The Crumbling Pyramid

Anette and Ray worked and worked and worked at their act for the week they had been given. The first meeting had been on Tuesday, and the show was on Thursday of the next week. Anette was grateful that theatre was done with and her dress had been bought a while ago so that this and her class work was all she had to focus on. And focus on it she did indeed.

There was a meeting Wednesday after school to time the acts. They were called pair by pair into the gym to do their thing, so no one got to see what anyone else was doing, though there were hints from what everyone was either wearing or had with them. Rachel, for instance, had her cheerleading uniform on, so Anette assumed she was doing some sort of routine, but where Andrew fitted in to it, she didn't know. Tyler and Dawn had a lot of hoola hoops, so goodness knows what they were doing. And Ray of course had his guitar with him, and he kept strumming it nervously. When it was finally their turn, they were pleased to see that there was an amp there for him and a mic and amp for Anette.

"Alright, Anette Baker and... ?" one of the MC girls asked, trailing off when she realized she didn't know Ray.

"Ray Toro," he said, plugging in his guitar and adjusting the sound levels.

"Right. And what are you guys going to do?"

"We're performing the song Let's Hear It For The Boy from the musical Footloose," Anette explained, tapping the mic nervously.

"Okay, just start when you're ready," the other girl said, and after a quick glance at each other, Ray started playing his own version of the song.

Anette felt like they had done pretty well, but of course, playing it tomorrow in front of all those people was going to be so nerve-wracking, and the acoustics in the gym were terrible, so she felt like they weren't going to sound as good as they had in her art room...

"Hey, Anette, we'll be fine," Ray said, setting a hand on her shoulder, effectively snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Yeah... I hope."

-

Classes Thursday seemed to drag on for forever. The nominees were called down during sixth period to get ready for the show, which was to be during seventh period. Anette and Ray didn't talk to each other, and instead went over their parts separately, Anette putting in her iPod and mouthing the words to herself and Ray looking over his half composed, half transposed music one last time. They could hear over in the gym the footsteps of hundreds of students filing in and their voices echoing off the walls. It made Anette even more nervous.

They were to go last, as they had the least amount of nominations. Anette didn't bother listening to the MC's announce the acts, because in all honestly, she didn't want to know what she was up against. As John Burns and Naomi Reed (the couple in ninth place) were called out, she closed her eyes.

‘I can do this... I can do this...' Anette thought. 'What's going to be my motivation?'

Beat Andrew? No, not good enough.

Prove that she was still cool, even though she wasn't? Stupid reason.

Sing this song like no one's ever sung it before? ...maybe.

But then the idea just walked into her head, fully formed. It was a love song, right? About a boy who wasn't perfect, but was pretty much an all-around great guy. And who did she know that was like that?

‘Mikey,' Anette thought, a smile spreading across her lips. ‘I'm singing this song for Mikey.'

Applause told her that John and Naomi were done, and so she opened her eyes and smiled at Ray, who smiled back, albeit looking a bit confused at Anette's new calm.

"Okay, so last up, we have Anette Baker and Ray Toro, who are performing the song Let's Hear It For The Boy from Footloose!" called the MC's, and Ray and Anette walked into the gym and onto the stage. They were met with unexpected cheers. There was an awkward minute while Ray got plugged in, Anette switched on the mic, and they both ran sound checks, but when they locked eyes and nodded, they knew it was now or never.

"M'kay, so this song... this song is for this guy I know," Anette said a slight bit hesitantly. She hadn't planned on doing any sort of introduction, but the words were just forming in her head and she knew she had to say them. "He's not perfect, by any means, but... he's still amazing. So this is for you," she said, and she nodded at Ray, who started playing. And then Anette took a deep breath, deep like her vocal teacher had taught her, and started singing.

"My baby, he don't talk sweet, he ain't got much to say. But he loves me loves me loves me, I know that he loves me anyway."

She and Ray had found their rhythm together, and were starting to get more confident.

"And maybe he don't dress fine, but I don't really mind. 'Cuz every time he pulls me near, I just wanna cheer let's hear it for the boy! Oh, let's give the boy a hand! Let's hear it for my baby! You know you gotta understand. Oh, maybe he's no Romeo, but he's my lovin' one-man-show, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Let's hear it for the boy!"

By now, Ray and Anette were both really into the song, and so did the audience, it seemed. Anette could hear some people cheering, or clapping, or keeping beat.

And so Anette and Ray played and sang their hearts out, and as Anette took a deep breath to hold her killer note, she heard more cheers than ever.

'Oh God... oh God, please let me hit this note,' she prayed before getting ready to hit the highest soprano note she probably ever had attempted.

"Let's hear it for my baby! Hear it for the boy!" she almost screamed, and the whole gym seemed to be screaming for them. Grins on their faces, Ray and Anette sort of waved awkwardly and scurried off the stage and back to where all the other candidates were. Almost all of them congratulated Anette and Ray as they arrived, and Andrew just stood apart from the crowd and glared at them.

They were let go when the bell rang, and Anette and Ray joined the crowd of students leaving the building.

"Anette! Ray!"

Gerard, Frank, Mikey, Hailey and Bob were fighting through the crowd trying to reach them. Frank reached them first, and he practically slammed into Anette with a fierce hug.

"Holy shit you guys raged it!" he exclaimed, hugging Ray now.

"You're gonna fucking win," Gerard said with a grin, flipping his bangs out of his eyes. "That was amazing."

"Andrew sucked!" Hailey said brightly. "I mean, they did some stupid dance thing. Bo-ring."

"Let's not get too hasty," Anette said, but she couldn't help but smile.

"Why not?" Mikey asked. "Ray was awesome, especially for like, composing half of that, and shit, I've never heard anyone hit a note that high, Anette."

She blushed. "Thanks. That was the part I was having the most trouble with, honestly."

"I couldn't tell."

"Guys, we are fucking celebrating at Steaming Bean!" Gerard announced. "Into the cars!"

They all walked out into the parking lot together. Gerard, Mikey and Frank went in Gerard's car, while Bob took Hailey, Ray and Anette. The trip to downtown was slow going because of the traffic from everyone getting out of school, and they had to park about a block away from the coffee shop, but it was well worth it when they all had their preferred beverages and had taken over the biggest table the Bean offered.

"I still can't believe you guys put that shit together in like, a week," Frank said, sipping his coffee cautiously.

"Me neither," Ray said, relief in his voice. "I was seriously starting to freak out there, especially all of today."

"We both were," Anette said. "I spent lunch in a practice room working on just that last bit with the freakishly long note and then that high note. I think I go up to a high harmonic E or something."

Hailey and Gerard's jaws went slack. "Seriously?" Hailey asked, amazed.

"Yeah. D or C or E, one of those."

"God damn, and I have a hard time just hitting high E."

"Well, you're a mezzo soprano."

"Still. That's like... inhuman."

"Hey Anette, what was with that stuff at the beginning?" Frank asked, stirring his coffee.

"Yeah, what was that?" Ray asked. "I wasn't aware that you were gonna make a speech."

"I..." Anette stopped. She couldn't tell the truth, not with Mikey sitting right there, staring at his coffee lid. "I dunno. The words just sort of... came to me."

"Okay," Ray said, tipping the rest of his coffee into his mouth. "Whatever you say."

"It did," Anette said defensively, but she felt like Ray could tell she was lying. Well, he probably knew she was lying.

They spent almost an hour at the coffee shop before they all had to go home. There was a passenger and luggage exchange as Gerard offered to take Anette and Ray home because Bob was closer to Frank anyways, and so after Anette got home, she found her mom to be there with Terrence, and she told her all about what happened before giving in to Terrence's whims and playing Batman with him.