“I auditioned as a solo act but was put into a group with three other lads for the finals. They called us Four Score, which we thought was a terrible name, but it wasn’t up to us and we knew we had to trust the judges, trust the mentors, and listen to what they told us. The judge who mentored us said he wanted us to be the next big boy band, singing power ballads and catchy pop tunes. That all sounded pretty good to me. I was still amazed I’d reached the finals. I’d wanted to get into the music business since I was a kid, and although I’d played with bands while I was in school and all that sort of stuff, I understood how hard it was to get a big break. Now, here I was on this music show that might give me everything I’d ever hoped for.”
Grace saw the wistful look on his face as he spoke. She squeezed his hand, understanding that this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“So, there I was, an eighteen-year-old lad with stars in my eyes and the idea that I was about to become the next big thing in the music business,” Ryan continued. “I had a decent voice and I could play guitar and piano, and I was writing my own songs, too. Being flung into a band with three other lads I’d only just met was a big adjustment, but that’s how these things happened back then. And the truth was, it was fun, at least to begin with. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t all having a laugh and enjoying ourselves. Of course we were. We were just kids.”
The wistful look was there again, as if he was reliving those days from long ago. Then he shifted on the sofa and cleared his throat, his expression turning serious.
“Anyway, we were two weeks into filming the finals on stage when the production crew found out that I’d become involved with another contestant on the show. Her name was Megan, and she was a singer in one of the girl bands that had made it into the finals. I liked her a lot and I think she liked me, too. We were caught up in this mad, unreal environment where everything was going at a thousand miles an hour. The emotions, the excitement of the show, the fact that we were both only eighteen… it was a heady mix that went straight to our heads. Well, it all went tomyhead, at least.”
Ryan fiddled with the guitar plectrum he was still holding, turning it over in his fingers before he spoke again.
“When the production crew found out we were seeing each other, they saw an opportunity to create some drama and publicity for the show. Two young wannabe pop stars who were in a new relationship and appearing on stage in a music competition to sing their hearts out? It was too good an opportunity to pass up. And maybe if they’d just tipped thetabloids off about our relationship and left it at that, things might have been fine. We would’ve had our photos taken and been chased around by paparazzi, because that’s what happens to young pop stars. I was smart enough, even then, to understand all of that, and I knew it wasn’t just about the music. But the production team took things to a completely new level in order to create controversy in the hope it would provide the ratings boost they desperately needed.”
Grace realised she was wincing, waiting for Ryan to reveal what had happened. If she’d watched the show all those years ago, perhaps she’d remember, but the programme barely registered in her memory.
That, she thought, was probably a good thing. She squeezed Ryan’s hand again, offering encouragement.
“The production staff and our group mentor took me aside and said they thought it was lovely that Megan and I were beginning a relationship together. They said they’d had an idea for what Four Score ought to sing in the next round we were due to film, and suggested we perform a romantic ballad with me on lead vocals, and at the end of the song, they said I should dedicate the song to Megan, to show her how much I cared for her. Then they suggested it shouldn’t just be any romantic ballad, but one of my own songs.”
Ryan shifted on the sofa, his expression troubled as he continued talking.
“They knew I wrote songs, and most of the crew had probably heard me playing between rehearsals and filming. The opportunity to perform a song up on stage that I’d written, not just for the judges but for the viewers and for any music producers out there who might be listening, well, it was an amazing chance. And the idea of singing a song just for Megan… well, that appealed to the hopeless eighteen-year-old romantic in me. I had a song I thought would be perfect, one I’d beenworking on for a while. Once the lads in the band were told we’d be performing a song I wrote, we all got stuck in to the rehearsals. They all seemed happy for me.”
Ryan paused and shook his head. Recounting all of this obviously wasn’t easy for him.
“I had no idea that the production crew had also been talking in secret to Megan,” he continued. “I only found out about all of this much later, but it turned out that Megan had also had a… ‘thing’ with one of the other lads in Four Score.”
Grace gasped, knowing the story was heading to a dark place, but not expecting this particular twist in the tale.
“They’d got together for a couple of weeks during the auditions, before the finalists were chosen, before there even was a band called Four Score in the competition. Whatever they’d had, it had fizzled out, but the crew had caught a glimpse of them together on some video footage and had realised they might have gold dust in their hands. The other lad, Ronnie, was the so-called bad boy in the band, while I was cast as Mr Vanilla, the nice boy next-door type. The production team convinced Megan that her long-term chances in the music industry would be far better if she was seen on the arm of someone like Ronnie, instead of someone like me.”
He let out a humourless laugh at this and shrugged. “Maybe they were right. Anyway, they told her there was no harm in being sure about who she had feelings for, and they also told her that the tabloids would be desperate to talk to her if she happened to be in the middle of a complicated love triangle. They suggested she should have a secret meeting with Ronnie, to find out if she still had any feelings for him, and that it wouldn’t be a bad idea for a few newspaper photographers to hang around in the background just in case things got a little hot under the collar between the two of them. She agreed.”
Grace scowled, immediately disliking this young female from Ryan’s past. Seeing her expression, he gave a knowing smile.
“And that’s exactly what the production crew wanted—a reaction,” he said. “It was easy to cast Megan as the villain of the piece, but the truth is she walked cluelessly into the trap they set just the same way as I did. We both got played for fools. We were kids, caught up in a whirlwind romance that was playing out in front of television cameras while we chased after our musical dreams, and because we were innocent and naïve, the production crew manipulated us with ease.”
“That’s horrible, Ryan,” Grace said, hating that any of this had happened to such young people who were being moved around like pawns on a chessboard.
“Anyway, obviously I knew none of this before the band performed the song I’d written,” Ryan continued. “I sang the song, the lads did a brilliant job on the backing vocals, we just about managed to pull off the cheesy dance moves they’d taught us, and at the end of the song we got a big thumbs up from the production team who were supervising the filming and from our mentor, too. That thumbs up was my cue to tell Megan that the song was dedicated to her, while the floor crew filmed her reaction.”
Grace stayed quiet, although it wasn’t easy. The mounting tension in the story Ryan was sharing was unbearable. She knew it could only be headed towards disaster, but knowing that only made listening all the harder.
“So, I looked straight at the camera and said the words I’d rehearsed. ‘Megan, this song is for you.’ It was simple and straight to the point. In my head, I was thinking, how unbelievably brilliant and romantic is that? She’ll be blown away!”
Ryan’s sad smile turned into a resigned sigh. “Then I saw Megan’s face and saw her expression. The contestants all had tosit in a certain area near the stage, so their reactions could be filmed while the other finalists were performing on stage. Megan wasn’t smiling. She was mortified. And at first I thought she was mortified because I’d made such a public show about how I felt about her. But before I could get my head around it, the big screens behind the stage suddenly flashed, and the programme logo and graphics all vanished and a video clip started playing. We all looked up to see what was going on. And then I saw what that clip was showing.”
Grace realised she’d already worked it out. The terrible logic of the story could only lead to one place. With another cringing sigh, Ryan resumed the story.
“The video clip showed Megan and Ronnie kissing. Not just kissing, actually. They were all over each other. It was one of the shots the crew had caught way back during the auditions, in some gloomy corridor in one of the small theatres they’d hired earlier in the shoot. The hand-held, raw nature of the footage made it look clandestine and tawdry and underhand. And I just stood there, staring up at the screen, completely speechless.”
“Ryan, I can’t believe they did that,” Grace said, aching for him and the humiliation they’d put him through.
“Everyone in the studio was gasping and shouting and pointing at the screen. The production supervisor acted like it was some sort of technical mistake, but the film crew kept filming us all, me up on stage in shock, Megan jumping to her feet and crying, Ronnie looking sheepish but like he was actually sort of enjoying it all, too. A few moments after the video clip started playing on the big screens, it shut off again and the host of the show rushed onto the stage and took charge. The host apologised for what he said was a technical issue and closed the piece to camera. Someone shouted ‘Cut’, and then I was just running backstage.”
Ryan gave her a wry look and added, “Naturally, the cameras followed me. They filmed me rushing to the dressing room, slamming the door, all of it. It was perfect for them, just what they wanted. All I wanted was for a hole to open in the floor and swallow me up.”
“I’m so sorry, Ryan. What they did was horrific.”
