Crying Laughing

by Lance Rubin

  “Oh,” Evan said, suddenly sheepish. “It’s like, you get a topic, and then you have seven minutes to come up with a speech inspired by it. Well, not even a speech, it’s almost like a little one-man show. Or one-person show. Sometimes there are different characters and stuff.”

  “That’s really cool,” I said, suddenly struck by a powerful case of FOMO. Why didn’t I go to that practice? Because it was going to make Evan all pouty? That’s a terrible reason!

  “It is,” Evan said, going on to describe in detail what he did in his impromptu speech, which involved lightsabers, an asteroid headed toward Earth, a malfunctioning robot, and Pennywise, the clown from It. Maybe you had to be there.

  When he finally finished, I lied and said I had to go help my parents with something. He was disappointed and said he couldn’t wait to see me tomorrow. I agreed, but after I hung up, I stared at the ceiling and wondered what I was doing in this relationship. Did I even like Evan like that anymore? Had I ever?

  Maybe I wasn’t being entirely fair. I had stolen half of the announcements from him, which was probably a little jarring. And I definitely can relate to the feeling that things are moving too fast, becoming a bit suffocating. Plus, I still think Evan’s cute, and we still make each other laugh sometimes. He’s fun to text with. I figured I’d give it another week.

  This morning, though, Evan started the announcements charming but, by the end, he was chilly at best. He spent lunch at the library again.

  So, of course, the last thing I’d want to do is jump into a frigging scene with him. But once we were both standing there in the playing space, neither of us wanted to back down. I looked at him with my loving girlfriend eyes, trying desperately to make things right between us before the scene started. He looked away.

  But his assholeishness was fuel for my fire. I dove into our scene, initiating with a character inspired by this guy Anthony who works at Luigi’s Pizza (Dad and I do stupid impressions of him all the time), and I killed. Seriously, I was getting all the laughs.

  And that is why I can’t stop looking at Evan’s face. During the scene, and even now that it’s over, he’s seemed a mix of broken and furious.

  “Are you okay?” I asked him quietly as we walked to the back line after our scene.

  “Yeah, totally,” he said, barely glancing at me.

  “Are we okay?”

  He didn’t answer, instead choosing to walk to a spot as far away from me as possible.

  Not exactly a confidence booster.

  And, like a terrible improviser, I’ve barely been able to pay attention to the scenes unfolding because I’m too busy sneaking glances at Evan, hoping to catch a smile or a wink or anything that might indicate he doesn’t wish I were dead.

  Naturally, as is the way of the Harold, our scene is about to return. Super. I step back into the space at the same time as Evan. He looks slightly possessed.

  “Yo, welcome to Anthony’s Pizza,” I say in a huge voice with my probably offensive over-the-top Italian accent, my chest puffed out. “What can I get for you?” People crack up as much as they did the first time around.

  “Uh,” Evan says. “We’re not actually in a pizza place, you know. You’re just a homeless person.”

  This gets a huge laugh, even though I can tell a lot of people also recognize that Evan has violated the key principle of Yes, and. Leili looks pissed. Fletcher, too. I refuse to sink to Evan’s level, though.

  “I prefer the term street dweller, but thank you.” I wish he hadn’t put me in a position where I have to make light of homeless people. “But I am the best street pizza maker in the city! Look! I got a little oven over here and everything.”

  “That’s just a box,” Evan says. More laughs.

  Well, fine, I can be an asshole, too.

  “No!” I shout, throwing one expressive hand in the air the way Anthony does when he’s making a point. “It’s an oven! Mamma mia, maybe you need some new glasses or something. Thinking an oven is a box. Either that or you got spaghetti for brains!” This gets a large laugh, winning everyone back over to my side.

  “Nope, it’s definitely a box,” Evan says. This time not so many people laugh, as it’s a fairly blatant improv block. “And that’s not pizza in there, it’s a soggy magazine.”

  “Heyyy!” I say, the way Dad and I have said many, many times, mimicking this moment when Anthony watched a delivery guy accidentally drop a pizza on his way out the door. “Why you come to my restaurant if you don’t like the pizza?”

  “Because it’s actually a gross magazine.”

  “It’s delicious pizza!”

  Our peers’ heads snap back and forth between us, like they’re watching a tennis match.

  “Magazine.”

  “Pizza!”

  “Magazine.”

  “Pizza!”

  “Magazine.”

  We’ve now been reduced to a Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck–style confrontation, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I’m still in mild shock that Evan’s being such a dick to me in front of everybody.

  Mr. Martinez seems like he’s on the verge of stopping the scene, but since he hasn’t yet, I will.

  “Hey, hey, you know what?” I say. “You’re right, it’s a gross magazine.” I do some impeccable object work to mime picking it up by one corner. “Stupid Jerk Weekly. This’ll be a great read for you.”

  Everyone gasps, some letting out a quiet “Ohhhh!”

  I probably shouldn’t have said that.

  Evan’s keeping up his apathetic façade, but I can tell I made a direct hit.

  “Okay, okay,” Mr. Martinez says, and it’s immediately obvious he doesn’t know how to deal with this situation. “This, uh, scene has gotten a bit out of hand. What, uh— Let’s, uh, try and track back and see where we went off the rails.”

  “Probably when she called me a stupid jerk,” Evan mutters, not looking at me.

  “Right, sure, that was inappropriate, Winnie—”

  “It was a character choice!” I say, knowing that’s very untrue but feeling compelled to defend myself.

  “Okay, let me turn this question over to all of you.” Mr. Martinez looks out at the rest of the troupe. “Does anyone—”

  “From the second this scene started, Evan wasn’t supporting any of Winnie’s choices,” Jess Yang says, her strong voice booming across the stage. It’s so unexpected, I have to squint to make sure the words aren’t coming from someone else.

  “Right, yes!” Mr. Martinez says, as if Jess has knocked his circuitry back into working order. “Say more about that.”

  “What’s there to say?” Jess rolls her eyes. “Winnie began with a strong, interesting character and Evan kept denying the reality of her choices. No, but instead of Yes, and.”

  Did Jess just say I did something strong and interesting?

  “Totally,” Leili says. “Like, it was funny, but cheap funny.” Leili, oh Leili, love of my life Leili.

  “Like, for real,” Rashanda says. “I think lots of us were just laughing because we were shocked he was playing it like that.”

  “Never heard of shock humor?” Evan says in a quiet voice only I can hear.

  “What was that?” Mr. Martinez asks.

  “Nothing.” Evan bites his thumbnail.

  “I thought Winnie’s character was actually kind of obvious,” Mahesh says. “Like, we’ve all seen that Italian stereotype before. So when Evan was saying all that stuff, I thought it subverted the scene in a great way.”

  Evan’s spirits are up for the first time all afternoon, and he’s nodding along with Mahesh’s point. Stupid jerk.

  Sure, maybe my Italian guy character could have used some more nuance, but that is not why the scene sucked. And Mahesh and Evan and Tim and Dan do annoying stereotypical characters all the damn time.

&n
bsp; “All right,” Mr. Martinez says. “I think there are insights to be drawn from all of those comments, so let’s see if we can learn from them as we continue with this.”

  Oh man, he did not just end the discussion like that. Insights from all of those comments? But Leili and Fletcher are already coming onstage for the third scene, so I march back to my spot, seeing flames the whole time.

  Leili and Fletcher do a scene where they’re ants in the process of moving to a new anthill, and it’s, of course, incredible. They listen to each other. They make discoveries. They collaborate. I’m very jealous.

  I know that somewhere buried under my anger, I’m sad, too. I don’t know why Evan suddenly hates me so much, but it sucks. I don’t want to be mad at him. I wouldn’t even be here at improv practice, or doing the morning announcements, if it weren’t for him.

  When our scene comes back around, I step out, but Evan doesn’t, so Rashanda jumps in, playing Evan’s sister. Our scene goes okay, but I’m barely thinking about it.

  “And let’s black out there!” Mr. Martinez says. “Well, there you have it. You all just completed your first Harold.” Everyone cheers and whoops. I only sorta do, as I don’t feel very cheery. “Not bad at all! Some bumpy parts, but that could have been much worse. Bravo. This week please think about moments where you could have made stronger, more helpful choices, so we can learn from this and get better. Because reminder: our first performance of the year, the Homecoming week show, is just two weeks from tomorrow!” More cheering. More whooping. “Again, this should be very low stress: one Harold, about thirty minutes long, and I will let the audience know we are still new at this. But also don’t slack off—we need to be as good as we possibly can. If we do well, they might allot us more money in the budget! But don’t even worry about that—we’re just gonna have fun.” Mr. Martinez seems suddenly exhausted. “Okay, see you next week, everybody.”

  As we’re all filing offstage, I’m still pissed, but I know that if I don’t go talk to Evan right now, I’m gonna feel crappy about it all night.

  “Hey,” I say, touching his back. He flinches away. “Can we talk?”

  “Oh. Sure. I actually was gonna ask you the same thing.”

  Thank god. I can’t explain what a relief it is to hear him say that. He nods at Tim, who heads out. “Great,” I say, “because I want to make sure—”

  “You know, you’re not really doing improv,” Evan interrupts.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Like, you have all these prebaked characters with all these catchphrases and lines you’ve thought about beforehand. That’s not improv. I mean, it’s fine and funny and whatever, but just so you know.”

  “Oh.” My eyes are thick with shocked, angry tears.

  “Anyway, I gotta roll.” He walks up the aisle and out of the auditorium before I’m even able to think the words Fuck you, let alone say them.

  That’s what he wanted to talk about?

  What a supreme douche. My boyfriend is a supreme douche.

  It’s all very disorienting. I barely know where I am.

  “Hey,” a voice behind me says, and I’m assuming it’s Leili, but it’s not. It’s Jess Yang.

  “Oh, hi,” I say.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I…don’t even know.”

  “Well, whatever he said to you, you should ignore him. It’s not worth it.”

  I’m not sure why or when Jess has become my guardian angel, but I’m not entirely minding it. She looks down at her hands, pulling at her own fingers. “Also…I wanted to say sorry. For being such a bitch to you this past month.”

  “Oh.”

  “Evan and I broke up before school started, and I hated that you were his new person. But it was awful of me to take it out on you. And…” Jess looks away, possibly fighting back tears. “When I did that scene with you”—she’s whispering now—“I was trying to come up with something emotional and mean to say, but I didn’t know…I didn’t know about…”

  Leili must have told Jess about my father. “Oh, it’s okay,” I say. “I mean, it sucked, but I figured you didn’t know.”

  Jess nods. We sit in a mildly awkward silence until it’s interrupted by Leili.

  “Hey, Winner,” she says. “I have to run, my mom is here.”

  “I thought we were giving you a ride home,” I say.

  “No, because I have a thing to go to.” Leili looks vaguely sheepish. Usually I know about all the things she would be going to, but she seems like she’s in a hurry, so I don’t press her.

  “All right, I’ll catch you later, then.”

  “I have to run too,” my new friend Jess says, which is how I find myself putting my jacket on alone in the empty auditorium.

  24

  I haven’t been in Dad’s car for more than two minutes when my phone yodels.

  It’s a text from Evan:

  I think we should take a break. Agree?

  In light of what just went down at rehearsal, it’s the most nonshocking message of all time. Yet I’m shocked.

  “Everything okay?” Dad asks.

  It takes me a moment to process what he’s said.

  “Eh,” I say. “Evan dumped me. In a text.”

  “Aw, Banana. I’m sorry.” But I can tell he’s kind of not.

  “He was only my boyfriend five days. I feel like I’m defective or something.”

  “You? Win, you’re not defective, he’s a huge asshole.” I laugh. “That’s not a joke,” Dad says. “It’s the truth. I’m sorry you feel bad. But you deserve someone so much better.”

  When I get home, I head straight to my room and take out my phone.

  “That’s atrocious,” Azadeh says, her voice on speaker as I lie in bed on my back.

  “Really, he saved you a lot of trouble,” Leili says, and I can tell that she’s knitting. “You would have agonized over whether or not to break up with him till at least next year.” I want to argue, but I know she’s probably right. “Did you respond yet?”

  “You should write AGREE in all caps,” Azadeh says.

  “Yeah, or write the same exact message back to him,” Leili says. “Mess with his head.”

  “Ha, maybe I will,” I say. “Hey, at least Oz and Roxanne are still going strong.”

  “Oh,” Azadeh says. “Yeah, we’re good. But what’s not good is I gotta go write a paper about the Revolutionary War. Love you, Winner! Screw him!”

  “Love you, Oz!”

  Azadeh mumbles something to Leili as she leaves the room. I notice Enya playing softly in the background.

  “Oh, hey,” I say to Leili. “Do you know what Evan said to me before he left rehearsal?”

  “Uh-uh.” She’s still knitting.

  “I thought we were gonna talk about how awful our scene was, but instead he said I’m not doing improv right! He said I’m showing up with characters in advance, so it doesn’t count. What the hell?”

  Leili hesitates a little too long before responding. “Well, yeah, that’s annoying.”

  “Wait, do you agree with him?”

  “No. Like, obviously he’s a dick for saying that, but…”

  I sit up. “But what?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Win.”

  There’s a vibe I’ve been picking up from Leili all week. I can’t figure out what it is, but it’s unsettling. “No, what?”

  “Just that…there’s some truth to what he’s saying. Like, improv is supposed to be about starting with nothing and leaping into the unknown. Which isn’t exactly what you’re doing. But whatever, it’s fine.”

  I can’t even believe what I’m hearing. “You’re seriously agreeing with the asshole who dumped me?”

  “I mean, not completely, just…Forget it.”

  “What is up with you this week?” I ask. I�
��m feeling fiery.

  “Ha!” It’s a sarcastic laugh. “This is the first time it occurs to you to ask that, when I say something you don’t like?”

  I’m not sure what’s happening. Leili and I aren’t friends who fight. At least not since the epic blowout we had in fifth grade after I copied off her math quiz. (I’m not proud, but I’ll own it.) “Well, yeah, when the something I don’t like is you insulting the way I do improv, yes.”

  Leili sighs. “Has it not even occurred to you to ask how I’m doing after I left during lunch Monday?”

  “I…” My mind scans back through the days since that happened. “What’re you talking about, I texted you after.” I think I did. Didn’t I?

  “I literally said to you ‘What do you care?’ before I left, and you completely proved my point by actually not caring.”

  “I care! I care a lot! You’re my best friend!”

  “Yeah. Words, words.”

  Ohmigod. She’s completely serious. I have somehow hurt my best friend without having any idea I was doing it. “They’re not just words,” I say, “I mean it.”

  And anyway, she was having a fight that day with Azadeh! Why is this my fault?

  “I know you have a lot going on with your dad and everything,” Leili says, “but lately, it feels like you’re so wrapped up in Evan stuff, and obsessing over how improv is going, and how funny everyone thinks you are, and whatever else, that I’m just an afterthought.”

  “What? That is so not—”

  “I’m always telling you how well you’re doing, and trying to be supportive, and I feel like you rarely do that for me.”

  “You are so not an afterthought!”

  “Well, that’s how it feels, okay? And Connie says—”

  “You’ve freaking talked about this with Connie?”

  “Uh, yeah, she’s my therapist. That’s what you do at therapy. Not that you would know.”

  Now she’s taking a dig at me for not going to therapy? What the hell is happening? “Look,” I say, standing up from bed and pacing around wildly. “I’m sorry for whatever you’re feeling, but it’s been a hard month for me. My dad needs a cane to walk.”