chapter 11

A huge televisionhung on one wall of the greenroom in the basement of the soundstage. Competitors could watch each other’s performances on the TV… if they ever started. Izzy slouched on the sofa, staring at the blank screen. The greenroom was a comfortable purgatory. There were no windows, but there was nice furniture in shades of green, orange, and blue. Snacks filled a full-sized fridge. Another fridge held enough Fizz Bang soda to fill a bathtub.

Izzy had already sat on every piece of furniture and stared at every bit of wall. She was so nervous. Her stomach had tightened into a knot and hidden behind her other organs. She hadn’t taken a breath in hours and she was hyperventilating. At the same time. She was so bored! How could you be this bored and still be having a heart attack? Apparently, it was possible. She tapped the binary code tattoo on her breastbone to calm herself. It didn’t help. She stretched backward, her head hanging over the back of the sofa.

Behind her, Axel hovered in plank position, arms trembling. Tock paced back and forth, probably stressing more from the lack of Wi-Fi—which meant American politics was going on without him—than from the upcoming performance. Izzy sat up, seeing stars. Across from her, Sarah yanked at a snarl of yarn in her lap, ostensibly knitting a scarf although it looked more like she was trying to stab the wool into submission. Only Arabella was calm, lying on one of the sofas, hands crossed over her chest like a corpse.

They’d been up since six. They’d waited for Bryant to come to the greenroom and brief them. They’d waited for the costume department to check their costumes—they got to use their own for the Signature Act Challenge—for wardrobe-malfunction possibilities. Now they were waiting for… lunch? Makeup? Death? The first performers hadn’t even gone on.

No. Izzy knew what she was waiting for.

First, she was waiting to perform because this was the first challenge standing between her and bankruptcy. No, no that wasn’t what mattered. Velveteen Crush needed its own inclusive safe space. That mattered. Izzy’s bankruptcy was just a possible side effect… an awful, very possible side effect. Given how dumb it was to buy the theater, it wasn’t even a side effect. It was more like exactly the effect you’d expect if you poured everything you had and a lot of money you didn’t have into buying an almost condemned theater.

She was definitely having a heart attack.

She closed her eyes and pictured Lillian’s wry smile. But thoughts of Lillian didn’t soothe the feeling that Izzy had drunk a hundred Red Bulls. Lillian was performing next. Lillian might lose. Izzy would never see her again. Of course, if Izzy was to save herself from financial ruin, Velveteen Crush would have to beat the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company eventually, but it didn’t have to be today. If she could see Lillian a few more times, maybe exchange numbers, and—no, no, no. On Izzy’s list of bad ideas, Lillian appeared one line beneath the Roosevelt Theater.

But still, Lillian shouldn’t get voted off in the first round.

The TV crackled to life. Arabella sat up. Tock stopped pacing. Axel turned up the volume on the TV.

The television screen flipped from one camera view to another. In one view, the judges sat on their dais. Another angle showed lights pulsing in the Star Maker, a twenty-foot column of pure LED. They’d seen the theater set empty and unlit. An assistant producer had spent an hour showing them how to enter the stage and where to stand when the judges critiqued them. But this was different.

Izzy tried to summon Blue’s calm, but she needed to be onstage, performing. Then she could become the invincible Blue Lenox. Sitting here, chewing on her lip, sweating in her pre-costume T-shirt and jeans, she couldn’t find Blue. If only they could have gone first.

The camera angles stopped cycling so quickly, eventually, settling on alternating shots of the judges and the stage. The judges faced forward. Sound came through the TV speakers, first a buzz of people talking on headsets or radios, then Bryant’s voice.

“Quiet on set. Action in three.”

The screen showed the view from a camera pointed at the stage. The hosts, Hallie and Harrison, ran down from the back of the soundstage, leapt onto the set, and started the speech that begun every season of The Great American Talent Show.

“We have ten teams all doing different performance styles,” Harrison explained. “Each week, we’re going to give them a special challenge, and they’re going to compete to see which teams bring it and which team has to go home.”

“We have three judges,” Hallie said. “But we have four votes.”

“Whaaaat?” Harrison exclaimed as though he had lost long-term memory.

“That’s right. The fourth judge is you!” Hallie pointed at the audience and then at the neon thermometer on the side of the stage. The column flashed with a thousand lights. “The Star Maker! Everyone in the audience today will click for the performances they like best. In fact, we think your vote is so important, the first and last challenge will be determined entirely by the Star Maker.”

“And what do our contestants win if they make it to the end?” Harrison asked, his memory of all previous seasons gone.

“One million dollars!” Hallie squealed.

“Now let’s meet the judges!” Harrison said.

The live camera feed didn’t look exactly like the show on television. The camera moved in too fast. Half of Harrison’s face got lost off-screen for a second. Bryant called cut, and Hallie and Harrison performed their part again. But it was unmistakably the show. Later today, Velveteen Crush would be on that stage. They’d stand on the x’s that marked where the contestants faced the judges and the Star Maker. They’d go on to the next round. They had to. Izzy closed her eyes and tried not to think about the bills piling up.

The camera switched to the judges. From somewhere off-screen, Bryant called action again. The camera stayed focused on the judges. Harrison’s disembodied voice came over the speakers.

“Our first judge is Alejandro Pastega, founder of the performance art company Transformación Milán.” Harrison drew out the A in Pastega for several beats.

The camera pulled in on Pastega, as slim and elegant as ever. He adjusted his heavy, black rectangular glasses and nodded at the camera. The next judge was new this season, a prima ballerina for the New York Ballet Company named Christina-Margarita Ebb Bessinger-Silas.

“That is a lot of names,” Axel said without taking his eyes off the screen.

On-screen, Hallie said, “And finally, the reason some of the troupes are quaking in their boots.”

“Or their pointe shoes,” Harrison said.

Pastega and Many-Named Ballerina didn’t matter. America watched the show for Paul Michael, aka the Prime Minister.

“Welcome,” Hallie and Harrison said together, fluttering some jazz hands. “Prime Minister!”

The cameras zoomed in on the crown of the Prime Minister’s head, his hair twisted in Bantu knots. When he looked up, he stared directly at the camera, impossibly handsome with his trademark smile that welcomed the audience like a secret handshake.

“Y’all ready to help me pick the next great American talent? We want to be wowed this season, don’t we! No amateurs.” He snapped his fingers and spoke into the camera. “Don’t come lacking.”

The studio audience cheered. Bryant called for another sound check.

“He’s just as handsome on-screen as he is… on-screen,” Axel said.

It made sense. This was for real.

“And our first performance of the season will be”—Harrison flung his arms open—“the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company.”

A knock on the door made them all look up. A young woman—a runner, the position was called—stood in the doorway.

“Blue Lenox. We’re doing your first candid. Come with me,” the runner said, oblivious to the emotional crisis Izzy was having in preparation for seeing the Reed-Whitmer Ballet Company perform as broadcast through a rotating series of cameras.

Izzy looked at Sarah.

“We’ll tell you if she wins,” Sarah said, sympathetic even though she’d recently given Izzy the you-told-me-not-to-let-you-fall-for-women-like-this speech.

“Who’re you talking about?” Axel asked.

“No one,” Izzy said, although Lillian was not no one.

“Ready?” the runner asked.