From the Top - Chapter 28

Throughout the day, I’d tried to get Amanda to practice, and she always had something better to do. I’d tried to practice on my own, but there was a limit how far I could improve things without her. A duet was all about keeping everything tight, working as one singer. it was more than just harmonies, it was timing and energy levels. If you seemed out of step with your partner, even if the song itself was matching, you’d fall flat.

And if that happened, we were both going home.

So after my last attempt, I’d gone upstairs to do some homework in quiet for an hour and then tried again hoping, probably futile, that she’d finally realize how much time we were wasting.

I found her sitting on the couch, joking with some of the other contestants who hadn’t been taking this as seriously as the rest of us. They were all drinking, and looking at the empty liquor and beer bottles on the table, they’d been at it a while.

“We really need to practice,” I said, walking over to her. “The performance is tomorrow and we haven’t gone through the song once together.”

“Oh relax, we’ll be fine,” She said, waving her hand away dismissively before taking a drink.

“No … we won’t. I can’t believe we’ve had to have this conversation twice. You get this is a competition right. There are others who’ve been practicing all day, and they want to stay here. I don’t care if you go home, but I sure as hell care if I go home.”

“Look, I know the song. We can go through it a few times tomorrow. If you can manage you’re part, we’ll make it through to the next round.”

“You almost got sent home yesterday. How are you taking this so casually?”

“That was bullshit and the genre I got sucked. We’re doing pop now. Sure, it’s kind of boring pop, but it’s still what I know. I’ve got my end. You worry about yourself.”

I took a second to keep from exploding at her. There were maybe ten people where who’d taken the whole thing seriously, and the other twenty seemed to have been cast more because they were going to be entertaining on camera than for their music ability. Everyone here could sing, but it took a lot more than that to make it in the industry, and two thirds of these people never would.

Of course, it was a TV show, so how entertaining they would be on camera may have been teh whole point. I’d only watched a little of the show in the past, but the episodes I had watched, there’d been those who you knew were going to make it, and those who made the drama better. So maybe this was just how the show was.

The problem was, with duets, that could mean sending home some people who knew what they were doing because they got paired with the idiots. Cole had Marissa, one of the other ones of us treating this as a competition and not party time or fifteen minutes of fame. Why couldn’t I have gotten someone like her?

“It’s not about if you’ve got it or if I’ve got it. It’s a duet. We still need to work out timing. We need to work out harmonies. And we need to practice it together. If we don’t have everything tightened up, we go home.”

“Ugh, you’re such a buzzkill,” Amanda said, taking another swig of her drink. “Here, have a beer and lighten up.”

She thrust a can into my hand. I eyed it for a moment before setting it down on the coffee table.

“No thanks, and I really think you should lay off too. We can’t practice tomorrow if you’ve got a hangover all morning.”

“You’re so lame,” she said, stretching out the last word and leaning her head back. “No wonder you don’t have any friends here.”

“I don’t care if I’ve got friends here or not,” I said evenly. “I’m not here to make friends; I’m here to win this thing and go home with a record contract. If you came to party and then go home empty-handed, that’s on you, but I’m not going to let you take me down with you. So can we please just practice? Even if it’s just for an hour.”

I could feel the camera pointed at me and was trying my hardest not to absolutely lose my shit. If I made it through this week, I’d have the final to think of, where the audience got to vote for me. I’d hope anyone watching this would see I was right and she was an idiot, but who knows what they’d do in editing. If I blew up and started yelling at her, they could easily make me out to be the asshole, just to create a little drama later on.

“Blah blah blah, that’s all I hear from you,” she said, her words really slurring. “Get lost.”

She wasn’t really talking to me. Vince and a few others had been watching this back and forth, smirking and laughing every time she told me to get lost or called me lame. She was playing to them, although why anyone would care what people like that thought, it was beyond me. What was clear, though, was that nothing I was saying was getting through.

I threw my hands up in frustration. “Fine, forget it. Throw both our chances away.”

I turned and started to storm off. Before I made it two steps, I heard a thud behind me. I turned back around to see Amanda passed out on the floor, her drink spilled across the carpet.

For a second, everyone in the main room, including her drinking buddies, just sat there, staring at her, unconscious on the floor. After a moment, the shock wore off and I rushed over to her while her drinking buddies kind of gathered around, staring at us blearily.

“Hey, can someone help me here?” I yelled at them as I put my hand on her wrist to check her pulse. “Seriously, someone go get somebody!”

I looked past my fellow contestants to the two cameramen in the room, but neither stopped rolling. Instead, they converged on us, continuing to film. Finally, one of the guys snapped out of it and kind of wobbly ran out of the room.

I gently rolled Amanda onto her back. Her skin was pale and clammy.

“Amanda, can you hear me?” I asked loudly, giving her shoulders a shake. Her head lolled limply to the side. She was completely unresponsive.

“You, call...”

“We’ve got this,” a producer and one of the set medics said, running in.

The drunk guy who ran out hadn’t been gone that long, so maybe they were watching the feed and came on their own. At least, I hope so. Amanda wasn’t looking good.

The site medic knelt beside Amanda, checking her pulse and shining a light into her eyes. His brow furrowed and he put his ear next to her face, I guess listening for breathing.

“This isn’t good. Her respiration is dangerously slow, and her skin is clammy,” he said to the producer. “We need to call an ambulance and get her to the hospital. There’s a good chance this is alcohol poisoning.”

The producer looked annoyed more than concerned but pulled out his phone. The rest of us stood by helplessly. I think it might have even sobered up Vince and the rest of the drinkers a little bit.

About ten minutes later, we heard the approaching siren of the ambulance. The paramedics essentially repeated what the set medic did, checking her vitals, shining a light into her eyes, and checking her breathing before loading her up onto a stretcher and hauling her out of the house.

“Okay, guys,” the producer said loudly, hands up, trying to get everyone’s attention. “I know that was exciting, but she’s going to be okay. She might have to get her stomach pumped, but she’ll be fine after that. Odds are, we’ll see her in the morning.”

I guess he figured that was his job done because he turned and started to head back to the production guest house.

“What about our performance tomorrow?” I asked, stopping him. “She’s clearly in no shape to be singing after this. What are we going to do?”

“It’ll be fine,” he said, giving me what he probably thought was a reassuring smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Like I said, the medics will pump her stomach, get her sobered up, and have her back here by morning.”

“Even if she’s physically okay, there’s no way we’re going to be able to get any practice in tomorrow. I hope she’s okay, but this kind of screws me.”

“Are you sure she was going to practice tomorrow? We’ve watched you two, and so far you haven’t practiced yet.”

“Because she was drinking all day. I’ve busted my butt so far in this competition, and her and a few others have been treating it like a dating show or something. I came in second last night. Are you guys really going to let me go out like this?”

“These are called challenges for a reason. I’m not sure what you want us to do.”

“Find me a new partner.”

“That’s not the way this works. The duets were all planned out ahead of time, and everyone’s already started practicing. I get you don’t think this is fair, but it also isn’t fair if we change things for another team.”

“So I’m on my own?”

“If you’re going to make it in the industry, you’re going to have to work with other people who aren’t as motivated as you. If you really want this, I’m sure you’ll find a way around it.”

He gave me another pat on the shoulder and turned his back on me. I just stood there, staring at him as he walked away.

I was totally screwed.

***

The next morning, I woke up feeling like crap. I’d tossed and turned half the night, worried that this was going to be it. That no matter how good I did or how hard I worked, I was going to be shut down for something completely out of my control. I lay in bed a long time, just staring at the ceiling. Finally, it was late enough that I could go and find out if Amanda had made it back. Hopefully, she hadn’t been up all night in the ER and we’d actually be able to practice.

I asked around the handful of people who were up, but no one had seen her yet that morning, and couldn’t remember her coming in from the ER. I didn’t actually know who her roommates were, so I went to the production guesthouse instead. Finally, I found the balding producer who’d given us our last two challenges.

“Hey, is there any word from Amanda? I haven’t seen her yet and I really wanted to get started practicing. Did she get back from the hospital yet?”

“Amanda has been withdrawn from the competition,” he said. “She’s ... not going to be able to continue in the competition.”

“What? Why? Is she okay?”

While I didn’t actually like her that much and was pissed she’d let herself get into this position, I was still a person and that sounded a lot like she was somehow seriously ill.

“I appreciate you’re worried about your friend, but we’re not going to be able to talk about her medical condition. I’m sorry.”

My friend? Wow, they really weren’t paying that much attention.

“Okay, so what does that mean for my duet? Who am I going to partner with?”

He at least had the good manners to look embarrassed when he said, “We’re not sure yet. We’re too close to showtime to switch things up on any of the other contestants. We’ve talked to the executive team and they’ve okayed bringing someone in from the outside, but we’re still working on options. We should know something in a few hours.”

“We head to the studio at three,” I pointed out. “Am I not going to get to practice?”

“It’s unclear at this point, but we hopefully will have someone in time for the two of you to get some practice in before you go on. Look, I know you’re worried, but you’re going to have to bear with us. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, and just walked off before I could respond.

All afternoon, I waited for word of who my partner was going to be, and heard nothing. Most of the producers turned and walked the other way the moment they saw me coming, and when I did corner one, they all said I needed to talk to someone else. If I did get a partner, who knew what song we’d do, let alone if we’d be ready to perform it. I got that things happened, but they had to have encountered a problem like this before, so why did it seem like everyone was clueless?

By the time we got to the studio, I was convinced they were just going to have me go up as a solo. While the judges would have to accept that as something out of my hands, if I got sent home for that, I swore I was going to sue someone. Hell, they had a three-person group, and still, it was too much of a burden to have one of those guys switch to join me, rather than just let me hang all day with no news.

I was kind of all by myself while everyone else was with their partner, or partners in the one case, when a producer finally came to find me.

“Charlie! Good news. We’ve found you a duet partner after all,” he said, a little out of breath.

I sat up straighter. “You did? Who is it?”

All of the other contestants were here and with their partners, so who could have agreed to switch to me? It was possible Amanda had recovered, but I couldn’t believe they’d pull her from the contest and then put her back in less than a day.

“We managed to reach Linda Chapman, whose song you’re doing, and she’s agreed to come in and be a guest partner for you. I know it’s extremely last minute, but we managed to get her on a flight earlier this afternoon. She’ll be arriving in the next hour or so.”

“That’s ... amazing,” I said. “But I don’t understand. Is this even allowed? She’s not a contestant.”

“The rules allow for needs-based, last-minute substitutions at the discretion of the producers. It’s felt that while, yes, she is a professional, you’ve also been given no time to practice or prepare, so it balances out. Are you saying you don’t want her to be your partner?”

He gave me a look that suggested I might be crazy, since I’d been bugging them all day about needing a partner, getting more insistent each time.

“No. No, no, no. I do want her as my partner. This is great.”

“Oh, okay. Good. Well, we’ve moved you to the last group, but we don’t have an exact time frame of when she’ll be here, so there’s no guarantee of how much time you’ll have to practice.”

“I’ll make it work,” I said.

I headed back to the small, spiritual, and soundproof practice area they had set up, finally feeling like I might be able to pull this off. Sure, we didn’t have time to practice together, but I’d heard Linda in concert and knew she was rock steady, keeping everything right on with how she did it on her albums. A lot of artists kind of wing it each time, so the tempo might vary slightly, or it might be a little up or down in their register. Not so much that most people would notice, but enough that someone trying to hit their album performance dead-on would feel off.

I pulled up her song, listened to it a few times, and then played along with my phone, using that to get my timing down. The harmonies were going to be trickier, since the phone quality wasn’t great, but I’d have to make do. I did all the verses, since I wasn’t sure how we’d split it up, and figured it would be better to practice all of them, to be sure.

On a TV against the wall, I could see pair after pair go up and perform, and I started to get nervous. They said she should be there before I had to go up, but we were quickly running through all of my competitors, and still no Linda in sight. The sound was off, but from the reaction of the crowd, Cole and Melissa did well. Or at least the judges were smiling when they talked to them after performing.

Vince, on the other hand, made it clear what he thought of his partner, giving Steven the stink eye throughout the whole thing. It was impossible to know the verdict for sure, but I couldn’t imagine looking like that at my partner if the performance was going well.

Finally, just as the pair before me went up on stage, the door swung open and a petite woman with choppy black hair hurried in, looking stressed.

“Charlie? I’m so sorry I’m late,” Linda said. “My flight got delayed and then there was traffic and...well, it’s been kind of a mess. But I’m here now!”

“Don’t worry about ... arrgh,” I started to say as she gripped me in a crushing hug.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your parents and what MAC did to you. I swear to God, if my contract wasn’t so ironclad, I would have walked the day they dropped you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” I said, stepping back from her. “I would feel awful if I did anything to cause you to jeopardize your career. I’m working on a plan, and I made them hurt for it.”

“I heard they blackballed you,” she said.

“They tried, but I made it on here, and if I can hold out and get to the finals, they’ll have a tough time keeping me off the stage. Not with that kind of visibility.”

“See, that’s why I’ve always liked you. You’re smart.”

“Well, the manager I poached from MAC thought it up, not me.”

“Okay, so stealing the manager was smart. Damn, look at the time. I have to get into hair and makeup. We don’t have time to practice,” she said, looking at the TV behind me.

“I think we’ll be okay. Let’s do Daydream Delinquents. I’ve been practicing with your live version and matching my timing to that, so as long as you hold that tempo, we’ll be good. I’ll take Sam’s part on guitar and we can split the verses, you on one and three, and I’ll take two and four. Same matching harmonies on the chorus that you have with Sam.”

“Perfect. I can make that work. I gotta run. See you on stage,” she said, dashing toward a producer who was waving her over.

This was so slapdash, it was either going to be the best thing I ever did or the worst.

The announcer called our names, and we stepped out into the blinding stage lights. The theater erupted into deafening cheers and applause. Out in the audience, I could just make out the silhouettes of the judges sitting at their table.

My hands were shaking as I started the opening guitar riff, but like always, once we started going, I settled into it and the nerves disappeared. Beside me, Linda launched into the first verse. Always the pro, she was nailing the timing just the same as every time we played.

We exchanged a grin as the song built up to the chorus. The audience was already up on their feet, clapping and singing along. One of the reasons I picked the song initially is because Linda’s raspy voice was close enough I could pitch it down an octave and it worked without any other changes.

By the time we hit the bridge, we were both totally locked in. The rest of the world melted away until it was just me, her, and the music. Everything clicked into place. As the final notes rang out, Linda and I faced each other, breathing hard. The crowd was on their feet clapping. I had to assume most of that was because they got a surprise guest, but I took some of the credit anyway. The applause continued even after Linda and I stepped back from our microphones.

I glanced over at her and she shot me a grin and mouthed “Nice job!”

Before I could respond, Dexter jogged out from the judges’ table, waving his arms to ask the audience for quiet.

“Absolutely incredible performance from these two!” Dexter continued once the noise died down. “Now, for those of you watching at home, you may not know this, but Linda literally just arrived at the studio less than twenty minutes ago. These two have never rehearsed or performed this song together before just now!”

“Twenty minutes? That’s impossible. You must have practiced together before,” Dakota Rayne said, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.

I shook my head. “No, ma’am. I did practice on my own, but there wasn’t time to go through it together. We did talk about it, though, so we knew who was doing what.”

Linda grinned at me. I couldn’t keep the stupid smile off my face. I’d been so sure I was going home after all of this, and I could feel all the stress washing away.

“Well, that’s it for our performances,” Dexter said. “Now it’s time to find out how our teams did, and who’s going home. I think it’s going to surprise no one that, in first place with their amazing duet, is Charlie and Linda!”

Linda grabbed my arm and pulled me forward, beaming. The applause was thunderous. I caught sight of Cole in the wings, grinning and giving me a thumbs-up.

“In second place, also with a wonderful performance, Cole and Marissa!” Dexter continued.

The pair joined us on stage, Marissa bouncing excitedly. I reached across and shook Cole’s hand. He’d had a great night, and gone from near the bottom two nights ago to the top. I was really happy for him.

“And now for the difficult part,” Dexter said, his expression growing serious. “Some of our contestants will be going home tonight. Our first pair that won’t be going on is ... Larry and Norman.”

The two of them came out, shook Dexter’s hand, and stood off to the side, both looking like they’d been hit by a bus. I hadn’t heard their performance since I’d been backstage practicing, but I knew they’d both practiced hard over the last two days, so it was kind of a surprise to see them go home.

“And finally, Vince and Steven will be leaving us this evening.”

Vince and Steven came out, Vince looking absolutely furious and Steven just looking kind of resigned. Vince might have been the most talented person at the competition and had been amazing night one, but in a duet, it wasn’t about how talented you were. It was about how in sync you and the other performer were. You had to be generous to make it work.

They hadn’t taken it seriously, hadn’t practiced, and Vince had shown he wasn’t about anyone other than Vince from day one. His ego had finally caught up to him.

“Best of luck to those leaving us tonight,” Dexter said as the show’s theme song began playing in the background. “And congratulations again to our top three. We’ll see you next week for our next round of competition!”

We stood there as Dexter went over to the judges’ table and they all chatted, with the crowd cheering. It was a little awkward to just stand there, but this is the part where the credits would roll across the screen, so we were basically human backdrops. Finally, the music shut off and the lights came up. As assistants started directing the audience out, we all made our way backstage.

Vince stormed past everyone, disappearing out the rear exit. The rest of us just ignored him. He wouldn’t be missed.

Backstage, Linda gave me another hug and said, “That was so much fun.”

“Seriously, thank you again for jumping on a plane last minute to come out here. I can’t even imagine how I would have handled going on stage alone.”

“Oh please, I couldn’t let my big discovery fail,” she said, laughing at our inside joke. “Honestly, I’m just glad I could help out. And getting to perform with you was such a treat.”

“All contestants, gather your things and meet by the van,” one of the PAs announced.

“I should probably get going,” I said. “We all have to head back to the house tonight.”

“Sure thing. Good luck with the rest of the contest. I’ll be cheering for you,” she said and gave me another quick hug before she went to go grab her stuff.

“I know you said you opened for her, but do you actually know her?” Cole asked, coming over to join me.

“Yeah. We played together at a festival and she knew a friend of a friend who was a record producer. When I was trying to get scouted by MAC, she helped make it happen. I honestly owe everything I’ve done up till now to her.”

“You’re freaking blessed, dude,” Cole said, just shaking his head.

While I wouldn’t agree with that completely, considering how my personal life had gone, from a professional point of view, he wasn’t wrong.

“I really am,” I said.