Throughout the morning, everyone in Group 2 seemed to be in on some private joke about truffle butter from their group dinner at the hotel the night before. Naturally I felt a little left out and wondered if living at home with my parents was in some way hurting my chances in the competition. But as the day progressed, I rationalized that even if I was living at the hotel in Studio City with everyone else, I was still on average four years younger than the other contestants. I’d probably have been excluded from most of their inside jokes, anyway.
On our way to the cafeteria for lunch, I caught a glimpse of Elliott through a glass panel on the door of a rehearsal room. He was sitting on a plastic chair alongside the other members of his team, listening intently. What I saw next surprised me—sitting right next to him was Chase Atwood, looking casually cool in a black t-shirt with a gothic silk-screen print on its front and the sleeves cut off. I wondered with a little annoyance just how involved Chase Atwood and the other coaches were their teams. Nelly Fulsom certainly wasn’t sitting in on our vocal lessons and (thankfully) wasn’t participating in our dance lessons. It was a grim hunch, but it seemed possible that Group 2 was already at a disadvantage because our coach was so uninterested in our progress.
It crossed my mind as I ate my peanut butter sandwich that maybe the people on Chase’s team hadn’t been assigned such ridiculous songs for Friday’s show. Then I started wondering if his team had been assigned songs at all.
I couldn’t imagine what kind of song they’d assign Elliott to make him look like a total fool on stage. “Nine to Five” by Dolly Parton? “I’m Every Woman,” the Whitney Houston smash hit? As I entertained humorous possibilities, I began to suspect that there was no way Elliott would ever go along with such a travesty. In my very limited experience with him, he seemed like the kind of loner in the back of the classroom who knew all the answers to the teacher’s questions but intentionally failed tests. A guy like that played by his own rules, no matter the consequences. I didn’t think for a second that he’d jeopardize his chances on the show by refusing to go along with this silliness. Instead, he’d probably find a way to bypass whatever the coaches had in mind for him. By the time we filed into Marlene’s classroom, my suspicion had grown so strong that I interrupted her cheerful greeting with, “Question.”
Marlene looked a little surprised. “Of course,” she said, permitting me to continue.
“Were all of the groups assigned songs? Or were other coaches’ groups allowed to choose whatever they want to sing on Friday?”
Marlene appeared to be caught off-guard for a second. Everyone else in my group chimed in with similar sentiments about how unfair that would be if it were the case. Marlene urged us to calm down with her hands. “To the best of my knowledge, the show’s producers assigned everyone’s songs. They wouldn’t typically give any contestants an unfair advantage so early in the game,” she told us. “Now... for those of you who might make it to the final rounds, you can expect that they won’t make it easy to win the show. But it’s my understanding that Friday’s Expulsion Series is simply about seeing who has artistic range, and who might have difficulty with different styles of music.”
That afternoon, Marlene taught us to sing scales. She had us practice our range by instructing us to match random notes produced by the piano, and (just as my dad had predicted) she made us roll our lips. It felt more than a little crazy to be standing in a room full of people making buzzing noises, but it also felt cool, like we were becoming real singers. The purpose of the lip rolls was to get us accustomed to sensing the position of our larynx as we pushed our voices to hit lower and higher notes. The idea that I could train myself to have more control over my voice was exciting.
“This is just stupid,” Liandra complained under her breath.
But I didn’t consider it stupid. If Marlene said lip rolls were important to becoming a professional singer, I’d do them gladly. I wanted to perfect them. I remembered what she’d said the previous day about people thinking they could get through the show without mastering the vocal exercises, and I had taken her words to heart. Any routine she could help me to establish for myself as a singer, I was willing to adopt.
When it was my turn to practice my song, Marlene and I sang each note slowly, abandoning the lyrics and focusing on the tune itself.
“Hold it right there, Bobby,” she told the pianist after I held a note for as long as she kept her finger raised, encouraging me to continue. “Do you hear that?” she asked me. She then turned to the other people in the rehearsal room, most of whom were playing games or checking e-mail on their phones out of boredom.
“Hear what?” I asked.
“That. You. Your voice at this tempo. It’s powerful. Maybe for Friday we take this song, slow it down, and then it becomes something else when you sing it. It’s not the confident bragging of a big man anymore. It’s the humble offering of a young woman. Practice it at a slower pace tonight. See what you come up with,” Marlene told me. She turned to scold the rest of the people in my group for not paying attention. “C’mon, people! You always have to be listening for when the music is sending you signals.”
By the time I got home that night, however, I had completely forgotten what Marlene had thought was so great about my singing the song more slowly. Throughout dinner, my mom talked about the upcoming carnival at our church that she was helping to plan as a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. Afterward, I hid in my room with my sheet music. Several times I had to pause my singing because I forgot the melody when I slowed down the tempo. When I referenced Reggie Bujol’s original music video on YouTube, it made me lose track of the pace I was supposed to be practicing. By eight o’clock, I was so frustrated that I was tempted to ignore Lee’s text messages, but took the time to write back to him and explain that I was rehearsing.
“Why don’t you just forget all about the original version of the song and use the sheet music?” Lee asked.
“Because,” I said, looking helplessly at the sheet music in my hand, which looked like a bunch of nonsensical doodles drawn on top of lines. “I only learned how to read this stuff yesterday and it’s hard.”
“I’ve been reading music since second grade,” Lee reminded me. “I’ll come over and help you.”
Lee’s father drove him over to our house from their home in Beverly Hills half an hour later. Together we sat on my bed reviewing the sheet music. First, I sang a few lines of lyrics as best I could remember the tune at a slow pace, and on an app on his tablet, he rewrote the sheet music for me with longer notes. At a couple of points he had me repeat a lyric and gave me feedback.
“I think you should hold that last note longer.”
“Start lower and raise your voice a little higher at that last part.”
It was strange to receive such intelligent instruction from Lee, and little goosebumps formed on my arms from having his undivided attention.
When we had a draft of the whole song, he defined some instrumental tracks and added a beat in his app. He e-mailed me the finished track so that I’d have background music at the right speed to listen to as I practiced. Lee was showing off a little, but I appreciated that he was trying to impress me. By the time Mr. Yoon arrived to retrieve his son at ten o’clock, I had loaded up my iPod with practice tracks to take with me to Center Stage! the next morning. I could see what Marlene had been trying to make me understand earlier in the day: the song was completely different now. It was mine.
“Thank you so much, Lee,” I said, feeling such profound gratitude that I wasn’t even sure how to express it. My friends and I were pretty generous with hugs, but this kind of spur-of-the-moment favor on a school night seemed like it deserved more than just a hug. Maybe a kiss on the cheek would have been more appropriate, but I sure wasn’t about to give him one of those in front of both of our nerdtastic dads, who were lingering in the doorway as we said our farewells.
“Not a big deal,” Lee shrugged. “And actually...” he tra
iled off for a second and then said, “I didn’t know you could sing so well, Allison. I mean, I only ever heard you sing before in the car, and it was hard to hear you over Nicole.”
Nicole’s voice was like the warbling of a demon summoning its colleagues back to the first circle of Hell, but either she was oblivious or didn’t care. She sang at top volume whenever one of her favorite songs came on the car radio. Sometimes her passengers feared for their lives because of her tendency to lean back and close her eyes to hit high notes as she drove.
“Yeah, well, I haven’t had too many opportunities to sing at school,” I said bashfully. “You know, Mrs. Flores only casts people in musicals who are already like... stars.”
“Well, Mrs. Flores is an idiot.”
“And I didn’t know you were so good at, like, everything,” I said. I knew Lee played clarinet, but because he was the only kid in our group of friends in band, his band life was a bit of a mystery to the rest of us. His membership in the school band meant that he didn’t sit with us at football games, and that he spent two weeks every summer upstate at band camp close to Santa Barbara. I hadn’t ever thought too much about whether or not Lee was good at playing clarinet (which he must have been, after eight years of lessons) or that he knew much about music theory (which he most certainly did).
“Yeah, well... text me tomorrow and let me know how it goes,” Lee told me. “Thanks for the grapefruit juice, Rich,” he waved to my dad.
“It’s Mr. Burch,” Dad corrected him.
“Mr. Burch,” Lee concurred.
“He’s a nice kid, that Lee,” my dad commented after I locked the front door, and the Yoons drove away in Mr. Yoon’s black Mercedes. My dad was eating an enormous bowl of soy ice cream, presumably negating the health benefit of eating soy instead of dairy by consuming a quantity large enough to exceed the average daily requirement of everything.
“Yeah, he is,” I agreed.
The next day, just two short days before the first Expulsion Series, Nelly was at the studio bright and early, greeting us in Erick St. John’s dance classroom when we arrived that morning. Naturally, a camera crew accompanied her. “Surprise, everyone! We’re goin’ on a little field trip this morning to run through informal rehearsals for Friday’s big show. You won’t be expected to sing today in front of the other groups. Today’s purpose is to lock down everyone’s blocking and lighting arrangements. Then we’ll return here to the studio for your vocal coaching. But tomorrow we’ll have a sound check, so y’all better be ready to deliver the goods by then.”
Five limousines awaited us in the parking lot. “Now this is what I’m talkin’ about,” Liandra raved when she saw the line of stretch limos.
“Y’all are acting like you’ve never seen real limousines before,” Christa commented, acting unimpressed. I had noticed that she had a tendency to go a little overboard with her Tennessee accent in the presence of Nelly, who had already driven away in her gold Jaguar without even saying goodbye to us.
I tried to get a good look at all of the contestants in the other coaches’ groups while we were all standing around outside. I’d never yet seen all of us together in one place other than in the cafeteria. However, at Da Giorgio it was impossible to differentiate the diners who were contestants from those who were production assistants and receptionists at the studio. There we were that morning in the blazing parking lot, all forty of us under the hot sun, piling into limousines in our pre-defined groups of ten. Over the heads of the unfamiliar contestants in the other groups, I caught a glimpse of Elliott. He was lingering at the back of Chase’s group, smoking a cigarette.
Really. Smoking a cigarette. As if he genuinely didn’t care about his health or the condition of his voice. Or the fact that he wasn’t even old enough to legally buy cigarettes. I wondered how a pack of cigarettes had come into his possession and whether or not he walked around with matches or a lighter everywhere he went. That day, he wore a blue t-shirt that looked as if it had been washed no fewer than five thousand times. It brought out the turquoise of his eyes so strongly that I could see the hue even from a distance. He caught me staring at him just as I was about to climb into the limo, and thankfully I had disappeared into the air-conditioned darkness before he saw my cheeks flush.
That Wednesday morning drive down to Hollywood for our rehearsal was my first time in a limousine. I tried to drink in every single detail—from the cheesy rainbow-colored lighting across the floor and ceiling to the ice bucket with a bottle of sparkling apple cider wedged in it, which of course Ian lifted to his lips and pretended to swig. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have the back of that limousine all to myself, to be able to watch the movie playing on the overhead television screen.
“God, there isn’t even any juice in here,” Christa complained about the lack of breakfast beverages. “Could they be any cheaper?”
I was already getting the sense that Suzanne and Robin were totally over Christa just three days into production. Eunice seemed to be as excited as I was to get the white glove treatment that morning. She curiously pressed every button she could reach to watch the lighting on the ceiling and floor change color schemes.
At the Dolby Theater, we were all introduced to a man named Mark. He was the director of live televised events (but presumably had no ties to the several other “directors” of the unit crews that shot the footage of us practicing at the studio). Also present for the first time that week were the big wigs: Tommy Harper and Susan DeMott, who both stood near the front row of seats having conversations with other people in suits. Tim Collins followed them around like a lost little boy. Danny Fuego was there, looking sexy in a skin-tight ribbed t-shirt and cargo pants. A mobile camera crew trailed two steps behind him. Claire lingered behind Mark with her clipboard, and it was a relief to know that she was around. Claire represented order and fairness in my opinion. It never truly felt like we were creating a television show instead of performing some kind of strange anthropological experiment unless she was there, explaining how everything was supposed to work.
At the start of the show on Friday night, we’d perform the show’s theme song together as a group. Danny Fuego would introduce the coaches, remind people watching at home how to vote, and begin introducing the guests. Video footage of our introductions would play on a large screen over the stage before each contestant would walk out into the spotlight to sing for the theater audience. The season premiere of the show was a two-hour special, and Mark very carefully controlled its timing.
“No funny stuff,” Mark he warned us.
Backstage, we were arranged in our groups and transported into four different holding rooms. GROUP 2 was scrawled in marker on a paper sign that hung on the black shiny door which led to ours. The room itself was nothing fancy at all, just two black leather couches, a mirror, two small adjoining bathrooms, and a television fixed from the ceiling in each corner. All four of the televisions were showing a morning talk show. None of us watched it; we congregated around the craft services table, and pigged out on miniature bagels and bowls of cereal.
Rob, the evil production assistant, arrived to inform us of the order in which we’d be performing. I was dismayed that I wasn’t one of the first to perform, and accepted my Post-It note from him with #14 written on it with a shrug. Number fourteen. Right in the middle. I sank into the leather sofa and pondered whether or not there was any advantage associated with my number. I couldn’t decide if it was better to make a good impression early in the broadcast and risk that viewers would forget about my performance, or sing last when the audience would have already run out of patience.
Robin was the first in our group to notice when the televisions flipped from the morning talk show to a live feed from the cameras focused on the stage. Danny Fuego was rehearsing his introduction, explaining how at-home viewers could vote for their favorite singers with their mobile phones. “You can cast your vote for up to five of your favorite singers on the show three different ways. First, you can c
all 1-800-555-8377 and then, using your phone’s keypad at the operator’s prompt, enter the number of the singer for whom you wish to vote. Second, you can text your favorite singer’s number to 1-800-555-8377. And last of all, you can go online to our show’s website and cast your vote after registering.” The phone number appeared on screen along with the web address for the show’s website.
Immediately I remembered Lee mentioning how he’d like to get organized as soon as I found out how voting would work on the show. I sent him a long e-mail with the directions as best as I could remember them, and told him I’d be singer #14.
“They don’t start counting votes until the broadcast begins,” Christa told me in a snide voice, snooping.
“I’m aware,” I snapped back and slid my phone into my purse again. Her smugness had caused my throat to tighten when I’d overheard her bragging to Eunice that the producers always placed the most promising talent last in the line-up. It had to be true, she reasoned, since the previous year, Curtis Wallace sang thirty-eighth on the season premiere. Christa had been assigned #32. I calmly tried to assure myself that Christa was full of hot air, but still... she had a point. If I remembered the previous year’s premiere correctly, Curtis Wallace had sung close to the end, as did the others who ended up becoming finalists: Liza, Jax, and Becky. My heart sank—my chances couldn’t have been dashed before the cameras even began rolling, could they?
Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) Page 12
