Unfiltered

by Payge Galvin

  There’s nothing I want more right now than to lock myself in the bathroom and pretend it’s Dillon touching me until I come in wave after wave, imagining how his chest would look hovering over me in bed. Instead, I give a quick assessing nod.

  “I think,” I say, surprised my voice is so steady. “that we need to go shopping.”

  Chapter 4

  Dillon

  “Holy crap,” Savannah says as we walk toward the UNLV campus, taking in the thousands of people who are lined up ahead of us in front of the arena doors even though it’s just after four a.m. “Seriously, there can’t be anyone left in this town to go to the casinos.”

  I survey the crowd—some have folding chairs, some have sleeping bags and a few even have tiny pop-up tents that indicate they’re here for the duration. I’ve prepared myself for this, knew this was what I was getting into, but still the sight of all these people with the same goal that I have sets me back just a little.

  “There will probably be over 10,000 people auditioning today,” I say.

  “That is insane,” Savannah says, looking at the crowd and then back at me. “So then how many people get through?”

  “Probably about 200 get through to the second round. Maybe another 40 or 50 get to the next round. I think about 25 get to go to the real auditions in front of the producers—the ones that you see on the show.”

  “And how many get on the show?”

  “From here?” I scan the faceless crowd one more time. “Ten, maybe twenty if we’re really lucky. They’ve already done auditions in five other cities. This is the last stop before the show starts here next week.”

  “So…out of all of the people that are sitting here, all of the people who are going to fill that huge arena today…you’re telling me that maybe twenty will actually get on the show?”

  It sounds so remote when she says it. Like the odds really aren’t all that great. “I don’t need twenty people to get to the final audition,” I say. I turn away from the crowd and look only at her face. I dragged Savannah all the way out here, now I have to prove to her that it’s going to be worth it. And I have to believe that it’s true, or everything up to now will have been a total waste. “I only need one person to get through. Me.”

  Two guys in bright yellow windbreakers push through the crowd with a section of wire fencing. “Excuse us. Excuse us.” They put it about five feet in front of us, making large pens that hold a few hundred people at a time. Another pair of workers passes us with another section of fencing, walking back to the dozens of people who have already lined up behind us to close them off.

  “Baaa,” I say to Savannah under my breath, and I’m rewarded with a smile.

  “You look great,” she says, putting one hand up and straightening my collar.

  “Thanks to you.” I glance down at the black shirt with the white, western-style accents she picked out at the overpriced store we went to yesterday. I bend my arms. “You don’t think it’s too tight?”

  She looks up at me with a grin. “It’s perfect. You want them to see a hint at what you’ve got under there.”

  I look at her, trying to gauge what she means. After that strip-tease yesterday she made it very apparent that she’s not into me, not like that. If I was with any other girl in a fancy hotel room in Vegas with my pants off and a hard-on blooming, you bet your ass the next step wouldn’t have been a trip to the store. Savannah wants to play it platonic, and I’m cool with that. At least I think I am. I’ll try to be. “And what have I got under here?”

  Before she can answer, the guy next to us puts his headphones on and burst into a few bars of “With Or Without You” by U2. I’d make fun of him or say something snarky, but his voice is actually pretty good. Too good.

  Savannah looks around at the people near us. Some are singing quietly along to songs that are coming through their headphones, others are doing vocal exercises in pairs, and there is more than one woman dressed up in a cow suit. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  I watch her to see if I can pinpoint the confidence crumbling. “Since the moment I saw the first season of American Voice years ago.”

  I try to block out the guy unrolling a sleeping bag on the ground next to us as he settles in for the long haul. Every one of these people believes they can do this, thinks that they are going to be one of just a few singers left standing when the other ten thousand have gone home. Otherwise they wouldn’t be here. But I’ve left myself no outs—no job, no apartment, no town to go back to. I have to keep looking forward because I can’t afford to look back.

  “Since I was a little kid, I’ve felt that there’s something I should be doing with my life, some perfect thing that when I find it, will make all of the anxiety I feel every day vanish into thin air. When I’m singing, I’m home. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at, and the only thing I’ve ever truly wanted to do. I don’t know if I believe in fate, or divine plan or destiny or whatever…all I know is that I have some crazy ability that I was born with and to not do it—to miss this opportunity would kill me. Literally kill me.” I stop, wondering if I’ve gone too far. I’ve never said this to anyone before, not to my mother, not to my caseworker and definitely not to any of the endless series of foster homes I shuttled through until I finally turned eighteen and could walk away from that life forever. I can’t bear to look at Savannah, to see the mocking in her eyes at my little speech.

  Savannah puts one hand on my cheek and looks me in the eyes with a stare so piercing it’s almost painful. “You’ll do it,” she says, her voice rising with confidence. “Everyone else might as well pack up and go home because you’re going to be the one up on that stage in front of millions of people watching on TV.”

  I’m so grateful for her confidence that I can’t help myself—I bend down and give her a hug, holding on a beat longer than a friend would. “Thanks.” I want to say more, about how there’s nobody else in the world who could be here today, nobody else in the world that I’d want to be here today. But I don’t. All I can do is repeat myself. “Thanks.”

  A woman walks down the line, a stack of papers in her hand. “Does anyone need registration and release forms?” she calls as she makes her way slowly past the crowd.

  Hands go up and she distributes the papers as she walks. I put my hand up as she gets near. “Two please,” I say.

  “What, are you planning on screwing up the first copy?” Savannah asks.

  “No,” I say, taking the papers from the woman. “This copy is for you.” I didn’t know it until right this second, but this is absolutely the right thing. Savannah needs to audition too.

  “No way,” she says, her face clouded. “I’m not going to try out. This is your trip, not mine. I’m here for moral support, and that’s it.”

  “It’s perfect!” I say, getting more and more convinced. “You have to audition. How are you going to feel if you come all this way just to watch?”

  “I did come here just to watch!” she insists. “You want to be the next American Voice, not me.”

  I shake my head. “God Savannah, you don’t get it. You could win just as easily as I can.” I grab her shoulder so she can’t turn away. “You’re so talented. And so…” I want to say the next words, but I don’t want to screw anything up. “So beautiful. They’d be idiots not to take you. This is your shot.”

  “Hi.”

  I look over and see a guy with a microphone followed by another guy with a huge camera slung on his shoulder.

  “Hey,” I say. I haven’t noticed anyone filming until now.

  “I’m with American Voice, and I wondered if you’d do a quick interview with us. You know, one of those background promos that gets the audience interested in the people who come here to audition for the show.”

  I glance at Savannah, and she shrugs. “Sure. I guess.”

  “Great,” the guy says, securing headphones on his ears. “I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions, so answer the best you can. Try not
to squint at the light, and remember to talk directly to me. Don’t worry about what’s going on around you.”

  “Okay,” I say. Savannah grabs my hand and gives a little squeeze.

  The light on the camera floods our little area, and I can hear everyone around us getting quiet as the guy with the headphones points the microphone at us. He smiles, and I feel a little more at ease. I’m going to have to get used to the cameras, so now is as good a time as any. I try to block it out and just focus on him.

  “So first, tell me your names, your ages, and where you’re coming from.”

  I squeeze Savannah’s hand back so she’ll go first. “I’m Savannah Miller, and I’m twenty one.” She looks at me. “I’m Dillon Varga, and I’m twenty-three. We’re from Rio Verde, Arizona.”

  The guy puts one hand on the headphones and nods. “Arizona? You’re a little ways from home.”

  “We took the bus all night to get here,” Savannah says. I look over at the guy to see if he thinks that’s a dumb answer, but he’s eating it up.

  “Wow,” he says. “So if you get on the show, you’re willing to stay in Las Vegas as long as you need to?”

  “Absolutely,” I say. “This is where we’re meant to be, and we’re here for as long as it lasts.”

  Savannah glances up at me. “Dillon is amazing. He’s going to win, you’ll see.”

  The guy smiles. “You sound pretty sure of that.”

  “No, I’m not,” I interrupt. “Savannah is going to win. She has a gorgeous voice.”

  “I’m not auditioning,” she reminds me.

  “Yes, you are. I have the papers right here.”

  “I’m sensing a bit of a lover’s quarrel,” the guy says. He makes a rolling motion with his hand so I know he wants us to keep going.

  “Oh, we’re not together,” Savannah says, and I can see her cheeks get red in the camera’s light. “We were in a band for awhile…back home.”

  “Right,” I say, backing her up. “We’re just friends.”

  “Do you have anything you want to sing for us?” the guy asks. “Just a taste of what you can do?”

  “Um,” I say, caught totally of guard.

  “Let’s do ‘Hello,’” Savannah whispers in my ear, suddenly on board. It’s that corny Lionel Richie song that we’ve sung in the band a few times. Except when Savannah sings it, it doesn’t sound corny.

  “Okay,” I say, nodding to her. We sing a few lines of the song, and the guy behind the camera gives us a thumbs up.

  “Well there you have it,” he says. “Keep an eye out for Dillon and maybe Savannah if he can convince her to sing.” The camera’s light snaps off, and we’re suddenly shrouded in the dim light from the streetlamps again.

  “Great,” the guy says. He takes out a tablet. “What are your names again?”

  We spell them out for him and he takes a quick photo of the two of us together.

  “Can I give you some advice?” he leans toward us so that the camera guy can’t hear. “You should audition,” he says to Savannah. “And you two should stay together. They eat this stuff up back at the network.”

  “Thanks,” I say as the two of them move away from us toward the rest of the line.

  The people near us start talking really loudly. I’d almost forgotten that anyone else was here. “No fucking way,” the guy on the sleeping bag says.

  “What?” I look down at him.

  “They almost never fucking do that.” He puts the headphones back on his ears and shakes his head. “I’ve auditioned three years in a row, and nobody’s ever wanted to film me.”

  I hold a pen out to Savannah. “Now will you fill out the stupid form please?”

  By the time the sun peeks over the horizon, we’re sitting on the ground, our backs up against the fence for support. Both of the forms are filled out, and I keep folding and unfolding mine to check my answers.

  “Would you stop that,” Savannah says. “You’re going to wreck it.”

  “I just want to make sure I have everything.”

  We see the people in front of us hauling themselves to their feet. Two more women come down the line, collecting forms, checking IDs and handing out little pink plastic bracelets. “When you get into the arena,” she says to me after taking my form. “You’ll sit in sections that are designated by the number on your bracelet.”

  “How much longer do you think we have to wait?” Savannah asks, yawning as the woman puts a bracelet around her wrist.

  She shrugs. “They should open the doors in about an hour.”

  “Good. I’m wrecked.”

  “Oh honey,” the woman says, giving her a kind smile. “You’d better settle in. Once you’re in there, you’ve got another five or six hours to wait before it’s your section’s turn.”

  “Five or six…?” Savannah looks at me. “This is your fault.”

  I grin at her, knowing that we’ll probably be here for another twelve hours if we’re lucky enough to get through the first audition. “Just think of the stories you can tell.”

  “Yeah, the story about how I had to sit around for an entire day only to get kicked off at the first audition.”

  “Stop,” I say to her. “You can’t think like that. Just look at this as an experience, and ride it out as long as you can.”

  I’m already starting to sweat in the morning sun when they finally open the arena doors and let us in one by one, checking wristbands and showing us to the right section.

  “Can you believe this?” Savannah says, as we’re led to our seats in a really high section of the arena.

  “No,” I say, looking at the curtains and tables that are set up on the floor below. I’ve imagined this, read about it in blogs from past contestants, but never thought I’d actually get to be here one day. “It’s amazing.”

  We spend the day lounging in the hard plastic stadium seats, messing with our phones and eating overpriced snacks from the vendors that come by every once in awhile. I have the list of songs they use for the first rounds of auditions on my phone, so I play them over and over for both of us so that Savannah will know what she’s in for.

  We’re so high up in the stands that I stop trying to figure out what’s going on down on the floor—everyone looks like ants from up here. Every now and then you here a whoop over the hum of voices in the arena and my heart sinks as one of my competitors gets through to the next round. For every person who gets through, that’s one less space for me. On my one trip to the bathroom there must have been ten guys in there belting out different songs and checking out the acoustics. The desperation was almost deafening.

  “I’m going for another walk,” I say to Savannah as I pull myself out of my seat. It’s almost three o’clock, and I feel like I can’t sit still another minute.

  “No. Wait,” she says, a hand on my arm. “I think it’s our turn.”

  Another set of assistants walks to the aisle nearest our seats and shouts for us to get up and form one line.

  “This is it,” I say as we scramble into the aisle.

  We’re led down to the floor of the arena where we’re stopped by another metal gate. A woman counts us off, pointing at us as she says the numbers. “You,” she says to me. “Go to line two.” Then she points to Savannah. “You to line six.”

  “Wait! What?” Savannah says, looking around. I can see the panic in her eyes.“We’re supposed to go together.”

  I look over at the tables and curtains that are set up in front of us. “It’s okay,” I say. “You’ll be great. I promise. I’ll see you on the other side, both of us holding tickets to the show.”

  “What are you going to sing?” she asks quickly as the people around us walk toward their correct spot.

  “Higher,” I say, mentioning the original song that we agreed on yesterday.

  “No,” she says, shaking her head. “When you get to the final audition, sing ‘Beautiful Day.’”

  “By U2?”

  “Yes.” She glances over at her group. �
��It starts low, but it’ll show your range. And it’s familiar. They like familiar.”

  “Savannah,” I say, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Time to go,” a woman says to the two of us.

  “Good luck,” I say, grazing her cheek with my lips. I want to do so much more, want to tell her what this means to me, but we’re totally out of time.

  She walks toward her group, but looks back at me one more time. “Dillon!”

  “Yeah?” I call as I’m being herded into mine.

  “Don’t forget to smile.”

  I grin and wave until she’s out of sight, swallowed up by the throngs of people pressing against the curtain. I’m alone now. This is it. It’s up to me not to fuck it up.

  There are ten of us in the first group as we approach a table filled with three guys and a woman I don’t recognize. “Okay,” the woman says. “We’re going to have a little sing-a-long. When I count to three, I want you all to sing the first ten bars of “Heard it Through The Grapevine.” I take a deep breath and clear my throat. Number four on the audition playlist I’ve been listening to— I know it cold. I try to block out everything around me and focus on the music, focus on hitting the right notes and showing them what I can do. And smiling.

  “Thank you!” one of the guys says over the sounds of people singing, as everyone drops off into silence. The four judges put their heads together, write a couple of things on the clipboards and then look out at the ten of us.

  “When I point to you, you’re done for the day. Please follow the assistant through the curtain and out into the lobby. We’ve enjoyed hearing you, and we’ll be back for another season next year—practice hard and come see us again.” I force myself to stop breathing so fast. Ten, maybe twenty seconds is all that it took to wipe out years of hard work for some of us.

  She starts to my left. “You. You. You. Thank you very much.”

  That’s three. There are seven of us left.

  “And you in the blue sweater. Yes, you. Thank you. You in the white shirt. You too.”

  Five. There are only five of us left.