Chapter 1 #2
‘Pfft… You don’t need to hide who you are. There’ll be more gay boys per square metre here than anywhere you’ve ever been – not to stereotype! Forget what your dad thinks. This week is the perfect and safest place to let everyone know who you are and tell your make-out partner how you feel.’9
‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say, although that feels like a big step up from my current status: closeted to everyone except for my mum – after spilling everything to her when she divorced my dad – and I guess Oisín McIlhenny after we kissed.
‘Ah, found you!’ says Oisín turning the corner, making me jump out of my skin. I hope he was far enough away not to hear anything Mum said in the last five minutes. ‘You haven’t been waiting long, have you?’
‘N-no,’ I stammer, losing the power of speech around the tall, blond, pale, freckly-faced star of the performing arts group that I joined last year.
He’s everything the star of a musical should be – talented, handsome, able to walk into a room with a comfortable ease that I rarely feel, even alone in my own bedroom.
The fact that I’m tongue-tied talking to the stunning boy I’ve locked lips with isn’t a promising sign.
If I can’t speak to the one person I know, how am I going to approach any of the other contestants I’ve been too shy to even speak to online? Was this a mistake?
‘Thanks for meeting up with him, Oisín,’ Mum says. ‘I knew you’d be happy to show him the ropes, seeing as you were here last year.’
His mouth widens, flashing his teeth that are just the right amount of crooked. ‘Aye, dead on! More than happy to. Isn’t it amazing that our wee Derry am-dram has managed to get two nominees? And what with you filling in for me and all, Tarun?’10
I nod. Stepping in as Marius when Oisín came down with laryngitis the day before the production of Les Misérables, that I was only meant to be a student in, was something of a crazy experience.
Getting on the reserve list for these big fancy awards – and then making it off the reserve list to actually be here – was even crazier.
‘I’m just glad the judges accepted the video of your performance after they missed you on opening night. You deserve to be a finalist.’
Mum swats at me for playing with the cuff of my sweatshirt. ‘As do you! Would you tell him, Oisín?’
‘Of course!’ Oisín says, making me melt as he looks at me and only me with his bright blue eyes. ‘Everyone said you were unreal! They don’t let just anyone in as a Larrys’ nominee – you must have something special.’
I swallow. Having someone you think is special say you’re special is a very nice feeling, isn’t it?
‘How full-on is it going to be?’
‘I mean…’ he says, looking over to the queue of contestants in the distance.
‘I won’t lie and say that people don’t take it seriously – especially people in my year who are hoping the final on Saturday is our chance to show ourselves off to drama schools, but it’s fun, I promise! Shall we head over?’
‘Yes, yes, go ahead!’ Mum says, wrapping me up in a hug and lowering her voice to whisper in my ear.
‘You’re 11going to be great, Tarun. Remember to breathe; you’re stronger than your anxiety.
You’ve got your guitar if you need it and I’m only an hour away at Nani’s.
Show them all the true you. It’ll be exciting! ’
I nod, because it could be. It’s not like anything I’ve ever done, but I’m here because it’s time to start taking risks. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘Bye! And look after him for me, won’t you, Oisín?
’ Mum says, giving me a humiliating wink, somehow under the mistaken idea that asking someone to help babysit their seventeen-year-old son is helpful in the art of flirtation.
I give her a quick wave, rather than the two fingers I’d stick up at her if Oisín wasn’t next to me and head off towards the studio.
‘Didn’t know you played an instrument…’ Oisín says, tracing his finger down the neck of my guitar’s soft case. ‘Always learning stuff about you, Tarun. Are you planning to play in the competition?’
‘Oh no!’ I say, certain my light-brown face now has a bright-red undertone. The idea of explaining to him why I’ve brought my guitar all the way over from Northern Ireland makes me want to boke. ‘Just … like messing around with it when I’m by myself.’
‘Cool,’ he says, flashing me a grin. The exact same one he did before we kissed.
I brace myself, and every ounce of courage I have, to 12say the words that have taken over my brain the last few weeks. ‘Should we talk about the closing night?’
‘Later,’ he says with sparkling eyes, his attention turning. ‘Oh, hey!’
He runs ahead, throwing his arms around someone (I hope) he knows from last year. They slip straight into confident chatter and, as I sidle up to them, I’m a definite third wheel.
But I don’t panic. He’s right, now’s not the time to chat about what happened when we last saw each other. I’m too nervous for that. One thing at a time. So, I take a deep breath and think about starting rehearsals.
Because whatever anyone thinks – my friends who think musicals are uncool; my dad who I’m too scared to even tell I’m doing the Larrys – I need to remember why I said yes.
However surprising it is that an anxious nobody like me wants to get up on a stage and perform – for the two and a half hours that I played Marius, when the perfect Marius, Oisín, wasn’t available, I enjoyed myself.
It was a break from all the noise that’s constantly filling my head. I was someone else with a whole other set of problems to deal with rather than ‘you’re not good enough, Tarun’ or ‘people are laughing at you, Tarun’. I was free.
So now, just a few metres away from the entrance, my mouth too dry to introduce myself to anyone around me, I’m going to be brave.13
I can stand in the spotlight. Even if I’ve spent most of my life waiting in the wings.
Olly
‘Zeb, you can lead the ten of you up to Studio Six.’
‘Thanks, doll,’ Zeb sings (probably over familiarly) to Sabrina, The Larry Awards’ way-too-cool chaperone with bleached-blonde hair and a dozen ear piercings.
‘Follow me,’ he says to the first of us to be checked in by Sabrina’s bevvy of former contestants, who have come back to help with the mayhem of the first day.
We go up the stairs and into one of the smaller rehearsal rooms, dump our bags and grab croissants and weak squash from a table in the corner.
I’m chatting to everyone, finding out what show they’ve been nominated for and where they come from (contestants hailing from St Ives to Inverness) while Jasmine, firmly establishing herself as a camp icon I want to be friends with, performs – completely unprompted – the tap break from Anything Goes.
She strikes her finishing pose as another five contestants launch through the studio door.
‘Zeb! Olly!’ comes a familiar Scouse call from the back of the pack.
Gabrielle Jiang struts through the door, two 14giant purple suitcases trailing behind her, carrying herself like the badass superstar that she is.
Of all the competitors last year, she was the one I had a major talent crush on, so I gladly let her run up and throw her arms around me.
‘How are you, Gabby?’ Zeb asks as she turns to him for a hug.
‘Sound, now we’re back here among our tribe. What about you? It’s great to see the best buds of last year back as well!’
‘Aww, you too, lovely,’ I reply. ‘Congrats on Ashford!’
She curtseys at my well wishes for getting into the most renowned musical-theatre course in the country – where I desperately want to study in September. ‘Ta, Ol! When’s your audition?’
‘The start of May – planning to have a few “practice” ones first at other schools…’
‘You’re such a superstar; they’d be fools not to have you.’
I’m crossing my fingers Gabby’s prediction is as on point as her talent.
More contestants stream into the small studio – eyes wide with excitement as they take in everyone, relishing the magical feeling of not being the lone theatre-obsessed teen in the room for once.
I go from person to person, each one of them happily hugging me as I get to know more about them than I’ve already gleaned online.
‘I recognised you from the video of Medley Two in last 15year’s final as soon as I saw you on the list!’ grins Harrison Kay. ‘Iconic group!’
‘Yeah, everyone was amazing.’
Looking around the room, it’s easy to see the natural groups and friendships already forming, but my eyes look past the bubbles of conversation to one person stood by themself.
Giving Harrison a nod once he starts chatting to a few others, I weave my way through the clusters of people to the corner. I can’t let someone be nervous on their own – not here where everyone gets to belong.
‘Hey! It’s Tarun, isn’t it?’ I say, recognising the boy wearing a baggy sweatshirt over his slim frame, with a mass of thick black hair and a warm brown face from the one brooding profile picture I found of him online.
He looks sharp and on edge, like an alternative model for an edgy clothes brand that I’d never shop in, except for the soft dimples on either side of his mouth.
They look out of place on his taut, solemn face.
He looks up at me, eyes wide with surprise, as if I’ve just said his National Insurance number and home address aloud. ‘Yes…’ he says warily. ‘Sorry, you’re…?’
‘Olly!’ I say, not minding that he doesn’t know who I am.
I open my arms to give him a hug, at the same time as he offers his hand for a handshake.
Our crossed greetings at odds, I drop my hand to meet his handshake, as he 16reaches up to join my hug, both of us awkward at how bad we’ve mucked this up.
In the end, he drops his hand back down, and we shake hands like two businessmen, each scared of catching an illness from the other.
‘Welcome to The Larry Awards! What show have you been nominated for?’