Everybody Knows Your Name by Andrea Seigel Page B

bored-looking Chris James asks me.
    And I’m back to reality. My hundred-foot-tall feeling shrinks down to nothing under that gaze.
    How did I do? I desperately try to replay the performance in my head.
    Seconds before my entrance, my usual nervous energy started to build, ratcheting up and up until I almost couldn’t stand it. So by the time Lance took the stage and introduced me, I felt just like a slingshot pulled all the way back.
    Leander tells me that when I make an entrance, it’s always like there’s some kind of emergency. This time, I started singing almost before I hit the microphone. It took the show’s backing band half a line to kick in with me, so my first bit was a cappella. I think it sounded okay, even though it’s not how we’d rehearsed it.
    Then I think I did something weird. I was chewing gum, wasn’t I? I’d forgotten to get rid of my gum from before, so I turned my head and spit it halfway across the stage without missing a beat. Why the hell did I do that?
    My brain works different onstage, fires off new kinds of messages. It tells my body to do bizarre stuff. Leander tells me I get all convoluted, like I’m having a seizure, and maybe I am, because when I’m performing I partly feel like someone else is controlling my body.
    But now the other judges are talking to me. I’ve been answering them on autopilot, lost in my own head. I can’t focus on their questions, I’m too busy interrogating myself: Was I terrible? Did I look stupid? Do I look stupid now? Is Magnolia going to be pissed?
    â€œYou might have chosen the wrong song, bro.”
    You choked.
    â€œ. . . intense emotion. But out of control.”
    You’re going home.
    â€œ. . . natural talent, but no polish.”
    Who did you think you were fooling?
    â€œI thought you were going to hurt yourself up there.”
    You don’t belong here.
    You don’t belong here.
    You don’t belong here.
    Then Chris James swoops back in once the other judges have finished giving their comments, and I hear him say, “I thought it was the best performance of the night.”
    My head goes silent.

18
    Cameras line the pathway into the after-party. The club is in an old theater on Hollywood Boulevard, and it’s packed. Every person I squeeze by smiles at me as though we know each other. It takes about fifteen of those smiles before I stop trying to figure out if we do.
    This isn’t like any party I’ve ever been to. I guess it’s more of a press conference, except for the bass-heavy music and snacks floating around every five seconds. The food is always something simple combined with one weird ingredient. Like mini grilled cheeses except they have shrimp in them. A waiter who looks about my age offers me one of those from a tray after a reporter asks me to say, “America, could I be your next superstar?” into the camera.
    â€œNo, thanks,” I say to the waiter. I’m thinking I could easily be him.
    The lights on all the cameras make the rest of the club seem even darker by comparison, and I look around for Magnolia from where I’m pinned in this corner. One of the twins passes (not sure which one), and I bend close and ask if she’s seen Magnolia so as not to make a whole production about it.
    â€œShe’s back that way with her mom,” the twin says.
    Before I can search for her, Catherine takes me by the arm and leads me to a corner where a bunch of entertainment reporters are doing interviews. I recognize most of them; they’re famous for asking famous people questions. There are all kinds of famous, I guess. In person, they have the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen.
    I just do interview after interview. The Spotlight camera guys, Skip and Hector, are filming the reporters filming us contestants, and almost all the questions I’m getting are about Magnolia. “Is this a new showmance?” “Is she