Fifteen Minutes

prologue

Chandra Olson made the trek every July.

She inked it on her calendar and told her manager and staff so that everyone in her camp knew she was off-limits. For two days midsummer, nothing was more important to America’s premier black vocalist than leaving Los Angeles, flying to Birmingham, and driving out to the old country cemetery where her parents were buried.

Nothing.

She would spend the day here, same as she did each July for the last four years. No driver or entourage or fanfare. Just Chandra Olson, a fold-up camping chair, a cooler of smartwater, and a journal. Always a journal.

That way Chandra could write her parents a letter they would never read, and express in words her thanks for their support and her regrets at the cost of fame.

The very great cost.

She parked her rental car in the corner spot and surveyed the area. Oak trees dotted the couple acres of grass and tombstones that made up the graveyard. A few worn-out bouquets and the occasional American flag pressed into the earth over the grave of a soldier’s sacrifice. A quick look around confirmed what she hoped to find. She was alone. Except for her, the place was empty.

Chandra stepped carefully through the freshly mowed grass, between markers, to the place where her parents lay. She set down her cooler and opened her chair. For a long moment she simply stared at the etchings in the modest gray stones, letting the truth wash over her once more. Martin and Muriel Olson. Young and vibrant and full of life. Her dad, forty-eight. Her mother, forty-four. Weddings, grandbabies, retirement—all of life ahead of them. Shot down just when their beautiful story was at the best part.

Tears blurred Chandra’s eyes. Their death dates were the same: May 15, 2009.

A song burned in her heart this morning, a lyric that had been swimming to the surface for weeks. It would come together here, Chandra was sure. Here, close to the bodies of her parents and with the auditions for season ten of Fifteen Minutes set to begin later in the week. The song would be a ballad. A warning to be careful what you wish for, be careful what you dream.

In case it actually happens.

Chandra took her seat and studied the gray clouds slung low over the cemetery. She’d been part of the audition process in seven cities across the country over the last two months. Atlanta would be the last one, and the contestants who moved on would go straight to New York.

Yes, somewhere in houses across America, they were getting ready. Thousands of them. Saying good-bye to family and friends and heading off for a weekend of auditions in the heart of the South. Looking for a shot at fifteen minutes of fame.

Six years ago, Chandra was that wide-eyed singer, working at a state-subsidized day-care center and taking college classes at night. Nineteen years old with a dream bigger than Texas. What did she know about Fifteen Minutes or where it might lead, where the journey would take her?

Chandra closed her eyes and saw herself the way she was back then. No one had been more excited about her audition than Chandra’s parents. They were longtime hard workers, both of them office managers for sales firms in downtown Birmingham. Martin and Muriel grew up in the projects, too poor to eat some days. They spent their lives trying to give their kids—Chandra and her brother, Jalen—everything they never had. Jalen’s dream had been soccer. He was playing now, a senior at Liberty University in Virginia. But only because her parents had worked years of overtime to pay thousands of dollars in club soccer fees and private coaching and gym memberships. It was the same for Chandra—only her passion wasn’t soccer, it was singing.

She opened her eyes and looked at her mother’s tombstone. You used to tell me I was born humming. Remember that? You gave me every advantage, Mama. It was true. Chandra took voice lessons from the best teachers. She’d attended a private arts school on the south side, and when she wrote her first song, her parents took her to Atlanta and had it produced by a legend known for turning out R&B hits.

Nothing opened the door to her singing career the way Fifteen Minutes did. Chandra blazed through the audition process; even with the show’s manufactured drama, there was never really any contest. On the show’s finale, when dapper host Kip Barker smiled at the cameras and rattled off the famous line “The next fifteen minutes of fame go to . . . Chandra Olson!” there wasn’t one surprised person in the audience or at home.

“You might be the best singer to ever grace the Fifteen Minutes stage.” That’s what longtime judge Cullen Caldwell had told her, and the comment was plastered across the Internet, everywhere from the Today show to People magazine.

Chandra remembered a private moment with her mother a week later. “You realize how big this is, baby girl?”

Beneath the warmth of her mother’s words, Chandra’s heart swelled. She hugged her mama for a long time. “It’s big.”

“It’s more than that!” Her mother put her hands on either side of Chandra’s face and looked deep into her eyes. “Fifteen Minutes is the biggest show on television, baby. And you’re the best singer they’ve ever seen! God’s gonna use you, child. He’s gonna use you like none of us can begin to imagine.”

Her mama was right about Fifteen Minutes. The show had been on the air for ten years, and though other voice talent programs competed for a share of the market, nothing compared to Fifteen Minutes. Between the judge’s comment and her mother’s praise, the future seemed brighter than the sun, Chandra’s potential unlimited.

Anyone could see the success ahead.

But none of them saw coming what happened two years later. The second autumn after Chandra’s win—with her first album topping the charts and her fame far surpassing what even Cullen Caldwell expected—an Alabama stalker stepped into the picture. He found Chandra on Facebook and asked for a loan. Money to help him and his mother buy a house. Chandra let the comment pass.

The request quickly became harassment, with the guy posting daily demands for money. His most chilling post was also his last. What if something happened to your parents, Chandra? Maybe that would get your attention!

Chandra blocked him from her Facebook page and filed a report with the Birmingham police.

“The guy’s annoying,” the Birmingham officer told her. “But anyone can make a Facebook page. We can’t even prove he’s a guy or that he lives in Alabama. People like this are rarely serious.” The officer added that there wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to investigate every crazy threat made against a celebrity. “It comes with the territory.”

Yes. It came with the territory. Another aspect of being in the public eye. Chandra tried to believe the officer’s words. The threat was nothing. Her concert schedule rolled on, and Chandra talked to her mother every night before she took the stage, same as always. Once she even shared her fears about the guy.

“I should get you a bodyguard, Mama. I have one.”

“Don’t be silly.” Her mama’s calm never wavered. “God’s in control, baby. Me and your daddy are fine.”

“I wish you were with me.” Fear made the drafty wings of the arena colder than usual. “You and Daddy could come out on the road.”

“Aww, Chandra.” Her mom’s smile rang through her words. “When we retire we’ll be front row at every show.”

Chandra had two minutes before her first song. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Do me a favor, baby.”

“What?”

“Out there tonight, picture me and your daddy in the front row. We’re with you, baby girl. We’re always with you.” Her emotion got ahead of her. “I’m so proud of you, Chandra.”

Her mama’s confidence kept Chandra sane, helped her forget the stalker’s awful comment. But one warm night later that week, her parents pulled into their driveway after a church service and climbed out of their car. One of the neighbors was outside getting her mail and saw everything. Chandra’s parents were laughing and talking, full of life. Her father had just taken her mother’s hand when a spray of bullets exploded from the front porch, ripping through their bodies and dropping them to the ground. They were dead before the neighbor could call for help.

The man turned out to be certifiably insane, an escaped patient from a mental hospital. He waited on the Olsons’ front porch until the police arrived, at which point he handed himself over and readily admitted to the killings. “I wanted Chandra’s attention,” he told police.

It worked.

Life would forever be measured as before and after the shootings. No question, a part of Chandra was buried right here with her parents. In the wake of their murders, she took two months off and became a recluse, handling her parents’ affairs, afraid to leave their house. Eventually she hired two additional bodyguards and returned to the limelight.

She had no choice. The stage owned her now. It was where she belonged.

Questions plagued her then the way they did four years later, here at the cemetery. What was the point of fame and celebrity? All the record sales and accolades and awards? The money and houses and vacations? None of it could take her back to that moment, her mother’s hands on her cheeks.

Her parents’ faith had been strong and foundational, a key to Chandra’s life before Fifteen Minutes. Now only one Bible character allowed Chandra a sense of understanding, a point of relating.

Solomon.

The king who had everything but finished his days believing the most desperate of thoughts—that all of life was meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Chandra had read the book of Ecclesiastes again on her Bible app during the flight here, and once more she had found her life verse, the only one that applied, Ecclesiastes 2:17, a nugget of sad truth tucked in the mix of a host of depressing Scriptures. She remembered the verse word for word.

So I hated my life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Her newest album was number one on iTunes, and she’d been asked back to Fifteen Minutes. This time as a judge. She had ten million Twitter followers and daily requests for movie and book deals. But here, in the warmth and quiet of the cemetery, she could only agree with King Solomon. Where were the real winners? Life was meaningless . . . a chasing after the wind.

All of it.

She opened her journal and began to write. The lyrics came easily, pouring from the gaping holes in her heart. It would be a hit, she was sure. Even that was meaningless. Only one thing kept Chandra going, kept her engaged in the daily trap of celebrity and fame, through concerts and autograph seekers and handlers and bodyguards. It wasn’t her new role as judge on Fifteen Minutes or the countless hopefuls heading out to audition this week.

It was the twenty finalists.

The ones whose lives were about to change forever. The unsuspecting contestants who would never be the same, who could never go back to life the way it had been. Just maybe among them was a singer like she used to be, someone with faith and family and a quiet, happy life.

If she could warn just one about the false illusion and prison of fame, she would do it. In the process she might find something she’d lost four years ago with the death of her parents. The one thing celebrity could never give her. The one thing worth chasing.

Meaning.