Perfectly Flawed (52 page)

As she crosses through the door furthest away
from us, those that have friends start talking to each other,
others with instruments they can easily carry start quietly playing
music. I guess that they’re practicing their song. I’m playing the
piano but I can’t have that in this room nor can I randomly just
start playing the one pressed against the far wall. I think the
audience would be able to hear it and that wouldn’t be good.

We hear a voice coming from the tiny
television set mounted high on the wall and collectively, our heads
turn, spotting Brittany speaking in the corner of the stage,
welcoming Faith Simmons onto the stage. She starts singing
Colors of the Wind
from
Pocahontas
, and two girls
sitting next to each other start laughing hysterically. I don’t
know about anyone else in the room, but I’m guessing I missed the
joke.

Slowly, we take our turns singing on stage,
and the process is long and slow. I don’t speak to anyone in the
room, well, no one really wants to talk to me. I can live with
that. Finally, it comes to be my turn and I’m so ready to get this
over with I almost sprint through the door.

“Joey Archembault,” Joanna whisper-reads from
the list as she stands at the door.

I stand up, more like spring up from my seat,
and smooth down my dress, feeling the nerves flare from my stomach,
the tingles spreading throughout my body like a disease. My palms
start to sweat as I follow Joanna, who’s shorter than I thought, to
back stage, waiting for a girl named Mashka Viktor to finish
singing another Disney song I didn’t hear the title to and don’t
recognize.

When the music fades and the girl passes me
on her way to the green room, Brittany walks up to the microphone
with the boy I remember from the judges table at my audition. I
think his name is Louis.

After some playful banter I don’t pay
attention to, Brittany says, “Up next, we have a talented junior,”
loudly into the microphone.

“This is Joey Archembault with Adele’s
Set
Fire to the Rain
,” Louis finishes for her.

The applause for me is louder than I could
have imagined. My eyes widen when I try to think of who could be
sitting in the audience. Other than the usual suspects, I draw a
blank on why the noise is so loud.

I walk onto the stage, feeling the heat of
the lights burning into me. Luckily, they blind me so I can’t see
anyone staring or sneering back at me. The piano has been rolled
onto the stage for me and I take a seat at the bench, smoothing
down the fabric of my dress to prevent showing the audience any
more than my vocal ability.

I start taking deep breaths, in and out, in
and out, before I dare to rest my hands above the black and white
keys.

Here goes nothing.

My fingers press against the keys; letting
the music overtake me and banish the nerves. There isn’t any sheet
music. I don’t need it. I’ve entered my own world where nothing
else matter, nothing but the music and me. The words flow from my
lips in a melody I’ve sung so many times before. By the end of the
first verse, my nerves have disappeared and I’m actually enjoying
myself on stage. I know, who knew, right? I finish the song and sit
back, letting the moment sink in, letting my world return and
reality awaken, listening to the applause boom louder than before
around me.

I laugh as I turn, because I’m worried that
if I stand, I’ll face plant onto the wooden floor beneath my feet,
to face the judges for this part of the competition. The choir
teacher, his student teacher from the nearby university, and a
special guest
I think.

“That was nice,” the choir teacher, Mr.
Wright, tells me, speaking directly into the microphone to be sure
that he’s heard in the room. I’m not sure what
nice
means,
but it must be a good thing because I hear a few
whoop,
whoop
s in the crowd.

Is that all he’s got for me?

“I could tell that you were nervous when you
sat down at the piano,” the student teacher, Miss Crane, says
loudly. “But once you started singing, it was like you were in your
own little world and no one could penetrate the bubble you built
around yourself.” She smiles at me, a genuine, sweet smile. “I
admire that because, once you started singing, you started to shine
from that piano and we all got to glimpse the beauty of
performance.”

The beauty of performance
?

I like her.

“Thank you,” I say into the microphone on the
piano.

That’s just the first night of the
competition. I made it through to the next week, singing Bridgit
Mendler’s
All I see is Gold
. I made it through that night as
well, and it was still a shock to me. I expected to get the boot
immediately.

“And you didn’t think you’d make it,” Zephyr
whispers against my ear. Sometimes, he can be sweet and everything
I picture a boyfriend to be, but then he speaks and I’m reminded
that I still owe him that punch. “You were wonderful on that stage,
and fucking beautiful.”

“My aunt is walking behind us, you know.”
However, I doubt that she will be too upset with him for dropping
an F-bomb or two.

I look over my shoulder and watch Hilary
shoot Zephyr a glare for swearing. And that’s all she does. Harley
and Kennie already hugged me while Avery and Jackson clapped me on
the back as if I was one of the boys, which I almost am. Patrick
even came, that surprised me, and he brought an air horn that was
immediately confiscated as contraband, and flowers—pink lily’s—that
he gave me at the end of the show. I really,
really
like
him. As I’ve already told Hilary, that’s a keeper, right there.

We make it home, me riding in Zephyr’s car,
Patrick driving Hilary, and have ice cream in the living room. It’s
some kind of bizarre double date where family’s involved. It’s
really weird to explain, but a very fun time where we joke around
and laugh at each other. I spent most of the time making fun of
Hilary who later joined up with Zephyr to make fun of me in
return.

I
felt bad
for Patrick because he was
missing out
on all of the fun so we all, as a very nice
group, ganged up on him. He can’t expect to join a group and miss
out on all of the good times.

Ignoring the little blip where I sang in
front of a crowd, it was one of the best nights of my life.

***

While studying the Boston Massacre at the
desk I rarely use in my room, my eyes lock onto the card that
Ambrielle Knight gave me when she made me the offer to interview
me. That involves following me around for a week with a camera
crew. Have I given it any thought? No, not a single one. In fact,
it sort of left my mind when more pressing matters presented
themselves. Would it be interesting to do? Sure, why not, it’d be
another experience to add to the variety of my life. So why not do
it? I haven’t a clue, at least nothing with viable evidence.

That makes me think and argue in my head that
I should do it. At least, until I have other opinions on the
matter. That would involve some phone calls.

I grab my phone and dial Hilary at work. I
should really discuss this with her before I make any hasty
decisions. While I already know how she feels about it—she strongly
hates the idea, I want to be sure that she’ll be okay
if
I
decide to do it. And that
if
will probably turn to a
when
regardless of what she says.

It rings twice before she answers with a
happy, peppy, “What up, Buttercup?”

What the hell? Random…

“So I was looking at the card that Ambrielle
chick gave me a few weeks back,” I begin, flipping the card back
and forth in my hand. It’s remained on my desk for the past few
weeks so it still looks new.

“What about it?” she asks, sounding
distracted.

Was it right that I called a doctor while
she’s at work?

“Did I call at a bad time?” I ask instead of
answering her question. I don’t want to be the reason that someone
dies. I definitely don’t want to be the one preoccupying my aunt
with something petty and materialistic rather than letting her save
a life. That really wouldn’t do well for my conscious.

“No, not at all, honey,” she tells me, the
pep and perkiness back in her voice. “I’m taking a brief break
right now, Joey. So what about that card?” she asks, the loud creak
of a door joining her voice as it echoes. I’m going to guess that
she’s in the empty stairwell.

“I was thinking that I want to do it,” I
confess. “Like, I really,
really
want to do it.” I tuck a
free strand of hair behind my ear. It sprung free from my hair
tie.

I wait for her to reply with some kind of
snide remark about Ambrielle Knight. All that I heard from her when
I got back with her Golden Oreos was how much of a bitch Ambrielle
seemed to her. I couldn’t exactly disagree with her, but the woman
at the door also had eyes that seemed kind enough not to worry. If
she wasn’t in search of the biggest story from a few years
ago—which, we have got to agree that she is—then I wouldn’t have
taken the time to think about it.

But there is silence on the other end of the
line.

Suddenly, I just hope that we lost the
connection. Silence is never good when Hilary’s involved.

“Aunt Hil?” I hesitate. “You still there?”
She wouldn’t just hang up on me for making what she believes to be
the wrong decision. That isn’t something my aunt would do, right?
If she didn’t like my choice, she’d discuss it with me, she’d try
to point me in the right direction.

Dear Lord, she needs to say something because
this argument is going to continue in my brain until I talk myself
out of the Ambrielle Knight interview.

“Are you sure that you want to do this?” she
asks, her aunt/maternal (whatever I should call them) instincts are
kicking in. “Like are you completely positive that you want to show
the world your life today?”

Uh, well, hmmm…

Now that she puts it like that, let me make
sure

“Well, not entirely,” I admit quietly.
“That’s why I’m calling. If I
were
to do it, I’d want it to
be this upcoming week.”

“That’s very soon, Joey,” Hilary reminds me.
I roll my eyes knowing she can’t see me.

I know the date
, I want to whine like
a little girl. It’s just instinct when someone gives me information
I already know.

“I know that,” I say politely instead. “But
it seems appropriate to me,” I tell her, confident in my
decision.

“Is it because you’re in the final round of
that contest?” Hilary asks, knowing me so well.

I smile brightly. “Yep,” I acquiesce.

She’s quiet again; I can picture her rubbing
her eyes as she tries to think of the appropriate thing to say. In
the background, I can hear a code sound over the intercom, calling
all available people to the ICU.

“If you’re sure you want to do it, then I
don’t object.”

That’s shocking, really. All she wanted to do
was keep me away from this Ambrielle Knight, now she’s letting me
call her to set up a
Then and Now
shoot. Now I wonder if I
could go on
True Life
. It’d have to be
True Life: My
Parent Tried to Kill Me
and that may be a little too
morbid.

“Honestly?” I ask, just to make sure I heard
her correctly.

“Well, I don’t
love
the idea, Joey,
honey, but…” she pauses briefly, possibly thinking over her words.
“It’s your life, you’re almost seventeen, and it’s something
you
want to do.” I can almost hear her smiling through the
phone. It feels like the day I got my license, how scared she was
to let me drive the car by myself, but she still smiled as I pulled
down the driveway slowly. I could see her fingers crossed in front
of her while she silently prayed I made it back safely and didn’t
take out a family of four. “You’ll be an adult soon, Joey. I can’t
make you do anything you don’t want to do nor prevent you from
doing something you
do
want to do.”

Spoken like a true teen advocate.

“Wow,” I start, taking a deep breath. “That’s
very un-Aunt Hil of you,” I say into the phone.

“I’m trying to grow, honey,” my aunt
concedes.

That makes me laugh, because I can see she’s
trying, here. I also know she’s trying to do this because I leave
for college a year earlier than expected.

“I’ll see you when you get home, okay?”

“Yeah,” I answer. I wish her a good night and
safe travel, telling her to tell Patrick I say
Hello!
—with
that much enthusiasm—and hang up the phone. I immediately dial
Ambrielle Knight’s number from the card and set everything up with
her. It takes no time, really. The camera crew will be here bright
and early on Monday morning.

Then I call Zephyr.

“So, I’m going to have a camera crew
following me from Monday to Saturday,” I blurt out when he answers
the phone.

I treat it like a Band-Aid, ripping it off
rather than going slowly.

“That’s a bit… bizarre,” he responds, humor
in his voice. “Why? What’s going on?” That reminds me, I never
exactly told him about Ambrielle and her offer. I should have done
that a few weeks ago when it happened but there’s no time like the
present.

“It’s a cover story on me,” I tell him. “Like
some before and after thing.
Joey Archembault, Eight Years
Later
, I don’t know all the details yet, but I thought
What
the hell?
you know? What harm can it do, really.”

“Is it something you really want to do?”
Zephyr asks me, trying to gage my reaction. Is he thinking that
someone just convinced me to do it? I wouldn’t broadcast my life
like this. Though, I think it could really help my senior project.
That’s the ultimate goal.