Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) (32 page)

“A Christmas tree,” the goateed guy chuckled and waved his thumb at me as if to say,
Can you believe this kid?
“What a joker.”

“Um, I really don’t know,” I insisted. What was so funny about just sticking with a Christmas tree, I wasn’t sure.

“Ian’s requested a snow machine so that it will look like flakes are gently drifting down on him as he sings,” Mark informed me to give me some inspiration. “We’re going to put together a big toy train to travel around the stage for Tia.”
     

Okay, so maybe a Christmas tree might have been aiming a little low. I mashed my lips together as I tried to think of something I could do on stage that would be impossible for Robin to thwart. A fake snowstorm on stage seemed to carry a high potential for disaster since even fake snow was wet, and there would be a lot of electrical equipment on stage. Anything involving fire was totally out of the question. The song I’d been assigned didn’t seem to lend itself to any kind of decorative theme, either. Its lyrics about “troubles being far away” didn’t have anything to do with Santa or reindeer. “All I can think of is maybe to ask people online for pictures of their families together during the holidays, and then project them really big on stage?” I offered with a shrug, convinced that my suggestion was pathetic. I braced myself for their frustrated sighs.

But instead, Mark and the lead stage designer both turned toward each other with sparks in their eyes. “It’s genius!” Mark exclaimed. “We’ll work with network marketing to create a flash social media campaign to get people to submit photos.”

“It’s always the simplest ideas that are the most powerful,” Goatee said, smiling at me with appreciation.

My dour mood continued throughout the week as dreadful paranoia about whether or not Robin was going to spring an attack on me haunted me from moment to moment. I religiously locked the flimsy little push-button lock on the screen door of my trailer whenever I was inside, terrified that Robin would enter and try to initiate a confrontation. It never occurred to me to launch an offensive against her; I wouldn’t have had the slightest idea how to go about attacking her performance. Insomnia gripped me.

On Thursday, the question that awaited me in the Secret Suite had been e-mailed in from a viewer in New Mexico.

What are you asking Santa for this year?

Last year, all I’d wanted for Christmas was a new iPod and a pair of clogs like Nicole’s. This year, I couldn’t think of a single thing that could be bought at a store and wrapped in paper that I truly wanted. Instead, I wanted to erase the fight I’d had with Elliott and have him like me again. I wanted Taylor to have an easier time dealing with her mom’s death and for my brother to avoid giving her another reason to suffer. I wanted my parents to remain happily and geekily married forever, and for Lee to find a girlfriend who’d love him for being the awesome guy that he was. My Christmas wish list had grown in length, but everything on it was out of my control.

Just as I was about to hit the record button, I realized that I’d forgotten to include winning
Center Stage!
on my list. What was supposed to be the thing I wanted most in life had slipped my mind.

 
“This year,” I told the camera in my most chipper voice as its green light blinked, “nothing on my Christmas list could be made in Santa’s workshop, but thanks for asking. I hope everyone watching has a healthy and happy holiday season.”

By Friday, I was so anxious about the possibility of Robin sabotaging my performance that I insisted on carrying the outfit Aubrey had chosen with me on the bus ride to the Dolby. Since it was a holiday show, I would be wearing a weird red velvet mini-dress with white fake fur trim that was probably supposed to make me look like an elf. All of the other contestants gave me skeptical side-eye glances as I clung to my garment bag on the mini-bus, but I didn’t care. Elliott sat as far away from me as he could, tapping away on that new iPhone. I wondered if maybe his crappy old flip phone had finally eaten dust since one of the running jokes on the show (and gripes from viewers) all season was that anti-technology Elliott was completely absent from social media.

When the mini-bus pulled up around the back of the Dolby Theater, there was a strange trailer already parked along the curb with orange rubber street cones around it to prevent other vehicles from getting too close. It was the kind of trailer used to transport horses—which struck me as odd. I didn’t know what all of the contestants had planned for their performances, but it wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Robin had made arrangements with Mark to ride a magical unicorn through the aisles. I caught Elliott staring at the trailer, too. Although I was wondering,
who in their right mind would have requested for live animals to be brought to Hollywood,
I didn’t say a word. Those animals could have been requested by anyone—even Elliott.

If there had been anywhere at the Dolby Theater where I could have hidden out during the taping instead of Group 2’s room, I would have gladly avoided Robin and Ian all night. The prep room felt more like a prison cell than it ever had before, in spite of the fat crimson and white-leafed poinsettias set in the room’s corners as the network’s attempt at festive decoration. Robin noticed an orange price sticker from Albertson’s supermarket on one of them and muttered, “Cheap.”

All of the cordial sentiment between Robin and Ian had vanished and been replaced by hostility since we’d left Studio City. Ian sat in one corner of the room on the floor thrashing his head to power rock in his headphones and cracking his knuckles, clearly stressed out.

Nelly and Chase took the stage to open the show with a playful duet of
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”
that rekindled my disgust for Chase’s selfish, careless behavior toward his family. During previous weeks, we’d all mostly ignored the monitor in the prep room, but with the competition this stiff, not even Robin could peel her eyes away. When the broadcast cut to commercial break, I conducted a furtive hashtag check on Twitter to see how #CenterStageHoliday was performing. All week I had been lazily checking in on the network’s efforts to aggregate holiday pictures from viewers on social media channels. Kaela had reassured me that the hashtag was performing well, which gave me some hope for my chances during the Expulsion Round.

Ian was the first from our group to take the stage, and he changed into a khaki t-shirt and camouflage pants.
 
His performance was preceded by his video segment about a painful rheumatoid arthritis flare-up. He’d never once mentioned his condition since I’d met him, which made me wonder he’d ever truly been diagnosed or if the arthritis was invented by the show’s producers, just like my nutritional problems. Following an introduction from Danny, Ian strode onto the stage. He informed the audience that he was dedicating his performance to one of his friends from home who was serving overseas in the United States Marine Corps, and to all of the men and women of our nation’s armed forces who wouldn’t be home for Christmas that year. Thunderous applause swallowed the first few lyrics of his song. The fake snow that began gently falling prompted another round of clapping.

“That was really beautiful,” Geoffrey the hairdresser said, wiping a tear out of the corner of his eye.

“Pft,” Robin mumbled, obviously considering Ian’s dedication as a gimmick to gain favor with the audience. It may very well have been, but I had to hand it to Ian: dedicating a song to a friend in the Marines was a smart move.

Tia’s video segment focused on concern for her grandparents in the Philippines after a mild earthquake that had rocked Manila the previous week.
 
When the stage lights were raised after the segment, all of the snow from Ian’s performance had been mopped away, and a train track had been laid around an assortment of fake pine trees on stage. As Tia began singing,
“All I Want for Christmas is You,”
a small train just about the right size for a small kid to ride chugged out from behind the cluster of pine trees. Its adorable little smokestack spat out puffs of white smoke.

Robin took a seat on the other side of the sofa from me after changing into her silk gown and paid acute attention to what was happening on the monitor. Just as the train approached where Tia stood on stage, it veered off its track and the first car toppled over on its side.

Sensing something was wrong by the light laughter in the audience, Tia glanced over her shoulder and noticed the kiddie train wreck. Steam (now directed at the first few rows of studio guests) continued to pour out of the smokestack. The other cars of the train followed the first in piling up where the track had come unhinged.
 
To her credit, Tia never permitted her voice to falter.
 

Robin leaned back on the couch and crossed her legs comfortably, a smug grin spreading across her face. I had no idea how she had managed to derail a toy train without even touching it, but I was certain that she had masterminded what we’d just seen on the monitor. It was not out of the realm of possibility that she had used her long legs and breathy voice to convince the nerdy production assistants to execute her evil strategy.

Wondering if Elliott was paying attention in his team’s prep room, I clutched my garment bag a little more tightly.
 
It was unnerving that Robin had launched an attack on Tia. Out of all the contestants on the show, Tia had shown the least amount of fierce desire to win. The possibility that Robin had something up her sleeve for me, and maybe even for
Elliott
, was much more credible now. My sickening paranoia all week seemed justified.

Robin’s stylist had dressed her in a simple white silk gown to make her look like a vision of purity. When Rob the production assistant arrived to fetch her, and she stood up from the couch, I felt a bitter twinge of jealousy. I wished I was older, taller and had a more slender frame like Robin’s. Her beauty was deceptive. Viewing audiences would never believe in a million years how much evil lurked underneath those washboard abs.
 
If Rob had been the stagehand who’d assisted Robin in the train derailment prank, he gave no outward appearance of it as he impatiently motioned for her to get moving.

In Robin’s video segment, she and her boyfriend argued over the phone about how she was going to miss the party in Chicago for his parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. “I mean, it seems like all you care about is winning this dumb show,” the attractive boyfriend said into his phone from his apartment in Chicago, where a location camera crew had presumably taped his half of the phone conversation. “What happens the day after the season ends, Robin? I mean, does life ever go back to normal?” The audience was left wondering if their relationship was on the rocks when the segment faded to black from a close-up on Robin’s distraught expression.

As she crossed the stage to begin her song, the reason for the livestock trailer parked outside was revealed. For her stage design concept, Robin had requested a real, live nativity scene. A glowing star hung over the stage, a couple dressed in Biblical garb cradled a baby, and three guys wearing shepherd costumes slowly walked across the stage with actual
sheep.
For just a second, it was breathtaking. With Robin in the foreground looking downright angelic, the scene on stage was like an illustration from a children’s Bible.

But then…

The glorious vision fell apart in a way that Robin couldn’t have planned more masterfully if she’d been pranking herself
.
Even though she was the only person on stage with a microphone and was crooning
“Silent Night”
into it, the mic was picking up the bleating of the sheep behind her on the stage.

“Bah,” one of the sheep grumbled.

“Bah,” another sheep bleated in reply.

Robin increased her volume. She successfully drowned out the barnyard animal chorus in the background, but the audience was already giggling. The cameras cut to a few people chuckling in the audience. I watched in awe, wondering how Robin could have been so dumb as to think that having live animals on the stage while she sang wouldn’t be problematic. Then, one of the sheep did the unthinkable as it stepped into frame behind Robin: it defecated. On live television.

The audience roared with laughter. The actor portraying the shepherd who was responsible for the offending sheep must have smelled its contribution to the production because he rolled his eyes in disgust. He looked off-stage, presumably at a helpless production assistant, and the camera quickly cut to a close-up of Robin. The unintentional comedy of it all completely undid the solemn grace of her performance. Although everyone clapped as she finished her song, the camera still panned across rows of studio guests clutching their guts and howling.

In the hallway on my way toward the stage, Rob led an irate Robin back to our group’s room. Her pace was so brisk that her hair flew behind her, and she swung her arms so vigorously it looked like she was punching air.
 
“They didn’t have to be
live
sheep! Where were those sheep rented from? I am going to sue their handlers!”

In my red velvet mini-dress, I pressed my back against the wall, not wanting to be within striking range as she stormed past me. Only after she sneered at me and slammed the door of the Group 2 prep room behind her did I laugh. It was like a lever had just been pressed and all of the anxiety that had been building up inside of me throughout the week was released at once. The production assistant who’d been sent to fetch me roared, as did Rob, who’d just had a door slammed in his face. The more I laughed, the more I felt unable to stop. I laughed until my gut ached, and I was practically squatting, leaning against the wall to keep from falling over.