Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1)

by Caitlyn Duffy

  “Geez!” I growled before walking back down the driveway to Elliott’s car, carrying the gift I’d poorly wrapped for Lee. It was super mortifying that my mother obviously thought I’d lie to her and drive off with Elliott to embark on a life of crime instead of going directly to the Lee’s house.

  On the drive to Lee’s, I made small talk with Elliott about the broadcast the night before and how my songs had been switched. Inside my head, I was freaking out. The boy of my dreams was sort of stalking me, which was a good thing, I thought. He was a real celebrity (if I could be considered one, as well). And we were about to arrive at a party together where all of my friends and acquaintances from school were sure to gossip that I’d shown up with a date. As soon as that occurred to me, I started sweating. Surely either the night we’d gone out for ice cream or this drive over to Lee’s house counted as my first date. Somehow, the major milestone had passed without my even having marked it.

  We pulled up to the cute fake stone wall around the Yoons’ house and buzzed in through the security system. Elliott groaned when he saw the arrangement of all of my friends’ first cars: Lexuses, brand new Toyota Sonatas, and Mini Coopers. “Wow, your friends are pretty well-off.”

  I unbuckled my seat belt and said, “Not as well-off as Chase Atwood. And by the way, yours truly doesn’t even have a car, so please don’t think all of my friends are snobs. Some of them have rich parents, but some of them go to Pacific Valley on a scholarship.”

  When Lee greeted us at the side door of his parents’ insanely big house, he simply said, “Um, hi.” His displeasure at seeing Elliott standing beside me was palpable.

  “Happy Birthday, Lee!” I cheered, truly hoping I hadn’t hurt his feelings by bringing Elliott unannounced. I thrust my gift toward him. “I hope it’s okay that I brought Elliott.”

  “Sure, yeah, it’s fine. Come on in, man. The more, the merrier.” If Lee had been offended by my gaff, he did a good job of acting unconcerned.

  We followed Lee into the house and kicked off our shoes in the hallway, adding them to the giant pile that had formed just inside the door.

  There are definitely perks to being the son of a software tycoon, and Lee’s birthday party was evidence of that. His father had rented a bunch of old-fashioned pinball machines and arcade games, and the entire basement looked like a retro arcade. There was even skee ball. While Elliott and I tried to take in all of the beeping, flashing, and mechanical jingles that greeted us at the bottom of the stairwell, Lee announced, “Hey everybody. Allison’s here.”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing to gawk at us. As expected, several of Lee’s band geek friends were in attendance. There was Patrick, the bespectacled second chair flutist, Andrew, the only oboist at Pacific Valley, and Hector the cellist, who was obsessed with comic books. There were also a bunch of guys that Lee had dubbed his “Asian crew,” guys he knew from his mostly Korean church who all went to another private school. A few unexpected faces of popular girls who I didn’t know Lee even hung around with were present. Courtney Von Haas, the editor of the yearbook, mingled with the band nerds in a crop top. Just as I started taking a visual inventory of guests, I was nearly tackled to the ground by Michelle as she threw her arms around me.

  “Oh man, your hair looks busted,” she said. Michelle was never one to sugarcoat the truth.

  “I know,” I admitted. “They hacked it off the first week of the show and it’s only looking worse as it gets longer.”

  With her most deadly smile and her eyelashes fluttering, Nicole slithered past the band geeks with a hand extended. She didn’t even look twice at me; she just moved in for the kill. “Hi. I’m Allison’s friend, Nicole,” she said, sliding her hand into Elliott’s and locking eyes with him as she greeted him. She wore skinny jeans and a fitted lumberjack plaid shirt, and I was sure the moment we walked in she regretted not wearing something sexier.

  Elliott turned to me with an expression of pure panic, and in that moment, he probably saw my horror at my friend’s aggressiveness. The pain of a thousand times when Nicole had intercepted hot guys in my presence was probably painted all over my face.

  “Uh, hi,” he managed. “Nice to meet you.”

  Nicole led Elliott away from me, toward the absurd buffet of Armenian chicken that Mr. and Mrs. Yoon had ordered from a famous restaurant in Hollywood. Kids from school surrounded me to ask questions about what it was like to be on television, if Chase Atwood was nice, if Jay Walk had a girlfriend, and whether or not I was going to win. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Nicole giggle and flirt with Elliott. I seriously hoped he wasn’t falling for her little act. Colton noticed that I was annoyed and offered me a whadya-gonna-do shrug. After a lifetime of being primarily ignored in social settings, I felt awful about being given the third degree while Lee twiddled his thumbs. It was, after all, his seventeenth birthday.

  Andrew, the oboist, challenged me to a game of Ms. Pacman. He creamed me because I was so distracted watching Elliott assist Nicole in playing pinball (at her insistence, of course). He stood behind her with his arms shadowing hers as she played; his hands placed over hers on the flipper buttons. They were very close. Close enough that his lips could have easily grazed the side of her face or kissed her earlobe if he’d been so inclined. He was probably suffocating in vapors of Billionaire Boyfriend perfume wafting off her neck.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I announced and rushed upstairs even though the Yoons’ had a powder room in the basement. In actuality, I didn’t need to use the bathroom; I was just getting dizzy with anger and needed to get out of the basement.

  At the top of the stairs, Lee’s sister Laura crossed her arms over her chest. “Is that really Elliott from Center Stage!?”

  I nodded. “Oh man,” she said wistfully. “If I’d known he was going to be here, I would have invited my friends.”

  In the bathroom, I splashed a little water on my face and carefully dabbed it off with a towel, not wanting to mess up the black eyeliner I had meticulously applied at home. There was no good reason at all why I should have been hiding myself away in the bathroom during Lee’s birthday party when everyone wanted to talk to me, I knew. But the whole night just seemed so completely unfair. I stared at myself in the mirror and demanded that my reflection tell me what I’d have to do to one day outshine Nicole since clearly not even becoming famous had done the trick. I’d never be four inches taller, or wake up one morning and magically have the right kind of shiny, straight hair. I’d never learn how to giggle in just the right way to make a boy think I was the cutest girl in the room. The acceptance of that fact felt like a gut punch. The best part—okay, maybe the only good part—about Nicole dating my brother Todd for a few weeks over the summer had been that she’d briefly stopped trying to hog all the attention from every boy around for miles.

  It was little consolation that I had architected my own misery by inviting Elliott to come along. I could have sent him on his way back to Chase Atwood’s house, or suggested that he and I go grab an ice cream cone alone before having Mom drop me off at Lee’s. The only thing that was abundantly clear was that if Elliott developed a crush on Nicole, it would have been entirely my own fault. The rest of the season on Center Stage! would suck because it wouldn’t be mine to enjoy alone anymore. I’d be sharing it in an indirect way with Nicole.

  A knock on the door made me realize I’d been in there for a while. It was not suspicious at all to linger in the bathroom at the Yoons' house because it had heated floor tile, as well as a variety of fancy-smelling hand soaps. I muttered, “Just a second,” and opened the door to find Kaela waiting for me.

  “Are you mad?” she asked. Kaela had always been the most sensitive of my friends. She’d learned earlier than me never to mention any boys she liked around Nicole (prior to developing her crush on Colton).

  “Nicole,” I said, aware that my jealousy was petty, and not caring. “Why does she always think that she’s the only girl who boys might ever be interes
ted in?”

  Kaela nodded in sympathy. “She just never lets up.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “She’s super jealous of you, you know. All she ever talks about at school is how you guys are best friends and how you’re going to be a famous singer, and she’s going to be a famous actress.”

  Nicole had never told me she wanted to be a famous actress; the story she told parents and teachers was that she wanted to study psychiatry. Hearing that Nicole had been bragging about our friendship at school put a bitter taste in my mouth. In fairness, I’d been texting a lot more frequently with Lee, but the majority of the text messages Nicole sent me had to do with gossip at school and inquiries about Elliott. Maybe I was at fault; I’d withdrawn from my friends a little because I hadn’t wanted to seem like I was bragging.

  “That’s odd,” I snipped, “since she practically never calls me.”

  “Well, she’s been in a bad mood lately,” Kaela admitted. “She tried out for Fiddler on the Roof and didn’t get a part.”

  We were followed downstairs to the basement by Laura and Lee’s parents. Mrs. Yoon carried a towering red velvet cake with candles blazing. All of the guests began singing “Happy Birthday” and Laura ran around her parents with a camera to snap some pictures. Nicole had positioned herself right next to Elliott. Not wanting to impose, I kept a courteous distance away from him.

  So, imagine my surprise when I felt Elliott reach over and take my hand in his… right at the point in the song when he and I sang, “Happy Birthday, dear Lee,” together, in harmony. I nearly choked upon feeling the warm touch of his skin. He’d inched through the group of kids to make his way over to me, and the vibrato of our voices fell into sync. We sounded so perfect together that a chill ran through me. His hand was dry, and I was paranoid that my own palm was sweaty. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of Nicole crossing her arms over her chest on the other side of the table, quite displeased with me. For the first time, it seemed, the boy I had my eye on was actually into me, as well.

  “Make a wish!” Laura commanded.

  Lee leaned over his cake and hesitated. He looked up just for a split second directly at me, and then blew out his candles.

  My rapidly beating heart began to sink. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe Lee had a crush on me, and I was slowly, unintentionally breaking his heart by falling in love with Elliott right in front of the whole country.

  “Your friend Nicole is nice,” Elliott said.

  As soon as we’d said our goodbyes and stepped into the Yoons’ cobble-stone driveway (which encircled a gurgling fountain), shyness overtook me. On the drive back to my house, which was most likely out of the way for him if he was driving back to Malibu that night, my brain was firing off thoughts in two opposite directions.

  1. Elliott might really like me and might really want to kiss me and what will I do if he tries?

  And—

  2. Even though I should feel awesome about that, why do I feel so lousy about hurting Lee’s feelings instead?

  “Yeah, sure,” I said unenthusiastically. I added, “I think she likes you,” and then cursed at myself in my head for even testing those waters.

  Surprisingly, Elliott laughed his kind of quiet half-laugh. “Yeah, whatever. Don’t get me wrong, she’s cool and all. But there are lots of girls like her at my school, and none of them ever said a nice word to me before I was on TV. Now I get e-mails all the time asking when we’re going to hang out, if I’m coming back to Temecula after the season finale. It’s all, like, so fake.”

  I didn’t want to let on how surprised I was by his admission. I could see a guy like Elliott existing on the fringe of high school society even at Pacific Valley… until girls heard that voice. “Well, all those people talking to me at the party? Half of them have never spoken to me before tonight. Ever. Some of them, I’ve known since first grade.”

  Stern silence followed my comment as we drove through wild Saturday night traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Finally, Elliott said, “I guess we’re both going to have to get used to that. For a while, at least. While it lasts.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. It hadn’t occurred to me before Lee’s party that suddenly people would be so much nicer to me than before. All of us on the show had been somewhat sheltered from the outside world since taping had begun. My parents certainly weren’t being any nicer, and they were the only people outside of the world of Center Stage! with whom I interacted lately. “And then when people stop being nice, we’ll probably develop all kinds of personality disorders and consider ourselves failures.”

  “If they stop being nice,” Elliott corrected me with a wicked grin.

  The lights in the living room window of my house were lowered by the time we reached my block, which was a sign that my parents were at least pretending not to wait up for me like museum guards expecting burglars to trip alarms. When we pulled into my driveway, Elliott took me by complete surprise by jumping out of the car while the engine was still running. He dashed around the back to open my door for me. Of course, I didn’t know what he was up to, so by the time he made his way to my side of the car, I had already opened the door and was climbing out.

  “God, Allison. You’re making it kind of hard to be gentlemanly,” Elliott said.

  I closed the door behind me and grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “Thanks for inviting me,” he said, looking down at his feet. I was painfully aware of how close we were standing together, his face just inches from mine… just as close to me as he’d stood near Nicole earlier that night while she’d been playing pinball. “That might have seriously been the first real party I’ve gone to in all of high school.”

  “Oh, come on!” I teased. “You haven’t gone to any parties in all four years?”

  Elliott shrugged. “No, not really. I mean, unless sitting in a living room with a couple guys playing Xbox counts.”

  “That counts,” I assured him, not wanting to rub his humiliation in if he was telling the truth. “Well, it was fun that you came with tonight. My friends were all excited to meet you.”

  At that point, since neither of us were budging, I was practically holding my breath, waiting for Elliott to just kiss me. I commanded myself just to take matters into my own hands if he didn’t act swiftly. I’d count down from ten and then just plant one on him if he didn’t make a move first. My brain had just sent a command to my hands to reach for him when he startled me by saying, “That guy, Lee… were you guys ever, like, a couple?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. “No! Geez, absolutely not. We’re just friends.”

  “Oh,” Elliott said flatly. “Well, I think he likes you.”

  Elliott dared to look me in the eye for a split second, and then I knew I didn’t have to worry. He was going to kiss me. He was just working up to it.

  I managed to eek out, “It’s not like that,” before Elliott inched a little closer. He stared into my eyes, and finally placed his lips on mine, swallowing my words as they left my mouth. For a second he just pressed his lips into mine as if testing to make sure it was okay. As we kissed, I realized how silly and childish the crush I’d harbored on Oliver Teague for the last three years had been. The way I felt about Elliott didn’t even compare; I longed to know everything about him but was afraid to ask. I desperately wanted him to like me, but had a suspicion that no matter how badly I desired our worlds to overlap, they never quite would. More than anything, as I felt his hands on my hips, I wanted to assure him that whatever bad things in his life had happened, he hadn’t deserved them. If I got to be his girlfriend, I’d always be on his side.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d met Elliott prior to Center Stage! that I ever would have given him a second glance, but I had a strong hunch that I would have. There was just something about him and me… like even if the show hadn’t brought us together, we would have found each other anyway. I’d always believed that when I fell in love for the first time, it would be with someone who was exactly like me. Elliott and I were very diff
erent, and yet we matched. Like our voices, our personalities were simply complementary. Unlike the boys at my school, who all seemed to be one-dimensional characters caught up in following sports teams and the plots of popular television shows, Elliott was so much more real. Elliott’s life probably had been and would always be infinitely more interesting than those other boys,’ which made his kiss all the more precious.

  And of course, it didn’t occur to me until much later that night, as I replayed our first kiss over and over again in my head (when I should have been sleeping instead) that there could only be one winner on Center Stage!. I couldn’t honestly vow that I’d always be on Elliott’s side if we were going to be a couple, not without forfeiting my own ambition.

  Eventually, it was going to boil down to him or me.

  Chapter 12

  Where There’s Smoke…

  On Sunday afternoon, Mom and Dad drove me up to the Neue Hotel with two big suitcases crammed full of stuff. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t bring too much with me, especially since I hoped to return home on weekends. But there were so many unanswered questions about how and where I’d do laundry, and what we might be asked to wear to the studio, that I ended up packing practically everything I owned. As I’d packed, I’d come across Taylor’s blue hoodie in my closet. I brushed my fingers over it, strongly sensing her absence and regretting what I’d said to her the last time we spoke.

  There were tearful goodbyes in the hotel lobby. After my parents had left for home (presumably to do something without me that would have annoyed me if I’d known about it, like order pizza), I became antsy within minutes. I could vaguely hear someone in the next room talking through the wall, and I strained my ears in an attempt to determine whether he was another contestant on the show or just a tourist visiting Los Angeles. There was certainly no shortage of homework I could have been doing, but cracking open books seemed pointless. Elliott’s arrival at the hotel was at the forefront of my thoughts. It occurred to me that I could use the hotel’s gym and pool, but I was intimidated by the idea of having my activities observed by other contestants outside of the safety of my room.