Five Things About Ava Andrews

by Margaret Dilloway

  “Doing what?” Ms. Bookstein asks from her computer.

  “She wants me to do improv.” I say it as though Cecily asked me to rob a bank.

  I expect Ms. Bookstein to say, You should do it! But instead she kind of laughs. “Oh my. I totally understand you not wanting to try. Not your cup of tea at all.”

  My spine stiffens. “Why?” This reminds me of the time last summer Luke sneered that there was no way I could ever beat him at Mario Kart. It made me so mad that I played after bedtime every night until I could do it.

  “It’d be like asking a fish to ride a bicycle, wouldn’t it?” Ms. Bookstein smiles, and I’m sure she means to be kind, but what it really means is she’s given up on me. Like Dad. Nobody thinks I can do anything. “We all have our strengths.”

  My eyes sting and I stare hard at the book cart. I remember all the different activities I’ve tried. All those sports I was terrible at. And Cotillion, which isn’t even a sport—I can’t do that, either.

  Every single activity is a memory of how I messed up and what a loser I am. I know Mr. Matt says that’s not how I should think of myself, so I correct it: I acted like a loser. I am not a loser.

  Then I remember what Dad said about how I need to show them I can do stuff.

  I love the library, but is this really the only thing I can do if I’ve never even tried other stuff? I remember Mr. Matt telling me how my anxiety becomes a big problem if it prevents me from doing the things I want to do.

  I think about Zelia. About disappointing both of us if I can’t go out there next summer. I would be letting her down big-time. And how cool would it be to fly across the country by myself?

  Being in improv would have to prove I’ve got myself under control. It would show everyone that I can do what I want.

  And Zelia always talked about how improv helped her talk to people. What if doing improv helps me do Cotillion? If I do Cotillion, then I will for sure get to visit her.

  Words pop out before I realize my mouth’s moving. “Actually, I think I will do improv.”

  “Oh.” Ms. Bookstein’s eyes widen. “Okay. That’s great, Ava.”

  “You’ll do it?” Cecily pops up from her table. “Yay!”

  Too late to take it back. My throat dry, I nod. “I will.” I don’t want Maine to be like a sports incident. Something I wished I’d done and then thought about forever. If improv helps me get to visit Zelia, then it’ll be worth it.

  Chapter 8

  That night, while Mom and Dad are watching Jeopardy!, I appear in front of them with a page ripped out of my notebook. “Here.” I thrust the paper at them, then go sit in the armchair and put the pillow over my face so I don’t have to watch them read it.

  I wrote them a note explaining why I want to go to improv. I know they’re going to say, Oh my gosh, you in improv? Just like Ms. Bookstein. It seems like such a weird thing for Ava Andrews to want to do.

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  This may come as a surprise to you, but I want to do improv. Cecily (you may remember her from Zelia’s shows, though her hair’s short now) invited me.

  As you know, I’m having some trouble in Cotillion. I believe this may help. I really want to go visit Zelia. I hope you will allow me to participate.

  Sincerely yours,

  Ava Andrews

  Mom giggles.

  I lift the pillow. “What?”

  “That’s an excellently written note.” Dad nods. “Very formal.” I smile. Obviously I wrote it like that for him.

  “So Cecily invited you? That’s great!” Mom claps her hands. “A new friend! I knew it would happen!” She whips out her phone and signs me up almost before she finishes her sentence.

  Mom always gets ahead of herself.

  My phone buzzes. I get a text from my grandparents saying, Improv! Good for you, Ava.

  “Mom!” I almost throw the phone away from myself. Next thing you know, they’ll want to watch me perform. “Did you text Nana Linda and Jīchan already?”

  “Of course!” Mom pulls me into a hug. “Progress is progress.”

  “You’re so corny,” I say, but as I put my face on her shoulder, I smile to myself. Usually my parents and grandparents focus on me because they’re worried. To have them pay attention because of something good feels way better.

  I take a deep breath straight from my gut and in through my nose, like Mr. Matt says to do, hold it for four counts, and blow it out slowly from my mouth. I’m gathering up my courage. It’s Saturday morning and Dad’s parking the car at Navegando Point, a little shopping center down by the San Diego harbor. Navegando means “sailing” in Spanish. There’s a really old, wooden-horse carousel and a duck pond, and the buildings are all old-fashioned, like a sea shantytown. Some are brown and some are painted in brighter colors.

  My parents like it because it doesn’t cost very much to have fun here. You just have to buy one thing to get your parking validated. When my family goes, we always get ice-cream cones or cupcakes and sit on the wall by the sidewalk, watching tourists and trying to guess where they’re from. We stare out at the boats floating by in the bay, the ocean beyond, with white clouds skipping along the deep blue mirror of the water, or watch street performers playing one-man-band instruments or juggling.

  Every time we come here, we stop by a plaque that reads Punta de los Marineros, or Sailors’ Point. In the 1700s a bunch of sailors from Spanish ships who were surveying the port died of scurvy and are for-real buried underneath this shopping center.

  “I can’t help thinking about the fact we are walking over a cemetery,” I say to Dad as we get out of the car.

  “It’s the same thing with Old Town,” Dad says. That’s another touristy area of our city. “They actually have grave markers on the sidewalks.”

  I shudder a little bit. When we’ve gone to visit my grandmother’s burial plot in the cemetery, my parents made sure to tell us it was disrespectful to walk over the graves or run around. But people are doing that all the time in these places. I wonder if in three hundred years people will be shopping on top of our graves, too.

  “It is morbid,” Dad says, “but a lot of history is like that.”

  “I guess.” I follow him out of the parking lot and we take the winding path through the shops, past the duck pond, and reach the theater. Outside a sign reads San Diego Improv in glittery cursive. A couple takes a selfie in front of it.

  Time for class. My stomach gurgles like I’m going to barf. My hands go icy.

  Dad clears his throat. I’ve been so lost in my head, I forgot he was next to me. “You want me to walk you in?”

  No, I want you to drive me back home, I almost say. “No thanks.” The only thing worse than being nervous about this is having my dad come in.

  “I’ll be back in two hours.” Dad sticks his hands in his pockets. “You have your phone. Call or text if you need anything.”

  I feel like I’m going to the first day of preschool. I want to tell him not to go. Before I can answer him, Cecily pops out and grabs my hand. “Yay, Ava’s here!” She takes my hand and pulls me inside, closing the door behind us.

  I follow her through a dark little lobby, past a snack stand and register, and past some heavy black curtains that have been pulled to one side.

  I’ve been here before to watch Zelia, but it’s always been dark inside. Today the lights are all on, so I can see everything. It’s about as big as a classroom, but the walls and ceiling are painted black. Lights hang above us, pointing at a small, short stage. There are rows of movable chairs in front of that, where a few kids sit. I try not to look at them in case they’re sneering at me, like Ty.

  Miss Gwen stands on the stage, marking a clipboard. She’s young and has long curly blond hair that’s wonderfully messy in the way that an alpaca’s hair is messy. Not only does she teach at the theater and at schools across San Diego, she’s also a performer—she’s on a couple of their professional, grown-up improv teams. Zelia took me to see a few shows and Miss Gw
en was amazing.

  Miss Gwen gives me such a warm smile that I can’t help but smile back. “I’ve seen you before.” She points at me. “You’re Zelia’s friend Ava. Tell her we miss her.”

  “I will,” I respond. I’m surprised I talked. I’m also surprised, in a good way, that she knows my name. It feels like being recognized by a celebrity or a popular kid or something.

  We form a circle. Again my intestines seem to coil and strike like a cobra is inside me. I wonder if I can watch for a while. Tell Miss Gwen that I need time to adjust.

  Then Cecily surprises me by pulling me into the center of the circle. “Everyone, this is Ava.” She picks up my right hand as if I’m a doll and makes me wave. Normally I’d be freaking out, but the way she does it makes me giggle. “Don’t scare her away.”

  “Hi, Ava!” the kids all say at once, as if they’re excited I’m here. They start introducing themselves. I try to nod and smile and repeat each name like Dad taught me, but it’s too hard because my brain just wants me to run, not learn. I hide behind Cecily.

  “I’ve seen you before. You’re finally taking a class!” a boy with dark red hair says. He looks at me in a way that reminds me of Hudson, when he’s teaching me how to beat a really hard boss in a video game. “I’ll help you.” Ryan—his name pops into my head from Zelia’s shows. He’s a sixth grader at our school, but we don’t have any classes together.

  “We’ll all help you,” a tall girl with medium-length curly brown hair and olive skin says. She points at herself. “I’m Babel.” Pronounced buh-bell. “Like the Tower of Babel.” She looks as old as a high schooler—I definitely would have thought she was old enough to drive—so I figure she’s in eighth grade. She’s dressed cooler than the rest of us, like she bought all her clothes at the thrift store and created a style that nobody else has. She’s wearing a suede vest with fringe, a graphic T-shirt, and some vintage jeans.

  I wonder if she could take me shopping.

  “Improv’s really not that hard.” The blond boy with the freckles, Jonathan, steps in. He’s wearing a gingham shirt with a red bow tie and has thick-rimmed glasses like the kind celebrities wear. “That is, certainly sometimes it’s complicated. And there are about a hundred things to remember at any given time. But it’s not hard.”

  “Nothing’s hard for Jonathan, though,” Cecily says. “He takes high school math.”

  “What I mean is, if you break down improv into its simplest components, it is not difficult, just like math,” Jonathan continues. “You start with the most basic elements. One plus one is two. Two plus two. Etcetera. You learn more, and keep building. And eventually you reach calculus.”

  I wrinkle my forehead. “Improv is like math?” I wonder if my dad’s gone yet. I can still leave.

  “You’re not making it seem that great, Jonathan,” Cecily says.

  “We don’t bite,” a short boy with a booming voice says. I recognize him from school, too. “Unless you want us to.” He snaps his teeth in the air, and the other kids mimic him, and then they all howl like wolves.

  “Enough!” Miss Gwen says above the roar in her high, clear voice, and they go quiet. She steers me into the circle between the short kid and Cecily. Then she points at Ryan. “Zip!”

  Ryan points at the short kid, Chad. “Zap!”

  Short Chad points at blond Jonathan. That’s how I’m going to have to remember them for a minute. If I put an adjective with their name it’s easier. “Zop!”

  My heart beats a million times per second, but the game’s easy to figure out and I don’t have a chance to worry about it. People take turns saying Zip! Zap! Zop! when they get pointed at. That’s it.

  Babel points at me. “Zip!” I say, and am super happy when Miss Gwen gives me a little nod. Like I’m extremely smart and talented and she knew it all along.

  The game continues and we go faster and faster, and when someone messes up, we join hands and jump into the air and yell, “Hooray!”

  “We celebrate our mistakes here,” Miss Gwen says. “These warm-ups are designed to make you mess up. You’re supposed to mess up.” She delivers this like my preschool teacher telling me it was okay to dip my fingers into the paint.

  A place where you can make mistakes and nothing bad happens? I don’t believe it. I try to follow along with the exercises as best I can, worrying the whole time something tragic will happen if I make a mistake. Somehow I manage not to. Probably because I’m being super quiet.

  Next we do an exercise where we pair up with a partner and give each other pretend gifts. “Make the gift the worst thing you can think of,” Miss Gwen says. “But nothing offensive. Then the receiver will say, ‘thank you, I always wanted a blank’ and say why they like it so much.”

  We split into partners, which means whoever’s on our left. Chad’s mine. I’m not sure I get it completely. “Don’t worry,” Chad says, as if reading it on my face. “It’s easy. Give me a gift first and I’ll show you.”

  “Go!” Miss Gwen claps.

  I stare at Chad for a moment, frozen. I can’t think of anything! This is too hard.

  Chad nods like he understands I’m stuck, then turns his body like he’s picking up something behind him. He pretends to hand me an object. “Here’s a bag of toenail clippings!”

  Gross! No! I almost say, but I’m supposed to be grateful. Chad waits for me. After a few seconds, I choke out “Thank you. I always wanted a . . . bag of toenail clippings.” I wrinkle my nose, and Chad and I both giggle. “I’m going to . . . uh . . .” What can I use them for? “They’re great for fertilizing a garden!”

  Both of us dissolve into laughter. “This is all about the yes, and,” Miss Gwen says. “This is the most important part of improv and, I think, one of the best. Your partner gives you something, and it might not be what you wanted. You say yes and add to it, make it positive. Make it something you want.” Miss Gwen beams at us. “That’s why you’re saying thank you plus a reason for why you wanted this item.”

  Oh. That makes sense. I remember all of the times I’ve automatically said no to things. It took me forever to try sushi, because I didn’t think I wanted it. When I finally ate it, I ended up liking it a lot. Which is probably good since my family wants to eat it at least once a month. What if I’d said yes, and to that? I would have saved myself a few years of struggling with it.

  It’s my turn now. This time I say the first thing that pops into my head. “Here’s a gift . . . a broken plate that’s in a hundred pieces!” I pretend to hand him a bunch of little shards.

  “Thank you!” Chad exclaims. “I’ve always wanted a broken plate. I’m going to put this into a piñata instead of candy!”

  We giggle again. “You see,” Miss Gwen says, “when you’re doing a scene with someone, they might tell you something you don’t expect. You might think they made a mistake. But you turn that into something really funny and wonderful.”

  Chad pats my back. “Good job!”

  “Uh, you too!” I say. This isn’t so bad. The kids are really nice.

  After another short exercise, Miss Gwen has us sit in the audience chairs. “Close your eyes,” she says. “We’re doing our walk-through. Imagine Navegando Point. What do you see? Who are the people you see?”

  I shut my lids. This class isn’t as scary as I’d thought it’d be. Imagining stuff quietly is definitely something I’m good at. I could do this all day.

  I picture Navegando Point. We haven’t been here in a while. We used to visit a lot more, when the bookstore was open. It was a really cool space with a loft where you could get coffee and all kinds of bookish gifts. But that closed a couple years ago.

  Last time my family came here, we saw a juggler on stilts, throwing knives up in the air for tourists. Lots of those were around, taking photos, arguing about where to eat lunch. A teenager in black, looking bored despite the knives flying through the air and playing with the small hoop earring stuck through his bottom lip.

  “Pick a person,” Miss Gw
en says. I already did.

  “Eyes open,” Miss Gwen says. “Now we’re going to do our monologues. I want you to come out as the person you chose, and talk like you think that person would.”

  My heart skips. I thought this was a sit-down thing, and suddenly I have to be onstage all alone? Cecily volunteers first, standing off to the side and then walking all hunched over, in a quivery elderly woman’s voice. “Oh, would you look at that? Water! I’ve never seen so much!” Cecily toddles around with an imaginary camera, taking photos.

  She continues for another minute until Miss Gwen stops her, and we all applaud. I still hold the character in my head, and my heart beats even faster. Not because I’m scared or because I want to run away.

  Because I want to try.

  To my surprise, I want to get up there and let out this thing that’s building up in me. To have fun like Cecily’s having.

  Ryan leaps up next, and he does a super-high-energy man who yells everything, really physical, stomping around the stage. “Gotta get me some of that shucky darn dang cotton candy!” We giggle.

  After Ryan finishes, my hand creeps up from my lap. Just the fingers, really, but Miss Gwen sees. “Go ahead, Ava,” she says, stopping Chad, who’s already up. Chad gives me an after you gesture with his arms and a friendly smile, so I get up, knees shaking, and Cecily sticks her hand up for a high five that gives me just enough courage to step onto the stage.

  We celebrate our mistakes here.

  I’m going to swing the bat this time.

  “Yeah, Ava!” Chad bellows.

  “Do it, Ava!” Ryan calls. “You got this!”

  They all clap for me and it reminds me of a baseball team hollering for a player that’s at bat. And that kind of pushes me forward like Cecily’s high five.

  I don’t have time to argue with myself. I don’t even try. I step out, moving like the character, dragging my feet like Luke does when he’s doing something he doesn’t want to do.

  I only know who I am, not what I’m going to say. I slump over and play with the imaginary earring in my lip. I’m the Bored Emo Teenager, dressed all in black, annoyed with the entire world. What Hudson calls a “Sad Boy.”