Crying Laughing

by Lance Rubin

  “Come on, Winner,” Leili says. “Even Ava knows it’s really like that.”

  Ava looks up and nods, then returns to her game.

  “Okay, maybe it’s like that, I don’t know. But I don’t want to be annoying about it. Like, I really am sorry that he and Tim invaded our lunch table this week.”

  “Evan’s fine,” Leili says. “It’s Tim who’s the dingus. But it’s not a big deal. You and Evan are actually really cute together.”

  I feel myself blushing.

  “Are you going to write back?” Ava asks, holding the phone in my face. “Or can I go back to playing?”

  “Oh.” I want to respond, but I don’t want to seem like I’m putting Evan ahead of Leili and Azadeh. It’s silly because Azadeh seems to have no problem texting Roxanne while she’s with us. But I don’t want to follow her down that road. At least not yet. As Leslie Knope once said, “Ovaries before brovaries. Uteruses before duderuses.” I tell Ava she can keep playing, then look to see if Leili’s registered my bold act of sisterhood. Unclear.

  “Okay,” Ava says. “Why does your screen have cracks on it? It makes it hard to see some of the feathers.”

  “I threw my phone the other day. Do you want to keep using it or not?”

  “I do, I do,” Ava says, going back to her app.

  “So, are you and Evan going to, like, go on a da—” Leili is in the middle of asking when we hear a huge thud from downstairs, followed by Grandma Mitzie screaming.

  “What was that?” Leili asks.

  But I’m already out my bedroom door and cascading down the stairs. I peek into the family room, which is empty, then dash into the kitchen, where Dad is lying on the floor surrounded by everyone else, Grandma and Mom hovering directly over him, both looking sheet-white.

  “Ohmigod,” Grandma is saying. “Ohmigod.”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Dad says. I don’t see any blood on his face this time. “I just…Can you give me a little space?”

  “Here,” Cory says, ushering Grandma aside, then crouching down and using his masculine beardy energy to lift Dad to his feet.

  “Thanks, Cory,” Dad says, wobbling slightly. Ed and Mom are standing behind him, in case he topples over again.

  “Of course, man. You okay?”

  “Yeah. Just thought the brunch was getting boring. Tried to spice it up a bit.” Everyone laughs (not Grandma), in that unsure way where you can tell they’re all sort of nervous.

  “Mission accomplished,” Cory says.

  “Seriously, though,” Dad says. “I think I just slipped on something.”

  It’s a good effort on his part, but nobody’s buying it.

  “Is this what happened the other day, too?” Grandma asks. “Is that why you have the Band-Aid on your forehead?”

  “Mom,” Dad says, “it’s not— Let’s not—”

  “Let’s give him a minute, Mitzie,” Mom says, taking charge.

  “Fine, fine,” Grandma says, eyebrows raised as she takes a step back.

  Having just experienced one of Dad’s falls less than twenty-four hours ago, I feel like the veteran of the group, who should be offering expertise from time spent on the battlefield. Really, though, Fletcher Handy did most of the helping yesterday, so maybe I don’t have much advice beyond Let’s give Fletcher a call!

  “Here, this might help,” Paige says, worming her way into the inner circle to hand Dad a paper cup of orange juice. She teaches second grade, where I imagine juice is the answer to many traumatic situations. “In case your blood sugar is low.”

  Leili and Azadeh appear in the doorway with Ava, who—likely sensing the tension in the room—runs to Paige and hugs her legs, causing her to accidentally slosh some of the orange juice onto the floor just as Dad is about to take the cup.

  “I got it, I got it!” Grandma shouts, bounding toward the paper towel roll, grateful for an activity into which to funnel her panicked energy. Within seconds, she’s on all fours in between Dad and Paige, sopping up the minor OJ spill.

  “Thanks, Paige,” Dad says, taking the now-slightly-less-full cup from her. I know he’s mortified. Falling in front of me, Fletcher, and some old man is one thing, but this is different. His wife. His best friends. His mother. They may not know the details yet, but his secret is out.

  Everyone hovers around for a little while longer, making sure Dad is all right, before Paige says she and Ava should head home for when Ben (her husband, Ava’s dad) gets back from his business trip, and the whole brunch deflates. Ed and Cory say they’ve gotta hit the road before traffic back to Manhattan gets too bad. Leili and Azadeh always have lots of family over for Sunday night dinner, so they need to help cook and set up. Part of me thinks they’re glad to leave, and I don’t blame them; Grandma is the only one who doesn’t seem to be going anytime soon, so it’s still pretty tense here. I feel bad that Mom’s celebration is ending on such a downer note.

  “So now can we talk?” Grandma asks, seconds after Leili and Azadeh have exited the premises.

  Dad takes a deep breath. “Sure.”

  He, Mom, and Grandma sit down at the kitchen table, and I take that as my cue to get the hell out of there. I attempt to do some of my chemistry homework, then pace aimlessly around my room, half trying to hear the slow-motion car crash going on downstairs. At one point, I’m pretty sure Grandma is sobbing, and that’s when I start frantically scrolling through my phone for music. I put on “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips, an old song I first heard and fell in love with in one of my all-time favorite movies, Bridesmaids. It’s super-cheesy, so I always start out listening to it ironically, but then it actually ends up making me feel good.

  There’s random meowing in the middle of the first chorus, and I look down to see a text from Evan: So?

  I forgot to respond to his earlier text.

  Tastes like chicken, I write before chucking my phone onto the bed (much more carefully than last time).

  As I wait for him to write back, I move around at the foot of my bed, doing my version of dancing. It involves lots of head-shaking. Fists in the air. It’s not something I’d attempt in public. “Don’t you know, don’t you know things will change?” Wilson or Phillips asks. “Things’ll go your way, if you hold on for one more day.”

  I don’t think any amount of holding on is going to make Dad better, but it’s nice to pretend for the duration of the song.

  17

  “Hey. Winnie. Hey,” Fletcher says from behind me as Mr. Novack works through his self-important attendance-taking.

  “Hello. Fletcher. Hello,” I say, turning around.

  Since he came to Dad’s rescue at Stop & Shop, he and I are like actual friends now. Funny how that happens. I still know close to zero about him, but every day this week we’ve had a quick, pleasant conversation during homeroom, usually about nothing.

  “You going today?”

  “Yeah,” I say casually, as if I haven’t been thinking about improv since the moment school started Monday morning, about the chance to redeem myself after that heinousness with Jess. I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated Thursdays this much in my life. “You?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there. Sucking it up like I do every week.”

  “You don’t suck.” I mean that. Maybe he hasn’t fully nailed any scenes, but he’s always so committed and in it.

  Fletcher shrugs. “It’s cool. My thing is physical comedy.”

  At first I think he’s messing with me, but his face remains dead sincere. And then I remember him being whipped around by imaginary gusts of wind, and it makes sense.

  The PA speaker crackles to life. “Please stand for the Pledge to the Flag,” Evan says. I turn away from Fletcher toward the ol’ Stars and Stripes. Mr. Novack has his hand on his heart and a look of defiant pride in his eyes. He’s really into the Pledge.

  It’s
weird listening to Evan over the loudspeaker knowing he’s kind of maybe my boyfriend. I mean, nothing is official, but last night, we went a step beyond texts and Instagram messages.

  He called me.

  We were texting about improv rehearsal and what we thought it’d be like, and then suddenly my phone was yodeling (my default ring). I almost didn’t pick up, it was so overwhelming.

  The first ten seconds were odd, clipped sentences and long pauses. “Do you feel like you’re listening to the morning announcements?” Evan asked.

  “That’s a stupid thing to say,” I said.

  He laughed, and then I laughed, and then it felt more normal. Evan said that with Mr. Martinez calling him out last week and all, he was really nervous about improv. It was the first time I’d heard him express vulnerability about anything. It was nice, like he felt he could open up to me.

  “I’m nervous too,” I said. “My main memory from last week is getting fake cake shoved in my face, and I feel like anything I did well that first week was just good luck.”

  “No way,” he said. “You’re really talented.”

  That was nice too.

  “I’ve just never done long-form before,” he continued, “and I might be really bad at it.” We talked about it awhile, and the strange part is, knowing he was so uneasy actually made me feel calmer.

  Now PA Evan is making some dumb joke about athletes needing to get order forms in for their varsity jackets or else they’ll have to make their own jackets at home out of construction paper. I don’t fully get it, but it makes me smile just because of how confidently he says it. So different from the worried dude I talked to last night. And none of these people listening to the announcements have heard that side of him. Makes me feel cool, like I’m in on a secret.

  And it’s definitely a better secret to be in on than the Dad-is-seriously-ill one. After the Weekend of Falls, Mom threatened to leave Dad if he didn’t start acknowledging the reality of his situation. I don’t think it was a serious threat, but it was still pretty intense and served as a kind of wake-up call for him. As a start, she said, he needed to get a cane because she couldn’t handle him falling every other day. I actually agreed with her, though I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to get entangled in their fight (more than I already am).

  So when I got home from school Tuesday, Dad was waiting in the doorway with an iridescent cane, the metallic blue at the top blending into metallic purple in the middle and metallic pink at the bottom. It reminded me a lot of my bike in elementary school and clearly it reminded Dad, too, because he’d attached to the handle of his cane the same white streamers that had once protruded from my bike’s handlebars. Not only that, but he was decked out in his white suit and white top hat (he’d had to get a white suit as a groomsman for Cory and Ed’s wedding; the hat was his own idea) and a monocle like the Monopoly guy.

  “Wow, Dad,” I said, cracking up.

  “Whattaya think of the new look?” he asked, attempting to spin the cane but then thinking better of it after getting a little wobbly on his feet.

  “I think I love it,” I said. “What’s with the monocle?”

  “I’ve always worn this,” he said, totally deadpan.

  “Oh, right, but you usually wear it on your other eye.”

  He seemed so genuinely pleased with his cane that I assumed he’d gotten over whatever reservations he’d had. But when I came home from school yesterday and put away my jacket, I saw his cane in the closet. Less than an hour later, when Dad walked in from teaching his theater class, I asked about it. I didn’t want to be annoying, but I knew how important it was to Mom.

  “Oh,” Dad said. “Yeah, I forgot to bring the cane. But I don’t really need it there, anyway. These days I spend most of class sitting down.” When I’d been to his classes in the past, he pretty much never sat down, so clearly he’d had to adjust. Or maybe he was bending the truth a bit. Either way, I didn’t want to be too pushy about it.

  “Please don’t tell Mom,” Dad said. “I have been using the cane when it’s really necessary.”

  I hated being in that position, having to lie to Mom on Dad’s behalf. But I also got that this wasn’t the easiest situation for Dad to be in.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I am telling her you stopped wearing the monocle.”

  “No! Don’t do it! She says that monocle is the only reason she married me.”

  “Well, I relate. It’s the only reason I chose you as my dad.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I don’t know how freaked out I should be. I’ve thought on the daily about googling ALS for myself, but then I remember what I read on Azadeh’s phone that night, and I can’t do it. Dad seems to want to pretend nothing has changed. It’s a bit we do well together, our banter helping to relieve the pain. So, if he wants to keep putting that out there, I will Yes, and till the cows come home.

  Support your partner no matter what, right?

  * * *

  —

  Just like every week, Mr. Martinez isn’t there yet when I arrive at the auditorium, so I immediately scan the rows for Leili, who has a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.

  “Where’d you get that?” I ask.

  “Stole it from the teachers’ lounge,” Leili says, all nonchalant, taking a sip.

  “What? Really?” Leili’s driven but she’s also a rule follower.

  “Well, not exactly stole. Mrs. Fumarola got it for me.” That’s more like it.

  “Of course she did.” Mrs. Fumarola is the yearbook advisor, and Leili is her all-time favorite student. That’s not hyperbole. She goes around telling people.

  “Hey, if you worked your butt off on Yearbook ten hours a week, I’m sure you could be her favorite too.”

  “Any other perks besides free coffee?”

  Leili makes her mouth-to-the-side thinking face. “She gave me a Kind bar once.”

  “Yeah, I’ll pass.” Evan is perched on the back of a seat in the front row, speaking in a weird voice and cracking up Dan Blern and Mahesh, seated below him on either side. He doesn’t look like someone who’s feeling anxious, but then maybe this is what that looks like for him: ham dials turned up to eleven.

  “You can go sit over there with him if you want,” Leili says.

  “What? Gross, no. I want to sit with you.”

  “Okay, just giving you the option.”

  “You’re a ridiculously impressive human being, you know that?”

  “I do.” Leili smiles.

  “Hey, are you okay, by the way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I dunno. Just, like, with Oz dating someone. I didn’t know if that was weird for you or not.”

  “It’s not weird.”

  “Oh. Okay. Good.”

  “I’m happy for her.”

  “Of course, yeah. I am too.”

  “Hello hello,” Mr. Martinez says, palpably shifting the energy in the room as he strides down the aisle. “Sorry I’m late. Let’s all get right up onstage.” Mr. Martinez vaults onto the playing space, giving us a good look at those surprisingly-hip-for-a-teacher two-tone blue shoes.

  “Here we go,” Fletcher says from behind me as Leili and I take the stairs.

  “Oh hey,” I say.

  “Time for some improv duty,” he says.

  “Huh?”

  “It’s from the, uh, when we were at the supermarket. Like toilet paper du—”

  “Oh yes!” I say. I wish I’d gotten his reference right away. He probably feels ridiculous now. “Improv duty. Totally.”

  We arrive onstage, everyone standing in a circle. There’s a spot right next to Evan, but I don’t want to ditch Leili for a guy. So she, Fletcher, and I end up standing together on the opposite side from him.

  Ev
an pouts out his lip while motioning me over with his head, which makes me smile. It’s too late now, so I laugh like he’s making a joke and redirect my attention to Mr. Martinez, who has begun speaking.

  “So I want to start by reiterating how brave everyone was last week,” he says. “I really threw you all into the long-form fire, so to speak, and you all did good.”

  “Did well,” Evan says in a jokey disciplinarian voice, which gets a nice laugh, even though I think it’s kind of rude to correct a teacher.

  “Ha, yes,” Mr. Martinez says, “pardon my grammar. You all did well. Gotta love a good adverb stickler.” He points at Evan, somewhat sarcastically, and Evan bows his head. “But this week, we’re going to get back to some of the basics, do some exercises and drills, probably no time for long-form scene work.”

  Leili looks disappointed, and several students good-naturedly boo.

  “I know, I know.” Mr. Martinez smiles and gestures with his hands, like Keep it coming. “Get all the boos out. But this will make us better improvisers. You think Steph Curry played his first game and then said, ‘Okay, I’m all set, I got this basketball thing all figured out now’?”

  I side-glance at Leili—my Explain this to me, please look—who quietly says, “He’s on the Warriors.”

  “The what?”

  “It’s a basketball team.”

  “Oh.”

  “Heh,” Fletcher softly chuckles, clearly having overheard.

  “Of course not!” Mr. Martinez says. “Dude’s already won multiple championships, and he’s still out there every day, coming up with new ways to challenge himself, doing drills, shooting baskets from half-court with a blindfold over his eyes. And that’s what I want for all of you: to always be improving.”

  Though I had no idea who Steph Curry was a minute ago, I’m finding myself weirdly inspired. I want to improve. I can. I will be the Steph Curry of improv. Somebody get me a blindfold.

  “All right, enough of me jabbering. Let’s get our Nameball on. And in the spirit of Steph, I’ll start it off…with a basketball.” Of course that inspires cringe chills because, come on, it’s super-cheesy, but mixed in with those chills is a fiery determination that must be kind of like what athletes feel when they are doing sports. (I’d be more specific in my simile construction, but my involvement with athletics has been limited, and the involvement I have had, I’ve tried to block out.)