“Oh my geez, look at you, you’re crying.” Amanda puts her arms around Maya, enveloping her in an elaborate hug. “You poor thing.”
I swear to you, Amanda’s looking around waiting for someone to congratulate her on being such a good pal. Obviously, no one takes the bait. Instead, Heather Huffman throws out a “I’ll never forget the times you went on, Maya. You’re a real talent. Know that and own it.”
If there’s one thing Amanda hates, it’s being reminded that she puked in a bucket and then missed two shows. If there’s another thing Amanda hates, it’s hearing that Maya is super talented. She instantly breaks the hug, turns on a dime, and barks, “The overture’s starting soon. You know I can’t miss my preshow,” then stomps onto the stage.
“What’s amusing is she thinks we can’t see through her nonsense,” H.H. says. “But karma is real. I’ve been in this business longer than I care to admit, and I promise you, people like Amanda always get back what they’ve given out, tenfold.”
And with those words of wisdom, the orchestra starts to play, and we all find our way to the stage and our overture dance.
CHAPTER
FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES INTO THE SHOW, I CREEP downstairs, hoping to sneak into my nest without anyone noticing. My “quiet as a mouse” routine doesn’t come close to working, because my mother, like all mothers, hears everything.
“Do my ears deceive me, Lucy Louise, or is it well past the first number?” My mother is standing with her hip popped and her whiskers straight out, which means she means business.
“I had to stay a little while longer, Mom. Maya was really upset.” A word to the wise: if you ever disobey your parents, you’d better make sure it’s for a good, moral reason.
“What did Amanda do this time?” my mother asks, her whiskers relaxing a bit, genuinely concerned. She does not like the fact that Amanda gets away with such bad behavior. She blames Amanda’s mother, who, she says, “acts more like a friend than a parent.” My mother takes parenting very seriously.
“Amanda didn’t do anything out of the ordinary,” I say.
“So is this about Maya leaving the show?” my mom asks, folding the freshly washed fabric scraps we use as our bedding.
“You knew?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I overheard Bet and Pete talking about it,” she says. “I didn’t think it was my place to say.”
“Well,” I say, “Maya is really upset.”
“And so are you,” Mom says.
“And so am I. I’m going to miss her. And…,” I start.
“And what?” Mom asks.
“And what if the new girl and Amanda get along and I get left out? It’s already so ridiculous that Amanda gets the lead role, even though Maya is just as talented and much nicer. Maya should be the one to stay and Amanda should go,” I rant. “It’s just not fair.”
“Life’s not always fair, my love,” Mom says, bringing me a bottle cap full of hot chocolate—my fave. “And worrying about the new girl won’t do you any good. Worrying doesn’t help anything. All you can do is be the Lucy Louise I raised you to be. Treat the new girl the way you’d want to be treated. And even though it’s difficult, try to go easy on Amanda.”
“Ick. Why?” I ask. This hot chocolate is to die for, by the way. My mom makes it out of the concession stand M&M’s that audience members drop on the floor.
“People like Amanda, their outward meanness is usually masking a much deeper insecurity. Truly confident people don’t need to put others down to lift themselves up.” I think of our show’s star, Stella James, and realize this is true. I’ve never heard her say a bad word about anyone, and she’s the most confident person I know. Even if she thinks bad thoughts, she certainly never says them out loud. “I’m sure the new girl will be lovely, and if she happens not to be, well then, you’ll be lovely enough for the both of you.”
“I guess,” I say. My mom is so right, but there’s no reason to make a big deal about it.
“And in the meantime? Sewing, bath, bed,” she instructs.
Ugh, when she’s right, she’s right. I nod, and meander toward my nest, wishing I could skip sewing practice and go straight to bath and bed. Or better yet: bow, bath, bed. Something to dream about, I suppose.
CHAPTER
FIVE
WEDNESDAY WAS AS WEDNESDAYS USUALLY are: busy. We have a matinee at 2:00 and an evening show at 7:30, recently changed from 8:00, much to the chagrin of mostly everyone.
“Seven thirty?!” Jodie had exclaimed. “What is this, Wheel of Fortune?”
“This is ridiculous,” H.H. had said when the shift happened. “Make it seven or eight o’clock, but seven thirty will just cause confusion.”
And sure enough, theatregoers often show up early, assuming the show is at 7:00, which makes for a box office full of angry audience members who “rushed through dinner at Becco!”—and a super full Starbucks around the corner. Or they’ll arrive late, thinking the show begins at 8:00, and according to those up on the stage, watching and listening to people shuffle to their seats in the dark while you’re trying to sing and stay in character is très distracting.
Amanda had a little bit of a cough by the end of Tuesday’s show but promptly told Maya “not to get her hopes up.” Amanda’s mother had her doctor on speed dial (the poor guy), and by noon on Wednesday, Amanda had already seen him and been prescribed a throat-numbing spray, which required a signed waiver since it’s pending approval by the FDA.
Anyway, Amanda had added, she was pretty sure she’d gotten the cough from Maya’s little brother who had the sniffles the week before and technically he isn’t allowed backstage and Milly should really enforce the rules and STOP MAKING THINGS UP, AMANDA.
By Wednesday night, I was even more exhausted than I usually am on two-show days because my mom had let me spend all of both shows with Maya, knowing how upset she was, and that we only had two weeks left together. Less than two weeks: thirteen shows by the end of Wednesday. Ugh.
Even the Hooligans made an appearance up in the dressing room, which is a rare occurrence seeing as Walt and Matty spend most of their free time scurrying around in the alley between our theatre and the Broadhurst, Timmy found a pile of old copies of Variety into which he has permanently buried his nose, and Benji has started to help Pete and Ricardo with the “show reports” because he can type one hundred words per minute—using his feet. Yes, while I’m the only one in the family who prefers hanging out with the cast to just about anything else, my brothers made it a point to visit Maya because she’s just that great.
“I’ll sneeze on Amanda! Right on her. Get her sick in no time,” Walt had offered.
“Yeah,” Matty joined in, “he’ll sneeze on her and I’ll cough. And Benji’ll mess with her dressing room humidifier, won’t you, Benj?”
“Consider it done,” Benji had said, in a dead-serious tone.
“You guys are too sweet,” Maya had said, tears welling up in her throat. She was even going to miss my hooligan brothers, the dear girl. And whether they admit it or not, they’re going to miss her, too. Especially Benji. Judging by how often he talks about her hair, I’m pretty sure he’s in love.
This is an actual conversation I overheard last week between Benji and Maya. I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to exercise my playwriting skills.
THE SETTING: The third-floor hallway, right outside of the bathroom
THE DAY: Friday
THE TIME: Ten minutes to Half Hour
A toilet flushes. Exiting the bathroom, MAYA enters the hallway. She’s just had a haircut, so her curls are particularly bouncy. She spots BENJI, who pretends to inspect a speck of dirt on the wall, to make it seem like he wasn’t waiting for her.
MAYA Hey, Benji. What’s up?
BENJI You look beautiful.
MAYA Oh. You’re so sweet. Thank you.
BENJI Your hair is like golden silk.
MAYA Oh. Um. Thanks.
BENJI You smell
like almonds.
MAYA Ummmm… Thank you?
Benji nervously farts and scurries off.
End scene
I wake up early Thursday afternoon—I’m in show business and I’m a mouse, so I usually sleep late—in anxious anticipation of the afternoon’s understudy rehearsal. It will be the first time we’ll all meet Maya’s replacement. Pete assured us she was “the best of the best.” As production stage manager, he’d been at her audition and was “really impressed by her.” He says she’s “the real deal.”
Of course, I’d expect nothing less than the best of the best or the real deal—this is Broadway, after all. What I’m concerned about is her personality. Will she be Maya-like or Amanda-like?
“Perhaps she’ll just be herself,” my mother says. She’s sitting on a spool of fuchsia thread with a needle across her lap. She unravels a bit of the thread and bites it (because who needs scissors when you’ve got mouse teeth!), then sticks the thread through the needle’s eye, knotting the loose ends with efficient ease.
“Here you are, Bet,” Mom says. In case you couldn’t guess, we’re in the wardrobe room, helping Bet with “day work”—laundry, repairs, and inventory. Being Bet’s assistant is my mom’s actual job. She doesn’t get paid in money, because we mice don’t have any need for human money (though I once used an old dollar bill as a summer blanket and I’ve gotta say, it was the perfect combination of soft and breathable). Instead, Bet pays my mother in food and supplies for our home. I’m in training to join the wardrobe staff someday—hence the sewing homework—but I think it’s pretty clear it’s not my dream job. Nothing to do with Bet, of course. She’s absolutely wonderful. It’s just that, well… sewing doesn’t hold a candle to performing. (Duh.)
“Bless you and your tiny feet,” Bet says to my mom, then turns to me. “Without your mother, I’d spend most of my day attempting to thread needles. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
Bet, by the way, is literally the oldest person in the theatre. “I’m older than the ghosts,” she always says. (Side note: Aside from my brothers attempting to trick me into thinking Rosa is a ghost, I’ve never actually encountered one, but apparently there are ghosts in Broadway theatres. Ghosts of actors and writers and such, though, so nothing scary.)
Bet is a first-generation Italian American. (Yes, she fulfills the stereotype and is an excellent cook. Just the thought of her eggplant parmesan makes my mouth water. The crunchy, almost burnt bits around the edge of the pan? Yes, please, and thank you.) Her parents came over on a boat from Italy around the turn of the twentieth century and had ten kids once they got here—eight girls and two boys. Bet is the youngest and the only one still living. She’s ninety. I’m not kidding. Ninety. As in, ten less than one hundred. But you’d never know it. She’s as sharp as a sewing needle, and speaking of sewing needles, you should see her with one. She’s an artist. “She epitomizes work ethic,” my mother always says. Bet is my mother’s Heather Huffman.
Bet was also—so the legend says—the first person in the theatre to befriend a mouse. Let’s take a moment away from the present to “journey to the past,” as they say in Anastasia, so you can learn Bet’s incredible story.
AFTER HER TWO BROTHERS DIED IN WORLD WAR II, TEENAGE Bet took it upon herself to get a job since her brothers were no longer there to help out. She’d always been a skilled seamstress, so she figured she might as well make money at it, to help her family put food on the table. That’s how things worked in those days: the men went off to work and the women stayed home. But not Bet. She was a pioneer. (Like I’d like to be, you know?)
Carolina, one of Bet’s sisters, was a fantastic dancer, and a producer had approached her at a local dance hall with an offer for a job in the chorus of a Broadway musical called Bloomer Girl that was opening at the Shubert. Bet’s parents—very traditional and wary of America, which was still a scary, new world to them—said, “Assolutamente no!” to Carolina’s dancing on Broadway. But Carolina defied her parents and did it anyway. And her parents swore never to speak to her again.
In an effort to bring her family back together, Bet applied for a job as a seamstress at the Shubert so she could keep an eye on her sister and report back to her parents. She promised them that theatre people were wonderful and good; told them that Carolina was a beautiful dancer who worked very hard at her craft, and that if they just came to a performance, they could see for themselves and they could all be a family again. And they did. And they were.
During Bet’s first week at the theatre, another seamstress spotted a mouse on a water pipe in the wardrobe room. The seamstress screamed and swatted at the mouse with a broom, promising to return the next day with mouse traps.
But Bet was different. When she turned on the light the next morning to find a mouse sitting on her Singer sewing machine, she didn’t scream. Instead, she said, “Hello, there, little one. I’m Bet.”
And the mouse replied, “I’m Poppy. A pleasure to meet you.”
“May I assume, by the fact that you’re sitting on my sewing machine, that you have an interest in sewing?” Bet had asked Poppy.
“It’s my favorite thing,” Poppy had said. “It’s my dream to sew costumes for a Broadway show. But…”
“But?” Bet had asked, sitting down so she was face-to-face with Poppy.
“But it’s just not done,” Poppy had said.
“Well,” Bet had replied, “there’s a first time for everything.”
And from that day forward, if any human swatted at a mouse or went to set a trap, Bet reminded them, “These mice are here to help us. They’re our coworkers, not our enemies. Learn their names and be kind to them, and you’ll quickly see your workload cut in half and your spirits lifted.”
THAT CONCLUDES THE TALE OF HOW BET BECAME THE first human to befriend a Broadway mouse. I now return you to your regularly scheduled program: “Lulu Freaks Out about the New Girl.”
“What if the new girl’s ‘being herself’ is being mean to mice?” I ask.
“I suppose anything’s possible,” my mother says. “But why go into something assuming it won’t work out?”
“Faith is greater than fear,” Bet says. “Assume she’ll be wonderful and deal with it later if she isn’t. Her name is Jayne. With a Y. How could a Jayne with a Y be anything but a delight?”
“Pretty name,” my mother says.
“I guess,” I reply, pacing across the washing machine. I don’t understand why having a (sometimes) vowel in your name automatically means you’ll be delightful, but Bet is usually right about things, so I see no point in quibbling.
Bet shows me a mesh laundry bag with Jayne’s name on it. In the theatre, we call this a “ditty bag.” At the beginning of the show, it’s full of clean “personal” laundry—socks, underwear, bras, and such—and at the end of the show, the actors fill it with their newly worn, dirty laundry. I’d let the Hooligans step on my tail twenty times over in exchange for my own ditty bag complete with my own show undergarments, thank you. I’m not asking for much; the bag would be smaller than a Post-it.
“And did I mention,” Bet says, “she’s getting her own costumes because she’s quite a bit smaller than Amanda and Maya.”
“Really?” I high-kick with glee. Amanda will not be happy about that. Height is a sensitive subject for her. It is a known fact that the moment Amanda gets anywhere near Stella’s height, she’ll be replaced. It’s in her contract and everything. She’s taken to slouching during the one scene where Stella wears flat shoes. As I said earlier, Stella’s on the small side for a grown-up.
“Really,” Bet says. “She’s a peanut, like you.”
“Company to the stage for understudy rehearsal, please. Company to the stage for understudy rehearsal.” Pete’s voice sounds like an extra frothy cappuccino today. Scratch that: a seasonal latte with an extra pump of pumpkin.
“Looks like your wait is over, Lucy Louise,” my mom says as I scurry across a ceiling water pipe—my most direct ro
ute upstairs.
“Be sure to report back,” Bet requests, pressing START on the washing machine whose lid I recently vacated. (I learned at a young age not to walk on a running washing machine. It’s the mouse version of an amusement park ride gone wrong.)
“Oh, I will,” I say. And I make my way upstairs.
Between you and me, my stomach is in knots. What I haven’t been able to admit to anyone is that I’m not just worried about the energy shift the new girl will cause. What I’m feeling is different and possibly worse than worry. To quote Shakespeare’s Iago, I’m dealing with “the green-eyed monster”: envy.
I know Amanda’s role like the back of my hand. To be honest, I know everyone’s role like the back of my hand, but Amanda’s is especially ingrained in me, because her character is the same age as I am, and, despite the fact that the character is played by Amanda, I love the part. Love. Her character is sassy, she’s smart, she speaks French! It’s perfect for me. I spend so many days alone in my nest practicing her songs and dance steps, and so many nights dreaming of a scenario that would lead to me performing her role.…
Maya could get stuck in New Jersey because of snow and Amanda could slip on the ice on her way into the theatre, her ankle too swollen to perform. Or they could both catch the same cold, which happens a lot in the theatre, forcing them both to stay home and recuperate in front of the TV, which is the only fun thing about having a cold.… Stella could see me at understudy rehearsal and insist that I go on, that my talent is too great not to share with the world.…
These are all just fantasies, I know. They’re never going to happen. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling deeply envious of the new girl. Jayne. The girl who will—hopefully, for her sake—get to make her Broadway debut at the most beautiful theatre on Broadway in one of the most beautiful shows of all time opposite one of the world’s most beautiful and talented stars. I’m envious. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s the truth.
Lulu the Broadway Mouse Page 4
