Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Topaz Tango

Sideburns on teen boys? Temple wondered. When did the world turn back to the seventies when she was born?

“You’re just pimping your dance partner,” Patrisha said with a, well, patrician sneer. “I got Brandon, babe. He has that delicious name and that open shirt and tie bit going. Speaking of bite—I may go gaga vampire on stage.”

Temple blushed at this open teen lust.

“Chris is cool,” tomboy Meg-Ann added matter-of-factly. “That back flip he did on the last tour was awesome. He’ll win this thing hands down, literally.” She glanced politely at the tongue-tied Russian girl. “You like your guy, EK?”

“Adam has very nice curly hair.”

“Wuss!” Sou-Sou hooted.

“And he has much better rhythm and tempo than the other boys.” EK sounded positively assertive for a change. “We will do very well together.”

A silence prevailed. Girly had gone gritty. Each one of these girls was highly competitive, far more than the already famous boys, probably.

Mariah, on the sidelines with Temple, leaned against the ladder.

“EK’s right. Adam is the youngest, but he’s the least anxious to impress the girls, rather than the judges. The older brothers think they’re so big boy and hot! They’re such a pain.” She rolled her eyes.

Mama Molina would be happy to hear her only daughter dissing smooth older boys.

Temple wasn’t.

There was as much rivalry, gender maneuvering, and naked ambition among the junior dancers as among their supposedly wiser and older counterparts.

Musing about naked ambition, Temple escaped the adjoining rehearsal rooms for the ballroom performance area and looked up her most likely source for an inside view on the show personnel.

Unfortunately, that was her least favorite person, Crawford Buchanan.

She cornered him in the backstage area, already preening in penguin evening dress.

“How did you get the emcee gig for this event?” she demanded.

It took him a moment to recognize her previous disguise from the Teen Queen house.

“Well, if it isn’t the one-girl brat pack. How’d you arrange to emcee the junior division?” he shot back. “I guess you go where your Teen Queen little buddy girl goes, the cop’s daughter who got me into so much trouble. Guess she didn’t run away after all.”

“Mariah was never lost,” Temple lied. “And Zoe Chloe Ozone is an online diva in high personal demand.”

“So am I.”

“You?”

“Check it out. I’m the Dick Clark of the West Coast.”

Dick Clark had founded the teen music TV show, American Bandstand, in the fifties, and, forever young, had been a major figure in TV and pop music until his stroke a few years ago. To imagine Crawford Buchanan enduring another forty years like his on-air idol was revolting.

“‘Dick’ is so right,” Temple retorted. “I need a quick rundown of who’s who and what’s what. How long does this show run?”

“It runs all the lighter attendance nights in Vegas, starting Sunday to finish with a flourish on Thursday, when all the weekend crowds come in. We introduce the contenders tonight with a dance de jour, then they have the next day to rehearse a new dance with their proteacher and present it that night, and so on until the Friday grand awards ceremony.”

“Who’s all participating?”

Crawford finally had a chance to show true form and leer at her. “Checking up on the competition your sweetie is facing, huh? I see you and Matt ‘Mr. Sob Story Radio’ Devine hanging together. José ‘Hot Hips’ Juarez, the Olympic fencer, will samba him off the stage.”

“Blimey, Crawf ‘the Barf Bag’ Buchanan! Are you going to introduce every contestant with those ‘quotes included’ nicknames? Pretty lame emceeing. Come on, tell me who’s in the whole cast, besides Mr. Olympic Olé.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” Buchanan said. “So hold your horses, honey, and weep.”

Temple wanted to say she was a designated police snitch, but she was sworn to secrecy on that. She stomped her foot so hard he jumped to save his patent leather slip-on shoes from danger of smudging.

“My horses say your hide is history,” she said.

At that instant the tons of teenyboppers in line recognized their fave YouTube Girl.

With a screech, a wave of them surrounded Zoe Chloe, pushing Crawford Buchanan out of the bright lights of the roving videographers.

He turned away, hunching against the sound and fury. If this were a Victorian melodrama, he’d be muttering, “Curses, foiled again!” into his mustache.

Temple was only able to ditch Zoe Chloe’s fans by signing about a hundred autographs and escaping into the maze of rehearsal, makeup, and wardrobe rooms. Major hotels could tailor-make spaces with portable walls to fit any event.

While she shook her aching right hand and wrist, she quickly toured the facilities.

Separate dressing and makeup rooms were assigned the male and female adult and junior dancers. She encountered Mariah outside the female junior rooms, along with Rafi Nadir. Temple thought Molina would cringe to see the pair camped out on metal folding chairs, chatting like buddies.

“Where’s our Glorious Leader?” Temple asked. “Liaising between the hotel and competition and media and the police people,” Rafi told her seriously. “Rotten job. And all the while playing in character as your obnoxious agent. The police are in on the joke, but they’ll never let her forget it at work later.”

“It’s so totally cool that I have an obnoxious agent,” Zoe Chloe trilled. “Mariah here can learn how to rep her ‘talent.’ ”

“Have you seen your boyfriend yet?” he asked.

“My boyfriend is in a boy band,” Zoe announced as some tech workers passed by. She lowered her voice. “I clued Matt in, but maybe Mariah’s mom will do more of it. It was a fast phone call. Zoe Chloe would sooo not hang with an older guy unless he was Ashton Kutcher.”

Rafi chuckled.

“You see something funny in this situation, dude?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah. I see the new, New Age Molina telling your straight-arrow boyfriend that we are all here on police business and he needs to play along. Exasperation becomes her.”

Temple glanced at Mariah, who was watching Rafi with a certain hero worship of his obvious disregard for her mother’s authority, if not the outright adoration she rained on Matt. Temple couldn’t say what she wanted to in front of the kid but realized she wouldn’t have traded places with Molina for all the cool jazz arrangements in ASCAP.

Undressed Rehearsal

Just like on Dancing With the Stars , Temple discovered, the local Celebs stars got only one dress rehearsal, two hours before the live show.

Four couples doing a minute-and-a-half routine didn’t seem like it would be a big production, but they had to rehearse the opening intro, coordinating with the live band and backup singers, and wrestling the buttons, bows, and spangles on the elaborate costuming that had been cooked up literally overnight.

(This was Vegas, baby! Costumes were the equivalent of street clothes here on the Strip.)

Zoe Chloe settled down in the front center row of audience seats, her bodyguards-cum-posse at her side. Louie prowled the area, his favorite perch being the empty judges’ table, where he sprawled finally to yawn, scratch, and lick his privates throughout all the rehearsed numbers, greatly amusing the crew.

“Two hours wasted,” Rafi groaned, “to watch amateur twinkletoes. Private cop work is worse than public cop work.”

“Anything might happen,” Molina snapped. “A life may be at stake, given the threats, and it’s on your turf and your watch.”