Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters

by Meredith Zeitlin

  Great. Having a bunch of my parents’ friends see me portraying the thrilling role of Lazar Wolf the Butcher in a musical where everyone speaks the lyrics should be just the right mix of humiliation and trauma to help me solidify the memory forever. I won’t even need a cast picture.

  “… and of course we’ll include Jed!” my mother finishes with a grand flourish.

  “Jed?” I ask. “Who the heck is Jed?”

  “Duuuuh,” Travis says, her mouth full of broccoli. “Jed is my agent.”

  “Agent?”

  “Yes.” My mother beams. “Travis is going to start trying out for commercials!”

  “What? Since when?”

  “Well, Kelsey, if you would stop locking yourself in your room and talking to your friends on the computer all night—what you could possibly have to say to them after seeing them all day, I can’t even fathom—you would know what’s going on around here!” My mother mouths “Typical Adolescent Behavior” at my dad. (Apparently Typical Adolescents don’t notice things like that, even when they are occurring six inches away.) Mom turns back to me. “Travis went with her friend Jessica to a commercial audition last week and just loved it, so we got her all set up with Jed. And he is no small potatoes according to Elaine Rabinowitz, who would know.”

  Oh, of course. Elaine Rabinowitz. Whoever that is.

  “So, why shouldn’t Jed come see your show?” Mom continues. “He’ll love it! Two talents in one family? He’ll fall all over himself!”

  Uh, hello? Has everyone here lost their minds completely? I can’t have some Hollywood agent at my school play—especially when there is no chance he will do any falling all over himself. Maybe crying. But no falling, for sure.

  “Um, I think this is approximately the worst idea in history, Mom,” I tell her as patiently as possible. “For one thing, the play kind of sucks. And for another—”

  “Come on, Kels, don’t be a downer! We’re all excited about the big show.” My dad looks up from the brief he’s dripping sauce on to participate. “Hey, maybe you girls can do a TV show together! That’d pay for college, huh?”

  “And don’t say ‘sucks,’ honey—it’s common,” Mom adds pointedly.

  “Guys, you know I’m playing a butcher, right?”

  Mom sighs with exasperation. “Oh, Kelsey, you’re exaggerating. End of story, everyone is coming, and you’ll be terrific.”

  I don’t know how you “exaggerate” being a butcher, but I guess I should be grateful for a taste of familial support, finally. And yet, only thoughts of future embarrassment come to mind.

  “Mom—”

  “What, Kels? Do you want to try out for commercials, too?”

  Travis snorts milk through her nose. Very nice.

  “Yeah, no, thanks. Okay, well, I have a lot of homework to do, so … yeah. Can I be excused?”

  I clear my plate and dash to my room, where I discover that Nancy the Cat has puked up a hairball in the middle of my bed. Dear God, how I wish I had my own apartment. I swiftly ball all my covers together and throw them on the floor in Travis’s room. Her cat, her hairball, I say. Blech.

  I get out my books to finish the homework I didn’t get through during today’s riveting rehearsal. The newspaper with Lexi’s story is tucked inside my math notebook, and I put that on top of the pile—I should definitely digest before diving into homework. I also want to call Lexi and tell her how psyched I am that her article is in the new edition.

  I dial Lexi on my cell, flicking through the newspaper while the phone rings. What was that guy talking about? There’s an article about the school’s carbon footprint. Maybe he thinks I look like an avid recycler?

  “Hey, Lex,” I say when she picks up. “I just wanted to tell you … that I saw your article in the new Reflector! I’m so proud of you!”

  “Thanks!” she exclaims. “Wait—how’d you get it? The paper doesn’t come out until the end of the week.”

  “Yeah, I know. Remember that guy, the one we met that day in the office?”

  “Um, yeah, of course! The flirty one.”

  “He is not flirty, Lex. He is smarmy. There’s a difference.”

  “Ben is his name, I think,” she goes on, ignoring me. “I haven’t seen him since that day, actually, but I asked around for you. He’s a junior …,” she trails off teasingly.

  “Well, that’s nice,” I say, not taking the bait. “Anyway, he was randomly at play rehearsal today and he gave me a copy.”

  “Well, see? That’s flirty! I bet he likes you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, he’s totally obsessed with me. First of all, I think he has a girlfriend named Val something—”

  “What? How do you know that?”

  “And secondly, he thinks I am a crazy person who smashes her own limbs on desks and yells a lot.”

  “Well, that part is true. But maybe he’s into that.” She giggles. “Now, how did you find out about the girlfr—”

  “And anyway,” I cut her off, not wanting to talk about Ben’s girlfriend, since that has nothing to do with me, “he said there’s something else in here that I would want to see, but I think he was just—” I flip to the back of the paper, which is the last page of the sports section.

  Oh my God.

  “Kels?” Lexi says after a few seconds of silence. “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “Lex, I have to go. I’ll call you back.”

  I am staring, yet again, at a picture of myself in the school paper. This one is a full-on face shot, middle of the page, resplendent with a “Kelsey Finkelstein, freshman” label. No photo credit, of course.

  The shot accompanies an article about the sports awards assembly and a list of all the winners. You’d think they’d have used a picture of, say, the football MVP or something. But no. The picture shows me accepting my Unsung Hero Award from Julie, smiling my face off with surprise and joy. I guess it wouldn’t be such a bad picture—it might even be a good picture—if it weren’t for one tiny thing. Which is …

  I am missing half a tooth! All that lip-clamping to make sure no one saw … and now every person in the entire school is going to have a picture of it!

  Deep breaths. Damage control. Lexi is on the paper. Maybe she can help? I call her back.

  “So, how hard would it be to change something in the paper? I mean, this new issue your article is in.”

  “Uh … I have no idea. But if it’s been printed up already, I doubt they can. Why, what happened?”

  “What about Kate Izzo? Couldn’t she do something? I mean, she’s supposed to be in charge!”

  “Um … I don’t know, I mean … I’ve only met her for, like, five seconds. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Lexi sounds really worried.

  “Yeah, just … humiliated. Again. You’ll see.”

  I hang up with her and flop onto my coverless bed. I’ve been so good about not bursting into tears since the Scarves concert—even when I got cast as Lazar Wolf!—but I can feel them brewing now.

  This is so silly. It’s just a picture. Woman up, Finkelstein! But I just don’t understand why that Ben guy would want to purposely make me feel like crap. Or Kate the Editor, or whoever these clowns are doing amateur photography, for that matter—I don’t even know them! Or do I? What if there’s someone with a grudge against me (Julie? Danny Zifner? Cassidy?) running around school with a digital camera, gleefully plotting ways to make me look idiotic? And why doesn’t the paper have a photography budget anyway? We have three different gym teachers and a separate theater building, for God’s sake! There’s a vegetarian menu in the cafeteria and ergonomic desk chairs in the classrooms. And they can’t afford a couple of cameras that only qualified people without grudges against me are allowed to use?!

  This stinks.

  The next morning, I contemplate storming the Reflector office again, but decide against it. After all, it didn’t do much good the last time. Maybe I only exacerbated the situation and should try a new tactic, like wearing a bag over my head at all times
to avoid future photographic appearances.

  Em and JoJo meet me at my locker and I show them the picture. Em shakes her head sympathetically, and JoJo doesn’t even laugh once, which I know is a struggle. She is a truly good friend, I tell you.

  At least I know the storm is coming this time so I can prepare to be a laughingstock on the day the issue comes out. Who really cares about the school paper, anyway, right? Maybe there will be a surprise volcanic eruption that day and people will be too busy running for their lives to read anything at all.

  It could happen.

  At rehearsal, our brave director announces he’s been creatively inspired and wants to add a sort of performance art element to the big dream scene where Tevye lies to Golde about how his grandmother doesn’t want their eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to marry Lazar Wolf.

  Although I don’t really understand why we can’t just stick to the script, this does mean another scene for me to be in, which means I get to do something besides sit in the audience for a change. And I don’t have to learn any lines for it!

  The stage is set up so Tevye and Golde are in a bed (really two chairs next to each other) on one side and I’m in another “bed” with Pearl, the girl who plays my dead wife, Fruma Sarah, on the other. The idea is that while Tevye tells his story to Golde, Fruma Sarah suddenly goes flying out of our bed and into the air, where she hovers above the other bed and yells at Tevye about her pearls and stuff.

  I personally think that Mr. Zinner just wanted to incorporate the flying apparatus left over from a production of Peter Pan from, like, fifteen years ago. Poor Pearl has to gamble her life on some stage-crew kid pulling a rope attached by a wire to a weird green harness she’ll wear under her Fruma Sarah costume. She is terrified. And rightly so.

  All that week, we work on the dream sequence, we start blocking the wedding scene, where I actually have stuff to do as well. Now that I’m finally onstage, I’m feeling much more into being in this play. I like jotting down the stage directions in my script, and I feel pretty good about my lines, too. I am trying to infuse them with personality and flair.

  Of course, I have to talk in a really deep, manly voice, so maybe I’m just infusing everything with idiocy.

  Also, Mr. Mackler finally came to rehearsals and we added the singing to the lyrics at last. I feel like we look about sixty-five percent less absurd now.

  Three more weeks till showtime … oh, and did I mention The Reflector came out on Friday?

  By Wednesday, the fallout from the paper has mostly calmed down. For that I have to thank my friends’ undying love and my personal resolve to ignore any kid who asks me if I can whistle down a taxi for him, which is about half my class. But … it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, I suppose. I mean, it’s not like I got a face tattoo. Or maybe I’m just getting better at dealing with personal disgrace?

  Either way, I haven’t seen Ben the paper guy since that day in rehearsal. I’ll tell you this much: hiding from me is the smartest thing he could do.

  29

  After another week of rehearsing, which consists mostly of Pearl trying not to cry whenever she has to go up in the harness, Ned acting like a buffoon, JoJo sneaking a toy rat into the piano and almost giving Mr. Mackler a heart attack, and so on, Mr. Zinner announces it’s time to start working with lights and costumes.

  Mrs. Graves, the art teacher/costume designer, wheels a giant clothing rack of costumes onto the stage and starts handing stuff out. Now, there are some other girls playing guys in the show, too, like soldiers and men in the wedding scene and stuff, and they all get big hats and gray pants to wear—not so bad. I assume that’s what I’m getting, too, but she doesn’t call my name.

  I’m sitting there thinking, Am I supposed to perform naked? when Mrs. Graves comes up to me, running a pen over her clipboard and clucking her tongue. She finally says, “Ah-ha! Kelsey Finkelstein … Well, I have a special ensemble for you, hon, but we need to do a private fitting. Please come to my office during your lunch period, okay?”

  That doesn’t sound good at all. But what choice do I have?

  At lunch the next day, I quickly scarf down a sandwich and head for the art room to find Mrs. Graves.

  “Um, I’m here for my fitting?”

  Mrs. Graves looks up and smiles. She has coral lipstick smeared on her teeth and is wearing a beige crocheted vest, which doesn’t give me any new confidence in her costume-design abilities. From the back of the room, she drags out a big, moldy-looking box that looks like it hasn’t been opened since the Paleolithic Age. When she opens it, I fully expect a colony of bats to come flying out.

  “Okay, hon,” she says, sifting through the items inside. She hands me what appears to be a very large pillow covered with brownish sweat stains. I hold it up and see it has weird puffy sleeves attached.

  “Uhhhh …”

  “That’s your fat suit, hon. Just put it right on over your undies.” She goes back to digging through the vault of horrors while I stand there gaping at her back. “Go on, hon. No one’s coming in, the door’s locked. Chop chop!”

  Oh my God. A fat suit? A suit of fat? Great. That’s just … great.

  I can’t really see a way out of this, so I strip off my jeans and shirt and yank the thing on like a bathing suit. I check out my reflection in the door of a mirrored wall cabinet; I look like a very fat snowman with a teeny-tiny head.

  I turn back around. Mrs. Graves is now coming toward me with her hands full of things that smell like a basement. “Now, hon, you won’t get the final effect until you’re all finished. No more peeking!” She zips up the back of the fat suit and helps me put on a shirt over it, plus a weird vest with patches, a huge knee-length coat, and a massive pair of men’s pants that are way too long.

  “Now, I only have men’s shoes here, so why don’t you go ahead and wear some plain black sneakers, okay, hon? That’ll be nice and comfortable for you.”

  Oh, yeah. Black sneakers. That’ll look terrific.

  “Um, Mrs. Graves, are you sure there isn’t anything, less, um … I mean, more …”

  “Oh, don’t worry, hon—we’re not done yet!”

  I take some deep breaths. I knew this day would come. What did I expect, a dress? I will just be mature and make the best of things.

  Mrs. Graves rummages around in the bottom drawer of her desk until she holds up something that looks like the tail of a giant squirrel. Is it … ?

  It is.

  It’s a disgusting beard. Does this woman think I’m going to allow her to glue that onto my FACE?!

  She must see my look of horror, because she says, “Be reasonable, hon. You’re a religious Jewish man! You need a beard. And it’s not like you can grow your own, can you?” She chuckles. “We won’t use the spirit gum to attach it today. I’ll just scotch-tape it on you so we can see how it looks. Okay, hon?”

  The true horror of being cast as Lazar Wolf the Repulsive can no longer be denied. What was I thinking, going through with this? How could I have agreed to lurch around on a stage in front of my whole school, wearing a pillow in my giant pants and a skinned rodent on my face?

  After some minor additions to my lovely ensemble (a busted fedora and plastic butcher’s apron. Why?), I’m finally shown to the mirror.

  I look like Pavarotti—if he were grilling at a barbecue. In seventeenth-century Russia.

  I will myself not to cry. Maybe no one will know it’s me.

  30

  “Come ooooooon—it’ll be fun. And you don’t even have to wear a beard!” Lexi exclaims.

  “Very funny,” I grumble, thumbing through a rack of lovely shirts I will never own. I’m with Em and Lexi at Anthropologie on Saturday afternoon. “You guys go. Come find me after and let me know how it was—I’ll be the one in the moldy fat suit rocking back and forth on the floor of my closet.”

  Lexi wants us to go to an upperclassmen party tonight that Robby, the guy she decided to go to winter formal with, invited her to. But since my big costume reveal, I�
��m just too grouchy to go anywhere that involves socializing. I want to sit at home and feel sorry for myself, and that is it. I can’t believe I even got talked into coming out this afternoon … but I’m a sucker for this store, and Em can be very sly when she puts her mind to it.

  “Kels, I’m sure your costume isn’t as bad as you’re making it sound,” Em says. “And besides, we haven’t all gone to a party together since Halloween! How sad is that? There might be cute boys there….”

  I look up from the bracelet I was admiring, surprised. Em hasn’t talked about guys at all since James broke up with her. She’s actually smiling at me, excited by the idea. Oh, man. Am I really going to refuse to do something that would make my very best friend happy after she’s been so sad for months? I’m used to having everything go wrong and being miserable, so I can handle it. Watching Em be depressed is awful.

  Lexi jumps in. “Oh, come on, there will be tons of cute boys there, and not just from our school, either. And you know who will definitely not be there?”

  “Who?” I ask. “Me?”

  “Nooooooo, and nice try,” Lexi continues. “Julie Nelson! The guy who’s having the party hates her. Apparently she hooked up with his best friend’s sister’s boyfriend, like, two years ago and it was a huge scandal.”

  Hold the phone: Someone who hates Julie is having a party, and I’m invited?

  Just tell me when to show up. I’ll bring the cake.

  I spend about a thousand years getting ready, and agree to meet JoJo and Em outside the party at exactly 10:00 P.M. so we can all go in together. (Lexi’s going to come with Robby.)

  My cab pulls up in front of the apartment building and I see JoJo waiting outside. I run up and she gasps, “Thank God—it is freezing out here! And it’s the end of March, WTF?!” Her hair streaks are bright green now and she’s only wearing one glove—she probably lost the other one somewhere.

  We’ve just decided to go wait in the lobby to avoid frostbite when Em’s cab pulls up.

  Em gets out … followed by Ms. Cassidy Gayle Rosenblum.