Sarah, her mother, and I were sitting together, waiting for the talent show to begin. John and Sam had decided not to join us. Our seats were in the middle of a lecture hall at the University of North Carolina. Down in the front, a stage extended across the entire width of the room. Large blue lettering filled an erasable board: “WELCOME TO THE BEST BUDDIES TALENT SHOW—IF YOU ARE PERFORMING, PLEASE SIGN IN AT THE DESK.” Two members of the sorority that sponsored Best Buddies sat at a folding table on the far left side of the stage.
“So, what are you going to do?” I asked Sarah.
She was twenty-two, but looked closer to thirteen or fourteen. “You’ll see.”
“But is it dancing, or singing, or what?”
“Dad,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll see.” The waves of her blond hair caught the light, and fell down in front of her shoulders and chest. Her bangs, which she’d been growing out, swooped down over her eyebrow.
She was wearing a red T-shirt with a winter scene of two penguins ice-skating beneath puffy white clouds.
“Is it about penguins?”
“Oh, brother.” She turned to Sally and gestured toward me with her thumb. “Here we go again.” She shook her head. “It isn’t about penguins. It’s the only red shirt I had. To go with my dress.” Sarah’s skirt was a patchwork of patterns: gingham, plaid, and a floral print with red hibiscus blossoms.
Sally looked down at the program the college girl had handed her at the door. “There are a lot of performers,” she said.
Sarah nodded. “We’re near the last.”
“How far down?” I asked. Sally turned the page over.
Sarah placed a finger near the bottom of that page. “Here’s Ramseur.” Sarah’s group home was on Ramseur Road in Chapel Hill. She’d been there a couple of years. The Ramseur house was for high-functioning young adults: four females and two males. Four of them would be performing in the talent show. They were all sitting in the front row. Sarah had come back into the audience to sit with us.
“Did you sign in?” I asked Sarah.
“Yes, Dad.”
I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes after two. It was scheduled to start at two.
A cluster of people paused at the door, and then straggled in. The first young woman had erect posture and moved quickly. Behind her was a woman whose right foot pointed inward. She had a shuffling, syncopated gait, and I felt myself flinch with each of her steps, as if to catch her if she fell. Holding her hand was a heavyset young woman with straggly brown hair.
Behind these two women was a stocky man with Down syndrome, dressed all in black: jeans, shirt, and a cowboy hat. The staff member led them to the desk at the far left of the stage to check in. I looked at my watch again. Quarter past. At two thirty, the sorority sister with the long blond hair walked to center stage and welcomed us to the talent show.
A willowy woman with red cheeks sang “I Will Always Love You.” She seemed shy, and tucked her chin against her chest. Her movements were stiff and mechanical—unrelated to beat, or melody, or lyrics. Her voice was hushed and breathy. When she was done she waved to her friends. They whooped and cheered for her.
Next, a woman with gray hair cut as short as a man’s shuffled to center stage. Drop pearl earrings dangled beside her ropy neck. Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White” boomed out of the speakers. The woman’s voice was so soft I could not hear her. Her lips moved, but the rest of her body was absolutely motionless. When the song was done, she shuffled offstage to polite applause.
As I clapped, I glanced around at the audience, mostly people from group homes and staff members, and the sorority sisters who organized the talent show. I nodded and smiled with whoever made eye contact—usually other “regular people”—family members, staff, sitting quietly. The others talked, called out encouragement, and laughed unself-consciously. Across the aisle from me, a young woman bobbed her head rhythmically, ceaselessly. Her fingers were stiff and waved independently.
Two other people performed Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White.” Two different groups danced to “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge.
Sarah’s turn. She walked down to the stage, settled a silver plastic tiara on her head, and put on a blue plaid lumberjack shirt. I followed her to the front of the room and sat on the floor, so I could take pictures.
She had a feather boa, as black as ink. Sarah lifted the center of the boa, and settled it over her head. The fluff of feathers draped down the sides of her face, down in front of her breasts, down past her waist, almost to her knees. The boa was thick and extravagant and lush; it enveloped her face, until all that could be seen were the cut glass gems of the tiara—white diamonds, red rubies—and her eyes and nose. Sarah’s face was tilted upward, eyes closed.
The blue plaid shirt was unbuttoned and open, showing the red T-shirt with the skating penguins. Under her patchwork skirt she was wearing black tights. At the ankles, the tights were stuffed down into hot pink socks. The socks bulged with the lump of the fabric.
Sarah waited, her hands at her side, fingers in a relaxed curve. She looked small and vulnerable, standing so still. Sparkles from the rhinestones glinted though the raven-black feathers. If this were New York, and if Sarah didn’t have Down syndrome, I would see this as conceptual art. Avant-garde. Something Yoko Ono might do, for an audience of skinny, humorless people who don’t get out in the sun often enough.
The music started with a few repeated notes on a piano, and then a distorted percussion cadence that buzzed and rattled the speakers, a techno beat with a heavy bass line thumping urgently.
Lady Gaga. “Poker Face.”
With her eyes still closed, Sarah moved her arms to the music, and then whipped the boa from her head and twirled it like a lasso, and then let go. The boa seemed to float in midair for a few seconds before drifting to the floor, as Sarah whirled in the opposite direction. She thrust her hips to the beat, and then opened her eyes and moved both hands to the sides of the tiara, pulled it off, and flung it like a Frisbee toward the audience. She thrashed her head right and then left, her long blond hair trailing as if blown in a hurricane. She pumped her arms, keeping beat with the driving bass, while Lady Gaga sang about how hot she’d get her lover.
Sarah yanked her plaid shirt off. Her feet spread wide, she twirled the shirt and whipped it off to the side.
Wow. I snapped a picture.
The young man next to me jumped to his feet, clapping and screaming, stomping his foot. I couldn’t make out what he was shouting, over and over, but I thought it was “Yeah, baby.”
I kept taking pictures with my small instamatic camera.
Sarah threw her left shoulder forward, her left hand on her left knee, dipped down, and then straightened and twirled, her hair swirling out. She stopped, her stance wide, arms back, and threw her chest forward, pumping her arms. The speakers rattled and buzzed with the urgency of rough love as Lady Gaga sang of games with guns and rolling with her lover.
Sarah dropped to the floor, rolled to the left, then the right, her hair a blur of curls. On her back, she did three hip thrusts, and then she got up on her hands and knees, shaking her head from side to side with the music.
The young man next to me was jumping up and down, and I heard someone yell, “Go, Sarah, go.”
I continued snapping pictures.
Sarah stood, took off one shoe, threw it out to the crowd, made a pumping move with her hips, took off the other shoe, and threw it forward as well. She then shifted her hips right and left, giving them a snap that made her hair shake.
The young man next to me howled a baying sound, and Lady Gaga’s music kept thumping.
Sarah bent forward at the waist, swirled her torso, her hair propelling in a blond storm of swirls. The song wound down to its final chorus.
Sarah stood, smiled, and waved as the crowd erupted in applause, people yelling her name, howling, and whistling. Sarah waved again, the noise increased, and she walked off the stage as the yelps and whoops continued.
“Suzette, you’re next,” the Ramseur Road staff member said to one of Sarah’s housemates. She had to pitch her voice loudly to be heard over the audience.
“I’m not going up there,” she said, shaking her head. “Not after that.”
I stood, and went back to sit with Sally and Sarah. Sarah’s face was flushed and had a faint sheen of sweat.
“Good job,” I whispered, wondering if we were going to get in trouble.
“Thanks,” she whispered back.
I only half watched the other performances. A young woman wearing a yellow T-shirt with stripes of black duct tape sang along to a children’s song, “I’m Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee,” to a recording of a toy piano. Another of Sarah’s housemates, Jerry, danced to the song, “Oops, I Did it Again,” the chorus of which is “I’m not that innocent.” I was starting to feel a little better. Maybe Sarah was just expressing what most of the young adults were feeling. She sure got more whoops, yells, and applause than the Bumblebee girl.
After the show, one of Sarah’s staff members walked up the aisle toward us. Here we go. She’s going to tell Sarah that her dance was inappropriate and sexually suggestive. She’s going to be talking to Sarah, but meaning it for Sally and me, for raising a child who would mistake a talent show for a strip club.
“My Lady Gaga.” The staff member opened her arms for a hug. “Sarah, you were great!”
“Wasn’t she wonderful?” the staff member said to Sally and me. “I mean, she just burned it up.”
On the way to the car, I asked her about the boa draped across her head.
“I was doing Snow White,” Sarah says. “She has black hair. I couldn’t afford a wig.”
“And throwing the crown away?”
“It was symbolic.”
Oh. “And taking off the shoes and throwing them?”
“That was about dealing with anger.”