Note to self: When they say the camera adds ten pounds, it’s a lie. It adds twenty.
“What the hell is going on with you and Beau?” Tiffany yells into the phone after I return to the hotel. It’s late. Damn late.
“Well, hello to you too, Tiff.”
“Don’t be cute. You. Beau. What’s the scoop?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell my boss slash friend. I plop down on my bed, stretching out as the tension and the excitement of the evening starts to ebb from my body.
“Uh, hello!? Are you for real? I saw how ablaze his eyes were when he watched you perform! You couldn’t miss it. The cameraman kept zooming in on him while you sang, and he was practically stripping you naked and eye-fucking you to Sunday!”
“Oh. My. God. Did you just say eye-fucking?”
“Yes. Don’t try to change the direction of this conversation. He was totally giving you the bedroom eyes while you were up there. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t just get pregnant tonight. And on National television, you hussy.”
“Tiff, get real. There’s no way…” I start before she completely cuts me off.
“So, then after the show was over, I went to the website they’ve been promoting as a way to catch up with the behind the scenes drama. Layne, that man wants you. Like wants to do dirty things to your body for days on end, wants you. I’m not even going to get upset at the fact that you didn’t call me the minute you left the studio after he was touching you. Okay, so maybe I’ll hold just a little tinge of annoyance, and probably a little bit of jealousy, but -”
“Wait. What?”
“You heard me. Touching. You. Your face, your hair, your arm. It was all there on camera.”
Oh. My. God. On freaking camera? How could I have forgotten that our entire lives are being filmed as a big voyeurism behind the scenes campaign?! I know instantly what she’s talking about. It’s a moment I haven’t been able to erase from the forefront of my mind. It’s imbedded like a tattoo.
“And not just one time, Layne. I’m a little pissed that you haven’t told me about these moments you’ve shared with Mr. Hot Country Megastar before. By the way, did you know that he watches you when you’re studying your music?” she asks in a hushed tone as if harboring a huge secret.
“What?” I ask as all of the oxygen is sucked out of the room.
“Yeah. He watches you all the time. It’s actually really hot. It’s like watching the building sexual tension in a porno. Well, if pornos had building sexual tension. And a storyline. Pornos definitely don’t have a storyline. Unless you consider that cheese dialog where the guy comes into the office and finds his ‘secretary’ conveniently bent over his…”
“Tiff! Focus, please?”
“Oh. Right.”
“What am I going to do?” I ask.
“What do you mean? If you want to kiss him, just kiss him.”
“I can’t. Contractual obligations, yada yada yada. He could lose his coaching job with the network and be sued. I would be kicked off the show.”
“Oh. So, you let the sexual tension build and as soon as the show’s over, you find a hall closet and unleash the tension. I bet that man has a huge piece of sexual tension in those tight pants. Have you seen the size of his hands?”
I actually laugh at her matter-of-fact tone. To her, it’s just that simple. Get through the show, sneak off backstage and have a quickie in the first janitor’s closet we come across. Piece of cake.
“Listen, sweetie. Obviously it won’t be that easy. You both have commitments and obligations with the show. That doesn’t mean you can’t flirt, does it? Surely they don’t have a freaking flirting clause in that phonebook of a contract you signed, right?”
“No. Relationships between contestants are fine. Something about ratings gold. Everyone likes a little drama, right? But the coaches are off limits.”
“That’s too bad because Beau Tanner should definitely not be off limits.”
Right? There’s no way in hell I can tell her about his starring roll in my dirty dreams lately. Lord knows what she’d do with that TMI. “So, tell me more about this behind-the-scenes garbage,” I say, looking for a subtle subject change, and for the next fifteen minutes, she recalls all the behind-the-scenes drama that I’ve been missing including a few catfights and an affair between a young male contestant and an older female. She asked about the Shawna situation since she caught a few minutes of the “after.” After agreeing to talk again soon, I signed off and jumped in the shower.
Very early in the morning as the sun threatens to peek over the mountaintops, I still can’t sleep or stop thinking about what Tiff said about Beau. Does he really watch me when he thinks no one is looking? There are other women here who are much better looking than I am. Take Shawna for instance. You know that someday she’s going to grace the pages of Country Weekly, wrapped in the arms of some gorgeous actor, model, or professional football player. She’s stunning. Hell, even the young Bobbsey Twins are gorgeous. Sure they’re barely legal, but when has that stopped a man with money, power, and influence?
Finally, I can’t take it any longer and I fire up my laptop. With the few clicks of the mouse, I’m bringing up the Rising Star website and clicking the Behind the Scenes link. There are tons of daily videos posted, all right there for any Tom, Dick, or Harry to watch. I try not to dwell on the creepy thought as I click on a link titled, “Rehearsals.” I pay no attention to the ones that don’t mention my name. At the first one mentioning me, I click the link.
The video loads quickly and I instantly hear the sound of my voice filling my hotel room. The position of the camera is at the far wall smack in the middle between where I am standing and where Beau is sitting on his stool. It’s the latest rehearsal. I’m singing the last series of lines. My eyes are closed and my hands move as if punctuating each note, each word of the song.
That’s when I finally look over to Beau. He sits statue-still and his gray eyes look almost black from the distance of the camera. They appear dark and stormy as he watches me sing. But it’s the unspoken emotions that flint across his face and those eyes that are the most startling. Lust. Desire. Want.
Holy shit, Tiffany might have been right.
I click on each video with my name above it and am drawn into our rehearsals, reliving them as if it were the first time, watching with fresh, new eyes. Each one is much of the same. Beau smiles at me so naturally and so easily. We talk and discuss music like old friends, practicing new ways to liven up whatever song I’m singing. After I watch every single one with my name on it, including the one Tiffany referred to about his touch, I click on the first video with Shawna. I watch for several seconds, waiting for those same emotions to cross Beau’s face. But they never come.
Video after video, I watch, waiting for a reaction to those other girls. Younger girls, skinnier girls, girls with bigger boobs. Girls who practically offer themselves up on a platter like a Thanksgiving Day turkey. But I never see it. I never see him give them a second glance, and believe me, I look. The smiles are friendly, but not open. The gazes are assessing, but not all-consuming. The words are helpful, but not personal. Beau is completely different with everyone else.
Everyone but me.
*****
“This is our week for team performances, so in addition to your individual practices, we’ll have a few scheduled team practices,” Beau says at large to his final team of four. Me, Ben, Chelsea, and Maxwell, who was Beau’s pick from the cast offs last night.
After Team Felix and JoJo performed, the four coaches each picked one contestant from the sea of cast offs to fill their final spot. They drew numbers to determine their picking order. I was pleasantly surprised to see Troy picked up on Team Felix and cheered harder than anyone else when Felix called his name. What I was least surprised about, but even less excited for, was that Shawna, AKA Dramatic Barbie, was picked up on Team Sophia. Girl power or something like that.
“We’ll have a quick practice this mornin’ before I have to catch a flight, but I’ll be back on Sunday mid-afternoon. I want to have a lengthy practice on Sunday and Monday night to nail down our team performance. We’ll be singin’ ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52’s.”
We all give a little cheer, unable to control our excitement of singing the iconic B-52’s song.
“Here are the music sheets for everyone. I’ve made indications so everyone can start to learn their parts. I picked a fun song because I want y’all to just have fun with it. There’s no votes, no comments on this one. It’s just us all havin’ a good time together,” Beau stresses with a warm smile.
Over the next hour, we run through the song several times. This rendition is totally different from the version you hear on the radio because so much of our team is predominantly country. There’s a hint of twang in each line. Well, each line but mine.
Beau is going to sing with us, but he’ll be perched at the top of a ramp playing the drums. I didn’t know he could play which doesn’t seem to surprise everyone else in the room. Apparently, I’m the only one who really didn’t follow Beau Tanner prior to arriving on the show. At the very end of practice, Beau runs through our stage positioning for this performance. Since this is a non-judged routine, the stage set-up is a little more elaborate. Risers and stage props are used to give a different feel to the show. Chelsea and I will be singing from a set of risers for the first half of the performance before we all start to work the stage and move around in strategic, pre-determined positions.
“Ready to go?” Ben asks as he places his hand on my lower back and gently steers me towards the door at the end of our group practice. My practice time isn’t until late morning so I have a couple of hours before I have to be back here to learn what song I’m going to be singing next week.
“Yeah, let’s go grab some breakfast before we have to be back here,” I say as we get ready to walk through the door.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I feel his gaze following me. I turn just before walking through the open door and find Beau intently watching me. His eyes peruse down my body, stopping at my lower back. It’s when they return to mine a moment later, full of fire, that I realize that Ben is still touching me. Stepping to the left, I dislodge myself from Ben’s hand and turn to walk out the door. As I go, I feel the force of those eyes following me the entire way. It’s moments like this that stir my body to life. I feel wanted, but in a greater way than I feel while working at the bar. Yeah, guys there want me and hit on me left and right. But the way Beau watches me? That’s an entirely different sensation. One that I’m unfamiliar with. One that I wouldn’t mind finding out a little bit more about.
*****
Talking with Mom and Eli tonight is excruciating. I can’t control the tears that gather in my eyes as I see his perfect little face on the computer monitor. If Skype could somehow figure out how to transport my son to my hotel room, I would give my soul.
It’s been over two weeks since I held him in my arms. Seeing his face every night is one thing, but not holding him is an entirely different animal. I feel loss like I’ve never really experienced before–even after Colton. I crave those little moments that I took for granted when we had so much free time together. Now, I have nothing but a few kisses and touches against the hard computer screen.
I knew this was coming, sure. But that doesn’t make this distance any easier. You can prepare yourself for the loss as much as possible, but until you’re living it, day in and day out, your preparations are futile.
Eli presses his sticky lips against the computer screen. “I wove you, Mommy,” he says with a big grin.
I don’t even try to stop the tears as I blow a kiss to the camera, giving him the biggest smile I can fake. My heart breaks wide open as I gear up for another goodbye. “Good night, buddy. Mommy loves you so, so, so, so much. Be a good boy for Grandma, okay?”
“Tay!” he yells before hopping down off my mom’s lap and heading off to play.
“This is getting so hard,” I confess to my mom.
“I know, sweetie. He struggles in the mornings when he wakes up. He always looks over at your empty bed and starts to whine. I know you don’t want to hear it, but he misses you just as much as you are missing him. He’s just easier to distract with cartoons and toys.” The tears fall unchecked as I think about his perfect little face marred with little tears and distress. I’m rarely ever there when he goes to bed at night, but I’m always there when he wakes in the morning. Or at least I used to be.
“There’s still up to six weeks left, Mom. I don’t know if I can make it.”
“You can, and you will. We did not go through rearranging our entire lives for you to quit now. You’ve got this, sweetie. You are the strongest woman I know. You are brave and fearless and deserve this shot more than anyone there. I promise it won’t be too much longer, okay?” she offers with a small smile.
“I love you, Mom. I promise to give it my all.”
“I love you, too, baby girl. Just focus on your practices and singing. We’ll all be here for you when you get back.”
“I know. I will.”
After signing off, I cry for several minutes as the loneliness washes over me like the first cold rain in March. I’d do anything to hold Eli in my arms and fall asleep with him snuggled against my body.
But as much as I want to walk away from all of this and just go home–home to Eli–I want the future that this show could provide for him more. I want to not have to worry about the balance in my checkbook. I want to be able to buy him a toy and not worry if I’ll be able to pay the phone bill because of it. I want to provide him with a solid education, stable home and background, and as much love as I could possibly offer. If I can’t do all of the above, at least I know I can do the last. Because at the end of the day, I love that little boy more than life itself. I would do anything in my power to give him the life he deserves.
And today, that includes finishing this competition.