The Fat Lady Sings

by Lovett, Charlie

  “But it’s only one point,” I say.

  “I know it’s only one point,” says Mr. Donahue. “I’m a math teacher. I can subtract.”

  Great, just what I need right now — a comedian.

  “Listen,” he says, “I’ll write you the note tomorrow if you’ll agree to work with a tutor — every day during study hall.”

  “Fine,” I say, “but I thought you had a class during my study hall.”

  “I do have a class. I’m not talking about me. I’ve asked one of your classmates, and she’s agreed to help you out.”

  “Who,” I say, as I feel a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck. And I see his mouth form the words even before I hear them.

  “Cynthia Pirelli.”

  “Isn’t there anybody else?” I plead.

  “Cynthia is the teacher’s assistant for this class,” he says.

  Of course, I think. Cynthia would find a way to get an extra half credit. “But I thought assistants were just supposed to help grade tests and clean off the board and stuff,” I say.

  “They also assist with tutoring, and Cynthia’s agreed to give up her study hall to help you. You should be honored.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say, “I feel like I just won the freakin’ Oscar.”

  “Agatha, this is serious. You are in trouble. One of your friends has offered to help you out. You should be grateful.”

  “She’s not my friend,” I say, more violently than I mean to.

  “Then I guess we have nothing more to discuss,” says Mr. Donahue, turning back to his desk like there’s something real important he needs to do.

  I stand there burning with anger for at least a full minute. How can I choose between giving up the play and enduring the company of Cynthia Pirelli for an hour every day? Then I think about Cameron and Elliot and Suzanne and Melissa Parsons, and all the other people who are rehearsing my play every night while I’m stuck at home doing math. I want to be there with them so much it’s making me physically ache. And so I make a sacrifice for my art that’s way bigger than eating those awful pimento cheese sandwiches with iced tea.

  “OK,” I say to Mr. Donahue’s back. “I’ll do it.”

  As soon as I’m out of the building I call Cameron to commiserate (we have this stupid rule about no cell phone use in the school). It goes straight to voicemail, which means something is up, because he never turns off his phone. Elliot and Suzanne are both at Hello, Dolly! rehearsal — Suzanne agreed to consult with the light crew so she would know exactly what equipment is and isn’t being used — so I can’t call either of them. So I decide to go to Dad’s (where I’m still staying because of Mom’s mysterious “trip”) and talk to Karl, who at least knows the whole sordid history of me and Cynthia Pirelli after Saturday night’s confession session. He’s working at the hospital tonight, so he’ll be home all afternoon.

  Luckily I’m walking home a half hour after classes have let out, but well before sports practices are over, so the journey is free of wolf whistles. I do my best not to think about Cynthia Pirelli and instead to concentrate on the fact that this time tomorrow I’ll be walking home with a note from Mr. Donahue and tomorrow night I’ll be at play practice in the world’s sketchiest rehearsal hall.

  When I get home Cameron’s car is parked outside, which is weird, because he didn’t say anything about coming over. Now that I think about it, though, Cameron’s been acting kind of weird all day. He’s been quiet — which is very strange for him.

  I step inside the front door and there, on the couch in the living room, is Cameron, sitting next to Karl. And it looks like Cameron is crying. And Karl has his hand on Cameron’s shoulder. I’m just about to ask what the hell is going on when Dad grabs me by the elbow — which I hate, I mean, come on, I’m not four — and pulls me into the den, closing the door behind us. Now I’m mad because first of all, my best friend is talking to my — well, my Karl, and I’m not allowed to be a part of it, and second of all, Dad is still holding on to my elbow.

  “What’s going — ” I start, but Dad won’t let me talk and cuts me off with this whisper he usually only uses when he’s within a city block of Mom.

  “Cameron came out to his parents,” he says.

  “Oh my god,” I say. “How did it go?”

  “Not well, I gather,” he says.

  “Then I need to talk to him,” I say, yanking my elbow free. “He needs me.”

  Dad steps in front of the door to stop me from going to Cameron, and that makes me even madder. I’ve gone from being treated like a toddler to being treated like a dog. “He needs to talk to Karl.”

  “But — “

  “He wants to talk to Karl, OK. Just give him a little time.”

  “But Karl doesn’t know Cameron. I know Cameron. He’s my friend. And Karl is my — ” I want to say “confessor” or “counselor,” but even as angry as I am I’m afraid that would hurt Dad, so I just say, “stepfather.”

  “He’s also a gay man — and there are some things he understands better than you.”

  And of course that makes perfect sense and suddenly I don’t have the energy to be mad at Dad any more, I’m just hurt.

  It feels like Cameron and Karl have this special relationship that doesn’t include me, that there is a kind of friend Cameron needs that I can never be. It also feels like I am not the only one who is special to Karl. So now I’m not mad, I’m just hurt — hurt by both of them.

  I decide I have two options here. I can either fall sobbing into Dad’s arms and let him see how much this hurts, in which case he would at least hug me for a few minutes, and some human contact would be nice right now. Or I can toss my hair and smile and say, “Gee, it’s great Cameron has someone to talk to. I’m gonna go upstairs and get started on my homework, Dad — right after I get some milk and cookies,” and then go cry into my pillow for half an hour or so.

  Being a wimp, I opt for the milk and Oreos. Being a stressed out, upset, fat wimp, I take the whole package to my room.

  That night we have emergency movie night. Four of our ten cast members have some stomach bug that’s going around, so Cameron cancelled rehearsal. Karl convinced Dad to let me go even though it’s a school night and I’m still technically grounded, and I can’t decide if he stood up for me because he knows I’m jealous about Cameron or because he thinks Cameron needs me there. Either way, Karl drives me over to Cameron’s and I get there in time to hear the whole sordid tale of how his Mom found a copy of this book on Gay America in his room and he took it as the opportunity to do what he’s been trying to do for the past three years.

  “I just said it,” he says. “I said: ‘Mom, Dad, I’m — gay.’ And that pause before I said the word ‘gay’ was the longest three seconds of my life.”

  Apparently Cameron is now living in his editing studio, because his dad said, “I don’t want you under my roof until you get over this faggot business.” So yeah, Dad was right — it didn’t go too well.

  There is no film tonight. Instead we’re treated to Cameron and His Parents — A Retrospective, performed live. For the first hour or two we just sit and listen to Cameron. Eventually we talk to him, too. At least Elliot and Suzanne talk to Cameron. I’m pretty quiet most of the evening. Under any other circumstances, everyone would be comforting me about the whole Cynthia Pirelli tutoring thing, but nobody’s even asked about my meeting with Mr. Donahue.

  When Cameron’s all talked out, about midnight, we all give him hugs and say goodnight and Elliot offers me a ride home. We get to my house and he turns off the engine and we just sit there for a few minutes. I can tell Elliot is thinking about Cameron — how it sucks that he has to take on so much so early in life. I know I should be thinking about Cameron, too, but I’m still jealous about him and Karl, I’m a little upset that he completely monopolized the conversation for the past four hours, and what I’m really thinking about is the fact that I have to face Cynthia Pirelli at study hall tomorrow and nobody else knows about it. I feel alone
and scared, and because of Cameron’s crisis I feel guilty for feeling alone and scared.

  “So how was your day?” says Elliot, and I feel this flood of relief rushing through me.

  “Do you really want to know?” I say.

  “Sure. I mean, I know Cameron had an epic bad day and all, but I haven’t heard about your meeting with Donahue and — “

  Before he can go any further I lean over and wrap him in a hug — mostly to keep from crying. And then the story flows and I rant and rave about how unfair Donahue is making me study with Cynthia and with every sentence that I spout I feel better and gradually it dawns on me — all evening long, and even this afternoon, Cameron was the center of attention, and usually that’s me. Usually I’m the one with the traumatic problem: Aggie didn’t get the part she wanted, Aggie didn’t get the boy she wanted, Aggie got teased for being fat, Aggie, Aggie, Aggie. Oh my god! Am I one of those awful people who has to be the center of attention all the time? Me, the fat kid who thinks she doesn’t want people to look at her?

  Of course, even while I’m thinking this I’m still going on and on about Cynthia and how much I hate her and Elliot is listening and nodding and putting his hand on my arm and all the things a friend is supposed to do, but is he also thinking, “How much longer is she going to rattle on about this?” Finally I stop talking and Elliot reaches out and takes my hand. I like that. I like that we can sit in the car and hold hands in the middle of the night and he doesn’t take it the wrong way — like it’s romantic or something.

  “Do I have a pathological need to be the center of attention?” I say.

  “Aggie, you’re an actress. If you didn’t draw attention to yourself you wouldn’t be very good.”

  “You ducked the question,” I say.

  “Well then, no,” he says. “Not pathological. Sure you’re a little dramatic sometimes, but hell, aren’t we all?”

  “Am I being a little dramatic about Cynthia?” I say.

  “Maybe a little,” he says, “but I can’t say I blame you. I mean having her tutor you every day — look up ‘awkward’ in the dictionary and there’s a picture of that.”

  For the first time all day I laugh, and that feels good.

  After that we sit and talk about nothing for a few minutes. God, I love that. No drama, no trauma, no Cynthia, no Cameron, just leaning back in the seat with the moonlight streaming into the car and talking about nothing. It’s the most relaxed I’ve been in ages. Eventually we’re quiet again and I start to think that maybe I was a little selfish about Karl and Cameron. It did hurt, but sitting here so peacefully with Elliot, it seems somehow less important.

  I look at the clock and it’s almost one, so I figure I’d better get some sleep if I’m going to face tomorrow. I lean over and give Elliot a peck on the cheek — kind of sad that the closest the fat girl has ever come to making out in a car on a moonlit night is a goodnight kiss on the cheek of a platonic friend, but still it’s nice. “See you tomorrow,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Elliot, and he gives my hand a final squeeze before he lets go.

  In bed, I try to concentrate on that feeling of peace I had sitting there talking about nothing, and for the first time in almost a week, I go right to sleep.

  Scene 2

  Have you ever noticed that if you’re dreading a certain class period the other classes just fly by? That’s the way it is the next day — chemistry, history, calculus — like watching the landscape from a high speed train (not that I’ve ever been on a train, but I’m guessing). And suddenly it’s study hall — time to meet Cynthia Pirelli in a nice quiet corner of the library and begin my first torture session. If I could reveal secrets about national security to get out of this, I absolutely would. “I don’t want to talk about the show,” I say as I drop my books onto the table.

  “OK,” says Cynthia, meekly. I think she’s actually afraid of me. I mean, she ought to be — if it did come down to a fight, I’m definitely in a different weight class. Super heavyweight versus silicon: I’d say that’s no contest.

  “The only thing is — ” she says.

  “I don’t want to talk about the show,” I say. “Either one of them.”

  And so we don’t talk about anything except math, and the whole time I’m trying to work up some really intense hatred for Cynthia — you know, the kind of hatred that starts way down in your gut and just gradually bubbles up to the surface like those boiling mud pots? The problem is, she’s really helping — I mean, really helping. She just explains this stuff better than Mr. Donahue does.

  And so even though I want to despise her, I just can’t muster the hatred. Instead of boiling mud, my gut is more like warm milk and cookies, because all the stress I’ve been feeling about math (and let’s face it, about how horrible it will be to study with Cynthia) is fading away. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not nice to her or anything. I’m as snippy as I can be, and I take every opportunity to slam a book shut or rip a page violently out of my notebook. But my heart’s not really in it.

  After study hall, during English, when Cynthia is in a different class, then I can hate her with my usual white-hot passion, and it makes me mad that I can’t seem to summon up that loathing when she’s actually in the room.

  OK, studying math with Cynthia may have been a weird sort of torture — not as bad as I thought it would be, but still super awkward — but even genuine thumb screws, feet-in-thefire, put-me-on-the-rack torture would have been worth the experience of rehearsal tonight. Cameron doesn’t tell me that everyone has already been memorizing lines, and so after he gives us the blocking for the first couple of scenes he tells us to run them and — oh, my god. People know their lines and have been working on characters and suddenly this play that I wrote, this inert thing that was nothing more than ink on paper, is ALIVE.

  People who existed only in my imagination are real. I have a hard time staying in character because the whole time I want to laugh and cry all at the same time. Now maybe I’m a control freak and maybe I’m not, it depends on who you ask — but if I were a control freak — well, being in a room where everyone you are interacting with was created by you and says exactly what you programmed them to say — it’s nirvana!

  Elliot is driving me home, and I’m trying to explain all this to him — how when you’ve been the fat kid that nobody listens to for most of your life, having a room full of people inhabiting characters you created and saying words you wrote is — well, it’s life-changing.

  “I think I understand how addicts feel,” I say to Elliot. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to have this high everyday?”

  “So you’re addicted to playwriting?” says Elliot.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I just might be.”

  OK, so are you ever going along in life and you think you know where you’re headed or you’re concentrating on one thing and all of a sudden — WHAM — something comes along that just totally knocks you off course? I mean, not like murder or anything, just something you totally didn’t see coming.

  It’s like when you’re doing a play, you know what each scene is about. Well, I thought this scene in my life was about becoming a playwright and playing the lead in my own creation and surviving math with Cynthia Pirelli. Then we pull up outside Dad’s house, and Mom’s car is parked there.

  Dad meets me outside — outside! I mean, at first I think somebody died or something, but he informs me that Mom is here to pick me up, and apparently she’s not been lying in a ditch or living with some weirdo for the past month, she’s been at some clinic drying out. I had just assumed she had run off and Dad and Karl weren’t telling me — that’s happened before, once for almost six months. But now suddenly we’re like the world’s most awkward family. Mom is sitting all meekly on the couch drinking ginger ale and done up like some perfect housewife and Karl is fawning over her like she’s Barbara Streisand or Liza Minelli or something. And to make up for lost time, I now get to spend two weeks with her — oh, joy!

  “Aggie,
” says Karl. “You’re mother has something she’d like to say to you.”

  I drop my book bag on the floor, pretty much awestruck by the world’s most bizarre domestic scene, wondering what could possibly be coming next.

  “I want to apologize to you, dear,” says Mom. And she’s not slurring her words or talking unnaturally loudly like she usually does.

  And then I realize where I’ve seen this picture before — Nick at Night. Karl and my Mom look just like Mike and Carol Brady getting ready to teach the kids some important lesson.

  “Apologize for what?” I say, and for once I’m not snide to her. I genuinely want to know.

  “For all the times I wasn’t there when you needed me, all the times I went out drinking when I should have been with you, for everything.”

  This is bad dialogue, I think — like something from my first draft. I could write much better.

  She’s crying now — not sobbing, but there are tears sliding down her cheeks and bringing about a ton of eye makeup with them.

  “Look, I really have to get some homework done,” I say, because what else can I say? I mean, touchy-feely emotional stuff with my mom? If it were Elliot or Cameron or Suzanne I could handle it. Hell, if it were Elphaba I could handle it. But having to deal with my mom in an emotional state and sober — it kind of turns my stomach, to be honest.

  “I’d like to make up for some of that lost time,” says Mom.

  “Giving me a ride to your place and letting me get to work on my English paper would be a start,” I say. I mean, what does she want? Does she think she really is Mrs. Brady? That she can suddenly become a mother after eighteen years? Like in my last six months at home she’s going to do all her parenting?

  “OK,” she says. And she stands up and gives me this hug — and she is not a hugger. She wraps me in this hug and I’m standing there feeling like the definition of awkward and Karl shoots me this look that says “if you don’t hug her back I will post chubby toddler pictures of you on Facebook,” and so I put my arms around her and she starts shaking with sobs and of course the only thing I can think is — she really needs a drink.