Chapter 19: Getting a Part

November 9, 1981

I stopped by Meg’s desk on the way into class and told her I was going over to talk to Ms. Smith, then did so. She smiled when she saw me. I’d beaten Jasmine to class; good.

“How’re you, Steve? Ready to show off?”

I shook my head. “We’re postponing to Wednesday.”

She laughed. “I told you to take your time. What happened, though?”

“We lost all day yesterday, and you know how busy the tournament was.”

Jasmine walked in, spotted me, waved. I waved back. Ms. Smith grinned. “Jasmine have anything to with losing all day yesterday?”

“Well, yes.” She grinned a bit more. “But not how you’re thinking.”

“Oh? Now I’m intrigued.”

“Well, the problem is, it can help a lot in preparing, but it’s hard to prepare for ‘Brigadoon’ when you’re watching ‘Brigadoon’.”

She blinked. “I didn’t even know it was on!”

“Yes, you did. Jasmine said you told the class about it.”

“Wait! You saw the touring company downtown? And you took Jasmine?”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Well, that explains why she looks all love-struck,” Ms. Smith laughed. “That’s impressive. And tells me a few things about you that are good to know. Pick up any pointers?”

“More than I know how to follow, I think. Not only do I need voice lessons, I’ll need movement and dance, emoting, a lot of things we don’t do in Debate. Not that I feel at all ready to tackle most any part.”

“You’re comparing yourself to professionals with years of experience.”

“Yeah, but I saw your ‘Oklahoma!’. Point remains.”

“They did really well with that, I agree. Look, just be yourself, that’s the main thing. High School is about learning, not already knowing. Knowing what you don’t know, and wanting to learn and try, is the point.”

I nodded. “I agree. I’m going to have fun with it. I really am looking forward to it, I just know I’d shortchange it after not only losing yesterday for practice but getting a bunch of ideas.”

“Wednesday’s just fine. Let’s say, at the end of class. Just come by as it’s ending. I assume you can stay a bit late.”

“Sure, late isn’t a problem.”

“Good. Thanks for telling me right away!”

I detoured by Jasmine on the way back and got a pretty good kiss for it. “Not auditioning today, right?”

“Nah. Wednesday. I need time to process seeing it.”

“Makes sense. Thank you sooooooo much! Again!”

“It was my pleasure!”

November 10, 1981

I let Angie talk me into something I didn’t feel ready for. OK, so that’s happened, what, a dozen times? Well, it was happening again.

We’d pretty much gotten our lines down. Or at least, I think we had. They read better in my head than coming out of my mouth. I’d stood in my room and said my lines into a recorder, then played them back. My voice sounded weird, which happens to everyone. Something about how you hear yourself partly via bone conduction. But I also just didn’t quite flow naturally or hit all the inflections I wanted.

Some of it was, of course, comparing myself with people with years or decades more experience. But some of it was things I could do right now, if my voice just cooperated. I could get there. But that’s why you rehearse and why there’s direction and coaching.

In any case, Angie had declared that we were going to do our songs in front of an audience. Specifically, the study group members. It wasn’t a bad idea, in theory. But I was nervous. Really nervous.

We took turns. Angie started with her chorus number. I watched. She was good; like me, she’d need some vocal coaching, but untrained, she was good. She had me run through my chorus number next. I felt like it went fine; I avoided anything too embarrassing. We both drew applause, but then this was a very biased audience.

Then she put on a tape of the music that she’d made and took off into ‘The Love Of My Life’. It’s a funny song about a girl who sets off to find the love of her life and get married, but winds up with a series of men who don’t treat her right. It’s pretty clear that she’s sleeping with them, not just dating. Put in context there’s an undercurrent of regret, plus an ending that’s not so funny at all. Listening to it, I could hear a few things. I could hear the Angie who’d been through lousy relationships more times than anyone but me knew. The Angie who didn’t think flings were a bad thing in and of themselves and wasn’t worried about being labeled as a slut or a hussy, but who also wanted — craved — genuine love and devotion.

I also heard Theresa Beckett’s story. Maybe that’s all she’d wanted — someone to do right by her and stand with her, and kept letting guys talk her into ‘proving her love’ when all they wanted was a bit of time with her on her back. She hadn’t let go of Marcus for a second, and I knew it wasn’t because she was controlling him via sex. And if Theresa was there, maybe Ashley Lennox was there, too. Maybe many girls who get the title of ‘school slut’ were there.

Contrariwise, Meg, in the song, isn’t feeling broken or humiliated or like no one would want her. Sure, she feels like she was silly to give in to some of the guys, but she’s holding out for better.

To be fair, Angie only wrestled about half that out of the song, because she was fighting not to trip over the more interesting grammatical constructions it uses, plus carry Meg with something resembling an accent. But it was in there, and I knew she saw it. When she finished, we gave her a round of hearty applause, which embarrassed her a bit and left her flushed.

I went next. As with hers, my song felt quite apt. Ms. Smith had given me one of Tommy’s songs in the show, ‘There But For You Go I’. It’s about a guy who’s walking around looking at a succession of single guys — therefore lonely guys, in the song’s estimation — and comparing his happiness at having a relationship with their loneliness.

I’d lived the flip side of this for years. Many years. I knew what it was like to look at the guys in relationships and think, ‘where’s my “you”’? I also knew from recent experience how it felt to have Candice or Nancy in my heart and on my arm and how it felt to look at single guys and know how special I felt — and how it was entirely due to the girl that I felt that way.

And just as with Angie’s, I felt the unspoken undercurrent in the song. If the singer felt special and loved because of the girl he was with, he could also feel just as lonely and sad as the other men mentioned in the song if her love failed. Perhaps worse, because he would know what he’d had and lost.

The juxtaposition of the songs also hit me. Meg was longing for a love she hadn’t found and might never find; Tommy was reveling in the love he’d found. Meg wanted to be the girl for one of the guys in Tommy’s song; Tommy wanted to avoid being like Meg, searching and not finding.

In the past year, I’d been both, repeatedly. I wondered how much of that I could draw from, and how much of Angie’s heartaches she could draw from. But did it really matter? Ms. Smith wouldn’t cast Angie as Meg nor me as Tommy. That would be silly; there were kids who’d worked and practiced for years going for those parts. Not just that, but they were good. Perhaps we could be just as good one day, but we weren’t yet. Nowhere close. We needed to be good enough to audition, not to go on stage. Better is always, well, better, but there’s a point of diminishing returns.

Both performances received solid reviews from our (biased) audience, though. I felt like we were at least reasonably prepared to audition and not fall on our faces.

9:45pm

“Feeling ready, Ang?”

“As ready as I’m going to be. Nervous, but it should be OK. I was pretty nervous for my first Extemp round too, after all.”

“Yeah, well, me too on that. I figure I’m still doing it for Jasmine, that’s the biggest part.”

She grinned. “Well, I hope you’re doing it for both of you. Otherwise you’re not doing it right.”

Whap!

She giggled and gave me a pouty face. “Hey, that’s my thing!”

“Nah, your thing is down there.” I pointed, helpfully.

She giggled more. “Sometimes it still strikes me that it’s weird talking this way with my brother. But so is having a brother at all.”

“Me too, but mostly, now, it’s just what is. It’s more like I always had a sister, I just didn’t know it.”

She bit her lip. “Yeah, I can see that. And it’s as if the universe wants us to be together. I mean, a lot of couples feel that way. But we have evidence.”

“Yeah.”

“And speaking of being together ... I’m glad we’re both auditioning.”

I laughed. “If you’d gone the direction I thought you were going, I’d have mentioned behaving.”

“I know. That’s why I didn’t.” She stuck her tongue out. So, I licked it.

“OK. I need sleep.”

“Me, too.”

She snuggled in. “I sleep better here.”

“Sis?”

“Yeah?”

“The light.”

“Oh, yeah. You could get it.”

“I’d literally have to climb on top of you.”

“Like I’d mind that.”

“Mom would. And Dr. Stanton.”

“Party pooper!” She hopped up, killed the light, and snuggled back up. “Love you, big brother.”

“Love you, too, little sis.”

“Forever.”

“Always.”

November 11, 1981

The day dragged a bit as we ticked closer to auditions. Just before Debate, I checked with Ms. Smith and made sure she knew we were ready and would be there at the end of class.

Ang and I headed over as soon as Debate ended. Most of the kids filed out, including Jasmine, who gave me a hug. “Break a leg, Steve!” She gave me a kiss that might have sent me to the office if Mr. Hannity or Mrs. Higgins were around, then bounced away with a grin.

“Damn, I could use an encouraging kiss like that myself!” Angie said.

“They might be surprised if I did that.”

She giggled. “Very! I’d be surprised if you did that!”

We headed in. Three kids were already there. Mikayla Reynolds, just about my height, with her long dark hair in a ponytail, grey eyes shining. She was trim but curvy in the right places. Linda Zimmerman, Carole’s big sister, looked like an older version of Carole, who herself looked a lot like Candice. A bit shorter, with dark hair, dark eyes, a slightly darker complexion, and fairly large boobs. And Alan Sanders, who’s a pretty handsome guy. I can say that, because he looks not unlike me.