My Most Excellent Year (33 page)

Dear Ms. Poppins,

It’s a good thing I switched my loyalties to you so recently, be-cause Mrs. Kennedy would have been in over her head. I recall that when you put Mr. Banks in his place, you did so with a firm but gentle hand—noblesse oblige. Jacqueline would have been more tactful. And tact could never have gotten me through the past twenty-four hours.

I knew that Papa had seen the poster, because he was unusually quiet at dinner last night (squab with ginger peas and lace potatoes;
God
, how I wanted a mushroom pizza). Since our small dining room is made out of burnished walnut and has the seating capacity of Fenway Park in 1942, it seemed an appropriate setting for my Declaration of Independence. The charade had continued long enough, and the time had come for me to put my foot down. On the record.

“Alejandra,” said Papa, clearing his throat. “I saw a mention of your play this morning. In Cambridge. I had no idea it was such a well-publicized event.” Mamita broke into an immediate smile.

“What else could you expect, Papi?” she countered, putting her hand on top of his. “Alejandra’s
in
it, after all.” Next to me, Carlos froze. His instincts are swift and accurate; he can smell a political coup boiling three continents away.

“Oh, Papa, it’s been such fun,” I blurted unexpectedly.
Where did
that
come from? Get back to the script, girl.
“As a matter of fact, I seem to be doing so well, I’d like to apply to a summer stock theatre in Rhode Island as an apprentice. Experience like that’ll make it
so
much easier for me to get into a performing arts college.” There. Done.
Was that so improbable?
I sat back in my chair, pleased with
both my delivery and my poise. Now all that remained was for the house to blow up. But I didn’t really care. After four months with Anthony, Augie, and Hucky, it had become quite clear that I was a little remedial in the courage department―and it was time to catch up. Especially when Mamita lowered her eyes, Papa’s fork clattered to his plate, and Carlos fetched me a kick under the table that should have hobbled me for life.

“I’m sorry, Alejandra,” snapped Papa, glaring. “That’s simply unacceptable. There’s an embassy position waiting for you in July, and we’ve all known for years that you’ll be majoring in government at Harvard. What were you
thinking
?”

That’s when I remembered you and Mr. Banks. He was fully prepared to fire you after he found out his kids had been dancing with cartoons—but by the time you got through with him, he’d have followed you to Indiana if you’d given the order. All it took from you was respect, dignity, holding your ground, and not forgetting how much you loved those children. (It also helped that you had professional screenwriters giving you the lines. I didn’t, so I managed the best I could.)

(I’d love to take even partial author credit, but it was a mix of
Kiss Me, Kate¸ The Taming of the Shrew
, and a song lyric from some ’60s musical I’d never heard of until Augie discovered it in December.)

When I’d reached my room at the top of the stairs and shut the door behind me, my heart was pounding—and not because I was afraid.
So
that’s
what it feels like to stand up for yourself! What have I been missing out on??
The buzz lasted for the rest of the evening (sleep finally came at 3:30 a.m.), and at breakfast this morning, nobody spoke at all—except for Carlos’s glowering eyes, which kept repeating silently, “You’ve lost your last marble and you can’t have any of mine.” But this was a victory all by itself. Except for a halfhearted “Alejandra, we have a few things to discuss” from Papa, at least no one was attempting to talk me out of it.

Our first tech rehearsal passed in a blur. All I remember is that the sets were glimmering and my costume made me look like a turnip. (I’m assured by Mrs. Packer that it’ll be replaced by the time we open on Friday. I certainly hope so. I don’t play vegetables well.) The freshman band has a tuba player who belongs on sedatives, but otherwise they
managed to keep up with us—and the afternoon’s highlight came unexpectedly during a first act break when Mrs. Packer gave us fifteen minutes off so she could refocus the lights. This is usually when Augie performs “Too Darn Hot” for us, but Lee had warned me that there was an unscheduled change in the program.

“Watch this,” she whispered as we slid into our seats in the third row. I was sandwiched in between Lee and Anthony, as Augie wrapped up a hasty conference from the stage with Mr. Disharoon and the band. When musical matters had been settled, he turned to face the audience.

“For this number,” he announced, “I’m going to need a volunteer. Somebody to play Bill and to feed me my cues. Any takers?” Well, since Augie is Augie, nine arms shot into the air simultaneously—so he shielded his eyes from the light, examined his applicants, and pointed to a spot in the darkened auditorium. “Andy Wexler. You’re it, dude.” To the best of my recollection, Andy hadn’t been one of those with his arm raised.

“How do you spell ‘stacked deck’?” I mumbled to Anthony.

“And like, what exactly were you expecting?” he mumbled back.

Andy climbed sheepishly onto the stage and allowed himself to be positioned on a set piece; then Augie leaned down to whisper to him. At first Andy blushed, and then he broke into an automatic grin. (As well he’d better. There were three of us poised to beat him to death if he’d responded with anything less.)

“You got it,” he replied with a wink. The way they were taking such obvious delight in each other—especially after the crisis they’d survived together—you couldn’t help feeling jealous that you weren’t either one of them. And as soon as Augie had planted
himself center stage and Mr. Disharoon had cued the song, Andy—as a disgruntled Bill—called out to his boyfriend.

“Aw, doll. Why can’t you behave?” In reply, Augie scratched his head as though thoroughly perplexed and turned upstage to reply.

“How in hell can you be jealous,” he sang incredulously, “when you know, baby, I’m your slave?” Then without any warning at all, he lit into a version of “Always True to You in My Fashion” that would have sent Lisa Kirk in the original cast straight back to dance class. Between his pirouettes, his jetés, and his exuberant habit of shadowboxing with some of the cleverest lyrics ever written, the rest of us already looked like has-beens.

“That little twerp is better than
I
am,” hissed Lee.

“We need to keep our eyes on him,” I muttered under my breath in agreement, “before he replaces
all
of us.” I don’t know how he managed to turn it into a boy’s song, but in his royal blue tights and his baby-blue tunic, even a line like “I enjoy a tender pass by the boss of Boston, Mass” landed with a reverberating crack on the guys’ side of the slate. Mrs. Packer was positively stupefied. (“Should I have considered non-traditional casting??”) I’m sure it’s no coincidence that two other boys in the ninth grade have been courageous enough to come out since Thanksgiving, because when you’ve got a pioneer like Augie Hwong blazing the trail, what’s there to be afraid of??

We had just enough rehearsal time left for a tech run-through of “So in Love With You Am I” before we broke for the afternoon—and since I’d never had a chance to sing it in my rose-gelled spotlight before, I gave it everything I had. (The only notable difference in my delivery was that I performed the entire song to Anthony without bothering to pretend otherwise. Theoretically, this constituted a breach of Lee’s and my rule about not flirting with boys—but neither of us had taken into account the prospect of a boy who’d have me talking to a llama.) To be entirely frank, I’ve done so much better in the past, it was with some measure of embarrassment that my fade-out on the tag—“so in love with you, my love, am I”—resulted in an impromptu standing ovation by the entire company.

“I’m mortified,” I muttered to Lee as we made our way to our dressing room. “I didn’t deserve that.”

“Then check
this
out,” she replied laconically, pointing to the back of the house. To my absolute horror, seated in the back row were my brother and my parents. Carlos was wearing a suitably smug grin, Mamita was beaming, and a thoroughly subdued Papa was numbly fielding staccato-like questions from Mrs. Packer and Mr. Disharoon, one of which clearly contained the phrase “promising career.” However, as optimistic as developments appeared from the safe distance of twenty rows away, it was only my brother’s “thumbs-up” that prevented a cardiovascular seizure on the spot and assured me that I’d at least won the first round. Which is as much as I could have reasonably hoped for. After all, even
you
had to wear down the
Banks family by degrees before you could teach Jane and Michael all they needed to learn about their hearts.

“Mr. Banks, on second thoughts, I believe a trial period would be wise. I’ll give you one week. I’ll know by then.”

Mary Poppins, if Hucky ever outgrows you, you’re welcome to come live with
me
.

Fondly,

Alejandra

WASHINGTON, D.C.

T
HOMAS
J. H
IRASAWA

S
TATE OF
C
ALIFORNIA

Dear Ms. Perez and Mr. Keller:

Rep. Ruth Mellick passed along your press release to my office, and I was most impressed that two high school freshmen care so deeply about an injustice that occurred so long ago.

As a third-generation
Sansei
, I had grandparents in both the Manzanar and Heart Mountain internment camps—my grandfather, in fact, pitched for the Manzanar Gophers—so I’d be most willing to assist your efforts in any way that I can in order to restore the baseball diamond at Manzanar. Please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Very truly yours

Thos. J. Hirasawa

D-California