Rival (19 page)

“
DELIVERY FOR KATHRYN PEASE
.”

Knuckles rap on my practice room door, followed by a voice that is cruelly calm considering all that's at stake today. I pause in the middle of a scale and put my hand to my chest, as if that will slow my heartbeat. Roseanne, my accompanist, stops playing as Mr. Lieb goes to the door. He thanks the hall monitor and returns with a vase full of white and pink roses.

“To great performances and second chances,” he reads from the card attached. “Love, John. Looks like you've got an admirer?”

I feel myself blush as I take the vase and set it on the piano. This is the second good-luck gift John has given me; Thursday in Anatomy he left a bag filled with lemon drops and bottled water on my seat.

“So what's the right way to say good luck for something like this?” he'd asked. “Break a leg? Bust a vocal cord?”

“How about just ‘see you there'?” I'd answered. “I've got an extra ticket if you don't mind sitting with Matt and my parents.”

“Are you kidding?” he said. “I'd love to!”

I set the roses on top of the piano, next to the bouquet of silk flowers my mom made and the stress troll Matt gave me. Before Mr. Lieb can close the door, another page leans into the room.

“Five minutes, please,” she announces. “Five minutes!”

“Now don't panic,” Mr. Lieb tells me. “You've got an hour or so before your turn. Let's use it wisely, shall we?”

I nod and fluff out my skirt; then I take a moment to gather my energy into a column that I visualize running from my forehead down through my toes. Roseanne sounds a starting chord, and I begin a slow descending vocalise. As I sing, I try to block out everything but the way the air feels as my diaphragm pushes it past my vocal cords, the way the tone resonates behind my nose and eyes, the spin at the top of my head where the high notes gather before floating out into the space around me. Here in this tiny room it is virtually impossible to hear the voices in the other practice rooms that run up and down the hallway. Dad was right: There are eighty singers in the preliminary round, all of whom sound amazing. Brooke and I are just two among them; what ever made us think we could win?

Another rap: “Group one, please report to the stage.”

This is it. Group one is letters A through F. I'm group three—M through R.

“I need to work on ‘The Jewel Song,'” I tell Mr. Lieb, suddenly frantic. “The high parts are strained. The coloratura is muddy….”

He just smiles and instructs Roseanne to play an A-flat. “Up the scale, do a turn, then come back down,” he says, and gives a quick demonstration.

“But I have so much to fix!”

“If you haven't fixed it by now, you never will.”

I'm picking at the seams of my bodice, chewing on my lip. Though I spent most of yesterday in bed, the stress is inviting fatigue right back in again.

“Kathryn.” Mr. Lieb's voice is low. Grounded.

“What?”

“You're ready. I have nothing but faith in you.”

The calm in his voice loosens the knot in my stomach and I find that I am able to gather myself once again. As minutes stretch into a half hour I let him lead me through exercises that leave my voice supple, my breathing strong, my mind clear and sharp. When we pause, I poke my head into the hallway, flagging down one of the monitors.

“What letter are the singers in the recital hall on now?” I ask.

The monitor murmurs into his walkie-talkie; then he listens as an answer comes crackling back.

“Sounds like the Cs,” he says, and I pull my head back inside, where Mr. Lieb and Roseanne are waiting to start a last run-through of my pieces.

“I'm going down for a minute,” I tell them. “There's somebody I need to hear.”

 

The new recital hall has a banner hanging over the door:
50 YEARS OF EXCELLENCE—THE BLACKMORE YOUNG ARTISTS' FESTIVAL
. When I enter, the lights are dim, all attention directed at the stage, where a baritone sings “Vecchia Zimarra, Senti” from
La Bohème
. As my eyes adjust, I see that the construction crew has put laminate over the unfinished walls; the air smells like fresh paint and sawdust.

I find an empty seat at the back of the hall, listen to the rest of the baritone's performance, and then sit through a soprano and a tenor. They are all outstanding, strong competitors, and I am reminded yet again of just how big this competition really is.

Then Brooke appears on the stage. I hold my breath as she bows to the audience, nodding to her accompanist that she is ready.

I've heard about performers who command the stage, and I used to think it was a meaningless cliché. But no
other word can describe the way Brooke looks in her emerald gown as she gazes into the audience with a half smile that would appear arrogant were it not so solid, so confident, so…commanding. She begins to sing and I close my eyes. Ages have passed since I've heard her voice by itself, without a chorus of other voices to muddy or mask it, and I imagine I'm listening to someone ten years older, a singer far more advanced than a high school senior has any right to be. Brooke has taken her singing beyond Honors Choir, beyond our rivalry, beyond even the Blackmore, it seems to me. But instead of being intimidated by her, I am calm. Ready. More than anything, I just want to know what it's like to be on that stage, too.

 

An hour later, I find out.

The lights are incredibly bright when they're shining straight into your eyes, making it so that the audience can see every detail of your performance while all you can make out are faceless silhouettes. For the first several minutes I am hyperaware of every note Roseanne plays, every word I sing. But then, halfway through my second piece, something rare happens: As the music spools from memory out of my throat, I forget about Brooke. I forget about scholarships and my parents and Matt and John, who are sitting together somewhere out
in the crowd. This music is beautiful, it is fun to sing, and I am performing it for some of the best musicians in the world.

I'm singing because I can. Not for money, not for recognition, not for revenge.

But simply because it is wonderful.

WE MADE THE FINALS. ME
and Kathryn. We're both going on to the end.

For the big announcement, they put everybody in the first two rows of the hall, in reserved seats so the people who don't advance have someplace to watch the rest of the competition. They called my name first. My heart jumped, but I couldn't celebrate. Not until I heard her name, too.

Kathryn got called second to last. She slumped over in relief as her mom and dad reached over her seatback to give her a hug.

Now, we have an hour and a half to go.

The finalists each get their own studios surrounding the greenroom. From the greenroom is a short hallway to backstage. And from there, it's just a few more steps to showtime. Our names were already taped to the doors when they took us back, along with the order
we'll be competing in. There are ten of us. I'm number six. Kathryn is eight.

“Brooke, you did it.” Hildy rushes in with Joan, my accompanist, and kisses me on both cheeks. She takes two new bottles of water out of her bag. Puts one on the piano and hands the other one to me. “Dr. Dunne's orders,” she says. “You need to stay hydrated.”

“That felt good,” I tell her. “The second round was hard. But I'm good. I feel okay.”

“You're more than okay. I wasn't sure you'd be ready, but you pulled it together. Congratulations.”

I keep looking past her at the door, expecting it to open and my dad to come in. The whole time I was singing, all through the first two rounds, I pictured him in the audience. He's been a part of this dream from the start, and he always comes through, even if it's at the last minute.

The knob on the door starts to turn. Hildy's voice gets drowned out by the blood rushing in my ears. It's Daddy. He's here.

“Brookie?”

Brice pokes his head in. Bill Jr.'s head pokes in on top of it.

“Hey, there you are,” says Bill, looking around. “This is some nice setup you have back here.”

“Out of the way, you two.” Mom pushes past them
and comes all the way into the room. She holds out her arms to me. “Brooke, you were amazing. I'm so proud of you.”

I let her hug me. Over her shoulder I can see into the greenroom. I can see singers hanging out. Other parents. Teachers. But no Dad.

“He didn't come.”

“Oh, honey.” Mom keeps her arms around me. “I'm sorry….”

I pull away. “Did he call the house? Maybe his plane got delayed because of the snow.”

But the look on her face has all the answers I need. Dad isn't here because he didn't try. Didn't care enough. Didn't want to miss his precious work or another vacation with Jake. Whatever. The reasons don't matter. There probably isn't a reason. He'll apologize tomorrow or the next day or whenever he finally realizes what he's done. Then he'll offer to fly me to New York and I'll probably go because even though he let me down I still want to see him.

I still want to be in his world.

“Okay,” I say. I start moving around. Taking the lid off my water bottle. Organizing my music. Hildy and Joan hang out in the back, trying not to eavesdrop.

“Honey,” says Mom.

“No, really.” I gulp some air to push down the lump in
my throat. “It's okay. He's busy.”

“No, it isn't okay. I hate that he did this. Today of all days. We all know how much this means to you.”

And even though my eyes are burning, it's Mom who starts to cry. This time it's me putting my arms around her. “I'm sorry,” she keeps saying. And all I can say is “It's okay.”

Because what else is there?

Mercifully, Brice pokes in again. He reaches over Mom's head to hand me a bronze plastic helmet with horns coming out the sides.

“Hey, Brookhilde. You kicked some ass out there.”

“We thought about springing for the breastplate, too,” says Bill. “And the spear. So you'd have the whole
ensemble
.”

I brace for the Amazon joke. I know it's coming.

“But you're way too pretty for that.”

“Yeah,” adds Brice as he admires my gown. “I'm a little weirded out by the gorgeous, actually. I mean, you've always been Baby B. And now, lately, you're…wow!”

I have no choice but to put on the helmet and smack both of them around a little bit. Because otherwise I'll be crying, too, and I'm done with that.

Besides, how gorgeous will I be if I've got mascara running down my cheeks?

In my music bag I've got a thermos of chicken broth,
some apple slices, and a turkey sandwich that I packed this morning. No mayo or cheese. I may not even eat the bread, since the last thing I need is a bunch of phlegm on my vocal cords. Mom and the twins, on the other hand, are starving. So they head out for dinner while I stay back with Hildy and Joan. We do exercises to keep my voice warm. We go over parts of my songs. We practice deep breathing, which is supposed to make me even more focused. And after a while, the countdown starts. Thirty minutes until curtain. Fifteen minutes. Five. I could hang out here until it's time for me to sing. Someone will come get me. But I'm starting to feel
too
focused.

I want to hear what I'm up against.

“I'm going out there,” I tell Hildy.

She frowns. “You won't get distracted?”

“No,” I tell her. “I'm going.”

Out in the greenroom I can hear the other singers warming up. There's a closed-circuit TV showing what's happening out in the hall, but it doesn't do any of the voices justice. I watch for two minutes before deciding that it's crap.

I'm going backstage.

And like I thought, there's no comparison. Just a few feet away from me, a tenor from Texas is singing to a packed house. Onstage where he is, it feels like hundreds of people are right on top of you. Here in the
wings, though, it's just me and the stage manager.

Then I see a movement to my left.

Kathryn is standing under an acoustic panel nearby. I nod at her. She nods back, and we watch while the tenor finishes his pieces. He sweeps past us off the stage as the next competitor goes on. We watch her perform, too—a mezzo with a bad case of the shakes. “Yikes,” Kathryn says when the girl hits a sour note.

“Yeah,” I say. And I don't know why, but a question comes into my head—one I've been wanting to ask for a long time. It has nothing to do with the Blackmore. There's no reason to ask it now, except that Kathryn is standing here, and this might be my only chance.

“I just want to know one thing,” I say.

“What?” She never looks away from the stage.

“Last year. Did you really just tell Chloe and Dina about my dad and Jake?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell anybody else?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

I believe her.

So who posted all those things online? Was it Chloe? Dina? A wannabe like Laura Lindner? Maybe it was somebody totally random—someone who saw Jake and my dad out together or worked on a movie set and
wanted to impress people with some gossip. Whoever it was, it doesn't matter now. Life went on for Dad. Jake's a bigger star than ever. And what happened between me and Kathryn happened. We can't change it, even if we wanted to.

“Miss Dempsey?” A monitor taps me on the shoulder as the fifth person, a baritone, starts to sing. “You know you're next, right?”

“Right,” I say. Behind him I can see Hildy at the stage door. I go to her for one last pep talk.

“Remember to let your breath do the work,” she tells me. “Don't forget to acknowledge Joan when you bow. Loosen your shoulders. Oh! And these just arrived.”

They are lilies—the same red ones that will be given to tonight's winner. I fish a card out of the green tissue paper.

 

To my Little Star!

Best of luck, Daddy

 

I fold the card and put it back.

“Should I put them in your dressing room?” Hildy asks.

I nod. The monitor clears his throat. “Miss Dempsey? We're ready.”

“Okay.” I turn back toward the stage, but then stop.
Reaching up to my neck, I unfasten the silver pendant.

“Take this, too,” I say. Hildy holds out her hand, and I set the necklace on her palm. I see the little star sparkle before she closes her fingers around it. I can do this without my dad. I know that now. It's not reassuring, or healing, or even all that sad. It's just the truth. I can do it without him because I have to.

The stage is empty. I put my hand to my throat and feel nothing there but my own skin. Nothing but me.

“Good luck,” says Kathryn as I walk past her.

“You too,” I say.

Then I step out onto the stage.