15. Senior Talent Show

I was putting away my guitar when I saw Megan Alba Biel walking up the steps on the side of the stage. I had just given the performance of a lifetime, and had been anxious for her reaction. Trying to play it cool, I avoided eye contact with her and simply said hello.

“You were great out there” she said demurely. She was looking at me in a way she never looked at me before.

“Thanks” I said, still playing it cool.

There was a moment of silence, as if she were waiting for me to say something else.

“You look so passionate when you are playing music, I didn’t know you had that in you.” She said, breaking the silence.

“Well, I guess you don’t know me all that well.” I replied as I got up with my guitar in hand, looking as if I were going to walk away from the conversation.

“That’s a shame I guess” she muttered seemingly to herself.

“No” I said turning back around to face her. “ What’s a shame is that there are only a few weeks left of school, and we are just now having this conversation” I responded as I put down my guitar and walked closer to her.

I remained silent with every step I took closer to her, trying to read what she was thinking at the moment. I finally stood within arms reach, facing her, and trying to play hard to get.

“I think I would like to get to know you better” she said as she reached out to touch my right arm.

I stared at her for a moment, not saying anything.

I reached for her hand and pulled her closer to me. My aggressiveness caught her by surprise as her eyes widened with anticipation. Her face turned a slight shade of pink, blushing with both excitement, and slight embarrassment as I smiled in response to her reaction.

My left arm wrapped around the bottom of her tiny waist and my right hand touching the side of her face and I ran my fingers through her long blond hair. Her body felt soft and perfect pressed against mine as I held her close and traced the side of her face with my fingertips.

I was looking into her eyes, making her wait for the moment that I had dreamed about for so long…

I moved in closer feeling her breath on my face….It was hot and sweet.

I gave her a smile full of dimples as I placed both hands on the side of her face. She closed her eyes as I moved in even closer to her. Her mouth opened slightly and her lips were puckered as I……

“HELLO…. MR. MYERS….!!?!!??”

Mr. Beirbaum was snapping his fingers in front of my face as he woke me up from my daydream.

He was visibly upset at my lack of focus in his class that day. I was upset at him for disrupting what was going to happen next in my daydream. Thankfully, I wasn’t caught with my lips puckered. That could have been all kinds of awkward.

We were taping an episode of “Scotland Today”. I had lost focus after finding out that they were going to have a Senior Talent show. Dreams of me taking the stage and winning over Megan Alba Biel with a song had clouded my thoughts and I wasn’t doing my job up to par.

While we set up the next shot, the girl I shared hosting duties with, Lynn Littell , asked me if I was going to sign up for the talent show. She knew I was a drama/chorus geek, and thought that it would be right up my alley.

“Uh… maybe” I said, shrugging my shoulders, trying to hide my excitement.

I knew that this was going to be my big chance to get MAB to notice me as more than just the ‘nice guy’ she went to school with. I wanted to build on what started with our impromptu lunch months ago. It was something she probably had not thought twice about, but I had replayed in my mind over and over.

My game plan was simple, but brilliant. I was smart enough to know that any success I had had with girls in the past had generally spawned from my playing music. I might not have had a ton of luck with girls at home, but at Pirateland Campground in Surfside Beach SC, I was extremely successful.

Every summer we would hang out around the gazebo on the beach, and eventually, I would wind up taking a stroll down the beach with some pretty Yankee girl who liked how my accent was “so cute” and how I sang a song to them. For some reason, Yankee girls liked me. It worked every time.

So I viewed the upcoming talent show as a chance for Megan Alba Biel to see that side of me. Granted she had the same accent I had, so the Yankee angle wasn’t going to work in my favor, but maybe she would like the song I would sing to her. Surely that would spark something. There was no beach to walk along in my hometown of Laurinburg NC. If there were, I would walk 500 miles with MAB if given the opportunity.

I signed up for the show immediately after class, and began to plan out how I wanted my performance to go.

My song selection really wasn’t that difficult. I had learned to play a popular Travis Tritt song over Spring Break that was fairly popular with the beach crowd, and I thought it would be a perfect fit for the talent show.

The first line in the first verse of the song is – ‘I can’t hide the way I feel about you… Anymore’

The song goes on to tell the story about a guy who had held on to a one sided love for a woman for too long, and he couldn’t hold back ‘Anymore’. It said exactly what I didn’t have the nerve to say to Megan Alba Biel. I love songs like that. I was hoping she would love the song too. I have to admit, I was also hoping it would lead to a scenario much like the daydream I had in Mr. Bierbaum’s class.

When the big day finally came, I carried my guitar around with me at school to every class. The show was scheduled to start at 4pm, just a couple of hours after classes. We would use the time before show time to set up any audio needs, and to do a complete run through rehearsal.

At 245pm I entered the auditorium with my guitar in hand, feeling pretty confident. I saw many other friends and classmates getting there gear ready to rehearse as I found a spot on stage to get ready. Every one else had PA equipment, or DJ’ing equipment. I just had my Washburn acoustic guitar. The same guitar my Dad got for me my Freshman year. It was kind of poetic that I would use it to play at my senior talent show.

The line up included some of my drama friends from ‘Oklahoma’ who had started a band. I was talking to one of the guys from the group while I got my guitar out to tune it. Everything was going smoothly, and we were chatting away as I attempted to get ready. Everything was going smoothly that is, until I tweaked my D string to tune up… and it broke.

A look of horror came over my face the instant it happened. The guy I was talking to just started laughing. Apparently, he found the situation funny. I didn’t see the humor however. I searched all over my guitar case for a spare string, but there wasn’t one to be found. I started freaking out, trying to figure out what to do. I asked another guy that was there with his guitar if he had any spare strings, but he had none to offer. There was only one solution.

It was an hour before show time and my house was twenty minutes away. I ran to my car, guitar in hand and stepped on the gas as I pulled away from the parking lot. The security guard tried to wave me down as I peeled tires and drove away. I could deal with him later, I had to get home fast. I put my emergency blinkers on, and drove 65mph in a 35mph zone. I had to get home, change the string, and be back at the school in less than an hour. Thankfully I drove a 1986 Blue Mustang!

I ran into the house and rushed frantically to my bedroom. My folks had already left for the school to see me perform, so they weren’t there to hear me cursing profusely as I stumbled my way through changing the string. I got from the school to home and had the string changed in twenty minutes. I ran back out to the car and peeled rubber out of our driveway to get back to the school in time.

Again, with the emergency blinkers on, I drove 65mph the entire way back to the school. How I didn’t get pulled or in a wreck is beyond me, but my luck seemed to be improving as I pulled into the school parking lot. The security guard had gone home apparently, and I made it back into the building just as they were about to mark my name off the list of performers.

“I’m here!” I yelled across the room, as I heard them say that I was a no show.

”Well the show is starting now….. Get your butt on stage, your up!’ My drama teacher and director of the show Mrs. McCrummen literally pushed me onto the stage.

“What’s Up Class of 92!!” I yelled still going of the adrenaline rush of the events prior. My excitement was met with a couple of claps, but that was about it. Apparently, they didn’t share my enthusiasm.

I sat down at the end of the stage and let me feet hang below. I didn’t need a microphone or a chair to sit in. All I needed was their attention and my beat up Washburn guitar.

I looked out at the crowd. It was way more crowded than I expected. I was expecting to have butterflies, but oddly enough… I didn’t. I had been planning this moment for a long time, and I wanted to soak it all in. I sat there for a second, and then began to play.

I hit every note, and nailed every chord change (Well, all but one… but who’s counting?) My eyes closed throughout the majority of the performance, feeling every word that I was singing. I wasn’t thinking about the crowd, I wasn’t thinking about the hassle I ran into just minutes before the show started, or the fact that my parents were in the audience. The only thing (or person) on my mind while I was performing was Megan Alba Biel. I held nothing back in my performance. I kept my eyes closed almost through the entire song. By the time I strummed the last chord, I was anxious to open my eyes.

When I did open my eyes, I was greeted with a standing ovation by the entire audience. The crowd was filled with my classmates, peers, and friends… and everyone was on their feet. The feeling of acceptance and love I felt at that moment was humbling. Many of those in attendance probably hated country music, so they normally would not have appreciated that particular song. Many in attendance were kids I grew up with through out Elementary, Middle, and High School. Many were the so call ‘Popular Kids’ I had spent so many years trying to impress and feel accepted by.

At that moment, I felt accepted, admired and loved by them all. I had begun my High School career wanting to make more friends, and to move up the popularity chain. Status seemed irrelevant at that point, but I did feel as if everyone there was my friend. I can still remember the faces of the people who were there, and I do still consider them friends.

The only face I did not see was Megan Alba Biel’s. She wasn’t at the show. All of the time that I had planned on making a big impression on her, I never considered that she wouldn’t be there. That being said, I didn’t invite her either. I just figured it would happen, just like the movie scene I had been picturing in my head for so long. But it did not.

However what I did get out of that day far surpassed any dream that I could have ever had.

Everyone has moments where they can look back and say it summed up an entire season of there life. The Senior Talent show for my class of 1992 was that moment for me. When I think about my High School days, that is the moment I choose to think about the most. It meant more to me than any piece of paper I could ever receive.

Graduation was just weeks away, and we would be going our separate ways. Time was running out on many things, and I felt each second in the remaining few weeks. I wanted so badly to find a way to share the remaining moments with Megan Alba Biel, but I was running out of time and ideas on how to do it. Changes were coming, and they were coming quickly… I just wondered if any would involve my dream girl for the past four years.