Rock Idol (Reality With a Twist Series) (2 page)

It
appeared to Ember that Mitch found Fox’s warning more amusing than threatening.
He’d been making his own rules for a long time. If he saw something he wanted,
this little meeting wouldn’t stand in his way.

Ember
was more surprised when Fawn spoke up. “Fox, I couldn’t agree more with what
you’re saying. It’s unethical and just plain slimy for a judge to
sleep
with a contestant.”

“Don’t
sleep
, Fawn,” Mitch teased. “You’ll miss out on all of the fun stuff if
you’re sleeping.”

Fawn
ignored him. “But I’m not sure that it would have any impact on the show. We
judges only critique the singers. It’s America that votes on who will move
forward in the competition.”

“You’re
wrong!” Fox said. “You judges have influence. I don’t want any viewer
questioning whether your critique was affected by your feelings for one of the
contestants.”

“So
if we just keep our feelings out of it, we can fuck them to our hearts
content?” Mitch asked. He couldn’t keep a straight face and burst out laughing.

Fox
didn’t find the comment amusing. “Let me be completely clear about this. If you
fuck one of the contestants, you’re fired. And for the Bill Clintons among you,
let me clearly define the term
fuck.
Any physical contact between you
and a contestant more intimate than a handshake or a kiss on the cheek will
result in your termination. No warnings, no last chances. You’re gone, end of
story. Does everyone understand me? Good. And that goes for all of the support
staff too. I want a clean show this season. Let’s save the scandals for a time
when we’ve lost our lead in the ratings.”

He
looked each one in the eye to make certain they all understood him. “Now go
meet and greet the contestants and Mitch, make sure you learn all of their
names this time. It was really embarrassing last season when you got your name
cards out of order and called Angie, Bob.”

Fox
strode out of the room, leaving his judges and top staff looking at each other.

Mitch
waited until the door closed behind him before adding one more comment. “Well,
look at the bright side. We can still screw each other and the rest of the
staff.”

Fawn
scowled and walked off after Fox.

“They’re all so young,” Fawn whispered as they walked into
the reception room.

“We
were young once too,” Ember reminded her, but frankly, even in her teen idol
days she didn’t think she looked as young as half of these kids.

“The
youngest contestant is fifteen-years-old,” Gina informed them. “That’s her off
to the side, Kim Ryan. Everyone else is at least eighteen. The oldest is Zach
Donderhue at twenty-nine.”

“Donderhue?”
Ember asked her.

Fawn
nudged her with her elbow. “That’s almost as bad as Jasmine Jones,” she said.

Ember
laughed but the words she spoke were completely true. “I hate it when people
remind me of that name.”

Fawn
laughed as well. “Don’t I know it! Remember, I was born Gladys Fargo.”

This
confession made Ember laugh harder. “And the best you could come up with was
Fawn Fields?”

“Look
who’s talking, Ms. Blaze.”

“Hey,
Ember Blaze was hot! I was hot!” A little girl’s voice inside her that had
never quite accepted that her teen idol career was over protested,
Hey, I’m
still hot, aren’t I? I mean, yes, I’ve put on a couple of pounds but I still
look good on the cover of a magazine. Men still want me, don’t they?

Ember
ignored the voice. She got propositioned all the time. She might not be
seventeen anymore, but men still wanted her.

“Here
they come,” Fawn whispered and the horde of rock idol wannabes surrounded them.

“Ms.
Blaze, it’s so good to see you again. I’m so excited to be part of this
program.”

“Ms.
Blaze, this is so exciting! I can’t thank you enough for giving me this
opportunity.”

“Ms.
Blaze, I’m simply thrilled to meet you! I grew up listening to
Rock Me, Baby
and
You Make Me Feel So Hot,”
the eldest contestant said.

Ember
could have done without the reminder of her age, but at least Zach was a fan.

“Ms.
Blaze, I thought you might like to shake the hand of the next Rock Idol. I’m
Hillary Tempest.”

That
earned the young woman a second look. Normally Ember liked to see confidence in
contestants but something about Hillary’s arrogance wasn’t becoming. She had
very pale skin and short spiky hair and where most of the contestants had
dressed on the upside for the meet and greet, this woman had done the
opposite—strategically torn jeans and a muscle tee without a bra. If she were
trying to stand out in the crowd, she had succeeded. And the name,
Tempest
,
that certainly had possibilities.

Ember
decided not to come down hard on her. Part of what the contestants were
learning was how to work the business off stage and this was just an opening
party. She smiled in what she knew in her heart was a patronizing fashion. “I
think your competitors might have something to say about that.”

Tempest’s
superior smile just struck Ember wrong. “You might as well send them home now.
Thirteen weeks of competition will just fuel their disappointment.”

Ember
decided to move on. “I’ll be sure to let Fox know you think he should cancel
the season,” she said.

Another
contestant offered her his hand. “I doubt you remember me, Ms. Blaze, but I’m—”

“Rick
Rogers,” Ember finished for him. She’d always been good at connecting names and
faces and this young man had such a great smile, she remembered him easily from
the tryouts three months past. What she couldn’t remember was the city they had
seen him in.

“I’m
impressed,” Rick said. “Of course everyone remembers you.”

But
who do they remember? Ember wondered. The teen idol that won the Grammy? The
loser who lost her marriage and destroyed her first career? Or the new, more
sophisticated Ember who was the darling of the talk shows and a judge on
Rock
Idol
? Not that she would ever let any of those concerns escape into the
open air. “They’ll remember you too, sweetie,” Ember promised him. “All you
have to do is flash those baby blues and pearly whites for the camera for the
next few weeks and all the girls in America will be talking about you.”

“It
would help if he could learn to sing a little too,” Mitch added as he butted
into the conversation. “Let’s see now, I’m really not that good with names but
you tried out at our New York City audition, sang an absolutely terrible
rendition of
Brown Sugar,
and got voted in over my protests by two women
who should be old enough not to get weak in the knees when a young man smiles
at them.”

Rick’s
beautiful grin faltered.

“What?
Did I get something wrong?” Mitch asked.

“No,
I…” Rick fumbled for a moment when he obviously realized that agreeing with
Mitch’s assessment was an insult to Ember and Fawn. “No, what I mean to say is
that I’m not in a position to say why Ms. Blaze and Ms. Fields—”

“It’s
Ember and Fawn, sweetie,” Ember told him. “It’s all first names from here on
out.”

He
flashed that smile again. Mitch was right. It really was dangerous and damned
if Ember didn’t feel just a touch weak in the knees. “Thanks, Ms. Bl—
 
I mean, Ember.”

He
turned back to Mitch. “What I meant to say was that I’m surprised you’re so
blunt with your comments in private. I sort of assumed that that was something
you saved for when you’re on stage.”

“Oh,
no, sweetie,” Ember said. She slid her arm across his muscular shoulders for a
moment. “Our Mitch tones it down on stage. Here in private we get the real
uncensored thing.”

“That
has to be one of the most pathetic opening numbers in this show’s three
seasons,” Mitch announced. He wasn’t toning anything down tonight, despite what
Ember had said earlier.

Standing
in front of the judges on the stage, Rick Rogers wilted. The sexy grin that
Ember liked so much cracked and then froze, losing the vitality that made it
stand out in the crowd.

“I
mean what do you call that sound you were making?” Mitch asked. “It certainly
wasn’t singing. I think it would be kind to call it an off-key warble.”

Rick
continued to stand there, shocked and embarrassed, frozen grin slowly taking on
a rictus appearance. The whole audience felt sorry for him. It was the one
positive effect of one of Mitch’s tantrums—it usually produced a significant
sympathy vote for the victim.

“I
told you this earlier,” Mitch continued. “This is a
singing
competition.
Your pretty blue eyes and dimple might get you through the first few couple of
weeks, but you can’t expect them to carry you through the whole show.”

“Wow!”
their host, Jonathan King, exclaimed. “Don’t hold back, Mitch! Tell everyone
what you really think.”

Mitch
growled at him while the audience laughed.

“Whew!”
King continued. “I had no idea when I got up this morning that it was going to
be this kind of season.
 
Fawn, what do
you think?”

On
stage, Rick braced himself for another round of criticism. He needn’t have
bothered. Fawn never said anything bad about an act. It was as if she believed
people would stop liking her if she ever told anyone what she really thought
about a number.

“Rick,
I can see you have a lot of potential,” she said.

“He
needs a lot if he’s going to recover from this performance,” Mitch muttered
into his mike.

“Now
there’s no cause for that kind of comment,” Fawn told him. It really wasn’t a
take down because her voice was too sweet. “It’s my turn with the microphone.”

She
turned back to Rick. “Now where was I? Oh, yes, you have plenty of potential.
The trick will be tapping into it in the coming weeks. I think Mitch is right
in that you have wonderful blue eyes and a great smile. The trick you have to
master is tapping into those assets with your music so you can reach your
audience better.”

Ember
stopped her eyebrows from furrowing in confusion, knowing that the camera would
be on her next. What the heck was Fawn talking about? How would
tapping into
eyes and a smile
actually improve Rick’s
music
? Did her statement
mean anything at all?

“Thank
you,” Rick said to Fawn.

“And
how about you, Ember?” King asked. “What did you think of our opening
performance?”

“You
sang better in the tryouts,” Ember told him. “You got off key about a third of
the way through the song and had trouble from that point on. I’ll bet this is
your first time performing to such a large crowd—not to mention the millions of
people watching from home on their television sets.”

Rick
nodded. His white face looked even paler than it had when he was singing.

“Stage
fright is something you’re going to have to overcome. Your performance was
better than Mitch would have you believe, but it wasn’t good enough to win this
competition. If America’s
willing to give you a second chance, you’re going to have to sing through your
nerves and take ownership of that stage.”