Open Mic

by Mitali Perkins

  The best part about amping up his Asian-ness was that he got to spend time with Marcy Spetucchi. Because he was bad at math, Marcy didn’t learn how to do the problems correctly. When she failed her next quiz, Henry shrugged and said, “I guess you’re going to have to work harder at it.” She begged Henry to be her full-time math tutor every day after school. “You’re not like the other boys,” she said, smiling shyly at him.

  Two more failed quizzes later, and Marcy finally realized the real reason he was different from the other boys: he was really, really bad at math, and something of a compulsive liar. She promptly fired him. Or dumped him. Depending on whom you asked. However, others had noticed them spending time together, and by the end of the year, people seemed to see Henry in a new light. In fact, nobody called him Ching Chong anymore!

  Summer came and went with more SAT prep. When Henry got to Renham High, he was ready to take his role of Super Asian Man to the next level. Unfortunately, he ran into a problem. There was one other Asian student in the high school, Timmy Nguyen, valedictorian of the senior class, which changed everything. The whole student body now regularly mistook Henry (mistakenly or intentionally — what difference did it make?) for this Nguyen fellow, even though the senior was Vietnamese and looked nothing like Henry (the guy even had a full mustache and Henry hadn’t started shaving). Upper-class nerds shoved Henry into the lockers, assuming that (a) he was Timmy, or (b) he was a curve buster just like Timmy, even though Henry was bombing his classes and hurtling toward a decidedly un-Asian low GPA. His own former classmates from middle school ignored him again, since being unquestionably Asian was not considered cool at Renham High.

  One weekend Henry’s parents rented the movie The Departed, in which two white actors — Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon — played foes. As they watched the crime drama together, Henry was stunned to discover that his parents had mistaken the two actors for the same person. They were convinced the movie was a psychological thriller about one white guy who had multiple personalities warring with each other in his head.

  “Hold on,” his dad said, pointing at the screen for the dozenth time. “Is he the good cop now or the bad cop?”

  Suddenly Henry was beyond mad — his white classmates thought all Asian guys looked the same, and his parents thought all white guys looked the same, too? Was he the only person on the planet who noticed that people of the same race weren’t all twins or clones? “You guys are racist!” Henry shouted, and ran upstairs to his room.

  His father eventually followed him upstairs and sat next to Henry on the edge of his bed. It was equally uncomfortable for them both. When his father asked what was wrong, Henry explained everything: from when he’d first started school in Renham to now, when everyone was mistaking him for Timmy Nguyen.

  Mr. Lee thought about this for a minute before responding. “Well, things could be worse,” he said. “For instance, take this Timmy Nguyen person. Imagine the poor guy, being mistaken for you.”

  This failed to cheer Henry up, so his father thought about it some more.

  “Maybe if you give classmates something to identify you, they don’t think you’re someone else,” he said. “Besides, you need do more extracurricular activities so you stand out to admissions committees at Ivies.”

  Clearly his father was still trying to get Henry to become the cliché Asian son he’d always wanted, but Henry decided to take his advice anyway. The next morning, when his homeroom teacher asked for a volunteer to help a classmate read a scene for drama-club auditions, Henry raised his hand. After hearing Henry’s line reading, the classmate encouraged him to try out for the play.

  At the audition, everyone was stunned at how good an actor Henry was.

  “Do you have any experience?” the drama teacher asked.

  “Not really,” Henry said, but he realized this wasn’t entirely true, because ever since moving to Renham, he’d been acting — wasn’t the definition of acting pretending to be somebody you weren’t?

  “You’re a natural,” the drama teacher said.

  And so just like that, Henry finally found himself a full-fledged member of a group. After tryouts, they headed for the late buses, where they ran into the JV wrestling team, who shouted, “Drama queens!” and “Fairy losers!”

  The actors were furious and shot back insults, but not Henry. He smiled blissfully, repeating the taunts in his head as if they were the most beautiful sounds he’d ever heard.

  Drama queens . . . Fairy losers . . .

  The plural was music to his ears.

  Question: There are two high-school juniors in a room. They’re waiting to audition for the talent show. One is an Asian girl. The other is a white guy. One is tuning a violin. The other fiddles with a scrap of paper containing notes for a stand-up comedy act.

  Which one is which?

  Yeah. I know what you’d say. That’s what I’d say, too, except that I happened to be the guy. Holding the violin. On which I was about to play Fritz Kreisler’s “Praeludium and Allegro.” Hopefully in a non-sucky way.

  And then there was the girl with the scrap of paper. She was tiny and cute and already sitting there when I walked in — we were the last two auditions of the day — and I knew who she was, though we’d never spoken. The last time I’d seen her was two years ago in personal fitness class, which is what they call gym at our school. It was usually taught by Mr. Choffley, a very, very in-shape gay guy who liked nothing better than calling his students fatties and mocking the contents of their lunch bags. But the semester I took it, Mr. Choffley was on sabbatical,1 so we had Ms. Hain. She was normally just the chemistry teacher, and while she cared very much if you were wearing goggles while wielding a pipette of sulfuric acid in lab, she didn’t give a crap what you did in personal fitness, as long as you were physically moving the whole time.

  And so I spent a semester’s worth of Tuesday and Thursday afternoons walking during fifth period. As did the girl who now sat before me. We’d both stroll lazily around the track, and since her pace was slower (impressively slower, actually) than mine, every once in a while I’d lap her. And nod as I did so. And get a nod back. We never had a class together again, but now here she was. Still tiny. Still cute. And there was nobody else in the room, and her audition wasn’t for another eight minutes, and I was nervous as hell about my own audition, and when I’m nervous, I like to distract myself.2

  Here went nothing.

  “Hey,” I said as I sat down. “Gretchen, right?”

  She looked up at me, startled, and then I saw it slowly register on her face. The register turned into realization, which turned into a smile. “Personal fitness,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Josh?”

  Oh. She knew my name, too. I hadn’t expected it. “Yeah. I don’t think we ever introduced ourselves, but . . .”

  “Yeah, I don’t know, I just heard along the way or something. . . .”

  “Yeah, same here.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence.

  “So what’s your talent?” I asked. I couldn’t discern it from looking at her.

  “Well,” she answered, pulling a scrap of paper out of her pocket and waving it in my general direction; I could see messily scrawled notes in purple ink. “I don’t know if I have a talent for it yet. But hopefully it’s, um . . . stand-up comedy.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them: “That’s not very Asian.”

  She seemed amused instead of offended, thank God, raising an eyebrow as she glanced down at my violin. “Your talent isn’t particularly Jewish.”

  Hey, look at that. She knew more about me than just my name and the fact that we’d had gym together. That was promising. “It’s not non-Jewish,” I pointed out. “Plenty of famous Jewish violinists.”

  “True,” she agreed. “A non-Jewish talent would be, like, flashing some foreskin and then performing feats of strength.”

  I burst out laughing. “I hope that’s one of your jokes.”<
br />
  “It isn’t.”

  “Okay, well, tell me a joke, then. Do part of your act.”

  “No.” She seemed almost horrified that I’d asked.

  “Come on!”

  “Hell no!” She crumpled up her notes and stuffed them back in her pocket.

  “If you’re too scared to tell one person, how are you gonna tell a whole audience?” Oops. Gretchen was now scowling. I had clearly crossed the line from “Hey, he’s interested in my act, how flattering” to “Who is this belligerent dipwad, and would an uppercut or a right cross be the best way to punch him in the face?”

  “That’s completely the wrong logic,” she snapped. “People laugh more when there’s more people.”

  As if on cue, we suddenly heard muffled laughter through the audition-room door. “Who’s in there?” I asked.

  “Ballet dancer.”

  “Yikes.” I pictured some girl twirling around and then falling on her head or something — although that probably wouldn’t make the teachers running the auditions laugh. Kids, maybe. Me, certainly.3 But not teachers.

  “She probably just said something cute. Or did something cute. I heard them laugh when she first went in, too.” Now we heard a smattering of applause, and Gretchen pulled out her paper again and started fiddling with it. “Okay, now I’m getting nervous.”

  “I’ve been nervous,” I said. “Welcome to my hell.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m gonna screw it up.”

  “Oh, you are not.”

  “No, I probably am.” She said this very matter-of-factly, as if her voice wasn’t concerned, but her hands sure looked like they were. They weren’t shaking, they just looked . . . tense.

  “So?” I asked. “What’s the worst that could happen? Last year I was so nervous I dropped my bow and it broke.” I’m third chair in the school orchestra, so it’s not like I can’t play in front of an audience, but the competitive aspect of auditioning makes normal performance butterflies into an entirely different, well, animal. Butterflies on steroids. Butterflies with Uzis and anger-management problems.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!”

  “It’s fine, I got a new one.” I held up my bow. “Seriously though, if you don’t make it, that sucks, but it’s just a school show, right? And there’s always next year.”

  Gretchen nodded. “Plus, if I do make it, I’d have to tell my parents.” Her hands were now twisting the paper. It looked pretty ragged. I had doubts about its survival into the audition room.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “They wouldn’t like it.”

  “Why not?”

  She gave me a “You’re kidding, right, you complete and total idiot?” look. “Asian,” she said, gesturing at her face.

  “What? I don’t know your parents. Maybe they’re progressive Asians. Maybe you’re adopted.”

  “Nope and nope.”

  “Maybe once you get into the show and they come see you and see how talented you are, they’ll change their minds and think their daughter doing stand-up is the most awesome thing in the entire —”

  Gretchen rolled her eyes so hard I expected to have to chase them across the floor and give them to her to put back in her head.

  “Okay, never mind,” I said.

  “I’m not even supposed to be here right now,” Gretchen said. “They think I’m working on my science-fair project.”

  “So what are you gonna do if you get in?”

  “Cross that bridge,” she said darkly.

  We sat in silence for a moment. I glanced at the clock and felt myself getting nervous again.

  “Just tell me your opening line,” I said.

  “Oh, my God, I said no already! Why don’t you play something for me, and then we can talk about whether I’ll —”

  I was already whipping through a four-octave G scale before she even finished her sentence. It turned out flawless. I hadn’t expected it to, but somehow, channeling my nervous energy into talking to Gretchen (or goading her about her act) had calmed my fingers down. My left hand was no longer jumpy. My right hand was no longer oddly stiff. I finished with a flourish that was a hair too exaggerated, but I didn’t bother to feel embarrassed because it’s not like she was familiar with my playing style. For all she knew, I was normally that dramatic.4

  “Oh. That was really good,” she said.

  “Thanks. I’m gonna assume your act is not, then, since you won’t do it.” I cocked an eyebrow at her. A dare.

  “I don’t have to take that from a Jew,” she said. Her face was deadpan, her voice neutral, but her eyes were sparkling. A challenge.

  “Whatever, slanty-eyes,” I answered in an equally serious tone. “Go back to the rice paddy.” I mentally winced in preparation for if it didn’t go over well, but —

  She burst out laughing, a sound like a bell, much more delicate than the tone of her regular speaking voice. I started laughing, too, and then the door opened. “Gretchen?”

  Gretchen’s face froze. She made a noise that was probably meant to be “yes” but came out more like a squeak, then got up and went inside. The door closed, and for the next five minutes, all I heard was excruciating silence. No applause. No talking. Certainly no laughter. She was either whispering her entire routine and they were whispering their appreciation, or she was bombing.

  Bombing big-time.

  I was suddenly very, very nervous again.

  Another long, excruciating, silent minute as I stared at the wall clock, clinging tensely to my violin, silently fingering arpeggios up and down, up and down, up and down. Finally, the door opened and she came out.

  “That went well,” she said with an exaggerated gesture of both arms. It took me a second to realize that not only was she being sarcastic; she was also being sarcastic about being sarcastic, overemphasizing the fact that she was using a cliché. It took me another second to realize that I totally did not have time to analyze the layers of somebody else’s behavior right now. Because I was next.

  My heart pounded. My hands shook.

  “Do you wanna go out with me sometime?” I blurted.

  Gretchen laughed. The bell sound again. The first laughter I’d heard in almost ten minutes. “Ha, thanks,” she said. “Okay, I feel marginally better.” Then she saw my face. “Oh. You’re serious.”

  “Yeah,” I said. My voice caught in my throat halfway through, turning the end of the word into a weird gurgle. Great.

  No laughs now, just a smile.

  “No,” she said.

  “Oh.” I looked down at my violin.

  “I don’t want to be the girl who just, like, totally screwed up her thing and feels all bad about it, so then has to get a self-esteem pick-me-up from some guy asking her out, if that makes any sense?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Okay. I understand.” I didn’t understand. I didn’t see how the two things were even related, but it didn’t seem like pointing any of that out was going to endear me to her.

  “Nice seeing you again, though!” She flashed me a grin and was out the door.

  Dammit.

  They called my name. I picked up my violin and went inside.

  It was as silent during my performance as it had been during Gretchen’s. I was once again very, very nervous. Sweaty hands. Shaking fingers. I didn’t drop anything, but let’s just say the number of times I messed up the first few phrases and asked to start over was more than zero. (It was six.)

  But when I came out, Gretchen was back. Sitting there. Perched in the same chair she’d been in before.

  “Okay,” she said. “I changed my mind. Yes.”

  “What?” I asked, still shell-shocked from how truly badly I’d just screwed up. An hour of practice every day for the past month, and yet . . .

  “Yes, I’ll go out with you sometime,” she said. “Uh . . . unless . . . you changed your mind. In which case forget it, forget I said anything —” She got up, blushing a little, and started heading for the door.

  “What? No! No, I mean
yes — I mean no, I didn’t change my mind,” I said, following her. “Uh . . . why did you change yours?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” she said. “Asians are supposed to be inscrutable, remember?”

  “I don’t remember,” I said. “I don’t know what ‘inscrutable’ means.”

  That made her smile.

  And I was so pumped up, I dropped my bow, which hit the floor and broke.

  And Gretchen, that tiny, cute monster, that impressively slow walker, that possibly-bad-but-possibly-just-nervous-would-be-talent-show-stand-up, laughed and picked it up for me.

  1. We later found out it was a yoga retreat in the Bahamas called, for some reason, Agony & Ecstasy. It may not have been a yoga retreat. (back)

  2. Because the alternative, which was what happened last year, is for my hands to get so sweaty that my bow slips right out of my fingers and breaks. My old bow cost six hundred dollars, so you can imagine how happy my parents were. My new one cost seventy-five on craigslist, and I had to drive all the way across town to pick it up, at some dude’s garage that appeared to be housing a ferret-breeding facility, so you can imagine how happy I was. (back)

  3. Assuming no grievous injuries occurred. I, despite what Katie Finkelstein would tell you about a certain second-grade field trip to a working dairy farm, am not a monster. I had nothing to do with that cow kicking her in the head, although I did laugh; again, this was only because it was clear that she wasn’t injured. Just hilariously humiliated. (Fine, seven-year-old me was sort of a monster. I’ve mellowed with age.) (back)

  4. My style has actually been described by my teacher at various times as “staid,” “stoic,” “zombie-like,” and “Did you take a Vicodin or something?” (back)

  When I was little, my great-aunt Ma Tante used to feed me breakfast. That was when she had a straight back — so long ago, I wasn’t wearing glasses yet, if you can imagine. I must have been about three. My parents were at work, my big sister at school, so it was just Ma Tante and me.