Five, Six, Seven, Nate!

by Tim Federle

  “Good Lord, Nate,” she says, taking the spoon. “I’m not that bad a chef.”

  Her phone rings a second time, and Heidi goes, “Unknown number again,” but picks up. And then: “You bet,” she says, “he’s right here.”

  I perk up. My nose stings from all the cayenne pepper steam, but it seems a fitting punishment for such an ungrateful guy.

  “Okay. Okay.” Heidi twists her ponytail and then disappears into the bedroom with the phone.

  Of course. This is it. “They’re firing me,” I say to the chili pot. In a way, I’m prepared for this and okay with it.

  “Hey.” She’s back. “What’s wrong, Nate?” Apparently I’m not prepared for this, and I’m not okay with it.

  “Who was that?”

  “E.T.”

  “Uh-huh?” My legs go numb.

  “They want you in at nine twenty tomorrow.”

  I sigh. “For the regular aerobics session?”

  “No,” Aunt Heidi says, taking a beer from the fridge. “They want you to report straight to the stage managers’ office. Something about a meeting with you and that Jordan.”

  “Am I in trouble?” I say, or yell. Good golly: I break Genna in half. I break Jordan’s confidence. It’s like I’m the wrong kind of secret weapon—one that could go off at any moment.

  “Unclear,” Heidi says, not pouring the beer into the chili pot at all but instead throwing it back in a sorority-girl gulp. “But we’ll make certain you’re there at nine twenty sharp. I’m sure it’ll be no biggie.” But she says the last part so unconvincingly, it’s hard to believe she’s booked any commercials at all. “Where are you going?” she calls out. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  “Quick call to make!”

  I’m heading to Heidi’s room to find Libby on Skype, praying her screen name (SuttonFaster) will flash across the monitor. Instead, I get the resident cat, thumping its tail on Heidi’s desk.

  “Scram,” I say. (But not to get rid of her. Her name is Scram.) “Get lost.”

  “Five minutes, Nate!” Heidi yells, but I’ll need more than that; Libby’s not online, so there’s only one thing to do—call her on my horrible old phone that barely gets any reception in Heidi’s place.

  “Hi, Nate.” She picks up in one ring.

  “Hey, Lib—need your help.” She’s got amazing strategies for crying on cue, which I could use tomorrow morning when I get taken to task for spying on Jordan in the bathroom. “You got a second?”

  But either she’s picked up a new instrument or she’s blowing her nose, because all I get is a seven-decibel honk.

  “Everything okay?”

  “God, Greaty, it’s really not.” I keep waiting for the zinger—the joke—but it doesn’t come. “They’re taking my mom in for more tests, Natey. She’s up and down and it just . . . it doesn’t look good.”

  Here I am, calling my best friend to complain about Broadway troubles, and she’s got real ones.

  “Libby, I am so sorry. What . . . what are you going to do?”

  The floorboard squeaks and I turn to see Heidi in the door frame. And maybe it’s the way my face looks—probably like a grown-up’s, because that’s the size of the problem—but she leaves me alone, taking Scram with her and shutting the door.

  “I’m not sure,” Libby says. “But I have to go in a sec because I’m making Mom dinner.”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” I say. Though I’ve had Libby’s version of dinner. It usually involves a toaster.

  “Listen, Natey. Enough about my tragedy; gimme some comedy. How’s New York Dreamy City?”

  I touch my face (don’t ask me why) and remember last week—how it felt to be covered in a goopy mask that reminded me of Oatmeal Complexion Healers. Which reminded me, like everything does, of Libby.

  “New York Dreamy City . . .” I say, pressing into the divot of my chin, which might be my only genuinely handsome feature. Jordan’s got a divot, too, in addition to two unbelievably deep dimples and perfect earlobes that aren’t even attached to his head.

  “Well, New York is nothing without you, Lib. But it’s a pretty good nothing.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  Oh, just say it Nate. “But, listen: I don’t think I’ve made a single real friend. And not only do I wish I were playing the lead, the lead hates me. And I’m still too chubby. And I can’t tap. And a lot of other ‘ands.’ ”

  “You cut out, there, champ,” Libby says, huffing a little and probably bounding down the steps to pop a strudel in for Mrs. Jones. “What was that last part?”

  The buzzer goes off in Heidi’s kitchen. Time to add the beer. Time to get over myself.

  “Nothing, Libby. I just said I’ve . . . made a bunch of friends. And . . . they’re great, but they’re no you.”

  We hang up, and Heidi lets me pour what’s left of the beer, and she doesn’t even ask me if everything’s okay. When you know it’s not, and you’re an adult, I think you don’t even ask. We just sit in silence and somehow make our way through half a pot of chili, in tribute to my long-gone Grandma Flora, back home.

  And that gets me thinking. Home.

  And rather than practice E.T.’s lines—I know the lines, for God’s sake—I make one more phone call, to the last person who expects to hear from me.

  The Last Person Who Expects to Hear from Me

  (Three weeks till first preview)

  “I’m sorry to call you so late at work.”

  I’m settled on the edge of a fire-escape step, four floors below Heidi’s apartment, dangling my feet into the chilly black.

  “Nathan? Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, everything’s swell, Ma. No problems at all.” A rat scurries below, and even though it’s probably twenty good yards away, I scream a little.

  “What was that?” Mom asks.

  “Oh, nothing, Mom. Just . . . warming up my voice for rehearsal tomorrow.”

  “Nate, it’s almost nine o’clock at night. Did you already have dinner? Is your aunt keeping you fed? Why are you calling?”

  Gee, nothing like a “We really miss you around home” to make a kid feel really missed around home.

  “We already had dinner, Ma. Grandma’s chili recipe, in fact.”

  “With the beer?” Mom shrieks—as if she’s not the one who can’t be trusted around alcohol.

  “Yes. With the beer. But Aunt Heidi poured it herself.” (Lies.) “There’s no problem here, Ma.”

  “Then why are you calling? Are you in trouble with the other kids?”

  “No, Mom.”

  I fondle the new folded-up note that my secret admirer gave me. My secret Genna. She drew a cute little cartoon penguin for some reason (probably because that’s how I’d look in a tux, which I hope I get to wear for opening night) and had it tacked to the callboard the other day.

  “No, I’ve made a ton of new friends, Mom.”

  Might not be totally true, but nobody’s pushed me into a locker in weeks—not since I left Jankburg—so in a way I’ve made friends with somebody called Luck.

  “Well, that’s good, Nathan. It’s good to make friends.”

  Ha. This has been Sherrie Foster, on friendship. A lady whose only friends are her flowers, her precious orchids in the garage that if I so much as look at will get me a boot so far up my butt, I’ll be coughing shoelaces till kingdom come.

  “Yup. Everything’s hunky-dory here in New York.” A car alarm goes off and I wince, covering the mouthpiece. Mom’ll freak if she knows I’m on a fire escape, hiding from Aunt Heidi—who never lets me do anything on my own in the city.

  “Well, then, why are you calling me on my work line? You know this is my alone time.”

  It’s true. I called Flora’s Floras because that’s where Mom always hangs out, pruning inventory and counting registers and avoiding Dad.

  “I just—I have a favor to ask. I really want to send flowers to Libby.”

  I pick a chip of paint from the black banister and realize it’s not
black at all, but a sort of dove white that’s covered in industrial revolution soot. This town is so incredible; it’s like it takes place in the past and the future all at once.

  “Flowers? What for?”

  I flick the soot into the courtyard, watching it disintegrate into a hundred parts.

  “Because of Libby’s mom, Mom. She’s not doing so hot. I think it would mean a lot to Libby.”

  Mom sighs the sigh she always sighs when I ask her for something she knows any other (nice) mom would give in to.

  “Well, I guess it would be all right,” she says. I hear crinkling from the other end and am just sure she’s finishing a Chipotle burrito. This was the one thing we bonded over back home: our love of guacamole. Which is a pretty sophisticated thing for a kid to like, because of the texture and color.

  Mom’s voice changes: “We could send your friend a Pretty ’n’ Pink birthday bouquet for forty-seven dollars, or . . . hmm . . . a teddy bear that has a cast on its arm, for twenty-five? Girls go nuts for that.”

  God. “Mom, I’m trying to comfort Libby, not remind her that her mother is dealing with, like, a lot worse than a broken arm.”

  “Just trying to help,” she says, picking at the foil and probably avoiding the red peppers.

  “And you’re charging me, by the way? You’re going to bill me for these flowers?”

  “Um . . . your father just walked in,” she whispers. Then, in full voice: “Flowers are a fragile commodity that require upkeep”—she’s reading from the disclaimer we’ve got taped to the store cash register, recited before every sale—“and Flora’s Floras is not responsible for decay or damage, Nate.”

  Just as I’m about to put up a fight—I helped her come up with that disclaimer—I hear Dad’s voice in the background. “Is that our boy, Sherrie?” Oh, no. “You’re not doing an arrangement for free, now, are you?”

  I hear Mom stuttering, and then the phone gets scratchy and—

  “Nathan? This is your father.”

  “Hello, my father,” I nearly say.

  “You know the policy here. Blood is thicker than water but Miracle-Gro is thicker than blood.”

  “Yep.”

  “And more expensive.”

  “Yeah, Dad, I know.”

  “We can’t go giving out free arrangements. Not with how business is doing.”

  Business is not doing, is what he means by that. These days people just take screen shots of floral bouquets and send them to their friends virtually. No decay or damage there.

  “And with the kind of money you’re pulling in, son, you might do well to send us a little money on the weekends.”

  He’s not kidding, but I almost laugh. The only thing I even do on the weekends is watch a few YouTubes on Heidi’s computer and then go to work myself.

  “Libby’s mom is dying, Dad,” I say, rising to my feet on the fire escape. I never sit when I’m on the phone with Dad, because it’s the only time I get to practice what it feels like to stand up to him. “And I was thinking it would be nice to send her some flowers. Is all.”

  I hate when I sound like him. Using somebody’s else’s bad fortune for my own argument.

  “That is indeed a lovely thing, son,” he says. Too nicely. This is about to get complicated. “But I’m sorry to say I just can’t figure out the math on this one.”

  “Gee, Dad,” I want to say, “I’d have thought you’d be beside yourself with joy that I want to send flowers to a girl.”

  But instead I just go: “I’ll send money. As soon as I get my next E.T. check, I’ll have Heidi send money for whichever arrangement Mom thinks is nicest.”

  “He’s come to his senses, Sherrie,” Dad says, handing the phone back and loping away.

  Our TV must be on the fritz at home. There’s nothing like the sight of my dad watching a big game at Mom’s shop, with his head surrounded by a bunch of petunias. It’s a riot.

  “I’ll say good-bye, then,” I hear Mom go to Dad as she takes the receiver back. I bet he didn’t even make eye contact with her. “Thanks.”

  I forget where I am for a second, the suffocating nylon blanket of my parents’ voices dulling my senses. That’s why I’m so surprised to feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “Okay then, Natey,” Mom says—for a second I think it’s actually her behind me—“I’ll send Libby the bear. Without the arm cast.”

  But I barely hear any of the last part, because Heidi is dragging me back up the fire escape.

  “Who are you on the phone with?” she says, pushing Freckles’s window open.

  “Your sister,” I whisper.

  Heidi’s eyes go wider than the winter moon, and she mouths, “Don’t say anything.” I know what she means. Mom would kill Heidi if she knew I were scaling buildings in Manhattan. Even if, technically, this is Queens.

  “It should be there Tuesday,” Mom says. “Okay?”

  Apparently I forget to respond—perhaps distracted by how deeply my aunt’s nails are digging into my aunt’s nephew’s forearm.

  “Nate?”

  “Night, Mom,” I manage to utter without squealing.

  “Night, Nathan. Hey, Nathan?”

  “Hey, Mom?”

  “I . . . we miss you.” Her voice gets quiet, or maybe just tired. “And I love you lots. We could use your good energy around the shop.”

  “I . . . love you lots too, Ma. Mom.”

  I hang up the call and feel my Nokia burning extra warm in my hand. Maybe the battery is just overused. Or maybe it’s just smoking-hot because Mom said something nice to me.

  They miss me.

  “To bed, mister. And never go out there again.”

  But Heidi doesn’t have to worry about that. My shins are scuffed, my hands are covered in soot, my face is an oily sweat slick.

  “New York One says it’s thirty degrees out tonight,” Heidi yells from the bathroom. “You’re lucky Scram wandered into the bedroom after you, and I found her. If you’d gotten stuck out there overnight, you would have frozen.”

  Before Libby’s mom got sick, they had enough money to send Libby to a dermatologist. She said they’d freeze her really bad zits off. Maybe if I had gotten stuck on the fire escape overnight, my face would have turned into a perfect, unmarked icicle. If I’d died, at least I’d have died with good skin.

  I would have died like Jordan.

  Awake at Dawn—and Not to Watch Cartoons

  (Two weeks and six days till first preview)

  It’s a tough thing to fall asleep when the threat of a big morning meeting looms over you like a Geography quiz. When my alarm goes off, I’ve barely gotten any rest at all, after boiling the night away in Freckles’s striped flannel sheets. I yawned my way through breakfast, yawned and nodded off on the subway to work, yawned and nodded off and hit rapid eye movement in the elevator, and now—finally—am jolted to life when I see Jordan. He’s sitting in a chair in the hallway outside the stage managers’ office, stone still, like he’s waiting for a dentist appointment.

  (During which—I guarantee you—they wouldn’t find a single cavity.)

  “Hi.”

  “Hey,” he barely says, at work studying his script.

  Doesn’t he know his lines by now?

  “We’ll miss you in cardio-aerobics, Nate!”

  Monica’s passing me, holding a giant bouncy ball. At every morning session she’s got a new contraption to whip us into shape. Last week, she laid out yoga mats and had us do something called a Downward Dog. It didn’t look like my dog Feather at all, who’d probably chew a yoga mat to shreds or just curl up and snooze. I could use a snooze right now. I could use Feather, too.

  “Look alive,” says a guardian as stage management’s door cracks open.

  “Hi, boys,” says the head stage manager, Roscoe, with that moustache you could hide from your parents in. “We’re finalizing the day’s rehearsal schedule and will just be another minute.”

  “That’s fine, Roscoe,” Jordan says in a dull drone, ey
es not looking up from his lap.

  “Jordan, why don’t you keep looking at those new pages—I know a lot of new material came in overnight. And Nate . . .”

  Roscoe tilts his head, figuring out how to instruct me.

  “Sit-ups,” Monica says, tossing the bouncy ball into the aerobics room and disappearing after it.

  “Perfect,” Roscoe says, scratching at his moustache, which sheds entire clumps of hair and stray breakfast. “Do some sit-ups or something, Nate.”

  I drop to the floor and try to remember how Anthony approaches sit-ups in the garage. (He’s allowed near Mom’s beloved orchids.)

  “New pages?” I say to Jordan. Stalling.

  “Yeah,” he says. Actually he just kind of mouths it, busy closing his eyes and memorizing the updated script. The text. I bet he calls it the text.

  “Like: more new script pages?”

  “Yes, Nate,” he says, flicking over to me. His hands are shuddering a little. “They changed almost the entire second-act scene where I find E.T. in the ravine.”

  Where he finds E.T. in the ravine. Dear Lord. It’s like Jordan thinks he is Elliott. Am I right? Am I right, here?

  “The librettist,” Jordan says, “didn’t think the scene was funny enough.”

  “There weren’t enough laughs in a scene where you find your best friend nearly dead in a ditch?”

  Jordan actually almost giggles, which takes me by such surprise, I flinch. I probably haven’t gotten a laugh since Libby and I were together last, and this excitement jumpstarts my sit-ups.

  “I’m just doing what I’m told,” Jordan says. He holds up an old script page, highlighted and crossed out and highlighted again with a different color marker, his blocking scribbled and erased and rewritten in the margins. “It’s a lot to keep up with. We’ve got the designer run-through on Friday and they just rewrote half the words to my song with E.T. in the third scene.”

  Those were some pretty lame lyrics. Nobody could keep a straight face when Jordan tried to pull off the word planet rhyming with man up.

  “Besides,” he says, switching to his old tone, “aren’t you keeping up on the script changes? E.T. has a bunch of new . . . well, I wouldn’t exactly call them lines, since they’re basically just grunts. But still. You should check your folder.”