contestants staying there had the option of ordering dinner via room service, Elliott and I entered the restaurant together and took a seat near the windows looking over the not-so-scenic highway.

“It’s weird, living in a hotel, right?” Elliott asked.

My eyes ran through all of the options on the menu. It listed every food my mother had ever forbidden me from eating. Gluten! Saturated fat! Belgian fries with dipping mayonnaise!

“Yeah,” I agreed, looking up from the tempting appetizer options. “I thought I’d enjoy it, but I kind of feel like someone’s spying on me all the time.” It was also plenty weird sitting across from a boy who had kissed me forty-eight hours earlier, not knowing if he was my boyfriend or what.

“I’m afraid to touch anything in my room,” Elliott confessed with a bashful smile. “Like, if I use the coffee maker or too many towels, Tommy and Susan are going to knock on my door and hand me a bill.”

After the waitress had cleared away our plates, Elliott said, “Hey, I kind of want to work on some guitar chords tonight, but do you want to hang out tomorrow?”

While I wasn’t thrilled to go back up to my hotel room alone, it was a small relief that Elliott wasn’t trying to elbow his way into my room right off the bat. It made me nervous to think a boy I really liked was staying at the same hotel as me without any production assistants around to prevent us from hanging out wherever and whenever we wanted. Now that the season was in its fifth week, the handful of production staff members staying at the hotel probably would have been more concerned about us venturing out of the hotel to cause a social media frenzy than they would have been if Elliott had moved into my room. I mean, I
wanted
to hang out with Elliott and kiss him more. But I’d never even had a boyfriend before. I was fearful of things moving too quickly.

With Elliott back on the hotel’s seventh floor for the night, my thoughts returned to my duet dilemma. I was certain that Lee would have some ideas on how I might be able to throw off Christa’s performance on Friday. But I knew I’d be breaking the rules if I gave him too many specific details about what the challenge entailed. I called him, hoping it wasn’t too late for him to answer.

“Allison, why in the world would you want to practice singing in a Country Western twang?” Lee asked in response after I requested his assistance in nailing what I was sure, after speaking with Elliott, would inevitably end up a honky-tonk performance. If Nelly was going to insist that we perform our duet in a way that showcased Christa’s talents, I had an idea as to how to appeal to her fans. But I wasn’t sure I could pull it off convincingly. “I mean, you probably can’t even name one Faith Hill song. You don’t know anything about Country.”

 
“Yeah, but can you help me? I mean, could you come up to my hotel in Studio City after dinner one night this week and help me practice?” I asked. “I’m not allowed to leave the hotel now that we’re in the fifth week. I’m practically a prisoner here.” Having Lee’s assistance during that first week of the show had made all the difference in my confidence when I’d taken the stage. Unlike me, Lee was knowledgeable about music theory. He’d know the best way for me to outshine Christa during our performance without it seeming like I was just showboating.

I heard an unexpected hesitation on the other end of the line. “Well, tomorrow one of my friends is coming over and after dinner we’re hooking up a car mount.”

I had to interrupt him and ask what a car mount was. It was a removable platform he could attach to the hood of his car, on which he could place a video camera to shoot car scenes for his independent films. His parents had bought him a Toyota Yaris for his birthday, and he hadn’t even texted me since Saturday to tell me.

“Oh,” I said, a little hurt that he hadn’t sent me a picture of his new car or mentioned it sooner. “That’s awesome. Now you don’t have to beg Nicole for rides anymore.”

“Correct,” Lee proudly confirmed. “I am a free man.”

He promised to try to visit me on Wednesday after dinner; we said our goodbyes, and I felt lonelier than ever. It seemed like I’d hurt Lee’s feelings at his birthday party more than he was letting on. I wasn’t sure why that made my stomach feel sour; Lee had somewhat callously hit on Nicole at least a thousand times in front of me since freshman year without apologizing. It wasn’t fair for him to act like he had a bruised ego because suddenly there was—for the first time in freakin’ history—a boy who was interested in me.