Page 120 of Loaded

When 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. Nearlyten 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, buthow?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, mostboring, 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.

---