To Become A Star

Chapter 8: Cathy Brings it On

The shrill sound of a whistle pierced through the room as we hustled in. "Let's go, come on," Abby ordered, blowing on the whistle again. "No time to waste!" I was a little surprised by Abby's actual enthusiasm since last week while we were in Las Vegas, none of our dancers had done so well.

I was happy that that week was over, Abby had given me and Maddie a break last week so that Chloe could have a better chance at winning. I don't understand why Abby didn't give me a solo though, me and Chloe are in different age categories.

"Ladies, here we are in Los Angeles, California, for the iHollywood National finals, and you are in the city of dreams! There are going to be children that you recognize. The kids that are in the movies, the kids that are on television. These kids here in Los Angeles audition on a weekly basis. They are 'pros,' kind of like Kianna," Abby tells us, and it was probably an intimidation tactic so that we would work harder.

"Mackenzie, Maddie, your Mom is not here; we all make choices. She chose to be away instead of being here with you. So the two of you are gonna be with me this week. And you may get to do things that not everybody else gets to do. I'm gonna move on to our lovely pyramid and the bottom row, and I have..." 

Abby tore the paper off of the first two headshots in the bottom row. "Paige and Brooke. You will not be doing solos; you will be in the group number. Now I've had it out with your Mom; she has told me she can find better choreographers. I'm sure she could. This is Los Angeles, not Pittsburgh. But please understand if you go as an independent number, you're out, you're finished."

I tried to hold back a cringe, that was really harsh of her, but it made sense. You can't be on a competition team and do a dance that another choreographer did.

"Next, I have Nia and Mackenzie doing a duet. So, Chloe, you're going to be doing a solo as well as the group routine. Maddie, you will be doing a solo. And no surprise, Kianna, you're gonna be doing a duet this weekend. Now, remember you are almost undefeated. You have the best record of the entire team. People are out to get you. You're the one to beat."

She stared at me, making me nervous. I knew exactly how well I had done this season, but I didn't know that people were coming to competitions to beat me.

"Does everybody understand how big of an opportunity this is? Those judges at iHollywood are going to be people that are in a capacity to hire you. They are the people that choreograph for television and for film. So it's very important that you step on stage like pros. Do you understand?" She asked us, looking everybody in the eyes.

"Yes," We all nodded, moving away from each other when Abby gestured for us to start stretching.

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"Um, how about Abby taking care of Maddie and Mackenzie," Chelsea heard Kelly say as they watched the rehearsals. Honestly, it wasn't that big of a deal, Abby had taken care of Maddie and Mackenzie tons of different times when the team were at competitions out of state.

"And her saying 'You might do more things than the group.' Well, you know what the hell that's gonna be. Like she's gonna be taking them out..." She trailed off.

"To be 'seen,'" Holly finished. "Oh yeah," Christi agreed. "Getting their name out in L.A. while we sit at the pool," Kelly adds. "I really am still surprised that she picked her boyfriend over her kids," Christi admits.

"Like her kids, her eight and seven. That's pretty big. Maybe she has to take care of that relationship to make sure that this continues," Chelsea's frown deepened. She thought it was really rude that they were talking about Melissa's personal life on camera.