Chapter 105

“We’re actors—we’re the opposite of people!”
—Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

I’ll never be an actor, but I discovered I love performing. The first weekend of the Renaissance Festival taught me that. Our ‘stationary’ performance venue was a place called The Three Oaks. It was actually just one tree that split into three trunks. I don’t think it was even an oak tree. Someday I’ll go back to Kansas and find the other tree. Two? You say there are more than two trees in Kansas?

There were three troupes that performed at The Three Oaks. We were scheduled to have an hour between the beginnings of each performance. We entertained there for about forty-five minutes and then there was a lull for fifteen. We were scheduled at 11:00, 2:00, 5:00 and 8:00. Between our times at the venue, we strolled around the fair just playing our instruments and spontaneously bursting into a performance on occasion. The first performance only had about a dozen people who stopped to watch our antics, listen to our music, watch our dancers. As the afternoon progressed and people needed a place to sit and rest from touring all the 250 vendors who had displays, our audiences grew. We had close to fifty at the last one of the day.

We were also invited back to some vendors who found that ten minutes of entertainment in front of their booth drew people in. While we were there, we always invited people to visit Riko and Riley ... AFTER they had viewed the fine crafts displayed at the booth where we performed. I say we invited, but Desi was the official spokesperson and other than our asides and runs at a little comedy interspersed with our music, she did all the talking. She had a great British accent—compared to some that we heard and compared with the poor attempts the rest of us made—and she had the experience of having worked these events before.

Cindy was a bit overwhelmed by the direct interactions with the audience. I sympathized with her. When she’s performing with an orchestra or in recital, there’s usually no loudmouth in the audience yelling out, “How can you think a wench like that is a boy?”

The other girls got into the performances. Riley gave Livy and Rachel tambourines and Brittany and Sophie had well-concealed castanets. They would give us occasional breaks by leading our troupe with a little dance as we moved from one place to another—especially as we headed to our performance venue and Desi called out to follow us to The Three Oaks. Fortunately, Livy and Rachel could at least keep time on the tambourines as Brittany and Sophie danced. All four girls were good at passing the hat, too.

By eleven o’clock Saturday night, we were all so exhausted, we could scarcely walk. We’d had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the food stands, trying not to eat so much we burped while performing. And we made frequent stops back at our booth just to get water. We changed back to street clothes before leaving the village, giving Cindy first use of the changing room so she and her mother could leave for their motel. I think Betty was slow to realize that when the show closed at eleven, she’d still have to spend an hour getting out of the parking field before she could even drive to their motel.

I felt bad for Cindy—not so much for Betty—and wished she could stay with us. Of course, that would have other problems. The five girls and I slept in one tent. Naked. And even though we had to be up early enough to get costumed, breakfasted, and in position for the opening, we fooled around until close to two o’clock before we collapsed together. Riko and Riley had cots in the dressing room where they spent the night. A lot of vendors didn’t want to trust their wares unguarded overnight. During the week, we’d take turns sleeping in the booth.

“What do we do with all this?” Rachel asked Sunday night. She’d just dumped the contents of the hat in the middle of our bed. Blankets. We’d brought the foam mattress out of the truck and put it in the middle of the tent. Desi produced an air mattress that pretty much filled the rest of the tent.

“How much is there?” Brittany asked.

“A lot,” Livy said. “Should we count it out?”

“Our usual is to just dump all of it together and...” Desi stopped her suggestion. “I’ve never had to split it up before. What do we have? Six? No, seven of us. That pile isn’t going to look like so much when we split it seven ways.”

“You don’t need to include us in the split,” Rachel said. “Livy and I are just here on vacation, hoping our boyfriend will have the energy to make love after we’ve followed him around adoringly all day.”

“It’s the former virgin Brittany’s weekend,” Livy said. “We all agreed.”

“Um ... my pussy is ... a little sore after three nights of regular use. I could forgo tonight. You two need some loving before you leave. Besides...” Brittany looked at her aunt.

“Go ahead. You thought up the brilliant idea. I’m with you,” Sophie said.

“Desi, we were wondering if it would be okay to stay. This was fun and we’d like to perform with you next weekend, too.”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You’re the boss,” Brittany said.

“I am? When did that happen?”

“You know when and where everything is supposed to be. You have experience,” Rachel said. “And Beca’s not here.”

“We can check with Riko and Riley in the morning,” Desi said. “I don’t think they’ll have a problem with it. They were pretty happy with how sales went. We did a good job of getting traffic to them.”

“It was smart to get cards made that we could hold up instead of shouting all the time,” Rachel said. “Anyway, if I have a vote, I think Brittany and Sophie should stay if they can. As long as I can get a little loving from our man tonight.” She rolled me over onto the foam pad and I got lost kissing her, so I didn’t really pay attention to whatever the others decided.

The Renaissance Village had a summer festival that drew pretty well and had a lot of people from the University working at it. Over the years, it became a year-round events area. As a result, there were some permanent buildings for the convenience of the cast, including a shower facility that we all made use of in the morning. When we were all dressed for the day, we went to see Riko and Riley.

“We had a good weekend and aren’t paying anything extra to have you with us, so if you’d like to stay, it’s fine,” Riko said. “Sophie, do you have permission for Brittany? She’s the only question at fifteen.”

“I called my sister this morning and explained the situation. If next weekend goes as well, we might want to join you for more of these. It has been a wonderful experience,” Sophie said.

“I’m fine with it,” Riley said. “Which of you are sleeping in the changing room tonight? Riko and I need a bed for a couple of nights.”

Everything in the village was closed so we needed to go into town for breakfast. As soon as we’d eaten, Rachel and Livy took off for the long drive home, wishing us well. We met up with Cindy and Betty and agreed we’d all be taking a day off today but they would pick up breakfast and come to the village on Tuesday to practice. We decided to go tour the University. I know I made a joke about how flat and treeless Kansas is, but the campus is really beautiful and has lots of trees. We walked around the place and it had that spooky feeling of a deserted post-apocalyptic dream.

Summer term was in session and there were some students around, but several buildings were locked. We walked across the campus and found the library before we found the admissions office. We just wanted information, so this seemed good enough.

College enrollment had been falling since the early 2000s. The cost of higher education and a cultural disdain for education opposed to ‘working with your hands’ had caused several smaller colleges to collapse. When National Service went into effect six years ago, it about collapsed the entire educational system. For two years, there were nearly zero new enrollments. No freshmen enrolled because they had to do Service first. That was 3.5 million students a year who would have gone to college but didn’t. The university here lost 4,500 new students.

To stay afloat, they’d increased the number of foreign students. The percentage of foreign students admitted went from ten percent to forty percent in two years. The expected explosion of students entering college after the first two years of the National Service was more like a firecracker than a bomb. When students come out of high school, they are used to going to school. They might have a dream career in mind but more likely they are exploring to find out what they should do with their lives. National Service removed that aspect of higher education. The momentum for continuing in school dropped significantly. Many found they had all the training they wanted or needed and passed on the free tuition offer at low-ranked colleges.