The way that Fawn phrased her criticism made Ember wonder if something new had happened to make the coke-addled judge feel she had to defend her own career.
But Ember had no time to think about that now. It was her turn in the spotlight and she had to comment on Tempest’s performance.
“Hillary, I still think you have the potential to win this competition. What’s more, I think you’ve a real chance to build an impressive career beyond Rock Idol. But—brace yourself, Mitch—Mitch is right about you. You aren’t auditioning for the church choir. A rock star has to have a charisma that goes far beyond her technical vocal prowess. I’ve said this to you week after week now: you need to start paying attention to your stagecraft. We’re past the halfway point in the competition now. It’s time to start pushing your boundaries and pressing your comfort zone.”
Hillary smirked. “Like Rick Rogers is doing?”
Fawn laughed out loud. “Ha!”
Ember struggled to contain her frown. What the hell was going on? “Rick’s strengths and weaknesses are the opposite of yours. You would do well to learn from each other.”
“Of course you’d say that,” Hillary said.
Jonathan King intervened. He looked a bit bewildered and even concerned. “Well, thank you, Hillary. Remember America, anyone who’d like to vote for Hillary can phone or text to the numbers on the screen just as soon as our show ends.”
Despite her incredible talent, not many people voted for Hillary that night. But the trouble didn’t start until she started giving interviews after she went home.
Week Nine and a Half
Ember sat down at the conference table noting the half dozen scandal sheets scattered across the surface. The headlines told the entire story, ranging from the ridiculous Ember Sells Vote for Sex to the somewhat more accurate Sex, Drugs and Rock Idol. It had not been a good few days and if the expression on Fox Atwood’s face was any indication, it was about to get a whole lot worse.
Fox picked up one of the papers with its: Tempest-Tantrum headline and shook it at Ember, Mitch, Fawn and the gathered producers. “Did I not open this season by telling each and every one of you that I wanted a scandal free season?” he asked.
The question sounded calm and rational. His voice did not!
“I don’t know why you’re blaming us for this mess,” Fawn said. “Ember is the one who—”
“Shut up!” Fox snapped. He snatched another paper off the table and scanned the story until he found the passage he wanted. “And if it wasn’t bad enough to have to watch Rick and Ember sneaking around on the set,” he read, “I had to listen to Fawn Fields complain about it between snorts of cocaine.”
Fawn surged to her feet. “I’ve already talked to my lawyers about that libel!” she shouted.
“Sit down and shut up!” Fox shouted back.
“I don’t—”
Fox stood up and towered over her. “Do it, now!”
Fawn sat.
Mitch stepped into the fray. “I don’t understand what you’re so upset about,” he told Fox. “I’ve read each and every one of these articles. It’s all speculation and sour grapes. She didn’t actually see Ember and Rick doing anything. They talked together in the hall and she knocked on Ember’s door a couple of times and didn’t get in. I mean, how ridiculous is this?”
“She’s says it’s common knowledge,” Fox said.
“Well, how common could it really be?” Mitch asked. “I certainly didn’t have any idea this was happening and I’ll bet none of the rest of you did either—even if—and I really mean if—there’s anything to this story in the first place. Hell, a couple of weeks ago you all thought Ember was running around with me.”
“And Hillary has told them I made up that story to cover for Ember and Rick!” Fox shouted.
“Well did you?” Mitch asked.
“No!” Fox shouted. “But it sure as hell will look like I did since just about everybody knows now you two really aren’t together.”
“Well you can’t very well blame Ember for that now, can you?” Mitch shouted back. “You decided to do pull that stunt all on your own!”
Fawn tried to bring the focus back to Ember. “Look at her! She won’t even deny it.”
“I can’t prove a negative,” Ember said. “That’s one of the things that’s so nasty about these stories. A disgruntled contestant can say whatever she wants. She doesn’t have to actually prove anything. I’m obviously considered guilty until proven innocent.”
“But you’re not denying it, and you certainly favored Rick in the competition.”
“Now wait a minute!” Mitch snapped. The vehemence of his continued defense surprised Ember. He was really getting hot under the collar about this. “I don’t think that’s true. She certainly disagreed with us over Rick, but that doesn’t mean she favored him. Ember has always striven to give balanced criticism—something the contestant does well and something that still needs improvement. I haven’t reviewed all the segments again, but I doubt very seriously that she deviated from that pattern with Rick.”
“Oh come on,” Fawn protested. “She’s up there casting mooneyes at him and he’s obviously singing to her. And they’re constantly together.”
“Fawn,” Ember said, “I live in New York. How much time do you think I spend out here?”
Fawn smirked. It was easy to see that she thought she had Ember. “I’ve caught him coming into your dressing room.”
“You’ve seen him coming into my dressing room,” Ember corrected her. “You were actually there at the time. Are you alleging now that we are having an affair too?”
Mitch actually laughed. God bless him. “Oh, I’d love to see that headline,” he said.
Fox stepped back into the conversation. “No, we wouldn’t! So let’s sum up—Fawn thinks Ember and Rick are having an affair and Mitch doesn’t. Anyone else have an opinion?”
None of the producers put themselves forward.
“Okay then,” Fox said, “I think it’s time that Ember and I speak alone.”
Fawn grinned in triumphant.
“Fawn, I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I need that drug test now.” He waved to his assistant, Gina Hartley. “Escort her straight to a bathroom and don’t let her take her purse inside with her.”
Fawn’s grin fell and she clutched at her purse. “You can’t do that!” she said.
“Yes, I can, Fawn,” he said. “Now all of you get out!”
It took some time, but the room cleared.
Ember had known Fox Atwood her entire adult life. He’d taken the chance on her that resulted in her first career. And he’d taken the chance that had given her a second one. Both times she screwed it up in part over sex. She felt incredibly foolish, even though she didn’t believe that this time she’d done anything wrong.
Fox let down the façade of power and sat before her as a tired old man. “I warned you, Ember. I thought I was warning, Mitch, but you heard the threat.”
“So you’ve made up your mind then?” she asked.
“I’d like you to resign,” he said. “You could plead exhaustion and maybe check yourself into a clinic to get some help.”
“Help for what?” Ember said. “I’m not Fawn. I’m not doing drugs again.”
“Maybe for sex addiction,” Fox said.
Ember laughed. The comment shouldn’t have been funny under the circumstances, but the idea that resigning from the show to avoid scandal and then playing Tiger Woods in some sex clinic was so patently absurd she couldn’t help herself.
“Well what other explanation is there?”
“Fox, you’ve been married four times,” Ember reminded him. “Why did you keep doing it after the first couple failed?”
Fox shrugged and smiled. It lifted ten years off his apparent age. “I liked them,” he said.
“Liked or loved?” Ember asked.
“A little of both, I guess.”
Ember leaned forward on the table. “Well Fox, I like R
ick and I’m starting to think I love him as well.”
“He’s twenty years younger than you.”
“So were your second and third wives,” Ember reminded him. “It seems to me that wife number four was closer to thirty years younger.”
Fox dismissed his own case from consideration. “It’s different when the man is older. You realize that Rick is probably just using you.”
This made Ember smile again, wondering if Fox thought his far younger wives had simply been in love with him. “Of course that’s possible. It’s one of the risks we run in this business, isn’t it? But I’ve never given him—either in public or in private—anything other than my honest opinion of his performance and his talent.”
“You can see I’m just worried about the appearance of all of this, can’t you?” he asked.
“No, Fox, I can’t see that. And you aren’t just worried about appearances. If that was your concern you’d ignore this mess and let your PR people sadly shake their heads and talk about disgruntled contestants. What is this new obsession about scandal? It’s like you’ve found a new religion. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve always gone through these phases. In the nineties you were vegetarian for a couple of years. After 9/11 you became a super patriot. Now we’re starting a new decade and you want to be squeaky clean to the point of absurdity.”
She stood up, came around the table and placed her hand on his shoulder. “I’m trying to be completely honest with you, Fox. I really like Rick, but we haven’t had sex yet. This really is just something that Hillary and Fawn made up in their heads.”
Fox looked her in the eye, obviously trying to measure her sincerity. “You really haven’t done more than kiss him on the cheek?”
Ember could see where this was going. It didn’t matter if she were innocent or not. Fox Atwood was on another of his crusades. “A little more, perhaps, but no, we haven’t yet gone all the way.”
Fox shook his head.
She tried one more time. “No one’s been hurt by this, Fox. Judges don’t have a vote on Rock Idol so my affection for Rick had no impact on Tempest or anyone else for that matter. Let this one go.”
For a brief moment, she thought he would do just that. “We’ve been friends for a very long time, Ember,” Fox told her, and she knew from the tone of his voice that it was over.
“We always will be, Fox,” she assured him. Twenty-five years ago, this man had given her a chance at stardom. Two years ago, he’d helped her rebuild her career. It never paid to close doors in Hollywood.
“I’m truly sorry,” he told her.
“So am I, Fox,” she whispered. Her throat was suddenly too tight for her to speak any louder. She felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes and she definitely didn’t want this man to see her crying.
She picked her purse up off the table and hurried out the door.
“Ember?” Rick called from the door of her dressing room.
Ember tried and failed to pull herself together. That shouldn’t have surprised her. She’d been trying to do that for half a box of tissues.
“Ember?”
He entered the room and closed the door behind him. “Fox just met with the remaining contestants. Fawn’s going into some sort of outpatient rehab but will stay with the show, but you’re—”
He broke off speaking when she suddenly turned to face him.
She couldn’t believe she had heard him correctly. “He’s letting Fawn stay?”
“I’m sorry,” Rick answered.
“Now I’m really mad!” Ember said. “I could accept him firing me, but letting that bitch stay, that’s just— Urrggg!”
He wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry!”
“Has the world gone mad? How could he fire me and not her?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I just—”
“I know, shhh, we’ll get through this.”
“I don’t want to cry anymore!” Ember told him.
“Shhhh,” he whispered. “I’m here now. I’m here now.”
She rested her head on his strong shoulder and wept in her man’s arms.
Week Ten
Ember snuggled under her blanket in front of the television waiting for Rock Idol to return from commercial break. They were singing a sixties theme this week—old Beatles and Beach Boys and Rolling Stones and it played well to Rick’s strengths. He loved the Stones. He’d auditioned, interestingly enough, on the song Brown Sugar. And he’d been very pleased about his coming performance when they’d talked about it on the phone. He was singing Satisfaction—as in he can’t get any—and that seemed especially appropriate for both of them this week.
Ember hugged herself beneath the blanket and wished she could call Rick right now. It was the only benefit generated by Fox’s actions. Since their relationship was out of the closet, Rick and she had stopped having to hide their time together. As a result they’d talked for two hours every night and in doing so, Ember learned more about him than she had in all the rest of their relationship combined.
She liked him better and better the more she learned. He had a great sense of humor, a keen critical eye, and three thousand miles hadn’t dampened his ability to make her come.
She hoped he rocked the whole world tonight!
The commercial ended and Jonathan King appeared in front of her. She’d wondered how they would deal with her absence and been disappointed that they’d handled it by ignoring any change. When the judges had been introduced, Fox Atwood had stepped into her old spot, and so far, at least, had done a more than competent job. The crisis was over. Rock Idol had moved on. Mitch provided his normally scathing performance and Fawn returned to being her sky high, air-headed self.
She knew they hoped the gossip sites would take their cue from this and move with them, but in Ember’s experience the media was seldom that kind. They certainly hadn’t been kind to her this week. Ember, how’s it feel to wreck another career? Ember, don’t you think Rick is a little young? Ember, what do you think of Fox Atwood for firing you? And those had been the kind, semi-civilized questions. The rest of the media was downright nasty in what they were willing to ask.
“Our third contestant tonight,” King announced over the television, “is Rick Rogers, singing I Can’t Get No Satisfaction!”
The crowd cheered and giggled as the obvious implications of the title mixed with their knowledge of the scandal of the week. Ember would bet anything that Fox had wanted to change Rick’s song, but it wouldn’t have been fair to have Rick practice one song for half the week and then tell him he had to master another one in half the time all the other contestants got.
Rick stepped out on the stage and the spotlight hit him, but something immediately went wrong with the music. The hard driving guitar sounds of the Rolling Stones never appeared. Instead a light, driving, electrical rhythm filled the stage—a sound that Ember immediately recognized as one of her own hit songs. Someone had gotten cute and put the wrong track in the player and even though they were going to get fired for it, their little joke was probably going to cost Rick his spot on the show.
Only…Rick didn’t react like this was the wrong song. He sprang across the stage, perfectly in rhythm, lighting up the audience with Ember’s first hit, You Make Me So Hot!
Her jaw bounced off the blanket as she watched him. This wasn’t an accident. And those goofy lyrics she and Mitch had laughed about didn’t sound so funny coming out of Rick’s mouth.
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
From across the room
You set my blood on fire
I see you
You’re my one desire!
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
The camera panned across the faces of the judges. To say that they were stunned didn’t begin to describe the strength of their reactions. Fawn’s face twisted in an ex
pression of irrational rage. Mitch simply looked surprised, as if Rick had just conclusively demonstrated that he hadn’t yet seen everything in Hollywood. And Fox Atwood’s face grew ashen as all the blood drained south. His mouth gaped open as if he simply couldn’t believe that this was happening. If he’d thought his little self-made scandal was going away, he’d just learned it was powerfully here to stay.
The camera cut back to Rick.
I need you
To quench my thirst
I feel you
You make my blood burn!
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
The crowd was having an easier time than Fawn and Fox. Groups of women were standing in their seats, dancing to the rhythm, and cheering for Rick. Some of them were even singing. The sight filled Ember’s eyes with tears. Rick had found the magic combination at last—talent, showmanship and passion—and it was Ember who had inspired him. It was a shame Fox would have to disqualify him for breaking with the program.
Rick was winding up now, dancing like she had when she’d taken the stage, but with a modern, more masculine, feel to the movements. He’d obviously studied her videos—the tribute to her glory days was unmistakable.
You make me hot, hot, hot, so very hot!
Oh Ember, YOU MAKE ME HOT!
Rick finished singing and bowed his head. Thunderous applause rolled across the theater to complement him.
Fox Atwood made a cutting motion with his hand but Jonathan King affected not to notice him. Perhaps he knew what Fox should have—some things can’t be hidden, or covered up, or put back in the box. They have to be dealt with head on.
“Rick, my man!” King shouted. “That was absolutely awesome! Three years I’ve spent on this show and I’ve never seen anything like it! But Rick, man, what were you thinking? What will the judges think tonight, man? You sang the wrong song!”
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