“That’s bullshit.”
I bit down on my lip as I peered at Ian across the aisle. The truth was—and I began to realize it while flicking my eyes over to Rose—that I was worried I would be up there on that stage and Melina Vaclavik would ask Rose a question and she would delegitimize me right there on live television. A reality show competitor who didn’t even win the final round. A girl who skipped half her senior year just to become a background singer.
“Take it easy.” I must have had a terrible expression on my face. “I watched Sing It with my little boy. He thinks you’re talented. I do too. You’ll be fine.”
The anxiety still threatened to climb out of my throat. I clutched at the soft leather armrests and tried to take my mind off it. “Your son?”
“Yeah. Jordan. I get to pick him up on Tuesdays and hang out with him, and what he wants to do is watch Sing It. So that is what we do.”
I let out a breath.
“How old is he?”
“Twelve, going on twenty,” he said, mouth finally cracking into a full smile.
“Did he vote for me? Be honest. Or did he vote for Anna?”
“I never let him vote,” he said firmly. “I won’t have him calling phone numbers that show up on the bottom of a TV screen.”
“But you could have called for him,” I pointed out.
“See, just bring that sass, Miss Cass,” Ian said, jabbing the tip of the pencil toward me emphatically.
“That didn’t answer my question,” I said cheekily.
He turned back to his work. “He made me vote for St. James. Thought he was a hunk.”
I laughed.
I HADN’T BEEN to New York since I was a little kid. My family and I drove up from Houston, like ridiculous people, in a minivan, when I was eleven. I didn’t remember much of the trip except for the crowds and bleak weather. We’d come during Christmas break, and though I thought the many buildings would have insulated us from the cold, wind sheared through the corridors between buildings instead, creating tunnels of absolute misery. We had walked in a miniature tour group, all in a clump with my Astros-capped father leading the pack, while the kids whined about wanting to just sit down somewhere there was heat. I distinctly remember my toes going numb in my sneakers.
Returning to New York with this tour group was a different experience altogether. As we made our descent in our private aircraft, it was in the twilight hour between sunset and evening. Skyscrapers glowed blue, rimmed warm pink from behind. Millions of beads of light lit uneven clumps of buildings and major thoroughfares. I squinted and made out the Empire State Building, taller than all of the other buildings around it, and toward the edge of the window, the unmistakable ridges of the twin towers stood at the tip of Manhattan.
Twenty minutes later, we slid onto a runway, disembarked, and within moments we exited JFK and climbed into a glimmering black SUV. We rode through sticky streets, an hour and a half of low murmurings, as Merry had fallen asleep again in the middle seat.
It surprised me then, and it surprised me again, how dense New York is. Coming from two highly populated cities, it shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but those were cities of sprawl. The millions of people on this two-mile-long island are stacked upon one another, sleeping above one another, crowded next to one another, walking in a giant sea of anonymous faces. It made me dizzy.
While Big Disc may have spared no expense getting us to New York, they were slightly less accommodating when it came to our hotel rooms. We slept in modest adjoining suites, two to a room, with Ian across the hall and various other members of our entourage scattered across three floors. Merry had sprawled on a bed as soon as Ian unlocked the first door, and Yumi followed her in. Rose and I uncomfortably realized we were roommates for the night.
We moved into the second suite room, still without dialogue, barely acknowledging each other. As if she knew she couldn’t be the first to talk, Rose perched on her bed and flipped through channels, stopping when she found a rerun of The Jet-Setters. She left it on low volume, as if the walls were thin enough to wake Merry in the next room. I watched the pronounced cupid’s bow of Lucy Bowen’s mouth undulate on the screen, though I was unsettled to feel Rose’s eyes flicker on me instead.
AT DAWN, THERE was already a crowd outside of Sunrise’s first-floor studio window.
We were whisked away to the dressing rooms in jeans and wide-collared shirts. Even at this hour the hallways were bustling with personnel. Yumi, Rose, and I sat quietly, eyes closed and listening to Muzak, in our separate little chairs as the hair and makeup stylists worked. Our bodies, on West Coast time, had hit the snooze button. Merry, on the other hand, had banked so many hours of sleep during our travel that she was wired and chatty.
How strange, I thought, as someone soothingly combed out my hair and spritzed it with spray. That we were here, doing this. That we’d be on television and my mom would tape it for the rest of the family. That Alex and Edie and Joanna would catch the broadcast in different time zones, if they weren’t sleeping through it. That the next few months we’d be working continuously, and that this soft tiredness on the edges of my eyes, in between my brows, was going to be pleasant compared to the bone-deep weariness that would be setting in over the course of the coming weeks.
As blush was being applied to my cheeks, Merry uttered a gasp of disbelief. “We’re going on stage in those?”
Those turned out to be full latex suits in different colors. Laid out on hangers, they looked like doll’s clothes. I thought I knew what we’d be wearing on tour, and this had not been in our fittings.
“Will they fit?” Yumi asked doubtfully, examining one.
Ian, who had merely checked a box ensuring the clothes had been in the cargo for the tour, also looked at them apprehensively. “I’m sure they had your measurements,” he said slowly.
“They’ll stretch,” I added, but I didn’t know how I could go out in that. All other performances I’d seen on The Sunrise Show had been flamboyant, sure, but nothing as gratuitously skintight as this.
“Someone call Peter,” Merry said, looking with disdain at the tiny catsuit. “I doubt this will end well.”
But Peter did not budge. “They’re hot!” he argued on the phone. “The designer assured me they stretch just fine. And what else can you wear while you’re out there—jeans? Don’t bother me with petty stuff like this. Just put the damn things on!”
So Ian left, and we tried to change. Merry tugged on her suit while a stylist was still chasing after her with a can of hairspray. “Cassidy, zip me up?” she said, wriggling her arms into the long sleeves. The suit was ice-blue and covered her entire body, from neck to ankle, but it hugged every curve like a second skin. Every time she moved, she squeaked, and she pulled at the crotch with both hands. “This is more invasive than a visit to the gynecologist,” she groused.
With thick-soled shoes that added three inches to her height, she looked like a genuine pop star. Our debut on national television was going to get tongues wagging, that much I knew.
“This doesn’t breathe,” Yumi complained, as she zipped into hers—black, of course. Mine was dark blue.
The makeup artist was aghast. “You’re supposed to sprinkle baby powder inside the suit so that your skin isn’t sticking directly to it! Didn’t your costumer tell you?” She shifted bottles around on the table, searching for some.
“You’d be surprised what they don’t tell us,” Merry said wryly. She pulled at the neck of her suit and sprinkled the proffered powder down the front and jumped up and down to disperse it.
Yumi opted to peel hers off and sprinkle powder inside before yanking it back on again. There was no costumer to wipe away the white spots that made it to the outside, so the makeup artist did that for her.
Rose twisted into her pink suit. “I blame Britney for this.”
Merry shifted in the mirror, looking at her body from all angles. “My boobs are stretching this thing within an inch of its life!” she commented. “I can barely breathe.”
“That’s not your boobs, that’s your ass.” Rose flicked an eye toward Merry’s rear end. “Less regular Coke, more Diet, Merry.”