Chapter Six
Elly
I tried to keep a low profile as my mother, father, Susie, and I filed into the theatre. I was embarrassed to face any of them, for one thing. Molly had called me twice in the past week, but I hadn’t felt like talking about it, so I hadn’t called her back. I thought about calling her after I had talked to Jake, but I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be telling people about the tour yet. Mostly, I didn’t want anyone to say anything about me not working there any longer in front of my parents. Damn Tristan anyways. I doubt he even thought about me being fired and that my parents might not know. The show was almost over. They didn’t need to know. I hated it when they were disappointed. They’d be proud of me for working on the tour.
Tristan’s tickets were way down near the stage. We could almost reach out and touch the judges which thrilled my mother to no end.
“We’ll be on TV!” she squealed like a little girl. It was fun to see her so happy, although I still wanted to kick Tristan’s ass. I knew he did it just to annoy me. He never did anything just to be nice. There always had to be something in it for him. It was actually a good thing that neither of us were looking for a relationship, because he would suck at it.
There were only three contestants left: a girl, another guy, and Tristan. The girl, Rosa, went first. She was a young Hispanic girl, right out of high school. Personally, I thought she should maybe take some voice lessons and come back in a few years, but she’d made it that far, so what did I know? She sang a Rhianna song and she sounded just like Rhianna. That was good and bad, I thought. She was obviously talented, but the judges liked it more when the contestant did something original with their songs or their voices. When she finished, Diva said it was, “Great.” The country star said, “It was nice, but this late in the show, song choice is really important and he was worried about that one.” Then the producer, Mr. Brutal Honesty said, “I’m afraid you may have just blown it.” The girl was on the verge of tears, but to her credit, she bit it back and thanked them. She took her seat, completely composed. Ethan reached over and patted her back to comfort her. Tristan seemed like he was in his own head, as usual.
Ethan went next. He did a song by Usher and he blew it out of the water. I could hear some of the girls in the audience chanting his name. He had that young, fresh look to him that the teenaged girls liked. I worried about that a little bit, because the bulk of the votes came from the pre-teen and teen girls. You know, the people with the time on their hands to sit around and vote. Tristan used to have that market cornered, but he had become more of a bad boy for us twenty-something’s.
All three of the judges raved about Ethan when he was finished. My stomach was twisted into knots by the time it was Tristan’s turn. I didn’t think Ethan was better than him, but like I said, you never knew what America was going to do. It wasn’t always a singing contest; sometimes it was popularity, plain and simple.
Tristan sang Dream On. It was originally done by Aerosmith. He sang it beautifully, better than Steven Tyler, if you were to ask me. When he got to the chorus, he ran around from one side of the stage to the other, getting the audience involved and fired up. It wasn’t that twitchy, nervous kind of energy he’d had when he was high—this was really communicating with his fans. He got all the girls in the audience on his side, that’s for sure. He was amazing and I felt like I used to when I was a girl and I watched him on television. My stomach was all aflutter.
Tristan was back.
Diva said, “Oh baby…that was amazing! You are a star!” Tristan smiled nicely and thanked her. He was good at playing the roles when he needed to, or at least when he was sober and things were going his way.
The country star stood up and clapped. “Aerosmith takes me back to my teens. I guess that’s showing my age though, isn’t it? Steven Tyler would be jealous of that performance it was so good.” Tristan thanked him and then the producer took his turn.
“That just won you the contest,” was all he said. It was enough. Tristan’s smile was a mile wide. He took one last bow and then sang a parting song with the other two contestants. It was obvious this time he rehearsed with them and, once again, he blew it away.
My mother was pounding her hands together for him. Afterwards, as we were walking outside, she said, “Tristan was amazing, wasn’t he? I keep telling everyone that he’s going to win.”
“Yeah, he was awesome,” Susie said.
“Yeah, he did great,” I said.
My dad agreed, just not as heartily as Mom did.
“Your father kind of lost interest in the show when that little girl, Brooke, got voted off.”
“She was good,” my dad said. I wondered what he would think of her if he knew she tried to blackmail Tristan over me.
“So, where do you guys want to have dinner?”
“Is that McCormick and Schmidt’s still open over on Nob Hill?” Daddy asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure it is. That sounds good. Are you ready?”
“No,” my mother said, “Aren’t we going to wait and congratulate Tristan? He gave us the tickets. We have to at least tell him what an amazing job he did.” My mother, Miss Manners.
“Okay, Mom, we’ll wait.” It was about ten minutes later when Tristan came out. He looked surprised to see us. I think he was stalling inside, hoping that we’d be gone when he came out. My mother gushed about how great he was. Daddy politely told him the same.
Susie said, “You might not lose after all.” I saw him casually flip her off. He was discreet and she had it coming, so that was okay.
“Alright guys, you ready?”
My mother looked at Tristan and said, “Are you joining us for dinner?”
Tristan looked at me with a look in his eyes, pleading for me to do something.
“No, Mom, Tristan has plans,” I said.
“Elly, why not let the boy talk for himself,” my dad said.
Tristan’s lips twitched. He may not have wanted to go out with us, but I think he was quite enjoying my misery.
“I really do have plans.” he said.
“Oh!” my mother said, so disappointed. “We’d really love to have you. Elly’s dad is buying.”
“I am?” Daddy said. Tristan was even more amused now. I could just hear him in his head: “Fucking Ward and June Cleaver.”
“Well, I guess I could postpone my plans…” he said with a sideways glance at me. I wanted to choke him and he knew it.