Page 118 of Mr. Picture Perfect
The next part has all three of us sauntering across the stage like we’re made of a million bucks—Anthony most of all, who I’ve got to say cleans up pretty well in a fancy tuxedo. Everything is going great until he stops abruptly in the middle of his walk to flex his guns yet again at the crowd and do half a squat—which causes his slacks to rip right down the ass crack. He realizes it right away, then sidesteps for the rest of his time onstage, all his confidence sucked out of him. Once it’s time for us to make our departure, he can’t scurry away fast enough.
Then, during the swimwear portion, Anthony believes it’ll be an excellent idea to spray himself with water so it looks like he just came out of the pool. It only succeeds in making him look sweaty and strange under the stage lighting. That’s sadly not the worst of it; after he circles the stage a few times, his foot catches a spot where his body dripped too much, causing him to slip and fall on his ass with an unflattering grunt, inspiring gasps, laughter, then applause from the audience. They likely don’t know if this is real or part of an overall “bumbling bad boy” act. It’s not easy to tell whether all of the laughter and applause pleases the red-faced Anthony, who is seeming less and less keen on keeping everyone’s attention. His stunt almost overshadows my big moment when I peel off my dress shirt to reveal my Speedos, setting the crowd on fire with screams and suggestive whistling.
It doesn’t end there. During the get-to-know-your-bachelors interview portion, we’re each asked a question, and Dean’s answer is so elegant and well-worded, reading like poetry, that Anthony becomes self-conscious and overcompensates by awkwardly using giant made-up words that don’t even make sense. The audience’s laughter doesn’t inspire further confidence, and his last sentence comes out in a jumble that no one can hope to decipher.
“It’s delightful, how smoothly everything is running,” Dean observes as he changes into his next outfit for the talent portion and gazing merrily at his reflection in a nearby mirror.
“Speak for yourself,” mutters Anthony, miserable. “I started with a bang. Now I’m trippin’ over myself and splittin’ my damned ass open for the whole state of Texas. I heard there was a reporter out there from Austin. Is that true? Is my big-ass butt gonna show up on the front page of some Austin magazine?Fuck my life.”
“Just stay focused, son, you’ll do fine out there, you will. Oh, thank you,” says Dean to one of the crew people who brings him a cup of water. “Parched. Those stage lights are hotter than sin. Do you think someone can turn up the AC onstage? That’s a joke, hah, don’t worry, I’ll survive. Oh, by the way,” he adds, leaning toward me suddenly, “I think I see her out there.”
I’m folding up the cuffs of my shirt when I face him. “Who?”
“Candace.” Dean closes his eyes and smiles, sighing happily. Then he chuckles. “What is this I’m feeling? It’s like … a sort of … childlike giddiness mixed with abject terror.” He laughs at his own description. “I haven’t felt this way since I was a teenager.”
I smile and pat him on the back. “Sounds like love.”
He snorts and throws me a funny look. “I’ve met her but once, and at that, our conversation was a mere seven minutes long.”
I shrug. “Sometimes seven minutes is all it takes.”
Dean smiles and shakes his head. “Ah, what a world we live in. Anything feels possible tonight. Anything at all.”
“Yeah, anything,” mutters Anthony bitterly. “At least I know it can’t get any worse for me than it already has.”
A moment later proves that, unfortunately, it very much can.
After Dean performs a complex, swoon-worthy jazz piece on the piano, inspiring everyone to clap along and cheer when he hits those impressive trilling notes on the ivories, it’s time for Anthony to become a magician—but perhaps he would have been better off taking Dean’s sarcastic suggestion weeks ago of being a clown on a unicycle. The oversized card trick Anthony had planned becomes a bust when the plant in the audience discovers he’s too terrified to come up onto the stage, forcing Anthony to abandon the trick completely and shift gears immediately to his next act, which does not go any better. His entire forehead is covered in sweat as he with crumbling confidence attempts to juggle three toy hammers, and for about eight and a half lovely seconds, he has the whole audience captivated—until one of the hammers goes sideways and thwacks him right on the nose like it has a vendetta against him. Dazed, he overcompensates by throwing the next one too high, and as he scrambles to fix the midair miscalculation, one of the toy hammers drops on his foot and is accidentally punted straight at the audience. It lands somewhere in the third row. He keeps on with his act, pasting a smile across his face while fighting back the reflexive tears that dribble out of his glassy, panicked eyes as he juggles the two remaining hammers. It’s a complete disaster.
The second he’s off the stage, Frankie introduces me, and it’s my turn to be talented. I approach the lone microphone set up at the center of the stage, then face the audience confidently. By this point in the night, they have gotten braver, and I hear individual people calling out. “You’ve got this, you sexy man!” “We love you!” “Marry me, Cole!!” “You’re amazing!” “Mr. Picture Perfect!”
I grip the microphone and smile at the crowd. “Thanks,” I tell them, my voice booming. “Spruce, Texas is sure appreciating your support, whether you’re from around here or traveled in from out of town.” Even now, my eyes dance around the crowd, or however much of the crowd I can actually see through the slightly dimmer and moodier stage lights, looking for Noah. “I thought I’d sing a little song for you guys.”
“Hell yeah!” “Sing your heart out, baby!” “Yes!!”
I don’t know if Noah’s out there. Somehow, a significant part of me doubts it. If I can’t see him, I’ll just have to imagine his face.
“This is a song that has … a lot of recent meaning to me. Hope you enjoy it.” Then I glance at the side of the stage where Tamika awaits my cue. I give her a nod. She whispers into her headset.
From the speaker comes the gentle, moody guitar strokes for my backing track to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”.
The second it comes time to sing, the music cuts off.
I look up at the speaker, confused, then glance at Tamika, still in the wing offstage. She shrugs at me, then starts hissing into her headset, trying to solve the problem. Her whispers become more and more frantic until she returns her gaze back to me and shrugs with more exasperation, shaking her head, at a loss.
The audience is starting to murmur among themselves.
The speaker for the music may have gone out, but with the sound of my measured breaths rolling through the pavilion like ocean waves, it seems apparent that my microphone still works.
I close my eyes.
I imagine the pavilion completely empty—save for one face, right in the middle. The only person to whom this song is for.
Then I sing: “So, so you think you can tell, Heaven from Hell …?”
The audience draws quiet at once as my voice rings out, sans any backing music. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I feel Noah right there across from me in that Country Lovin’ restaurant—his bright and happy eyes as he scarfed down those crepes, his smile, his gentleness and sensitivity. I sing to that face and no one else.
The lyrics pour out of me with the passion I’d put into a kiss right now, right on his lips, a kiss pleading him to come back.
