Chapter 128: The Show Must Go On

Friday, May 11, 1984

I don’t think my teachers even tried to make us Drama kids pay attention. It was a completely lost cause today. All of us had our minds on what was coming tonight.

Many of my teachers would be there, either tonight or tomorrow. Of course, three of them (Steffie, Meg, and Tom) had already seen the show, but Meg and Tom would certainly come back to see it without interruptions.

Probably, if we hadn’t been who we were, things might have been more of an issue, but no teacher was going to come down hard on any of us in the musical when so many of us were standouts in our graduating class. That’s perhaps not fair, but it’s how things work at most schools.

Following last year’s tradition, everyone in the show, plus Meg, met at Pop’s Hamburgers. We didn’t have Friday the 13th to fall back on (though last month’s version of it would be one I’d remember for a long time!), but we joked around, teased each other, and basically dared the universe to screw with us, in the way that most casts do. It was very much in the tradition of ‘break a leg,’ where the goal is to avoid bad luck by nominally asking for it.

Everyone was loose and in good spirits, which was normal for us. Steffie had told us that not all of her casts were, but that we were ‘doing it right.’ It certainly felt better to me.

As with nearly any public performance, what’s the worst that could happen? Probably it was the crowd pointing and laughing (at us, rather than with us, of course). The odds of that happening were astronomically low, so it was time to relax and enjoy the ride.

For Jess, perhaps, this might (in some small way) be another step in the road to super-stardom, but — if so — it would definitely be a small step. We wouldn’t have any movie producers or talent agents in the audience. We’d actually talked about it, but only jokingly. Jess’s Hollywood contact wasn’t going to fly to Houston to watch a high school musical, after all, and that was the best connection we had.

The rest of us set aside that this was our swan song and just had fun. Going into our last few performances with that sense of melancholy hanging over us would make everything that much harder.

It occurred to me that Steffie’s plan of Sunday as ‘understudy day’ was really quite brilliant. The obvious benefit was that it gave the mostly underclass understudies a chance to shine and encouragement to come back, plus letting Steffie evaluate the talent she would likely have next year. In addition, it also kept the seniors from being in a major role for their final performance. They’d be the leads on Friday and Saturday, but then have one more time on stage when they weren’t in the limelight. If someone were to get melancholy, it would be while performing in a minor role. The challenge of performing that role well might be sufficiently diverting, though — and there was the goal of supporting one’s underclass friends, too.

We left the restaurant about an hour and a half before showtime, heading back across the road and stopping at restrooms before converging on the auditorium and changing into our costumes.

On the way back, Angie, Jas, Paige, and I discussed whether we wanted to sleep as couples. We all decided we’d wait until Saturday for that.

As with last year, most of the parents were coming tomorrow. Jane would be here tonight, though. So would Elizabeth, who was going to be sitting relatively near Cammie. Cammie and Cal would be sitting with Mel and Andy, and most of the other Study Group kids were here tonight as well. Mark and Morty would be here with Emily, but the Riley parents were not coming, most likely because they didn’t want to have to support the not-yet-ended fiction of the girls’ relationships. I felt for them on that, and was glad they’d mostly accepted reality. Mel still probably had the occasional comment aimed her way, but she and the Wonder Twins had made their stand and it’d stuck.

I hung out where I could see the lobby and headed out as I saw a bunch of African-American people coming in. Angie and Jas came along with me, with Angie shouting “Marshall!” as he entered.

Amelia Briggs was easy to spot. She was wearing an amazing hat, with a big floppy brim and flowers that might still be growing. Her dress was a lovely shade of lavender, as well. She stood out in a crowd every bit as much as I ever had.

The whole group drew a lot of notice. Of course, any sizable African-American group would tend to do that at Memorial. Besides Calvin and his parents, we just weren’t going to have that many in the audience.

Marshall called back, “Hey!”

Angie got to him first and hugged him. Jas was next, and I was third.

Amelia hugged us, too, and we shook hands with Debbie and Alan Jenkins. By this point, Steffie had joined us, and hugged Debbie herself.

Marshall introduced us to his friends — most of whom we’d seen in ‘The Wiz’ — and we all shook hands (or hugged — no surprise that Drama girls, and most Drama boys, are inclined to be huggers).

After a bit, they headed into the theater and we headed backstage.

We had a succession of countdowns, after which the band went into the opening music, and we were off to the races. From that point until perhaps ten or fifteen minutes in, I lost myself in the show. I was Albert, and that was that.

That was shattered just a bit into the third scene. Angie and Paige (as Kim and Ursula) were talking, and Angie had the line ‘You’ll explain everything to the other kids, won’t you?’

A voice boomed out of the back of the auditorium, “Yeah! She’ll explain that you’re both dykes!”

To their credit, neither Angie nor Paige broke character or even paused, even as Steffie broke into a run towards the side door. I saw someone get up near the front, and I thought it was Assistant Principal Blaine. If so, and the shouter was a Memorial student, it was not his night.

“Rug-munchers! Lezzies! You wouldn’t know what to do with Conrad if you caught him!”

A couple of people in the audience shouted things like “Shut up!” or “Go away!” and the like.

The back door opened and a security guard came in and yelled, “You! Stop it!”

Angie and Paige stopped when he came in, freezing in place. They did a great job of it, too, barely moving a muscle.

“Can’t catch me! Bunch of pussies, anyway!” came the voice.

I think most of the audience was stunned. Most of us in the cast would’ve killed the guy, but we knew we had to stay in place.

From somewhere near the shouts came another voice. “Boy! Your mama obviously didn’t raise you right! You best cut it out right now!”

I doubted most people knew it, but Amelia Briggs was on the job, and I suspected that was bad news for our miscreant.

“Another dyke-lov- Ah! Stop that!”

A bunch of the audience started clapping.

“I’ve got him, officer! Come get this boy outta here!”

“Get your hands off — Ow! I’ll st- Ow! Ow!”

We heard a quieter “I’ve got him, Ma’am. You can go back to your seat.”

“I’ll get you! Ow! Stop! I can walk!”

We saw the officer frog-marching a kid out of the door, to a round of applause.

When the crowd had mostly quieted, Angie blinked once, then said, “Before we were so rudely interrupted, I was saying, You’ll explain everything to the other kids, won’t you?”

The audience applauded again, but only briefly, and we were back in motion.

By intermission, I think all of us in the cast had set the whole thing behind us, or nearly so. Angie and Paige did briefly discuss whether we wanted to go out and thank Mrs. Briggs at the intermission, but the consensus was doing it after the show would be better. We tried to drop the subject as much as possible simply to get past the distraction.

Steffie was absolutely livid, of course, but praised Angie and Paige for keeping their composure and making sure the show went on. She was particularly pleased with their freezing in place and making it a pause. However livid she was, she dropped the issue of the miscreant, at least with us.

We had no repeats after the intermission, and it didn’t feel to me like anyone had lost focus.

Once we’d taken our final bows (to a standing ovation), we mopped up all of the sweat, drank some Gatorade (live theater is work!), and then headed out into the lobby. I didn’t see Mr. Blaine, but I did see Principal Riggs and headed that way. I spotted Angie and Paige both heading toward Amelia Briggs; she would be my next stop.

Principal Riggs was talking to several people when I got there, and it seemed likely to take a while, so I caught his eye, then headed over to join Angie and Paige. When I got there, they were holding hands and thanking her.

She gave me a smile when I came over.

“Thanks, Mrs. Briggs,” I said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot.”

“Wasn’t any bother,” she said. “Some people need a good smack now and then.”

Marshall, who was standing close by, looked slightly embarrassed.

“Not you!” Amelia said, without even looking back at him. “Either you’re good enough at making sure I don’t see it or you’re behaving yourself. I prefer to believe the second.”

“Yes, Mama,” Marshall said, chuckling.

“Marshall’s been a very stand-up guy,” Angie said. “It’s been an honor to compete against him.”

Paige nodded. “Yeah. We’ve known each other for a while.”

Cal picked that moment to come over, and he and Marshall hugged.

“Thanks, Mrs. Briggs,” Cal said.

She smiled. “Thank you, as well, Calvin.”

Cal blushed. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone call him Calvin before, but it somehow fit here.

Then she turned back to us. “Marshall was saying that you know some important people in New Orleans?”

Angie smiled. “Well, we don’t know them because they’re important, but yes. My former boyfriend’s father and mother moved to New Orleans. He’s now a judge on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

Amelia raised an eyebrow. “Former boyfriend, eh?”

Her eyes tracked to where Angie and Paige were still holding hands.

Angie giggled. “Gene and I are still good friends. He’s dating our friend and teammate Sue, and they’re a much better match than he and I were. That’s before I dated any girls, though.”

“So he didn’t drive you to the other team?”

Angie giggled a bit more. “No, Ma’am!”

“Preacher says I should care more about that than I do,” she said. “Seems to me that people who’ve got a history of being put down should be more sympathetic when other people are put down, especially when the Good Book was used to justify putting them down, too.”

Everyone nodded at that. It made sense.

I spotted Jane and excused myself to go say hello to her. I guessed that Angie would be over shortly.

“Quite something,” she said, chuckling, after we’d hugged.

“The show must go on, and thankfully it did,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything about our acting critic.”

She chuckled a bit more. “Acting critic?”

“He was very critical of two of our actors, I thought,” I said.

“You do have a point. How’re Angie and Paige?”

“Talking with Amelia Briggs. She’s the nice lady who apparently caused our critic some pain.”

Jane grinned. “Imagine that! I spotted her when I came in. She stands out.”

“She very much stands out.”

“You know them from Drama, right?”

I nodded. “At first, Marshall was just a name, and then I spotted the guy that goes to the name. He doesn’t look the part of a Drama kid, at first glance, but then neither do I, albeit in different ways. He looks more like Cal, but then he was one of Booker T. Washington’s starting tackles, and he’ll be playing college ball at Tulane.”

“Interesting. Unlikely friends, to be sure, but that’s how things seem to go around you and Angie.”

“He was also involved with helping Jess, long before Jess was in Drama.”

Jane bit her lip, then nodded. “I’d almost forgotten about that! You do go way back, in interesting ways that shouldn’t be mentioned.”

I shrugged. “I think it’s possible that, one day, Jess will tell the whole story in a way that makes it a cautionary tale for high schoolers, and it’s possible that Marshall and I will both be outed. Which is funny, because — if Marshall does well at Tulane, or has a notable career outside football — all three of us could potentially be famous.”