My Life

by Maryrose Wood

  Mrs. Nebbling put her hand on Philip’s, which now bore traces of Mrs. Butterworth’s. “Mark told me everything, and I want you to know that I love and accept you exactly the way you are.”

  “Mark is an idiot,” Philip mumbled through his food.

  “Philip, honey.” Mrs. Nebbling patted his sticky hand. “Mark told me that you’re gay.”

  Emily had never seen her mother so happy.

  “A whole season of Matthew Broderick!” Mrs. Pearl squealed. “Oh, Emily! We have to get tickets!”

  What?

  Emily had come downstairs Tuesday morning prepared to smile, to joke, to put on a Tony-worthy performance of acting normal even though her broken heart was imploding like a dying sun, turning its own mass in on itself, collapsing at unfathomable speeds until nothing was left but a black, black, Aurora-less hole—but she had no audience.

  Mrs. Pearl was completely engrossed in the Tuesday arts section of the paper. “Listen to this, Em! ‘Broadway’s “Sure Thing” Arrives At Last’! See? It’s in the Times.” Mrs. Pearl pushed the newspaper toward her.

  Broadway’s “Sure Thing” Arrives At Last

  New York—Legendary producer and theatre owner Stevie Stephenson has ended the rumors sweeping theatrical circles in recent days by announcing a full season of plays, musicals and dramatic readings at the Rialto Theatre. In an unprecedented casting coup, all programming to be presented at the Rialto will costar Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.

  “Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick! From The Producers!” Mrs. Pearl exclaimed. “They are so funny!”

  Plays under consideration for the so-called “Lanerick Rep” include Beckett’s existential laugh-fest Waiting for Godot, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (with Lane as the treasonous Brutus and Broderick as Cleopatra’s boy toy, Marc Antony), and gender-bending versions of I Do! I Do!, Driving Miss Daisy and Antigone (with Lane as King Creon and Broderick as the spunky heroine of the title). “Classic, contemporary, drama, comedy—it doesn’t matter,” announced Stephenson at a press conference held at Sardi’s restaurant. “You can put those two in anything and it’ll be a hit!”

  Theatre pundits share Stephenson’s confidence. “There’s no sure thing in show business,” says noted theatre critic John Simon, “except Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Producing a show, any show, with those two in it—it’s like printing [expletive] money.”

  Matthew Broderick? Wasn’t he married to Sarah Jessica Parker from Sex and the City? Emily’s heart started to race. The letters on the page swam and circled in front of her eyes. For this she would lose Aurora? For the (expletive) money-printing Lanerick Rep?

  “The Rialto,” said Mrs. Pearl. “Isn’t that where that show you like is playing? Aurora? Oh, I hope this doesn’t mean it’s closing!”

  Not surprisingly, the New York Times was slightly better informed than Mrs. Pearl.

  The theatre’s current tenant, Tony winner Aurora, will be vacating the Rialto at the end of next week despite vehement protests from its fans. When asked if Aurora might be moved to another theatre, Stephenson answered in the negative. “Have you seen it?” he asked one reporter. “The ugliest costumes on Broadway, and I should know! I paid for them!”

  “Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick,” sighed Mrs. Pearl, her hand over her heart. “In Antigone! Who would guess? Did you see a bunch of college catalogs arrived for you? I put them on the dining room table. College! I can’t believe it’s here already. . . .”

  Oh my God, thought Emily. The unspent two thousand dollars was still jammed inside a bedroom slipper in the back of her closet. She needed to put it back. Maybe Grandma Rose hadn’t even seen the note in her underwear drawer yet; that would be best of all.

  “Is Grandma up?” Emily asked.

  “Not yet. She came in late last night and wouldn’t say where she’d been. It’s almost like having two teenagers in the house!” Mrs. Pearl glanced at the clock. “Come on, I’ll drive you to school. I can’t believe those awful kids took your bike.”

  16

  “ROSE’S TURN”

  Gypsy

  1959. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim,

  book by Arthur Laurents

  The official notice went up the next day. Aurora was closing, and Emily and Philip had no choice at all but to go about their lives. They went to school. They went home. They made a solemn pact to avoid the Broadway message boards and chat rooms because the people who were posting were the ones who’d gotten tickets, and it was just too painful to realize the show was going on without them. (Emily wondered briefly if SAVEME was among those lucky few—but a pact was a pact, and she forced herself to put those thoughts aside.)

  They went to each other’s houses and listened to the Aurora CD together. For a while they concocted elaborate schemes that would, theoretically, allow them to see one last performance—they would disguise themselves as ushers, or sneak backstage through the stage door when the doorman wasn’t looking, or ambush Marlena Ortiz after the show and beg like their lives depended on it—but soon they ran out of steam.

  If I were Dolly Levi from Hello, Dolly!, Emily thought, I’d be able to charm the stagehands into letting me see the show from the wings. If I were Auntie Mame, I would lead the cast and audience in a curtain-call parade down Broadway.

  If I were Sweeney Todd, Philip thought, I’d slash throats until somebody coughed up a pair of decent seats in the front mezzanine. (Philip’s imagination had grown a little bloodthirsty lately, probably because he was so angry at Mark.)

  It was no good. Noble sacrifices, last-minute redemptions, outlandish coincidences, and madcap risky schemes that made your wildest dreams come true—these things only happened in musicals.

  On Thursday they received an e-mail from Ian:

  Mes amis,

  Exhaustion! Am in full-time rehearsals for this “infernal” show (that’s a hint, but no, Philip, it’s not Damn Yankees! And don’t try to guess because even YOU don’t know it, it’s some newly minted piece of hoo-hah our director brought in and let me tell you it SUCKS).

  Tragic what’s happened with Aurora. La Divina Stephanie pretends to be distraught but has callbacks up the wazoo, so shed not a tear.

  Miss seeing you both on Saturdays. Maybe you’ll come to my show next week? If so, wear thigh-high boots so you can wade through the pretension.

  Avec kisses,

  I.

  On Friday Mr. Henderson gave Emily a D on her persuasive essay. “I fail to see,” he wrote in neat red script on the bottom, “how the fact that capital punishment does not act as a deterrent to crime inevitably leads to the conclusion that dogs make better pets than cats. Kudos for finding fresh material, though!”

  Grandma Rose had been strangely distracted all week, and when Emily gave her back the money she looked like she was about to say something of huge importance and then changed her mind. But she expressed real sympathy when Emily told her Aurora was closing. “Goodbye, Charlie,” Grandma Rose said, nodding. “I know how it feels.”

  Tuesday. Seven performances left.

  “Darling! You remember my boyfriend, Stan, don’t you?”

  Grandma Rose had invited Emily and Philip out for egg creams at the coffee shop on Lakeview Avenue after school. Emily appreciated the gesture, but she was beyond cheering up. They went, though. Grandma Rose had been so incredibly nice about everything all along, and who didn’t like egg creams? But Emily hadn’t expected Grandma to bring a date.

  “Nice to see you again, Emily!” Stan looked vaguely familiar, a short and cheerful old man with a lipless, turtle-like smile and very thick glasses that had a seam across the middle of each lens. He stood up to shake Philip’s hand without gaining any significant altitude.

  Emily racked her brain. She knew she’d met Stan somewhere, once or twice. She’d assumed he was just another of Grandma Rose’s card-game friends. Clearly, she had not been following the plot of her grandmother’s life closely enough.

  “Remember? S
tan was at your bat mitzvah,” Grandma Rose prompted. “With his wife.”

  “God rest her soul,” Stan added, before Philip and Emily could jump to the wrong conclusion.

  “Poor Dolores,” Grandma Rose said as the waitress delivered their egg creams: vanilla for Grandma Rose, chocolate for Emily and Stan. Philip was more of a strawberry man. “She suffered. But she’d be happy for us, no?”

  “I doubt it!” laughed Stan. “But I’m happy for us! We’re happy for us! That’s what matters.”

  Grandma Rose sipped her drink and now had a neat white milk mustache on her upper lip, just like a kid. “So, darling,” she said to Emily. “You know that two thousand dollars I had stashed away? That you borrowed without asking but then gave back immediately, because you’re such a fine and upstanding young woman?”

  “Yes,” said Emily tentatively. “I hope you weren’t angry about that! We were kind of desperate.”

  “Of course I’m not angry! We’re family; we’re supposed to live out of each other’s pockets.” Grandma Rose took Stan’s hand. “I just wanted to tell you some wonderful news: Stan and I used that money to put a down payment on a sweet Winnebago I found on eBay.”

  Stan leaned forward conspiratorially. “It’s in Weehawken. We gotta give it a test drive, but otherwise it’s a done deal.”

  “You see,” Grandma Rose said, “Stan and I are leaving. Keep it under your hats, though. It’s a secret.”

  The unexpected news caught Philip in midslurp. Emily’s mouth fell open but nothing came out, at first. “Together?” she said, finally.

  “Of course together! Stan is—what do you kids say?” Grandma winked at them. “My main squeeze.”

  “Nobody says ‘main squeeze,’ Grandma.” Emily moved and almost knocked over her egg cream, but Philip saved it at the last minute. “What do you mean, leaving?”

  “Stan’s eyesight is going, and his kids want to put him in assisted living.” Grandma Rose glanced around and lowered her voice. “So we’re running away.”

  “Assisted living?” asked Philip. “What’s that?” The phrase sounded familiar; he thought it might be the title of a Noël Coward play.

  “Two meals a day and somebody cleans your room,” Stan explained. “Feh. Who wants to live like that? With a bunch of old people?”

  Grandma Rose made a wonderfully rude gesture. “Assist this! That’s what I say.”

  To Philip, of course, two meals a day and a clean room sounded great, but he thought it best not to argue.

  Grandma dabbed a napkin to her lips. “The thing is, Stan wants to see some things before his eyes go altogether, and I don’t blame him.”

  Stan shrugged. “My kids are busy, working, raising their own kids. They can’t drop everything to take me on a world tour.”

  “The Hanging Gardens of Babylon I can’t give him,” Grandma Rose said, patting his cheek, “but a road trip in a Winnebago I can, and that’s what we’re gonna do. If we can find the money, that is.”

  Grandma Rose’s statement hung in the air.

  How much money exactly has Grandma Rose lent me? Emily thought. It had been what, a little more than a year since she and Philip had started seeing Aurora every week? Why hadn’t she kept track?

  “This Winnebago has Rose and Stan written all over it,” Grandma was saying. “I’m afraid we’ll lose it if we can’t come up with the rest of the cash soon.”

  How selfish could one person be? A tsunami of guilt washed over Emily. Spending all of Grandma’s money on my dreams when she still has dreams of her own . . .

  “No, I’ve never driven a Winnebago, but I rented a U-Haul once,” Stan was saying, in response to a question from Philip. “Of course, that was when I could see better.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m doing the driving,” Grandma Rose declared. “As long as I don’t have to make too many left turns. I hate left turns!”

  “You’d be surprised,” Stan said, gently putting his arm around Grandma Rose’s thin shoulders, “how many places you can get making only right turns.” Grandma Rose gazed at him as if they were the only two people on the planet.

  They’re just like Aurora and Enrique! Emily realized in a flash. Star-crossed lovers on a last, mad adventure, on the run from impending disability and threats of incarceration . . .

  “I’ll get you the money,” she blurted out. “All the money you lent me for Aurora tickets. I’ll get it back for you.”

  Grandma Rose seemed shocked. Philip looked a little surprised as well.

  “Now, honey, where are you gonna get that kind of money?” Grandma Rose said.

  “I have it, though, don’t I?” Emily asked, in a hopeful voice. “My bat mitzvah money? It’s in the bank, for college. That’s what you always said.”

  “Education is very important,” Stan observed.

  “It certainly is,” said Grandma Rose. “Emily is so smart, too. An excellent student.”

  “The thing is, I’m not really sure how much I owe you, Grandma,” Emily said. “I know it’s a lot, though.”

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure I have the figures on that, Em,” Philip mumbled. He wasn’t sure he should encourage this plan, but it seemed dishonest not to speak up, especially since half of the borrowed money had been spent on him. He wrote a number on a napkin and slid it discreetly in front of Emily.

  Emily felt her cheeks grow warm when she saw what Philip had written. It was a lot, and she pushed the napkin back to Philip just to be rid of it. “How soon do you need it? The money in this college account—it might take me a while to get it.” Truthfully, she didn’t have the slightest idea how to withdraw the money, or if she was even entitled to do so.

  Grandma Rose thought for a moment. “We should leave for Weehawken before noon tomorrow, don’t you think?” she said to Stan. “I don’t want this Winnebago to get away.”

  “Maybe we could go to the bank and just tell them it’s yours, Emily.” Philip wanted to be helpful, though he had little direct experience with banks.

  “What about college?” Stan asked, concerned.

  “My Emily is so smart.” Grandma Rose beamed. “She’ll probably get a scholarship anyway.”

  “Probably,” said Emily, not nearly as confident as her grandmother. Her grade in Mr. Henderson’s class had really tanked this quarter.

  “Do what you think is right, darling.” Grandma Rose adjusted one of her earrings. “I would never tell you otherwise. Stan and me, we gotta see our show while it’s running, you know? That’s my motto. Not just for Broadway. For life.” She sighed. “Ah, Zero Mostel. Now, that was a Tevye.”

  “Actually,” said Philip, “the creators of Fiddler have been quoted as saying they preferred Topol; they felt Mostel’s performance was over the top and sacrificed the material’s integrity for the sake of getting laughs—”

  “We’ll go to the bank today,” said Emily with resolve. Maybe she would never see Aurora again, but this, at least—this she could do. And what could be a more fitting tribute to her beloved show?

  “We’ll give you a lift,” said Grandma Rose, reaching for the check. “The egg creams are on me.”

  I can do this, Emily thought. I’ll do it for Grandma Rose—and for Aurora.

  “It’s a five-oh-nine-slash-C fund.”

  After waiting in line fifteen minutes for a bank teller, Emily had been sent to see a customer service rep. He wore a suit; his neck was bigger than his collar, and his head seemed too big for his face. Emily wondered if perhaps this was why he was in such an unpleasant mood.

  “What?”

  “A six-oh-four-dash-ninety-nine!” The roll of neck meat that overhung his collar was turning pink. “Tax-deferred!”

  Emily twisted and untwisted the straps of her Aurora messenger bag. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand.”

  “Where are you planning to go to college?” the man asked.

  “Uh,” said Emily. She hated answering this question, because she’d had way too many other things to think about lately
besides deciding which college to attend. Yet adults loved to ask. “I was kinda hoping for Yale,” she said. It was the first school that came to mind.

  “Really,” he said. “I’m surprised to hear that. When you get in—if you get in—we’ll give Yale the money.”

  “But—”

  “It’s an education fund, for college tuition only. That’s why it’s tax-deferred, get it? It’s in the tax code, item E-D-forty-nine-point-twelve, paragraphs C through M. Look it up!”

  “But I thought it was mine,” Emily said weakly. “I mean—that’s my bat mitzvah money.”

  He shook his head, clucking his tongue at her financial ignorance. “It’s not yours. It’s for the lucky college that takes you. Yale, for instance.” Was that sarcasm in his voice? He leaned all the way back in his swivel chair, which scrunched his neck even more and made his features seem tiny, like a little Mr. Potato Head face on a really big potato. “Have you ever heard of ‘the excesses of youth’?”

  Emily shook her head, and he began to explain. “History has proven that unless you earmark these types of accounts for tuition only, young people have a tendency to spend their savings on ephemera.”

  Ephemera, Emily thought. Wasn’t that the name of the green-skinned witch in Wicked?

  “Fleeting pleasures!” Mr. Potato Head went on. “Fun and games! The triple-Z-sixty-and-three-quarters college fund program prevents that from happening. Who opened this account for you?”

  “My dad.” Emily sighed. “The excesses of youth”; that was exactly the kind of phrase Mr. Pearl loved to toss around.

  “So there are some genes for intelligence in your family. Interesting. Yale, huh?” Emily could swear she heard the words “dream on” emanate from the Potato Head man, though his mouth was saying this: “There are plenty of nice state schools, you know. The important thing is to get an education. Practically everyone can be trained to be competent at something.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Practically everyone.”