Chapter 56
“C
lint,” Dinah says as she snaps the lid on the plastic container, “If you ever throw me in front of you like that again, I will make a book cover out of your ballsack.”
Arachnodesiac's legs are thumping against the plastic with his fangs still hanging out.
“KILL IT!” Clint screams before scurrying out of the room.
“Please don't,” I say, looking at the two bleeding fang marks at the top of my knuckle. “I need to take it back before the owner gets home.”
Felix grabs my injured hand, which cramps up and burns like I'm touching a stove.
“Oh shit, it bit you real good. We need to take you to the hospital!”
I'm also a little dizzy, to be honest.
“I can't miss the show! My understudy quit and the talent agent is coming tonight!”
“Are you stupid? This is, like, an infinite-alarm emergency!” Felix says.
Dinah humphs. “He better put a goddamn Band-Aid on that bite because he needs to tap-dance for that agent and get the hell out of this house after graduation.”
“I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm missing my call time. I need a ride to the theater.”
I remember the guy who recorded himself getting bitten by a Phoneutria.
He was able to ride out the symptoms for several hours before being hospitalized.
I need to ride out the next few hours for our opening night.
I can't disappoint everybody after what we've been through.
And I've got the agent to impress. It's my only shot.
I'll show Felix how great our—my—California plan is, and he can rue the day he decided to stay in Texas.
“It was just a little warning nibble, okay?” I tell Felix, who pulls out his phone.
“This website says this type of spider injects venom in only a third of its bites, so maybe there's a two-thirds chance you'll be okay,” he says with fragile hope.
“Please don't let it out again,” I tell Dinah. “I'll come back after the show and take it home.”
“You better! I'm so sick of this drama,” Dinah says as she holds the container with Arachnodesiac up on her palm like a waitress.
___________
By the time Felix drops me off at the theater, I'm hit with a nasty fever.
A whole crowd is wrapped around the corner, waiting to get in, half of them seemingly from Naz's family given the amount of Persian I hear.
The marquee is lit up with the title of the show and the quote from the queen of Spain about it being the best musical ever.
There's a ruckus at the entrance, where I see Rosferatu and her group blocking the door, all of them wearing their IntegriTruth Mom T-shirts.
There are other protestors with signs that say GO AWAY, BUNDY.
“We're saving you from this abomination! You will not pass if we can help it!”
I push through the crowd, feeling increasingly woozy, and I drop to my knees in front of Mrs. Wetherly.
“Stay back, Wade. This is no place for a child,” she says.
“As of today, I'm a legal adult,” I say, pushing myself up.
“IntegriTruth Moms, lock arms!” Rosferatu shouts. Instantly they become an ironclad chain of soccer moms.
“Get out of my way, Mrs. Wetherly,” I say. They hold steady anyway.
I sprint toward them to break through their arms. They're so fortified by their soccer mom sorcery and “I want to speak with your manager” energy that they knock me back to the ground with the power of an electric fence, as if there's a magical force field blasting me away.
I'm helped up by two of Naz's aunts, who pat the dust off my shirt. When they see my face, they stumble backwards.
I have no choice but to slog all the way over to the back entrance.
I scurry backstage, my hand still throbbing like a hot iron poker is twisting through it.
“Where have you been? I've been calling you nonstop!” Luis confronts me with a level of alarm that is rare for a laid-back Colombian guy. Sita is next to him, not looking any happier.
“Thankfully we're starting late because Mrs. Wetherly won't let the audience in,” Sita says as she leads me to the dressing room, where the costume designer helps me into my crocodile outfit.
“Why do you look so gray and sweaty?” the costume designer asks. “Are you sick? I swear, if you have the flu and you infect the rest of us…”
“No. Just… ran here,” I say.
“Your understudy is gone, so if you can't perform, the show is canceled,” Sita says.
“I don't have the flu. I just ran so fast to get here. That's why I'm so sweaty. I'm fine. I promise!” I feign a smile, and a gob of gooey saliva falls from my mouth.
Meg cracks the door open and shouts, “The IntegriTruth Moms left! I told them a crowd of people were having a fajita cookout and playing Mexican music in Oyster Pit Park without a permit. Audience coming in now!”
“I just need to rest for a bit until my scene,” I say.
After Sita and the costume designer leave, I do my warm-ups.
“Elephant umbilical cord, elephant umbilical cord.” My tongue can't swish fast enough to enunciate properly, and it sounds like my mouth is full of marbles. The door opens. “I need some privacy, please,” I say.
“You snake.”
I turn, and Byron is behind me in full Mrs. Darling getup. He's holding my letter to Ms. Maguire.
“Oh… that…” I say. I can't coordinate my thoughts and words.
“Yeah, THAT,” he responds.
“I thought since we both want to move to LA after graduation, we could get the same agent. Two birds and a stone.”
“Fuck. Your. Birds.”
He is now centimeters away from my face. There's nothing in his eyes except a mushroom cloud of abject rage.
“Now is not a good—”
“I've dealt with some scummy shit from some scummy-ass people this year,” he says, “but this? You are the scummiest, slimiest slime-o-potamus in the swamp.”
“Throw the note in the trash, okay? Forget about it.”
“Don't worry, it's going straight into the trash!” he says. His fist closes around the paper, crushing it before he sends the wad flying into the garbage can. “And if you pull anything tonight that makes me even think you might be trying to steal my stage, you will be so, so sorry.”
He's halfway out the door when he turns around.
“And by the way—this,” he says, pointing his finger back and forth between us, “is over.” He slams the door so loud that I tremble. I chow down a handful of ibuprofen to kill my fever, then step out of the dressing room and watch from the side.
The lights dim, and Luis and Sita step out in front of the curtains to talk to the audience and thank them for coming, making sure to give a special shout-out to Ms. Easterling.
Daisha, Mike, and Travis take their positions in the Darling children's bedroom.
Daisha sings beautifully, which makes sense given that she's the lead in her church choir.
Byron storms out onstage through the bedroom door.
“Why, oh why, do I hear you children making such a racket at this late hour? Go to sleep now!” he shouts in his Mrs. Darling costume.
When Naz flies through the window on a cable, the screams of joy and applause from their family jolt all of us off our chairs.
“What are you doing in our room?” Daisha says from her bed.
Naz dances across the stage in pursuit of the silhouetted person running on the wall. “I'm chasing my shadow! Can you help me find it?” Across the auditorium, actors shine their flashlights and simulate Peter's shadow, which delights the audience.
The first act feels like it's going on forever. The pain in my hand is relentless and spreading.
“Look! You're flying!” Naz yells.
“We're flying!” the three Darling children cry.
Naz drops back onto the ground lightly and turns toward the audience, hands confidently on hips. “And you can fly, too, if only you believe in yourself! Do you believe in yourself?”
A resounding chorus of “YES!” comes from the audience.
“Do you love yourself for the person you truly are?”
“YES!” Although one guy in the audience says no, causing everybody else to laugh.
Naz taps the cable with their hands. “Then come along with us to Never-Never Land!” They're lifted back up into the air and fly past the proscenium, into the audience, followed by the Darling children.
Naz soars like an acrobat as they sing, sprinkling rainbow confetti over the crowd.
Some of the younger men in Naz's family snicker and elbow each other knowingly.
A lot of the young women and aunties are into it and reach for the confetti with big smiles.
“Come fly with us, come stay with us, come slay with us at Never-Never Land!”
Naz's entire extended family are up on their feet shouting, “Dobare! Dobare!” by the end of the song.
The whole audience whistles and claps when the set transforms into Never-Never Land and Captain Hook's ship rolls onstage.
Byron and Meg and the rest of the pirates invade the stage, their swords out and their laughs sinister.
Sita shoves me lightly toward the curtain. “You're on. Don't blow this.”
The chorus starts the tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock chant. My crocodile feet plod across the stage, which comes off more as a drunk reptile instead of a menacing love machine. I might as well be throwing myself off a cliff here.
I lay my eyes on Ms. Maguire, the agent, sitting in the front row.
She's a stern-looking executive type in a black suit dress.
I pause for a moment as she makes eye contact with me.
I force a grin, my front teeth sticking out dementedly, sweat falling over my squinted eyes.
Maybe I shouldn't have done that because she stares back at me with confused alarm.
I quickly wipe another line of saliva that's dripping down my chin.
And then I see Felix, sitting right there in the middle next to Carsten, biting his nails.
“Go, idiot!” Byron says as he runs past me and hits me in the back with his hook, snapping me out of it.