Morristown, NJ
The night before the Christmas talent show, I can’t sleep because of the crickets. Dozens have escaped from our bearded dragon’s cage, and now they are singing. If not for the lines of snow on our windowpanes, it could be summer, the air thick with vibration and sound.
When we first moved here, my brother and I asked for a dog, not a lizard, but my mom said our apartment was too small. Where would it run? At first, I didn’t understand—we drove by tidy houses with buzz-cut lawns and bicycles kicked over in driveways, sleek retrievers that chased us to the edges of their electric fences. But then our sedan slid into the lot behind our apartment complex, only a few doors down from the orthodontist’s office where my mom works as a receptionist. I immediately understood what she meant. The stairwell was littered with cigarette butts, the halls moldy with neglect. There would be no space for an animal here. No space even to spread my arms out wide. To open my mouth and have something come out.
This is why I hide my voice away, I think. I have pushed all my urges down, past my ribs and into my gut, because I am afraid of the hair growing between my legs, the hard buds in my chest. When I asked about these changes, arriving too soon, my mom said, “You’re becoming a woman,” and I started to cry.
So the crickets keep me up. Might as well practice alongside them. I stand in front of my mirror, pretending my hairbrush is a microphone. I’ve chosen “Tell It to My Heart” by Taylor Dayne for the talent show, and when I let myself sing, I understand the purpose of gods. It is belief taking on shape. Something I can’t name moves inside me; something finally magnetizes. I release all that is pent up, yearning to burst forth. From every corner of the apartment, crickets hum.
The next night, I walk onto the stage, a rickety old thing with a stack of dusty gym mats in the corner. A red curtain hanging over my head like a guillotine. Rows of parents and grandparents with itchy holiday sweaters and grocery store flowers. My mom, chewing her Nicorette gum, and Jack Nichols, sitting in the second row with Lindsey Butler and Rachel Morrow. Just last weekend, a group of us gathered in Lindsey’s basement and pushed The Silence of the Lambs into the VHS player, but none of us actually watched; the television was only color and sound in the background. Inside me, a similar glint. First shaft of desire. All my shapeless lust thrust at Jack Nichols, warped, then returned to me. He is the boy at school everyone wants; a collision of eyes always follows him. So when the spinning bottle landed on me, and he took my hand and led me into the closet, all the other girls visibly withered, and I expanded. In the dark, we leaned toward each other. Warmth bloomed between my legs, but the swipe of his lips was like a credit card through a slot. Behind the door, I could hear the others breathing, someone stifling a laugh. And, after, Lindsey took me into the bathroom. Said, “You know why he likes you, right? He only likes you because you have big boobs.”
I glanced down at my chest.
“Do you want to date him?” Lindsey asked. “Like, you have a crush on him?”
“Yes.”
She exited the bathroom and returned a minute later, then told me she had spoken with Jack.
“He’s not into you,” she said. “Sorry.” She tried not to laugh but a little escaped. She’s not the type to push someone over, but she loves pointing when they’re already sprawled on the ground.
This humiliation is still fresh. Now they will watch me perform. Good. I am desperate to prove them wrong.
I step into the spotlight, my small hands wrapped around the microphone. My heart punches my ribs. The audience is whispering. I want to drag their eyes to me and hold them all in place.
As I begin to sing, I don’t know a talent agent named Angela Newton is somewhere in the back row. She’s driven down from the city to watch her nephew perform magic tricks. Her sister promised her the show would be only an hour, but now it’s stretching into the second, an endless train of tap dancers and baton twirlers and pitchy singers. Then the light travels from the stage to her eyes. There—who is that? She sees a girl wobbling on unsteady foal legs. She sees a girl who would burn the stage if she could, just to step beyond it. Reaching for a pen in the dregs of her purse, she circles my name in her program.
I remember this performance as if it is trapped in amber. Memories like this sink into the earth in perfect condition, fossilize, and become a life.
Days pass. The year curls up. Many months later, in October, the phone rings. My mom taps her fingers impatiently against her jeans. There is a lasagna in the oven, Anita Hill’s testimony crackling on our small television.
She places a finger in one ear and leans into the phone. “Sorry, who am I speaking to?”
“Angela Newton,” says the voice on the other end. “I’m with Newton and Croft Management. I’ve been trying to reach you for months. I’ve left messages. Didn’t you get them? I’m calling because I want your daughter to audition for us.”
“I’m sorry, what? Audition for what?”
“For representation.”
“Representation for what? I didn’t sign up to receive your calls or anything, did I?”
“I saw your daughter perform at her talent show back in December. I’d like to have her come to New York. It’s just an audition, of course. I can’t offer representation at this time, but I’d like to see her again.”