Musical Star (13 page)

Danny took my hand and said Sebastian’s lines. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t see how hard everything was for you, that I was stubborn and stupid. You mean so much to me, Ruby…”

“STOP!” Tristan shouted. “Arial, Arial, her name’s
Arial
not
Ruby.
Focus, Danny!”

“Um, sorry,” Danny said, blushing bright red, which made my cheeks hot too.

“You never have this trouble when you’re about to kiss Jade,” Tristan said, making everyone giggle. “Take it from the last line
again,
please.”

Danny picked up my hand again and took a breath before looking me in the eye again. “And I’m sorry that I didn’t see how hard everything was for you, that I was stubborn and stupid. You mean so much to me, Arial – you’re my starlight girl.”

And as the music of that song began to swell, Danny, that is Sebastian, drew me, I mean Arial, closer to him, bent his head and kissed me softly on the lips.

“Stop!” I dimly heard Tristan say. “STOP!”

Danny and I broke apart. “I got the name right didn’t I?” he asked Tristan.

“Yes, but you were so busy kissing Ruby here that you missed the start of the song!”

It took a long time for the whistling, cheering and laughter to stop.

I found it hard to look Danny in the eye since our stage kiss overran, feeling even more confused than ever about how he might or might not feel about me. I was actually glad when Jade came back after about an hour, composed once more.

I saw fury flash across her face when she saw who it who had stepped into her shoes, but she didn’t let anyone else see her anger. She apologised first to Tristan and then to the rest of us, telling us that she would never behave like that again. Then she thanked me very politely, even patting me on the back as I went back to my place in the chorus.

I was buzzing. Dakshima was right. Acting, dancing, even singing was really what I wanted to do and it didn’t matter how much I tried to pretend I didn’t. But right now I was glad to be back in the chorus, because there was very little chance of me having to kiss Danny in front of a whole room of people again while I was there.

Later, as we were having a drink and snack before our performance for Mick and Miss Bapstista, Dakshima, Talitha, Hannah and Adele flocked around me.

“You two were so good together during that scene,” Talitha said. “I tell you, either that Danny is a world class actor or he so loves you, Ruby.”

“Yeah,” Adele said. “And we’ve all seen
Kensington Heights –
he’s not
that
a good an actor.” Everyone laughed except me.

“He doesn’t like me like that,” I said. “Actually I think it’s Jade he likes.”

“Then why didn’t he keep saying Jade’s name by mistake,” Hannah said.

“It’s an easy mistake to make,” I said.

“Yeah,” Dakshima rolled her eyes. “Rooo-oooby, Airrr-reeee-alll. They sound practically identical.” The girls laughed again, and even I smiled.

“The truth is,” Hannah said, “you two were much better together than him and her.” She yanked a thumb over her shoulder at Jade, who was laughing and chatting with Danny as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and she hadn’t stropped off leaving the rest of us in the lurch. “And that is reason enough for her to hate you even more than normal. You’d better be on the look out, she’s bound to be after you.”

“Don’t worry, I will be,” I said, unable to stop thinking about Danny kissing me, I mean Arial.

“Right gang,” Tristan called out. “The bus is here. Let’s go and show them how hard we’ve been working.”

The cast sat in the rows of seats that had been set up by the production team so we’d have an idea how close the live studio audience would be to us, as we waiting for Mick Caruso and Carmen Baptista to turn up.

As I sat there, I allowed myself to wish it was me leading that cast out on to the stage. More than that, I believed that I could play Arial just as well if not better than Jade. For the first time in a long time I felt confident in myself again – and I knew the microphone
I
had worn while playing Arial was not hooked up to an auto-tune device.

As I sat there in the middle of the TV studio and looked around at its lights and cameras, beautiful and frightening all at the same time, I felt my heart beat faster. I knew that even if all of us left, the studio still wouldn’t feel empty. It was as if all the plays and shows filmed there over the last fifty years had left something behind, some sort of imprint, like an energy that vibrated in the air. And as I waited for us to perform I felt as if I was plugged into it and that it was filling me with electricity.

Suddenly one of the lighting engineers switched on a spotlight and for a moment the brightness dazzled me and I had to shield my eyes. Then, as my eyes adjusted, I dropped my hand and tipped my face back, feeling the warmth on my cheeks.

That warmth made me feel as if I might, just might, truly belong there.

Finally Mick Caruso and Carmen Baptista appeared on stage to cheers and applause.

“Well, this is it, we’re nearly there,” Mick said. “When
I had this idea just over a year ago, almost everybody said I was crazy to create a musical just for under-sixteens. And when I said I wanted to search the nation for the best talent it had, then get the show from the first open audition to casting and then broadcast in three months, they thought I was crazier. But it happened, it
is
happening, and all because you’ve made it possible. You are all amazing, incredibly talented young people and you’ve made my impossible dream a reality.”

He smiled at us before continuing. “And now you’re going to show Carmen and me that the faith that we and the British public have in you is justified. I don’t need to tell you how important this premiere is to me. Do your best and don’t let me down. Break a leg, people.”

As I took my place at the back of the set, I looked at Danny and Jade holding hands centre stage and felt sick inside. Not because Jade said that Danny liked her and was going to ask her out. Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was possible to be kissed by a boy and feel all wonderful and floaty about it inside, while they felt absolutely nothing. But either way, there was nothing I could do to find out what Danny was thinking or feeling until he told me, if he ever did. I felt sick because I knew that whatever happened on this stage in the next 80 minutes, if Jade forgot all of her words and Danny turned
out to have two left feet, then they would still be leading the show when it was transmitted live in a week’s time, whether they deserved it or not. That was what Mick Caruso wanted and he’d use any kind of trickery he could to make it work.

But Jade remembered all of her words and Danny danced like a dream, and as we sung ‘Starlight Girl’, Jade and Danny’s kiss looked pretty convincing to me. And after the big finale of ‘Spotlight’, the production team, camera operators, costume and make-up people stood on their feet and cheered for us as we took a bow. It should have been an exhilarating and exciting moment and looking around I could see that it was for everybody else.

Only me and Dakshima knew it hadn’t been real. Dakshima put her arm around me and whispered. “This show is going to make Jade famous all over the world.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Don’t see it going any other way,” Dakshima said. “That microphone makes her sound brilliant.”

“I know,” I said, glancing over at Jade as she hugged Danny hard. “There really is no stopping her now.”

We waited and watched as Carmen Baptista and Mick Caruso stood in a huddle on the stage along with Tristan, discussing the run through. Then suddenly Miss Baptista flung her notes in Mick Caruso’s face
and marched off stage, closely followed by a camera woman from the behind-the-scenes film crew. Mick shrugged and said something to Tristan, who nodded and shrugged.

Finally Mick came to the front of the stage to talk to us.

“Miss Baptista has had to take a break,” he said. “She’s overcome with emotion and I know how she feels. I want you to know that we could not have been more proud of you if we hand-picked each of you ourselves.”

He took a deep breath and for a moment I wondered if he was actually going to cry.

“The first ever live performance world premiere performance of
Spotlight!
will take place in this very studio in a week’s time and I want you to know that every single one of you deserves to be in it.”

The cast erupted into to cheers and I felt people either side and behind me hugging me and clapping me on the back.

I tuned at looked at Dakshima. “We’ve got to do something,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “And I think I’ve finally worked out what.”

“You are going to do what? I asked Dakshima, open mouthed, as we sat in her bedroom later that night.

“We are going to do it. It’s a genius plan, isn’t it?” she grinned, brushing out her long dark hair.

“But…but you
can’t,”
I said. “I mean, you literally can’t do that – can you?”

“Yeah, I can – it’s easy if you have a basic grasp of electronic engineering,” Dakshima shrugged.

“You do realise that the show is only two nights away? When,
how
are you going to do this?”

“We are going to do it on the night of the show – during the show. That’s where the genius part comes in.”

I was so astonished by what Dakshima had come up with that I hadn’t even thought about whether her plan was even legal, which considering I was once almost arrested for diamond theft, should probably have been one of my first worries.

“It’s simple,” Dakshima explained. “Each of the Auto-tune Miracle Microphone’s receivers is hooked up to the
main sound desk and controlled centrally from there. All we have to do is get to the desk while we are not on set, and while you distract the sound engineer, I’ll switch the Auto-tune function off. And hey presto! The studio audience of the world’s top celebrities and press, not to mentions millions of viewers around the world, will no longer be listening to angels but to strangled cats. And the truth about Jade and Danny, and Mick Caruso’s big scam, will finally be revealed and all wrongs will be righted! So what do you think?”

I didn’t say anything for quite a long time, because for quite a long time I didn’t know what to say.

“It is a very cunning plan,” I began slowly. “And there is an element of genius involved, but…I thought that we’d decided we’d try not to hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. You’re talking about wrecking Mick Caruso, Jade and Danny’s careers. And the whole musical will be ruined and the all the work that everyone else has put in – you, me, Anne-Marie, Adele – will be for naught.”

“For
naught?”
Dakshima raised an eyebrow. “Ruby, you are
such
a lovey. But don’t worry because I’ve thought of that already. It’s all in the timing. There are two ensemble numbers before Jade and Danny’s first duet so those will go ahead as normal. We will all be great and the audience will love it. Then, during the
scene before their first duet, we’ll switch off their microphones. It’s going to be brutal, but so what if Mick and Jade’s reputations are ripped to shreds? They deserve it.”

“I’m not sure any thirteen-year-old deserves that,” I said, remembering my Hollywood nightmare. “And anyway, what’s to stop everyone thinking that the whole cast has been auto-tuned,” I said.

“Never gonna happen,” Dakshima said. “What’s the first thing you showbiz types learn as babies?”

“Get a good agent?”

“That the show must go on,
obviously.”
Dakshima looked at me despairingly. “We’ll let them mess it up just enough that everyone knows and then we, the rest of the cast and chorus, will pile on stage and save the day. You can sing all of Jade’s parts – and relaunch your entire career in one night.”

Dakshima seemed so sure of her plan that it was sort of hard to argue what was wrong with it, only something really, really was. It was cruel and unkind, and as much as I disliked Jade, I didn’t think I could do anything so horrible to her.

“We can’t do it, Dakshima,” I said. “Danny doesn’t deserve to find out like that. He’d be so hurt and humiliated, his career would be over and he’s not even
fourteen yet. We can’t do that to him or Jade. You’re a genius, yes, but you’re not an
evil
genius. You know it’s not right.”

“I knew you’d say that,” Dakshima sighed. “In that case there’s one other thing we can do.”

“What is it?” I asked anxiously.

“Confront them with the truth,” Dakshima said. “Give them a chance to drop out of the show.”

“You want
me
to tell Danny, my
ex-boyfriend
Danny, who actually I’d quite like to be my current boyfriend again, that he is a fake and that I’ve known all along?” I asked her in horror.

“It’s the only option left. Or let the show go on as planned and do nothing.”

“I wish we’d never found out what was going on,” I said, miserably.

“Me too,” Dakshima said. “But we did and we can’t pretend we haven’t.”

Later that night, while I was supposed to be asleep, I paced up and down the length of my bedroom which, as it wasn’t a very long bedroom, wasn’t all that helpful. One good thing about Jeremy buying a new house was that I was fairly sure that whenever I stayed over there I’d get a bigger bedroom to pace up and down in.

I just didn’t know how to tell Danny. I couldn’t think
of a single good way to explain to him that actually he was right about the voice he heard in his head, that it
was
terrible. Oh, and by the way, Mick Caruso was only pretending to love his singing because he had a huge female fan base and because Jade Caruso fancied him.

Danny would be so upset. He’d be
angry.
And I was sure it would be
me
he’d be angry with, because I’d known for a long time and I’d kept it from him. He wouldn’t understand that the reason I’d waited so long was because I didn’t know
how
to tell him and that being friends with him again was so nice that I didn’t want anything, not even the truth, to wreck it.

But when it came to the crunch, what else could I do?

Because of the Auto-tune Miracle Microphone, Nydia hadn’t won the number of votes that she needed to beat Jade and was missing out on a chance that she deserved. And millions of people had voted for Jade and Danny because they loved them, because they trusted what they heard and wanted to support them. All of those people had been lied to and betrayed, and that wasn’t right either.

Sometimes I got things wrong, said or did the wrong thing. I knew that I could be mean or selfish and unkind, but on the whole I understood right and wrong. Should showbusiness be allowed to cheat and do things the
wrong way just because it could? No. It was time for me to be brave, which was going to be tricky because being brave isn’t my best thing.

I fished my mobile phone out of my bag and thought for a minute. Scrolling down through the list of names I eventually found the one that I wanted and pressed ‘dial’.

After a few rings Nydia answered. “Hi,” she said. “Aren’t you banned from ringing people after 9 p.m?”

“Yes, but Mum and Jeremy are looking at house details. They won’t check on me for ages.”

“And I thought you were supposed to be no good at rebelling,” Nydia chuckled.

“Anyway what’s up?” I ask her. “I haven’t seen you much lately.”

“I’m OK,” Nydia said. “A bit bored. It feels like I’m the only person in all of London who isn’t in
Spotlight!”

“Bummer,” I said, feeling worse.

“But it’s not all bad news. Because of my performance on the TV I’ve been asked to audition for the part of a singing alien in
Doctor Who –
how cool is that?”

“Way cool,” I said, wondering how to say what I wanted to without sounding weird. “You know, you would make an amazing Arial. And you know that after the TV performance they’re thinking of taking the show on tour all over the country? So I was thinking…”

“What
were you thinking?” Nydia prompted me.

“Well, there might be a part in that for you. Maybe even the part of Arial. You should learn the lines – just in case.”

“Maybe,” Nydia said. “Then again, maybe I’ll be too busy playing a singing alien in
Doctor Who.”

“Just learn the words, OK?” I said pointedly.

“Why?” Nydia was curious. “What do you know, Ruby Parker?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I just feel it in my tummy that you should.”

“Sounds like indigestion to me,” Nydia said.