24. I’m Just Visiting
I’M JUST VISITING
OWEN
B lake hadn’t been joking—I did get added to the Lancaster family group text.
At least the one that Emerson set up to discuss Charlie’s birthday.
I have no idea how he got my phone number, since it doesn’t sound like Charlie even knows about this particular group text.
We mostly discussed what “talent” each brother was planning, along with any pairing up for performances.
Which was how I managed to get paired up in two separate performances. One with Miles, which makes sense, since we bonded over the whole intruder thing. And one with Blake, who still kind of scares me.
I know Charlie said I didn’t have to, that I could just help her judge, but I want to.
I’m grateful I’ll be teaming up with a couple of her brothers because I really didn’t want to perform solo in a family tradition I know so little about.
And I love that we’ve somehow managed to keep my participation in it a secret from Charlie.
On Saturday evening, Charlie’s brothers carry an oversized reading chair out to a grassy area in the backyard that faces a wooden platform just below a big tree.
They call it the Queen’s Throne, and it’s where Charlie will sit as she judges the competition.
Then, her brothers, her mom, Zoe, Blake’s daughter, Heidi, and I all sit on camp chairs surrounding the platform that we’ll be using as a stage.
Once we are all seated and Charlie is ready to start judging, her brainy brother, Emerson, and her suave brother, Miles, take the stage and put on a wildly committed sock puppet story, complete with kitchen utensils as props and dramatic background music.
The hero sock battles the villain sock with a spatula-saber, and nearly meets his end in the “washing machine of doom,” which is played by a salad spinner.
He is rescued at the last minute in a surprise cameo by Charlie’s mom, Evelyn, who swoops in from offstage with a leopard-print sock puppet in sunglasses. Declaring she “came back for one last cycle,” her puppet saves the day with a spoon chop to the villain. The three of them bow as we all cheer.
Then, Blake and his three-year-old daughter, Heidi, take the stage, and Blake announces that Heidi is a world-famous namer of paintings. He shows a handful of well-known ones, and Heidi names them on the spot. She’s hilarious for such a little kid.
I especially love it when Blake shows The Scream by Edvard Munch.
Heidi takes one look at the swirling sky and haunted, panicked face and declares that it’s named, “He’s Got a Spider Under His Bed.
” I also love that when she sees the Mona Lisa , she calls it “She Sneaked Some Cookies.” I think that will forever remain its name in my head.
Ledger and Zoe take the stage next. As Ledger lies flat on his back, I wonder if the two of them have talked any more about getting engaged since the wedding, and how it went if they did. Zoe announces that she’ll be demonstrating “a test of balance, focus, and fragile carbs.”
Then she proceeds to see how many Ritz crackers she can stack on Ledger’s face while we all count out loud, with very enthusiastic voices, as she places each one.
Using multiple piles on his forehead and cheeks, she makes a fairly architecturally sound creation as Ledger just lies there, radiating a kind of chaotic confidence.
Eventually, the stacks on his cheeks start to lean inward enough that they rest against his nose, and he sneezes, collapsing the entire structure but producing a lot of hooting and cheering from us.
Then it’s my turn. I lean over and give Charlie a kiss on the temple, then stand.
She looks at me, confused but intrigued.
I don’t say a word—I just go to the bag I had Miles stash with the rest of the props and hand him a tape measure and a hammer while I take the level.
Then we walk onto the stage with slow, exaggerated purpose, and the crowd immediately hoots.
Charlie claps a hand over her grinning mouth, like she’s bracing for impact.
Miles pulls the tape measure out several feet and then drapes it across his chest like a royal sash. I hold the level upright in front of me like a broadsword forged by the gods of Home Depot.
Miles bows to the audience and announces in a regal tone, “We welcome thee… to Build-a-Bard.”
Then, the two of us improvise a scene in faux-Elizabethan English, very loosely quoting Shakespeare, as we discuss the errors Miles made in building the frame of a wall and how it isn’t going to pass inspection.
We end with Miles gasping and looking scandalized before dropping to one knee. “Forgive me, for ‘twas the fault of thine cursed manual—written without language, in only hexed diagrams.”
“Dost thou mean… the Swedish scrolls?”
“Aye,” Miles says. “IKEA hath claimed many brave men before it claimeth me.”
We both bow deeply. When we do, Miles accidentally whacks his knee with the hammer, yelps, and mutters, “Ow. The inspection hath failed.”
Everyone cheers and applauds. Charlie’s laugh carries above everything else, which is really the only stamp of approval I was hoping for.
I’m smiling as I take the seat next to her again.
Especially because she smiles at me like she thinks I’m even better than her dreams, which I’ll take any day of the week.
Charlie’s mom, Evelyn, and Ledger’s girlfriend, Zoe, carry a card table to the stage. On it is an oddly-shaped box, a roll of wrapping paper, scissors, some ribbon, and a tape dispenser. They make a show of blindfolding Zoe, and then Zoe puts on some work gloves—the type we use at my site.
In a calm, deadly serious voice, Evelyn narrates what Zoe’s doing as she attempts to gift-wrap the box, but she tells it like Zoe is trying to dismantle a bomb.
She says things like “She’s going for the tape…
no, she’s stuck to the tape, and the timer is relentlessly ticking down.
” And, “If she can’t secure the ribbon perimeter in the next ten seconds, the entire package will detonate into ‘slightly crumpled but lovingly attempted’ territory. ”
We’re all laughing at the seriousness of Evelyn’s voice juxtaposed with the comedic struggles Zoe is having with the gift.
Then, as Zoe finishes and holds up the package triumphantly, sporting pieces of mangled tape stuck in random places and a lopsided bow, Evelyn says, “She’s done it.
The payload is secure. Ribbon integrity: questionable.
Corners: classified. Tape application: eh…
We’ll call it ‘legally inadvisable.’ But the operation is a success. ”
When Zoe pulls off her blindfold, Evelyn says with pride, “I trained her myself.”
What really gets everyone laughing until they can’t breathe, though, is when athletic Ledger and brainy Emerson take the stage, each holding a microphone connected to a karaoke speaker that, by its kiddie look, was purchased when they were much younger.
Ledger starts beatboxing with an impressive level of commitment, while Emerson raps about statistical modeling, of all things. I’m pretty sure that none of us, other than Emerson, even understands much of what he’s rapping, but it makes it all the funnier.
While Ledger is holding the mic close, making “Puh-tss-kah, puh-tss-kah—cha-cha-cha- tss—YUH!” sounds, Emerson is saying things like, “I’m talkin’ linear regression, straight line obsession.
Minimizing errors like it’s therapy session.
Got a bell curve tighter than Miles’s tux, My R-squared’s clean—don’t need no luck. ”
It goes on for several verses before they both finish with a spin, hold their mics out straight, and then simultaneously drop them.
Emerson, as if he didn’t just barely stun us all, calmly fixes the shirt collar of his polo, gives a slight nod, then walks off the stage without any of the swagger he was just showing.
Charlie is wiping tears from her eyes from laughing so much.
I surprise Charlie, once again, when I stand and take the stage so that Blake and I can perform “A Duet in Three Cavities.” It’s a mock dramatic reading where we combine Blake’s profession of dentistry with mine of building renovation in the most ridiculous way possible.
We have a big tooth we’ve made out of the bottom two-thirds of a gallon milk jug turned upside down, with craft stick scaffolding around it.
We hadn’t thought ahead about what to set it on beforehand to be the right height, so we grabbed a couple of empty Amazon boxes at the last minute and stood them on top of each other to make a small table barely wide enough for the tooth and scaffolding.
I’m holding a blueprint like I’m reading a newspaper, and Blake has a dental chart.
We use a paintbrush instead of a toothbrush and a measuring tape as dental floss.
We’re both wearing safety goggles from our own places of work as we talk about a cavity in a tooth like it’s a crack in an old building.
We get to a part where I say, “A tiny fissure, barely visible. But oh, how it spread,” and I step forward to gesture with my arm to show how it spread. But my knee accidentally hits the bottom box and sends both boxes, the “tooth,” and the scaffolding crashing to the stage .
“And so,” Blake improvises without missing a beat, “the root canal of betrayal began.”
I’m laughing inside, but I manage to keep a serious face as I pull my blueprints over the dead tooth to cover it, and say in a mournful voice, “It never had a fighting chance.” I guess this skit didn’t, either.
Blake crouches down beside the tooth, too, as if he’s paying his respects, and says, “Floss in peace.”
Everyone cheers, and I chuckle all the way back to my seat. Charlie gives me a smile that is so wide and beautiful that I just want to kiss it.