America's Next Star

by Katie Dozier

“Thanks. I…I don’t mean to be sullen, it’s just that this all is happening so fast. And I thought Zee—I mean Zelina—trained us.”

  He placed a hand on my knee.

  “Don’t worry. As I said, that’s what I’m here for.” He handed me a few sheets of stapled music. “Now don’t worry if you can’t read sheet music.”

  “Actually I can,” I smiled.

  “Learn in chorus?”

  “Some in chorus but mostly on YouTube.”

  “I feel old,” he laughed. “But that’s great. So you can see that for the chorus, our tempo is going to be four times faster than normal. That’s the part we’re really going to need to focus on because it’s going to be challenging to breathe...and that’s even before you take into account the dancing.”

  Chris sat down in front of a piano, then turned back to shoot me a smile.

  “But for now, let’s just take it from the top,” he said .

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ♪ Royals ♪

  * * *

  M y Beam directed me to the base of the hidden staircase in our modern mansion. I’d long since learned that in the Core, everything was opposite of “on stage” above. But i n a place that seemed to think of everything, why were none of the doors marked? Even despite the lack of colors, the labyrinth responsible for the show’s production was at least as amazing as the spectacular living set above it.

  I bet Huck would have gladly traded his Escalade for one hour to roam around down here, and I scanned every detail as I made my way through the tunnels (as allowed by my Beam) so that, if nothing else, I’d have a lot to tell him when I was allowed to call him again.

  There was a door to the left that I’d yet to ever go in. But what would happen if I tried?

  As I turned away from the direction my Beam was pointing me, it began to beep, and a large red “X” flashed on the face. Even so, what if these doors weren’t really locked at all? Like that one time Huck dared me to run out the the Emergency Exit at Ron Jon’s and despite the sign that an alarm would sound, nothing even happened at all. Which was pretty awesome, because I won the bet, and that meant ice cream.

  I held my Beam up to the door plate and it began to sound an alarm. I panicked and flew back from the door. I heard E.T.’s voice before I knew where it was coming from.

  “What the hell are you doing, Ella?”

  I looked down and realized it was coming from my Beam, and that I could even see his red face and squinted eyes. Was he literally watching me all the time?

  “Uh, sorry. Just got lost.”

  “Lost my ass. Follow the Beam or leave the show,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “It won’t happen again.”

  I guess security here was a little bit different than the surfboard shop back home. Yikes.

  “Stay there and you will be met!”

  I heard the urgent rattling of candy, and E.T.’s face disappeared from my wrist.

  A few minutes later, I was met with a much friendlier voice than the one I anticipated, as well as a bark.

  “Hi Blondie, hi Kara,” I said.

  Kara smiled and handed me a cold bottle of water with the hand that wasn’t trying to keep Blondie from springing up.

  “So glad I got this assignment,” she said. “I’ll be helping you around to your various appointments today.”

  I leaned in towards her.

  “I hope E.T. has been nicer to you lately.”

  “Not really,” she whispered. “But you get used to it.”

  “Well I guess if you can work for him then you can work for anybody.”

  “I do enjoy a lot of it,” she said, as she tossed Blondie a treat and she jumped up to snatch it in her jaws. “And here we are. Wait one sec. You just have a little mascara right under your eye there.”

  I wiped it clean and she nodded with approval.

  “Not sure if they’ll be filming inside,” she said. “But hope it goes well regardless. And I’ll be back right when you’re done.”

  I opened the door, and the r oom was a warehouse lined to the ceiling with rows and rows of costumes in plastic sleeves. The clothes were buzzing at an alarming clip, like I was in the world’s fastest dry cleaner. At the base there were dress forms atop grecian pedestals, and an enormous, buzzing printer. People with pincushions attached to their heads with headbands barely even looked in my direction.

  In my black Converses and FSU sweatshirt, I felt like a mismatched sock tumbling alone in an industrial dryer.

  Then, on top of a spiral staircase that led to the top of a rack of clothes, I saw her. The Katherine Egg. And even from this distance, her elegant charisma seemed to encircle her in a halo.

  It was the first time I’d seen someone that had won an Oscar, but she didn’t just have one. As was often touted on America’s Next Star , she’d won the Academy Award for best costume design five years in a row before taking time off from films for this show. She was Huck’s (and pretty much every serious techie’s) hero.

  If she was more famous for anything than her golden statues, it was her hats. I’d heard she wore the hats to make fun of the fact that people with messy hair were told that they looked like they had a bird’s nest on their head. So I guess because of that and her last name, somewhere on her hat she always had a bird’s nest with an egg in it.

  “Ella Windmill?” She called down to me. The room hushed instantly at her voice, as if even the machines knew she was not to be trifled with.

  “That’s me!” I said, realizing too late that my chosen way of answering made me sound like an overexcited five-year-old.

  But I couldn’t help it, I felt like I was entering Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory—but with clothes.

  “Mind coming up, dear?”

  She seemed even higher above me once my shoes inched their way up the metal-grate stairs, only to be met with a hug.

  “I’m Katherine.”

  Her hat was suede and the color of new grass in spring. White orchids cascaded from the brim, behind which I spotted a tiny nest of hay with a blue egg in it.

  “Oh,” she said. “My hat…yes I feared that it might be a bit too springtime for a filming in the middle of summer, but I had to—”

  “It’s wonderful,” I said. “I love your costumes! I just can’t believe I’m really meeting you. My best friend Huck and I just love you! And the orchids on your hat—I love those too!”

  She waved away my stammering adolescent adorations with a wave that resembled a swan outstretching its wing.

  “Dear child, thank you, and it’s a good thing you love orchids.”

  She pressed a button on a remote in her hand and reams of cloth whizzed by. Below, I’d assumed they must be racks of costumes, but at least on this level, they were actually huge bolts of fabric flowing to the ground like waterfalls.

  “Silk, midnight,” she said, to her Beam that was lined with pearls and gemstones.

  “I’m supposed to be impartial, but I saw your audition tape and was very impressed with your costume skills. Now I know that cape was actually a black trash bag, but I doubt anyone else does!”

  She leaned in closer to me.

  “Between you and me, I’ve used materials you’d never even dream about on this show. Remember Veronica’s outfit for the outer-space episode last season?”

  “Yes, it was amazing!”

  “Made it out of aluminum foil and water bottles in ten minutes because one of my assistants sewed a bad seam that burst on the original costume.”

  “I never would have guessed,” I said.

  Katherine beamed at me.

  “So I appreciate ingenuity and uniqueness. And by that I mean your ingenuity and your uniqueness. And your first costume, for Supernova Schooling, will certainly reflect that, dear. Looks like my next fitting’s here, darling. Toodles!”

  She woke me from my starstruck daydream with a nudge down the stairs, a second before my Beam started beeping at me to head out of wardrobe. Even though the lead Astro
naut seemed to have it out for me, having Katherine Egg in my corner was the first time that I thought of doing more with my big chance then just trying to survive as long as possible. That maybe, just maybe, I deserved to be there with Carrie and Preston and everyone else.

  As I walked down the spiral staircase, I crossed paths with Joni, a Comet around ten years older than me. Her blonde hair was loosely spun into two braids, and she always wore a guitar pic on a chain around her neck. She seemed to make everything look effortless, even with her casual swagger rounding the many spirals in the staircase.

  “Hi,” I said, as we crossed paths. I noticed her Beam looked like the neck of a guitar had been fashioned into a tortoise shell cuff bracelet, strings and all.

  “Hey,” she replied, but I couldn’t help but notice that her step quickened a bit. Maybe it was just that every Comet was playing this game of mock confidence, but I felt somehow that there was more to it all than that.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  ♪ All About that Bass ♪

  * * *

  P reston and I had forgotten to mention that we were supposed to be enemies by that point. I took a sip of green tea as he ate a burger and the ketchup spilled a bit onto his lips. We were eating lunch as a group on the green under the planet flower topiaries, before our first talent practice.

  “Oh I forgot—what’d they say on your interview?” I asked, when I realized I’d monopolized our earlier conversation about my bizarre interview.

  “It was weird, you know?” He took the last quarter of a burger in one bite, and then held a napkin to cover his mouth as he chewed. “They made it out like I was really popular, asked me if I was a babe magnet.”

  “And are you?” I dramatically raised an eyebrow.

  “Well I am with you.”

  What did that mean? I couldn’t quite tell if it was a complete joke—the idea that I would count as a babe—or if I had been complimented and should thank him.

  He laughed.

  “No. I’m no babe magnet. I don’t want to be some guy that spends four hours in the gym every day and reads books on how to pick up chicks.” He pointed at the show’s British host, Sam, eating lunch at the same table as Carrie, and all of her fruitarian converts.

  Just like in high school, during meal times at America’s Next Star , there was clearly a cool kid table. And the cool kids here only ate fruit.

  “That’s a babe magnet.” He pointed to Sam. “And the British accent and everything.”

  “Well you’ve got a southern accent going on,” I said.

  “Then I must be your southern peach,” he said, in a falsetto southern drawl.

  We laughed, and he wiped his hands on the paper napkin in his lap.

  He took a bite of a cookie, and then offered me the other half.

  “Better not,” I said. “If I so much as look at the dessert section of the buffet, it buzzes at me.” I pointed to my Beam. I wish I had been exaggerating.

  “It’s almost like they want you to be hangry.”

  I felt the cookie slide into my lap under the table.

  “For later,” he whispered, before continuing with a wink. “So are you ready for the first show?”

  “I think so, I mean I mostly know the music, I like the song, so…”

  “I need more confidence from you than that. I’m not ready to lose my only friend here on week one!”

  I crossed my arms with a sweeping motion and gave him a smirk.

  “Well I’m not here to make friends,” I said, mocking a reality show cliché.

  He tossed the last bite of his cookie at me.

  “Well it’s too late.”

  May came up beside me as she adjusted her glasses.

  “Can I sit here?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “You don’t have to ask. We’re housemates.”

  “Thanks,” she mouthed.

  “Did you hear about Maria?” Preston asked. He motioned to a table a few away from ours, where most of Tyler’s Comets were congregated.

  Over there, Diana was sinking her teeth into a red apple, as Joni explained something to her that seemed to be of little interest. Maria sat with perfect posture, in between Lil’ Jay, the rumored YouTube rapping sensation, and Frank—whom I’d heard E.T. call the next Michael Bublé.

  My cheeks grew a bit hot as I knew I was about to do something that made me dislike every Comet that I saw do it back on the safety of my couch. Yet here I was already. Gossiping. But maybe this was really just getting all the information?

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh I heard,” May said. “She’s Miss New Mexico, but they’re making her give up her crown because she’s doing this show.”

  Preston nodded.

  I looked at Maria’s perfect teeth, that seemed to radiate white even from this far away. She looked like Eva Mendes, and wore a lilac dress that made her waist, even while sitting, look impossibly small. In rehearsals it felt like Maria was holding back, and ready to unleash at the live show—maybe a trick she’d learned from pageants.

  “That explains why she’s so good at choreography,” said the Comet that sucked the most at choreography.

  “You’ll get there,” May said to me.

  Preston nodded before he stood up.

  “I’ve gotta get going. Still need to perfect my blocking before the group rehearsal. You girls have a nice lunch.”

  “See ya. So, May, what are you singing?” I asked, trying not to sound like the little girl’s mother.

  “Oh, yeah, it’s my favorite song, by Taylor Swift? I just feel really nervous though.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be great, I mean you’re the youngest ever Comet on the show—that means a lot.”

  “ And you’re the only video-taped audition here, so that must mean a lot too.”

  I smiled, then asked, “ So what’s your costume like for Supernova Schooling?”

  “I’m not totally sure, but I think it involves daisies. Mrs. Egg was really nice, but all she really did was measure me.”

  “I think mine involves orchids, but yeah, we won’t really know until the final fitting— which is right after lunch. I wonder if our talent will somehow involve flowers?”

  “Everything here seems to.”

  I looked up at the ever-blooming planet topiaries around us. How did they still look and smell as spectacular as the day I’d arrived?

  “I just hope it’s not diving.”

  “Well that makes two of us,” I said. “But usually they start with an easier talent, then build to crazier ones later on.”

  “Maybe it will be jump-roping? That’s what I did for my audition.”

  “Maybe.”

  But I didn’t tell her that the show never seemed to pick one of the talents displayed in auditions for the first week. And about what Katherine Egg had said about the talents this season—that instead of the quirky fun of seasons past, that this season they would be downright dangerous.

  And I also didn’t tell her I was terrified of even having to sing in front of everyone—let alone juggle that with a talent.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  ♪ Abracadabra ♪

  * * *

  T wo hours later, I stood with the other eleven Comets on a huge grassy rectangle that would have made even Landis Green look small. The sun was overhead, beating down its beams into our eyes.

  The sides of the green were lined with soaring vertical flowerbeds. At the base were little violets and hot-pink Gerbera daisies. Then there were roses in orange and crimson, purple peonies, and giant sunflowers. The whole place was enclosed with tall vines dotted with the white blooms of honeysuckle.

  It was like being submerged in a bottle of expensive perfume.

  “Final checks, everyone,” said Katherine, as she began making her way down the row of Comets.

  My legs were covered in dark green tights, and a black sheath hugged my curves. But that alone would have been nothing for Katherine Egg.

  Pinned all over m
y dress, and even in my hair were hundreds of black and white orchids, their purple eyes forming a pattern of tiny polka dots.

  “May, you look adorable,” I said—before realizing that the last thing a girl her age wants to hear is that she’s cute.

  Pasted over one of her eyes was a perfect daisy, and she wore a white gown that reached the grass, where the stems of the flowers rose from the ground.

  “Pipe-cleaners,” Katherine whispered, with a triumphant smile. “And you look just perfect,” she said. “Perfect for your character.”

  I didn’t understand what she meant by character, but she was gone before I could ask.

  “All right everyone, spread out a bit. Carrie and Preston, stand up here, together at the front,” said E.T..

  Preston’s flower was the Bird of Paradise, but his costume only covered about as much as Tarzan’s loin cloth. Stalks of the flower were affixed to his arms, but I was sure the camera was going to focus on what I was having a hard time not looking at—his abs glistened with baby oil.

  As much magic as there was on the show, how was it possible that a guy that ate three times as much as me could look like he’d never been near a carb?

  Carrie wore a nude bodysuit, with a green line that led all the way from her right big toe to her forehead, where her strawberry blonde locks had been transformed to the petals of the enormous sunflower on her head. Her eyelashes were exaggerated to look like sunflower seeds.

  Tyler, the main judge, stood in front of Preston and Carrie, wearing a linen suit with a red rose pinned to his collar.

  “Today is the first Supernova Schooling for the tenth season of America’s Next Star . And now I’d like to introduce your expert for the first talent!”

  The gate we entered through, now hidden by vines of honeysuckle, opened wide to reveal the gray paws of an elephant. As the animal strode in, the ground vibrated under my feet. On his back, a tall woman stood dressed as a calla lily in a white gown, juggling giant jewels in her hands. The jewels caught the light like prisms, and bounced the rainbow beams all over our faces.