He nods brusquely, his lips pressed together in a thin line. He doesn’t speak. Maybe he’s not sure he can risk opening his mouth without puking again.
I follow Jamie and the staff member up the stairs toward the stage, then hang back as Celia joins Jamie to give him a few last words of wisdom in the wings.
The announcer says Jamie’s name, and it’s time.
I stand there with my hands clasped together, watching him from the back as he bows toward the audience—and judges—and then takes his seat at the piano.
Then he starts to play.
Even just a few measures in, I can tell this time is different. His music sweeps over me like a tide, pulling me under, until I’m hypnotized by every note. I am buoyed up by cool seawater, breathless, weightless, entranced. I lose track of where he is in the piece, no longer able to picture the notes on the page—it’s justmusic,it’s power and love and rage and beauty, Jamie tying a cord around my heart and dragging me down into his world.
When he finishes, I find my cheeks are damp.
He did it.
He finally did it.
27
Jamie
My hands hover over the keyboard, fingers poised to play the opening chords of my final piece. This is it. The culmination, it feels like, of everything I’ve been working toward over the past three years. Longer, really. I can close my eyes and almost believe I’m back home, in that small practice room at Iowa State. My childhood teacher gently prods the tip of a sharpened pencil against the underside of my wrists, encouraging me to lift them higher.
Adam tried piano, too. I’ve always known this, obviously, but right now it’s like I’m remembering it for the first time. He hadn’t played for long—it wasn’t really his thing. His lesson was right before mine, so he’d hang around after and watch me play. When I glanced over my shoulder, I could see his little eyes peering back at me from over the top of the teacher’s couch.
As he got older, he found his own hobbies—dance, mostly. He loved dance so much, even though it was half the reason people started muttering about him behind his back. And when Adam finally did come out, everyone acted all surprised. Like they hadn’t been bullying him for it since he was six years old.
I let my fingers land heavy on the keys, the first notes ringing out into the full auditorium. Adam was there, when I auditionedfor Parker. He wasn’t allowed in the actual room, of course, but he was standing just outside in the hall. Close enough, he told me, that he could hear every chord.You got it,he’d told me with all the certainty of a fifteen-year-old.You’re getting in. Definitely.
And he’d been right.
Like he had been about so many things, Adam was right.
I lean into the following notes, eyes falling shut and letting memory take over.
Is this how it used to be? Music tugging at every thread of my heart, pulling me along after it helplessly, hopelessly, like a child in love. Adam never heard me play this piece. And he never will. But I play it for him anyway, play it for the version of him that sits on our teacher’s couch and listens. The Adam that could have been if our town hadn’t sunk its bloody teeth into him; if depression and self-loathing hadn’t stolen whatever life he had left.
What if we had been born somewhere else? Somewhenelse? Maybe Adam would be the one up here, not me. Or maybe I’d open my eyes after and gaze out into the crowd and see him there, the lone standing ovation with a grin splitting his freckled face.
I lose track of time. I don’t remember finishing the piece.
But eventually it’s over, and I open my eyes, and try not to cry.
The way they have us all line up backstage for the announcement of the winners is a terrible idea.
Suspense is all well and good, but that should apply to the audience, not the contestants. It’s been six hours since the final performance, and that’s more than long enough to send my blood pressure spiking into the stratosphere. They could always send out an email or something ten minutes beforehand, so those of us who don’t place can hide in our rooms and pretend not to exist insteadof forcing ourselves to put some kind of normal-human expression on our faces in front of all our competition.
At least Marigold is here too, her hand interlaced with mine, holding on so tight I’m losing feeling in my fingers. She keeps bouncing on the tips of her toes like she might give up on this plane and launch herself into orbit just to escape the tension that pervades the wings, all of us contestants practically vibrating with nerves and nausea.
“It’s going to be okay,” I murmur to her, quietly enough that it feels private, despite the crush of fellow performers around us. “No matter what happens.”
She chews her lower lip. Her makeup is already starting to smear, burgundy lipstick smudged against her chin.
“Here—” I turn toward her, bracketing her off from the others as I lift my thumb and gently swipe away the trespassing lipstick. She shudders slightly at my touch—I hope we never lose that, the way that being so near to each other still conjures a physical and profane reaction, like a cord knotted between our bodies going taut.
“Thanks,” she whispers, and I press a quick kiss to her brow.
And then it’s too late for talk, because the emcee has finished their far-too-long introductory speech and declared that now, at last, it is time to announce the winners.
