I don’t sound like myself, but I don’t halt. Lynn joins her voice to mine. I think of the man with the ten octaves, and then I picture my mother clapping and my nerves begin to quiet, and by the time we reach the chorus, I’ve managed to harness my nervousness. My voice has grown sturdier, but it’s still not as steady as I’d like it to be. Mydiaphragm pulsates as my voice bursts around me, pools and curls through the air like steam. At some point, I realize Lynn has stopped singing.
I’m on my own.
I almost flounder again, but Rae is swiping at her cheeks, and for some reason, her tears thread confidence through my backbone, lend energy to my lungs. I sit up straighter, loosen my jaw, and make it through the rest of the song without a single mistake. When the last notes fade, Rae, Laney, and Steffi jump to their feet and cheer louder than everyone else in the room.
And there is cheering.
People are clapping.
For me.
Lynn clasps my hand and lifts it as though I’ve just won a boxing match.
“Can’t believe you just did that to me…” I whisper.
She winks. “Angela Conrad, folks. Remember that name. You’re going to be hearing it. A lot!”
As I return to my seat, two people stop me to say how impressed they were with my performance. Energy crackles through my veins, detonates inside my head, blurs the noise surrounding me. I can barely hear the new tune Lynn is singing.
Rae hugs me hard. “That. Was. Amazing. I am so proud of you, girl.” She’s choking me with her hug, but I admit, it feels good.
Ifeel good.
After she releases me and I fall into my chair, Laney leans over and whispers, “Wow.”
“Really?” I squeak.
She smiles. “I’mdeadlyserious. Right, Rae? Deadly?”
Rae grins. “Right.”
We don’t talk again until the end of Lynn’s set. As soon as it’s over, though, Laney asks me if that was the song I wrote for Mona Stone’scontest. I nod. And Rae says that it isn’t fair to everyone else competing, because there’s no way they can win now, and I roll my eyes.
“How did it feel?” Steffi asks.
I reach for my glass of bubbly water, but my limbs are trembling so much it takes me two attempts to close my fingers around it and lift it to my mouth. “Horrible and amazing.”
Steffi sips her wine with a smile.
There’s a break between the sets. A waitress brings our food. Lynn and Steffi get up to socialize, while Rae, Laney, and I stuff our faces. Mostly me. The other two are too busy gushing about how cute the lead singer of the Moon Junkies is.
“Setting the bar high for us, Angela Conrad.”
I almost choke on my food when I spot the boy in question standing over our table, kohl-lined blue eyes mirroring the smile on his lips.
He extends his hand to me. “I’m Ty.”
I shake his hand, and then he extends it to Rae and Laney. Laney tells him how good they sounded at homecoming, while Rae, who’s never tongue-tied, doesn’t utter a single word. She just stares and shakes his hand.
“How long you been singin’?” he asks.
“Since I was thirteen,” I tell him.
“And you wrote that? Music and all?”
“I did.”
“Real impressive.”
