eilonwyhasemu

So a couple minutes ago, the six remaining Idolettes had gotten the news that instead of singing the Heart songs they'd recorded, they'd have to choose new songs. Personally, I think Ann Wilson was already pissed before I mentioned her... well, never mind. They've got to choose songs recorded by former Idol winners now.

"Dibs on Lee DeWyze."

This was the last thing I expected Robyn the resident rocker to say.

Brianna popped her gum. Loudly. "Kelly--"

"Sparks," Robyn interrupted. "Do Jordin Sparks."

"But I want Kelly Clarkson. 'Oh, no, I do not hook up, up. I go slow--'"

"I'll do Sparks," Reg said with his most annoying grin.

Ken Warwick must have spotted it too. "You're supposed to choose Ruben. Shamere gets Fantasia--"

"I want Carrie," Shamere snapped with that I-am-so-Diana-Ross head toss she does when she's being feisty. "This is important."

Unless there's some winner named Carrie that I don't remember, Ms. R&B was about to do a country song. This could get ugly.

Charlie slid another toothpick between his teeth. I don't know where he gets them. Maybe he steals them from restaurants. "I'll take Fantasia."

Warwick rounded on him. "You can't do that."

"Just did." The kiss my ass was implied. That, I kinda wanted to see, if only because it would distract Ken Warwick from whether he ought to fire me.

Warwick looked at Josh, who was still scrubbing bits of blood from his jeans. "I suppose you'll think you can do something brilliant with Taylor Hicks."

"I... no... if you don't mind..." Josh cleared his throat. I wanted to cheer him on but was still in I don't really exist, don't notice me mode.

"What?"

"I'd like David Cook."

Oh, yes, I wanted to cheer. Let Josh look into the camera and sing "Take Me as I Am." Just let him. It'd be perfect.

"He's yours," Warwick said. He shot me one look as he left the room, but whatever he was going to say turned into a sigh. So I think I still have a job.

Having a job is good. Josh's haircut tomorrow depends on it.

Reg and Robyn were ahead of me in the corridor, probably heading to get their stuff to meet with Deborah Byrd. Brianna was trying to keep up with them, humming "My Life Would Suck Without You." Right. Like she was going to be allowed to say "suck" on TV.

"I was sure you'd jump on Cook," Reg was saying to Robyn.

"Too obvious."

"He's the guy you always use as the model of how to win Idol and build a decent career."

"That doesn't mean I have to channel him."

"All the girls jump on Cook."

"If I was carrying my guitar, I'd hit you with it."

"But DeWyze? Seriously?"

"You just took Jordin Sparks."

"Jordin Sparks is R&B. I'm R&B. Together, we are R&B."

"So what are you gonna do, make like that Lusky dude in season 10 and sing both halves of her duet with Chris Brown?"

"That'd be no, in a no way. I'm going to sing 'I Am Woman.'"

Brianna giggled. "You are not."

Reg elbowed her. "How would I sound singing 'I'm a woman, yes I am, ain't nobody else can do it quite like we can'?"

That got another giggle from Brianna. "Wait, it's that song? The theme to Going Down in Chi Town? I love that show!"

"You and 10 million other young women with disposable income. So why didn't you take Jordin when Robyn here told you to?"

"Um... uh..." Snap. Crack. Pop.

"She thought I was trying to sabotage her," Robyn said. Like Robyn would. As well as being a moody emo rocker who asks awkward questions, she does the whole "I am all about the music" thing. Naive. Ny. Eve.

"More people know Kelly Clarkson," Brianna pointed out. "Nobody knows Lee DeWyze."

"I hear he's big in Japan," Reg jabbed.

"That's why I chose him," Robyn said in that oh-so-patient tone she gets.

Brianna squeaked. "Because he's big in Japan?"

"Because nobody's going to compare my performance to his original version and decide that I've violated their precious Idol."

"Yeah," Reg said, "but his songs are kinda shit. That bridge in 'Sweet Serendipity'--"

"Sucks big time," Robyn agreed. "But in 90 seconds, I'm never gonna get to the bridge. All I have to do is rehabilitate one verse, a chorus, and a repeat of the chorus. Pick a song that only his fans know, and I'm golden."

"You could have done that with Cook's songs. They're better constructed."

"Yeah, and Cook already has done an acoustic version, a live-show remix, and a dance version--"

"David Cook does dance remixes?" That was Brianna.

"No," said Reg.

"Not yet," said Robyn.

"You could do the dance remix and impress the hell out of him."

"I could botch it and embarrass the hell out of myself. I could be the girl rocker whose train wreck goes viral and for the next three decades in the music industry, Cook cuts me dead at parties."

"Or you could impress the hell out of him and get a duet with him on your first album."

"Right. Like he even watches Idol any more."

"Dream big."

Robyn rolled her eyes. "The point is, if you're going to cover Cook, you'd better be either a children's chorus that plays percussion on the teeth of an alligator, or a person who has time to work out one hell of an angle on the song. We have two days."

Reg looked back at me and beckoned. "Máire, did you hear? Robyn needs an alligator."

Right. "That is so season 11."

Season 11 is the one where in the finale, Heather Lombard sang her coronation song while suspended upside down and wearing feathers. Runner-up Mike Michaels had acrobats, a torch juggler, and two tame lions. Well, sort of tame. Randy Jackson didn't quite recover in time to judge season 12.

It was epic.

When I ended up in the studio a couple hours later, running another of the 20 million errands that are an intern's lot in life, Shamere was working with Darkchild on some song I'd never heard because I don't listen to country. And if Charlie Conner's an ad for the genre, I never want to.

He and Josh were hanging out in the other part of the studio. Charlie had his guitar, and Josh was sitting at the upright piano, picking out the tune of a song that had been all over radio a few years ago.

Let Robyn insist nobdy could make a Cook song their own on two days' notice. What did she know?

"That'll get the cougars growling," Charlie said.

Josh added some chords. He has beautiful hands, long and slender, with oval nails. "Huh?"

"Cougars. Growling. Grrrrrr."

"Animals haven't been allowed on stage since season 11," I pointed out. "You know. Randy Jackson." I made a hook with my left hand.

"Not that kind of cougar. Josh here appeals to the older ladies."

"I wish you wouldn't call them cougars," Josh said, still playing the piano.

"Why, bro? They're older women looking for sweet boy flesh."

"It's embarrassing. Anyway, isn't a cougar someone who actually gets dates with younger men?"

"Yeah. So?" Charlie riffed a chord on his guitar.

"They don't. My fans don't. I mean, I've met some of their husbands. Great guys. I shake their hands and call them 'mister.'"

That's Josh for you. Perfect manners.

"Bro. They want dates with you."

Josh blushed. "I wouldn't date a married woman. That's just wrong."

"They're not all married."

"I wish they'd just call themselves 'music lovers' or something. Calling themselves cougars sounds like some kind of animal act. It's demeaning."

"You don't see yourself standing in the circus ring with a whip? Hell, some of 'em'd prolly like that."

"Adair Devils," I said so suddenly that I had to sit down.

The guys looked at me like I'd just grown a head. Interns are effectively invisible a lot of the time, which is great for seeing hot guys half-dressed, but less great if they're not hot and really crappy when people trip over you.

"Your fan group should call itself Adair Devils. It's like, they appreciate your risk-taking and your dark side and your sense of humor."

Charlie spit in the general direction of the waste basket. "That's genius."

"Thank you." Before Josh could praise my cleverness, Robyn strode through the door with that rocker attitude thing she does. So it's probably just as well that my new iPhone -- fresh from supply with no music on it yet except the new Britney Spears album because she's using her judging gig to relaunch her career yet again -- chose that minute to ring. If iPhones choose. It probably had to ring whether it wanted to or not.

"Yeah," I said to Jimmy Iovine while Robyn went on to Charlie about who had a guitar pick and who'd left a guitar pick somewhere and what kind of guitar pick she needed to find. "Really? Okay. I've got most of them here and will tell them right now."

"Tell us what?" Josh asked.

Robyn snorted. "Probably that we have to do duets to the works of the runners-up."

"No," I said, switching off my phone. "This is great news. Josh, you're going to love this."

"The show's being pre-empted this week so we have reasonable time to prepare?"

"No. You're getting a mentor."

Robyn and Josh looked at each other. Charlie guffawed. I let the moment stretch.

Josh was the one who broke it. "Who?"

"David Cook."

TO BE CONTINUED.