Chapter 9
“I’d like to confirm the email address one more time,” Tony says from the passenger seat.
“I’ll write Sal,” I say.
The morning sun makes the strip malls and gas stations shine. A giant red pickup truck drives right behind me even though I’m already going the speed limit. I speed up.
“I’m your manager,” Tony says.
“But he called me .”
“And now it goes to me. Professionals don’t negotiate their own contracts.”
“Contract? He said to send—”
He raises his voice. “I will send him a private video link that will go active after he signs a nondisclosure agreement stating—”
“You cannot ask this guy to sign something.”
“You’re giving away your material now?”
The pickup speeds around and ahead of me. The bed of the truck is empty. Why do people buy these huge trucks when they don’t need to haul anything?
“It’s always the Dodge Rams,” Tony mutters.
I take a deep inhale through my nose. “You can email Sal a video but please do not ask him to sign anything.”
Tony taps a knuckle on the window. “Fine.”
From the back seat, Andi laughs. “You guys are sweet.”
We park at school and join the crowds exiting their cars. I wave to a kid I met in ninth-grade Tech, who waves back, and I do puffy cheeks at a girl from calculus, who laughs.
Tony holds his phone in front of me as we walk. He’s playing a video of a stand-up in the spotlight, tapping his chest as he leans into the mic. It takes a second to realize it’s me.
I stop. “You filmed this?”
“And edited, and did color correction and sound.”
“This looks incredible,” I say. I’ve never actually watched anything he’s shot. “You could do this professionally.”
Andi grabs the phone. “This looks like the real deal.”
Tony takes the phone back. “Because Sean is the real deal!”
It looks like the videos I’ve watched of Joe Johnson. The Sean on screen smiles as the audience bursts into laughter.
“The set is good,” Tony says. “I’ll send it to Sal right now.”
He sends the email—he already had it drafted—and he messages me a link to the video. It’s almost scary how good the buzz in my pocket feels.
Ahead of us, Christy gets out of the passenger seat of Kaye’s dented grandma-gold Civic. I completely forgot I never wrote back to her photo yesterday.
“Christy!” I’m shocked to hear myself say, and even more shocked to find I’m jogging over.
“Hey.” She kisses me carefully so only the tips of our lips touch.
I should probably be panicking about how I irreparably messed everything up, but instead I say, “I’m sorry I didn’t write back yesterday. The photo you sent was so hot it set my phone on fire and I had to build a new one.”
She laughs a little. “It’s fine. I was just being—”
“Incredible. You were being incredible. I looked at my phone and I was speechless. I am only now regaining my speech because I’m looking at you again. This is the power you have.”
She shakes her head. “All right.”
“Are you still free tonight?”
Her face brightens. “I am.”
“Pignolis.”
She smiles. “All right,” she says again.
I give her a kiss and she pulls me closer. Relief pours through me. I feel proud of successfully patching up any weirdness. I feel proud of being a normal person.
I jog back to Tony and Andi as Jay Romero runs up to Kaye and begins a full-on make-out session against her car.
“Tongue before eight a.m.,” Tony observes.
“End mass incarceration,” I say with certainty, “but keep it for Jay.”
Andi laughs.
Jay wraps his arms around Kaye’s and Christy’s shoulders as they walk, but Christy pushes him away with two hands and says, “Don’t touch me.”
Andi cackles. “I do like that girl.”
We go our separate ways once we get inside, and I take out my phone to type the line that made Andi laugh.
Joe Johnson mentioned in a podcast interview that he writes down ad-libs that make his friends laugh because they’re the best sign of his true sense of humor.
I can’t figure out how to write the mass incarceration thing in a funny way, though.
That’s the way it always is when I make Andi laugh.
I never know how to phrase it like the jokes I tell onstage.
Walking into the main office to do the announcements feels the same as walking into McGuinn’s. My body hums. They call my name and I walk onstage—or, as happens now, the bell rings for homeroom and I step up to the PA system—and a surge of anxiety shocks me into my public-facing self.
“Good morning, Paumanok East!” I call like a wrestling announcer. “Let’s get ready for Friday!”
This is why I love performing. It transforms me into someone I’m not ashamed of.
Mrs.?Farmer pumps a fist from her desk, I give her a solid finger point, and I add some extra oomph to the dates for the drama club auditions.
“Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours,” I say, and add in a spooky voice, “And yours alone.”
Mrs.?Farmer puts a hand to her mouth in fear. “Haunting.”
All through the morning, I’m on fire. In art, I narrate the thoughts of the pears in the still-life and get more of those elusive Andi-laughs.
I rewatch my set and think about Sal watching it.
It’s a hit. It’s undeniable. I have so many good jokes in all my classes that I add them to the official draft of my set.
At lunch I show Tony the new lines and he gives his seal of approval to all of them.
I’m ready for Sal to invite me to the competition. I’m ready to knock it out of the park.
I bounce-walk my way into English, wink at Mr.?Mazzei, and slide into my seat beside Elijah, grinning his way.
He puts the book he was reading—a graphic novel showing two boys with backpacks holding hands—into his purple tote. He tilts his head sideways. Today’s T-shirt with cuffed sleeves is bright red. “This is a curious expression you have.”
“I am experiencing an emotion no one has ever experienced before,” I say. “I should inform whatever kind of scientist studies such matters.”
Elijah places a hand pensively to his chin and dramatically lifts an eyebrow. “Describe this emotion.”
“I feel like I can say things and exist without panicking.”
He laughs. “I think that’s just feeling normal.”
I hold a hand up to the stars. “I call it…Not-Terrified!”
He crosses his legs, flashing a type of shoes I’ve never seen. They’re black and canvas but with a sturdier sole than my P.F. Flyers.
“What are those?”
“Palladiums.” He dangles his foot, displaying it. “I saw them in a store window in the city.”
“The city? Cool.”
“I go once a week for ballet.”
Mind blown. “Every week?”
He lets out a big sigh. “I was hoping to get into this one arts school in New York this year. And last year. I tried out both times, but I didn’t get in.
Some of these people have been practicing since they were kindergarteners.
They grew up in New York and knew about that stuff.
I didn’t even realize…” He pauses with his mouth open and turns back to me. “It doesn’t matter. Palladiums.”
“You didn’t realize what?”
“I didn’t realize I wanted to dance until like two years ago, and by then some kids are already on Broadway.”
“Jeez.”
“I’m supposed to be an accountant or something because that would be financially secure, but I think I’d rather be broke.”
“Ideally you could be a not-broke not-accountant, but—”
“Yeah.” He exhales. “My mom says I’m right on time and I can take these classes and apply to the right colleges and it’s going to work out, and she’s the one paying for everything, so I can’t argue with her.”
“What do any of your other parents say? If you have any.”
“My dad is finishing work in New Jersey for the next few months, so I don’t have to care what he says. But I’m a proud mama’s boy anyway.”
My face softens and my chest tightens. “I’m a proud mama’s boy too.”
He points at me. “That’s the way you sounded in the bathroom! It’s lower than your voice the rest of the time.”
My armpits immediately start sweating.
Then I realize the whole class is silently watching us. Mr.?Mazzei sit-leans on the edge of his desk, also watching.
Jay puffs out his chest. “Why is your voice lower in the bathroom, O’Brien?”
I look at Mazzei and only at Mazzei.
“Okay,” Mazzei says stoically. The whiteboard behind him reads TRUTH. “Time to tell some stories.”
He asks us to write major categories from our lives—family, work, school—in circles, spin off lines with people or places from each category, and make lists of memories from those.
I write down the day I got my first paycheck from the library.
I write down the time I went to a girl’s house to study for chemistry and had no idea she did not intend to study for chemistry.
“In a minute,” Mazzei says quietly, “I’ll ask you to choose one idea and share it with a partner.”
I look over at Elijah and he’s absorbed in his page.
From my pocket I remove the folded paper and read, in perfect cursive, You seem like your own kind of person. I fold it and put it away.
I write on my page, Mom bringing out the birthday cake.
When it’s time to share with a partner, Elijah and I turn to each other. My heart pounds.
Elijah carefully closes his notebook and pushes it away like it’s cursed.
I laugh. “What is it?”
He makes an eek face. “My life!”
I laugh again. “I hear that.”
“My story is embarrassing. Can you go first?”
“Okay.” I pinch my thigh under the table until it hurts. “The night of my seventeenth birthday—”
“Hold on.” Mazzei puts a hand between us. “You counted wrong.”
Someone is absent in front of us. Mazzei does some pointing and rearranging and I get put with Steph Rooney. Elijah and I make eye contact before moving our seats apart, and I could be wrong, but I think he looks disappointed too. He gets put with Jay, which is truly horrifying.
Steph’s pink makeup ends abruptly at her pale neck. Her brown hair is extra fluffy today. She starts talking before I’ve even repositioned myself. “I have to go first because there is no way I’m following you.”
“That’s silly but—”