“Ten minutes,” Billie, my manager, warns when she catches me preparing to duck out of the room.
After they finish taping the song, I’m supposed to do an interview with Jimmy to promote the tour. When I glance over my shoulder, Billie’s face is fixed in the maternal scowl she always wears.
She’s forty and has no kids of her own, so she’s sort of adopted me. I shouldn’t complain, but it’s been years since I was in anything but a group home, and let’s just say the foster families I lived with before that weren’t in it for the love of children. I’m not used to having to answer to anyone, and Billie is like an overprotective mama bear. But I’m living in her world now. She gets how it works and handles everything so I don’t have to. For that alone, she’s worth her weight in gold.
My head nods automatically as I slip out the door into a short hallway that leads backstage. In an alcove around the corner from the sound and light boards, I spotted a stack of crates on my way in. On each side the square crates are stacked three high, but in the middle there are only two, forming a recess. I test them and decide they’re sturdy enough to hold my hundred and ten pounds. I find hand and foot holds, climb the middle stack, and tuck into the shadows, sliding back against the wall and pulling my knees up to my chest. My arms wrap around them and I melt into the massive twist of cords, speakers, and other various sound equipment spilling from the crates.
The first thing I do now when I walk onto a set or a studio is scope out spots like this where I can vanish when there’s downtime. Billie calls me Diva because she thinks I think I’m too good to mingle with the rabble in the Green Room. It has nothing to do with that. If anything, it’s the opposite. I’ve met some of the hugest stars in Hollywood in Green Rooms over the last seven months, and it’s me who clearly doesn’t belong. It really has everything to do with just being Shiloh Luck for a few minutes, instead of the sixteen-year-old phenom who won The Voice last winter.
The concrete wall feels cool against my back and I drink it in. In about five minutes, I’ll be roasting under the blaring stage lights. I close my eyes and lean back, letting the music from the stage vibrate through the wall into my bones. This is what it’s all about, I remind myself. I wanted my life to be all about music, and now it is.
I guess I should feel lucky that it’s been seven months and I seem to be building a fan base instead of seeing mine dwindle the way so many before me have. The Voice runs a winter and spring season and Billie says the spring winner, who was crowned the new Voice only a month ago, is already forgotten. She says I have staying power because I’m the most unique and talented winner to ever come out of The Voice.
I don’t believe her.
The first two singles off my CD released in March and May, ahead of the launch of the full CD this month. Both hit the top ten on Billboard’s charts and they’ve been holding. I’m the opening act for the North American leg of Roadkill’s world tour, thanks to the record label I share with them. Considering they’re the hottest thing out there right now, I should be over the fucking moon.
But the only track on my entire CD that I feel good about is the original song I sang in the finals of The Voice. My best friend Lilah has a gift for writing music that’s amazing but not the same as everything that’s already out there. It’s the reason everyone’s so convinced I’m unique. I gave the producer five more of my favorites of Lilah’s, the ones we used to sing together in the BART stations of San Francisco. He rejected every single one. Instead, they gave me a bunch of vanilla fluff. Nothing stands out. Nothing is going to keep listeners coming back.
It’s only a matter of time before people realize I’m nothing special and give up on me.
On the other side of the wall, Jimmy and Tro wrap up with flurry on the xylophone, triangle, and cowbells. A lingering kazoo hits the final note and I hear the crew cut to a break. They’ll insert a commercial in this spot when they air the show tonight.
I pull my back off the wall and lean my forehead onto my bent knees.
One. Two. Three deep breaths, pumping myself up for what comes next. People I’m supposed to smile at. Questions I’m supposed to answer wittily. Hundreds of eyes on me that I’m not supposed to be affected by. No big deal that if I fuck up and say the wrong thing, game over.
“That bad?”
The deep male voice rumbles through me, smooth in the middle but rough all around the edges.