8. Bea
8
BEA
I always panic when any kind of performance looms.
What was I thinking, telling Easton he could come? It was almost as bad as when I told that woman he works with that he did have a girl he liked. I must have lost my mind.
She’s breathtaking.
Is there a chance that he really thinks that? Or is he a lot smoother than Emerson and Elizabeth seem to think he is? Emerson says he’s not a player—quite the opposite. He says Easton has never played at all.
He says he’s a bench-sitter.
Just like me.
Sometimes I believe it. Others, like when he’s commanding the attention and respect of an entire room full of savvy business people, I have no idea how that could possibly be true. He reminds me of Uncle Bentley, but even more focused. Before he realized how he felt about Aunt Barbara, Uncle Bentley was a dating disaster, so it feels like it’s much more likely Easton just doesn’t show his family that side of who he is.
But to tell him that it was fine if he came tonight ?
Complete idiocy on my part.
I’m already so nervous that I can barely breathe. The thought of Easton watching me completely embarrass myself is horrifying.
“I can’t go,” I whisper.
Jake wraps an arm around me and steers me back into my bedroom. “Not in that, you can’t.”
“I like these pajamas,” I protest.
“The little pink cats wearing tiaras are very cute.” Jake shoves me toward my bed and starts rummaging around in my closet. “This selection is appalling, you know. One of these days, you really need to take me up on my offer to buy you some clothes that aren’t outdated and frumpy.”
“In order to do that, I’d have to go somewhere in public. I avoid?—”
“Don’t I know it.” Jake’s shaking his head. “But sadly, your best option is this.” He chucks a cream and white striped sheath dress at my head. “Put it on.” He walks out the door without even looking at me to see whether I agree.
That’s how he’s always been. “What about the blue dress with the?—”
“No.” Jake doesn’t even bother raising his voice. “Just put that one on. We’re already cutting it close.”
With the way he drives, we won’t be close—we’ll be early. I grumble as I drag my pajamas off and pull my dress over my head. When I come out, the dress a little tighter than I like, Jake’s still shaking his head.
“What now?”
“You are not wearing those.” He points at my wedges.
“They’re comfortable,” I say. “And I won’t fall on my face in them, which is an undervalued attribute. ”
“If you aren’t wearing something that’s miserably uncomfortable, you aren’t ready yet.” He sighs as he brushes past me and starts chucking things out of my closet. “This is really, really shameful.” He spins around, thrusting a pair of boring camel heels at me. “Really? Steve Madden ? How old are you?”
“Old enough to remember when you wore Steve Maddens,” I mutter.
“I never wore Steve Maddens.”
“You wore Birkenstocks, and that’s worse.”
Jake laughs. “Put these on, and when you win in spite of your horrible wardrobe, you’re going to let me take you shopping, finally.”
“I won’t win,” I mutter. “And now I’m going to have blisters on top of it.”
“A lot of whether you win with something like this comes down to your attitude.” Jake grabs my shoulders and lifts me up an inch and a half. He stares me right in the eyes. “You will look right at those judges, and you will keep your chin up. Like this.” He keeps staring.
“That’s creepy,” I say.
He laughs. “Be creepy, then, and smile.” He releases me and lifts his hands past his face, his smile lifting at the same time.
“That’s even scarier.”
“This is a million-dollar smile,” he says. “And yours has got to be worth?—”
“At least half that?”
He snorts. “I was gonna say twenty bucks, but yeah. Let’s go with a half-mil.”
I punch his shoulder. “You said you’d sing while I play.”
“I said if you choke up, and if they allow it, I’d sing it for you. ”
“The rules don’t say you can’t have someone else sing it,” I say. “It just says it has to be performed on stage.”
“But if I go up there, we’d have to share the credit,” Jake says. “It did say that, and do you really think they want a movie star to win their prize?”
“Your agent would lose his mind.”
“I’ll do it,” Jake says, “if that’s what you need.” He drops his voice. “But this is supposed to be your time to shine, not mine.”
“I hate spotlights,” I say.
“Oh, I remember.” But he stops grumbling and ordering and he walks quietly alongside me to his ridiculous car. At least his car gets me there early, and if I’m queasy from the speed, well, we aren’t late.
As we’re walking in, I notice Emerson and Easton, standing shoulder to shoulder just inside the double doors of the auditorium. “Bea,” Emerson says. “You look great!”
“Don’t say that.” Jake groans. “She’ll insist she doesn’t need any new clothes if you compliment her.”
Emerson smiles. “Plebians like Bea and I don’t need new outfits every time we leave the house.”
“Exactly,” I say.
“New clothes aren’t always a bad idea,” Easton says. “Sometimes they help you feel ready for whatever you’re facing.”
“I don’t want to agree with you,” Jake says. “If you could do me a favor and not say anything smart like that, it would be great.”
“Not all of us can be uniformly stupid,” Emerson says. He turns toward Easton. “Jake’s never been accused of saying smart things.”
“Not without a team of writers to script his lines, at least,” I say .
Jake rolls his eyes, but when we walk into the main auditorium, I’m surrounded by three handsome men who all want to see me succeed. It’s more than a lot of people can claim, I’m sure. “Thanks for coming,” I say.
A moment later, I have to leave the audience area and take my place on the stage. Jake jogs along with me until I reach the stairs. “What’ll it be, Hornet?”
“You’re right,” I whisper. “If you come, I’ll never know whether I won, or if Jake Priest did.”
He beams. “Go sting ’em, Bea. You got this.”
Only, when I reach the stage, I realize I totally do not have this. No one else looks even half as nervous as me. Actually, they all look like pros.
There’s a very good looking, probably very gay man next to me. His eyebrows are perfectly shaped, his nails are buffed and polished a dark, navy blue, and there’s a thin, tasteful kohl line above and beneath each of his large eyes.
Makeup.
The man next to me has better makeup game than I do.
I can’t believe I did nothing to touch up my makeup after work. I probably look like a preteen girl.
But then the lights click on, and it’s go time. The woman who stands up and approaches the podium has a large cascade of absolutely gorgeous, rich mahogany curls that are pinned up on one side and flow freely on the other. That’s the reason I don’t notice her face until she turns outward and starts talking.
She’s been badly burned on her left side, from her forehead all the way down to below her nose. Her hair covers some of it, but there’s plenty that’s still visible. It looks like ripples of wax are running down her face and then it swoops out and down her neck, disappearing into the top of her asymmetrical gown.
Perhaps the most distracting part of her burns is the stunning beauty of her face on the non-burned side. It’s like an artist painted a masterpiece of epic proportions, then upended a bottle of turpentine over one corner. It actually makes me sad, looking at the perfection of her features on the right side, compared to the left. I can’t help thinking that, although on the outside my life looked just fine, I might understand her better than most.
My damage just isn’t as obvious to everyone who sees me.
When she opens her mouth, I almost forget about the disfigurement. She has the smoothest, lightest, loveliest speaking voice I’ve ever heard. “Welcome to the finals of the Jello Jingle,” she begins. She explains how stiff the competition was, and that tonight’s prize includes a job—the Jello Jingle—as well as a cash prize, a small scholarship for some training, and the mentorship from a partner at one of the nation’s leading jingle firms.
I can see why they chose her as tonight’s emcee. She’s poised, well-spoken, and she has a beautiful speaking voice. “I’m delighted to announce that we have talented artists here with us tonight from across the globe. Our first finalist tonight, Dmita Frost, hails from Liverpool, England. She’s here in New York while completing a study abroad program for another four months, and this is her first time entering any musical contests. Please join me in warmly welcoming our contestant from across the Pond.”
Everyone claps as the petite black woman stands up and approaches the spot our emcee just vacated. She’s not playing the piano—but her recording playing from the speakers sounds just fine. Her jingle’s short and sweet, but her lungs are powerful. The melodic line is weak, and the words are a little frivolous, but her performance is clearly an A plus.
Next up is another shorty—do all short people go into music these days? His hair’s long and shaggy and almost covers his eyes. But when he starts his song—also using the option of a recorded accompaniment instead of the piano behind us—I can see how he made it into the finals. His words are punchy and memorable. If his tune is a little forgettable, well, we all have our strengths. His voice isn’t compelling, but it’s pleasant enough.
Next up is a very tall, very strong woman with arms that look at least as big as Emerson’s, if not quite as large as Jake’s. “My jingle came to me at my niece’s birthday party.” Unlike the others, she’s seated at the piano, and when she starts to play, I have to work not to cringe. Her dynamics are all over the place. Choppy. Loud and then soft.
But the melody is killer.
It’s the only one so far that I might find myself humming next week. And that’s bad, because that’s my biggest strength. I was hoping no one else’s would be catchy.
I’m hoping they call the very pretty gay man next, because I like going last. But when they call my name, I stand up, my legs working exactly as they should, blessedly. I walk toward the piano as calmly as possible, and then I sit, staring at the familiar keys.
It’s a Steinway S, a pretty common baby grand, and it usually has a rich, full sound, even in a large room like this. I adjust the microphone a bit—it was far too high, thanks to that tall woman—and then I close my eyes for a beat, counting off and then starting, specifically not looking out at the audience at all.
So much for Jake’s admonition to catch the judge’s eye.
There are many things, including most social situations, where I choke. There are times when I’m downright paralyzed. But with a piano in front of me, I never panic. Touching these keys has always been the place where I feel the most at home. For someone who didn’t have a home at all for a long time, that’s not nothing.
After I play the opening stanzas, I open my mouth and sing the simple, clear words. My voice has never floated. It has never soared. But it’s serviceable, and I don’t embarrass myself, at least. When I stand up, the audience claps pretty vigorously, which is always nice.
The last performance is probably technically the best. The guy sits at the piano too, and his navy-painted fingers move deftly across the keys. He flubs a spot and then another, but all-in-all, if I were a judge, I might pick his. It’s catchy without being annoying, and he has a nice, clear voice that doesn’t distract from his message, which is that Jello creates happy memories.
I’m bracing myself for bad news when the brunette with the burned face stands up. “Now, we didn’t tell you that audience votes actually compose ten percent of the scores for each jingle, and I’ll be the one performing the winning jingle on Jello’s behalf. So now that we’ve heard each song from the creator, I’m going to perform them myself. At the end, we’d love it if you could go to the website listed on the screen behind me and vote for the jingle you think is the best.”
It was interesting to hear the jingle from each creator, but it’s a real experience to hear it sung by this woman. Her face may have been damaged, but her voice. . . It’s like listening to Michelangelo work on the Sistine Chapel.
I’m convinced that each new jingle’s perfect, just because of how she sings it. I’m surprised they chose someone with such indescribable beauty to sing something designed to be catchy, but it somehow makes something corny sound classy.
Then she sings mine.
When I was comparing it to the others, it was hard. I mean, I was doing the playing and singing, so I couldn’t really listen. But as a less biased onlooker, I realize that mine is good.
Technically, the balance is perfect.
The words are catchy—Jake really helped there. They’re corny, but not painful. The melody is perfectly strung. For the first time, I wonder whether I might win. Once she sings the last one and asks everyone to vote, my hope is floating dangerously high.
It’s not about the money.
I mean, money’s nice, but it’s more about the chance to work with an agency. It’s about adding this to my resume and possibly springboarding from this into a real job. I’ve been out of school for almost three years now, and I’ve made no real inroads toward getting the kind of work that I want. I help my teacher with her small, side-gig jobs.
But I’m not paid, and my name’s never on anything.
This could be it.
When the woman approaches the podium again, an envelope in her hand, she’s smiling. “As many of you know, we have three industry judges, and their scores are worth fifty percent of the rating. The audience votes are worth ten percent, and Jello allocated the other forty percent to me, as the voice of their brand. ”
That actually surprises me. I should have read more closely.
She pulls the paper out of the envelope. “Today’s first runner-up will receive a cash prize of five hundred dollars and a recommendation from our organization. Her melody was my very favorite, and her skill is undeniable. I was very impressed by Beatrice Cipriani.”
It takes me a second to realize. . .that means I lost.
In fact, I’m so busy processing my disappointment that I don’t even hear who won. Everyone else is clapping, and I’m just sitting in my seat, staring straight ahead like a zombie.
“Beatrice?” Someone’s poking me.
It’s the gay guy next to me. “You’re supposed to come up with me.”
He stops poking and just grabs my wrist, dragging me across the stage alongside him. “You got second place.”
I force a smile. “Congratulations. Your jingle was amazing.”
He shrugs. “Yours was better. I’m not sure how I won.”
But then we’re both bowing, and people are clapping, and someone is handing me a manila folder. The next few minutes pass in a blur of papers and smiles and murmured questions. I try to answer them all properly, but I’m not sure I’ve ever felt quite this numb.
Until I’m on my way toward the edge of the stage, finally. I’m sure Jake will be there, and Emerson. . .and Easton. I can feel my cheeks flush.
Because I lost.
They all came to cheer for me, and I lost.
“Beatrice,” a voice calls. A lilting, mellifluous voice.
I turn slowly, and the melted-face woman’s smiling at me. “Beatrice, I hope you’ll allow me just a moment.” She gestures, and I follow her toward the side curtain.
“Yes?” I blink. “Did I miss something? A signature?”
She shakes her head. “No, but I wanted to explain.”
“Explain?” I’m still feeling numb, and I’m clearly missing something.
“Your jingle was the best,” she whispers. “I knew it. The audience knew it. You should’ve won.”
For a brief moment in time, the sounds around me are all amplified, like the world that has been on pause comes screaming back to life. “What?” I must have misheard her, or worse, hallucinated.
“Your song was the best,” the woman says. “But you’ll get the scoresheet later, and you’ll be able to see that I scored yours much lower than the others. Without that, you’d have won.” She sighs. “I wanted to tell you why.”
My heart hasn’t been this crushed by anything since. . .well, maybe since the night I met Emerson and Seren and Dave for the first time. “You—why?”
“Your jingle was good. You have real talent.” She leans closer. “I’m stuck doing jingles—things where I can’t show my face. But you.” She sighs. “The sky’s the limit for you. I torpedoed you in this because this kind of thing clearly isn’t where you should be. It’s not even where you want to be—I saw that in your face when you were up there. You need to give up on jingles and write real music. Release all that sound that’s banging around in your head. The world needs quality music from real, pure musicians like you.”
After gutting me like a wriggling carp, she smiles and waltzes off.