One Man Show (12 page)

“Now repeat what I say,” she said. “The lips, the teeth, the tip of the tongue.”

A tongue twister. My favorite! We repeated it, getting faster and faster, like a speeding train; then Miss Van Rye held up
her hands to stop a train wreck from happening. She reached into her tote bag, removed a plastic container, and handed it
to Jeremy.

“Here, take one and pass around the rest,” she said. “One to a customer.”

I didn’t have a clue what was in the container until Jeremy passed it to me. Wine-bottle corks?
I wonder if she polished off a crate of wine last night, just so we’d have enough.

“Okay, all eyes on me,” Miss Van Rye said. “Oh, I just love it when all eyes are on me! Now take your cork and place it between
your front teeth, like so.” She bit the cork, and her hand circled beneath her chin. “The lips. The teeth. The tip of the
tongue.”

“Excuse me, Miss Van Rye,” Darlene said, “but why does Leonard have a cork? He’s crew. Should the crew have a cork?”

She ignored Darlene and started us on our next tongue twister, “Unique New York.” It sounded more like “Oooh-neee noo yor,”
and we all had long strings of spittle dangling from our chins.

“No, no, no,” Miss Van Rye said, removing the sloppy cork from her mouth. “You’re dropping the last consonant. It’s ‘New York-k-k’!
Try it again, and I want you to splatter the back wall of the auditorium with
k’
s.”

“This is too hard,” Darlene said, massaging her jaw. “And icky.”

“It ensures proper enunciation,” Miss Van Rye said. “It just takes practice.”

“But it hurts!”

“Show business isn’t for wimps, dear. You have to suffer for your art.”

“When are we gonna get to the play?” Darlene whined. “I’m getting lockjaw!”

“Oh, stick a cork in it,” Miss Van Rye said, giggling at her own joke.

Wally snorted and the cork shot out of his mouth, whacking Darlene above her ponytail. She screamed so loud, you’d think somebody
had slammed a piano lid on her knuckles.

“Idiot!” she yelled. “You did that on purpose!”

“Did not!” Wally said, laughing. “I swear.”

“It was a total accident,” I said, laughing too. “I saw the whole thing.”

“It’s not funny!” Darlene said, holding up a fist. “He could’ve knocked an eye out!”

“Just the one in the back of your head!” Wally said.

“Kiddles, kiddles!” Miss Van Rye clapped her hands. “Save these raw emotions for your performances. Maybe we’ve done enough
tongue twisters for today.”

Ya think?
My tongue was in knots, and the stage looked like swampland.

“In fact, why don’t we take a well-earned potty break? Ten minutes, everyone.”

“Potty break”?
You can take the actress out of the kindergarten teacher, but you can’t take the kindergarten teacher out of the actress.

Wally walked right past me and out into the hall, even
though I’d just stuck up for him. That’s gratitude for you. I noticed Miss Van Rye take a Jack Sprat Donuts bag out of her
tote and inhale two French crullers. I wondered if she’d run into Mom at the Donut Hole - she’d better not have spilled the
beans about my being in the play.

A loud squeak came from the back of the house. Jeremy was sitting in the last row, wearing headphones. We’d barely said a
word to each other since the party, so I didn’t know what his deal was. I was dying to know how Futterman had worked his evil
genius and persuaded him to be in the play.
There’s no law against acting friendly, even if you’re not feeling friendly
-
after all, acting is what I do. Plus, the Prince and the Jester have three scenes together. I don’t want any tension between
us mucking up my performance.
I took the long way around the auditorium and sat one seat away from him. He was listening to a CD and staring at the cover
of
Celeb
magazine. “The Fifty Sexiest Celebrity Belly Buttons” was splashed across the top.

“How do you do a cover story on belly buttons?” I asked. “Do they, like, divide them into innies and outies? Fuzzy and bald?
Pierced and bejeweled?”

Nothing. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he didn’t feel like slumming it at the moment.

“You can have your Yankees cap back if you want,” I said.

Still nothing. I repeated it with more oomph.

“Huh?” He took off his headphones. “Why would I want it back?”

“Dunno.”

Jeremy put his feet up on the armrest in front of him and started thumbing through the magazine.

“Nice shoes,” I said.

“Yeah, they’re the new Bruno Vitale suede loafers. Three hundred bucks.”

All the clothes in my closet weren’t worth three hundred bucks.

“Cool,” I said.

I could tell he wasn’t in a talky mood, but at least he was saying something.

“I’m sort of surprised you’re doing the play,” I said, getting right to the point. “I mean, you being you and all. Oh, I’m
glad you are, though. Really, really glad.”

“Really, really glad”? I can’t believe what passes through these lips sometimes.

Long silence. I was losing him. I had to change the subject -
stat!

“So, celebrity belly buttons?” I said, pretending to be interested.

“Yep.”

“What does it say in the small print under ‘Navel Academy Awards’?” I asked, leaning in. Jeremy gave me one of those
annoyed sighs, as if I’d asked him to sort fish heads or something. But he picked up the magazine and began reading out loud.

“‘East Coast or West, casual or glam, the beee-’” He stopped. Blinked. “’Casual or glam, the -’” He tossed me the magazine.
“Here, you read it.”

“The beguiling belly button is back.’ I didn’t know it was missing.”

Jeremy ripped the magazine out of my hand and put his headphones back on. Conversation over.

What did I say? What did I do? Now who was acting psycho?
To quote Aunt Birdie, “That was the straw that broke the cannibal’s back.” Suddenly I wanted to knock those headphones off
his inflated head and shake him.
I invited you into my home, dude! I lost my best friend because of it, Mr. Hollywood hotshot!
I made a mental note to beat up his baseball cap the minute I got home.

After the break we still didn’t take out our scripts. We did what Miss Van Rye called the mirror exercise. She had us sit
face to face with different partners, copying each other’s exact movements in slow motion. Jeremy got stuck with Darlene first.
I could see her making pucker lips an inch from his face. He looked as if he were being tortured, but he was forced to make
the same lovey-dovey faces right back at Darlene.
Ha!

When it came around to Wally and me as partners, we
could barely even look at each other. It was intense. I thought I might break through his wall of hate by making blowfish
cheeks and pig snouts. But no such luck.

“Oh, I can’t believe it’s six o’clock already!” Miss Van Rye said. “Tonight I want you all to think about what makes your
characters tick. Find the different layers. Peel the onion.”

“I don’t get it, Miss Van Rye,” Wally said. “Why do we have to peel onions?”

“That’s just a figure of speech,” she explained. “I want you to dig beneath the surface of your characters. Really delve.”

“Oh, man, that sounds like homework!” Wally complained.

“Yeah,” Darlene said. “I wouldn’t mind delving if I was playing Princess Precious - the role I was born to play.”

“La-la-la-la-la.” Miss Van Rye stuck her fingers in her ears.

“Fiddle-dee-dee, fiddle-dee-dee!”

I chimed in with “I think this is great, Miss Van Rye. What kinds of things are we looking for?”

“Now you’re talking! For example, what are your character’s hopes and dreams, likes and dislikes? Down to the smallest details,
such as, What does he eat for breakfast?”

“Or if he’s an innie or an outie,” I said.

“Exactly!”

I glanced at Jeremy. My brilliant belly-button reference went unnoticed.

Millicent Fleener stopped scribbling in her notepad and raised her hand.

“Yes, Millicent?”

“I only have two lines. Do I still have to delve?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” Miss Van Rye said. “Remember, there are no small parts, only small actors.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Millicent looked disappointed.

“Well, nice work today, munchkins,” Miss Van Rye said, applauding us. “Bravo!”

Jeremy grabbed his stuff and shot out the door like a bullet.

“Oh, one more thing, cast!” Miss Van Rye said. She was wedged in a front-row seat, struggling out of her ballet slippers.
“There are show posters in the cardboard box stage right - hot off the presses. Principal Futterman is really going all out.
Everyone take a stack before you leave. I expect to see Buttermilk Falls plastered in these things.”

“Oh, man,” Wally grumbled.

“Get some rest, boys and girls. Tomorrow we begin re-blocking the show.”

“What the heck’s ‘blocking’?” I heard Wally ask Cynthia.

“Where you move to onstage,” I said.

He stomped away from me and stood in line at the box of posters. Pepper and I followed and ended up holding our breath behind
Leonard Shempski.

“Jeez,” Pepper said. “How are we supposed to delve, plaster,
and
get some rest?”

“Well, munchkin,” I said in my best Miss Van Rye voice, “show business isn’t for wimps. You have to suffer for your art!”

Wally gave me a quick look over his shoulder.

“Knock it off,” Pepper said, snickering. “You’re gonna get us in trouble.”

“Fiddle-dee-dee! Fiddle-dee-dee!” I said, sticking my fingers in my ears.

The old Wally would’ve been howling at that, but he just grabbed some posters and left. We’d had rough patches in our friendship
before, but this time I think I screwed things up big time.

“Can I help you, young man?”

The waitress from the Yankee Doodle Diner had a tower of blond hair with an old army hat angled on top.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We’re doing a play down at the school. Is it okay if I put this poster in your window?”

“We’ve already got one in the entranceway. Didn’t you see it on your way in?”

“Oh, sorry, I -”

“One more’s not gonna hurt, I guess,” she said. “Why don’t you go ahead and take out the one from St. Agatha’s pancake breakfast?
That was last year, for heaven’s sake.”

“Thanks,” I said. I took the faded poster out of the window, shook off the dead flies, and handed it to the waitress, Bunny.
Her name tag stood out against the stars-and-stripes handkerchief that was pinned to her pocket.

I hadn’t been to the diner in months, but it looked different,
as if Uncle Sam had exploded in there or something. Tiny American flags were poking out of everything.

“I like how you fixed up the place.” I said.

“Well, ever since that Jukebox Café opened across the street, we started losing business,” Bunny said. “So Ed and I are pulling
out all the stops. This place is our dream, and we’d sure hate to lose it.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

It looked as if sticking a feather in its cap wasn’t doing the Yankee Doodle Diner much good, though. Besides the dead flies,
there were just a few people at the counter and old Mr. Kravitz, the pharmacist, sitting in one of the booths, sipping an
iced tea.

“Oh, miss? Miss?”

The voice coming from behind the menu at the counter sounded real familiar.

“I’d better get back to my customers,” Bunny said, trotting away.

“Can I have that order of fries
to go,
instead of for here?”

It was Wally, using a deeper voice, as if I wasn’t going to recognize him. It was the same exact voice he used as the King.
He turned his back to me, facing the revolving dessert case.

“The Star-Spangled Banana Cream Pie came in fresh today,” Bunny said, tapping her order pad with a pencil. “Can I tempt ya?”

“Nah, I’m not a big fan,” Wally said.

“Those Red-White-and-Blueberry Muffins are to die for. No? How about your friend?” she asked, looking my way. I was lingering
near the gum-ball machine at the entrance.

“Him?” Wally said. “He’s not my friend. And can you hurry with my fries, please?”

“Well, you boys both came in with the same posters, so I just figured -”

“Nothing for me, thanks,” I said.

Bunny stabbed her pencil into her lacquered hair and yelled, “Okay, Ed, put some wheels on those frog sticks!”

“Remind me what that means again,” the cook said from the kitchen area.

“Make the fries to go! For Pete’s sake, get with the program.”

I knew Wally wasn’t going to run away as long as he had food coming. I wandered toward him, wondering what was going to come
out of my mouth.
Why is some stuff, like “I’m sorry,” practically impossible to say?

“So I guess you hate my guts, right?” I said, approaching him.

Wally plunked his clunky bassoon case on the stool next to him, forming a barrier between us. I sat on the next stool over.

“Listen, Wally -”

“It’s Wallace.”

“Pepper filled me in on what happened,” I said. “About you seeing Jeremy at my house and everything. Would it help if I said…
that it was a huge mistake?”

“No.”

This was going to take a while. I grabbed a handful of Sweet ‘n’ Slim packets out of the small bowl on the counter and piled
them in front of me.

“It definitely should’ve been
you
at that party instead,” I said.

“You must be confusing me with somebody who cares,” Wally snapped, burying his head in the menu again.

He wasn’t making this any easier.

“Sorry I lied. For whatever it’s worth.”

There. I’d actually said the word
sorry,
but Wally couldn’t care less. I focused my attention on balancing four Sweet ‘n’ Slim packets on their edges to build the
foundation of a fort.

“But you were complaining about having to get my gran a gift,” I went on, “and then I never heard back from you, so -”

“So you just blew me off,” Wally snapped, spinning around on his stool to face me.