America's Next Star

by Katie Dozier

  “You okay? I call nueve - uno - uno ?”

  Was I still dreaming? Had that video been real? My mouth was a spitty toxic pond just like my mind.

  Her little hands reached under the door and somehow managed to shake my cattle-sized haunches.

  “I’m fine,” I managed.

  I must’ve looked like a drug addict to that poor woman. Bulimia wasn’t something I injected into my arm, but it was like the reverse—where the low came before the high—and all moments after throwing up.

  I was many things.

  A bulimic.

  A mother killer.

  A failure.

  I was not, however, “fine.”

  I pulled myself to my knees.

  “Be out in a minute, thanks.”

  “But we close now.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  That word again. That word that doesn’t even mean what it once did, because everyone twisted its meaning like the vines on the stage for Into the Woods .

  My vision was blurry, as if I had just been punched or something. I steadied my gaze enough to slide the lock open.

  “ Bueno . You okay. Too many cervezas .” She put a hand down on my shoulder, then seemed to think it was better to walk away than help someone with puke all over them stand up. Instead she washed her hands as I struggled to find my legs.

  Her sub five foot frame eyed me through the mirror.

  “I think I seen you before.”

  The doors of Strozier locked behind me as a security guard rolled his eyes. Then I realized that I had a clean shirt in the bag I’d packed only hours ago—which now felt like a lifetime ago.

  And my Beats were in there too, were they still plugged into the computer I ran away from? I knocked on the door, but the guard inside barely turned around long enough to shake his head at me.

  I had to lie down, even if Big Red was still somehow grinding on Tiff inches from my bed.

  Would I have to tell Tiffanie I was bulimic? The one time I’d confessed my secret to anyone, they’d called me fat. I knew I’d feel like a failure if I told Huck.

  No, I could just blame it on a hangover.

  Between me and the cave of my dorm room, I had the football-field-sized Landis Green. At least it was dark. Did bile glow in the dark? My cheeks felt so hot that they must’ve looked like the sun.

  They say the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but not in this case. There were too many people—people that could probably say that they were “fine” and really mean it.

  I pooled every ounce of energy I had and sprinted to Landis—only to be met by a group at the entrance that was staring at me. In this light, my dorm looked like the castle from Harry Potter —which was fitting since all of their eyes fell on me like a curse.

  I walked through them, my smell parting the seas.

  “She looks even worse than she did on YouTube!”

  So is this what it meant to be a famous singer?

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Tiffanie mercifully didn’t come back until later that night, which gave me more than enough time to hide my bile-stained hoodie.

  “My hangover was pretty bad too, until Red rocked it right out of me,” she said, upon seeing my vaguely green face.

  “Yeah…Well, did you see it?” I asked.

  She turned away from me, and pretended to organize her nail polish collection—even though it was already sorted with dividers. Reds. Pinks. Purples. Glitters. The stuff dreams are made of.

  “I…don’t know what you mean.”

  Tiffanie was a great beautician, and possibly even a great magician from her display at Bullwinkle’s. She was not, however, a great liar—at least to me.

  I crossed my arms over my blue towel and stared her down. That’s the only good thing about my bug-eyes I guess, they kind of function as a lie detector test. I guess it’s hard to stare into eyes that big, that grey, and not tell the truth. Like talking to the Grim Reaper or something.

  “I’m so sorry Ella, that guy is an asshole!”

  She hugged me, gripping my wet shoulders, knocking against the one thing that made it so I was never really naked—Mom’s necklace.

  “But you sounded really good!”

  “That isn’t what the comments think.”

  “I saw the comments,” she said. God, how many people had done that? “No one said you had a bad voice, you were great!”

  “If great is a singing pizza with pit stains, then I was fucking perfect!”

  She turned from me, opened the biggest eyeshadow pallet in the world, and smeared her lids with turquoise.

  “I was just trying to help. You know, I even gave you an upvote. And I am sorry, 'cause I know you didn’t know that he was doing a vid of you. Because you would have asked to borrow my old blue dress again. But Tina said I shouldn’t ever let you borrow my clothes again because you stretch them out.”

  I glued my eyes to the new comments on the video, after texting, “Phantom of the Douchebag,” to David.

  “But I can’t deal with your problems right now. I mean, focus on the good side and stop freaking out at me when I’m just trying to help. It’s like how Zelina looked super fat in those high-waisted jeans pics last year, and now she’s lost weight and made a ton promoting SkinnyPillz.”

  I was sitting on my bed—the roll of my stomach bunching the towel. I didn’t think there was an upside to this, and if there was, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t involve caffeine pills.

  She grabbed her purse, it was polka dotted, like my comforter back home, only it was hot pink like the cardigan that outlived Mom. It was exactly the kind of thing Mom would’ve hoped I’d carry around as a freshman at FSU.

  “Look, I’ve gotta go Ella.” Tiffanie clicked one of her heels on the linoleum.

  Was it too late to return to pretending we were friends?

  “Oh, look, I’m sorry. Just stressed out. Where are you going?” I asked.

  “This party for one of my sisters. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but she just found out that she’s going to be on America’s Next Star !”

  Really, this day was getting even worse?

  “I thought you liked that show,” she said. “You know, with Zelina?”

  “Yeah…I know it. Guess I know which sister you mean.” I didn’t mention how that was the girl that had made my life hell for years. How it seemed like I could never escape her beauty, her cruelty, even when hovered over a toilet bowl.

  “Duh, it’s Carrie, the girl we voted best hair for summer spirit week—though that was a nail biter because some people thought it was an unfair advantage since she spends two hours curling her hair everyday then goes around saying it’s natural—whoops you didn’t hear that from me. She’s my sister, so of course I’m really really really happy for her.”

  She stared at her purse.

  “Even though I should’ve won best hair.” She pointed her pink pout to me.

  “Oh, yes, yes, you should have won best hair.”

  She smiled. Friends again?

  As soon as Tiffanie left, I clicked refresh on a certain video. Again.

  107,221 Views. 1,783 Downvotes. 29 Upvotes.

  Then, I read a weird email from my math professor, Dr. Wu, telling us that showing up for class that day would be worth fifty percent of our final grade, when there was a knock at my door. I guessed that the TA was very desperate for attendance, and that I wasn’t the only one in the huge class that had stopped showing up except for tests.

  I opened the door in a towel, because the only person that could be knocking was Tiff, who forgot her keys about as often as she changed her nail polish. Every single day.

  Instead, I saw a guy with a huge bunch of flowers.

  “Huck?”

  “I’m sorry. And for the first time, I brought you flowers that aren’t from Costco.”

  “And for the first time, they weren’t actually bought by your mom.”

  “Look, I demanded that we come
back from Orlando once I heard about that video. I’m so sorry.”

  I hugged him, and closed the door behind us.

  “It’s not like you made the video, but thanks. And I know you couldn’t turn around to take me to Orlando with you when I didn’t tell you I wanted to go until it was too late.”

  “What I’m most sorry for is going MIA on you for a bit. I know we’ve been a bit rocky since, well, you know… But you’re still my best friend, right?”

  “Of course. Who else would I let see me in a towel?”

  I put the flowers in the sink, and then only looked at them for the first time. They were stems of orchids—purple and white, wrapped in paper, with a white ribbon tied around them. I touched a velvet bloom with the tip of my finger.

  “These are the most beautiful flowers. And my favorite…”

  “I know, I remembered that your mom had that purple orchid hanging in the kitchen. ”

  I wiped away a tear, and hugged him.

  “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you, when did you send it in?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “A video. I thought that if you were going to go to Orlando to audition then maybe you’d emailed in an audition?”

  “Oh that, no. And I wasn’t going to audition. I just didn’t want to be here, where everyone seems to have seen the other video.”

  “All my hopes ruined,” he said with a wink.

  “All your hopes?”

  “Hopes for you . I just saw the America’s Next Star tour bus, and I thought maybe it was for you. I envisioned bringing you those flowers, and opening the door to find you with Sam and Zelina.”

  I laughed.

  “Not in this lifetime. No, the bus is a hundred percent not for me. But they are for someone we know,” I said.

  “You mean my audition!”

  “No, Huck. Sorry…I had no idea you auditioned.”

  “I didn’t, haha, got you though! I have no interest in being the laughingstock of ‘Murica. But seriously we know someone that’s going to be on it?”

  I nodded and sighed.

  “Oh god,” he said. “It’s couldn’t be—”

  “Carrie.”

  “That bitch,” said Huck. “Are you sure you didn’t send in your video?”

  “Why are you asking me again? I told you I didn’t already. The whole school’s already talking about little miss perfect. I’m just surprised you hadn’t heard before you got here.”

  “Well, screw her. We’ll get our hate sweat on in a big way when season ten airs. Anywho, I thought we could go to Jasmine’s tonight. My treat. Are you hungry?”

  “I’ve gotta go to my stupid math class in an hour. At least it’s being held in the Union today, so it’s closer than the Math building.”

  “Well, let’s get you dolled up and we can go after class, you know just us.”

  He winked at me again as he grabbed Tiffanie’s blow dryer.

  For the first time in forever, I felt almost fine heading to class. Maybe that was because I knew Huck was picking me up after the drudgery of Math and I knew I’d finally get to try Jasmine’s famed sushi.

  But maybe it was actually because I’d used so much of Tiffanie’s stuff to get ready. I’d had no idea it was even possible to use nine different products just to do my hair, until Tiffanie had come in and made a compelling case for each of them. “Would you go sit on the beach all day without sunscreen? Then why would you flat-iron your hair without an anti-aging sealant?”

  So, I used that, and her moonlight serenade pallet of eyeshadow. I looked like I was making an earnest attempt at rushing a sorority, and that I might even get a call back to one of the lamer ones.

  I may have been wearing a little too much perfume—Tiff’s was an intense mix of apple and pink peppercorns. At least it was the first time in the last week I could safely say I didn’t smell like vomit.

  I’d also borrowed a dress, from the back of Tiff’s closet in a section marked with a black sharpie on a Post-it, “FAT DAYS ONLY.” It was a size ten black mini-dress with sleeves that went to my elbow, and had a V-neck that had nothing on her “SEXY!” section.

  The V framed Mom’s necklace, and it made the golden oval look intentionally vintage-ized—like how Tiffanie only bought new jeans with holes in them. The dress also had some weird inner lining that sucked me in. I couldn’t even see my gut until I’d studied my profile for a while in her full length mirror.

  I was early, so I decided to sit by the fountain for a few minutes. That’s when I saw the enormous tour bus that I’d only seen on TV. My heart skipped a beat until I remembered it was just in town to have the girl who always got what she wanted keep getting more of exactly that.

  Really it wasn’t enough that she got into the musical theater department, but now she was going on the most spectacular season of the best TV show in the world, destined to become the winner of America’s Next Star? It was so much harder to fail at everything when I had to watch Carrie’s perfect life unfold—a perpetual reminder of everything that would never come true for me. Maybe the closest I would ever get to glory would be] to one day be interviewed because I knew her back in high school. Not that I would actually do that kind of an interview.

  On the other side of the street was the plantation-style Tri-Delt House, which had a huge pink banner that read, “Congrats to Carrie, America’s Next Star !” And there she was, her ringlets swaying in the breeze like the cool leaves of a palm tree. Because that wouldn’t be painful enough, she had a microphone in her face. Speaking into it, she looked as natural as if she were a veteran beauty pageant winner—being asked an interview question in the Miss Universe pageant. Behind her was a huge group of her sorority sisters—Tiff likely among them—cheering between gaps in Carrie speaking.

  She looked so freaking perfect that it took me a second to see that the host Sam was standing by her, and he seemed somehow taller, and even hotter in person—without even being close enough to hear his British accent. The fan in me really wanted to walk closer, but what if Carrie saw me?

  Another cameraman ran by the sorority girls as they did a group wave. How many of them were like Tiffanie, putting on a smile, but really bitter because Carrie had both gotten on a reality show AND won best hair? Not that I was bitter.

  With the camera not pointed anywhere near in my direction, I didn’t have to smile, and only had to wipe away a single tear as if I’d emptied my reservoirs forever—as if that was the last drop of water from a fountain before a lifetime of draught.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ♪ Viva La Vida ♪

  * * *

  D r. Wu stood at the front of a white board, his toupee looking like a racoon tail. He traced a yardstick to make perfectly straight lines as students studied him more than what he was drawing, or even the words he was saying.

  “And this is an equilateral triangle, which means that all sides are at exactly sixty degree angles, making a perfect triangle.”

  Why was this class—and this one only—being taught at the Moore Building in the center of campus?

  The TA was sitting to the side and squinted around at the hundreds of students whenever the Professor had his back turned.

  I looked behind me and saw a few cameras, which I thought solved it—they were shooting a promo video for the school or something. And apparently the way to impress people was to teach college students what a triangle looks like.

  I didn’t understand why they’d picked our particular class though—a teacher to student ratio of 1:300 was unlikely to impress anyone. Nor were the legions of hungover college students who’s very choice of this math class proved they lacked any passion for the subject.

  “Oh, Mr. Tellis,” said Dr. Wu. “Would you be so kind as to pass out those forms for me? Students, as promised, you will receive fifty percent of your grade in this class simply by signing this camera waiver, for…er, what we are filming today. Thank you, and you must stay until the end of class to be eligible for this bonus.�
�

  Dr. Wu pressed his face into a smile so hard that it ended up looking like a grimace.

  When one of the forms was passed to me, my thoughts about the sudden compulsory attendance were confirmed. The form was for some company called ANS Inc., which sounded like the most boring name ever for a production company.

  If I had a production company, I would name it something crazy like Windmill Vibrato Productions. Or Singing Windmill Inc.

  I signed the form, giving them the right to use my image and voice from that class however they liked—though I would’ve been shocked if more than the back of my head made it into any video whatsoever—especially a video promoting the math program at a school known for its partying.

  “And here,” Dr. Wu said, as he made broad strokes on the dry-erase board. “This is a scalene triangle. Now not every triangle can be as perfect as the equilateral triangle, which is why we have the scalene triangle with angles…”

  I was pretty sure everyone in the room had learned what a triangle was back in kindergarten. I filled a page in my notebook by doodling stars.

  Then, I angled my Applied Mathematics book on my desk, written by the Professor himself, and used it to shield my phone.

  A text from Huck appeared, and I clicked on the link he’d sent from DMZ.

  America’s Next Star Heads to Florida State University

  [Spoiler Alert, Season 10]

  Updated 28 Minutes Ago

  It seems that the next Comet on Season 10 of America’s Next Star may be wearing garnet and gold. The show’s ninth season topped all viewing records with a world-wide viewership of 250 million, prompting Astronauts to immediately begin work on the next season of the reality contest that has been dubbed “The New Greatest Show on Earth.” Estimated world-wide viewership for season ten is expected to climb to over a billion spectators.

  Since it was leaked to DMZ yesterday that Carrie Curtsy has been named as the eleventh finalist on the show, it was no surprise to receive a tip that the famous tour bus was on the party school’s campus.