Picture-Perfect (From the Files of Madison Finn, 8) (12 page)

“Dean Gillespie?” Janet said. “What are you doing here?”

“I know what he’s doing here,” Ivy moaned. She’d caught sight of Madison, Aimee, and Fiona. “He’s with them.”

Janet turned to see the three friends approach. “Maddie!” she cried out.

Back in the third-grade days when Ivy and Madison had been best of elementary-school friends, Madison had also taken a super shine to Ivy’s sister. Janet was a different kind of person from Poison Ivy. She wasn’t poisonous in the least. She had always been nice to Madison when her parents were fighting, as they used to do a lot before the Big D.

“So,” Ivy said. “What
are
you three doing here?”

Fiona smiled. “We won tickets on the radio.” She could finally say it now that they were here in the flesh.

“Yeah, we won tickets in the front row. Imagine that?” Madison said.

Ivy snickered. “Yeah, right. Let me see.”

“Um, I don’t think so,” Aimee butted in. “We have to be going now.”

Dean and Janet were standing a little off to the side talking. Madison realized that they were talking
nicely,
which wasn’t a good sign. Now she was fearful that they really would be hanging with the enemy all night long.

“Dean!” Aimee yelled. “We want to go sit down now.”

Dean looked at Janet and shrugged. “I’ll see you inside I guess,” Dean said.

Janet tilled her head forward a little bit. “Yeah. When everyone goes into the aisles to dance. I’ll see you then.”

Madison sighed to herself. They were making plans to meet up inside? She grabbed Fiona’s arm and tugged her toward a souvenir stand.

“Can we please go inside, now?” Madison said.

Aimee agreed. She grabbed her brother’s arm. “Later for you,” Aimee said to Ivy.

Ivy just snarled. “Much later,” she said.

Unfortunately, Madison knew that wasn’t exactly the way it would play.

Inside the arena, people were swarming in and around each other like insects. Everywhere the eye could see, pictures of Nikki smiled down upon the crowds from T-shirts, posters, television monitors playing music videos, and other memorabilia.

Madison couldn’t believe how many people were crammed around the food-and-beverage stand. Girls had painted their faces with stars over one eye, a look that Nikki used on one of her most popular posters. The theme of this concert appeared to be “Circus.” There were dozens of belly shirts and jean jackets, but Madison was glad to see not one other girl wearing her orange kitty T-shirt. Clowns wandered in and around the concession area.

“Let’s get a program,” Aimee shouted at her brother Dean. “Over there!”

Reluctantly, Dean followed the three girls over to an area where two ultratall workers passed out souvenir guides from atop stilts. The program cost Madison, Fiona, and Aimee their allowances combined.

To the left, ticket takers bellowed, “Step right up!” and welcomed concertgoers inside the main doors to the arena. One was wearing a tuxedo with a purple-and-yellow feathered hat.

Madison wasn’t sure she liked all the noise, but it was the most exciting place she’d ever been—more exciting than a soccer game at school or a local league baseball showdown with Dad and Stephanie. She screamed right along with everyone else, including her BFFs.

“This … is … to die for!” Fiona said, straining her voice above the din.

“Step right up! Nikki performing in the center ring!” the tuxedo man said.

“Nice feathers.” Dean cracked up as they passed through the gates.

Someone shoved Madison, and she crashed into Fiona, who didn’t mind. Aimee was quick—and happy—to point out that by now they’d lost track of Ivy and her sister Janet.

“Hurry up, you guys,” Aimee urged them on. “I see the door for our ticket numbers up ahead—B30.”

Their gate was the main gate, so things got even more squished from there. Hundreds of screaming fans were pressing inside two wide doors, and there still wasn’t enough room for everyone.

Madison, Fiona, and Aimee grabbed hands as they stepped through into the arena.

“Wow!” Madison said as she looked around. There were people, people, everywhere as far as the eye could see. It was larger than life, just as she’d imagined it would be. She could hear voices coming from every corner. She could smell popcorn and perfumes mixed together. The entire room was a blur of colored T-shirts, giggling girls, and posters that read
NIKKI WE LOVE YOU.

Aimee was still leading the way. “Over here!” she called out, tugging on Fiona’s hand. Fiona tugged on Madison, too.

Dean was frantically searching the sea of faces for Janet.

“Wait a minute!” Aimee said as they approached their seating area. “There are no seats. No chairs!”

Aimee was right. Madison and Fiona glanced around. The entire area in front of the stage was “open seating,” a second usher said, urging the girls to move it along. WKBM had set it up this way on purpose. The front section was meant to be a large dance area. Someone would be shooting a video of the concert and wanted lots of fans screaming and dancing in front.

“Bummer,” Fiona said.

Madison agreed, mostly because she had caught view of someone else by now. Ivy was standing just a few yards away. The enemy waved.

“So I guess we have the same seats after all,” Ivy boasted with a smirk.

When Dean hustled over to stand next to Janet, Madison knew the truth.

They weren’t moving from that spot. By now the throng of other ticket holders had been pushed into the small area so there was nowhere left to go except right where they were standing.

Madison turned to Fiona and whispered, “This isn’t really what I expected.”

Fiona nodded. “Me, neither. But at least we’re here.”

Aimee wasn’t saying much. She’d been distracted by something up ahead. Some belly dancers had come out into the circus setup onstage, and she was watching them intently as they pranced around in exotic veils. Some large man was leading a camel on the side of the stage.

After several elbows to the side and a few more evil sidelong glances from Ivy, Madison was relieved when the concert lights finally started to flicker and then dim completely. A hush and sigh went over the crowd. Kids all over squealed and whistled. It was hotter than hot, but Madison’s pulse was racing with delight.

The concert was HERE.

The music started up slowly at first, with the tinkle of little bells and a sound like wind. Madison felt her feet lift up ever so slightly off the floor. She wanted to see and feel everything that happened.

“BEEEE my LUV ma-SHEEN!”

A group of dancers all in black rushed the front of the stage, right near where Madison and the rest were standing. They each slid in on one knee, as if they might slide right off the stage.

A microphone boomed, and the chorus sang out the lyrics to one of Nikki’s most popular songs: “Be my love machine!”

In a ball of colored light, an elevator came down from the ceiling in the center of the stage. Smoke billowed around it like clouds. Dean whispered something to Madison and Aimee about how that was probably just dry ice that caused the special effect. Madison was captivated by its rainbow of light; she waited breathlessly to see what would happen next.

POW!

All at once, the doors to the elevator blew open, and out of a cloud of colored smoke came Nikki.

“Ooooooh!” Aimee wailed. “She looks perfect!”

Ivy was jumping up and down by now, too.

“BEEEE my LUV ma-SHEEN! You’re the cutest boy I’ve ever seeeeen!”

The entire arena screamed. Madison and her friends tried to sing along, but they were too stunned by the flash and the noise to keep up.

As Nikki danced around the stage, Aimee oohed and ahhed. Nikki changed costumes eight times; rode around the stage on an elephant; and sang every song the girls loved, from “Take Me There” to “Living on the Edge of Y-O-U,” to “Download My Heart.”

Madison wanted to hear “Sugar-Sweet (Like You),” her favorite Nikki tune, but Nikki didn’t sing it. And too soon, it seemed that she was singing the finale. It was like fireworks in the arena. The stage show even had a man shot out of a cannon—or at least it looked that way.

“What about ‘Sugar Sweet’?” Madison whispered to her friends.

Ivy heard. “Maddie, it’s probably her encore. I mean, that is her number-one hit right now. Don’t they always play that for the encore?”

Madison didn’t know that the encore was a definite thing, but Dean explained that usually stars saved fan favorites for the very, very end.

Sure enough, as soon as Nikki had played her “last” song, the crowd roared with applause and then began clapping and chanting. “SUGAR-SWEET! SUGAR-SWEET!”

Madison, Fiona, and Aimee chanted right along with them.

The room went dark for just a moment, and then a squeaky electronic noise filled the arena. Everyone had to block his and her ears for a moment. Then, a computerized robot voice came on the loudspeaker.

“Step right up!” the voice said. “The amazing, the astounding, NIKKI!”

The crowd cheered as Nikki pranced back onstage, microphone in hand. “I could be sugar-sweet like you. Sugar, sugar-sweet …”

Madison squealed as loudly as she could. Ivy did, too. In one fleeting moment, they were smiling at the same time, bopping up and down, singing along with their favorite superstar in the whole world.

It was a picture-perfect moment.

T
HE CHORUS OF “SUGAR-SWEET”
went on and on for ten minutes. Some girls in the crowd were actually crying, they were so happy to see the number-one song being performed live.

No one wanted the moment to stop. Except maybe Dean. He jokingly covered his ears, which made Janet laugh.

As the final,
final
applause started up, Madison and Fiona gave each other a huge hug. Aimee threw her arms around the two of them.

They had made it to the concert. And it was a roaring success.

Off to the side, Ivy stood alone, looking around the room. Madison realized that the fleeting moment of bonding she and Ivy had shared had passed once again. Ivy was still poisonous; not even a sweet song could change that.

Large numbers of people began to file out of the arena. One of the people dressed up as a clown stepped up to one of the microphones onstage and called for everyone’s attention in the front section. He was in charge of getting the designated concert-goers backstage for their meet-and-greet with Nikki.

Madison, Fiona, and Aimee were ready to faint when they heard that. This was the moment they’d really been waiting for.

Ivy tugged on her sister’s arm. “Can we go? Can we?” Ivy begged.

Janet shrugged. “I don’t know if we can with our tickets,” she said. “I think it’s just for these guys. We should get home.”

Madison wanted to shout out “Ha!” but she didn’t rub it in.

Ivy looked away.

Dean frowned. “So you guys are gonna take off then?” he asked Janet.

They whispered back and forth to each other for another minute or so while the rest of the group just stood there like zombies.

Then, in the blink of an eye, Janet and Ivy turned to walk out. Ivy didn’t say anything else. Their part of the concert was over. And she was out.

Dean gave Janet a high-five sign, as if to say, “See you later.” Madison could tell they probably would be going on a date sooner than soon. She briefly wondered how seniors in high school like them could make a date and decide to like each other so quickly. Why didn’t that work for her and … Hart?

“Step right up!” a funny-looking man yelled to the radio winners. It was Stevie Steves, the radio announcer from WKBM. Madison recognized his voice.

Madison and her BFFs linked arms and followed Dean and the rest of the group toward the backstage area. They climbed up a little staircase onto the stage itself and then moved back toward huge black curtains.

Madison noticed that the floor of the stage was covered with tape marks and numbers and little trap doors—all the stuff she couldn’t see from out front, not even from the front row. The air was hot and smoky from the concert. Round, white-hot bulbs circled the front of the stage. Madison noticed that it was almost impossible to see anything in the audience beyond the footlights.

The entryway to the official “backstage area,” was nothing spectacular. Unlike the exciting circus setup out front, backstage was merely a mess of clothes piled here and a cluster of wires stretched there. Everything was crammed in together with little room for moving around. But then the group was led into a slightly larger space for refreshments. That was more impressive.

Madison and her friends lingered by a food table and Dean poured himself a cup of punch. All over the walls in the room were concert posters of Nikki; a giant WKBM banner; and multicolored helium balloons that read
NIKKI’S SUGAR-SWEET
on them. In one corner, there was a popcorn machine, and in the other, a cotton-candy maker. The circus theme continued.

“I can’t believe we’re backstage,” Fiona said, her voice squeaking.

“This is awesome,” Aimee said.

“I think it’s a little weird,” Madison mumbled to herself. “Cool, but weird.”

She was looking around at the crew of people assembled backstage. On one side of the room was a group of screaming girls just like them; and on the other side of the room was another group of screaming girls just like them.

Everyone seemed the same. One girl looked gray, as if she might faint. “She looks like I did last week,” Aimee said.

“I’m so glad you got better, Aim,” Fiona said.

“I wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” Aimee said.

Madison leaned on Aimee’s shoulder. “I’m glad,” she said.

From across the room, two beefy security guards opened a side door, and a cluster of bodies moved into the room. Behind them, Madison and the rest saw a short, blond girl approach.

It was Nikki. Live.

“Attention, everyone!” Stevie Steves called out to the hundred or so people who were stuffed together in the room. “Presenting the star of tonight’s show, Nikki!”

The room burst into applause. Madison clapped as loudly as anyone.