Jack & Louisa: Act 1

by Andrew Keenan-Bolger

  “I’m getting two pies, Lou. One with just cheese and one with sausage and peppers. That okay?”

  “Sure,” I said, “I’m going out for a sec.”

  “Have you finished unpacking?”

  “Almost done. I’ll be back really soon.”

  “Lou—”

  “I promise!”

  I headed down the hallway and out the front door, a girl with purpose. But once I hit the sidewalk, I realized I had no plan. What was I going to do? Walk right up to the kid’s house, knock on the door, and ask him what his dream roles were? If he could do a triple time step?

  No, I thought. Better to just observe, at first. Which really meant spy. That would be hard to do in a subdivision, though, where dark alleys and shadowy corners were hard to come by. If I’d been old enough to drive, I could have just parked the car a short distance from the kid’s house and crouched beneath the dashboard like the detectives did on television: a stakeout, I think they called it. But the best I could do at this moment was stay on the opposite side of the street, as if that was going to make me seem less obvious when I walked slowly by the house, staring like some creep.

  I counted down the sidewalk squares as I approached: eight, seven, six, five . . . Why was I so nervous? Maybe because the thought of finding an MTN on my block was too thrilling to imagine. Except I could imagine it: geeking out about the new Elphaba replacement in Wicked, singing along with Audra McDonald’s new album, making Tony Award predictions, writing our own fake Tony Award speeches . . . What was I doing to myself? I didn’t even know this kid’s name, and already I’d made him my new best friend. It was too much pressure—for both of us. But I kept walking. The U-Haul was still there, with the back open and a metal ramp bridging the trailer bed and the driveway. No people were in sight, however, so I sat on the curb and killed time by retying the laces of my sneakers. The sound of a screen door opening grabbed my attention, and I looked up to see who must have been the new kid’s dad walking out of the house and toward the back of the U-Haul. He caught my eye and gave a slight nod and smile before striding up the ramp. Okay, I thought, I’ve been spotted. What now?

  The dad reappeared carrying a large black-framed mirror, and as he approached his front stoop he called into the house, “Hey, can somebody open the door for me? My hands are full!” A few moments passed, then a hand appeared from inside, pushing the screen door out toward the stoop. There he was, the “Mary Poppins” kid. As he stepped aside to let his dad in the house, he looked right in my direction. I froze. My stomach gripped—he’d seen me. As I considered running away and abandoning “Mission: Expose MTN,” both father and son disappeared behind the screen door. They must not have gone too far inside, though, because I could hear the dad speaking encouragingly: “Across the street . . . about your age . . . C’mon . . . shouldn’t . . . so shy.”

  No kid likes to be told how to make friends, and I felt a little embarrassed for my new neighbor as he begrudgingly reopened the door and peered out, uncertain. Something about the expression on his face, an odd mixture of intrigue and sadness, made me wave. Just a slight raising of my right hand and a curl of the fingers. He walked hesitantly out onto his stoop and waved back.

  “Hey,” he called across the street.

  “H-Hey.” The simplest word ever got stuck in my throat. I tried again.

  “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I said. “My name’s Louisa, but everybody calls me Lou.”

  “I’m Jack,” he replied.

  “Is that short for John?” I asked, thinking we could connect through having nicknames.

  “No,” he said, “Jack’s actually on my birth certificate.”

  Okay, never mind.

  “Where are you from?” A safer question.

  “New York City.”

  My heart did a backflip into the splits. He was from my favorite place in the world!

  “Wow, really? I love it there.”

  Praising Jack-not-John’s hometown seemed to have won me some points, because he was now ambling across his front lawn toward the sidewalk.

  “You’ve been?”

  Uh-oh, I thought, as I got a better look at his face, he’s cute. It wasn’t just the haircut. Even though that made me slightly more nervous, I decided it was now acceptable for me to cross the street. I tried to convince myself that something resembling normal was taking place.

  “To New York? Yeah, a couple times,” I replied, like going to the cultural capital of the world was no big deal. Like I hadn’t squealed with delight the first time I walked through Times Square, or practically fainted when I got a picture with Tony Award–winner Norbert Leo Butz in front of Schmackary’s Cookies. Exposing my inner geek was a delicate process. I needed to at least attempt to be cool.

  “I never saw Mary Poppins, though.” I pointed to his T-shirt.

  Jack looked down at his shirt as if he forgot he was wearing it. His cheeks flushed.

  “Oh,” he said, “I was just wearing this for the move.” He cleared his throat. “Have you seen any shows in New York?”

  “Oh totally,” I said, a little too enthusiastically. “We saw Matilda on one trip. And Cinderella and The Lion King on another.”

  Jack nodded approvingly. “Those are all awesome.”

  I guess you saw all the Broadway shows if you lived in New York City. I felt a surge of jealousy just thinking about waking up every day in Broadway’s backyard. Shaker Heights was a far cry from the Big Apple.

  “Why’d you move here?” As the words came out of my mouth, I realized there was a snarky tone in my question that I had not intended.

  Jack’s eyes darted away for just a second, and I was about to apologize for asking what must have been a personal question, but then he shrugged and said, “My dad got a job in Cleveland.” Jack looked back toward his house. “And now we’re living in this totally unique house that doesn’t look like any of the other houses.”

  Wow, sarcasm. This kid was sassy. And he hates my neighborhood, I thought as I took in the identical houses lining the block.

  “Some of them have pools,” I said, trying to be funny, but I realized quickly I might have just made Jack feel bad for not having one. He seemed unfazed.

  “Pools are a lot of work,” Jack replied. I wondered if this was something he’d heard his dad say.

  “Hey—do you go to Shaker Heights Middle School?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “I’m about to—seventh grade. Homeroom with Mrs. Lamon.”

  “Yeah, me too—except I’ll be in Mr. Ross’s homeroom.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know whether to be upset or relieved by this news because I couldn’t tell if I even liked this kid. He seemed so . . . disappointed with his surroundings. I decided to give him one last chance.

  “Y’know, my friend Jenny saw Mary Poppins.”

  “Oh yeah? When?” Jack shifted his weight, putting his hands in his pockets.

  “Uh, like last spring, I think?”

  Jack looked toward the sky as if he were figuring out a math problem. It was weird.

  “Last spring?”

  Why did it matter?

  “Yeah, I think April, maybe . . . ?”

  “Oh.” Jack’s curiosity vanished instantly. I decided to ignore his weird line of questioning.

  “Yeah, so anyway,” I continued, determined to find out once and for all whether my new neighbor was a fellow MTN, “Jenny liked it, but she didn’t love it.”

  Jack suddenly stared straight at me.

  “Why didn’t she love it?”

  Okay, now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. He has an opinion about Mary Poppins.

  “Well, I think she was expecting it to be more like the movie,” I said, feeling a rush of excitement as Jack’s nostrils flared.

  “It’s actually a lot more like the book,” he said, pointedly.
“Does Jenny know that?”

  “Probably not,” I said, as my heart did cartwheels of joy, “but I do.” I smiled proudly, ready to seal the deal of our new friendship.

  Jack looked at me curiously. He didn’t say anything, just shuffled his feet a little. I had been expecting a different reaction.

  “So, uh, when did you see it?” I asked, hoping to get him back on track.

  “Uh, I didn’t see it, really,” he said softly. “I was in it.”

  An asteroid landing on my house could not have shocked me more.

  –JACK–

  Her face looked like she’d just swallowed a gumball.

  “You were in Mary Poppins?” she asked again, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, not the original cast,” she said, shifting her weight. “I mean, what’s your last name?”

  “Goodrich.”

  “Yeah, I don’t remember seeing your name or picture in the liner notes of the cast album.”

  Wow, this girl really knew her stuff. Liner notes? I’d only just heard the term used this year. It was the name for the writing inside the booklet of a cast album that included cast list, lyrics, and production photos. Since music had gone digital, they were becoming a thing of the past.

  “No, I was in the closing-night cast,” I shot back. “The original Michael Banks is like a sophomore in college by now.”

  “Huh,” she said, taking a step back and looking down at her shoelaces. “You’re not trying to trick me, are you?” Her head snapped back suddenly. “Did someone tell you something about me? It’s okay. I won’t be mad, but I’d rather you just tell me now. It would save me the embarrassment of having to run home and type your name in on Playbill—”

  “Why would I try to trick you?” I blurted out. “I just moved here! I didn’t even know the name of this crummy subdivision ten minutes ago, not to mention the name of the resident theater nerd.”

  “This subdivision isn’t crummy. It’s the third nicest in Shaker Heights. The Goldbergs have a koi pond—”

  “Okay, I didn’t mean that,” I cut her off. “Look, I don’t know what to tell you. Either you can believe me or not.”

  “Hmmm,” she said, crossing her arms.

  I was speechless. It was safe to say this girl was as far from what I’d imagined anyone in Ohio to be like. Not that I didn’t expect at least one person in Shaker Heights to enjoy theater, but I hadn’t banked on meeting that person approximately thirty minutes after pulling up to our new home. I looked her over carefully. Her face, while scrunched and slightly sour, was cute. Her brown hair fell just below her shoulders, wavy with warm highlights suggesting hours spent in the summer sun. Also, she was short for her grade. I almost groaned with the realization—despite the fact that this girl might be a little intense for my taste, she’d actually make a pretty good Jane Banks. I wonder if she could sing? Her green eyes flashed, and she began biting the corner of her mouth.

  “Well, then,” she said, digging her fists into her pockets and locking my eyes with a challenging stare, “prove it.”

  Her words slapped against me. Prove it? Packing up my car this morning, I knew that Ohio would mean a change of scenery, different stores and a different school. I never could have guessed that it would mean having my résumé scrutinized, my professional acting career called into question. Prove it? What did she want me to do? Get Davina on the phone and explain to my neighbor that I was in fact the guy I claimed to be? Suddenly an idea popped into my head.

  “Fine,” I said, feeling my face getting hot.

  I stepped back from her and took a deep breath. I knew exactly what would convince her, something only a person who’d been in the show would know, something so tricky that I had to practice it in my bedroom, in the shower, and at the bus stop for a month before my first performance. I spread my feet apart on the pavement.

  “S-U-P-E-R,” I began to spell, my hands flying through the choreography. Each letter paired with its own unique gesture.

  “C-A-L-I-F.” The movements got faster.

  “R-A-G-I-L,” I sang, twisting my body.

  “I-S-T-I-C-E-X-P.” I whipped my arms, slicing through the thick summer air.

  “I-A-L-I-D-O,” I sung as the dance reached its fastest portion. My head bopped to the sharp tempo as I dotted imaginary i’s on my palm.

  “C-I-O-U-S,” I finished, flicking my neck with a final cut-off.

  I dropped my arms to my sides and looked over to Louisa. The color had drained from her face, her lips trembling as if searching for a polite response. I’d imagined this would be the time when my challenger would begin a slow clap, admitting defeat to the new kid who just threw down, but under the bright Ohio sun, on a suburban driveway, in a shirt a size too small, I realized how utterly ridiculous I must have looked. As she stood gawking in disbelief, I felt an invisible egg dripping down my face. What had I just done?

  The silence was broken by the sound of a hundred sprinklers turning on. The neighborhood lawns filled with a mist of water as a similar wave of embarrassment washed over me. I turned around and stormed up the pavement to my house. I could feel Louisa’s stare piercing into my back. I knew she was frozen, jaw on the ground, waiting for an explanation, but my heart was pounding so hard and my face was pumping with blood so hot that I didn’t dare turn around. I swung open the door and slammed it shut behind me, blocking out the sounds of the sprinklers, the passing cars, and the new girl who had probably begun rolling with laughter on my sidewalk. It’d only be a matter of time before it spread around the neighborhood that the “new kid” not only brags about being on Broadway, but if prodded will perform a silly little dance. I was humiliated.

  “Jack, looks like you’ve already made a friend,” I heard my mom say from the kitchen.

  I stood in shock wondering how much she had seen.

  “Did I see you teaching her some of ‘Supercal’? How did that come about?” she asked, entering the room smiling, carrying a stack of books.

  “She, um . . . she’s like a fan of the cast recording or something,” I mumbled.

  “That’s wonderful! Who’d have guessed we’d move in down the street from a fellow theater lover?”

  “Ask her if she wants to help carry in some of your boxes,” my dad called from the basement.

  I ignored him, trying to catch my breath.

  “Is there a bathroom upstairs?” I asked.

  “Oh, did you not see? You have your own bathroom attached to your bedroom,” my mom said, setting the books next to the staircase. “Can you believe how much space we have?” She was glowing. For the first time I could see how desperate she was to make me feel at home. She was still the same mom who took me on auditions and would celebrate by bringing home Chubby Hubby ice cream when I booked a job. This cornball Midwestern act she was putting on was for my benefit. At the end of the day she just wanted me to be happy again. I managed to muscle out a tight-lipped smile before heading upstairs.

  My room was empty except for the mattress, now lying like an upholstered island in the middle of the floor. I walked over to a door in the corner, what I had assumed was another closet, and turned the handle. Once I flipped the light switch, my eyes caught my reflection in the mirror above the sink. My hair was sweaty and messed up. My face was red, a mixture of exertion and embarrassment. My eyes traveled down to the logo on the front of my shirt, the silhouette of a woman with an umbrella, faded and peeling from nights tossing in bed and countless tumbles in Laundromat dryers. I remembered begging my mom to buy it for me when we first saw the show, weeks before my audition. I wore it to school constantly and even hid it under my polo shirt at my final callback. Until that moment, I guess I’d considered it a good-luck charm. I grabbed the bottom of the shirt and yanked it over my head. I scrunched it into a ball and tossed it into the garbage can under the sink.
>
  –LOUISA–

  Prove it? Prove it?! What kind of person would say that? An awful, terrible person, I thought as I walked hurriedly down the street toward my house in a panic, horrified by my behavior. Prove it? I had never spoken those words to anyone, let alone a virtual stranger. I might as well have screamed “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” then shoved him onto the ground. My palms were sweaty, and my heart was beating a mile a minute. I felt a fat, hot tear threatening to spill from my lower lid onto my already wet cheek. Stupid sprinklers.

  I had been home from camp less than an hour and I’d already rejected its most important lessons, lessons that had nothing to do with triple time steps or breath control. They were about community, generosity, and encouragement. Not jealousy and hostility. In my head I could hear the voice of one of my acting instructors, Avery. “Louisa,” she would have said, shaking her head with disappointment, “how do you expect people to support you if you don’t support them?” I had become a poster child for What Not to Do.

  You know when people say “If I could go back . . .” and then launch into a (usually boring) story about something they would have done differently? I’d never really thought about changing past events since I was always thinking about the future, dreaming about what lay ahead (opening nights and original songs written just for me by famous Broadway composers). But as I walked home, sick to my stomach, and already feeling guilty about the pizza I was sure to refuse, I was overcome by an intense desire to “go back”—to five minutes ago.