A mutinous expression crosses Tara’s face, but she stays in the role of interpreter.
“With all due respect, ma’am, my audition tape says differently. You guys contacted me, remember?”
The stage manager or talent coordinator gets extremely flustered. She begins rapidly talking into her headset and making wild gestures with her hands. She has her back turned to me. Unfortunately, in this echoey environment, I can’t figure out exactly what she’s saying. Eventually, she turns around and begins talking to Tara, “Tell him that out of fairness to other contestants, we need to hear him sing before we can register him, to make sure that he didn’t doctor his audition tape.”
Tara signs what the woman is telling her. But then she turns to the woman and says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”
The woman seems startled by the question as if we should know who she is. “Oh, it’s Clover. Clover Branch.” When she catches a glimpse of our expressions, she provides further explanation. “What can I say? My parents were TV stars in the 1970s.”
“I don’t know if you know this Clover, but it is common courtesy to speak directly to a deaf person and not to the interpreter. I’ll be happy to interpret for you,” Tara explains to Clover.
I’m really proud of her, because I know what effort it’s taking for her to stay professional and detached from the conversation.
I sneak a wink at Tara as I reply to the concerned woman, “Certainly, I understand. I have nothing to hide. Would you like me to play the piano or my guitar?”
This question prompts another round of frenzied conversation over the headsets. Eventually, she looks up at me and inquires, “I’m sorry, Aidan. We don’t have the piano available at the moment. Do you mind using your guitar?”
“Not at all,” I answer. “Although, if possible, I would prefer to sing in a quieter environment.”
After consulting with someone on the other end of her headset, Clover states, “That won’t be a problem. Follow me, please.”
She walks us briskly to a back room, all the while talking frantically on her headset. When we get there, she asks me to remove my leather jacket and to turn over any electronic devices including my cell phone. Clover looks at Tara, clearly expecting her to do the same. Tara shrugs and takes off her blazer.
“Is there a problem?” I ask, curious about her actions.
“Oh, we just want to make sure you two aren’t cheating somehow. You know, like Mille Vanilli,” she answers as she writes on her clipboard.
This is going to be fun. I love it when people have really low expectations and I can blow them out of the water. “Okay, but given the fact that you’re going to be sitting two feet away from me, I don’t even understand how that’s possible. But whatever floats your boat is fine with me,” I respond with an easy shrug.
I pull my guitar out of the case and give it a quick tune. I look up to see that Tara has brought me some bottled water. I turn to the talent coordinator and ask her if she has any requests. Her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. Obviously, she was expecting me to choose something I had already prepared. But I figured, if she suspects that I’m somehow cheating, why not put the ball in her court? For all intents and purposes, I’ve been a stereotypical wedding singer for almost a decade. I’ve worked with a few bands here and there, and I write a lot of my own material, but the way I put food on the table is by playing songs other people want me to play. So I can sing everything from Frank Sinatra to Pharrell Williams. I doubt that she’s going to throw anything out that I haven’t covered. It’s a gamble I just have to take. She takes out her cell phone and pulls up her playlist. She thumbs through it briefly and states, “I want to hear Beautiful by James Blunt.”
A large smile crosses my face. I’m sorry. I can’t help myself. I have a really bad poker face. I thought she was going to throw something really hard at me—not one of the biggest hits of 2005 that I’ve done literally thousands of times. I swear I’ve performed this song at nearly every wedding in the last nine years. I think Tara knows that too, because I hear her draw in a sharp breath. When I look up, though, Tara is the picture of professionalism. I nod at Tara and Clover as I say, “Sure, I’d be happy to. That’s one of my favorite songs too.”
I’ve done this song so many times, I’ve had ample time to develop enough creative guitar licks to make the song my own. I play a few bars of an elaborate introduction and start to sing. I try to tune everyone out except Tara and pretend that I’m sitting in my living room and playing just for her. The expression on her face is making that easy to do. She looks totally enchanted by my performance. Her eyes are wide open as she watches every strum of my fingers. Her cheeks are slightly flushed and her bottom lip is caught in her teeth as she concentrates on what I’m doing. When I get to the chorus, her eyes flutter shut and she starts to silently sing along. As I finish the song with all the emotion I want to convey to her, she opens her eyes and looks straight at me. Even though I’m a few feet away, I can see that her breathing is fast. Almost imperceptibly, she signs, “Wow!”
My pulse is beating faster as well. I understand now how intoxicating it is to have someone who matters in the audience. I’ve had a few transient relationships over the years, but nothing with staying power. Women always told me it seemed like my heart was somewhere else. Now that Tara’s back, I’m beginning to wonder if they had a point.
Abruptly, I hear clapping from a few feet in front of me.
Oddly, it startles me. I’ve completely forgotten that anyone else was in the room besides Tara. Clover has big tears running down her face and her mascara makes her look like a raccoon. “Oh my!” she exclaims. “That was just so beautiful. I can’t believe you can actually sing. You did such a good job, too. It’s so courageous of you. You’ve overcome so much. Our viewers just aren’t going to believe this. You’ll be raking in votes by the millions. Maybe we can even arrange a field visit to one of those deaf schools. You could be a mentor or something.”
It’s a good thing I have my guitar in my hand to ground me. I make a point of adjusting the strings on my guitar. At this point, I’m doing it randomly, I’m not even sure what key it’s in and I don’t even care. I’m simply giving myself a chance to chill out before I say something stupid and ruin my chance at a career before it even starts.
This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I want to be treated like every other contestant with no special heart stopping back-story that has its own theme song. But if this lady has anything to say about it, it looks like that train has left the station. I look at Tara and quietly sign, “Help.”
Tara looks at me and asks, “Aidan, do you mind if I step out of the role of interpreter?”
I have no idea what she plans to do, but I trust her, so I just roll with it. “No, feel free,” I respond, stepping back so Tara has a better view.
Tara steps forward and shakes the talent coordinator’s hand as she says, “Hi, I’m Tara Isamu. I’m Aidan’s best friend and sign language interpreter. I don’t sing, but I used to be a competitive dancer. I know a little bit about how these shows work. I’m just curious if you’re putting other competitors at a disadvantage if you make a big deal of Aidan’s deafness. You might make him the target of bullying and bring negative publicity to the show. Wouldn’t it be better if everyone started out completely equal, and it was only the talent which distinguishes them?”
Clover is thoughtful for a moment. You can almost see the gears turning in her head as she rethinks her strategy. She studies me a moment. “Well, it’s not as if you don’t have stud appeal all on your own. If you do well on this show, you’ll probably have a ton of endorsement deals for hair products.” She turns to Tara and comments, “It’s true, fans can be remarkably fickle and the mob mentality can take over. There could be a fan riot if Aidan had a perceived advantage, and that might lead to voter backlash and cyber bullying. So forget what I said about the deaf identity stuff. People might not even notice. We won’t hide it, but we won’t mention
it either. Is that okay?”
“That sounds like a great plan to me. I’m not ashamed of my deafness, but I don’t want to advertise it for sympathy votes, either. Do you need anything else from me, Ms. Branch?”
She looks uncomfortable for a moment, then stretches her hand out for me to shake and admits, “Mr. O’Brien, I owe you an apology. I really thought the deafness was a gimmick at best, and that you were trying to perpetuate a fraud on our show. I apologize for my ignorance. I’m not supposed to say this, but I think you’ve got what it takes to go really far in this competition. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of audition tapes and no one moved me like you did. I’m glad you held true to your principles and chose not to use your deafness as an excuse. It shows a lot about your character. Despite what you’ve heard about our town, character goes a long way. After you sign all the papers in the packet, I’m done with you for the day. You can come back tomorrow morning.
“Officially, check-in is at eight o’clock but those who are smart get here about 7:15. Bring your signed paperwork with you. You can save time tomorrow if you get it notarized tonight. The hotel has a notary on staff,” she instructs.
Tara steps forward to shake her hand, but Clover ignores the gesture. Instead, she asks Tara, “You’re not going to be like an overgrown stage mom are you?”
Out of habit, Tara interprets that for me, but then she makes her own editorial comment on the side in the sign language equivalent of parentheses where she asks me, “Is she serious?”
“No, actually, I don’t plan to be his stage mom. I came to be his interpreter. Does he need a stage mom?” Tara responds with a fair amount of sarcasm, but she’s careful to keep her voice even and professional.
The lady just looks at Tara blankly and went on as if Tara had not answered her question. “I just don’t know where everyone fits around here, so I don’t want you helping him too much,” the talent coordinator explains.
Tara raises an eyebrow at her as she replies, “You are aware that sign language interpreters take college classes and are extensively trained, right? We don’t get this job accidentally. We have professional standards we have to live up to.”
This time, Clover has the grace to look slightly embarrassed. “I didn’t know you did all that. There’s a lady at my church that does it for her son, and she just learned it from a book.”
This response seemed to mollify Tara some and she softened her stance. “That’s okay, it’s a complicated field and there’s a lot of things people don’t know. There’s a big difference between knowing some sign language and being a sign language interpreter. I know you probably didn’t mean to offend us. So it’s not a big deal. I’m here to help Aidan in whatever way he needs. Primarily, my job is to be his interpreter. However, I’ve also known him for many years. So I can’t say honestly that I’m not also here to cheer him on. But I won’t do anything to jeopardize the competition.”
Clover looks down at her clipboard and declares in a no nonsense voice, “Well, good. I’m glad we got that cleared up."
“Well, that was a bigger adventure than I planned,” declares Aidan as he flops back on the couch.
“I’m not sure whether my presence made it better or worse.” I admit, tossing him some orange pop from the mini fridge. “I think you might have been better off if I hadn’t been here.”
“Are you kidding me?” Aidan counters. “Did you forget I had to turn my implants off to avoid having a mini stroke from all the noise?”
“Exaggerate much, Aidan? Headache? Yes, stroke? Not so likely,” I tease.
“Anyway, the point is—I wasn’t coping very well. If you hadn’t been there, I probably wouldn’t have been able to cope at all. You are more than just my interpreter. You calmed me down and made it possible for me to do what I needed to do today,” Aidan argues. “So, yes I needed you there for many reasons.”
“Well, I’m glad I could be there for you. I just hope I don’t turn out to be an issue for you. Aidan, I hate to be a downer, but has your dad looked into these people? Call me insane, but I have a bad feeling about this one.”
“I didn’t really fill him in on all the details,” Aidan admits sheepishly. “Rory is the only one who knows what’s going on. He’s been around enough of their craziness to wait to tell on me for now. I can’t guarantee you what he’ll do if I manage to do well in this thing.”
I remember what he’s talking about. His parents gave a whole new meaning to the phrase competitive. I often felt sorry for Rory. He always had the opposite problem of me. I couldn’t get my mom to be remotely interested in what was going on in my life and he couldn’t get his parents to be uninterested. Somewhere in that equation, Aidan got lost.
I always kind of felt like I was abandoned by my parents, which I know, is irrational since they both died. But, weird things happen in your brain when a parent passes away before you’re old enough to really understand what death is about. My dad was the center of my universe. One day he went to work and never came back and everything I knew about life changed that day.
I cannot imagine what it was like for Aidan to cope with the fact that his parents tossed him aside like a sweater which no longer fit when he became deaf. Every time I think about that, I become incensed all over again. The strange thing about it all for me is I was with the O’Brien family nearly every day for weeks at a time after Aidan almost died and no one bothered to say a word to me—even though we’ve been best friends for several years. I had no idea his life had undergone as much of a catastrophic upheaval as mine.
I’m sitting cross-legged in the center of the bed surrounded by a copy of the paperwork the talent agency provided to Aidan. I stopped by the business center at the hotel to make a couple of copies before we fill them out. I read them while Aidan took a shower and I have some serious doubts about this operation. “Um, AJ, did you read this?” I ask as I study the documents more carefully. “This says that they have the right to edit your image and portray you any way they choose into perpetuity. If I remember correctly from taking my SATs, the term perpetuity means they can change any publicity materials that they may have on you forever. That just seems really weird to me. I keep thinking about all the weird stuff that they do with famous movie stars after they pass away —you know like holograms, tribute songs and advertisements—it’s just creepy. I’m not a lawyer like Jeff but I think a contract like this would allow them to do something like that.” I give an involuntary shiver as a feeling of dread creeps up my spine.
“Don’t they use a lot of boilerplate language in those contacts nobody bothers to read? I’m sure it’s probably no big deal. Why would they want to do that stuff anyway?” Aidan asks as he picks notes out on his guitar.
“I don’t know, Aidan,” I reply, struggling to put a voice to my feelings without crushing his dreams. “Something about this feels off to me. Why would an independent company without the backing of a record label be trying to find songwriters? And why do they have to have exclusive rights to the songs that you create for the show forever? Also, why is the talent pool so uneven if they allegedly recruited everyone based on their talent? I mean, you those kids. Some of those kids were barely old enough to change a Band-Aid by themselves, let alone write their own songs. How is some teenage girl who’s never performed in front of anyone other than her cat going to start competing against those of you who have been doing it for more than a decade? It’s not fair to you or the other contestant.”
Aidan shrugs as he says, “I don’t know, it seems to have worked out okay for Kelly Clarkson and Phillip Phillips.”
“But, that brings me back to my original question, why would a giant corporation be interested in sponsoring what amounts to a fancy talent show?”
Aidan actually flinches at my words and I feel like I kicked a kitten in the face. “I didn’t mean it as a slam against you, AJ. It’s just that a lot of things don’t add up,” I explain. “For example, they claim to be a show that promotes songwriting yet not once during the aud
ition process do they actually ask you for a sample of your songwriting skills. For a show that’s supposed to support artists and songwriters, all the protection in this contract is geared toward the corporation.”
“Isn’t that pretty typical of big companies?” Aidan counters. “Aren’t they supposed to look after their own interests?”
“Well, yes. But, it’s not usually this one-sided. This company wants to basically make you indentured servant for the rest of your life. They own your likeness and any creative content you put on the show. So they basically can be the puppet masters. It’s like you don’t have any power in the situation,” I argue.
“Of course I have the power. If I don’t like how they’re treating me, I can just quit,” Aidan reasons.
“That’s a cute thought Aidan. Not realistic, but cute. I’m speaking from personal experience here. Your parent’s got Rory and I booked on a children’s show when we were younger. It was a joke. It turned out that the whole thing was just an elaborate pet project for this guy’s trophy wife to provide cover for his non-family friendly activities. But, because he was a lawyer, he had the resources to push the project regardless of the cost. So, we were stuck in a country we didn’t want to be and in a job we didn’t necessarily want to do, speaking a language we didn’t really speak—all because no one thought to read the small print. It didn’t matter that we didn’t want to do it. They just edited around us. This meant they made us into the villains of the century.”
“Yeah, I vaguely remember that. Ma and Pa were steamed for a whole month. I remember a lot of angry phone calls to the attorneys. I think Rory thought it was great to have his good-boy halo knocked a little askew.”
I snort back some laughter, which was a dangerous thing to do, because it made me inhale the crème soda I was drinking, Aidan comes over and pats me on the back until I stop coughing. “Are you going to survive over here?” he quips.
So the Heart Can Dance (A Hidden Beauty Novel Book 2) Page 18