Chapter 9 #3
It’s going to be difficult to piece together every person that auditioned.
This is a nightmare. I feel myself flush guiltily.
It’s all my fault. I was the last one in here.
I must have left the door open. Luckily, no one has any idea about this.
No one will know until they watch the CCTV footage.
At the thought of them watching the footage, my body breaks out into a hot flush.
My whole being flares as hot as an Olympic torch.
It’s at this exact moment that Marco glances over at me.
Attention is the last thing I need. I turn my back on him and pretend to be looking at a clipboard.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks, and it genuinely sounds as if he’s concerned.
‘Yes,’ I say with a brightness I am clearly not feeling. ‘It’s just… I should get on with this.’
‘Well,’ Fitz says, with an equal brightness, only hers seems genuine. Not surprising since Fitz didn’t bugger up two weeks’ worth of auditions, so I guess she can afford the jaunty tone. ‘Looks like you’ve all got your little old plans sorted, so…’ She snakes an arm around Marco’s waist.
Suddenly, my heart sinks and this time it’s not the proximity of this glorious goddess to a man I would so love to attach myself to.
No, this time, the sinking heart has a much more tangible target; a familiar melody blasts through the speakers, a Donna Summer track, and a shiver runs down my spine.
I know that song. I recorded a version of it just yesterday.
The intro plays out slowly. It’s probably not my recording, I think.
There’s no need to panic. I’d used someone else’s soundtrack.
But horror of horror, my knees falter as my voice echoes out from the speakers, soft and clear, right on note, every decibel mine.
I would love for the floor to just swallow me right then and there without a trace.
But, since there’s no earthquake on the horizon, I lunge towards the sound deck, desperate to remove the thing.
‘I think that’s a…’ I feel the colour rising in my cheeks. My face is so hot it’s practically sizzling. My fingers reach out, inches from the stop button.
‘Hey.’ Marco grabs my hand. His eyes widen, and for one earth-stopping moment, his deep brown eyes gaze into mine.
Irritated, Fitz rocks forward onto the balls of her toes. ‘Marco?’ she whines.
‘Shh,’ he says sharply.
Hands out defensively, as if warding me off, he lets the track play on, staring at the speakers in something like wonder. I freeze in place, panic, and a curious sense of exhilaration wars inside me. Actually, I sound okay.
When the whole thing has played through, there’s absolute silence in the office. Silence until Marco raps one hand in a sharp trill across the reception counter. ‘Did you all hear that? Did you hear that amazing voice?’ His eyes are shining in ecstasy.
I swallow hard, struggling to keep my expression neutral. ‘I… it was lovely, yes,’ I say in my smallest voice ever, in case they recognise it from the track that’s just been blaring on all speakers through the studio. ‘Very talented.’
‘Wow,’ Jeff says.
Terry smiles. ‘That there, that’s our winner.’
‘Was that just…’ Betsy appears in her doorway. ‘Who was that?’
‘I liked it,’ Fitz says with a shrug. ‘Definitely, I’d say we go with that one. She was lovely.’
‘Lovely?’ Marco scoffs. ‘That was transcendent. Angelic. Perfection given form.’
Fitz rolls her eyes once again as if to say he’s always so over the top.
‘Well?’ Marco barks.
Everyone looks blank.
‘Come on, who is she? What day was she in? A voice like that, someone must remember.’
Everyone looks blank.
Betsy crosses her arms over her large chest. ‘If I had heard a voice like that, I would have remembered.’
I’m saying nothing. There are two practically priceless guitars missing from the walls and a whole mess of an admin situation going on because I happened to leave the door to the studio open.
No way am I going to tell them it’s my voice on the tape, and there’s not a chance in hell that I’m going to admit to recording it late last night just before the office got turned over.
Marco drags a hand down his face with a groan. ‘Christ, I’m losing my mind. That voice. Clara…’ He turns to me.
Yet again, I feel weak at the knees; what the hell am I going to do now? He’s found me out. Those guitars are worth more than my mortgage. I’m brewing a crush on an unachievable love interest. He’s…
‘You said you signed everyone in downstairs?’
I nod, relief washing over me. ‘Maybe I missed a few, but most of them I got because of the lanyards. I can tie that in with the call sheets.’ Useful, I think to myself, just hold on to being useful.
‘Great.’ He draws in a long breath.
‘But…’ Jeff is frowning. ‘I just don’t remember that…’ He waves towards the deck. ‘I mean, I’m pretty sure I would if I’d heard it.’
Terry scratches his chin. ‘Maybe we didn’t see her. Is there anything else on that tape?’
Jeff rewinds it through the machine. ‘No, it’s blank apart from that one song.’
‘Hmm.’ Terry’s eyes narrow. ‘It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?’
‘I mean, we would definitely have noticed a voice like that.’ Jeff stares at the tape.
‘So,’ Marco says, drawing out the word. ‘You’re thinking maybe someone brought a demo tape in and just left it? They didn’t audition, so we didn’t hear them live?’
I have no intention of getting involved in this. ‘Anyone want breakfast?’ I ask brightly. I’d love to be anywhere but here.
‘No,’ all the men say together, as though they’ve got good old Evelyn waving her conductor’s baton to keep them in sync.
‘Next, you’re going to say it was the burglar!’ Betsy laughs unkindly, but I can’t help noticing that she hasn’t crossed her arms. She’s intrigued by the voice, too.
Marco takes the cassette in his fingers. ‘These are pretty standard. Get them anywhere.’
Like in this very studio, I think, but I’m clearly not going to add that kind of useful to the mix.
‘My guess is,’ Marco nods his head sagely, ‘someone left it here by accident. One of the auditions. Someone came in to support a friend auditioning and…’
‘So.’ Jeff smiles, the bright spark of an idea catching in his eyes. ‘They might not even have been auditioning. It could even be a professional, a teacher, or someone they’re trying to emulate.’
Marco nods. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Marco,’ Fitz whines. ‘You’ve found your “voice”. Let’s go for brekky. The guys can handle it from here.’ She glances around the room. ‘Right, boys?’
I don’t know how I fit in with the ‘boys’ but I get the feeling I’m included.
‘If you want to find this woman,’ Fitz continues. ‘I mean, yes, she was good. I like the tune thing. Although it was kind of old, so I’m guessing she’s old.’
Donna Summer is a classic, but I don’t bother to pick her up on that.
‘People will know her. Just go to all the clubs in town.’ Fitz shrugs easily. ‘If she’s that good, she’s bound to be singing somewhere.’
‘Ah ha!’ Marco jumps up from where he’s been perched and spins Fitz around in a whirl like she is just the brightest and the best. Like they’re kids. Just like they’re kids.
In turn, Fitz tips back her head and laughs. ‘You are crazy, Marco Delagado.’
Oh dear, I think, watching with envy as she does a full rotation, her dark curtain of hair spinning, her white teeth flashing like a lighthouse, his lovely thick, tanned arms wrapped around her tiny waist. This man is clearly not available.
‘And you, Fitz, have the best ideas,’ Marco says as he pulls away from her.
I feel sick. He’s clearly in love with this woman. Of course, he is. Who wouldn’t be?
‘Clara, get on with redoing the call sheets, just in case,’ he throws out.
Well, that’s me sorted, I think, feeling my shoulders cave at the thought – Mrs Dogsbody.
Betsy frowns. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
Marco scowls.
‘Clara isn’t even on the payroll.’
Marco shoots Betsy a hard look. ‘Then get her a contract. We’ve got work to do.’
Fitz laughs. ‘I love it when you act all big and bossy, Marco Delagado. I’ll just…’ She waves her arm behind her. ‘Little girl’s room.’
Seriously? Little girl’s room? It’s like someone abandoned a toddler at a theme park.
I eye Marco cautiously. Perhaps that’s it, they’re both like children when they’re together.
Is this how all rich people act? Maybe it’s because they simply don’t have to come face to face with reality.
Okay, so it was me that caused the panic, but for some reason, Fitz has no true grasp as to what kind of a problem she’s just minced out of.
The woman is supposed to be a shareholder!
She may be beautiful, but she does seem a little vacant.
We may have located a voice, a voice that is, of course, totally unsuitable because it’s mine.
But all this is beside the point. Does Fitz have any idea as to the severity of the situation?
She may be gorgeous to look at, but what’s a man like Marco doing with that…
that… I so want to call her an airhead. I really do, but somehow, there’s something so childishly joyous about her that I can’t help thinking it would be wonderful to be Fitz.
Even for an hour. Just to be that carefree.
Just to have a man like Marco on my arm and a glowing life ahead of me, one in which it doesn’t matter if any given situation goes belly-up, there’s always pancakes for breakfast in a perfect world.
People like Fitz skate through life. It will never be her dealing the bad news; standing in front of the media-hungry press gangs, telling them we’ve lost the auditions and have no idea who should have won. It wouldn’t even occur to her to get worried. It was somebody else’s problem.
‘And, Clara,’ Marco says, rewinding the tape. Playing it, letting my recorded voice spill out once again into the room. ‘You’re with me tonight, scouring the clubs.’
There’s no, do you mind? Or, are you busy; or, sorry to trouble you with this, but could you?
Nope. Marco is a man who just expects star jumps if called for.
Normally, that would get so far up my nose I’d probably be incapable of breathing, so why in the hell am I standing there all bright-eyed and simpering, nodding my head as though I’m two bacon and egg sandwiches short of the full, cognitive Monty?