Rock Idol (Reality With a Twist Series) (10 page)

“Good!
Because I was afraid that the whole concert hall was going to realize I was
about to break out laughing.”

Ember
felt more confused than ever. “Break out laughing? Why?”

Mitch
looked to be on the verge of losing it again. His body reddened with suppressed
merriment. He put a hand on Ember’s shoulder and tried to keep his voice down.
“Because of that ridiculous little wannabe boyfriend of yours. I kept
remembering what he said about Hillary secretly wanting to be a marine.”

Evidently
Mitch could see that Ember still didn’t understand the point he was making. “I
kept picturing her without any hair!” he said just before his sense of hilarity
finally got the better of him.

Fawn’s
eyes widened as she tried to figure out what was happening.

For
her part, Ember practically had to bite her tongue to keep from breaking out
with Mitch in new peals of laughter.

“Well,
Rick,” Mitch said. “We’re almost halfway through this competition and I frankly
don’t understand how you’re still in it.”

“Oh,
come on, Mitch,” Jonathan King interrupted. “Did you hear the crowd tonight?
Rick was on fire this evening!”

“I
agree completely,” Mitch said. “It was clearly his best performance so far and
I still don’t understand how he got this far.” He grinned and added, “Maybe the
problem is I’m not a teenage girl.”

The
audience booed and Rick played to them, making a
give me more
gesture
with his hands.

Rick’s
growing confidence pleased Ember. “That is what you keep missing in all of
this, Mitch. A
Rock Idol
has to be able to play to the crowd. If you
want the single dimension performance you keep talking about, maybe you should
consider opera. Rick is connecting to his audience better than anyone else
we’ve seen tonight and he’s taking all of their emotion and pulling it back
into his music.”

The
audience went crazy—or at least the young girls in it did.

Mitch
shook his head. “I still think you have to pay better attention to the basic
mechanics, Rick. Right now there are only nine of you left. You’re running out
of time to perfect the music portion of your performance.”

Jonathan
King pushed the analysis along. “Ember still supports Rick and Mitch would like
to burn all his not-yet-recorded records,” he summarized. “Let’s see what our
final judge thinks. Fawn, last week you shocked America
by criticizing Rick. What did you think this week?”

Fawn
cleared her throat in a most unladylike fashion. “I’m unmoved, Jonathan. I’m
still with Mitch on this. If you can’t sing, get off
Rock Idol
.”

The
crowd booed and Fawn Fields squinted her eyes in fury.

Week Seven

 
“You know I was pretty angry with you and
Mitch over all of that laughter at the photo shoot last week,” Fox announced.

Ember
and he were having lunch in his office—take out, as he termed it—but Fox Atwood
didn’t do take out like the rest of America. His conference table had been
draped with an expensive burgundy cloth and set with beautiful china dishes
like a five star restaurant. His glass was filled to overflowing with Bollinger
and a two-inch thick porterhouse dominated the plate in front of him.

For
her part, Ember alternated between sipping tea and grazing on a colorful salad
while she tried to figure out why the producer had asked her to join him for
his midday meal. Could he possibly still be angry that she’d laughed at Rick’s
jokes? That couldn’t be contrived as a scandal, could it?

“And
then when I saw you and Mitch start laughing together at the judge’s table,”
Fox continued, “I got even more furious! The only thing that let me keep my
temper was the fact that you two were doing it during a commercial break.”

Ember
took another sip of her tea to help disguise the growing discomfort she was
feeling. Fox was really over the edge if a little teasing between the judges
was getting him upset like this. She wondered again why he’d called her up
here—and why Mitch wasn’t being called on the carpet with her.

“Then
I realized I was going too far,” Fox continued.

Ember
put down her teacup and smiled, hoping she looked like an old friend and not a
relieved employee. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Fox. You know how much I
respect you. If you tell me that the joking and teasing has to stop, then it
will. But honestly, I think it helps the show if there’s some chemistry between
the judges, and for the first time in three seasons, Mitch and I have started
doing something that isn’t adversarial.”

Fox
nodded emphatically. “I agree completely! And so does Max, my new publicist.”

“Good,”
Ember said. She felt relieved that this was all that Fox’s concern amounted to,
but wondered again why he’d insisted on telling her this over lunch. Maybe her
old friend was just lonely and wanted some company. She hadn’t seen any of his
twenty-something girlfriends around lately. She picked up her fork and took a
bite of romaine and carrot.

“It’s
better than good,” Fox said. “Max did some instant polling and there’s a
surprising degree of interest in you and Mitch dating.”

“What?”
Ember was so shocked and outraged, her mouthful of food almost went tumbling
back onto her plate.

“I
know!” Fox told her. “It shocked the hell out of me too when Max said it like
that, but it’s not that they really want you two together. After all, they like
you and hate him. But they find the situation,” he paused and searched for the
right word, “well,
horrifying
is too strong, but they’re interested and
they’re eager to watch the situation develop.”

Horrified
wasn’t too strong to describe
Ember’s
response to Fox’s suggestion, but her mouth was still full and so she had to
contain herself.

“I
don’t pretend to understand it,” Fox confided. “My guess is you and Mitch don’t
understand it either. But since you’re together now, Max thinks we should try
and capitalize on it so I gave him the go ahead to leak a couple more pictures
and start some rumors. The fact that we’re doing this when the show’s on top of
the ratings will keep it from looking like a cheap trick. It should be a big
win all around.”

Ember
finally managed to swallow her mouthful of salad. “Fox, what are you talking
about? Mitch and I aren’t dating. We don’t even like each other!”

Fox
froze, then slowly began to relax again. “You don’t have to play coy with me,
Ember. It’s Fox, remember? I’ve seen you go through this a lot of times
before.”

“Seen
me go through what?” Ember asked.

“Falling
in love,” Fox said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “The
first sign is you start laughing a lot more. I don’t know if you relax enough
to let your guard down, or you just convince yourself that your current beau is
a natural comedian, but I’ve seen it happen half a dozen times since I
discovered you all those years ago.”

Ember
was still having trouble wrapping her mind around the idea that
anyone
could think she would date Mitch Daniels. “Fox, we’re really not dating. I
mean,
ewww
! Can you really picture Mitch and me together?”

Fox
still hadn’t given up on his theory. “Stranger things have happened. How else
do you explain the signs?”

“You
mean the laughter?”

Fox
began ticking his observations off on his fingers. “The laughter, the way you
were hanging on each other and leaning in close to share private comments.”

Ember leaned forward as she tried to convince Fox that he
was wrong. “It was Rick’s jokes during the photo shoot, Fox. You saw all that,
and it wasn’t only me laughing. Mitch made some follow up comments right after
Hillary Tempest left the stage.”

She
could almost see the light of understanding ignite in Fox’s eyes. “You’re
serious, aren’t you? You’re not just saying this because of my new rule against
dating? That only applies to the contestants. I have no problem with you and
Mitch having a little romance.”

Ember
finally lost her temper. “Fox! We’re not dating! I would
never
date
Mitch! He’s just—” She broke off and shuddered. “
Ewwww
!”

Fox’s
shoulders sagged. “Well that’s just great. We leaked the story this morning.”

A
wave of apprehension swept through Ember. She remembered he’d said that he’d
given Max the go ahead. She could already see the headlines in her mind. “Oh,
no, Fox, you didn’t!”

“I’m
afraid I did,” Fox confessed. “It’s why I invited you to lunch here today. I
know you value that part of your privacy and I wanted you to hear it from me. I
really thought it was for the good of the show.”

Ember
still couldn’t quite believe this had happened to her. She’d been
so
careful
since coming back on the show and Fox may have just undone all of that work for
a one or two week spike in the ratings. “Oh, Fox, the tabloids are going to eat
me alive! They are always looking to link me to some horrible guy!”

“Mitch
isn’t that terrible,” Fox told her. He obviously didn’t think this was as big a
deal as Ember did.

“Of
course, he is!” Ember snapped. “Why do you think it titillates the press so
much? I’d have been better off if you’d linked me to Rick Rogers! At least he’s
likeable!”

She
realized what she’d said a second after the words were out of her mouth.
Where
the hell did that name come from?

Fox,
despite his fear of scandal, didn’t waste a second worrying about Ember and
Rick. “So I suppose it’s out of the question for you to pretend there’s
something between you and Mitch for the rest of the season.

“
Fox
!”
 

Evidently,
Fox Atwood understood the anger flashing in Ember’s eyes because he held up his
hands in joking surrender. “All right, all right, I won’t ask you to do that. I
suppose it doesn’t really matter if the rumor is true or not. We’ll still get a
couple weeks of free press out of it while the public tries to figure it out.”

Unfortunately,
with the lie already out in the press, there was nothing Ember could do but
fume about it.

“Tell
me it’s not true, dear. Tell me it’s not true!”

Hans
was all a flutter when Ember entered her dressing room, so agitated he was
unable to stand still.

“It’s
not true, Hans,” she assured him.

“Oh
thank, God!” Hans exclaimed with a dramatic look toward the heavens. “
All
of my respect for you would have flown right out the door. Mitch Daniels is not
the man for you.”

Ember
took her seat in the styling chair. The story had just broken on the
entertainment websites and
everyone
was looking for the inside scoop.
Ember decided to maintain her brave front and tease Hans a little.
 
“I suppose that’s because
you
want a
crack at him.”

Hans
shuddered theatrically.
 
“Never have I
been more happy that a man was straight.”