Impressively, she conquered a word she had never seen before, peritonitis, by sounding it out at the microphone. But when she faced toxophily—which she knew—she started to struggle. She had trouble getting the pronunciation, going back and forth with the judges, voicing it numerous times, the anxiety in her voice escalating as she went. Finally, she closed her eyes (an essential part of her ritual), shutting out the crowded ballroom. The letters came evenly, almost floating out. She was correct. Unsmiling, she walked quietly back to her seat.
She had survived, yet the next round, facing belonoid, things got tougher still. She didn’t know the word, and as she ruminated on the possibilities, a cloud cover of semi-fear moved in.
She had prepared for this moment, but when it arrived, the waves were cresting higher than expected. “I definitely practice a lot. I try to envision myself spelling in front of an audience. I close my eyes a lot, because the glare, and people staring at you, and people taking pictures, can be really distracting.
“And breathing is good. Just making sure that you’re keeping on breathing. Because a lot of people I’ve seen just stop for a moment. And it’s not something you want to do.”
She kept breathing, but it wasn’t enough. Having thousands of eyeballs directed at her was not, for her, the ideal space for peace of mind. “I think part of the reason I got belonoid wrong is because I panicked,” she recalls. “Which is not something you ever want to do in a Bee, because all the letters count.”
Panic. That’s a tough thing to overcome.
As the bell rang, sending her offstage, a minor storm moved in. “Well, of course you have a certain feeling that the sky is about to fall, and the world’s about to end. Once you hear the fateful bell ring, you kind of feel the world is collapsing around you. You really feel that every eye is on you. It’s an experience that, I think, everyone feels a certain number of times.”
However, she recalls months later, “It wasn’t the biggest thing in the world. I usually take it pretty well.” Overall, the experience was “definitely a lot more good than bad.”
She had tied for 27th in a field of 265. If she could return in 2005—and master her stage nerves—she had a realistic shot at the trophy. Could she do it?