Take Two! (11 page)

There were too many for their names to sink in, but the ones that stuck were Jack Wackerly, the Wacky Wonder of Wacker Drive;
Willy Wong (at first I thought he’d said Willy Wonka); and my favorite of the nut cluster, Ruby Ray – or as she put it: “Ruby,
like the gem; and Ray, like a drop of pure sunshine.” She was a large, black woman polishing off a liter of Diet Shasta. Instead
of shaking my hand like the rest of them, she shook my jaw and said, “Mmm, look at that sweet, young face. Ruby Ray’s got
her some toothbrushes older than that face!”

A narrow door marked
MEN-WOMEN-UNDECIDED
opened a crack and a guy’s gravelly voice said, “Anybody got any dried leaves? Morty still hasn’t sprung for a roll of toilet
paper, that cheap son of a –”

“Lenny!” Dad interrupted. “My son is here. Remember, I told you guys he was coming? His name’s Dustin.”

“Yeah? Like Dustin Hoffman, the famous actor?” An eyeball appeared in the crack. “Are you a famous actor too?”

“Kinda,” I mumbled. I hated that I was coming off all shy and self-conscious. That totally wasn’t like me. “Definitely!”

“Nice to meet ya.” He extended his hand out the bathroom door – like he actually wanted me to shake it. I handed him the packet
of tissues that Mom had stuffed into my pocket, followed by the bottle of hand sanitizer. I swear, it was as if she could
predict the future.

“Lenny, you got no class!” Ruby yelled, slamming the door on his arm. Lenny yowled. “How many times we got to tell you to
keep that door shut when you’re doin’ your business?”

“It’s cool,” I said. “I’m not too grossed out – my gran does the same thing all the time.”

Everybody got a big kick out of that. Miss Ruby grabbed my hand and dragged me onto the duct-taped couch next to Willy Wong,
who was wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt. Either he was in deep meditation or passed out cold. “Now hold this nice and steady
for me, baby, so I can reapply my face,” she said, handing me a tiny, chipped pocket mirror. “Tonight Ruby Ray’s gonna get
discovered – I can feel it in my bones. My
funny
bones.”

I sat holding the mirror, watching Dad pace back and forth, while Ruby added another layer of makeup to the one
she already had on. There was a preshow buzz of excitement filling the air and I found myself buzzing right along with everyone
else. The whole thing reminded me of backstage at Buttermilk Falls Elementary before opening night. Only these guys were the
real deal – show-biz folk living their dream. It was exhilarating being surrounded by my “peeps!”

“So, Teddy,” the Wacky Wonder said, digging through his box of props, “are we gonna finally get to meet Shelly tonight too?”

“What? Nah, not tonight,” Dad answered. “She’s back at the apartment.”

My stomach did a flip-flop. I almost fumbled the mirror.

“Haven’t you kept that doll to yourself long enough?” Lenny said from the john.

“Yeah, Teddy,” Ruby added. “You been talking about her for the last two months, but we ain’t seen hide nor hair of her. Now
my mama didn’t raise no fool. Is she for real or are you just making her up?”

Oh, gawd, please let him be making her up!
Another woman? I hadn’t even considered that. How were my parents supposed to magically get back together with
her
in the way?
What if they’re married already? What if she makes me call her Mother?

“Where’s Teddy?” Morty barged into the greenroom chewing his putrid cigar. “There ya are. I hate to do this to ya with your
kid here and all, but I’m gonna have to bump ya from
the lineup tonight. Gary Glass just walked in the door-someone must’ve tipped him off about the talent scout.” (Ruby yelled
out something I can’t repeat.) “You’re low man on the totem pole and he’s my biggest draw. Sorry, but dem’s the breaks.”

Practically all the comics in the room offered Dad their spots, but he passed – said it wasn’t fair. Not only was he a stand-up
comic, he was a real stand-up guy.

“Just for the record, I think this stinks,” I told him on our way out of the club.

“You heard the man, ‘Dem’s the breaks,’ he said, imitating Morty’s rasp. He was acting like it didn’t bug him, but I knew
different. “Those talent scouts show up all the time but I don’t know of a single person who’s been discovered yet.”

On the bleak ride to Dad’s apartment, one burning question kept swirling around in my head like Morty’s cigar smoke: “Who’s
Shelly?” But it never escaped my lips.

There were so many flights of stairs leading up to Dad’s apartment, by the time we got there I had jet lag. I leaned breathlessly
against the banister, listening to babies screeching, while Dad unlocked the seventy-five locks on his dented door.

“Home, sweet home.” Dad rammed the door open with his shoulder and flipped on the light switch. “Now I know it ain’t exactly
the Ritz…”

That was being too kind. It was barely bigger than a Ritz cracker. And the decor was – I guess you’d call it shabby chic,
only without the chic. It looked like Gordy’s room on a bad day. Squalor I believe is the word Mom uses to describe it. Wait,
let me think.
“Gordon, how can you sleep surrounded by such squalor?”
Yeah, squalor.

“Lemme give you the grand tour,” Dad said through his
bullhorn as if I were a crowd of fifty. “This here is the great room; over there’s the john. And that concludes the grand
tour!” We threw our jackets on an overloaded coatrack, toppling it over. “I know it’s a dump, but like I said, it’s just temporary.”

Temporary seemed to be a permanent feature when it came to Dad.

“So sit down, take a load off.” He jiggled my shoulders. “Relaaax!”

How could I relax? I kept expecting that home wrecker, Shelly, to come rushing into the room any second in skimpy lingerie
and bunny slippers.

“You could throw your stuff anywhere.”

That seemed to be the general rule. I dropped my backpack and looked around the not-so-great room for somewhere to sit. Dad
cleared a pizza box off a beat-up armchair and I collapsed into it – the chair, not the box. A cloud of dust actually puffed
up from the cushion.

“Sorry I didn’t have time to pick up,” Dad said, rushing around scooping up handfuls of stuff. “I was running late.” He disappeared
into the bathroom and came back a second later empty-handed. Still no Shelly. “So what can I do ya for? You want anything
to eat – drink?” I shrugged. “Don’t get bashful on me now. I know my cupboard’s not completely bare…” Dad was going for the
cabinet, but veered off to
the window instead, and pulled down the shade with a quick jerk. “Which is more than I can say for my next-door neighbor!”

That could’ve used a “bah-
dum
-pum,” but I was too busy picking at a cigarette burn in the armrest and having a panic attack.

“Let’s see what’s on the menu,” he said, opening the cabinet. “Peanut butter, creamy; peanut butter, crunchy; and peanut butter,
all natural – for the discriminating palate.”

“What about Shelly?” I blurted out.

He just kept rummaging.

“I’m really sorry to have to break this to you, kid,” he said turning to me.
Brace yourself – here comes the bomb
. “But I’m all outta jelly.”

“Shelly!” I practically screamed.

“Oh. How did you find out about Shelly?”

“At the Laugheteria – hello? Your friends were teasing you about her right in front of me.”

“Oh, right, right, right.”

His brain was as scattered as his dirty laundry.

“Well,” he said with a wiggly worm of a smile, “wanna meet her?”

Let’s not and say we did
. “Okay.”

“Just sit tight,” he told me, rushing to the other side of the room. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Where would I go?

Dad wrenched open a warped closet door and a bunch of shoe boxes and junk spilled out on top of him. He shoved it all back
in except for a black leather case – kind of like Wally’s bassoon case, only bigger – then ran out the front door of the apartment,
closing it behind him.

Where’s he off to? Is he coming back?
I knew I was being ridiculous, but I still couldn’t help wondering. I perused the room, trying to spot his phone just in
case I had to call Mom to come and rescue me. After all, Dad had a reputation for running away when things got weird.

Buzz!

I jumped. That had to be the loudest doorbell in the history of doorbells.

“Dad?” I said, rushing to the door.

Buzz-buzz-buzzz! Knock-knock-knock!

“C’mon, quit screwing around!”

I twisted the doorknob and pulled the door open. Nobody there. When I stuck my head around the door frame, a big purple thing
lunged out at me.

“Eeesh!”
I yelped. “What the –?”

“You must be Dustin,” it said in a high, tinny voice. “I’m Shelly. Nice to make your acquaintance.”

A ventriloquist dummy? Who would’ve guessed I’d be so stoked to meet a three-foot-tall purple mermaid puppet? She had turquoise
hair with starfish stuck in it, a long, floppy tail, and two sparkly shells where a bikini top would be.

“I’d shake your hand, kid, but mine are all
clammy
. Bah-
dum
-pum!”

“Dad! I knew you were up to something –
fishy
.”

“He’s a real cutie, Ted,” he went on a la Shelly. “Too bad I’m dating a Navy Seal.”

“Oh, gawd.”

Dad unclenched his jaw and switched to his real voice. “Well, whaddya think? Ain’t she something? Ask her how old she is,
Dusty. Go ahead, ask.”

“Daaad
, can we take this inside?”

“C’mon, throw me a
line
. Just for the
halibut
.”

“All right already. I’ll
bite
.”

“Ha! That’s m’boy!”

“So, Shelly, what year were you – spawned?”

“Lemme think… I can’t remember the exact date. But the Dead Sea was just starting to get sick!”

I pulled Dad and company into the apartment before the neighbors called the men in the white coats.

“What did the Pacific Ocean say to the Atlantic?”

This was getting old real quick. I was drowning in fish jokes! Plus, he was really bad at keeping his lips from moving. Still,
I was so relieved that Shelly wasn’t a real live woman, I just kept playing along.

“I don’t know. What
did
the Pacific say to the Atlantic?”

“Nothing. It just waved.”

I threw myself across the couch in exhaustion.

“Okay, folks, that’s my time.” Dad must’ve gotten the hint. Shelly took her curtain call (with help from Dad, of course)
and wound up propped on the couch next to me.

“Give it up for the comic stylings of Teddy Grubbs and Shelly!” I shouted, tossing a pillow into the air. I was clapping and
whistling on the outside, but on the inside I was thinking,
If that’s his new act, he’s in real trouble
.

“Uh-oh, speaking of time,” Dad said, glaring at his watch, “I gotta drop my cab off by nine o’clock or I’ll be in deep doo-doo.”
He rushed to the dresser across the room and started digging through the bottom drawer like a maniac.

“You never did tell me how your audition for the school musical went. I definitely want the play-by-play when I get back,
okay, buddy?”

I got a
sinking
feeling.

“Here, this oughta keep you entertained till I get back,” he said, shoving a videotape into the VCR/DVD combo next to the
small TV atop the dresser.

“What is it?” Please don’t let it be
The Little Mermaid
.

“You’ll find out.” He tossed me the remote. “The taxi hub is just around the corner, so I’ll be back faster than you can say
Jack Robinson.”

“Jack Robinson.”

“A thousand times.” He grabbed his jacket and shot out the door with a wink.

Once again my heart froze in my chest. I guess it was, like,
a Pavlov-and-his-dogs type thing. I ran to the door and locked it because I was in the big city and you just can’t be too
careful; then curled up on the couch next to “the other woman.”

“So, home wrecker, shall we
dive
right in? Whaddya say?” I clicked on the TV with the remote.

“…
hear it again for Miss Thompson’s first-grade snow angels and Santa’s little helpers
.” The sound blasted out, but the picture was still fuzz.
“Good job. You really knocked it outta the park!”
There was clapping and cheering, then Mr. Futterman appeared on the screen! This must’ve been from a long time ago because
he still had a patch of hair.
“And now Mrs. Sternhagen’s second-graders will present a Christmas recitation, followed by a festive song of the season
.”

Mrs. Sternhagen waved her students onstage, and waddled down the steps to the piano. I swear she was wearing the same brown
dress she had on last week.

“Oh, I know what this is,” I said out loud to Shelly. “The Christmas pageant from five years ago that we had at our school.”
I squeezed the contraption in Shelly’s back that worked her mouth, answering myself in a high falsetto. “I know a family of
clownfish that travels around in a
school
.”

“
Shhh!
Watch the movie. Hey, look, that’s me! In front of the leaning Christmas tree, carrying the letter
S
. Jeez, my head was gi-normous!”

The nine of us with speaking parts and placards were like
bumper cars trying to find our spots in the CHRISTMAS lineup. First we spelled out SHIRTSCAM; then CRASHMIST; then THISCRAMS.
Pretty funny! The audience seemed to think so too.

Finally we ended up in the correct boy-girl-boy-girl positions. Sternhagen was barking something at us. “Now I want to see
expressions of joy on your little faces or there will be serious consequences!” I’m guessing. She cued us to begin and the
first kid stepped forward to recite his line.

“
C
is for the CAROLS that we sing from days of old – yore!”

“
H
is for the HOLLY WREATH that hangs upon the door,”

Gee, I wonder why Holly Peterson got that line
.