America's Next Star

by Katie Dozier

  Whereas the air outside in Cocoa Beach resembled swimming in a thick stew, the air in California seemed as cool and aloof as a starlet swirling around me.

  I cracked my window to escape the driver’s passionate love of the AC. I got one whiff of the air, like smoke, before he overode my window decision, and the window clapped shut, leaving a little cloud of smog that swayed with the motion of the wheels.

  Air quality aside, it was a much happier reason to be in a limo than the first time I rode in one.

  What would the Universe be like anyway? Outside of the wondering I’d done with Huck—way before I thought I’d ever see it in person—I’d barely had a chance to dream about what the Universe would look like.

  I thought of this ride at Disney World, the People Mover, which zips around Tomorrowland, darting into the shooting stars on Space Mountain, and allowing a neon glimpse of the evil emperor Zurg on Buzz Lightyear’s ride.

  All the times we went, I never thought Mom and Dad quite understood why the People Mover was the top of my must do rides. It doesn’t go very fast, and you’ll hear no one giving a breathless recount of it like when someone hops off Splash Mountain. What I love about it is the intensity with which it sells Tomorrowland almost like you’re a visiting potential buyer surveying the magic around you. The best was at sunset, when a pink glow forms around Cinderella’s castle, and I found myself believing every ounce of magic.

  Could the Universe take me to that place again, where anything really was possible—even without Mom?

  It was too big to try to imagine the entire new Universe so I focused on the more modest new buildings they’d constructed for previous seasons. The mansions designed by Zee were always my favorite.

  Maybe a huge den with an IMAX movie theater and a popcorn machine that formed a river of popping kernels. Wax figures that looked like movie stars, only to find out that some of them (Zac Efron please?) were real celebrities that were going to act as assistant mentors.

  My room would look like it was plucked from a set during the golden age of Hollywood. My bed would be upholstered in tufted white. A bathroom with double sinks, so I would wash my face in one, and brush my teeth with the other. A toilet made of gold.

  But I’d decided I wasn’t going to throw up again, even after that bizarre daydream of a perfect toilet. Perhaps I’d walk around the mansion in fluffy white kitten heels and a matching silk robe, as if I was starring in a golden age movie.

  Instead of Zee’s mansion, we pulled up at a gated lot with a fifteen-foot barbed wire fence surrounding it. Billboards along the highway were all I’d seen of the brand new world, outside of those Katherine Egg specials I’d seen what felt like eons ago.

  The driver produced his badge.

  “Got the last one,” I heard him say on the other side of the partition.

  When he walked around to open the door for me, I’d already opened it.

  He smiled, but then studied my raised eyebrows.

  “This is it, I swear. The entrance to The Core.”

  “The Core?”

  “Oh, uh. I thought they’d explained,” he mumbled.

  I shook my head.

  He straightened up and then spoke as if he was reading a pamphlet.

  “The Core is made up of the underground tunnels and rooms that go completely under the Universe. They open up to the Universe at specialized ports that only the people working on our show have access to, and you only have access to where the system wants you to. That way everyone working on the actual show can get where they need to go without getting in the way of the guests.”

  He tapped what looked like a wide watch that was double-strapped to his wrist, as if I was supposed to understand something more than just that time was getting on.

  “I’ll get your stuff over to the mansion. Just go in there.”

  He pointed down a ramp, to an unmarked gray slab and if I hadn’t felt the heat of a camera on the back of my neck again, then I may have been afraid it was all some elaborate hoax. That instead of being on America’s Next Star , the only show I was going on was about gullible and missing people.

  As soon as I found the door, I was met with the hum of hundreds of people coming from the never ending maze of tunnels before me. A golf cart beeped at me to get out of the way, and racks of clothes paraded by. Somewhere overhead, Zelina’s “Baby, Don’t Baby Me,” played and the uptempo refrain that was like an energy drink in musical form.

  A silver (and also unmarked) door opened to my right, and out strode E.T. as one of his assistants held the door for him. Dozens of them, all around my age, fluttered out behind him like butterflies. They looked like finalists on America’s Next M odel—with little makeup on their uniformly beautiful features, and their hair all slicked back into low ponies. I noticed the big blank watches that my driver had all double-strapped to their wrists.

  “Hi there, Ella,” E.T. said. “Feeling ready to film?” He slid a finger around on the face of the gold watch that was triple strapped to his wrist.

  “Hi,” I said, too loudly. “Thanks for having me on!” So much for playing it cool to the big shot Astronaut, I thought. Plus, what was this, The Tonight Show ?

  E.T. snapped twice and an assistant immediately handed me a tiny paper cup. I took it without being sure of what I was holding.

  “Espresso,” she said. E.T. nodded to me intently, so I drank the bitter thing as if it was a free shot with Tiffanie on Tennessee Street.

  E.T. snapped three times and another group of assistants wordlessly began putting makeup on me. It reminded me of that really old cartoon Dad used to watch, The Jetsons , where they had a robot maid that could do things crazy fast. In less than a minute I somehow went from a jet-lagged, mascara-smudged face, to more makeup than I’d put on for my one night acting in Into the Woods.

  By the time yet another assistant flew over, I was beginning to wonder if they were printed in a 3-D lab or something. How else could they look like they were floating while walking in stilettos? She was carrying what smelled like beef stew in a little silver dish.

  “Oh thank you,” I said. Kind of an odd offering , I thought, but what do I know about what rich people eat, anyway ? Maybe this is a common snack for them. Better not insult them.

  “I’m starving!” I said.

  The assistant cocked her head at me, and that’s when I realized there was no silverware. Mercifully, E.T. at least pretended to ignore my inane comment.

  “Blondie,” E.T. called out in a voice many octaves higher than I’d ever heard him say anything before.

  From out of a large plastic swinging door I hadn’t noticed in the side of the tunnel sprang a yellow labradoodle. Her version of walking was bounding, and the way the corners of her gummy mouth were upturned gave the constant impression that she was smiling.

  “Now sit, Blondie,” E.T. said.

  I couldn’t help but laugh when Blondie completely ignored E.T.’s request for obedience, and instead jumped up to knock the beef stew, which splattered everywhere, and especially all over my FSU sweatshirt. Blondie set about gleefully licking the brown sludge off of every surface that it clang to, culminating with a joyful lick right on my cheek.

  I was afraid that the kind of man that preferred snapping demands to making polite requests might not be the most understanding of a puppy’s clumsiness, but thankfully the closest E.T. came to scolding Blondie was a bit of a sigh. Sadly, the assistant carrying the ill-fated stew was not so lucky.

  E.T. looked down his nose at what I assumed was her name tag.

  “Number four-seventy-two,” he said, reading her tag. “I have expressly commanded that Blondie’s afternoon boeuf bourguignon be hidden from view prior to her arrival! Haven’t you ever heard of a cloche ?”

  Well I certainly hadn’t.

  The poor assistant bowed her head, and began muttering apologies. All the other assistants began inching away from her.

  “And now you’re crying!” E.T. yelled. “I do not have room for your
self pity! I see you’re clearly not up to the challenges of working for ANS!”

  The girl’s quiet tears turned into sobs.

  “It’s not her fault!” I said.

  “Oh really?” E.T. said, turning to me. I’m not sure if it was just because E.T.’s arms seemed unusually short for his build, but I felt like I was squaring off against a T-Rex as I scrambled to find a way to keep this blameless girl from losing her job.

  “I...I tripped, when Blondie came out.”

  “You’re blaming this on Blondie?!”

  “No, no, not at all. I just thought Blondie was so cute and wanted to pet her. I was so excited that I accidentally tripped her and the food spilled.”

  E.T. considered this for a moment as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out a movie theater box of Reese’s Pieces and poured some into his mouth, all the while staring at me. The first time I’d seen him do that, back in the tour bus, I didn’t realize that the rattling of candy inside of cardboard was practically his own personal theme song. Not that I could really blame him—if I could eat chocolate all day and be skinny like E.T. then I probably would too.

  Blondie cocked her head at me, and I pet her. She leaned into my affection.

  “Well,” he said. “I suppose we can forgive this one time. After all, Blondie is the offspring of not one, but two Westminster champions. It’s just too bad that we didn’t have this on film.”

  “You don’t?” I asked, realizing that I would’ve made an ass out of myself to the entire world. “But I thought everything was filmed, and nothing was off limits?”

  E.T. gestured to the beige tunnel walls, the exposed wires and PVC pipes. “Does this look like the spectacular Universe of ANS down here?”

  I shook my head.

  “Down in the Core is where we do a ll the work that makes the Universe of ANS so unprecedented, so awe-inspiring. So no filming or pictures—except for the rehearsal areas of course. When we’re up on the next level, what everyone thinks of as the only level, we are constantly on display. You are to think of it that every moment you are on the main level, Earth, you are starring in a show for the entire world. Ready to see the whole new Universe?”

  I nodded, feeling like Dorothy when she finally reached the gates of the Emerald City.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ♪ Walking on Sunshine♪

  * * *

  A t first, the view from the limo was hundreds of uniform white apartment buildings. It felt like the same bland buildings were gliding past, while strapped to the loop of a conveyor belt. Hadn’t we seen that one twice already?

  It was far from the magical world that I’d dreamed about ever since Katherine Egg introduced the new America’s Next Star Universe back when the show was something I watched rather than was on.

  “I live in that one,” Kara said. She seemed to always speak in a whisper, even when I’d asked her name once E.T. finished yelling at her after the infamous dog stew incident.

  “We can’t have her enter that way,” E.T. was screaming into his cell phone. “I don’t care if the clydesdales haven’t had their oats!”

  Emboldened by her boss’s distraction, Kara spoke in a tone that was nearly audible without straining.

  “Thanks for back there,” she said. “I would’ve gotten fired if it weren’t for you.”

  I shrugged. “Anyone would have done it.”

  “But no one else did,” she smiled at me.

  Blondie’s head was nestled in my lap, and I tousled her hair. Meanwhile her owner was still screaming in to his cell. How could such a nasty man have such a sweet dog?

  E.T. tapped at his watch and grunted in Kara’s general direction. I guess when it was too much effort to look at the number masquerading as her name tag, he resorted to calling her something akin to caveman times.

  “Give it to her,” he said.

  Wordlessly, Kara pulled a black messenger back to the front of her lap. She broke the silver seal on a box and popped it open. Inside was the same kind of watch that all the assistants had, but instead of being plain black, or shiny gold like E.T.’s, it was patent-leather red, aside from the screen of the face. A pattern was sewn into the leather with bold black strokes that looked like Frankenstein's stitches surrounded by miniature daggers.

  “This is your Beam Bracelet,” Kara said, as she motioned for me to hold out my wrist. “Beam for short. It’ll keep you on time, and help you know where to go...and where not to go.”

  “Like a kind of secret map?” I asked.

  Kara nodded.

  “There are no real maps of the Core, because it’s too much of a security problem. But with this, you don’t even need one. It’ll open the doors you’re supposed to go into.”

  Unlike the two straps on Kara’s minimalist Beam, mine had four.

  “Do you think it could be on a bit looser?” I asked. My pale skin was already turning red underneath the first tightened strap.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But if I do it any looser than this, E.T. will make it even tighter when he double checks.”

  Over the straps she secured zip ties that would’ve been the perfect size to handcuff a Barbie doll. The Beam gave the impression that I was carrying the weight of a purse strapped to my arm, and I felt a bit tilted by the sensation of so much of my forearm covered in thick leather.

  “Oh, and one more thing. If you ever don’t want to do something, you can quit. You probably read all about it in your contract, but the only legally binding way to do it is to press this tiny button on the side, and repeat that you quit three times. Otherwise everything you choose to do is at your own risk.”

  “I’m not planning on quitting,” I said.

  “I know,” Kara said as she gave my hand a squeeze. “They just make me say that to all the Comets.”

  “We’re nearly there,” Kara said. The endless stream of uniform white apartment buildings finally came to an end, replaced by an expanse of green and bold splotches of every kind of flower. Tulips, hibiscus, gerbera daisies—I would describe it as that I had never seen so many flowers before, but honestly that wouldn’t do it justice. I picked around until I found the button to open the sunroof, and let the light pour over me as I stood up (which I’d always wanted to do since I watched Pretty Woman with Huck).

  If you tallied up every single flower I’d ever seen in my life altogether, It wouldn’t have come close to the number I saw in a split second. How could they all be real? Blondie jumped onto her hind legs and lifted her snout over the edge sunroof, sniffing even more than she had with the beef stew.

  I heard a muffled roar like a big jet engine that seemed to make the flowers vibrate on their stems, but I couldn’t tell from where.

  “Get down from there,” E.T. snapped at me, pulling me down. I heard the now familiar rustle of him retrieving his box of Reese’s Pieces from his ample pocket. “You too, sweetie,” he said as he snapped twice to give Blondie a treat. “Didn’t I already tell you that the show is always going on here?”

  “Sorry,” I said. But I couldn’t really concentrate on anything but the spectacle of flowers whizzing by the windows, and the roar that was growing louder.

  The limo made a sharp right, and the biggest garage door (if you could still call a building that could’ve housed the Titanic a garage) lifted open. We were only allowed to exit once the door was closed and the roar muffled, replaced by a “clop clop clop” sound.

  On the side of the hanger were at least a dozen white horses with manes like wizard’s beards, tethered together with golden leather in two neat rows. They had peacock plumes on their heads and looked like they’d been plucked from the set of an exotic version of Cinderella. I was whisked behind a curtain, and dressed by others without so much as remembering to raise my arms, but I was so taken with another sight in front of me that I didn’t even look at what I was wearing.

  In front of me was a carriage so ornately gilded that it looked like a Faberge egg. The gold was so polished that it glittered even in th
e dim light inside the garage. When I traced my hand along swirls of pearls and purple gems, a man in a white sterile jumpsuit immediately brushed my hand away and re-polished where I’d touched.

  It was only as I was lifted up into the carriage, that I realized this was waiting for me. My hands squeaked along the purple leather corset they’d somehow snuck me into without noticing. After a final makeup touch up, with inexplicably dark lipstick, the coachman drove the cascade of horses through the reopened garage door.

  The mysterious roar returned at once, and the cameras clustered around me like I was their nectar and they were my hummingbirds. And that’s when I realized that the roar wasn’t coming from some kind of machinery but from people.

  Hundreds and hundreds of people, huddlin g and screaming around the enormous gold gate to the Universe, that was opening just for me.

  They’re here to see me. The weight of the thought hit me hard enough to make it all finally seem real, even though the sights around me became more magical by the second.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ♪ Bridge Over Troubled Water ♪

  * * *

  O nce we cleared security, housed in a building that looked like the Tower Bridge in London, I realized that my gilded coach and twelve ponies were actually progressing over rapid moving liquid. A hundred foot gate of ivy dotted with blooms opened as butterflies surrounded us.

  “Welcome to the Universe,” Katherine Egg’s voice called overhead as we paraded inside.

  I hadn’t noticed it at first, because what was flowing underneath me, instead of being blueish, was inexplicably white. At first, I thought it was pavement, as the sides of the bridge were made of glass presumably to highlight the rushing white rapids underneath the carriage.

  A street sign in scrolled font read, “Milky Way,” and it became obvious that it cut across two very different areas. Gardens surrounded the shores beneath the bridge, but even from the plants I sensed the stylish divide. On my right were enormous trees that appeared to be upside down—their branches shot away from the trunk like wild roots, but their white flowers looked like happy little clouds. Further along, enormous topiaries in electric shades of neon looked like a model of the solar system. We got close enough to the sun—easily the size of a space shuttle—to see it was made of thousands of sunflowers, marigolds, and red roses.