15. Madeleine
MADELEINE
The Talent Show
High clouds · Snow on the way
Supper: Walking street tacos · Showtime snacks
The day I’d been dreading came despite my wishes otherwise.
The Talent Show. My worst nightmare. It wasn’t the no music in any of the acts either.
That was fine with me since I didn’t have an ounce of musical talent.
However, I had no other artistic types of talents either. So what was I going to do?
Knox refused to tell me about his act, which was no help at all.
I decided the morning of the thing that I would do what I do best. String some words together.
Only this time, instead of a press release, I would deliver a bad poem.
I spent a better part of a morning researching different poetic structures because I needed some kind of guidance.
That led me to a tanka—a poem with a syllable count of: 5-7-5-7-7.
Like Knox, I liked rules and boundaries. I could work within that structure.
It took me until three that afternoon to finalize my terrible poem. I didn’t know at first what I was really writing about, but when I saw it laid out on the page I knew exactly. Hopefully no one else would figure it out. Especially not the man it was really about.
At dinner the night before the talent show, everyone was complaining and grousing.
“It’s discrimination,” Grant said. “Against musicians.”
“Since I am one, and I made the rule, that cannot be true,” Ivy said sweetly. “You can all do this. I believe in you.”
I’d have found the whole thing hilarious if I weren’t quietly losing my own, talentless mind. I was made for standing outside the sightline to make others shine, not for standing in the spotlight.
“At least you’re all performers,” I said to the table.
“Not me,” Blake said. “I’m behind the camera, asking the questions.”
“But she’s going to participate because she’s a great sport,” Beck said.
Was that pride in his voice? Was there something going on between them? I’d been too concerned with my own situation to pay much attention to anyone else. Whatever it was, I hoped it didn’t wreck the film.
“Did you decide what to do?” Knox asked, leaning close, his leg pressed against mine.
“Yes, I wrote a bad poem,” I whispered back. “And you cannot make fun of it.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Knox said.
“You can steal if for a song, though, if you’re inspired to do so.” I let my eyes twinkle at him, forgetting that we were anything but alone.
I was reminded when I looked away from Knox to see the entire table looking at us. I flushed with heat and became very interested in what was on my plate.
I really needed to be more careful.
They’d set the show up in the big barn, cleared and swept and strung with lights, a little plywood stage at one end and hay bales and folding chairs for the audience.
Ivy went first. She came out in a tracksuit, of all things, delivered a little speech about being a proud country girl, then tore off the sweatshirt and pants in one dramatic motion to reveal workout clothes underneath.
I’d not noticed before but Soren had hung a temporary pull-up bar from a rafter.
I knew exactly what she was about to do before she did it and I was right.
She proceeded to crank out ten flawless pull-ups, her tiny body bulging with muscles.
We all lost our minds. Country music’s glossy sweetheart, pumping out pull-ups like a boss was not something one saw every day.
Ivy dropped down, flushed and grinning, gloriously pleased with herself. “That, my friends, is my only other talent besides music.”
Her father was on his feet, cheering. “Good job, honey. You show ‘em how it’s done.”
“Thanks, Daddy.” Ivy did a little curtsy, then flexed her guns. “All those days stacking hay bales in our barn paid off.”
“Holy smokes,” Knox said beside me.
“That was incredible,” I said. “But I’ve seen it before. We have the same trainer.”
“Can you do that?” Knox asked.
“No way. I can’t even do one. I blame my long legs.”
“Your legs should not be blamed for anything,” Knox said.
Well, that was nice.
Beck went second, performing a one-man skit called, “A Moment on the Tour Bus,” in which he played every member of the band in turn, and it was so funny and so loving and so accurate that Rhett laughed until he cried at his own portrayal.
It was only later, thinking about it, that I realized Beck hadn’t put himself in it at all.
He’d done all four of them and left himself out, like it hadn’t occurred to him he counted.
Finley looked down at her list and said, “Madeleine, you’re up.”
My stomach dropped through the floor of the barn. I went up anyway. Like everything in life, one must face whatever comes, even if it’s the worst idea ever. My hands were shaking and my knees knocking as I stood in front of my friends.
“I’ve written a tanka,” I said. “It’s a type of Japanese poem. Thirty-one syllables—a little longer than a haiku, which I didn’t know until this morning.”
Everyone laughed.
“For all the songwriters in the room, I apologize in advance. This is called Afterlight. One word because it sounded pretty, which I’m sure you’ll all understand.”
“Go Mads,” Rhett yelled from the audience.
I gave him a look, then plunged in, anxious to get it over with.
A star burns, then dies.
Years later, it streaks across
a moonless dark sky.
We wonder, can it be real
or just reckless afterlight?
Everyone clapped politely. Ivy and Blake complimented me.
However, I couldn’t look at Knox. When I’d written it, I hadn’t really been thinking that other people would actually hear it.
Now, I realized how it opened me to exposure.
What was I thinking? Writing a poem about how uncertain I was about Knox and whatever it was we were doing under the moonless sky of Montana? Terrible idea.
I thanked them and stepped down and back to my chair next to Knox and folded my hands, staring straight ahead.
“It was beautiful,” Knox said into my ear. “Well done.”
“Mortifying,” I mumbled.
Luci went up in a rainbow clown wig and a coat three sizes too big. She announced she would be performing magic tricks, explaining that she used them to cheer up frightened children at the clinic. She called Grant up out of the crowd to be her patient.
The magic tricks were simple but adorable, mostly because they made giant Grant giggle.
Grant went next, asking Luci to stay up on stage with him. He then proceeded to quickly sketch her on a pad of paper. He was surprisingly good. I suspected his subject had something to do with it, despite her clown wig.
Rhett and Holly headed to the stage together.
“Holly and I will be doing our talent together as an homage to our childhood,” Rhett said.
“We will perform a dance we perfected one hot summer when we had nothing else to do. We were fourteen. I know. Wait until you see what two bored teenagers can come up with.” They walked to opposite sides of the stage.
“No way,” Jack said, laughing. “I remember this.”
They met each other in the middle of the stage and then began a dance to Brooks & Dunn’s “Play Something Country” in their cowboy hats and matching grins.
Within seconds, the whole room was clapping along.
Whatever ridiculous routine that included a lasso they’d invented as teenagers had apparently lodged itself somewhere deep in their bones.
They spun and two-stepped across the floor, tangled themselves into some goofy move that had everyone laughing, then separated only for Rhett to send Holly sailing back into his arms. She landed against his chest without so much as a stumble, and for a second neither of them seemed to remember there was an audience.
Then Holly laughed, Rhett spun her away, and the show went on.
We were all on our feet clapping and shouting by the end. Holly and Rhett, holding hands, did a deep bow and then scurried off the stage and back to their seats.
Blake’s turn came. “I’m going to show you a bit of footage from this month. I thought you guys might enjoy seeing some of what I’ve been up to.”
She turned on the projector aimed at a white cloth put up earlier.
The first shot was a close-up of Beck’s hands playing the piano, working out some kind of melody.
The next was Beck dancing, somewhat drunkenly, at the bar in Blue Fern.
He clearly catches Blake filming and stops mid-step, putting his hand up, laughing.
Another scene was of Beck on his cabin’s porch with a cup of coffee and the barn cat making himself at home on our favorite pianist’s lap.
He obviously had no idea he was being filmed because he’s talking to the cat.
We couldn’t hear what he said, but it didn’t matter.
We all laughed because it was so cute. There was also a scene with Beck and Jack playing with an arrangement for a new song.
The last was a clip from the day we went out on the horses.
It was of Beck standing next to his horse, stroking its neck, snow falling all around him. Absolutely stunning camera work.
It certainly wasn’t a sample of what she’d been doing unless the entire film was about Beck. Did she realize what she’d done?
I glanced at Beck, who was smiling at Blake like she was the only one in the room.
No one knew quite what to think about the montage of Beck, but we had no time to analyze because Jack hopped on stage, carrying an electric skillet, a stack of tortillas, bologna, and cheddar cheese, from which he made his famous bologna quesadilla while telling us the story of little Luci hungry for a snack and Jack making a meal out of what he could find in the fridge.
When he had a few made, Luci jumped up to cut them into triangle slices and passed them around the room.
Then it was Knox’s turn. He had a little canvas roll in one hand and a block of pale wood in the other. “I shall now whittle for you. Not to be confused with whizzing.”
Everyone groaned.