Chapter 31
For the first time in a few cruises, Corey had decided that he wanted to fit a solo show into the schedule, which Sarah was happy to accommodate.
He’d been in a movie adaptation of a musical, and even though the movie had gotten panned for having too much CGI, he’d been doing covers of Broadway show tunes in a series of TikTok videos.
Show tunes were the opposite of a scandal.
Show tunes were geeky. They were wholesome.
Sarah was glad because here, finally, were some songs she liked!
The set list was good: some Sondheim, some Lerner and Loewe.
There were no props and no costume gimmicks.
Sarah checked in backstage and found Corey barefoot and pacing slowly, doing his vocal exercises.
“All set?” Sarah asked, offering a thumbs-up.
Corey nodded and finished doing his scale. He ran a hand over his chin, a practiced motion. “Anyone coming?”
“Anyone coming? Um, yes. Everyone is coming, actually,” Sarah said, laughing. “It’s almost like you have a captive audience.” She stopped when Corey didn’t laugh too.
“No,” Corey said. He ran his hands over his jeans. “I meant, are any of the guys coming?” A pair of shiny shoes sat nearby, and he slid into them and did a little tap dance. Sarah wondered what it was like having such easy charisma that it just slipped out of you, even when no one was watching.
“Oh,” Sarah said. They were not. Scotty sometimes showed up to things, but Keith slept as much as possible, as if unconsciousness was the answer to all his problems, and Shawn was glued to his laptop and cell phone whenever he wasn’t mingling.
This was work time, no two ways about it, and sitting in an audience did not count.
“You know, I’m not sure. I know there are a few VIPs on the list for the JackRabbit row, but I think it’s just the weather girl and a few of her friends.
Do you want me to check?” She reached up for her walkie-talkie button, but Corey put out his arm to stop her.
“No, no, don’t,” Corey said.
“Okay,” Sarah said. The theater was already full, but it was quieter than before the full band concert.
There were some people, Sarah knew, who were skipping it, not just the other members of Boy Talk.
There was a certain level of fatigue that set in by day three, especially after beach day, when everyone just needed to decompress for a little bit, have a little day-drunk nap.
The JackRabbit staff would tell people in the back rows to go down to the main level and take any empty seats they could find.
She didn’t tell Corey that. No one wanted to hear that they were coming in second place to a snooze.
“You enjoying yourself so far?” Sarah asked. Corey was stretching, bending his lithe body in well-practiced parabolic shapes that made Sarah’s body hurt just to watch.
“Oh, sure,” he said from a downward-facing-dog position. “Having a blast. Half the people on this ship are wearing my teenage face on their T-shirts.”
“Is it weird?” Sarah asked. “I mean, aren’t you used to it by now?”
Corey leapt gracefully up and rolled his head around on his neck.
Sarah felt like Corey was from some other, better planet.
She was just from Virginia. “Every year I get a little further away from that kid, you know? Like, do you remember believing in Santa Claus? That was a long time ago, right?” Corey said.
“I’m Jewish,” Sarah said. “So I never believed in Santa Claus. In fact, it always seemed really creepy to me, even though I was jealous.”
“But you know what I mean.” Corey had a set list written out on a sheet of paper.
“Yeah, I do.” Sarah’s walkie barked at her shoulder, where it was clipped to her shirt. “They’re ready if you’re ready.”
Corey nodded. He looked older when he wasn’t around the rest of them.
“Oh, ‘Being Alive,’ ” Sarah said, pointing to his list. “I love that one. I used to listen to the cast album on my very first iPod. I was cool, Corey. I don’t know if you knew that.”
“These guys wouldn’t know a Sondheim lyric if it hit them in the head,” Corey said.
“Maybe Scotty. Maybe. But probably not.” He stopped and looked at her, and in the light, Sarah could see his movie star bone structure, his movie star stubble.
It was so cruel what popularity did to people, what culture did to people, what magazines and TV news shows and the internet and social media did to people.
He wasn’t a murderer. He was just a beautiful asshole who had gotten famous when he was too young, and so what hope did he have to evolve?
He was like a tiger who had been bred in captivity and then set loose.
It wasn’t exactly his fault if he ripped out a few throats.
Sarah had gotten too drunk. She’d cheated on girlfriends.
She wasn’t the morality police. “Fuck ’em,” Corey said.
“Let’s go.” He didn’t wait for the lights to go down before he walked out onto the stage.