Dad gives the doorman outside the club our names and he angrily checks his list. The doorman draws a big X on my hand and I hurry through just in case he tries to eat me.
We push past the crowded front bar. I can hardly hear Dad tell his story about performing in this same venue with one of his bands because the room is so loud. Also I’m thinking about how long it took to get here, how I first had to meet my partner, write our song, make the finals, sit in traffic through the Holland Tunnel, walk through what Dad called the East Village, and finally step into this tiny back room which does not look like a giant theater with stadium seats and a red curtain but more like a dark cave with folding chairs and a ceiling that comes down on you and makes you want to bend over so you don’t get crushed. There’s no one else here except the long-haired man sitting behind the sound booth and he’s too busy looking at his phone to say hello to us.
“We’re in the wrong place,” I say.
“Nope.” Dad points to a piece of paper taped to the first row of chairs that says Reserved for Finalists. He sits with me so I’m not alone and Mom takes a seat in the area behind us.
Cold air blows down from a spot in the ceiling and I hug myself to stay warm. This may be the loneliest place I’ve ever been to except maybe the Turtle Back Zoo where each of the reptiles is kept all alone in its own glowing hole in the wall.
The doors to the front room open and finally the people start coming in. They sit in chairs and stand up in the back of the room. The front row starts to fill up, but the other finalists don’t look anything like me. Maybe I should feel happy that I’m the youngest one here but I don’t like it because I’m always the youngest, even with HSAM, and this time I just want to be like all the others. I want everyone to know how serious and important I am.
Dad is chatting my ear off. “Remember what I told you. Some of these people have been doing this a long time. There are plenty of other contests you can enter. You have your whole life ahead of you. I love you. You know that, right?”
“Yes, Dad.”
I look around some more and stretch my neck high. It looks like all the people are here now. No one else is coming through the back door.
So far this contest is nothing like I pictured. My metal chair is ice-cold and the soundman is playing the worst music and I don’t even see programs anywhere. When you go to a play or a wedding they normally give you a program so you know exactly what’s going to happen and when it’s going to happen, but there’s nothing under my chair except dust and a flattened cigarette. I don’t understand why they’d want to announce the next great songwriter in a place like this. I’m worried that I made a big mistake thinking this contest could help spread my song around the world. I’m learning that it’s a mistake to trust just about anyone because they’ll say things to get you excited and then they’ll forget what they said and just do something else. I want to slide onto the dirty floor and crawl on my knees under all the chairs and go past the hungry doorman and call a taxi, maybe even Adisa’s taxi, and have him drive me home to Jersey City because this isn’t how it was supposed to happen.
“Pardon me, love.”
I sit up straight, and it’s the only fake British person I know. His face is smooth and his hair is longer and his dimple is bumpy and his palms are flapping like wings.
I do my hand signal back to him.
“Thanks for saving my seat,” Gavin says to Dad. Dad says something back but I’m too busy staring at Gavin. If this ends up being the last time I ever see him, I want to make sure I notice all of him, like how the cuffs of his jacket are unbuttoned and the bottoms of his jeans are rolled high and the buckle on his belt looks rusty and his beer bottle is curled in his left hand and it says BROOKLYN on the label and his right arm is hanging down and his right wrist is naked where Sydney’s bracelet used to be.
Before I ever met Gavin Winters, I heard a lot about him from my parents and from Sydney and from TV and then I got to know him in my own way. Then he disappeared but I was still hearing about him from my parents and from TV and so he was never really gone, even when he was. It’s hard to know if he’s really here right now or if it’s just a memory or something else. I touch his hand and he looks down while he’s listening to Dad and he squeezes my hand and I’m not even mad anymore because he promised he’d be here and here he is and I know it’s true because I can feel him.
Dad looks at his watch. “It’s almost time.” He bends over and chokes me with a strong hug. He pats Gavin on the shoulder and walks back to where Mom is sitting.
Gavin takes Dad’s seat. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” he says, ruffling up my hair.
“Stop.”
“Relax, the messier the better. It shows you don’t care.”
“But I do care.”
His dimple fades a little as he sips his beer. I’d feel a lot less nervous if I had my guitar with me, but Dad says it’s not that kind of event. Not all the finalists are performers, they’re writers, so instead of a guitar, he told me to bring a speech just in case I win.
I reach into my dress pocket and feel the folded piece of paper inside my palm. Mom helped me with the words. I take it out and read it again for practice. Behind me, Mom smiles big and I smile back at her but my smile is only small.
When I face forward again there are two women onstage. The one woman looks like a grown-up Orphan Annie and the other has long white hair that’s folded on top of her head in layers, like a wedding cake. My chair starts vibrating like it did when we had an earthquake in Jersey City on Tuesday, August 23, 2011, and I grip my chair because I’m afraid the floor will open up and the ceiling will collapse and I’ll be crushed and I’ll never know who won the contest. But it’s not an earthquake. It’s just my knees.
Annie lifts her chin up to reach the tall microphone. “Hello.” She waits for the room to quiet down. “Welcome to the award ceremony for the first-ever Next Great Songwriter Contest.”
Annie pauses so people can cheer and clap, and most of us do.
“As some of you know, Coral and I have a blog and the gist of the blog is that we disagree about pretty much everything and that leads to what we hope are interesting discussions about music and art and culture and whatever. But one thing we actually agree on is that there is far too much attention paid today to the singers of the world and hardly any consideration goes to the songwriters. We’re big fans of stories and storytellers. And we’re also big fans of our respective home states, New York and New Jersey. We’ve always known that there was a lot of talent hiding right here in our backyards. We wanted to see if we could find some of you and help get your names out there.”