by Tim Federle
“Something like that,” I say. “But look. We’re different.”
“Yes, we are. You are.”
“Whatever.” I plop the paperweight down and Heidi’s desk rattles. From a crack in her window, a wave of cold air hisses like a haunted ambulance. “We’re all changing. You’re painting your nails now that you’ve got a boyfriend. I get it.”
“Speaking of nails,” Libby says, pulling her laptop closer and unhinging her jaw in mock shock. “Did you have your nails done?”
“Kind of,” I say, examining them closer—and thrilled to get away from the last subject. “You could see them all the way in Jankburg? They’re not even painted.”
“Nah,” Libby says. “But you’re not biting them like normal. So I assume you treated yourself to a day spa or something.”
Nothing gets by Libby. She’s like Nancy Drew on Ritalin.
“Do you like the teddy bear?” I manage, finally.
“Should Karen Morrow have won the Tony for I Had A Ball?” This one’s obscure for even me, but I know what Libby means. Of course she loves the teddy bear. “Listen . . . I have a secret.” Her eyes suddenly dart.
“Oh no,” I say. “Mom-stuff?”
“No, Mom-stuff’s on the upswing. She didn’t puke at all this week.”
Yikes. “That’s an upswing?”
“That’s an upswing.”
“Got it.”
Libby holds up my green rabbit foot. “I’ve been praying on this sucker. Seems to be working.”
Heidi ducks her head in the door. “Hello to your friend and then gotta get ready for bed, Natey.”
“Aunts,” I whisper to Libby.
“Please. You live the coolest life, Nate.”
I guess it is pretty cool. I guess it is pretty cold. A kid can practically see his own breath in Heidi’s apartment, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings and insult her window insulation or anything. Dad used to work in insulation, before becoming a janitor at the hospital, so we’ve got an old-as-heck house but it’s warm-as-heck, too. Call it Dad’s biggest triumph.
“So what kind of secret are we talking about, here, Lib?”
“Okay. So. Remember how they found a male porno magazine in Little Bill’s locker?”
“Vaguely,” I say.
Specifically, actually. After a famous school-bathroom firecracker incident over Halloween, James’s and the Bills’ lockers were searched. All Libby’s new boyfriend’s turned up was an unsurprising motherload of Entenmann’s products. But the other Bill’s locker was more . . . revealing.
“So it turns out James Madison definitely did not plant the magazine,” Libby says.
“Why are you so certain?” I say too fast.
Thing is, James Madison is just the type of criminal mastermind to try to frame a co-bully. Libby has all the Sopranos seasons on Blu-ray, so I know a lot about this kind of stuff.
“Because James is so disgusted by the gays, he swears he’d never even touch that magazine.”
“Tell me you’re not talking to James, Libby.”
She uncaps a Diet Mountain Dew—withdrawn, mysteriously, from beneath a pillow—and shrugs. “I’m not, personally. No. But Billy is.”
I sigh so deeply, I practically fall from Heidi’s chair. “Okay, okay,” I say, hearing myself getting a little too worked up over this news. “So what’s your secret?”
“The secret is that the other Bill—Little Bill—is definitely gay.”
I make myself count to three before picking up a magazine on Heidi’s dresser, flipping it open to a random page. “Oh,” I say, in a supercasual way. I play it so cool I’m practically doing an impression of the weather.
Libby grunts. “Yes. His mom signed him up for tap class and everything.”
“Oh yeah?” I turn a page and manage a pretty convincing fake yawn.
“Give it up, Nate. Your magazine’s upside down.”
Drat. I toss it to the floor.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll bite. What makes you so sure the other Bill is . . . like . . . that.”
“Gay? Because he switched his Facebook profile from Conservative to Liberal,” Libby says, swigging at the Diet Dew, “and added What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to his favorite movies.”
“So?”
“Don’t be an amateur, Nate,” she says, tossing the dead Dew into the trash and pulling out a bag of light pretzels. “People always come out in stages. He’s testing the waters.” She sits up straight. “And that has inspired me—here’s the secret!—to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at school. I want Little Bill and my Billy on the steering committee.”
“Cool.” I’ve run out of things to play with on Heidi’s desk. “I should go in a sec. Uh . . . Aunt’s getting antsy and all that.”
On perfect cue, Heidi shouts “Lights out, you two” from the living room.
“So . . . Any thoughts on what I should call the GSA?” Libby says.
“Wow. You haven’t been this riled up since you won tickets to see Linda Eder at Heinz Hall.”
“Well,” Libby says, polishing off the pretzels four at a time. “It’s nice to be ‘about’ something, you know?”
I do know. I used to think the only thing I was about was being the only boy who liked musicals. And now that I’m around so many of them—now that I’m far from the home I love (Fiddler ballad reference)—I don’t know what I’m about anymore.
“I’m . . . I feel confused, too,” I say. “About something.”
“You can say it, Natey,” Libby says, her voice bursting. She takes off her glasses and gives me a look so earnest, it practically shatters Heidi’s computer screen.
“I’m confused by how many diet products you’re consuming.”
“Oh, screw off, Foster,” Libby says, slumping back into her bed’s hundred pillows.
“I’m serious! When I get home, I’m not putting up with Diet Dew.”
“That implies you’re coming home at all,” she says, frowning.
“Well, if you want a preview of me in the meantime . . . if you want to see me on national television, in HD . . .”
“And you know I do!” she says, bolting to her feet.
“Do not tell anyone, but I’ve got a big appearance coming up. The day before previews start. It’s a surprise.”
“Nate!” she screams. “Why didn’t you say something earlier? What is it? Like a live-broadcast dinner with the mayor or something? On top of the Chrysler Building?”
“Ha-ha,” I say, standing to kick off my sneakers. “Nothing like that.”
And why didn’t I say something earlier? Maybe because I can only have one secret at a time, with one girl at a time. It’s weird to say, but Asella’s like the grown-up version of Libby. And maybe I’m just a one-lady-at-a-time kind of guy.
“I’m just not allowed to say anything more about it.”
“Well—ugh,” Libby says. “Okay. Wow. I’ll mark my calendar, sport.” She starts clapping. “And promise not to tell anyone.”
“Not even Bill ‘the boyfriend’ O’Keefe,” I say.
“Oh, he wouldn’t listen, anyway,” she says, waving me away. “He couldn’t care less about Broadway.”
There’s a big pause here, and maybe I’m imagining it but I’m pretty sure Scram leaves the room just because it’s so awkward.
“Well, sounds like Bill’s pretty great, Libby,” I say, grinding molars.
“He is,” she says. “Or . . . he’s not. But he’s something. I’ve never had a something.”
“You had me.”
“Libby.” Her mom knocks on her door. Libby’s never in trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Jones was just delivering Libby another box of Dew. Or, sorry: Diet Dew.
“I’m gonna jet, Lib.”
“Me too, Greaty. Hey, Greaty?”
“Yup.”
“How’s the world of understudying coming?”
“Oh. She’s fantastic.”
“She’s fantastic? You’re referring to yourself i
n the third person feminine and you’re surprised I’m starting a Gay-Straight Alliance?”
God. “No. The E.T. understudy. The first one. I’ve been coaching her for a week.”
“What? You should be . . . pushing her down stairs.”
Asella would roll. Man, that would be a sight. “Remember all those times you drilled me on scenes? Taught me how to react better? Broke down how to breathe while singing?”
“Remember?” Libby says. “I’m still waiting to get paid.”
“Well, I’m using those lessons now. I’m . . . helping Asella run lines.”
“Kid of the year, Natey,” Libby says, finally seeming like her old self. “Kid of the year after moi.”
“Libby, honey,” I hear Mrs. Jones say.
“The mothership.”
“Man your station,” I say, and then, “I really miss you.”
But she’s already logged off. And even though she usually leaves me smiling or laughing, tonight Libby just leaves behind a cloud of questions.
And now it’s just me and my cold toes in a cold room where the only warm thing is my nervous breath. Wondering what this What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is all about.
And if Little Bill is watching it, right now.
Dressing Rooms and Prunes
(One week till first preview)
We’re all thinking it so allow me to verbalize it: You haven’t lived until you’ve walked through a stage door. To say I’ve dreamed of this moment is the understatement of my short but endless life (see: the Jankburg Era).
“Okay, boys, you’re all on floor three.” But by the time Kiana the stage manager is yelling, “Walk, don’t run,” it’s too late. We’re tearing up the stairs, four at a time, giggling and screaming and hurling toward our dressing room.
“I’ll be right there, guys.”
Let me make a small correction. I’m just giggling. They’re giggling and screaming and hurling. Keith (soul singer, Jordan’s understudy), Robbie (veteran of four Broadway shows, the kind of kid who falls out of bed into the full splits), and Nick (a model whose face has graced the covers of all my favorite issues of “Pottery Barn Kids”)—they’re pushing their way up the stairwell.
It’s our first day in the theater. I’m taking it slow, admiring the banister, thinking about all the shows that have played here. It’s outrageous. The dancers from A Chorus Line walked these steps, guys.
“Hello, Nate.”
“Oh—hi, Genna.”
She’s holding one of those hair-straightener appliances Libby’s got back home, but Genna’s looks about fifty times more expensive. And a hundred times more pink.
“How’s your dressing room?” she says, bopping the iron against her thigh. I’m probably making her supernervous.
“Oh, I don’t know yet. At all.” Or maybe I’m just nervous. Nobody’s ever had a crush on me. “Haven’t been up there. To the rooms. The dressing rooms.” Smooth, Nate.
“Well, the leads are about to have a little sparkling- apple-cider toast in my dressing room. To celebrate day one in the theater.”
“Cool!”
“Feel free to stop by, if you pass our floor. Invite only.”
I’m about to ask if I can bring Keith—apple juice is his favorite drink, not that I know everything about him—when Genna gets pulled away by the girls.
“Are you coming or what, Nate?” Robbie yells from upstairs. (He has a habit of yelling because of a mild hearing issue, actually.) “You’re going to miss out on claiming a spot in the dressing room.”
But you know what? “One sec, Robbie.” When you’ve had a whole life of getting picked last, you end up playing into it. I’ll never be fastest. I’ll never be first, and when you realize you’ll never be first, the best thing you can do is set yourself up to be last. That way you’re the most at something. The ultimate. The pinnacle or the least. I’d rather hang out in the hallway. I’d rather be on the end than in the middle. When you’re on “the end,” you’re always closer to the metaphorical bathroom, anyway.
“Too late,” Keith says, bouncing a ball against the mirrors in our magnificent, hospital-white dressing room, “your spot’s by the bathroom.”
“I don’t mind,” I say. I don’t mind at all. I’m backstage on Broadway with three other boys my age, and they’re not even making fun of me for it. Besides, this way I can dash into the bathroom to change my costumes.
“We should, like, decorate our room!” Robbie says. “What kind of theme should we do it in?” (He’s screaming.)
“Hawaii is really cool,” Nick offers. “I shot an ‘Abercrombie Kids’ catalog in Hawaii and it’s a really soothing place.”
“Soothing?” Keith says, snorting. “Ha-ha-ha, soothing. That’s hilarious, man. ‘Welcome to our dressing room. We hope you feel ‘soothied.’ ”
“Soothed,” I’m about to correct, but I’d never take Keith down. And anyway, I’m more drawn to a note card on my makeup table. “Did one of you guys put this here?”
I have my own makeup table, if you missed that.
“Nope,” Keith says, tossing his ball hard enough for our mirror to rattle. “Sorry, y’all,” he says. “I bet my ball bouncing isn’t soothing.”
Everyone cracks up and Nick says a bad word, but I’m too busy opening the envelope to engage in this nonsense. Willingly, at least. Apparently ignoring Keith’s brilliant joke sets him off, because I am suddenly in a headlock.
“Hey! Cut it out!” I promise myself to yell—just as soon as I figure out why I don’t mind Keith putting me into a headlock.
“Is the kid in here?” we hear, and the four of us flip our heads to see Asella, holding a rolling suitcase and a birdcage, surrounded by a flood of boxes.
“Whoa,” Keith says, letting me go. I fall into the wall and frankly don’t mind being smashed back to earth. “You moving in, Asella?”
“You bet,” she says. “Yeah, it’s bad luck getting too comfortable when you don’t even know if the show’ll run, but I’ve got my requirements.” She kicks a box. “And I need a hand.”
Nick goes to help—for a model, he’s really helpful—but Asella puts her teeny palm out. “Not you,” she says. Ninety bucks she has no idea what his name is. No idea what any of their names are. “The kid.”
“We’re all kids,” Robbie shouts from on high, tiptoeing atop his chair to inspect a ceiling speaker.
“I’m no kid,” Keith says, catapulting the ball at Robbie. “I shaved five weeks ago.”
The ball ricochets off Robbie’s back and nails Asella square in the chin. She barely flinches, catching it on the next bounce and tossing it into one of her boxes.
“People who shave should move beyond toys,” she says, turning to the stairs. “You helping me, or what?”
I head to the door, cramming the unread note card into my back pocket.
“You’re ‘the kid’?” Nick says.
“I’m ‘the kid,’ ” I go, suddenly aware how uncool it is to have a friend in her fifties—and also, that we’ve kept our friendship totally quiet. Still, our weekly mani-pedis have become a Nathan Foster life necessity.
“Well, are you going to stand there or are you going to lift something?” Asella says. I guess I’m staring at a thousand signatures scrawled across the hallway ceiling.
“That’s amazing,” I say, pointing to the autographs.
“That’s depressing,” Asella says, pulling a box of prunes from thin air. “You only sign that ceiling when your show closes, kid.” She picks up a crate. “It’s like—I dunno. Do people still sign yearbooks?”
She says yearbooks like it’s a swearword, her face folded into itself.
“Yes, people sign yearbooks—though they’re fifty dollars, so Libby and I share one.”
Asella follows me upstairs to the adult dressing rooms. “Who’s this Libby character supposed to be?”
“Libby?” Saying her name out loud . . . it’s like I’m a sponge and Libby’s the first drop of water in forever. �
��She’s my best friend.”
“She’s your Doc, huh?”
“My faithful dachshund?”
“No other kind,” Asella goes, kicking her dressing room door open and plopping a box down at her spot. I pull out my phone to text Libby: “ur my faithful doxen.” She’ll like that.
“Okay,” Asella says, flipping the lights on and rerouting to business mode. “I’m sharing this dressing room with that Amazon warrior-girl, April, so I’d like to be very clear about which half is mine.”
She pulls out a roll of bright green tape.
“That stuff is incredible!” I say. “Did you get that at Duane Reade?” Duane Reade is a store in New York that sells everything under the sun except, like, airplane parts and pets.
“No,” Asella says, ripping off an expanse of tape and palming it straight across the middle of their shared table. She’s drawing a border. Enemy lines. “No, this is the tape stage management uses to mark out the floor.” She sighs, knowing everything’s bound to be a lesson when your closest companion is a middle schooler. “You know what a spike mark is, yes?”
“Of course,” I say, “I was born knowing that.” Though I actually just learned the term two weeks ago, when a stage manager spiked the outline of the fake tree that Garret Charles has me standing behind for the entire opening number. “Well, that’s cool,” I say, shaking off the memory. “That stage management loaned you that fancy tape.”
“Loaned?” Asella says. “Please, kid. The key to life is to take what you want and ask for forgiveness later.”
Suddenly I wonder if that Balance Bar a few weeks ago was, in fact, stolen.
“By the by,” Asella says, rooting through her purse. “Sorry to pull you away from your gang downstairs.”
“No big thing,” I say.
“It’s just nice to see you chorus kids chumming it up. Since the stars certainly won’t give us the time of day.”
I’m not so sure about that! “Actually,” I say, breaking into a whisper, “Genna won’t quit it with the secret admirer gifts. And she invited me to a drink reception that I am currently missing. So . . . stars, you know? They’re just like us!”
Asella doesn’t laugh. “I hate to break it to you,” she says instead, removing a lone, sad hanger from a rack, “but that Genna must be two-timing you. She’s so openly hot for Jordan Rylance, it’s practically illegal watching her play his younger sister.”
