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Chapter 15
Ali
Iputmyhandup to block the ray of light that seemed like it could be blasting from the sun itself. “Sorry!” someone called. “Wrong switch!”I’ll say. Damn. As if this stupid interview isn’t stressful enough.The spotlight changed to a more appropriate level.
To tide over the audience until the next performance show aired, theSing Battleproducers were having the partners interview one another. Unfortunately, the interview questions weren’t provided to us ahead of time, so I couldn’t prepare. All the surprises the show was throwing at us was enough to give a planner like me hives. While the show wasn’t live, it might as well have been. They didn’t do reshoots, so if I made a fool of myself, America would see it. They were all about the show being “authentic.” Their repeated use of the term made me snort—everything about the show was carefully orchestrated.
Trenton and I were sitting across from one another in lounge chairs, and I was wearing one of the new dresses I’d bought. I wished I’d worn pants. Thus far, I hadn’t sat during filming while wearing a dress or skirt, and I was petrified I’d shift the wrong way and they’d be forced to use the blur feature on my crotch to save the footage.Aye yai yai.
A production assistant handed each of us a stack of index cards with questions printed on them. “You have three minutes to sort through the cards and put your favorite questions on top. We’ll only film until the director tells us we have enough usable footage, so that could be five minutes or thirty. If there’s a question you really want to ask, don’t wait. Think of this as a conversation.”
“Got it,” Trenton said, already sorting through his cards.
I studied him. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d taken me back to my hotel the day after Thanksgiving. He’d walked me to my room, which led to a sizzling good-bye kiss, which led to even more scorching naked activities. For the next few days, we’d texted back and forth like usual, like nothing had changed. But everything had changed.Hadn’t it?Or did our night together make it a two-night stand? I didn’t believe that, but nothing he’d said since then gave me a clue what he was thinking.
Trenton must have felt me staring it him. He looked up and grinned. “Are you going to go easy on me?”
Shit.I hadn’t even looked at the first question. “Where’s the fun in that?”
I fumbled through the cards, trying to make up for the minute I’d wasted by looking at him. Not that I would never call looking at Trenton wasted time.
Some of the questions were silly, likewhat’s your favorite color?Orwhat’s your shoe size?I highly doubted the answers to those questions would create riveting footage that would make it onto the show. Other questions were slightly more interesting, likewho was your first celebrity crush?Andwhat was your first date like?I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers to either of those questions, to be honest. I had no right to be jealous, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t be. I didn’t want to risk giving life to the ugly green monster on camera.
“We’re ready to roll,” the assistant called. “Trenton, do you want to go first?”
Shit, shit, shit.I’d only gotten halfway through the cards, so I would have to pick at random when it was my turn.
“Sure,” he replied easily. For someone who didn’t like interviews, he sure was taking it in stride. “Let’s start with an easy one. What is the best gift you’ve ever gotten?”
I grinned as a memory came to mind immediately. That onewaseasy. “A karaoke machine. My grandmother gave it to me on my tenth birthday.”
Considering she’d given birth to and raised my mother, my grandmother had been an angel—loving, accepting, and nurturing. She hadn’t cared that I had little interest in classical music. Sadly, she died when I was in high school. Sometimes, I wondered if I wouldn’t have tried so hard to please my mother by getting a vocal music degree if Grandma had still been alive. She’d been the only one to accept me as I was.
Damn.We were only on the first question, and I was already delving into topics and emotions I’d rather not explore on national television.
“Nice,” Trenton said. “Is that when your love of singing started?”
It took me a second to realize he was going off script.Shit.Were we supposed to ask follow-up questions? Perhaps that was what the assistant had meant when she’d said to think of the interview as a conversation.
“I’ve always loved singing. We have pictures of me singing into a toy microphone while I was still in diapers.”
Trenton chuckled. “Cute. Maybe we can get your parents to send us some.”
I doubted it, but I didn’t say so. As far as I knew, my mother was still icing me out. “My turn.” I looked down at my stack of cards and plucked one at random. If it was a sucky question, they could edit it out. “Do you listen to any podcasts?”
“Nope, sorry.”
“Oh.” Not much of a conversation starter there. Why did they bother with questions like those? Of course, if all the contestants were given different questions, then they must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with some of them.
“Do you want to ask another question?” Trenton offered.
“Sure, uh…” I flipped through the cards again, trying to find a better one. “If you could invent an ice cream flavor, what would it be?”
“Bacon.”
I blinked at how rapidly he answered. “Bacon?”
“Bacon,” he said confidently. “There is never a bad time for bacon.”
