Face the Music (9 page)

Molly ran
to me
from the other room.
  I knelt down and held out my arms for a hug.  “Hey, baby!  How are you today?”  I buried my nose in her
blonde curls.  They
smelled like her strawberry shampoo.

“Hi Au
nt Allie!!  Look what I made.” 
She held up a picture of an orange and black butterfly.

“Wow, this is really pretty!  Did you do this all by yourself?”  She nodded.  “Are you learning about butterflies in preschool?”

“Uh-huh
!”  Molly
loved to learn.  She was
notorious for taking off with my textbooks
; she liked to flip through them and look at the pictures
. 
I’d find them under the couch and in her toy box. 
“Are we gonna
watch the star show tonight?” she asked, her blue eyes hopeful.

“Do you want to?”

“Yeah!  We’ll watch Chris sing!  He’s gonna win, right Aunt Allie?”

I chuckled.
Molly and I had decided early on
that Chris was the clear winner.
  “Sure baby, whatever you say.  You think about what you want for dinner tonight, okay?”

“I’m off,” said Emily, pulling on her coat.  “Don’t have too much fun tonight, y
ou two!  Bye, Molly, I love you
.”  She kissed us both on the cheek
and left
for her swing shift at the diner.

Molly decided on
fish sticks and peanut butter.  This kid came up with the strangest combinations when it came to food.  Luckily she was healthy and not overly picky, so Emily and I did our best to appease her
. 

She drug out her little pink CD player and sang some of her nursery rhymes while I cooked.  I sang along with a few, when I knew the words, and we danced around the kitchen as we waited for the
oven to heat
.

My phone vibrated on the counter.  A text message
, but I didn’t recognize the number
. 

Left ur
coa
t in the car.  Want me 2
swing by and drop it off?

I just stared at it, not immediately understanding.  It then dawned on me that it was from Chris, more than l
ikely sent late Saturday night, or early Sunday morning. 
Stupid phone.  I wondered how he got my number.  I made a mental note to ask Emily if she gave it to him.

Just then the show began. 
Molly jumped off the couch
and wriggled her little hips,
dancing to the theme music.  “I’m gonna be a Sup-a-star!”

I laughed and gathered her into m
y arms
.  “You do that, okay? I’ll come to all your concerts.”

She looked at me with big blue eyes and a dimple
d smile.  I kissed her forehead.

The opening act was the group performance I’d caught them practicing.  Riley got
all
her moves right, but Cynthia stumbled and almost fell.
  Too bad.  It would have been so much more entertaining if she had
actually
fallen.

After that were the individual performances.  Jimmy was first.  He sang an older
George Strait song.  It was okay.  Hard for me judge since I’ve nev
er been much of a country fan.  It all sounded like twangy
,
hillbilly music to me.

Cynthia was next.  She wore a
black
halter-top dress
and belted out the song from
Titanic
. 
In the background flashed scenes from the movie, and there must have been a fog machine somewhere near the stage because her feet were covered in smoke.  Her voice was powerful.  S
he didn’t miss a single note.  She certainly had talent, even if she was a bitch. 

After she was finished, Chris took the stage.  He had on a pair of worn Diesel jeans and a thin, clingy grey t-shirt that emphasized his broad chest.  I wondered what he looked like shirtless.  He was, undeniably, a very sexy man.

The stage went dark.  Everything was pitch black except for
the
red strobe lights flashing
in
the back
. 
When the music started
I couldn’t believe my ears. 
He was going to sing
I Dare You
, by Shinedown.  I
t was one of my favorite songs. 

Chris’s voice was the perfect match for it. 
Deep, rich, and
slightly gritty. 
What started out mellow grew
into something really intense.  B
y the end
,
Chris was nearly screaming into the microphone.  The muscles in his neck bulged as he held the last few notes
.  Flames danced on the big screens that surrounded the stage, and a shower of sparks burned along the front. 

The whole performance was off the top.  I didn’t know how he did it
, how he
packed so much energy into a performance
.  I was exhausted just by watching, b
ut he didn’t even look winded.

Eddie stood up and clapped.  “Chris, Chris!  Just when I think you’ve got no room to grow, you go and do something like that!”  He fanned himself.  “Lord, I am so hot right now, just dripping with sweat.” 
He
surprised Lucy by grabbing
her
hand
and
wiping it across
his forehead.
  “See?”

She squea
led.  “
Ewwww! 
Eddie!  That is nasty
!  I cannot believe you just did that.”  After making a show of wiping her hand on her pants, she calmed down and turned her attention to Chris.  “You had a good time with that, didn’t you?”

He beamed.  “Yeah, I did.  It was a lot of fun.”

“It showed.  That was the perfect song for you.
  Totally chill.
”

Stella leaned forward.  “I agree.  You’ve shown some real growth over this past week.”

The audience roared.

Bradley McKnight joined Chris on the stage.  “What inspired the song choice, if I may ask?”

Chris gazed into the camera with a smoldering lo
ok that would have made any girl’s
core
temperature rise
.  I shuddered.  I sure didn’t envy the contestants who had to follow him.

“A friend,
”
he said.

Sabrina
was the
last
to go.  She did an okay job with her song
,
but forgot some
of the words half-way through and
stumbled through the rest of the performance.  It
ended in a complete disaster.

The judges had harsh words for her and decided it was her week to go.  I hated to see
that
; the kids were my only job security.  Once they were all gone there would be no reason
for me to stay, and then what?  This job was the only thing keeping me and Emily in our apartment.

I tucked Molly into bed
and checked my email.  I didn’t have much, a few questions from the students over at the university and a
forward from Emily. 

I
then
checked out the newsfeed on Yahoo and saw pictures from tonight’s performance.  I clicked on one of them and was redirected to a different page that was plastered with pictures of the Stars. 
It was scary, really.  Most of them were candid, taken without notice during off-show hours.  Jimmy’s profile, Sam sipping a drink at McDonalds, and Chris walking into the studio hotel.