“Yes, indeed. Actually a record. Team number one eleven o eleven times.” She paused to let the cheering and stomping die down. “And I just got word a few minutes ago that the last episode had just finished airing.” This statement was met with hushed expectation. “And I am now free to tell you… that… team Madri-Gal came in…,” she paused dramatically, “… in the top two.” There were groans from the audience and one of the drummers let out a dull thump from his largest drum.
There was one laugh; a bright, clear, merry laugh. A laugh so familiar that a broad smile burst out of her. “Alright… team number ONE!” She raised her right arm high, fist clenched. This took everyone by surprise, and a moment passed while it sank in, and then the theater erupted with cheers like foam bursting from a shattered champagne bottle. She nodded and waved as the drummers caught the mood and thundered out a crescendo. Finally she held up her hands and the noise faded.
“Yes. Twelve o twelve times. I certainly didna believe we could do it; but the other half of Team Madri-Gal never doubted a moment. The other half o the team. When I accepted, tha meant I had to find a teammate. So I asked friends and family. But all of them had seen the show and asked me if I was daft.” She played the audience for the laughter. “Why should they want to crawl through mud, jump out of planes, get shot out of cannons, crawl through caves, or eat extremely… unpleasant… things. Finally I asked an acquaintance of mine, the president and administrator of my fan forum, and he said, if you are serious, I am in. That was Nathan. We were billed as ‘singer and fan,’ and I do think he is my greatest fan.” There were some cheers from the audience. “And he is here tonight.” The volume of cheering doubled. She finally allowed herself to turn and look at… him. His face was coloring, but his eyes were on hers and he smiled exactly the same way he had when he had broken all the boards in the Okinawa challenge. She just looked at him for a moment, then shook herself and gestured for him to stand up. He shook his head slightly. Ariana laughed, put her hands on her hips, and said, “You race round the world, in front o a hundred million television viewers every week for months… and now you are shy? Stand up.”
The audience added applause to their cheers, and Nathan reluctantly rose to his feet, waved briefly, smiled at her warmly enough to soften her resolution dangerously, and sat down.
“Just so you don’t think I’ve completely spoiled the episode for you, and you think you don’t have to go home and watch it, we beat the second place team by ten meters. The closest finish ever.” That got some whistles and a smattering of cheers. “So we were a standin there, Nathan covered in blood.” The collective gasps were a breeze through the theater. “And you will have to watch to find out why that was. And were told we were team number one. And the World AIDS Coalition will get a check tomorrow for one million two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.”
When the audience had quieted again, Ariana said, drily, “And the second most asked question I got from all of the women was, ‘did he rub my feet after every leg.’ And yes he did rub my feet after every leg.” This drew a wave of feminine cheers across the theater. “An, I made him a promise before we started, I made Nathan a promise, an I am a woman o me word.” The theater hushed immediately. Ariana managed to tear her eyes away from Nathan and look out over the anonymous multitudes. “When I sent him the ticket for tonight, I wrote a e-mail note that said only, ‘Please come.’ And he sent back the most elegant RSVP that had the name of a song, and the words, ‘line 17.'” The audience was puzzled and restless. “You see, I promised that if we won, I would sing a song.” She paused dramatically and looked over her right shoulder. “Without music.” She looked over her left shoulder. “And without backup singers.” There was a collective intake of breath from the audience, and she could imagine the startled looks on the troupe.
Daniel’s voice over her ear piece said, “Ariana, do you know what you are doing?”
She nodded and gestured to the audience and said in a supremely regretful tone, “Yes I am regretin that right about now, and I really did not expect to win, don ya know. But I am a woman of me word.” She took a deep breath and nodded regally to the audience. “So I decided ta sing the song he used in his reply. Let’s see if you can pick out line seventeen.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
That was her undoing.
Completely unbidden, an image of Nathan grinning at her as he rubbed her feet filled her mind, and she opened her eyes – only she didn’t see the audience any more, all she could see was that smile.
She rolled right into TRUE COLORS, not from her diaphragm, but from her heart.
The audience cheered and quieted, but she didn’t hear them.
She dared not look at him when she sang the line about ‘love’, but it burst out of her. There! She had said it out loud, out loud where everyone could hear, even if it was hidden in a lyric. The relief was exhilarating. Even if it could never be, even if she never saw him again, she would know, from this day to that when the angels took her home, what being truly in love felt like.
The lyrics flowed through her lips so effortlessly that she didn’t even know she was saying them. She couldn’t see the audience, but now she could feel him surrounding her and hear him whispering in her ear, “I promise I won’t let you fall again.”
She paused, finally allowed herself to look right at Nathan, and sang, long and slow and passionately, Line 17 – the line about being there.
The audience made no noise, but every one of them smiled. Ariana had to admit, deep in the privacy of the heaven she was now soaring through, that if he had raised his arms, she would have jumped right into them with the same complete trust she had had when he had told her to jump in the park on the last day of the race.
And she drew the last word out like a bow across the back of the theater, and finished with a gasp.
The silence was respectful but brief, and then four thousand throats started screaming themselves hoarse in approval.
Daniel said into his intercom, still more than half entranced, “Did ya record tha?”
The Director’s awed voice came back, “Yes, evra bit.”
“T’will sell a billion copies.”
Cassie, Lavender, Linnae and Marie watched from the wings as Ariana walked off the stage borne like a clipper ship on the waves of thunderous applause.
“She did say she was goin ta say ‘good bye’ ta him tonight, did she no?” Cassie asked absently.
“Tha she did,” Lavender agreed.
“I think she might hae just sent him tha wrong message,” Linnae observed, drily.
“Cassie, you’re up now,” Daniel’s voice sounded in their ear phones.
The remainder of the performance was nearly anticlimactic, the closing song evoked the usual standing ovation, and the encore song had half the audience clapping along. With waves or bows as appropriate, the troupe had exited the stage, and the audience began to disperse to the various night spots in the city.