The Performance

When I wake up, I run down a list of everything I’d need for the day. Once I get settled I take my shower and get ready for the talent show. I text Nik to see if he would be able to get a ride to school. Nik agreed and told me he would be over in 20 minutes. I finished dressing and I am shocked by an early morning text from Valerie. It reads ‘Don’t just wear your plain old school clothes. Make sure you dress nice!’ Snickering while I read it, I think of the best reply I could send. Finally I sent her a message saying ‘Don’t worry. I think I might even shock you.’

After a few minutes of waiting I get a text from Nik saying that he just arrived. I walk out and head to the car. As I got closer I saw the window roll down.

“Jesus Mark! You actually can look nice when you try.” Nik yells as loud as he can, followed by laughter.

“Holy can you yell any louder. Damn near woke up the ghost man.” I hop into the car and we start going towards the school. “Valerie and I can count on your support right?”

“Of course. Unless there’s a super cute girl performing. Then you guys are outta luck.” Nik continues the talk with “By the way, what time are you guys performing? I’ll cut my class to come watch.”

“I’m pretty sure we are performing in the middle of our Math class. Lucky for me I get excused all day.”

“Wait! You get the whole day off?​ That’s so freaking nice.” I could sense the jealousy through Nik’s voice.

“Being a participant in the Talent Show gives us the day off to watch the other participants.” I say smugly.

We arrive at school right before the first bell. Nik starts walking to his first class, before he gets too far I yell at him “I’ll text you 15 minutes before we play. That should give you enough time to get over there. Also, force Troy to go with you.”

Nik waves me off and leaves.

I start to look for Valerie. I spent nearly 10 minutes looking for her until I gave up and decided to go to the performance hall. As I walk into the building I see the most beautiful girl ever. In a long, black dress, Valerie is standing there lost, as if she is looking for something. As soon as she spots me I hear her call out “Mark, is that you? You look extremely handsome when you clean up. I’m super happy that you didn’t wear your hoodie for this!” As she spoke. I was unable to answer her, because I was shocked at how pretty she looked. “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.” She laughs at me.

“You look fantastic Valerie. I thought I was gonna be the one to shock you, but holy cow you like amazing.” I tell her while still staring. Trying to be less awkward I ask “You wanna go watch the other performances together? Y’know, to see what we are up against.”

Valerie looks at me and smiles. “I’d love to. Let’s go get some good seats.”

We try to find our seats, but it doesn’t take too long for everyone to mob Valerie and fawn over how beautiful she looks.

All I could do was stand there awkwardly until some guy walks up to me and says “Man your girlfriend is really gorgeous. You are definitely one lucky guy.”

“Thanks. I really am lucky to have her.” I say confidently. I then look at Valerie and decide to help her out of her current jam of being surrounded by admirers. “Hey, I found our seats, let’s go sit.” After I said this the swarm of admirers started to dissipate. We sit down and get ready to watch the performances that come.

For the first few who performed it was about what I expected. The normal performances who didn’t put in the best performances. I was feeling really good about our chances of winning. Next up was a performance both Valerie and I were waiting for, Jacey’s. As she takes the stage me and Valerie both lock in to listen to her performance. From what I can remember she is the only other band member in this contest so I am interested to see her play.

She begins playing and it is unbelievably good. It is a song I don’t recognize. I am immediately entranced by her playing. I look at Valerie and she is also struck by the beauty of the playing. My confidence dropped, I knew that she was good, but I would have never known it would sound this amazing. As she ends the song, a standing ovation begins. I clap and tell Valerie that she was our biggest competition and we needed to play damn near perfect to win. Instead of being disheartened, Valerie looks at me with a huge sparkle in her eyes telling me “We will beat her. I know we will. It won’t even be close.” Seeing her full of determination fills me with the same determination.

While we wait for the next performance, Jacey finds her way over near us. “Is it ok if I sit by you guys?”

‘Yea no problem. That performance was amazing by the way. Also you look so pretty.” Valerie says praising Jacey.

“Are you guys nervous now? It sounded like I played perfectly.” Jacey brags, almost like she knows she is gonna win again.

Being honest, I say “Yea-” but am immediately cut off by Valerie.

“Not at all. You were really amazing, but I know Mark and I are going to win this. We are gonna play even better than the original composer could’ve dreamed of. You just wait and see.”

I would have never thought that someone who had stage fright would be telling people to pay special attention to her performance.

The Talent Show continued, and hardly anyone’s performance held a match to Jacey’s amazing performance. However, Valerie does not look shaken up at all. She looks as ready to play as ever. I leave to go to the bathroom and see the kid who I have had poor encounters with recently. As I try to avoid him he stops me.

“Hey dude, do you think we can talk? I just wanna apologize for everything I said to you. I was just jealous that Valerie decided to open up to you. I’ve liked her for so long, and she has never gave me a second look, but she noticed you right away. And I let my jealousy get a hold of me and said a lot of mean stuff. So I am sorry.” He says.

I look at him and just decide to walk away. I didn’t believe him. ‘ If he really liked Valerie, why would he say those things about her?’ I thought.

When I go into the bathroom I wash my face a little to calm my nerves. I then go to use the urinal. Afterwards, I wash my hands and head back to the performance hall, only to be stopped halfway by the same kid. He proceeds to say to me “Please don’t tell Valerie about the stuff I said. I don’t want her to hate me.” Once again I choose to ignore him and walk into the hall. I go to meet Valerie to tell her that we need to get ready to go on.

“Valerie, we gotta go backstage to get ready. We are up in two slots.” Valerie hops out of her seat and begins to walk towards me and grabs my arm to take me with her. While leaving the audience she says proudly “Let’s kick some ass!”

When we get backstage, Valerie decides to tell me the truth. “What am I supposed to do? I’m so nervous. I am freaking out! I tried to fake it, but it hasn’t helped.”

Laughing I tell her “After all that stuff you said to people. Now they are gonna be extra excited to watch you play. You messed up.”

“That isn’t helping. How are you so calm? Please help me out.” She says frantically.

“I’m not calm. I’m just as nervous as you are. I’m just better at hiding it, but don’t worry you have nothing to worry about. Since we are gonna blow the audience away.” I tell her, smiling. “Well it looks like it's our turn. Let’s kill it. Remember, hide your nerves.”

Without saying a word, Valerie puts her signature smile on her face and leads us out onto the stage. As we get everything set on stage the lights dim and we take one last look at each other. I nod to Valerie letting her know I was ready and she starts.

Valerie’s first notes set the tone for our whole performance. All that practice seemed to pay off. She was flawless, I began to play, and I immediately noticed the eyes of the audience were intensely watching us. While playing the introduction I feel my heart beat faster than it had before in any performance prior. Nervous we lead into my solo. The feeling in my chest tightened, but I wasn’t going to run. I told Valerie that I would help her win. Then it hit me. I wasn’t nervous for me messing up for myself, I was nervous about letting Valerie down. I then proceed to play the solo better than I have ever done so. When my solo ends I take a breath. The audience did not clap for the solo so I feared that I messed it up. ‘I can’t think like that right now’ I think to myself. After my measures of rest, we lead into Valerie’s solo. It was gorgeous. It felt wrong for me to even be in the same spotlight as her. I looked into the audience and people were frozen. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. Once Valerie’s solo ends, I join back in. The audience was stunned at what they heard. We finally reached the part where we played the melody back and forth to one another. Not only was this the best I have ever played music before, it was the most fun I’ve ever had playing. After the melody, I take the lead to bring us to the ending of the piece. Valerie follows, takes control at the true beginning of the ending. It sounded as if she was a seasoned professional. If I didn’t know about it, I would’ve never noticed that she had stage fright.

Once we finish we are met with silence. Valerie looks at me sadly, as if she thought she let me down. I walk over to her and offer her my hand. I help her up, and I tell her to bow with me. After we bowed, the audience roared with cheers. When we look up I try to find the judges to see how they handled the performance. All the judges were still faced, as if they were unfazed. Taking that as a bad sign, I ask Valerie to link arms with me and walk backstage.