I tear a scrap of paper from my Filofax and write my number down. When James says goodbye, he gives me a little kiss on the cheek, brushing my face with his so that I can feel the stubble on his chin. “I’m glad I ran into you,” he says in his raspy voice, and my knees almost buckle.
“Literally,” I say coolly, and this time he laughs for real.
Success!
I’ll have to hurry now to make it to class on time, but I don’t mind. Navigating the crowd on the sidewalk is a challenge I like. I’m running without touching anyone else on the street. I’m a character in a human video game, keeping my bubble of space from being invaded, eyeing an open slot on the sidewalk, speeding up to grab it before someone else does, slowing down until I see another space, working together with the strangers on the street as though we’re all performing an elaborate dance perfectly choreographed for thousands of people.
I’m happy. A guy I like got my number. Everything will be okay.
But I’m so excited that I run a little too fast, and I manage to get to class at exactly the wrong time. Stavros opens the doors to the theater at precisely five fifty-five and closes them at precisely six. If you get there too early, practically the whole class is clustered around the door, and there’s a nervous tension in the air and no way to avoid overhearing almost every conversation.
CONSEQUENCES OF GETTING TO CLASS AT EXACTLY THE WRONG TIME
Characters overlap, all are talking the whole time
CASEY. (20s, beautiful, can be weepy, talking to Franny) Franny! Thank God! Did you hear? About what? Franny, I left a message on your tape, how can you go even an hour without checking your machine? Okay, listen. Remember that diet I told you about that all the girls in L.A. were doing? Where you eat a banana and then wait until you are totally starving and then you eat a hard-boiled egg and wait until you are about to pass out, and then you eat another banana? Well …
CHARLIE. (20s, brooding, talking to another brooding guy) Why would you see that horrible show, man, why? It’s the biggest piece of commercial bullshit in town right now … They are? Oh, really? They’re replacing the guy in that part? How did you hear that? Really? You’re going in on it? Do you think they would see me for it? I mean, not to, but, would you mind? Can I tell my agent? I mean, we’re so different, man, it’s not like we’re competing in any way, we’re both so totally different. No, well, I said that, but, I didn’t mean it was the worst thing I EVER saw. I’ve definitely seen worse, and anyway I snuck in at intermission, so I only second-acted it. Maybe if I’d seen Act One the whole thing would have made more sense …
DON. (20s, male, bubbly, talking to another classmate) You don’t know it? You’re kidding. Yes, you do. From “A Little Night Music”? I’ll just do a little of it. Sorry, I can barely … I have a slight sinus infection: (sings into friend’s face)
OR I WILL MARRY THE MILLER’S SON
PIN MY HAT ON A NICE PIECE OF PROPERTY
FRIDAY NIGHTS FOR A BIT OF FUN
WE’LL GO DANCING
MEANWHILE …
(cough, cough) Sorry. No, that’s okay, I’m fine. I want to do this for you. Let me start again …
CASEY. Obviously you haven’t tried it yet, no offense, but thank God I caught you, because they just found out a banana has like SO much sugar in it, or too many enzymes or something, I forget exactly what the medical word is, but it’s some new discovery they just made and they’re telling everyone in Los Angeles first, but it turns out bananas are like so sugary or dense or something that I guess your body gets all confused and treats the banana like it’s a piece of cake …
CHARLIE. Well, I wouldn’t say I would be amazing in it, although thanks for saying so. I think I’d just be okay in it. I mean it is sort of right in my wheelhouse, but I think you’d actually be great in it, I’m serious. I mean I could do it, I guess, and I probably would do it if they asked, but, I think my problem with it isn’t the play itself, but the guy who’s in it now, what’s his name? Anyway it doesn’t matter, I just think he’s not really acting so much as just smoldering or something up there, and I’m like, Buddy, you can’t just play every scene sexy, I mean, that’s not an active choice—the guy has to have some layers or something … No, I know, I know, they’re saying he might get nominated or something, that’s probably why he’s leaving, now that he thinks he’ll get an award he’s probably going off to do a film or something …
DON. (sings)
IT’S A PINCH AND A WIGGLE
AND A GIGGLE IN THE GRASS
AND I’LL PITCH THE LIGHTS FANDANGO
CASEY.… and seriously, you might as well eat a whole cake as far as your body is concerned. Isn’t that so scary?
CHARLIE. You know who he reminds me of? And this is not sour grapes, they just really remind me of each other. Come closer. James. Yeah, right? Fucking James in this class, man.
Upstage, we see Franny (late 20s, bad hair) turn her head toward Charlie.
CHARLIE (CONT’D). Like the girls all like him, but is he really gifted? Chill out, I am whispering. But there’s something a little phony about him, don’t you think? No one is listening, dude, relax. Why is everyone, like, so in love with the guy? It’s just an opinion. Anyway … whatever. I’m probably just bitter. I heard he just started seeing Penelope Schlotzsky, man. I’m pissed. I kind of had a thing for her. James and Penelope, man. Why do the beautiful, shallow people get all the breaks?
DON. (sings)
OR I
SHALL MARRY
THE MILLER’S
SON
(cough, cough) Really? You don’t know it? Uch. How is that even possible? It’s Sondheim!
The doors open, and the class files in. Franny is the last to enter, and as she closes the classroom doors, slowly, sadly, we:
BLACKOUT
5
You have four messages.
BEEEP
Frances, it’s me, your father. I believe your Showcase appearance event is tonight. If we ever actually spoke, I would be able to wish you luck personally, but in these days of advancing technology I suppose I will have to settle for wishing you recorded, taped, good fortune. We’re starting Heart of Darkness next week. Please call me by Lord of the Flies at the very least. Also, about Katie’s wedding—oh well, not to nag—just give me a call.
BEEEP
Franny, it’s Casey. I’ll meet you at the theater at five, okay? Can we run lines? I keep messing up that one speech where I confess to the murder. I’m totally freaking out, are you? See you tonight!
BEEEP
Hi, Franny, it’s Clark. Just, uh, seeing how you are. Call me.
BEEEP
Dude, it’s cousin Katie. Your dad says you can only come to the wedding and not the rehearsal dinner ’cause you need to keep your shift on Fridays? Please don’t sweat it—I’m just glad you can come at all. I can’t wait for you to meet him. See you in June.
BEEEP
The applause is dying down, but the blood is still pounding in my ears so loudly I can’t tell whether it was the really appreciative kind of applause or the “we feel sorry for you” kind. My face is burning as I hurry offstage, still trying to make sense of what just happened—on this of all nights.
Before this, the thing worrying me the most was how miffed Herb seemed that I had to take a night off from the club, and the confusing fact that James Franklin asked for my phone number when he’s clearly dating Penelope. But in light of what happened tonight, everything I’ve worried about in the last two weeks—or ever, really—seems totally insignificant.
The scene with Casey went pretty well. I played a lawyer who interrogated her until she broke down and confessed to being the killer and wept, of course. While the stagehands whisked the table and chairs away, I had just a brief moment to change into my costume for the monologue in the tiny curtained area backstage. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Well, I do know what I was thinking. I was thinking that my character is supposed to have just had sex with her bo
ss, so she’d be wearing a bathrobe, and she’d be naked underneath. I mean, I had underwear on, but no leotard or slip or anything, so that I’d have the extra feeling of, what? Vulnerability or something? No one will know, I thought. It would just be my secret, a secret between me and myself that I hoped would give me some special edge over the competition.
But then it happened.
Who falls onstage wearing nothing but a bathrobe?
Why? Why? Why? Why?
The monologue was going so well, too, or at least I think it was. I’m not sure of anything now. The audience seemed to be laughing in all the right places. That’s actually what threw me, I think. Their laughter threw my whole rhythm off—having to wait until it died down before I could continue. But still, it was all okay until I tried to sit down. The stage was just so dark. And the lights were in my eyes. It was like that dream I always have where I’m frozen onstage, confused about what play I’m supposed to be doing, so nervous I lose the ability to speak.
But it shouldn’t have been complicated to find the one piece of furniture on an otherwise bare set. A chair—just sit in a chair, how hard can that be? I should never have planned to sit; that was my first mistake. My character wouldn’t sit anyway—she’s too agitated about having just slept with her boss. Why did I ever decide she should sit? If only—no, don’t think about it.
And then I just missed the chair. Just by the tiniest bit. I could tell when I started to sit down that the chair wasn’t where I thought it was, wasn’t totally beneath me, but I thought I had it, I really did.
It’s just that Jane’s silk bathrobe is so slippery—much more slippery than the terry-cloth one I used in rehearsals. I was excited when she loaned it to me because it’s exactly the sort of sexy thing you’d wear if you thought you might sleep with your boss, and I thought the bold blue and white flowers would help me stand out. I should never have borrowed that robe. If only I’d stuck with the terry-cloth rehearsal one, none of this would have happened.
To my horror, the robe flew open as I slipped. I mean positively billowed open, as if I’d passed over a subway grate.
There’s no way at least some of the audience didn’t see at least some …
Oh God, don’t think about it.
And then what happened? Did I say something? I think I said something, after I thudded to the floor and scrambled to cover myself with the loose ends of the robe. There was a moment of awkward silence, and I didn’t know what to do, and it felt like everyone in the audience was holding their breath, waiting for me to say something.
What was it I said?
Oh yeah.
“WHO PUT THAT THERE?”
Oh no, is that what I said?
Yes, that was it. I have no idea why. It doesn’t even make sense.
“Who put that there?”
How stupid! I just couldn’t think of anything else.
They laughed though. I think they laughed. Maybe they gasped in horror. No, they definitely laughed when I said that. They gasped when I fell, that’s what it was. Was it a gasp of disgust, or were they merely expressing concern for my safety? I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter anyway. Either way, I blew it.
Maybe it wasn’t that bad, I try to convince myself as I emerge from the dark theater into the hallway where the dressing rooms are. Maybe no one saw anything too revealing. Maybe I caught the left half of the robe in time.
“Hey, Franny, nice ass.”
Oh Great. Charlie saw the whole thing. Everyone already knows. Everyone knows I fell. They saw everything. I’m humiliated.
“What’s that?” I say, trying to buy myself some time to figure out how to respond with dignity.
“ ‘Nice class,’ I said.”
“Huh?”
“Right? Everyone seems to be doing well tonight.”
“Oh, right. Yes, they do. Did you, by any chance, see my monologue?”
“No, sorry. But I heard part of it on the monitor. Sounded like you really went for it.”
“Oh, thanks. Yes, I do think I went for it, part of it at least.”
“Cool. Well, good luck with the callbacks.”
The callbacks. I forgot about the callbacks. There’s probably no hope of one now. But maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe there’s still hope if only, I can’t help thinking—if only I stayed standing, if only I hadn’t missed the chair, if only I made better undergarment choices.
I want to ask someone how bad it was exactly, but the backstage area is so small that all the students here now are waiting for their turn and too nervous to talk. Anyone who could have been watching from the wings is probably downstairs now in the green room, smoking cigarettes and talking about themselves. As much as I want feedback, I don’t feel like going down there. I can face one person trying in vain to convince me it wasn’t so bad, but not a sea of pitying faces.
Instead, I duck out into the alley behind the theater. I figure I’ll just have a smoke and be by myself and maybe figure out what actually happened.
But of course, I’m not the only one who thought of the alley, either; five or six classmates are already out there smoking and talking in hushed tones.
“Hey, how’d you feel?” Don asks, looking genuinely interested.
Don can be catty and competitive, but he’s also a walking theater encyclopedia. He has a huge collection of Playbills he inherited from his father, who was a Broadway director, and he’s memorized them to the point where he might actually believe he not only saw every one of the productions, but was in them, too.
“I’m not sure. I think there was something weird in the monologue, but I’m not sure what.”
“I didn’t see it,” Don says with a shrug.
What a relief! News hasn’t spread. At least, not yet.
“But I heard some of it on the monitor. You dropped a section,” he says, his eyes narrowing.
“I did?”
“Yeah. You dropped the stuff about how your mother knows where you go on Monday nights, and how she has a crush on your boss, too. But it was just a couple of lines. I’m sure no one noticed.”
Don turns back to his conversation, and my head starts spinning. I dropped a section. I fell, exposing a yet-to-be-determined portion of my naked body, and I dropped a section. That information destroys the last bit of hope I had that, despite the obvious blunder, it might have gone better than I thought.
I picture the audience, the agents and casting people I’ll probably never get to meet now, and I’m suddenly and overwhelmingly tired. I wish I could go home. I wish I could go back to Brooklyn and get in bed and hide, but I have to wait until everyone is done and help clean up the theater and then get feedback from Stavros, as if there could be anything to say to me except “don’t fall next time.”
I don’t feel like running into anyone else, but there are no other places to hide. I could wait in the lobby, but the audience will be letting out soon. Maybe I’ll just stand outside and then slip back in when people start leaving. At least I can be alone outside.
Avoiding the greenroom means avoiding my coat, and after only a few minutes of loitering in front of the theater, I’m already shivering. But it feels good, too. I want to feel something that is actually something. A feeling that is identifiable and real.
A sense of gloom creeps over me. The cold is helping me think more clearly and I can almost put into words this ominous thought I haven’t yet named.
Then, all at once, it comes to me: What’s the point?
If I left show business tomorrow, no one would know and no one would care. And what kind of person wants to work in a business that’s completely indifferent to her efforts? If I stayed, no one would thank me for my presence, either. I’m not exactly Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, something people are still thankful to have. If I’d never come to New York, someone else would have taken my place: in class, on the train, as a waitress at the club. No one would be sitting at home saying there’s something missing from this Sally’s Wear
House commercial. No one’s thankful that I did it. No one would say, “If only Frances Banks had done more. What a contribution she could have made! Think of all the lives she could have saved by wearing that fuzzy acrylic sweater.”
I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Aren’t you cold?”
It’s James Franklin. The last person I want to see right now. Nothing could make me feel worse after what happened tonight than to be reminded that a guy I gushed all over got my phone number but never called me. Even after I learned that he and Penelope were some sort of couple, I held my breath every day for the last two weeks while waiting for the machine to rewind, hoping he’d left a message. But he never did.
James smiles at me and stamps his feet, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them. He’s wearing his green army jacket and his blue and red striped scarf. Standing this close to him for the second time, it occurs to me that his scarf is homemade, and I feel a pang of jealousy, wondering who knit it for him.
“I like to be cold,” I say, in what I hope is an appealing yet mysterious way that will make him regret not calling me, while trying not to shiver. “Did you—were you just in there?” I ask, eyeing him carefully. Please, God, say no.
“In the audience? Yeah. I was standing in the back. It’s over. They just had curtain call. Stavros is giving his little speech about how to fill in the callback sheets. They’ll be coming out in a minute.”
I missed the curtain call, forgot there even was one. I missed the chance to bow with everyone and to be seen one last time actually upright on two feet. And the callbacks. Stavros will be collecting the response sheets right now, where the agents and directors and casting directors will put a check next to the names of people they want to see again. Suddenly I’m deeply, freezing cold. I hug my arms around myself, trying to warm up, and stare down at my feet, attempting to look tough.
Someday, Someday, Maybe: A Novel Page 5
