Unnaturally Green (19 page)

As Cary explained the rules, Marshall seized the remote and started flipping through to find MSNBC. Nobody really understood why watching pedophiles get publicly shamed was part of our tradition; it just happened that the first time we’d assembled we’d gotten a huge kick out of it. Somehow, it stuck.

“Oh, look! There it is,” said Libby, pointing to the TV and giggling.

On the screen there was a man in acid-wash jeans, who was later identified as a pastor, sitting on a stool by a kitchen counter. “What’s in the bag?” asked host Chris Hansen in the most serious voice I’d ever heard. “Condoms?”

“No,” said the pastor. Then he hung his head. “Yes.”

“See? They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t,” said Etai, stirringly.

We all gasped as we watched the pastor get tackled to the lawn by a bunch of policemen with bowl haircuts.

 “It’s just pure filth,” heckled Etai from his corner armchair.

“Are we ready to play?” called Annie, her smiley face at its smiliest.

“Hang on,” Libby said, rising to her feet. In her frilly cardigan and sparkly headband she began lighting a row of tea lights, which she set next to the snack bowls and cheap wine Marshall and I had brought. From the looks of everything, Libby had cleaned and tidied her decidedly chic apartment. High-ceilinged and fully-furnished, it was part of a corporate housing building where many
Wicked
cast members lived.

“Libby, you are quite the hostess,” I said as she walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a bowl of grapes.

“Oh, stop!” she said so cutely that I wanted to call the cute police.

“Need any help?” I asked.

“Just sit your pretty booty down,” she said.

Lately, Libby and I had grown closer. Each game night we’d been swapping stories, testing our favored styles of conversation and senses of humor. Like Etai, Libby had gone to a conservatory program for college. Before that, she’d done summer theater—something we had in common—where she was hailed as an adorable little ingénue. (In contrast, I had tackled such roles as Fagin in
Oliver!
, Mercutio in
Romeo and Juliet
, Captain Hook in
Peter Pan
, and Fred Phelps and other men in
The Laramie Project.
Do you see a pattern? I was a gender-bending, feminist pioneer. With low self-esteem and bad acne.)

Indeed, Libby and I were a curious pair, on the honeymoon of our arranged standby marriage. We were eager to make things work, and in no time at all, the effort became minimal. Lately, it was no effort at all. I concluded that during my early days in the ensemble I had been quick to judge her; she was, despite her bubbly sheen, a kindred spirit. (I hope the obvious Glinda/Elphaba parallel comes to mind. No need for me to mention it, right? Oh, oops, I just did.)

“Okay, I think we’re ready,” said Cary, as Nic nodded while looking perplexed.

But we were interrupted as somebody outside started knocking. Libby answered and, in seconds, through the door walked—gasp!—Edvard Munch.

(Remember her?)

“Hey friends,” she said, giving a little wave.

As of a week ago, Edvard Munch had become
Wicked
’s newest cast member. Since the Week I Didn’t Poop, she’d been flown in as my ensemble replacement, and was now training to understudy Elphaba and perform my old 3F track.

I dug my hand into a bowl of Pirate’s Booty as I glanced over at Edvard, who plopped down next to Etai. Her hair was long and tied low in a ponytail, her perfect cheekbones an art lesson in shadow and light.

“Alyssa, you’re just in time,” said Libby.

Yes, Edvard’s real name was Alyssa, but I wasn’t willing to accept that just yet. I was still adjusting to my new reality: that a specter from my audition was suddenly here in San Francisco, taking over the track I had spent two months learning.

In other words, I’d been replaced. And the gears kept moving.

“Mm, Pirate’s Booty,” said Alyssa, reaching over my lap to the communal bowl.

As I watched her chew and talk to Etai with her mouth full, I knew that, in the end, I liked her. She was friendly, enthusiastic (giddy, even) and had a killer voice—probably one of the best I’d ever heard. What did I care that she’d replaced me? This was exciting, not something to lament. And while I still felt like a newbie myself, I’d do my best to help her along.

“I’m starting the timer, y’all,” said Annie, as she waved a little game piece in the air, which looked like a mini answering machine. “Catchphrase time!”

As the shouting match began, on the TV Chris Hansen was reading from a piece of paper while a man in a cowboy hat cried into his hands. “PleasureLover1995? Is that your screen name?”

Just then I heard the distinctly French Canadian call of Nic, shouting my name (“Fel-i-sha!”), as he handed me the little screen, which said
Greece—
a word I had to get my teammates to guess.

“The Olympics?”

“Athlete!” shouted Marshall.

“Countries, world,” I said.

“Nationalism!” yelled Cary.

I thought of a new tactic.

“
Summer lovin’ had me a blast…
”

“Grease!” everyone shouted together.

“Yay, homonyms,” I said, refreshing the screen as I handed it off to Libby, while people kept yelling and foaming at the mouth. I wondered if they, like me, had grown up with board games and sing-alongs as foundations for their every social encounter. Based on their intense (some might say “violent”) level of commitment, I would guess the answer to be yes.

“Team One wins!” yelled Annie, as Etai massaged Cary’s shoulders in celebration. I wasn’t sure which team I had been on, so I cheered anyway. Next it was time for Scattergories, where everyone creates lists of things that start with the same letter.

While Annie distributed pens and paper, I caught wind of Etai and Alyssa, murmuring together in the corner.

“Did you talk to her?” whispered Alyssa.

“Yeah—she said she might stop by,” answered Etai.

“Who?” I asked.

“Eden,” they said in unison.

“Eden?”

“Did you hear? She lives in this building,” said Libby, who had also been listening.

“Really?” I said.

Yes, Libby confirmed, Eden lived right down the hall.

“Oh, cool,” I said nonchalantly, while in my mind I was breakdancing in the style of M.C. Hammer.

How could I not? Hearing that Eden lived down the hall was like learning the White House was on my block, and I might get to trick-or-treat there. Scratch that—that the president might trick-or-treat
here!

Because Eden Espinosa, Broadway legend, was maybe going to play board games with us.

As I continued to mentally breakdance, Scattergories began, which meant more yelling and mouth-foaming. By the end of the first round, Marshall had taken a two-point lead—because, for “Things You Plug In,” he’d written
mammogram machine
.

“Nice!” said Nic.

He gave Marshall a high five, then said:

“Boobs.”

A new round began. I could tell the competition was serious, but then again, so was the bonding. Marshall and French Nic discovered that they loved not only boobs but also working out, and so scheduled some man-time together at the gym. Annie and I interrogated Alyssa about tea steeping, since she was an apparent connoisseur, while Libby and Cary browsed through an
Us Weekly
magazine, featuring cover-model Nicole Ritchie, circa the Skeletor Years. Meanwhile, Etai floated around grabbing everyone’s elbow skin, which he called a “weenus,” pinching us to attention at the start of each round.

“The letter is W.”

We started scribbling with our mini pencils, but I was too distracted to concentrate.

Eden Espinosa!
At board game night!

I glanced back up at the TV, where Chris Hansen was holding a rolled-up packet of papers over his head, as if to strike.

Nic spoke after two minutes. “Okay, Boys Names.”

“William Wallace,” said Marshall, at which point Nic gave him another high five.

“Does that have anything to do with boobs?” I asked.

“It’s two points,” Marshall called to me, “and totally badass.”

“Woodrow Wilson!” shouted Cary, in retaliation.

“Wan?” said Libby, reading from her scrap of paper.

“You spell ‘Juan’ with a J!” shouted Cary.

“You
could
spell it with a W!” I yelled back, defending my standby wife.

Through the shouting hardly anybody heard the knock at the door.

“Eden!” Libby squealed.

As if by magic, the woman called Eden Espinosa was in our mortal midst. Forget the president—she was an Olympian goddess, greeting and walking among the Athenian citizens. That’s right: Eden Espinosa. At board game night. Theater dorks everywhere were peeing their high-waisted tights.

“Hey, guys,” she said simply.

“Hello!” we all yelled.

For an Olympian she dressed simply, with a blazer, gingham button-down, cuffed jeans, and sparkly flats. Holding her hand was a man, bearded and in a tweed jacket (Zeus?), whose eyes were darting around the room—which, with paper, popcorn, and shoes strewn everywhere, looked like a fourth-grade classroom.

Eden spoke again.

“Hope we aren’t interrupting anything!”

At which point we all burst into laughter, even though nothing about what she had said was a joke.

Libby offered to take her coat, explaining that we were in the middle of a heated Scattergories game, and would they like something to eat, or maybe drink, and how about a grape? But Eden declined, explaining that she and her fiancé Joseph—the Zeus on her arm—were just stopping by after an evening out.

To prolong her visit, I sprang up to introduce her to Marshall. “Eden, you need to meet my boyfriend!”

I grabbed Marshall by the collar and shoved him in the general direction of the door, while my mouth kept talking.

“How are you, by the way? Good? Nice night, isn’t it? Did you guys go out? Where did you go?”

I was badgering the witness; luckily, Marshall was there to object.

“Hi! I’m Marshall, ha ha, it’s so nice to meet you, ha ha,” he said, extending his massive paw, laughing the entire time.

“This is my fiancé, Joseph.”

Marshall shared a forearm-flexing handshake with Joseph, all the while saying to Eden, “You know, I almost hit you with my chair in Starbucks! And then after I did—I mean, I
didn’t
actually hit you, but, I mean, after I
almost
did, ha ha—Felicia was like ‘that’s Eden Espinosa’ and I couldn’t believe it, ha ha!”

I started laughing like a hyena.

“Oh, Marsh, no need to tell her about that, ha ha!”

The Game Night pride joined in behind me, overcome by a fit of high-pitched laughter. (Apparently all of us coped with being star-struck the exact same way.)

Next came Annie, paying due respects to the Olympians, while Marshall and I remained at attention like puppies on our hind legs.

But in a blink, Eden and Joseph were floating around the room, saying their goodbyes before heading back toward the door.

As Eden turned to go, I called out to her.

“So, I’ll see you next week?”

“Right,” said Eden, cocking her head. “For…?”

“Oh, ha ha,” I said, laughing like a hyena imitating a crazier hyena, “I’ll be trailing you backstage. I think it’s Friday night? Anyway, I think that’s when it is. Ha ha!”

“Oh, right! Awesome. See you later, guys.”

She and Joseph disappeared around the corner.

The door shut, and we sat in silence, while Chris Hansen gazed directly into the camera, pointed a finger at us, and said, “You
will
be caught.”

Several minutes passed, and Etai was the first to speak.

“She’s hot.”

Nic high-fived him.

“You’re filthy,” was all I could say.

But it was true. She
was
hot. 

She was
more
than hot.

She was Eden Espinosa!

13. HAPPY TRAILING

T
hrough the white mist of two humidifiers, I watched as Eden adjusted her black braided wig, while the makeup artist dabbed her face, neck, and hands with gobs of translucent powder, which puffed out in all directions before dissolving into thin air.

“To set the green,” he explained.

Tonight was the night I would be trailing Eden backstage, as I’d done with Laura for my ensemble track. Instead of performing, I’d been “swung out” for the evening, which meant one of the swings would be covering my track. My goal that night was to observe Eden’s every move—silent and undetected, without getting in her way. (More or less like I’d done in Starbucks.)

Eden sat plainly, her hands folded on her lap, while she chatted with the wig supervisor about the weather, their day off, the price of gas—casual, polite fare. Since half-hour she’d been sitting calmly while others buzzed around her, worker bees tending to the queen.

Meanwhile, I was feet away, examining every line, crevice, ridge, and valley on her face, as the makeup designer carried out the transformative ritual.

Averting my eyes, I noticed a Michael Jackson poster hanging above a mini fridge and a small blue couch, the only piece of furniture in the room besides Eden’s swivel chair and the stool someone had brought in for me. Despite the office ceiling tiles and stark white walls, it felt like Eden had done her best to make the space her own, hanging a curtain in front of the bathroom door and taping pictures of her family and fiancé on the mirror.

As I turned back to watch Eden, I was struck once again by her level of calm. I think I half-expected something theatrical to happen. I wasn’t sure what. Chanting? Yoga poses? A ceremony involving incense and a slaughtered goat?

At the very least I expected some kind of warm-up. When had she found time to prepare?

I decided to ask, my voice wobbly through bashfulness.

“Uh, Eden—how early do you usually get here?”

Eden spoke in a deep, placid voice.

“I like to give myself fifteen to thirty minutes—so, like, 7:15 at the latest.”

“Oh, cool,” I said, surprised that this was all the time she needed.

“But, see, when I first did the role,” she continued, “I would arrive, like, two hours early. To prepare. Now, not so much.” At this, she craned her neck toward me, and we locked eyes.