American Star by Ryan Field

Author:Ryan Field [Field, Ryan]
Language: nld
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

102

American Star

by Ryan Field

The week passed quickly, and the first live show of the final round was on Tuesday night. As they sat in the holding room waiting for the show to begin, Brian Masters told the audience, "Before we start the show tonight, I'm going to announce the name of the contestant selected at random."

The audience applauded while Brian slowly opened an envelope. "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome back Payton Dugan, who will be singing the first song tonight after being sequestered all week in a private hotel, where she rehearsed alone."

The audience applauded and Payton crossed onto the stage in a black miniskirt and red high heels. Her hair had been styled differently. She looked great. She came from a dark, mysterious corner in the wings while the orchestra played an introduction to her song. Terrence gave Jude a look, then reached for the cell phone already vibrating in his pocket. Emma had sent a text before Brian had finished the introduction. "I had a feeling," the text read. "Don't turn your back." Terrence just sighed and looked down at his lap.

He gave a good performance that night, but not as good as the previous week's semi-finals. At least, that's what Marco told him. Jude did his difficult song well too, and the judges praised his choice in music. A few of the contestants were nervous: Danyell Watson forgot the words to her song and Red Conner's hand shook when he held the microphone. The judges' comments to everyone were not outright nasty, but they weren't jumping up and down in their seats either. When they commented on Payton's performance, Marco actually 103

American Star

by Ryan Field

said, "I hope you work harder next week to raise the bar a little, because you sounded karaoke to me."

The only performance that actually stood out that night was given by Becca Rodney. She was outrageous, compared to everyone else who had decided to play it safe that week.

The rockabilly song she'd chosen to sing made the audience stand in their seats and wave their arms. You couldn't be sure if they were laughing at her or laughing with her. She belted the notes with a deep, throaty voice and it didn't even look as if she'd struggled. At one point, during the middle of her song, she pointed to an older woman in the first row with such a determined expression the poor woman pressed her palm to her throat and gasped. You could see Becca had been knocked around a few times during her short life, and it gave her a natural edge. Her gestures were dramatic, and her lip quivered when she hit high notes. She held nothing back from the audience. Terrence had this image of her singing Hard Hearted Hannah while the audience sat back and clenched their teeth.

Rocko and Priscilla praised her song choice and her performance. But Marco just shook his head and said, "I hated it. It was abysmal. This is a pop music competition, not some rockabilly music fair.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.