23. Bea
23
BEA
T here are sixteen days between the wedding and the finals performance.
Each and every day is an agony.
“Do you feel ready?” Easton’s face is bright and happy in the lights from the stage. I know he’s here to support me. I know he’s trying to be helpful.
I might punch him on the nose.
“Is that the wrong thing to ask?” He cringes. “Sorry. This is the first time my girlfriend has ever been preparing to perform in the hopes of winning a record deal.”
Octavia laughs.
I scowl at her. “How are you not more nervous?”
She shrugs. “I’ve been on stage a lot, and also, I’m not harboring any of the false hope you are.”
“It’s not false hope,” Easton says. “Your song is amazing .”
“And you’re not biased at all.” Octavia rolls her eyes.
“I’m not,” Easton says, insistent in his delusion.
“I’m ready,” I say. “Or at least, as ready as I’m going to be. ”
“You’ve had it memorized since, well. All along,” Octavia says. “It would help if you’d stop changing things, though.”
“It’s just a tweak,” I say. “Because that one spot where the C goes into?—”
“Has always bugged you,” Octavia says. “You said.”
I sigh. “I’m being annoying. I know.”
“I just don’t want to sing the wrong note,” she says. “When you look like me, you don’t need to give them any excuse to vote against you.”
I step closer. I run my hand over the shoulder of her dress. Like the first time I ever saw her, she’s wearing an asymmetrical dress that covers her left shoulder. She has shown her shoulder to me, and I understand her desire. The seams of the grafts are. . .unsettling. “You look absolutely gorgeous.” And it’s true. Her dress is a pale blue chiffon, and it exactly matches her eyes. Her hair’s a rich, faceted brown that makes her eyes pop even more.
She wanted to wear a mask over the left side of her face, but I have consistently refused.
“I still think,” she says, “that the mask would be a good idea. I could take it off at the end if you insist, but then the song would be the focus.”
I shake my head. “You should be the focus. Your voice is what makes the song. I haven’t met another single person who could sing those notes—no, not sing them. Nail them . This song was literally written for you. So go out there as you, all of you, and own it. You’re spectacular, Octavia.”
As if there’s someone directing this for us, they call our number. “Number eight, you’re on deck.”
Unlike the jingle contest, with its two hundred entries, this had literally thousands of hopefuls. They’ve narrowed it down to a top forty, but the competition is fierce.
“How does anyone ever break out?” Easton’s shaking his head as he follows us to the edge of the stage. “The pressure. The numbers. The odds aren’t great.”
“Thanks, honey.” I start to walk past him, and he grabs me, circles my waist with his hands, and dips me. My heart is pounding when he presses a kiss against my lips.
“You, Beatrice Fansee, are the most talented woman I’ve ever met. Now go show all them what I already know. The other performers should just go home.”
It helps.
Having someone watching on the side stage, having Jake and Emerson, Elizabeth, Ardath, Dave, Seren, and even Killian in the audience, it all helps. Even if we mess up, even if we come in dead last, they’ll still be cheering for us.
I squeeze Octavia’s hand.
The music for the band in front of us is so loud, I can barely hear that she’s running through one of her vocal warm-ups. It’s like she can’t help herself. She’s been flawless in every practice, in every warm-up. Her voice alone would make a heavenly chorus jealous, and she’s still nervous.
Something about that calms me.
“Alright, you gorgeous monster,” I whisper. “Let’s go show those beasts out there what they came here to experience. Let’s open their eyes.”
Her smile’s tentative, but it’s genuine.
When the music cuts, we take our first steps onto the stage.
As the applause for the song in front of us fades, I’m seated at the piano. Just like we discussed, Octavia’s standing sideways so the audience can only see her ‘good’ side.
I keep the notes light. Sharp and haunting, but bright. When Octavia’s voice joins me, it hits like a cool stroke along my spine.
T he world is full of beauty.
The world is full of peace.
The world is full of light and joy,
That almost never cease.
You made me lots of promises.
You made them all come true.
I can hardly imagine living in
A world devoid of you.
B ut when the music segues, when the chords shift, she turns too. She looks out at the audience, and their gasp is a palpable thing. I keep playing, but something inside me curls up as her voice shifts, too. It’s sharp, it’s dark, and it sounds dangerous.
T he world is dark and terrifying.
All your promises were lies.
The ones who talked of beauty,
Were the first to avert their eyes.
The face you said was gorgeous,
You now cringe and turn away.
The world has made it ugly ,
Your gorgeous monstrosity.
T he transition back into beauty is smooth. It’s clear. It’s strong. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Octavia has shifted again. We didn’t discuss this, but she turns so that only her good side is facing the audience.
She once told me that it’s hard for people to look at her. Seeing her face, her injury, pains them. In this moment, that statement pains me, truly. I play through the misery, but it hurts.
When she reenters the song, her tone cuts like a blade. This time, instead of just bringing beauty, the words condemn.
Y ou told me I was gorgeous.
You told me I was beloved.
You said you would be faithful.
No matter what the world did.
All the joy inside me,
My hope for a brighter day,
The monster consumed it all,
And I became both beast and prey.
I ’ve boosted this second to last transition. I do layer the angry and the lovely, but I also add a few twinges of accusation. Octavia’s right—this music evolves as we play it together. I suppose when it’s played by the creator, it’s the way it should be .
This is by far the best version we’ve ever had. Her voice, when it returns, feels like a gut punch.
T he world is dark and terrifying.
That much, at least, was true.
But those who spoke of beauty,
Were the villains, not me and you.
It’s not my face at fault here
It’s those who glare and jeer
The real beast lives inside of them,
They get back what they give.
I extend the transition a little, and I glance out at the audience. They’re all watching, attention rapt. Not a single word. No murmurs. They’re invested. My heart soars at the sight. Maybe the world is more beautiful than we knew. Maybe it’s lovelier than we dared hope.
I finally play it, the call to action at the end, the final rise. Octavia spreads her arms wide, lifts her chin, and she belts it.
S top looking to slay monsters,
And start working on yourself.
The gorgeous monstrosity you should fear
Is the one staring back at you in the mirror.
Work on the creature only you can tame,
And when you see the ugliness,
Call it by name, oh, call it out by name.
W hen Octavia sings the final line, she doesn’t turn back. Not this time. She stares out at the audience, holding their gaze. Only when the last note plays does she relax her shoulders and incline her head. When I walk away from the piano, she doesn’t walk with me to the edge of the stage. She grabs my hand and holds it high.
The audience cheers, maybe louder than I’ve ever heard. People stand, like they do at the end of a play. It’s a good moment. It gives me hope—more hope than I thought I’d really have that we might win. Like the jingle contest, the audience votes count for something, thirty percent in this case.
To be honest, the audience votes are really the only ones I care about.
I think they’re the thing Octavia needs most. The knowledge that she was wrong about the world we live in. She may have endured pain most of us can’t comprehend. She may have watched as her dreams slithered down the drain, but it’s not over. The world sees her beauty, real beauty. Beauty she wasn’t gifted, beauty she created.
The next two and a half hours are the longest of my life.
Longer than when I sat in Serendipity Inn waiting for my mom.
Longer than the weeks I prepared myself to be taken away from there, dragged back to Grandfather’s.
Longer, even, than the days and days I waited for Jake to trust me in school.
But finally, it’s time. The fortieth song has been sung. The audience is exhausted—I can see it. It’s late. Nearly ten o’clock on a Tuesday. Why they chose a Tuesday for this, I will never understand.
It does come though, the moment when the announcer stands up. He smooths his hair back from his face, and he grabs the mic. “Well, folks, as you know, the audience votes count for thirty percent of each song’s score. The judges over there have scored the songs as well, and they’re each worth a ten-percent total. They’re Sony executives and talent, and they’re better than anyone else I can imagine at picking rising stars from a pile of talent.” The guy beams. “They chose me not two years ago, so they clearly have good taste.”
His new album just dropped, so I should know who he is, but all I can think is what on earth he must be thinking, wearing sneakers to something like this.
“Nikes with a suit?” Easton feels me. He shakes his head at my side. “Bad call.”
“Without further ado, I’m going to announce our winner for tonight.”
Someone from the judges’ table waves and shakes his head.
“My bad. Apparently first, I’m announcing the runner up.” He grins, and I can see a little more why they chose him. I wish it was all talent, but clearly it’s not always talent or intelligence. “Okay, so our first runner up will get a two thousand dollar prize, as well as an article written about them.” He smiles again. “And for tonight, I’m pretty pleased to announce that our runner up of the Sony Music Breakout Album Contest is Gorgeous Monstrosity by Beatrice Cipriani and Octavia Rothschild.” He spreads his arms wide. “Where are you two? I can’t be the only person in this room who had chills when they performed.”
The audience is cheering, but my heart is broken .
Runners up? Again?
I know there are forty finalists. I know runner up is good, but how? Were they in a different auditorium? Easton shepherds the two of us toward the edge of the stage and then sort of shoves us out on the platform. The entire time we’re standing there, I just keep thinking how unfair it is.
And when they call the group who had the most insipid, most boring , most predictable song I’ve ever heard, but with a frontman with shiny hair and horse teeth, I’m done.
The world might have seen our beauty, but our flaws matter more.
After it’s over, when I’m stumbling trying to walk down the stairs, a man with white hair catches my elbow. “Philip Owens,” he says. “Executive with Sony.”
“Okay,” I say.
“I just wanted to say congratulations to you on that very moving song. I hear you’re the one who wrote it—that you brought in the other lady because of her voice.”
I want to rip my arm away from him, but I settle for simply shaking him off.
“Listen. I wanted to catch you now that you’re alone for a moment.” He smiles in what I’m guessing he thinks is a fatherly way.
It’s not a good start.
“Is it true that Octavia’s just the vocal talent. Is that right?”
I frown. “It’s not. She helped me quite a lot.”
“Still, you wrote the song, right?”
I shrug.
“We’d be very interested in talking to you about a record deal. ”
“I don’t understand. I thought it was the grand prize winner only who got a deal.”
“We’re not interested in signing Gorgeous Monstrosity,” he says. “We are interested in signing you, Beatrice Cipriani, as a solo artist.” He tilts his head. “Any relation to the Governor, by the way?”
I don’t even dignify that with a response. “You want to talk to me about a record deal, just not Octavia?”
He swallows.
“She has the most incredible, the most unparalleled voice I have ever heard in my entire life, and her feedback was critical to me in fine-tuning the song.”
“Yes, well.” He shakes his head. “It’s complicated.”
“Because of her face?” I want to slap him, or better yet, burn his face. “Is that why?”
He shrugs. “So much of what we do is controlled by optics. Music videos, social media, all of it. I hate it, but it is what it is.”
“No.” I turn so I’m facing him directly. “In case you couldn’t tell what I was saying, because I’m looking right at you, I want to be clear on my optics. Not only no, but hell no to your suggestion that I sign without Octavia. Was that clear enough for you?” I shake my head in disgust and spin around to leave.
I nearly slam into Octavia where she was standing off-stage in the dark.
I feel sick. Like, I might actually puke.
“Octavia.” Oh, no. I’m going to bawl right here, on stage right. “I—I didn’t know you were here.”
She just hugs me. “You should’ve said yes.” She’s crying when she shoots past me and out the door.