Chapter 24
Thirty contestants are leaving the show today.
Ten per team. It’s chaos. The dressing room is hot and stuffy.
As people rush past, they bump or brush against one another, adding to the frantic energy.
A mix of sweat and body odor hangs heavily in the air, mingling with the scent of hair spray and perfume.
It’s a reminder of the intense physical and emotional effort put into the show.
The sound of screaming mothers makes me feel right at home.
It reminds me so much of my macaws, I’m fighting the urge to feed them little cubes of papaya.
Simón watches from a corner, horrified. The show has sent people home before, but this is different.
These are his kids. He coached them, gave them singing and performing lessons.
He spent time with them and got to know them.
And now he has to tell them they’re not good enough. The other two coaches are unbothered.
“That’s the job,” Irina claimed. “If these kids expect to make it, they better get used to rejection.”
Simón masks his discomfort as he’s standing across the room from me.
He looks every bit the part of a proud coach; every day we’ve worked together I’ve watched Simón be nothing but the most encouraging coach to these kids.
The adult in the room. Today, surrounded by ten potential dreams about to be shattered, it occurs to me how young we really are.
How young he really is. How not too long ago, he was begging someone else for a chance.
Older, sure. Wiser, maybe. But still, just a person with a dream.
I move toward him, like a pin to a magnet.
Stepping over a puddle of vomit, zigzagging between pale children and angry parents, pretending my job isn’t my job.
Pretending I’m here for support. As his friend.
I tap his shoulder. He turns to me, eyes wide.
Last night rushes through my mind and I feel a sudden wave of affection for him, remembering.
The two of us sitting together, hands clasped, shoulders touching…
We can be friends. We are friends. The vow doesn’t have to be only about our careers. It can be about us too.
“Hi.” I drop my voice so only he can hear. Not that it’d be hard with all the screaming. “Shouldn’t you be out there?”
Simón nods, his arms crossed tightly in front of him. His attention moves back to the kids, his brows furrowed and forehead creased in frustration. Then he sighs. I can’t help but feel a twinge of worry for him.
“I can’t do it,” he says, shaking his head almost in defeat.
My heart aches at the sight of him like this. “Simón—”
“I’m serious,” he cuts me off. “I know who’s leaving and I can’t do it.”
The urge to reach up and touch him, hold his hand in support the way we did sitting on the office floor, is like a pulsing wound. Hard to ignore. Demanding to be soothed. But I can’t.
“There’s nothing you could have done to make them all win,” I say instead. “You know that, don’t you?”
“But couldn’t I just…pretend to be dead? Like a possum? Until this is over?”
I laugh, despite myself. “You’re making them nervous. Why don’t you join Irina and Federico outside?” He hesitates. His expression is pained. I give up and touch his shoulder, squeezing softly. “They’ll be fine.”
Simón’s gaze darts to the spot where I’m touching him, so fast I could easily convince myself I imagined it, then moves back up to meet my eyes. He gulps, then gives me a tight smile before he steps back and leaves.
I command my face not to warm, not to give me away.
But before he walks through the door, Simón looks over his shoulder at me and smiles, genuinely this time.
My heart beats so fast it could leap out of my chest as I stand there, watching the door fall shut behind him in slow motion.
Bells ring in my ears. Warning bells? Maybe.
But I don’t have time to linger on them, or on the instant void in the room now that he’s left.
I shake my head once and swallow the rush of conflicting feelings back down. I clap my hands twice, the way my history teacher used to when we were being particularly loud. “Listen up!”
Twenty pairs of eyes turn in my direction. “Who wants to make Mr. Arreaza a card?” Twenty sets of hands shoot up.
—
The day ended quietly. No confetti cannons, no hugs, entirely too many tears.
Children cried, parents cried…I cried. Simón, usually ready to make conversation with anyone about anything, went silent after Mileidy announced we’d wrapped.
He stood alone by the door, nose deep in his phone.
He seemed exhausted, worn. The circles under his eyes were visible even through makeup.
Mileidy had made reservations for the cast, producers, and directors to go to dinner together.
No assistants. It was the best news I’d heard all week.
I was already anticipating the silence that awaited me in my apartment, knowing my mother would be gone for hours; I could feel the cotton pj’s I was going to wear.
The things I’d started to dream about since I started this job were pathetic.
But, right then, all I could think about was my bed and a huge arepa con queso for dinner, watching Pride and Prejudice (2005, duh), and how I’d go to bed and sleep in past 5:00 a.m. because Mileidy gave us Friday off.
And then, a single sentence burst my bubble:
“Are we ready to leave?” Simón asked beside me. I didn’t even hear him approach.
“You’re not going to dinner?”
“No,” he said. “Ready when you are.”
So now Simón and I are standing in front of his hotel’s restaurant’s closed doors.
There is a sign on the glass surface, right above the door handle, claiming the restaurant is open until nine.
I check my watch. It’s 9:34 p.m. They can’t be serious.
What kind of hotel restaurant closes at nine?
There must be people still eating there.
The stove must still be hot. I knock on the glass.
Simón clears his throat. When I look up at him, he’s pointing at the small letters under the closing sign.
Room service until 11:00 p.m.
“Your room or mine?” Simón asks.
Warmth instantly creeps up my neck. Even if I had a room here, I wouldn’t let him in it.
Although I don’t trust myself enough to not conjure a dream version of him in my bedroom at home or keep my mind from making up stories where he’s not Simón Arreaza, lead singer of my favorite band, and I’m not… me.
I better go, is what I should say. Or any number of similar things—It’s late, you’re probably tired, you should get some rest. I can’t be alone with you, it doesn’t go with the plan. Nothing is going according to plan.
But my stomach growls, I’m starving. And it’s Simón. And, lately, I can’t say no to either of those things.
He watches me expectantly. His expression is not pinched with worry or fear. There are bags under his eyes and redness around his irises. And patience. Like he knows what I’m going to say, he’s simply waiting for me to say it:
“Yours.”
It’s one word. Small. Five letters. An answer within an answer to a question within a question:
Will you stay?
Yes.
Simón grins, his eyes twinkling like Christmas lights. I swallow a gasp. Immediately, I turn my back on him and march down the hall.
Alexa, play “Bad Idea” by Ian McConnell.
We ride the elevator in silence. Walk down the hall in silence. It’s only when he slides his key card into the lock and opens the door that he says, “Do you mind if I take a quick shower?” gesturing to the bathroom, directly to our right.
I shake my head. “Go ahead.” If I spent my day shattering other people’s dreams, I’d want to shower as soon as possible too.
He disappears behind the bathroom door. Two seconds later, I hear water running, so I wander deeper into the room.
It’s cozy, clean. The bed is made to perfection; the corners of the mattress almost look sharp.
But it doesn’t smell like cleaning products or chemicals. It smells like cologne, like Simón.
“Don’t wait for me to call the restaurant, you must be starving!” I jump at the sound of his voice from the bathroom.
“Okay. What are you having?”
“Something light,” he replies.
Club sandwich for both of us then. I order our dinner and as soon as I hang up the phone, I have nothing to do for the first time all day. I sit at the round table next to the phone and rest my head back against the wall.
Behind me, in the bathroom, Simón hums. The sound, enhanced by the bathroom echo, is soothing. Almost celestial. I can’t make out the song, but I close my eyes and let myself enjoy it while nobody is watching.
How often do you get a private humming concert from your favorite singer? I have better odds of getting hit by lightning.
Without permission, my mind wanders to a place where this is my everyday life—magical hotel lobbies, late nights ordering room service while someone I care about hums in the shower.
Then we eat, and whine to each other about how tired we are but end up laughing about it anyway.
He could tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, or move his fingers down my jaw until he’s cupping my neck, or pull me in for a kiss.
I could run my hands through his wet hair. He could smile against my lips, and I—
“Todo bien?”
My eyes snap open, face blazing. It’s probably tomato red right now. I swallow through a lump in my throat and nod, sitting up.
“Food’s not here yet?” he asks.
I shake my head, unable to meet his eyes. “They said fifteen minutes.”
“Ah.”
He doesn’t sit across from me at the table.
Instead, he moves around the room in sweatpants and a worn-down Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt that is a little big on him around the neck.
His hair is brushed back behind him, soaking the shirt where it drips.
He bends over the bed to pick something up.
When he straightens, he’s holding a guitar.