Chapter 6
SIX
Directly under the mirror was a pile of tissues that looked as though they’d been used to wipe the hands of the—writer? Scribbler? Graphiti-ist? Anyway, tissues were used to wipe the hands of whoever wrote that nasty word. Ricky stepped forward and grabbed a handful. Then he tried to wipe the offending word away, but ended up just making a big brown smear.
Meanwhile, I was trying to work it out. Whoever wrote that word must have known how much it would upset Ricky. But did they know that because they knew it was a word that would upset most straight guys when it got hurled at them? Or did they know it would specifically upset him because he’d partaken in the action at some point? I mean, teenage boys do all sorts of crazy things. Not that I… Well, I just wasn’t that sort of teenage boy. I was barely that sort of grown-up boy.
Then we heard Wendy coming down the hall, calling out, “I’d like all actors on stage for a dance rehearsal.”
Dance rehearsal? They were doing a dance? Marc hadn’t mentioned dance. I looked at him. Obviously, he was as surprised as I was. But where could they be rehearsing this dance? Between the set for Guessmate? and the audience risers, there wasn’t a lot of room to rehearse a dance. Not to mention, where would they shoot it once it was rehearsed? This was really weird. And given the things that had happened in the last ten minutes, that was saying something.
Marc looked down the hallway and called out, “Wendy, what are you talking about?”
“We’re going to do a little dance number. Just like old times.”
“You didn’t warn us about this. I didn’t bring dance clothes.”
My guess was Marc didn’t actually own dance clothes.
“There’s nothing to worry about. It’s two minutes, max. We’ll intercut it with a number from the original show.”
“So people can see how much we suck now?”
She laughed, and said, “You’re always so funny, Marc!” She continued coming down the hallway toward us, calling for people to come rehearse. When she reached us, she looked at me and said, “Do you need something to do?”
“No, um, actually…” I pointed vaguely toward the spot where the table was on the other side of the wall, then said, “Excuse me.” And I scurried out to the stage.
When I reached the table it was fully set up. The first ‘wave’ as Louis called it was nuts, M I wondered if I should go hide in there. It was tempting. I didn’t though. I just looked around, trying to think of a reason to walk away.
In addition to a large desk that would seat five, the Guessmate? set had three curtain-covered entrances: One for the team on the left, one for the team on the right, and one in the center for the host. Red-yellow-blue.
Donald—or more probably Ed—had found a stool and placed it in front of the red curtain. My guess was they’d be moving it around, so that when the show cut from one actor to another the backgrounds would change.
The actors were gathering: Grace, Keely, Meg and Ricky. Wendy scurried over to the monitor and put a video into the VCR. She immediately paused it.
“All right kids. I’ve picked out one of the numbers you did many, many times. I’m going to play it and then we’ll try going through it slowly. Then we’ll play it again and try to dance along. Where’s Marc? Is he coming?”
“So, like, where are Finn and Kathleen?” Ricky asked.
“I sent them tapes earlier in the week. They’ve already rehearsed.”
“What?” Grace said. “Why didn’t we get tapes? We could have rehearsed too!”
“You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Uh-huh,” and with that she began the video. There was the teenaged cast of Kapowie! singing and dancing their hearts out. The choreography looked simple enough, but not so simple a nondancer could quickly pick it up.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Marc and Louis at the edge of the stage. Clearly, Marc did not want to do this. Louis hadn’t been able to coax him all the way onto the stage. And then Donald was standing next to me, saying, “Helper number one.”
He meant me.
“Noah,” I reminded him.
“Sure, whatever. Can you come over and sit on the stool so we can make some decisions about lighting?” He posed it as a question, but it wasn’t really. Well, I had been looking for a reason to walk away from the craft table.
Glancing over at Eldridge, I gave him a ‘not my fault’ shrug, then followed Donald over to the spot where they’d set up the camera. I got on the stool while he and Ed focused the camera on me. Meanwhile, across the room in front of the risers, Marc reluctantly joined the rehearsal. The video had played through once. Wendy was about to replay it so they could dance along.
“You know, Wendy, I haven’t danced in fifteen years,” Marc said. “I hope you’re not expecting much. I’m certainly not.”
“Me either,” Meg said. “I haven’t danced in ages.”
“It’s all right, Meg. You’re going to be in the back.”
“I know I’m in the back. I’m always in the back.”
“Can I be in the back, too?” Marc asked.
“Oh, no… It’s funny when you do it wrong.”
“I don’t necessarily agree with that,” he said.
Wendy burst out laughing as though it had been a joke.
“Helper Number One, could you look to the left,” Donald asked.
I didn’t bother to tell him my name for a third time. Obviously, he had no interest in learning it. I looked to the left as instructed.
“My left,” he corrected. That would be the right, but okay. I looked to the right. To Ed he said, “He’s short. Much shorter than Finn. This angle works for the girls, but you’re going to want to lift the camera four or five inches for Finn.”
I thought he was being a little harsh but didn’t say so. After studying me through the viewfinder for almost a minute, Donald said, “Yeah, we need to move the stool about five inches to the left,” he said. “My left.”
I hopped off the stool and Ed came over to move it. I wasn’t certain why they didn’t just move the camera but, okay… Once the stool was moved I got back on it. Donald and Ed took turns staring at me through the viewfinder.
“Okay, look at my hand over here,” Donald said, holding his left hand out as far as he could. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it. What do you think, Ed?”
Ed looked into the viewfinder again and then nodded wordlessly.
“Great. Well, I guess that means we’re ready,” Donald said. He walked over to his wife, who was watching the cast dance and began whispering in her ear.
“Couldn’t we have twenty minutes,” I heard her say.
More whispering.
“Okay, fine, whatever.”
She aimed the remote control at the video player and ran the video backward. “Listen everyone. Donald is going to start recording each of you catching us up on what you’ve been doing and remembering the show fondly. Let’s run through this once and then we’ll circle back later for another rehearsal.”
“Or two,” Marc said.
“Or two. Now…” She pressed play, and said, “Five, six, seven, eight…”
They attempted the dance. It did not go well. They weren’t in synch, at all. Arms and legs seemed to be moving in every direction at once.
“Ricky,” Wendy called out. “Try to be more fluid. Think of yourself as water. Loosen up those tight muscles.”
It was hard to see how Ricky was worse than the others. Honestly, though, Marc really was the worst. He was jerking and twisting and thrusting without any regard to the original choreography—or even rhythm itself.
“Meg, stay in the back.”
“How much further back can I get?”
And then, mercifully, the number ended and they stopped.
“All right, kids,” Wendy said. “We’ll give that another try later on. If you have a minute, try to remember the steps in your dressing room. Help each other if you can. Right now, Donald is going to start calling you, one by one.”
Getting off the stool which was soon to be occupied by someone else, I went over to the craft table and joined Louis and Eldridge. Marc walked over, saying, “Not a word. Not a single word.” Louis and I looked at each other and smirked.
Marc shoved an oatmeal cookie into his mouth. Then said, “Umis merasser.”
“Yes, dear, I know,” Louis said. “But you knew it would be a disaster before we came.”
Marc swallowed. “I didn’t know it would be a disaster with dancing .”
“Don’t focus on that. Focus on our savings account. Think about being able to buy down our interest rate when we find a house.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded like a good thing. Donald and Wendy were having a powwow near the camera. Marc filled a plate with cookies and walked over to join Keely and Grace, who were walking through the dance routine in front of the risers.
“Just seven more hours,” Louis said dryly. It did sound like a very long time. Then he said, “So, Eldridge, what kinds of things do you like to do for fun?”
“I like to read, watch movies, try new things… go on dates.” The last bit was clearly directed at me. “I don’t have a lot of free time, though. I’m a full-time student.”
“I know. Noah said. Women’s Studies?”
“Only because they don’t have a Gay Studies department. Yet. Not that I haven’t turned a lot of my classes gay.”
Louis gave him a curious look and said, “Oh, do tell.”
“Well… like last quarter I took a film appreciation class. It was a broad survey class. The entire history of movies. I wrote a paper on the intersection between gay culture and early Hollywood.”
“That sounds fascinating. Don’t you think that’s fascinating, Noah?”
“The professor didn’t think so. He gave me a B-minus and accused me of perpetuating stereotypes. His view is that Hollywood was created by kindly straight White Protestant men. But that’s not true at all. No one thought movies would amount to anything, so what you’d call the establishment stayed away from them for the first few decades. That led to opportunity for Jews, women, gays and lesbians, even African Americans—though that was mainly in Chicago during the silent period.”
“That sucks,” Louis said. “I guess you’re done with film classes.”
“Oh no, there are three other really good professors. All gay. I gave one of them my paper and he said that he would have given it an A-plus. He’s already mentioned it to the head of the department.”
“Feisty. I like smart, feisty men. Don’t you, Noah?”
I wanted to kill him; or at least maim him. Luckily there was nothing but spoons and butter knives on the table. Then, out of nowhere, Wendy stood next to us holding the bag of cups from Juicy Juice.
“Louis, you’re to use these for people’s juice drinks. Finn is going first. He would like a Giant Green Monster. You’ve got the recipe book, don’t you?”
“Picked it up with the blender and the fruit.”
“Good. Don’t let anyone see it. It’s all very proprietary. Donald’s gone to get Finn. So if you could have the drink ready. We want him to be holding it during the interview.”
Wow, talk about product placement.
“Sure thing,” Louis said, taking the bag and walking away. Wendy smiled at us, and said, “Have you been to Juicy Juice? I have coupons, so don’t leave without one.”
“Are they just in the valley?” Eldridge asked.
“Oh, basin-snobs,” she said in a very dismissive tone, then began filling a plate with three shortbread, five chocolate-covered strawberries, a handful of M&Ms and three of Louis’ loaded oatmeal cookies. I started to worry we might run out of those.
A panicked look came over Wendy’s face. “I forgot to take my medicine. I always take it with a snack before bed, but I’m not going to bed, am I?”
With a nervous giggle, she scurried over to the risers, near the impromptu dance rehearsal.
“Oh yes, kids, that’s much better.”
She found her bag in the front row. Taking a bite out of an oatmeal cookie, she chewed as she dug through her purse—and dug through her purse, and then dug through her purse some more.
I reached under the table and brought up a few more cookies. Oh yeah, we were going to run out of those.
Meanwhile, Donald returned to the stage, without Finn. Looking up, Wendy saw him. Taking a cookie out of her mouth, she said, “Donald, I can’t find my meds. I remember putting them in my bag.”
“You must not have.”
“You were right there, didn’t you see?”
“I had other things on my mind.”
“You had other things on your mind? More important things than your wife’s health?”
“Wendy, are you going to die without it?”
“That isn’t the point.”
“I think it is.”
She got up and went over to him to continue what was threatening to be a real blowout. I was trying to pay attention, without looking like I was paying attention, when Meg walked onto the stage. There was a big smile on her face.
Seeing us standing by the table, she said, “Can you believe I’m going first? And look… Keely got me a troll doll.” She held up a naked, plastic troll doll with neon orange hair.
I glanced over at Keely who was saying, “Did I hear my name?”
Meg mouthed, “Thank you,” and held up the doll.
Keely’s brow wrinkled. It was obvious she had no idea what Meg was talking about. I looked back to Meg who seemed not to notice Keely’s confusion. To whoever was nearby, she said, “I collected them when I was on the show. My makeup table was like a little village. Keely I’m so touched.”
“Meg, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you don’t need to be shy.”
But I was sure she wasn’t being shy. I was sure she hadn’t the slightest idea where the doll came from. Which meant the doll had appeared out of nowhere.