America's Next Star

by Katie Dozier

  Although devoid of students this early on a Saturday, evidence of Friday night fun remained, as the fountain was overflowing with bubbles. In a burst of wind, a chunky mass of bubbles flew right by me, and I thought of Mom. Because she had this penchant for using way too much soap when doing the dishes, calling it a bubble bath for her hands.

  And though this hadn’t been part of my plan, at least consciously, I reached into my purse and grabbed a penny, then upgraded it for a quarter. I aimed for the top level of the cake-stand tiered fountain, but it landed somewhere under the mass of bubbles on the bottom layer.

  Instead of wishing for better aim, or for the impossible idea of auditioning for America’s Next Star , I just wished to make it into the program.

  My phone vibrated with a text from Dad.

  Break a leg, today. I love you

  My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment before I finally replied:

  I love you too dad

  The massive fountain was in front of the auditorium where they had a banner outside about holding auditions soon for A Chorus Line .

  That had been the first musical I’d ever teched for, back as a high school freshman. I’d learned Diana’s solo, “Nothing,” from that play before I chickened out and didn’t audition. Not that it mattered, since Carrie got the part anyway. But now the song was stuck in my head again. Even though the point of the song is that Diana eventually does become somebody , getting a song stuck in your head about feeling not good enough wasn’t exactly the best start to the biggest audition of my life.

  I didn’t know if my quarter had any weight besides its literal mass as a scrap of metal. But I knew that I would show up, and I could try to be something instead of the big nothing I felt like.

  Outside the audition room, the morning sun poured onto the faces of girls lining the benches. It smelled like hairspray, or at least the crispy blonde hairdos squeezed in beside me did. I’d straightened my hair, borrowed T iffanie’s billowing navy dress that I could barely squeeze into, and, though I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it, also her kitten heels.

  The audition location was a room in the theater department. One thing had worked in favor of my nerves that day—usually they had auditions that anyone could watch. But with only about a dozen chairs set up in the space, so many set to audition, and quite a few students towing parents, they had no choice but to make it closed to spectators.

  Tiff spiritedly debated with herself for over half an hour last night as to which shoes would strike the right note, though I wasn’t sure if it was really me she cared so much about, or that she hated the thought of missing a chance to talk about shoes for so long. Or if it was payment for her weeklong debate over whether to be a French maid or a kitten for the costume party she was going to that night.

  I painted on my best winged eyeliner, forcing myself to believe my gray bug-eyes were an asset and not something worthy of being teased about. I’d even repainted some brown Dior nail polish where it had chipped off from a combination of stomach acid and flipping through my sheet music over and over.

  Hundreds of hums surrounded me from girls running through their music in the old stone hallway, like a youthful, and far more female, version of a Gregorian chant. Was it really possible that over half of them also held a Phantom book? The white masks on all the covers taunted me.

  Damn it. I wasn’t seeing ghosts. Unrequited love is just too popular a theme, whether for high schoolers singing Les Miserables or young women singing to get into a good music program. But there were other solos in that book, so hopefully it was only a couple with the same piece as me, right? What are the odds?

  The door opened, and all of the women corrected their posture in unison, and arched their filled-in eyebrows at the older man with a bow tie and a clipboard. He crossed something off in one bold stroke. A tiny girl slipped through the doorway with hunched shoulders, shielding her face from our view with the mask on the cover of her identical book of sheet music.

  “Let’s see…next, Ella Windmill?”

  I stood up, my heels almost toppling me as I swayed like the Leaning Tower of Pisa .

  “Yes.”

  He eyed my book.

  Was that a frown?

  “Follow me.”

  He held the door open, and I walked in to the sound of a woman cackling like a witch. “Her as Diana?! Well, she really was nothing.”

  I stood at the front after handing my sheet music off to the accompanist at the piano, waiting silently for them to finish their blatant gossiping. Then the woman issued a slight cough and three sets of eyes bore into me.

  “Big eyes,” I thought I heard the man mutter to the other woman.

  “Yes?!” The woman widened her pointedly eyes at me—as if my purpose wasn’t clear, as if they weren’t already staring at my name, one of hundreds on that list.

  I faked an easy smile. “I’m Ella Windmill, here to audition for the program as a soprano?”

  “State your age, your hometown, and your audition piece.”

  A bird fluttered by the only window, and a burst of wind brought up a flurry of cut grass, smacking them into the glass. There was also an apple tree outside the window, with the smallest green buds starting to appear.

  “Uh, eighteen, I’m from Cocoa Beach, and I’ll be singing—”

  The woman gave a high-pitched laugh. “Let me guess. You’ll be singing ‘Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again.’”

  “Well, yes, actually.”

  “Do you have anything else to show us?”

  Well that confirmed it, I had become one of those boring, cliche girls singing the college equivalent of, “On My Own,” from high school at drama competition.

  If I’d only kept at it after Mom died, here I would have said, “Well I could sing Diana’s solo from A Chorus Line …Oh that happens to be the very musical that you’re holding auditions for next week isn’t it?” And then I would have nailed it, been immediately given a spot in the program, and the lead in the play. And David would have dumped the old poster girl for the program in favor of its new star.

  But back to reality.

  “Uh, well I’ve had some difficulties,” I muttered, which, it turns out is a very stupid thing to do when you are trying to achieve anything based on your vocal prowess. “For now this is the only thing I have.”

  “Fine, but skip the beginning and start at the chorus,” the woman belted out.

  It meant starting out at the height of a crescendo, skipping the more nuanced parts where my voice would really shine. Everything inside of me wanted to say that starting out the piece right before the climax was akin to picking up a book right in the middle.

  How could I build the kind of feeling, depth, and richness without allowing my voice the right time to get into it?

  But a bigger voice howled inside—that had silenced my ability to sing for months. Its ugly claws jumped into my head again and strangled me.

  The woman tapped her red nails on a clipboard.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I can nail this , I thought, I can be the girl that sings so well that she wins despite her awful song choice. I don’t have many skills in life, but I do have perfect pitch.

  The accompanist played one bar of music as I drew in a deep breath, feeling my diaphragm expand, and drawing strength as much as sound from my instrument within.

  As I floated the notes out from my diaphragm, I pretended my voice was lifting me up, up, and up—bringing me to someone located higher than the Earth.

  “—Thank you. That’ll be all for now. Results will be posted at eight in the amphitheater.” The older woman cut me off right in the middle of the highest note, letting me sing only a tiny fraction of the song.

  My first audition was all of about thirty seconds, was there any way it could possibly be enough?

  The only blessing so far that day was that a crab apple that fell from the tree outside the audition room failed to hit me on the head. I broke my promise of not thinking
about Mom. Again.

  Was it ironic that a sommelier—often tasked with emptying a full bottle into four glasses at the start of dinner to ensure that another bottle would be bought—would be killed by a drunk driver?

  I had to get my mind off of these thoughts—that wouldn’t stop swirling around in my head like how Mom used to swirl her glass of wine.

  After staring at my phone, failing to find the strength to even text Dad back, I knew I’d drown in my thoughts if I didn’t find a way to occupy my mind.

  I pulled up David’s YouTube release of him playing, “Let it Go,” on his violin, then steeled my eyes at all of the gushing comments, clearly from dreamy-eyed undergrads, all lusting after the same sexy grad student.

  I hated them because they were me too.

  Then, my phone beeped. Another text that I wouldn’t answer from my Dad? No.

  Hey how’d your audition go?

  From the Frozen violinist himself! I let a minute tick away and convinced myself not to admit I’d just been watching his video.

  Okay, ty

  Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Come to Bullwinkle’s tonight around 10?

  Don’t forget a costume cause it’s half Halloween

  Dress up as someone older so they don’t ID you

  Carrie can’t make it. Won’t know anyone there if you flake and I already got this costume

  It felt like the last thing I wanted to do after finding out if my dream of getting into the program was actually happening, but he would be there, and most importantly, Carrie wouldn’t be.

  After wandering around campus, hoping to avoid a convo about my awful audition with Tiffanie back in our room, I set out across Landis Green. It was nearly pitch black, and the wind hadn’t let up from earlier.

  Apparently the halfway to Halloween thing was as big as the real holiday at FSU. The bars had no cover charge for those that dressed up and every frat on campus was vying to have the coolest party.

  A group of guys battered by fake blood crossed my path, and I put my head down. They’d told me Mom’s head snapped off when she hit the water. Did I mention that before? Some days that's all I can think about.

  I’d found the report stashed in Dad’s “secret” drawer, underneath pictures of Mom in her underwear. And I’d spent months wondering in my darkest moments, if her silky brown hair had also been lobbed off in the process.

  I’d been haunted by visions of a headless Mom ever since.

  I never found the words to ask him how he survived the accident. Though I asked myself why he was the one that made it out all the time.

  “Boo!” I heard one of the costumed jerks shout at me, even through my headphones. The others laughed.

  I didn’t even respond, as the entire day I’d felt like something was screaming at me anyway.

  I changed Mom’s iPod to play Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”

  Somewhere between the whistling trees of Landis Green and the white-walled palace of the Music department, while I was passing witches in mini skirts and a jerk in a headless man costume on their way to the bars on Tennessee Street, I cried again.

  As I reached the amphitheater late—in order to miss the swarm of protégés checking one sheet of paper simultaneously—I noticed a cobweb on the bleacher in front of me. I was at least glad to be alone—to miss the tears from those that didn’t make it in and the shrieks from those that did.

  I saw a sheet of crooked computer paper taped to the side of the stage.

  Was it even worth looking?

  Well, I was here anyway.

  The paper read:

  We regret that no applicants that auditioned today will be admitted to our program this year. We thank you for your auditions.

  I stepped backwards, almost toppling off the stage, and realized there’d been more hope inside me than I’d had the right to hold on to. How could I even be feeling a crumb of surprise?

  If I’d eaten anything that day, I would have gone to make myself throw up again. I walked back to that bench with the spider web on it and failed even at crying.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ♪ Gin and Juice ♪

  * * *

  “S o! Come on, he invited you, you’ve gotta go!” Tiffanie said.

  I’d really wanted to avoid going back to the dorm room, as I didn’t want to tell her I’d failed, but that would be a tough lie to tell as anyone at FSU could easily find out the truth.

  “I dunno, I just really don’t feel like it.”

  “Well, I’ve decided that I’m going as a kitten. So if you don’t wear the French maid costume, then that is sixty bucks down the drain. I’m pre-partying at Bullwinkle’s anyway so we have to go together.” She pushed the skimpy costume into my hand.

  “It won’t even fit me,” I said.

  “Will so! It’s spandex. I won’t take no for an answer, Ella. What you need is some fun! I won’t stop singing until you say you’ll come!”

  She cranked up Taylor Swift’s “Shake it off” on her computer and started dancing around the room scream/singing into her hairbrush, her perfect frame wrapped in her Gerber daisy towel.

  A couple hours later, in the humid twilight, a crowd formed outside of the bars on Tennessee Street. Everyone seemed to be laughing, but I felt like an illegal alien trying to cross the border in the trunk of someone’s car.

  Tiffanie bounced forward towards the doorman, until I put an arm out, accidentally kind of feeling her up.

  “What if they ID us?” I asked.

  She turned to me, her back to the door of the bar.

  “The important thing is that you look like you’re supposed to be here—like it could never enter your mind that they’d even so much as ID us.”

  “But they will ID us, won’t they?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  I didn’t follow her.

  “Come on, I can’t show up solo to this. Then Tommy will see me as a sad girl showing up alone to a bar—instead of the hottest chick here, no offense, with a bangin’ crew to match. We’ve got this Ella.”

  The doorman must have outweighed the huge metal doors behind him. He checked the IDs of the dudes in front of us, then scowled at Tiffanie.

  “IDs?”

  Tiff laughed as she slapped my crossed arms.

  “Oh, you’re so sweet treating us like little underclassmen.” She bent down to fix a perfectly straight strap on her red stiletto. His eyes rested in the center of the extra deep V on her catsuit. She rose in slow motion.

  “We’re just a couple of grad students.” Tiffanie pointed to me, but his eyes were locked on that deep V, and for the first time I actually agreed with her that the “add three cup sizes” bra could actually count as a good investment.

  “You see,” she said, as she ran both hands up and down her hourglass frame. “There’s not really anywhere to put things inside me—” She faked a blush, pulling her hands to her face which squeezed her arms against her breasts. “I mean, to carry anything except a few bills.”

  And this was when her act turned from just slutty into a David Copperfield level of genius.

  She pulled one finger all the way from her fish-netted thigh to the center of the spot he’d been fixated on since we reached the front of the line. To my shock, she put her finger between her breasts so that it disappeared, and then slowly emerged with a hot $20 bill, which she held out to him.

  The husky man shifted, realizing her performance was over.

  “Oh, uh, there’s no cover charge here tonight for ladies.”

  At least not one that Tiffanie hadn’t already paid.

  He stamped our hands with “21+” and he never took his eyes off of her.

  “You and your friend are good.”

  “I can’t believe you pulled that off,” I said, once we made it in the doors. Without thinking, I shielded my ears from the thumping bass that was infinitely louder than my Beats on max.

  “What?” Tiffanie asked.

  “N
ever mind,” I said.

  And that is what it turned out talking in a bar was, at best. A series of trying to shout loud enough to be heard, followed by manufacturing a chorus of, “What's” until both parties gave up, resorting to a nod regardless of what the other one had tried to say.

  After all, this was fun, right?

  What?

  “Ella!” Was what, in context it would have made sense for David to be shouting when he waved at me from over at the corner of the bar.

  Tiff saw him too, and shot me eyes that said she knew he was the bond guy.

  “Cute,” she screamed.

  She pointed to herself, then to a group of girls that looked like they must have used the same trick to get in that she did. Is that what they taught in a sorority? Now that I could understand taking so many hours every week.

  Before she left she may have said, “Good luck with him,” or maybe, “Go and fuck him,” since she did wink, and this is Tiffanie we’re talking about, but I can’t really be sure.

  “Hi,” I shouted to David. He was wearing a black cape, and that same tux I’d first met him in.

  Then he turned away from me. Great. So now I would be alone in this jungle that was supposedly a rite of passage known as a bar. But he turned around just as quickly as he had given me his shoulder, this time wearing a white mask over half of his face. I laughed.

  “Really? You’re the Phantom?”

  He nodded, and I couldn’t tell if that was because we’d already reached the point of not being able to converse at all, or if he really heard me.

  He motioned to the bartender and held up two fingers, then got out his wallet, waving away my purse when I opened it. The music was cranked up to levels so high that it felt like putting my ear to an airplane engine as it took off. It was some sort of generic, bass-blasting hip hop that I disliked even more since being exposed to all the awesome music on Mom’s old iPod.

  He tried to shout something into my ear.

  We were well past the point of even “What?” being something verbally understood, so I shrugged and held up my arms—bumping at least five people behind us in the process.

  He swooshed his cape dramatically into the face of another helpless frat boy as he pulled out his phone.