Rock Idol (Reality With a Twist Series) (4 page)

“Ember?”
Fawn sounded disoriented—confused. “I’m all right! Stay back!”

But
it was too late for that. Ember had already hurried around the clothes rack to
find Fawn in her slip, trying desperately to pile makeup containers over
something on her dressing table. Her chair had tipped over and lay on the floor
behind her.

“Fawn,
what’s wrong?”

Frightened
as her namesake, Fawn looked up at Ember and unintentionally revealed the whole
story. White powder decorated her upper lip below her nose. Fawn was using
cocaine again.

“Oh,
sweetie,” Ember said. Her disappointment was intense and underlined with a
trace of fear. Ember and her ex-husband had snorted away half her fortune. She
did
not
want to start down that path again!

“It’s
not what it looks like,” Fawn told her.

Ember
took charge, coming forward and picking up Fawn’s chair. “What it looks like is
a cry for help! You didn’t even lock your door, Fawn. You wanted someone to
catch you.”

“I…thought
it was locked,” Fawn insisted.

Ember
wondered if she knew how lame that protest sounded.

“Let’s
clean this up and then you and I are going to talk.”

She
grabbed some tissues and quickly wiped the powder off the table, then dumped
the mess in the toilet. She didn’t bother to search Fawn’s purse for more of
her stash. She wasn’t the woman’s mother and frankly, if Fawn wanted to buy
more coke she would.

Fawn
watched her do all of this without moving, nor did she resist when Ember
cleaned the powder off her face and flushed that tissue as well. It wasn’t
until Ember sat her down in her chair and leaned against the dressing table
facing her that Fawn saw the need to try and regain control of the situation.

“I’m
not hurting anyone, you know.”

“Oh,
sweetie, I’m not here to judge you. I’ve been where you are. I know nothing I
say is going to make any difference to you. It’s like any other bad
relationship we can find ourselves in. Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide
when to get out of it.”

Clearly
suspicious, Fawn didn’t say anything.

“I’d
just like to know—to satisfy my own curiosity—why did you start using again?
Things are going so well for us now. What made you think you needed the coke?”

“They’re
going well for
you
!” Fawn corrected her.

“Yes,
they are,” Ember agreed. For the first time in twenty years things were going
right for her. “But aren’t they going well for you, too?”

Fawn
began to fidget, like a guilty witness being cross-examined on some courtroom
TV show. “I, I guess so, it’s just—”

“Just
what, sweetie?”

“They
keep making fun of me!”

“What?
Who?”

“The
tabloids! They keep making fun of me!”

Ember
laughed. She couldn’t help it. The mirth just bubbled out of her.

“Don’t
you laugh at me!”

Ember
tried to get control of herself. “Oh, sweetie, I’m not really laughing at you,
it’s just…making fun of people is what tabloids do!”

“They
don’t make fun of you!”

“Of
course they do!” Ember said. “They’ve made fun of me for twenty years. And I
hate it, but you can’t really get mad about it. It’s just what they do!”

“They’re
not making fun of you now,” Fawn insisted.

“Sweetie,
just a few weeks ago they were running stories about my secret wedding in Tahiti because I was seen having fun with a guy.”

“That’s
not making fun. That’s just…” Fawn struggled to find a word to describe Ember’s
situation. “That’s just
human interest
.”

“Fawn,
one of the papers, I think it was
The Global Tattler
, reported that Bill
Clinton flew out there to beg me to marry him instead. If that’s not making fun
of me, I don’t know what is. Now what’s really bothering you?”

Fawn
mumbled something far too low for Ember to hear.

“Sweetie,
you’re going to have to speak up if we’re going to talk about this.”

“They
think I’m a terrible judge,” Fawn repeated.

That
was true and Ember agreed with them, but she wasn’t going to tell Fawn anything
close to that. “Oh, sweetie, you can’t take that sort of thing personally.
They’re always making up that kind of shit.”

Now
that she had begun talking about the issue, Fawn was not going to be dissuaded.
“They say I can’t say anything bad about anyone and that most of my
observations are either completely obvious or incomprehensible drivel.”

What
did Fawn want her to say? That analysis was one hundred percent accurate from
Ember’s perspective. Still, she had to say something to help her friend.
“Sweetie, you are the
sweet
judge. Mitch is the asshole. These are roles
we play. America
expects you to like the music and Mitch to hate it.”

“Where
does that leave you?” Fawn asked.

Ember
shrugged. “I’m somewhere in the middle. I try to be upbeat, but also to give a
little practical advice about how to help the singer’s next performance.”

“Well,
I don’t want to be sweet anymore!” Fawn said.

“But
sweet is who you are, Fawn,” Ember told her. “Is that why you started using
coke again? You’re trying to fortify your courage to be nasty on stage? I don’t
think this is the road to pithiness. Why don’t you flush the rest of this crap
and keep being America’s
sweetie.”

“You
don’t understand at all!” Fawn said. “I need this! I need to shake up my
career! I’m getting older. I can’t keep on being America’s sweetheart forever.”

“I
hope you’ll change your mind about that,” Ember said. “I like you when you’re
clean.”

Worry
lines suddenly creased Fawn’s face. “Who are you going to tell about this?”

“No
one!” Ember promised her. “I do think you need some help, but with Fox’s
current anti-scandal obsession, we can’t be certain he wouldn’t give you a pink
slip. And believe me I know. Getting fired doesn’t magically make the drugs go
away. It just makes it harder to pay for them.”

Fawn
breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks Ember.”

“You
really should get some help, Fawn. Maybe after this season you can check
yourself into a clinic.”

Fawn
shook her head. “Everything’s going to be great, Ember. You’ll see.”

Ember
suspected that even Fawn knew she was lying.

Someone
knocked on Ember’s dressing room door. It was twenty minutes before the start
of the show and a bad time for interruptions. Hans had finally finished
applying her makeup but couldn’t decide what to do about her hair.

At
the sound of the knock, Hans threw up his hands in despair. “What is it now? Do
they not know that there is an artist at work in here?”

He
stormed across the room to the door and flung it open. “What do you want?”

Rick
Rogers stood in the hallway with a single red rose in his hands and the same
terrible striped shirt that he had worn in last week’s competition. “I, um,
need to speak to Ember for a minute.”

“And
I need sixty more minutes to finish creating perfection.” He glanced at the
rose in Rick’s hands and grinned. “But you probably think her perfection comes
naturally. You may have three minutes and then I shall play God by once again
creating angelic beauty with these two hands.”

Hans
stepped out of the dressing room and closed the door behind Rick.

Ember
stood up. “What’s on your mind?”

Rick
crossed the room to join her. “I wanted to bring you this and to thank you
again. You really helped me pull out all the stops last week. And I,” he handed
her the rose, “thank you.”

“You
didn’t have to bring me flowers,” Ember said. In truth she was slightly
uncomfortable that he had done so.

“It’s
just one rose,” Rick told her.

But
it was a red rose, Ember noted, red for love and passion.

“Well,
I’m sure you’re going to do even better this week,” she told him.

“I
hope so,” Rick said. “I’ve worked hard, but the competition is fierce. It’s
good to know you’re pulling for me.”

Where
was Hans
? He needed to
get back here and end this awkward conversation. “Would you like another piece
of advice?” Ember asked.

“Of
course,” Rick told her. “I’ll do anything you tell me.”

“Lose
that shirt,” she said. “It makes you look—”

“This
shirt?” Rick interrupted. “I can’t do that. It’s half my luck!”

The
bad half
, Ember wanted
to say, but what came out was something else entirely. “What’s the other half?”

“This,”
Rick whispered.

He
leaned close and kissed her—his lips pressing gently against hers, warm and
tender.

Taken
completely off guard, Ember shocked herself. She didn’t pull away. She didn’t
slap him. She just stood there for a moment while his tongue flicked feather
light against her lips and his strong hands gripped her waist, pulling her up
against him. Then to her utter horror, her mouth opened to him and her tongue
started out to play.

A
knock sounded on the dressing room door, startling Ember into stepping back
from Rick and breaking the embrace. She was breathing hard and her heart was
racing—but whether with passion or simple fear of discovery she wasn’t
completely certain.

The
door opened and Hans reentered the room. “I cannot give you another minute.
Even God, Himself, must have some time in which to work His miracles.”

Rick
pulled himself back together. “I’ll be singing for you tonight,” he whispered,
then turned and hurried from the room.

Hans
watched him go, admiring his backside until the door closed behind him. “It is
such a shame that boy is straight.”

Then
he turned back to Ember. “Sit down, dear. We only have fifteen minutes to
finish making you radiant.”

Ember
sat down in her chair, her mind a jumble of confused thoughts and sensations.
Why had she just stood there? And why was her heart still racing?

“You’ve
dropped your rose,” Hans noted. He stooped down, picked it up, and handed it to
her. “And is that a smudge on your lipstick?”

He
picked up the lipstick tube and set about correcting the flaw. “Perhaps it’s
not a shame the boy is straight after all, hmm?”

Week Four

“You’re
the adult,” Ember reminded herself. “You’re the adult. You’re the one who’s in
control. Rick is just a talented amateur.”

“He’s
not that talented,” Mitch Daniels said as he stepped out of a side corridor and
joined her.

Ember
started in surprise, wondering how much the other judge had heard. “I’m sorry,
Mitch, I didn’t see you there…and I didn’t realize I’d been talking out loud.”

Mitch
grinned. “Talking to yourself, are you? Now that’s something I think we all
expect Fawn to be doing.”

Ember
tried to force a smile on her face but wasn’t quite certain she pulled it off
convincingly.

Mitch’s
grin seemed to grow wider, or maybe more sly and knowing. “I heard the puppy
gave you a rose last week.”

Ember
lost a portion of her poise. Her shoulders sank and probably a portion of the
despair she was feeling found its way on to her face.
Rock Idol
was her
second chance—not many people got a first chance at a career in the music
industry, much less a second one. And she was on the verge of blowing hers.

“Who
told you that?” Ember asked.

“Hillary
Tempest saw him in the hallway.”

That
damned Tempest! Ember thought. The last thing she needed was that girl talking
about her and—

“Now
don’t go getting upset at our little Tempest,” Mitch said. “All the contestants
know Rick has a crush on you. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and let’s
face it, part of his problem on stage is he’s singing all of his songs directly
to you.”