The Talent Show

The lights from the theater are so intense that I can feel the heat coming through the heavy curtain as I walk across the stage to the waiting area. On the other side of the curtain I know there is a young girl, with beautiful curly brown hair tied tight behind her neck in a long ponytail, captivating the crowd with the lost art of baton twirling. As I hear the crowd verbalize “ooh” and “aah”, I imagine the baton leaving her small hands and flying straight up into the air, returning silently to her hands a moment later. I am sure that she did not falter, catching the spinning aluminum bar easily with her fingers, twirling it behind her back and launching it into the air again. The images in my head of her performance do nothing to help calm the panic that is rising up in the back of my throat like a wildfire just beginning to catch. How in the world can my three-minute stand-up comedy routine ever compete with such raw and youthful talent? I’m not even funny,  I think to myself as I see the contest organizer waving me to continue walking in her direction to the staging area. 

The contest organizer is a local woman in her mid-forties named Phyllis. She is the exact embodiment of what most people imagine as the traditional Texan woman. She is five feet, five inches tall, about thirty pounds overweight for her petite frame, with large hair. Like many others, Phyllis is a former beauty pageant contestant, whose beauty and potential for success peaked in her late teens and early twenties followed by a predictable marriage to her high-school sweetheart and staying home to raise their children. I know there is no reason to look down on these women, however I am well aware that they generally look down on the women who made different choices by gossiping in their weekly bunco groups and book clubs about anyone who had shunned the pageant scene and left town for a university after senior year.  I am one of those women. Though I am a good ten years younger than Phyllis, we know each other through my older sister who had been in her graduating class. I had heard from Amanda that Phyllis had ridden the pageant scene to the state competition in 1999 only to lose the contest when her right heel broke as she sashayed across the stage wearing her glittery gold bikini. The result was her crashing to the ground, twisting her ankle and beginning to ugly cry immediately. Had she held it together and recovered gracefully she may have survived and gone on to win the contest. 

Tonight her blonde hair, which is highlighted and touched-up every two weeks, has been teased and sprayed until it is possibly bulletproof. Even as she rapidly nods her head, it doesn’t move, the curls staying perfectly in place and in alignment with the movement of her head. Tonight she is dressed in a mauve, taffeta ball gown that looks like it was unpacked from a box relegated to the attic circa 1994. The gown has puffy sleeves, a deep v-neck, a gathered waist and reaches the floor in a straight line complete with a slit that comes up mid-thigh. Phyllis has paired the gown with two inch pumps of the same color, with a small hole cut in the toe that allows her large toe to peek through. She has painted her toenails the same mauve color and added a few small rhinestones to each toe which sparkle each time they catch the light from the direction of the stage. I imagine this was the formal look she displayed in the doomed 1999 pageant that ended her career.

As I move my right foot in Phyllis’ s direction it feels like it is no longer attached to my body and I falter slightly as it connects with the floor. “Don’t fall”, I scream at myself in my head. As if the nausea in my stomach for the past two days wasn’t enough of a concern, apparently now my body no longer wants to walk due to nervousness. I have never been good at talking, or even being, in front of large groups of people. So, why have I decided to enter into this silly local talent show? After six months of talking about the importance of facing my fears in order to allow me to heal, my therapist finally convinced me to take the step when the talent show was announced by the town council six weeks earlier. In fact, the day after the announcement when I arrived for my weekly session, the first thing he did was hand me the flyer and say “I really think this will be a good, healing activity for you Madeline”. I took the flyer and as I looked at the words they started to blur and I felt my breath catch in my throat. 

“I’m not ready” I responded and handed the flyer back politely. “Think about it” Dr. Mills replied “Really think about it. I know it’s hard to imagine, but real healing takes place when we start to confront our greatest fears. This is a fear but not your greatest and one that won’t result in major trauma if things go sideways. It’s a baby-step and one that you need to take”. So, six weeks later here I am, with Phyllis, behind the stage in the church’s auditorium, preparing to stand in front of several hundred people and tell silly jokes. 

As I approach Phyllis I hear the crowd erupt into cheers and applause and know that the young baton twirler has completed her act. This means there are only two more people to perform before it will be my turn. “Come this way honey,” Phyllis says, taking my right elbow gently and leading me to a small anteroom to the right of the stage. “This is where you will wait until your turn. You okay?” she asks, her eyes conveying the now familiar look of pity. It’s a small town, everyone knows your business and I am confident that Phyllis and her friends have spent many hours talking about me and the tragedy I experienced three years earlier. And why does everyone ask if I am okay? How can I possibly be okay?

“Thank you, Phyllis. I am fine, just a little nervous” I manage to respond. A little nervous, I think, what a joke. My entire body feels as if it will melt into the ground. My limbs feel weak, yet achy, the muscles tightening and relaxing every few seconds, over and over again. My palms feel so clammy and sweaty that I continually glance down expecting to see a puddle forming on the floor below. My head is pounding in pain and the feeling of vomiting is hovering just behind my uvula, threatening to come rushing out of my mouth at any minute. I know that the final act my body will perform will happen as soon as I step on stage and bring the microphone to my mouth; I will not be able to speak. I will try, and I will end up gasping for breath and allow some mumbling to make its way through my lips. The crowd will gasp and look at me with sadness. “Poor Madeline” they will all be thinking “why is she doing this to herself?”. They will then notice the scars peeking out from my sleeves where they meet my wrists. They will notice the scars I have worked so hard to cover with the perfect shade of make-up, that dash across my cheeks. They will try to imagine the absolute hell on earth I experienced and miraculously found my way through, only to humiliate myself on the stage in front of them tonight. And they will feel sad.

The vomit makes it way past the uvula, I feel the acidic liquid burning my throat as I dash for the grey metal garbage can sitting in the corner. ‘Please let me make it” I think, willing my weak, anxious legs and feet to move in harmony together. I grab the can and fold my body over it, but nothing comes out of my mouth. There are two other people, an older man and a young woman in her twenties, in the room. The commotion catches their attention and they both rise from their seats in tandem, making their way towards me. I grasp the rim of the can with my left hand and stick my right arm out in their direction, my palm up forming a stop sign. “I’m okay, please, I’m okay” I manage to say in between dry heaves. “I am just really nervous” I say as I return the can to the ground. 

The older man is very tall, with salt and pepper hair that is turning white in places on his head, and a long white beard that almost reaches his chest. His eyes are ocean blue and kind and he does not look away, like most people do when they make eye contact with me. “What can I do” he asks and I know from his tone he is being genuine, not just polite. ‘Is there someone in the audience I can call to come back here and wait with you?”. 

There is my sister Amanda, but before I can respond, the door opens and Phyllis enters the room. “Larry, you are up next, come with me” she says with a sugary sweet tone in her voice. Larry nods slightly at me, says “You’re going to be just fine kid” and follows Phyllis out the door. I hear her heels tapping down the hall towards the stage, with Larry and his boots in tow. I wonder for just a second what Larry’s talent might be and wish I was in the audience to watch him perform. 

The young woman and I are now alone in the room. I catch her eye and try to smile, though I am sure with the scar on my lip and chin, it comes out as awkward. She smiles back, her perfectly lined lips curling up slightly before she looks away. From my right pocket I pull out my index cards with my jokes and start to read through the cards. The jokes are mainly silly knock-knock jokes I remember from childhood. I gently remind myself that this is just a therapeutic exercise, it does not matter if my jokes are funny.

After a few minutes pass I hear Phyllis enter the room and say “Nicole, you are next”. The young girl stands and follows Phyllis out the door toward the stage leaving me alone in the room and waiting for Phyllis to return. As I wait, I know by the sound of the audience that the young woman, Nicole, has walked on stage and greeted the crowd.  Music from a lone guitar then begins and Nicole begins to sing a beautiful song about love and loss. I know that these sounds mean that within a few moments Phyllis will return to the small room and lead me towards my opportunity to start my healing. I know that Dr. Mills is in the audience and I imagine him sitting in the old, metal folding chairs of the church auditorium, hoping he has been able to help me take a step forward to mending my broken life.