by Susan Choi
“Oh my God!” Pammie cries, both her hands flying up to her mouth.
“You’re the first friends from school I’ve told,” Greg continues, incredibly—this adored, handsome Senior who can dance like Astaire and who is so clearly, inevitably, no-other-possibility gay that Sarah cannot believe she never realized—but that was fifteen in a nutshell, she’ll think when she’s twice, and then three times, that age. The obvious and the oblivious sharing the same mental space.
Julietta has burst into tears. “I’m so honored,” she sobs. “I’m so honored you told us.”
“I am too,” Pammie says ardently, for in the instant, she also knows she has already known, and is also amazed by the gift of Greg’s trust, a far greater intimacy than she’d dreamed of before.
The three of them have fallen into a joyous group hug. “Sarah, Sarah!” they laugh and cry helplessly, trying to extend their arms to her, too clumsy in their happiness to keep her from slipping away.
* * *
THEY KNOW SO much about each other, yet so little.
They know that William’s mother makes William and his two younger sisters keep their toothbrushes and toothpaste and combs and whatever other personal items they use in zippered travel cases, which they must carry to the bathroom and back to their bedrooms every morning and night, and that if William’s mother finds toiletry items left behind in the bathroom—the bathroom that only William and his sisters ever use, because his mother has her own bathroom off her bedroom—she will throw them away. She will throw away, as punishment for their failure to abide by her rule, a forgotten toothbrush or stray comb. They, William’s classmates, know this, but they don’t know William’s mother’s first name, or where William’s father might be, or whether he’s even alive.
They know that Julietta’s parents store flour and rice in sealed plastic tubs against a coming apocalypse, but they don’t know if Julietta herself believes in this apocalypse, or is worried about it. She certainly doesn’t seem worried.
They know that Colin’s father hits Colin, “punches his lights out,” “knocks his block off,” “smacks him clear to next week,” but they don’t know what Colin has done to deserve this, or whether he’s angry or sad to be beaten. They don’t even know if the words Colin uses to mean getting hit are his own words, or words he’s been taught.
They know, at least some of them do, at least one of them does, that Sarah has let David have sex with her in the music room hallway, right out in the open, where anyone could have seen them.
They don’t know that Sarah works weekend mornings at a French bakery, on the opening shift. Alone, Sarah carries the wide baking sheets of croissants, chaussons aux pommes, pains au chocolat, and brioches. She pulls the greasy pastries off the trays, to which they are lightly adhered, trying not to poke holes in them with her fingers. She fills up the display case. The baker, whoever it is, has finished the baking and left at some point before Sarah got here. She wonders who it is, why they never cross paths. The pastries are still warm. The curled, browned, brittle croissants make her think of the discarded shells of locusts she sometimes found hooked to the trees, when she was a little girl, and they lived on a street that had trees, before her father moved out. Sometimes in the very early mornings she would put on her sneakers and slip out of the house while her parents were asleep, and a blanket of white fog lay over the lawns, reaching just to her knees. Strange exhalation of the lawns at daybreak, magic child’s-height fog she could pierce with her legs like a giant. In a certain season, she can’t recall which, she could pull fragile locust husks off the trees and, if she wanted to, crush them in her fist, though she never did so. It would have seemed like such a waste of so much hollow intricacy, so many chambers and hinges and spikes, like an alien spaceship in miniature. She couldn’t have been more than eight then. Half a lifetime ago. She had never been tired in the morning, couldn’t imagine what being tired felt like. Running back through the fog as it melted away like a dream, to see her dad leaning out the front door of the house for the paper.
Now, she is always so tired she doesn’t even realize she’s tired. Words stall on her tongue. Tears gather prematurely in her eyes. Waking dreams drift and coil through her mind, similar to ideas, but perhaps not the same.
* * *
THEY KNOW SO much about each other, yet so little. Manuel knows, or thinks he knows, about her. A whore would have more dignity.
She knows, or thinks she knows, about Manuel. Furtive and smug. The closed doors, and new shirts.
And yet she doesn’t know where Manuel lives, doesn’t know his home number. Can’t conceive where such information might be found. She’s already forgotten the morning, freshman year, that a four-alarm fire broke out on the far side of the massive apartment complex she lives in with her mother, a complex so massive they couldn’t even see smoke from their carport and only found out what the sirens were about from TV, where they’d seen the complex filmed from the air, and the flames six or eight blocks away. Distant though the fire had been, it had made for bad traffic, and her mother had dropped her off late, but when she went in the office to get her late pass the office ladies had cried, “Oh my gosh, honey, are you okay?” because in the office they knew her address—they’d actually looked through their records, when they’d seen the big fire on the news, to check if they had any students in danger.
So of course home addresses are known in the office, but she doesn’t think of this. She isn’t scheming. She lacks not just the skills for, but the very resolve for, premeditation.
Nevertheless, even in her tiredness, she’s alert. Having noticed some things, she keeps noticing more things. Her work on costume crew is basically finished, she has not been assigned as a dresser, but she’s still responsible for the general state of the costumes; the costume shop and dressing rooms are her wheelhouse, she patrols them, tidying and repairing. Particularly the hats were her thing for this show; she monitors their clusters of feathers or fruit or their bands of grosgrain, she gets out the glue gun if need be. In hushed hours before run-through starts, when nobody’s around, she’ll check the boys’ dressing room, where they neglect their fedoras, leave them tossed on the floor. She’ll re-form the crowns, dust them off, put them pointedly up on the shelves with the masking-tape labels where the boys should have put them themselves. The male cast members share two extremely overtaxed garment racks, cardboard dividers sticking up at dense intervals bearing their character names. “Gambler 1,” “Gambler 2,” “Sal Army guy,” “Sky Masterson.” They do a lousy job of hanging up their costumes. This Friday after school, before the show’s second and last weekend begins, Sarah’s going to be slaving away at the ironing board. She wiggles her fingers into, pries apart the crushed mass of male clothes between “Sal Army guy” and “Sky Masterson.” Here’s a pale green shirt, perhaps it’s a color the store would call sea foam. The label: Armani. Duh, this isn’t part of Sky Masterson’s costume. She almost laughs at Manuel’s lame deception. But of course, no one else is alert to his shirts. No one else has realized, as she has, that he wears these shirts only at school, changes back into cheap, crappy shirts, poor boy’s shirts, before going home. Despite its crushed condition, the fabric of the shirt feels newly stiff and fresh. No gray ring in the collar, no yellow stains at the pits.
Sarah extracts it. She turns on the iron, waits patiently for it to heat, and then irons the shirt with great care, even using the sleeve form. When she’s finished she folds it with buttons centered and sleeves underneath, the way she’s seen men’s shirts come from the dry cleaner’s, and then she takes it into the costume shop and hides it on a high shelf, above the boxes of notions and buttons, stuff that currently isn’t in use.
In the course of the week and weekend, two more shirts appear, of the same sort and in the same place, and she does the same thing with them both. She watches Manuel for signs of unease. He always looks slightly uneasy. He never makes eye contact if they happen to pass near each other. Their enmity is an
agreed-upon fact and requires no further acknowledgment. Joelle is his dresser and he and Joelle are now buddies, they’re constantly laughing and joking in Spanish. Joelle might even know Manuel’s address but Sarah doesn’t think of asking her, no longer cares where Manuel lives and doesn’t recall why she did. She isn’t aware of a plan for the shirts. She’s just stealing them, because they make her angry, though whether at Manuel, or Mr. Kingsley, or both, she isn’t sure. Her anger is intense but obscure.
The last performance, as always, is a two p.m. Sunday matinee, which, as always, feels anticlimactic, but there has to be time for the strike. After the show they’ll all remain to strike the set for however many hours it takes.
Manuel’s mother reappears for this final performance, without the father this time. Instead she’s accompanied by a young woman, slender, serious, conservative slacks and blouse from, perhaps, T.J.Maxx or some other large store that sells cheap office wear. She has a black purse with a very thin strap. She resembles Manuel, like Manuel is a full head taller than the mother; she walks close to the mother, sometimes taking her arm. This time, the mother appears more at ease, the young woman unsmiling and watchful. It’s the mother who leads the young woman, with visible pride, to the taped-off row of VIP seats. They settle themselves, tip their heads together, converse only with each other in the midst of the house’s exceptional noise, all the greetings and huggings and jokings and families trying to find six or thirteen seats together, it’s the final performance. Sarah leaves the light booth where she’s been sitting with gay Greg Veltin, goes back to the costume shop, but it’s too chaotic in there, all the cast members in costume and makeup fawning over Mr. Freedman, the costume designer, and giving him gifts. She waits until the first act is well under way, Mr. Freedman watching tonight from the house; then rooting through the costume shop’s wealth of potentially useful garbage finds a plastic shopping bag with handles and slides the three ironed shirts in, in a stack. Settles them flat on the bottom to keep them unwrinkled. Tonight everybody is toting a sack of something, mostly gifts for Mr. Kingsley, teddy bears that say “Thank You!” or boxes of chocolate, despite Mr. Kingsley having recently said, “I’m on very strict orders from Tim: NO MORE CHOCOLATE. Let’s say thank you without calories!”
Once, she would have filled a box with pain au chocolat at the bakery, because despite orders from Tim, Mr. Kingsley’s great passion for chocolate is known. She would have tied the box closed with a ribbon, paid for it out of her wages, bought Mr. Kingsley a card at Confetti!: The Celebrate Store and toiled over just what to say.
This show, she’s not giving a gift. She does not think he’ll notice.
The show ends, the ovations end, cast members with their makeup very imperfectly removed bound out of the dressing rooms to be gushed over by their family members and to line up for pictures. Impromptu and fragmentary encores. “Sue me, sue me, go ahead, sue me, I LOVE YOOOO!” Then family members are reluctantly drifting away, cast is due back onstage in ten minutes for strike, they should get off the rest of that makeup. Manuel has a word with his mother and the woman who must be his sister, goes back in the boys’ dressing room where his brand-new secret shirts constantly disappear. Sarah, standing in the piazza outside the main theatre doors with the bag, not sure which lot they’ve parked in, almost misses the mother and sister, catches sight of them just as they’re stepping outside. She has to run to catch up. “Excuse me,” she calls. If she had planned this, she might have worked out how to say it in Spanish. Joelle could have helped. But clearly, she hasn’t planned this. “Excuse me. These are Manuel’s, to take home.”
The women turn toward her, surprised. She thrusts the bag at the mother, so she has to accept it. “Manuel’s?” the mother says skeptically, glancing inside.
“They’re a gift, from Mr. Kingsley, for Manuel,” Sarah says, very clearly, although in English. But the sister can surely speak English. “Because Manuel is his boyfriend,” Sarah adds, quickly turning away.
“What did you say?” says the young woman sharply. But Sarah has dashed down the hall, disappeared.
* * *
“… AND YOU’LL KEEP these director’s notebooks for the whole of spring term. Any questions?” asks Mr. Kingsley.
“Where’s Manuel?” Colin asks. They have not seen Manuel since the Guys and Dolls strike. That was back before Christmas. A whole month ago.
Sarah watches Mr. Kingsley’s face closely. Culpability is what she would like to discern. Disquiet is all she expects. She finds neither, nor anything else. “Manuel’s having family issues,” Mr. Kingsley says smoothly. “Hopefully he’ll be back with us soon.”
But he never is.
* * *
“BITCH,” JOELLE SAYS in her ear. “Get your own fucking ride.”
* * *
“AND IT STRIKES me as inappropriate, extremely inappropriate, for the children to be working at school for twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day—”
“We’re not children,” Sarah breaks in.
“Certainly the rigors of our program don’t suit everyone,” says Mrs. Laytner, their remote principal, an irrelevant person in pearls. Mrs. Laytner attends opening nights with a fresh corsage pinned to her jacket, she cuts ribbons on new lighting boards, she is quoted in the local newspaper when their school is named a Top Ten. She’s never in Sarah’s recollection even walked down the Theatre hall. “Pre-professional training for children this age is a major commitment. But we believe that our students—”
“And his methods, this teacher’s methods, also strike me as inappropriate.”
“Unconventional, maybe. Mr. Kingsley is a brilliant man, an unconventional but brilliant teacher; we’re incredibly lucky to have him. His methods are directly adapted from groundbreaking—”
“It’s my understanding they’re methods designed for adults.”
“I think if you’re concerned about his methods, it would make much more sense to sit down with Jim and have a discussion—”
“No!” Sarah exclaims.
“It’s time we heard from Sarah,” agrees Mrs. Laytner. “Sarah, do you feel, as your mother’s concerned that you might, uncomfortable in our program? In any way overwhelmed?”
“No,” Sarah says.
“Do you think Mr. Kingsley’s way of teaching is inappropriate for students your age?”
“No,” Sarah says.
“Of course she’s going to say no,” Sarah’s mother objects.
“Isn’t this why we’re here? To ensure her well-being? Sarah, do you feel overworked here? Under too much pressure?”
“No,” she says.
“Is anything concerning you at all about school right now?”
“No,” says Sarah, who still cannot draw three-part breath, still can’t eat, still can’t sleep through the night. “Not at all.”
* * *
“YOU’RE TALL,” DAVID declares, startling her. Their repetitions, Sarah’s and David’s, have taken on the pointless, leaden feel of international diplomacy, of the greatest number of people, the highest level of tension, the longest list of conditions, the profoundest concealed boredom, brought to bear on the tersest and least meaningful utterances. It is the falsest emotion under the realest circumstances, except for now, when unexpectedly David’s tone changes. Game over, it says. Ignore everyone else. Look at me. I am talking to you.
“You’re tall,” David repeats. This is supposed to be objective repetition. The two of them, unique among their classmates, have never been allowed to advance to the subjective repetition. Even Norbert can ace the subjective. But Sarah and David are too immature, too determined to pursue their private drama at the expense of the group. They won’t process emotion, they hoard it. They are stuck in a rut. They are narcissists. Mr. Kingsley delivers these indictments as they sit knee-to-knee in the chairs, as if Sarah and David aren’t present, as if their immaturity and narcissism and stuckness also mean they are deaf. In a way, Sarah is. Having fought for the right to remain in this sch
ool, in this class, in this hard plastic chair, she stares, unflinching, deaf, blind, into David’s unavailable agates and he stares back, no one home, curtains drawn. Until today, when he sits forward slightly. “You’re tall,” he tells Sarah. Her heart lurches. Sarah’s height is average. She is shorter than David. If he took her in his arms, her cheek would find rest on his sternum.
“I’m tall,” she says carefully, as if afraid to misconstrue him.
“You’re tall,” he confirms.
No one else in the room with them now. The rest of them mere furniture. Mr. Kingsley has moved right in front of them, blocking the spectators’ view, his arms crossed and his thin lips compressed with displeasure. Even he’s furniture.
“I’m tall.” Gentle skepticism: Don’t you think that’s a little bit silly? When we made love, my face smushed in your chest. Turning my head, I could feel your heart denting my cheek.
Telepathy received. Private smile: No argument here. But despite that, “You’re tall,” David says.
“I’m tall,” Sarah says, trying it out.
“Take five,” Mr. Kingsley says peevishly. Secret codes aren’t authentic emotion. Sarah and David aren’t behaving with integrity here. They just can’t seem to stop being cryptic; this is not a game, people, it’s life. The familiar condemnation rains down on their heads as without argument they return to their seats. They know everyone sees their disgrace but to them it is weightless, familiar, like the blossomy tree-trash that falls in their hair and sticks there as they’re walking outside. Outside it is March, in their hot southern city late spring. Wildfires of azalea ringing the houses. All the sticky-fingered trees. David is sixteen at last, and his mother and stepfather, as promised, have bought him a car. David drives Sarah home, and though their companionship is stiff and wordless Sarah sits in his new-smelling passenger seat as if perched on the wing of some fabulous beast. It is David but carries him, too. They feel hopeless delight that they’ll never admit. So this is what they might have had. Flying through their city unwatched, their arms warming the narrow abyss where the gearshift stands guard between them.