A Crooked Kind of Perfect

by Linda Urban

  I hate exclamation points.

  Four Dreams and a Phone Call

  Dream #1

  I am at the Perform-O-Rama.

  I am playing "Forever in Blue Jeans."

  I am wearing a tiara and I am playing "Forever in Blue Jeans" and I am perfect.

  Dream #2

  I am at the Perform-O-Rama.

  I am playing "Forever in Blue Jeans."

  I am wearing a tiara and I am playing "Forever in Blue Jeans" and my tiara slips down over my eyes and I can't see my music and I make a huge mistake.

  I make a huge mistake and everybody hears it.

  And then Colton Shell pops out of the Perfectone D-60 and starts singing.

  Bum

  Bum

  Bum

  Bum

  "Hippo-ray

  You'll have a happy happy hippo-day

  You'll cheer and cheer and cheer and cheer again

  Because you're ten

  Forever in blue jeans."

  Dream #3

  I am at the Perform-O-Rama.

  I am playing "Forever in Blue Jeans."

  I am wearing a tiara and playing "Forever in Blue Jeans" but the judges can't hear me play because Colton Shell is singing and Emma Dent is sitting on a couch and telling the judges how nobody wears tiaras anymore and how cute Colton Shell is and how lucky I am that he likes me because really Colton Shell could like Lily Parker, who wouldn't be caught dead in a tiara.

  The judges are nodding.

  One of the judges is my mom.

  Dream #4

  My mom is judging the Perform-O-Rama.

  I am wearing a tiara and playing "Forever in Blue Jeans."

  I am perfect.

  I think I'm perfect.

  I'm not perfect.

  My mom shows me her judging sheet. It is filled with red marks—one for each wrong note.

  And then a phone rings and everybody turns and looks and there in the audience Vladimir Horowitz is pulling a cell phone out of his tuxedo pocket.

  "Hello?" he says. He looks at me.

  "It's for you."

  Vladimir Horowitz Makes Mistakes

  One of the ways you can tell that Vladimir Horowitz was the best ever piano player was that when he screwed up, nobody cared. They loved him anyway.

  One time, my mom played me a CD of Vladimir Horowitz screwing up. He had retired twelve years earlier and then changed his mind and said he wanted to play concerts after all and he was going to do this big comeback concert at Carnegie Hall. People went crazy. Rock-star crazy. They camped out on the street to get tickets—fancy grown-up Carnegie Hall people stood in the cold all night because they wanted to see Horowitz play.

  Which is a lot of pressure to put on a guy.

  And on the day of the concert, Horowitz showed up six minutes before he was supposed to go onstage and that made everyone nervous and he was nervous and when he finally did get onstage the audience cheered and then he sat down and it was totally quiet.

  Nobody said a word.

  They didn't even breathe.

  They waited.

  They waited.

  Then he started playing.

  And then he made a mistake. Actually, he made a couple of mistakes.

  "There," said my mom, "and there."

  I wouldn't have even known they were mistakes if my mom hadn't told me. But she did. And then she said those mistakes didn't matter because it was Horowitz. And Horowitz was not about perfection. He was about joy and art and music and life. And those things have mistakes in them.

  "I make mistakes, too," I said.

  "And when you are as good as Horowitz," said my mom, "yours won't matter, either."

  The Birch Valley Hotel and Conference Center

  We're in the lobby of the Birch Valley Hotel and Conference Center and my dad can't move.

  He was moving fine a minute ago. He was cha-cha-ing through the parking lot singing about how he didn't get us lost once and Wheeler should have put the Birch Valley Sentinel on his speed dial because this is frontpage news.

  Then we walked into the lobby.

  Then Dad froze.

  The lobby of the Birch Valley Hotel and Conference Center has cathedral ceilings and marble-looking floors and every sound you make in it echoes.

  Phones ringing.

  Elevator bells pinging.

  Wheelie carts thumping.

  There are kids pulling suitcases and kids riding suitcases and kids unzipping suitcases and trying to shove other kids inside them. There are kids with balloons and kids yelling that they want balloons and kids getting yelled at for popping other kids' balloons.

  And there are teenagers standing around in circles and whispering and squealing and then looking around and whispering again.

  There are parents, too. Parents in the registration line. Parents in the RESTROOM line. Parents pulling kids out of suitcases.

  People walk fast around us and between us, saying every year it is the same thing and can't anybody figure out a better system for getting these packets distributed and there's no way that Lindsey girl is only nine years old and Peter has moved on to his own private instructor now and where 's the john and I swear if you pull on that ficus tree again you will not go swimming in the hotel pool tonight, do you hear me, mister?

  And there are lights, too. Rows and rows of bulbs in the ceiling and chandeliers at the registration desk. There are yellow Christmas lights in all the ficus trees and lit-up signs for restroom and ELEVATOR and EXIT.

  Worst of all, there are two enormous blue searchlights sweeping the room. Every few seconds they flash in Dad's face.

  And Dad can't move.

  "Dad, you okay?" I ask.

  He says nothing. He is watching the searchlights as they reach their destination: a red carpeted platform and the biggest organ I've ever seen.

  "The M-80," says a man in a suit.

  "Huh?" says Dad.

  "Impressive, isn't it? Top of the Perfectone line. A real firecracker!"

  "Dad," I say. "Dad, we have to go register."

  Dad looks at the man. He has a button pinned to his suit. ASK ME ABOUT AN UPGRADE!! it says.

  Dad obeys the button. "What's an upgrade?" he asks.

  The man smiles. "Follow me."

  Dad follows.

  I follow Dad.

  The Upgrade man takes us past the spotlight to the Perfectone M-80 platform, which is surrounded by red velvet ropes.

  "I'm really not supposed to do this," he says, looking around. "The Perfectone M-80 is too powerful an instrument for a little space like this lobby. If we're not careful we could shatter all the lightbulbs in the place—and then where would we be?"

  "In the dark," I say.

  "Heh-heh, you're a pip, kid," he says. Then he turns his back to me and asks Dad what model organ I have now.

  Dad looks over his shoulder. "What do you have now?"

  "A headache," I say.

  "You're a pip all right, kid. Go get a balloon."

  "Dad, we need to register," I say again.

  I follow Dad's eyes to the registration table—or where the registration banner is, anyway. You can't see the table because there are so many people around it. Parents and kids and balloons and more guys in suits with Upgrade buttons on their chests.

  There is no one else here on the M-80 platform. Just me and Dad and Mr. Upgrade. It's almost peaceful here, like we 're on our own little Perfectone island, surrounded by a sea of sharks. Noisy sharks. With luggage.

  Dad is not leaving the island.

  Miss Person to the Rescue

  "Back off, Merv."

  It's Miss Person.

  "Mabelline," says Mr. Upgrade. "I was just telling the gentleman here about the exciting features of the Perfectone M-80."

  "Tchaikovsky's checkbook, Merv. He just bought a D-60 in December. Find another fish."

  Miss Person pulls us to the shore of M-80 Island. "You'll have to watch out for guys like Merv," she says. "This place is cra
wling with them."

  She pulls a thick manila envelope out of her purse. My name is written on it in fat purple letters. "I got your registration packet for you."

  Dad nods. He looks pale. "I'd like to sit down," he says. "Someplace quiet."

  Miss Person hands Dad his room key. Then she pulls her marker from her purse.

  "Hand," she says.

  Dad looks puzzled.

  "Give me your hand." She writes 6:30—Meeting Room G across Dad's palm.

  "That's where Zoe will be playing, six-thirty P.M.," says Miss Person. "You can meet her there."

  Dad nods. "Okay," he says.

  "Now go to your room," she says.

  Dad looks at me. "You'll be okay?"

  "She'll be fine," says Miss Person.

  "I'll be there to watch you play, honey," Dad tells me.

  "I'll be fine," I say. I try to mean it.

  And then Miss Person pulls me off the platform. "Come on. There's someone I want you to meet." She grabs my arm and we cut through the waves of kids and parents and suitcases and ficus trees to an elevator packed full of Upgrade men. She squishes us in.

  "Sixth floor," says Miss Person.

  I look back into the lobby.

  My dad is still standing there on M-80 Island.

  He waves at me. And even though I know the mark on his hand is just Miss Person's note, from here it looks like a giant purple bruise.

  Mona

  "This is Mona," says Miss Person.

  Mona is eleven, like me. She is also pretty and blond and has pale pink nail polish on and she looks a little like Lily Parker.

  Which is not like me.

  "Mona has been my student for six years," says Miss Person. "This is her fifth Perform-O-Rama."

  "This is your first?" Mona asks me.

  "Uh-huh."

  "The first can be scary," she says, "but Mom and I are pros. We'll get you through it."

  Mona's mom is Judy. Judy is blond like Mona and has perfect teeth. Judy looks like Lily Parker will look when she grows up. Except that Judy smiles.

  "You can go, Mabelline," says Judy. "We'll take it from here."

  Go? Miss Person is going?

  She has ripped me from my dad and now she 's dumping me here in a sixth-floor hotel room with toothy blond strangers?

  "You girls will do great today," says Miss Person. "I'd come hear you if I wasn't judging the adult rounds."

  She's not going to be there? Wait a minute, I want to say. What if I get lost? What if I get stage fright? What if I lose my music?

  "What if I make a mistake?" I say.

  Miss Person laughs. "Just keep playing."

  How It Works

  Judy pulls the information sheets out of my Perform-O-Rama competition packet and spreads them across the hotel bed.

  "Do you know how this works?" she asks me.

  I don't know.

  Judy picks up a pink sheet. On the top in bold letters it says, HOW IT WORKS. "You'll play twice. Once tonight and once on Sunday," she says. "Each time, you'll play for two judges who'll be reading your music and noting any mistakes. They'll also make general comments about tempo and style and selection. They award points for good things and take away points for mistakes."

  "Your lowest score is dropped," says Mona.

  "That's right," says Judy. "So you won't have to worry about one judge having a prejudice against your style or selection. Only the three best scores are added up."

  "The top five kids in each age group get trophies," says Mona.

  Judy pulls out the competition schedule.

  "There are ten eleven-year-olds playing this year," she says.

  "Is Mika here?" asks Mona.

  "He is," says Judy.

  "He's cute," says Mona.

  "He plays well, too," says Judy.

  "Yeah," says Mona. "And he's cute."

  "Margaret Barstock is back again, too."

  "Oh, she 's really good. Last year she took second," says Mona.

  Judy keeps reading the names of the eleven-year-olds and Mona keeps saying stuff about who is good and who is nice and who one time forgot his music in his hotel room and had to run up three flights of stairs to get it and barely made it back by the time his name was called and had to play while he was panting like a dog and he still won a trophy.

  Now I am nervous.

  I wasn't before, but now I am.

  I never thought about other kids playing.

  I thought about me and "Forever in Blue Jeans" and winning and getting invited to play at Carnegie Hall and Mom in the audience cheering and thinking that maybe I could be the next Horowitz.

  But there are other kids here.

  Kids who have done this before.

  Kids with trophies.

  "There's an hour before you girls have to play. Do you want something to eat?" asks Judy.

  Eat? Is she kidding? Maybe trophy kids can eat, but just the word eat makes my stomach twist. In a bad way.

  "No, thank you," I tell Judy.

  "I packed plenty of sandwiches. Mona? You want salami?"

  "Salami?" says Mona. "Are you kidding? I'll hurl!" She reaches for two cans of pop: one for herself and one for me. "Can you imagine that? Getting up to play and launching salami?"

  My stomach twists again. I try very hard not to imagine launching anything. "That doesn't happen, right? Nobody has ever thrown up at a competition before?"

  "I never saw anybody puke," says Mona. "But one year a kid fainted. He was playing 'Green Acres' and then he started tilting to the side and then whoosh! Slid right to the floor. It was awesome."

  Awesome?

  "He hadn't had anything to eat all day," says Judy. She edges a zippy bag of sandwiches toward us.

  Mona edges it back. "So his mom went rushing to help him, but before she got there he was back up on the bench again playing 'Green Acres' like nothing ever happened. Awesome."

  "Did he get a trophy?" I ask.

  "No, but he got a standing ovation," says Mona. "Moral of the story?"

  "Eat something," says Judy.

  "Just keep playing," Mona says.

  What It Is Like at Carnegie Hall

  There are balconies at Carnegie Hall.

  People who sit in balconies wear shiny ball gowns and have their hair twisted up fancy on their heads and carry purses that are just big enough for a pair of tiny binoculars that they use during the concert to get a closer look at your brilliant fingering. The men wear tuxedos.

  When the balcony people first get to Carnegie Hall, they can't see the stage. All they see is a huge velvet curtain with golden fringe and tassels.

  The lights dim.

  The curtain rises.

  And there is a glossy black grand piano.

  Nobody says a word.

  They don't even breathe.

  They wait.

  They wait.

  And then a spotlight hits the stage and you walk out and everybody cheers and you glide gracefully to the piano and stand in front of it while the crowd goes wild and you smile a gracious smile and curtsy and raise your dainty hand to wave and the crowd gets even louder and you curtsy once again.

  This is called making an entrance.

  What It Is Like at a Perform-O-Rama

  You don't make an entrance at a Perform-O-Rama.

  Because when you finally find Meeting Room G, where you are supposed to play, there are already a bunch of people there who are left over from the Children Age Ten competition and there is no stage and no velvet curtain so even if you wanted to make an entrance, you couldn't.

  And there are no balconies.

  Everybody sits in cold metal folding chairs in Meeting Room G, and except for the judges and the kids in the competition, everybody is wearing jeans.

  And you don't read the program because there is no program. Instead, everybody keeps poking around in their conference packets and pulling out how it works or THINGS TO SEE IN BIRCH VALLEY or the MEET THE PERFECTONES! brochure.


  There are three organs up at the front of Meeting Room G. In the center is the Perfectone M-80, which MEET THE PERFECTONES! says has

  · three (3!) keyboards

  · twenty-four (24!) pedals

  · one hundred and six (106!) orchestralike sounds

  · thirty-nine (39!) toe-tapping rhythms.

  · Plus!! a real cherry bench and warm cherry veneer, which make it an elegant addition to any home decor!

  To the right of the M-80 is the J-70, which has two keyboards like the D-60, but more pedals (!) and orchestralike sounds (!) and rhythms (!). It also has a cherry veneer and bench and looks lovely in any setting!

  On the far left sits the two-keyboarded, ten-pedaled, realistic-looking walnut-veneered, vinyl-benched Perfectone D-60.

  MEET THE PERFECTONES! does not call the D-60 elegant.

  It does not say the D-60 is lovely. MEET THE PERFECTONES! says the D-60 is a cozy choice.

  Cozy.

  Like a pair of socks.

  Round One

  Judy and Mona sit near the front, where they can hear the music best.

  I sit in the back by the Meeting Room G doors so that when my dad comes in he will see me right away and won't get all freaked out by how many people there are.

  In addition to my competition packet, I have three photocopies of "Forever in Blue Jeans" in my lap. One for me. One for each judge. I follow the notes with my finger. I try to make up words to go with the melody.

  Bum

  Bum

  Bum

  Bum

  "Please don't puke..."

  What rhymes with puke? Fluke? Kook?

  Where's Dad?

  It's almost time for the competition to start.

  "Mika Soddenfelter?"

  It is time for the competition to start.

  A cute boy stands up. His mom straightens his tie. He hands the judges their copies of his music.

  "Mika will be playing 'Theme from Kojak' on the Perfectone J-70. Whenever you're ready, Mika."

  Mika smiles. He is cute. Even when he sits down on the cherry bench at the Perfectone J-70 and his back is toward you, you can tell he is cute.