by Farah Heron
A month ago, if someone had told her she would choose to spend the day before her final report was due at a barbershop quartet competition, she would have told them to please share the amazing, psychedelic marijuana they’d been smoking. This was unreal.
The striped crooners took turns singing the rules of the competition. The online process of elimination had narrowed the enormous pool of video applicants down to ten finalists, who would compete today. Each would be given ten minutes onstage, and they could sing as many songs as they wanted to during their time. All group members were required to vocalize in each song.
Amira looked at the program in her hand, noticing right away that Sam I Am What I Am was not listed. But, of course, the guys had told her it was a temporary name. She had no idea what final name they chose. She skimmed the member names listed beneath each group name.
There it was. Her heart skipped a beat to see Duncan’s name in print. But the group name . . . her guys were the . . . A-Team? Odd choice. They were on second to last. Oh well. She settled in, making herself comfortable for the long show.
By the fourth group (Tony and The Four-Tones), Amira decided that, although she liked her barbershop quartet, she didn’t care much for barbershop as a musical genre. It wasn’t that the groups up there weren’t any good; she just found them all dull. Vanilla. Most of the groups were all men, although some groups had a woman or two. Most sang the same type of songs: old Motown, adult contemporary, or the odd country song. The groups were all identically dressed: the men in suits; the women in either colourful fifties-style dresses or simple all black. All in all, Amira wasn’t impressed.
“These guys are all great!” Reena said beside her, foot tapping to the beat. Amira rolled her eyes at her friend.
“Sorry, Miss Too Cool for A Cappella. I’m enjoying it,” Reena said.
“Me too!” Marcia added. “I’m so nervous for Barrington. This is the biggest audience he’s sung for.”
The performances continued to underwhelm until the sixth group took the stage. It was Fourth Fret, the quartet they had gone to see at the brewpub beer festival.
And just like that night, they were good. Really good.
How these four people managed to engage, entertain, and feed off each other as if they were one entity was a mystery. It was magical to watch. Even the songs they chose were unique. They started with “Purple Rain,” seamlessly transitioning to a newer song, “Starboy” by the Weeknd, then finishing with a Celine Dion song, of all things. They had the audience on their feet during the finale of “Heart Will Go On,” belting out the drawn-out notes with them. Amira thought she saw tears in the audience.
Ugh.
How the hell was the A-Team (she still couldn’t get over that ridiculous name) supposed to beat them?
The next group (Rock Me Down Low) were good, too. Maybe not as good as Fourth Fret, but the all-women group’s heavy-metal arrangements were surprisingly well done. Metallica’s “One” sung a cappella by a barbershop quartet dressed as pin-up models? Sure, why not. Amira was quickly changing her mind about disliking barbershop, realizing all it needed was a little variety. As her father said, what’s a curry with only one spice?
Finally, it was time for the A-Team, and the knot in Amira’s stomach wouldn’t have been tighter if she had been up there on the stage herself. She squeezed her leg tightly as they walked onstage, led by the garden gnome himself.
She swallowed. He looked good. It had only been a day since she’d seen him, but somehow it felt like so much longer. Had Duncan always been so tall? His hair was stylishly trimmed and mussed, and his beard groomed, looking like red flames in the bright stage lighting. No doubt Travis gussied up the boys himself; they all looked neater. A little more polished.
They were dressed identically, like most of the performers, but there was no sequined spandex or even polyester in sight. They all wore the same red plaid shirt (miraculously not flannel), dark jeans, and red sneakers, but Barrington wore an open vest atop his shirt, Travis a black skinny tie, Sameer a black bow tie, and Duncan wore his black suspenders.
Amira clutched her armrest. The last time she’d seen those suspenders, Duncan had been tied up with them. Naked. In her bed.
They walked to the centre of the stage, smiling, and started singing.
They started with “Stand by Me,” as expected. And they sounded good. She knew she was biased, but Amira thought their voices sounded stronger than the other groups. Her skin erupted in the usual goosebumps during Duncan’s chorus. Their stage presence was on point, too. They looked at each other, they smiled, they fed off each other. There was no indication to the audience that two members of the A-Team had just ended their long, loving relationship. Or that a third member had just been dumped—albeit after only a three-day fling. But she was still shaken up over it, so she figured Duncan might be as well.
But Amira could tell. Sameer and Travis’s wide smiles didn’t quite reach their eyes. And maybe it was just wistful hoping, but Duncan seemed a tiny bit less Duncan than normal. The guys were pros, though—they sounded incredible, and in Amira’s completely subjective opinion, they were still one of the better groups, despite the events of the last few days. Apparently “The Show Must Go On” would have been an appropriate song had they decided to sing it today. Her heart shattered a little bit more for her friends.
As they reached the end of “Stand by Me,” they all quieted, except Barrington, who was humming a bass note. His voice quieted a bit, and Travis’s clear alto voice sang the first lines of “Jolene,” successfully getting the name right instead of substituting his sister’s name. Amira smiled to herself as the others joined in, singing the Dolly Parton song better than she had heard them practise it. Finally, they slowed again before transitioning to their last song.
The song was “Always Something There to Remind Me,” a song that Amira had always thought was an eighties new-wave track. But Duncan had schooled her otherwise on Friday afternoon, informing her it was written in the sixties and recorded by many artists, including Dionne Warwick. Amira hadn’t believed him, and it had provoked an exasperating, hilarious argument (and even pillow fight) where neither of them backed down until Duncan hollered for all the guys to come into her room (thankfully at a point when she had clothes on) to set her straight. The memory tightened her chest.
But now, she was struck with the irony of this being their last song, an uptempo track about a lover who is constantly reminded of a lost love, and thus cannot move on. She shivered. The guys sang together, looking out into the audience. And Duncan’s gaze was squarely on her. His smooth, deep voice sent their usual jolts right to her core. It felt like he was singing to her.
Ridiculous. Of course he wasn’t singing it to her. Amira was disgusted at how sentimental she had become. Mere days with Sir Garden Gnome and she was Snow White pining for her prince to come. That he was singing to her was something Reena would assume.
“He’s singing to you . . .” Reena said, leaning into Amira’s ear, as if on cue.
Amira scoffed and sank lower in her seat.
She peeked over to watch Ryan. He was smiling as his brother sang on the stage. There was visible brotherly affection there. Ryan clapped and sang along like the rest of the audience, tapping his feet, face swelled with pride.
Amira tore her gaze away, looking back at the stage in time to see the A-Team bow.
Duncan smiled, tipped an imaginary hat in her direction, and the guys walked off the stage.
Chapter Thirty
THE FINAL PERFORMANCE was similar to the earlier ones. Four older men dressed in identical blue suits singing fifties classics while snapping and twisting on their toes. Not Amira’s cup of tea. In her opinion, this contest was really between Fourth Fret, Rock Me Down Low, and the A-Team. But Amira was well aware that, as an engineer who knew absolutely nothing about barbershop quartets, she wasn’t exactly qualified to judge the merit of the contestants.
Reena, apparently, did feel qualified.
“I think they have a chance,” she whispered in Amira’s ear as the final group left the stage.
“Who, these guys? I thought they were dull,” Amira said.
“No, the A-Team. I think they’ll at least get in the top three.”
Amira shrugged. She did hope they would win. But after a split-second reanalysis of her current life choices, Amira didn’t want to let on that she was so invested in the plight of a barbershop quartet called the A-Team at the Ontario Region Barbershop Quartet Competition.
She needed to detach herself from this insanity. She needed to examine how these four oddball singers had wedged themselves so completely in her psyche that she was all tied up in knots waiting to find out if they had won their damn singing competition. Maybe it was because this was a strange time in her life, a time of transition: finishing grad school, moving back to Toronto, going back to work. She was just overly emotional because of change. It was stress—that’s why she had grown so attached to them. Everything would be fine after the report was submitted. Everything would go back to normal once the guys left.
A sharp stab of pain pierced behind her eyes. God, now she was crying? She needed to get a grip. She rubbed her temples. Soon, the red-striped, straw-hatted woman took the stage alone, without her accompanying group, and spoke instead of sang.
“Thank you to the amazing teams! Let’s give another huge round of applause for all the talent and hard work we saw on the stage today! Weren’t they all spectacular?” She paused, allowing the audience time to clap. “Now, our esteemed judges are going off-stage to do their scoring magic, and in the meantime, we have a surprise for you—one of the groups you saw today has offered to entertain the audience with one more number while the judges are considering the performances. And . . . in opposition to everything barbershop stands for, they’re using an instrument! Now, before we get any angry comments on our live-stream—all nine of the other groups and the judges were informed, and they gave their blessings to our bravest of contestants. In fact, most of the other contestants agreed to accompany them onstage. So, it’s going to get a bit crowded up here! A big round of applause for the A-Team!”
Holy shit. What were the guys up to?
The stage did get crowded. About thirty singers, aged eighteen through eighty, walked onstage, standing on the edges to make room for the A-Team. As earlier, Duncan walked on first, but this time, instead of walking empty-handed, he was holding Amira’s Fender acoustic/electric guitar. Barrington followed carrying a rather large amplifier, then Sameer with a wooden stool, and finally Travis, holding nothing. Sameer put the stool in the middle of the stage. Duncan plugged the guitar into the amplifier and turned it on. After adjusting the volume, he sat on the stool, a sombre expression on his face. The other three guys stood behind him.
What was going on?
Barrington started humming quietly, a simple repeating melody, and motioned the other singers on the stage to join in. Duncan began to strum simple chords on the guitar. The melody sounded familiar but she couldn’t place it. Was Duncan going to sing something . . . alone . . . why?
But just at the moment when she expected him to start singing, Sameer walked around to the front of the stage and began to sing a slow, haunting tune—in Hindi.
Tanha chandni mein gaate gaate
parbat se tumhari awaz chali, Kiranon me dhuli
Tumhare geet bina, meri tanhai bhi meri na rahi
Amira heard Shirin gasp two seats away from her. “This is an Indian song,” Shirin said in Gujarati. “This is who Sameer is.”
Amira watched the boys on the stage. Duncan was still strumming with a serious expression, Barrington was still humming low, Sameer was singing alone, his expressive face bursting with emotion, and Travis stood frozen, mouth agape. He had no idea what was going on.
“It’s a love song, Amira,” Shirin whispered loud, leaning over Tazim. “He’s singing for you.”
No, he wasn’t. Amira watched in awe as Sameer, still singing, took Travis’s hand and pulled him forward. As the song slowed, Sameer slowly lowered to one knee.
Holy shit.
Sameer was proposing to Travis.
On a live-streamed performance.
In front of an audience of hundreds.
In front of his grandmother.
Oh. My. God.
“Oh no,” Amira heard Tazim say under her breath. Tazim’s hand covered her mouth, but she didn’t seem so much shocked as worried. Amira guessed more people in Sameer’s family knew about his orientation than he realized. Shirin’s face, on the other hand, held only complete shock. She turned to Amira . . . and Amira couldn’t help but smile. She felt too much joy for her friends to hold it in.
Shirin watched Amira’s expression for a few seconds, saying nothing as the realization that Amira knew about this relationship washed over her face. She finally turned away, her nose wrinkled. Shirin was disappointed. Maybe even disgusted by both her and her grandson.
But on the stage, Sameer had the widest smile Amira had ever seen, and Travis had tears in his eyes. Travis finally nodded and laughed.
“Of course. Yes.” He hauled Sameer up by the arm and kissed him. Right there, in front of hundreds, Sameer and Travis kissed like their love was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Because it was.
The crowd went wild. Barrington and Duncan grabbed their friends to congratulate and hug them, and all the other barbershop singers on the stage joined, hugging and congratulating the happy couple. Amira’s face ached from smiling so big, and her cheeks were wet with tears. Reena next to her was hooting and hollering and hugging Marcia. It was amazing. A stage full of barbershop singers supporting, accepting, and welcoming Sameer and Travis. That up there, that was their family, and it was the only one that mattered right now. Not the scowling woman sitting two seats over from Amira, not judgments from people like Ryan Galahad, who Amira couldn’t see but she assumed wasn’t impressed. But all that was just noise. And you didn’t have to listen to the noise.
You could ignore it and find your own harmony.
After it seemed like every singer on the stage had hugged either Travis, Sameer, or both, the red-striped crooners returned to the stage.
“We’re not sure if anyone can top that amazing performance,” one of them said, “so it’s a good thing we’re ending with it. On behalf of the International Barbershop Quartet Association, we would like to congratulate the happy couple. We hope for many, many years of blissful harmony for you. But now it’s time to award our winners. It was a tough competition this year, and it was a challenge for the judges to choose only three groups among these spectacular performances. But we have narrowed it down. Our third-place group is . . . the A-Team!”
Amira’s shoulders fell. Third place was good, but the boys wanted a win. But as her guys stepped forward to accept their trophies, the wide grins on their faces hadn’t faded one bit since Sameer’s proposal. No trophy could top what Sameer and Travis found. Third place hadn’t soured this moment one bit.
Second place was one of the cookie-cutter traditional groups, and unsurprisingly, Fourth Fret came in first. But Amira didn’t care.
A grand finale where all forty-odd singers sang “Happy Together” followed by more bows and applause, and the Ontario Region Barbershop Quartet Competition was over.
Chapter Thirty-One
WOW. WHAT A rush.
“That was easily the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve mainlined John Hughes movies,” Reena said.
“I can’t stop smiling,” Marcia agreed. “I haven’t even met them all, but I feel like pinching their cheeks. That is one adorable barbershop quartet.”
Amira grinned. They really were adorable. All of them. “Let’s go find them.”
Reena, Marcia, and Amira fought through the crowd rushing the stage. They reached the stairs when Amira looked back to see Shirin and Tazim leaving. They weren’t even planning to say anything to Sameer. Amira pushed her disappointment aside—she
only wanted to focus on Sameer and Travis’s happiness right now. She couldn’t let anything taint that. She rushed straight to Sameer and hugged him tighter than she had ever hugged anyone, and then she stepped back to look at him. He still had a goofy smile on his face, and there was a new ease in his posture, a visible weight removed from his shoulders. Travis was right—Sameer unburdened was a beautiful thing.
“You did it,” Amira said.
“I did.” He smiled. “No more secrets.”
Someone tackled her from behind and wrapped his arms around her. She turned her head to see Travis, and beside him was a striking woman with hair in shades of blue, purple, and green. His sister, Justine, Amira assumed.
“Sorry I stole your boyfriend, Amira.” Travis laughed, squeezing her.
“I’ll get over it. One day.” She grinned.
Justine suddenly giggled at her brother. “Now you’re Jolene.”
Travis let go of Amira and introduced Justine to everyone. Then Barrington introduced Marcia around. Travis stood behind Sameer, arms wrapped around his waist. He affectionately rested his chin on Sameer’s shoulder. Sameer held on to Travis hands and smiled.
“I can’t believe he did that. You must have been shocked,” Amira said to Travis, shaking her head.
“Well, sort of.” He laughed. “He kind of warned me. He took me aside right after our main numbers and asked if I would take him back if he told his grandmother and his entire family about me today. I said yeah, I probably would. But I didn’t think he’d actually do it.”
“But you didn’t know about the song?”
“No, I thought Duncan was going to sing something, not Sameer. I can’t believe he did that in front of the audience.” He kissed Sameer’s cheek. “The three of them planned it last night while we were watching the terrible ballet movie.”
“That awful movie ended up being good for something,” Amira said. “My Hindi’s not great, what did that song mean?” She was used to subtitles in her Bollywood movies.
