The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek

by Seth Rudetsky

  It was a package.

  As soon as I opened the door to Grandma Sally’s apartment, I heard, “I thought you were eating out. Don’t expect any food.”

  Welcome home?

  It didn’t matter. I was eager to see what the Phantom sent me. “I don’t need any food,” I said.

  “You’re not hungry?” Grandma Sally sputtered while clutching her chest. “Are you trying to kill me? Thank goodness I already took my heart medication.” She chuckled as she walked into her room and closed the door.

  I ignored her comedy routine, went into my bedroom, and quickly opened the package. This time it didn’t have a three-word note. It had a letter.

  Dear Justin,

  You don’t know me. But I know who you are. I’ve seen your website, and I’ve seen the videos you’ve posted of yourself. You’re a talented guy. Well, if he wanted me to like him, mission accomplished. I also know you care about Chase. So the notes were about Chase! I saw your post last night. I’ve decided to leave this with you because, unlike people who work with him, you have nothing to gain from either his success or failure. It’s apparent that you like him for him. Chase and I were once very close, but he hurt me and it made me very angry. I wanted to hurt him back. That’s why I was leaving notes. Wait! This must be referring to the friendship that Chase said was ruined. I felt that I had been betrayed and I wanted people to know it. But when I saw what the gossip sites were writing about him yesterday, everything changed. Oh. That must be why he didn’t leave any notes today. Yes, I had been angry, but I didn’t want to destroy Chase. However, someone does. Everyone is saying Chase is a bad actor and can’t sing. It’s not true! Yes, it is. I know you’re thinking, “Yes, it is.” Impressive. But I’m including this DVD so you can see what he’s really like. I’m trusting you to do something to help him. I don’t know who else to reach out to. There are various reasons why I can’t reveal myself. Watch this DVD and help Chase!

  I popped it into my laptop and pushed PLAY. It was a home video. The title came on: “Havenhurst High School Presents MAN OF LA MANCHA.” A high school show? What did this have to do with Chase? I started watching. It was nothing special for the first few minutes. Then the guy playing Don Quixote, the leading role, came on the screen. It was Chase! He was a teenager, but I could easily recognize him. Shockingly, he wasn’t whispering…and he wasn’t facing away from the audience! His acting was really good. I had seen him be a good actor on Vicious Tongues, but this wasn’t stupid TV soap opera acting. This was a real theater performance.

  Then the first song began. It was a duet with him and Sancho Panza, who was played by a chubby guy who looked familiar.

  I kept listening and all I could think was, Wow!

  Chase had a GREAT voice! Where the hell has it been? I pushed STOP after his big note and thought about what I could do. Show this DVD to the entire company to prove that he had talent? But even if I did, what would it matter? Chase would still give a horrible performance. The question again is why? All the people posting on BroadwayBitchery.com were saying it was because he was a TV actor and therefore had no idea how to perform onstage, but this DVD proved that theory wrong. Tomorrow afternoon was the rest of the Thousand-Watt Smile tech and then tomorrow night Chase would be thrown to the wolves at the Gypsy run-through. I’ve read that a Broadway show has a few weeks of previews where it’s performed for a paying audience but reviewers don’t come until right before opening night. So, yes, the show wouldn’t be officially reviewed for a while, but I think the result of tomorrow night’s performance could be worse than a bad opening night review. The audience will not only be filled with fellow Broadway actors, but also with showbiz fans who got themselves an invitation and are just dying to post their opinion on every Internet gossip site. Sadly, those gossip sites are read a lot more than regular theater reviews. People magazine wouldn’t necessarily do a piece on a Broadway show, but if it’s being mentioned on all the hot Internet celebrity sites, it then becomes news. And what person is going to buy tickets to a show that everyone is saying has the worst performance ever seen on Broadway? The devastating word of mouth that will start this week could have the power to close the show before it even opens!

  I have to do something before Chase ruins everything.

  I woke up after 9:00 a.m. on top of my blanket, still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. I must have fallen asleep watching the DVD for the third time. I checked my phone and saw a text from Spencer asking me to call him right away. I had no interest in calling him back just to hear him ask, How could you act so crazy in front of Scotty? I didn’t need to be reprimanded when I was dealing with the pressure of trying to save an entire Broadway show! I changed my shirt, put some de-Jewfro product in my hair, and left the apartment without waking Grandma Sally. I hoped the cold air would help me think of a plan. Within two blocks I was starving and immediately went to Zabar’s for a muffin and coffee. Before I walked in, I checked to see if I had enough money. I reached for my wallet in my pants and when I took it out, all these business cards fell to the sidewalk. Oh no! I was supposed to scan them for Chase, but I forgot because I was so distracted last night from the Phantom’s DVD. I started picking them up and suddenly stopped and stared at one. It was for Upper West Side Realty and it featured a picture of Howard Brennan wearing a suit and a friendly smile. A smile with a mustache over it.

  A red mustache.

  And an entirely red head of hair.

  What the—?

  I took out my phone and compared photos.

  Yes! It was the same guy who was walking around with Hubert that day I followed him!

  I guess that wasn’t necessarily significant because they could be friends.

  Wait…that statement is based on the premise that Hubert has friends. There’s no way that’s true, so I’m sure their stroll together is an important piece of the puzzle.

  I had to make a bold move. I dialed the number on the business card.

  Ugh! It went right to voice mail. I was about to hang up when I heard his recorded voice suggest calling his cell phone if it was an emergency. I immediately dialed the cell number because it was an emergency. Chase’s career was on the line!

  “Hello? This is Howard,” I heard after the third ring. There was lots of noise behind him. He was obviously walking in the street.

  “Hi,” I said. Then what? I hadn’t really planned out what my scheme was. “Uh…this is…” A car honked. “Mr. Honky.” Oh no! “Mr. Car…son Honky. Call me Carson.”

  “OK…,” he said.

  “I’m working for Chase Hudson. And Hubert.” What was his last name? I had no idea. I faked a laugh. “Good ol’ Hubert.”

  “Yes?” he asked. “I’m about to go into the office. Can this wait until—”

  “I’m sorry, it can’t,” I said quickly.

  “Is it about the new apartment?” he asked.

  “The Dakota?” I asked. That was hardly new. They’d been there for months.

  “No,” Howard said, already sounding annoyed. “The one Hubert just started renting.”

  Now it was getting interesting.

  “Yes. Yes, it is,” I answered.

  “Hubert told me he was all moved in. Has there been a problem?”

  “No…uh…not necessarily,” I said, stalling. What did I want?

  “Please don’t tell me Hubert changed his mind. The lease is signed,” Howard said. “Pardon me, but he’s going to drive me crazy. I’ve never shown a client that many apartments.”

  “That’s what I’m calling about,” I said, trying to think through what I needed to find out. “He would like to have…you know, for his records, a list of the apartments you showed him.”

  “OK. I have that at the office.”

  “And actually, I have his calendar here. Let me just confirm some things. You started showing him apartments on…”

  “Monday. Two weeks ago,” he answered.

  Aha! When I started interning! Coincidence? I don’t think s
o!

  “Right. On Monday and…”

  “Every day after that.”

  “That’s a lot of days,” I remarked.

  “Tell me about it. You know Hubert.” He laughed a little. Not a Hubert is so much fun laugh but a Hubert is so incredibly annoying laugh. “He went from wanting a Victorian house in Westchester, to looking at Tudors on Long Island. Finally he insisted on an Upper West Side apartment but didn’t like anything I showed him.”

  “Right, he told me that,” I lied. “But then he really liked the one you showed him on…”

  “Wednesday afternoon,” Howard said, finishing my sentence.

  I was leaving blanks at the end of my sentences, knowing that Howard was one of those New Yorkers who has no time for slow talkers.

  “That’s the one on…”

  “Eighty-Second Street.”

  “And he signed the lease on…”

  “Thursday morning.”

  “Yep. I have all that information.” Meaning, I now have all that information.

  “So, what’s the problem? Did his stuff arrive?”

  “Uh…” What do I say? Yes? No? I hesitated and Howard explained.

  “He told me he had someone shopping for new furniture that whole time. Was it delivered?”

  “Oh, that stuff.” I decided to assume it worked out. “Yes, the delivery was fine. It happened on…”

  When did it happen? I hoped he would give me the info.

  “Hello?” He sounded annoyed. “Do we have a bad connection?”

  I better say something. “The delivery happened like it was supposed to.”

  “Friday?”

  Phew. “Exactly.”

  “So what’s the problem? I got him the keys right away because he told me he’d have an assistant there to supervise delivery. Did the keys work?”

  “Yes. They fit right into those locks.” Too specific. “Or lock. I can’t remember. That’s not the issue, though. It’s…” I trailed off, hoping he’d come up with something else.

  “Yes?”

  I guess the well had dried up.

  “Oops,” I said, “that’s him beeping in. Gotta go! Thanks!” I hung up and stood in front of Zabar’s, thinking about what I just learned.

  First of all, Hubert had been apartment hunting for two weeks. And he apparently had someone shopping for him while he was doing it.

  Wait a minute. I was the one shopping for him! Of course! I was constantly sending Hubert color swatches as well as taking photos of ottomans and leather sleeper sofas and expensive lamps for his new place! He claimed Chase was redecorating. Ha! Chase wasn’t redecorating. Hubert was…what’s the opposite of redecorating? I guess decorating.

  But why? Are he and Chase planning on moving? Why would Hubert move in before Chase? And why wouldn’t Chase mention it to me?

  The answer is clear. Hubert got this apartment for himself and Chase has no idea.

  But what Hubert doesn’t know is that I have the address! I’m sure it’s the one he texted me when he wanted me to wait for his “friend’s stuff” to get delivered. I was the assistant who was going to be there on Friday. But when Chase foiled his plans by having me come to the theater, Hubert had to fake a trip to Kansas so he’d be there for the moving men.

  I was off to Eighty-Second Street.

  But first I had to get what I came for.

  I downed two cups of delicious Zabar’s coffee (so much cheaper than Starbucks!) and a yummy blueberry muffin (with butter) and went right to Hubert’s new apartment. I was on to him and couldn’t wait to tell him.

  I giggled, imagining what his face would look like when he opened his apartment door and saw me standing there. Shock? Devastation? Defeat? I was so looking forward to spelling out everything I knew that he thought he’d been covering up so well. As I stormed over, I heard Spencer’s voice come in loud and clear.

  Shouldn’t you take a moment and come up with a specific plan?

  Typical. Always trying to stop me right when I was excited about doing something. Well, not literally trying to stop me, but always trying to make me “think things through.” Well, there was one advantage to no longer talking to Spencer all the time; he couldn’t hold me back when I was raring to go!

  I approached Hubert’s building, which was a beautifully restored brownstone and found the buzzer for 5R.

  Dare I buzz? What if I was wrong and Hubert didn’t live here? I looked closer and saw that right next to the buzzer was a handwritten label:

  Hubert

  Mykos

  Found it!

  I pushed the buzzer and soon heard his distinctive, annoying, and unfriendly voice. “Who is it?”

  Uh-oh. Who was it?

  “Delivery,” I said. That seemed the most logical.

  There was a pause. “From where?”

  “Uh…” I then garbled a name that sounded like West Elm with Pottery Barn and a smattering of Crate and Barrel. I guess it worked because he buzzed me in.

  I took the elevator up to the fifth floor, walked up to his door, rang the bell, and stood back, excited to see his expression when he realized that I’d tracked him down.

  I heard footsteps approaching and then I heard him call something out from behind the door. “One minute, Justin.”

  What the—?

  The door opened and I didn’t get any of the facial expressions from him I had so anticipated. He simply commanded, “Close the door behind you,” as he walked back into his living room.

  “But,” I muttered as I closed the door, “how did you know it was me?”

  “I saw you on the video monitor when you rang. What do you want?” he asked, sounding bored. “I have to unpack.”

  Where was the panic? Where was the sputtering? Argh! I had to gain back the upper hand.

  Not surprisingly, I saw all the things I had shopped for this week placed tastefully all around the room: the Jonathan Adler carpet, the Room and Board love seat, the Crate and Barrel media center. And I’m sure the bathroom had the two-hundred-thread-count bamboo towels, the modular wastepaper basket based on a design by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the teal-colored super-absorbent bath mat that were all bought under the guise of being destined for Chase’s dressing room.

  I was completely irritated by Hubert’s calm demeanor and couldn’t wait for it to turn into panic mixed with begging for leniency.

  “Well, Hubert,” I began, clasping my hands behind my back and taking long strides around the still-unpacked boxes everywhere. “I thought you’d be interested in knowing that everything you tried to keep secret has been figured out”—I whirled around—“by me!” He didn’t look up. Rude.

  I started listing everything. “I know you asked me to intern these two weeks so you’d be free to look at apartments. I know this is your apartment and it doesn’t belong to your so-called friend.” He was now scraping a price tag off a paperweight. Annoying. What did I need to reveal to get the “How did you know?!” moment I so craved. I kept going.

  “I also know you planned on me being here on Friday to help unpack for your ‘friend’ until Chase ruined your plans and I was called to the theater.” Nothing. Well, there was more. “I therefore know that’s why you pretended to go to Kansas…so you’d be free to unpack all weekend and settle in.”

  “Right,” Hubert calmly said while taking bubble wrap off a beautiful green vase. “Do you also know that Big Noise Media was forced to close?”

  Where was he going with that? “Yeah…”

  “Perhaps they could have stayed afloat if they had more help these last two weeks. But they didn’t.” He stopped unwrapping the vase to look at me directly. “Because you lied about your grandmother.”

  That again?

  “What’s your point, Hubert? Everything you did is ten times worse. I don’t even know the people at Big Noise. You’re lying to your boyfriend.”

  He continued like I hadn’t said anything. “And you lied about a school assignment. That would mean you’d automatical
ly get no credit, I would think. And, even if not, I would think you wouldn’t want your friends or your parents to know that you lied about a death just to help yourself.”

  I guess he had a point. A devastating, no-way-out point. “So…”

  He went back to the bubble wrap. “So, everything you’re saying is true.”

  Aha!

  “But who cares?”

  A-huh?

  “Nothing I did is illegal. And if you tell anyone anything, I’ll tell everyone how you selfishly exploited the death of your grandmother just to help yourself.”

  Selfish. That’s what Spencer called me at Starbucks.

  “You did whatever you could to get what you wanted.”

  You’ll do anything to get what you want. Becky’s words echoed in my head.

  I didn’t want to think about that. Especially now that we were all finally friends again. I couldn’t ever let them know how true their words were.

  Hubert went back to ignoring me, taking the vase he unwrapped and putting it on the windowsill. It was the perfect place because when the sun hit it, the green glass sparkled.

  I had no more ammunition to make Hubert keep his trap shut.

  Argh! This was all Spencer’s fault! Because we’re not speaking to each other as often as we used to, he didn’t prevent me from coming here and revealing everything I knew to Hubert.

  Hubert moved the vase a little to the right and then turned around. “Are you done, Justin?”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Yes, I am.”

  I didn’t walk out with my tail between my legs, but that’s only because I don’t have one.

  What was I thinking? Hubert warned me last week that he’d reveal my lie to everyone if I ever said anything bad about him.

  I left his brownstone and headed down Eighty-Second Street toward Broadway. My cell phone rang.

  Spencer!

  Now he wants to warn me not to go to Hubert’s apartment? Too little, too late. I pushed the IGNORE button so it would go straight to voice mail.