Viola in the Spotlight

by Adriana Trigiani

  “I mean, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of real life, who cares?”

  “Right. Who cares? So Tag is your type?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. Maybe. That doesn’t mean I’m his type.”

  “Oh, so you have to have a real shot with a guy in order for him to be your type.”

  “I guess so.” I intercut Olivia across the boardwalk with a shot of a float that Andrew took. “Look at this.”

  “Nice,” he says. Then Andrew looks at me. “Maybe…you’re my type.”

  “Me? Are you kidding?”

  He isn’t kidding. But then he says, “Yeah. Gotcha.”

  “Whew.” I fan my face dramatically. But what I really want to do is make Andrew feel absolutely fine at having said such a crazy thing and crossed such a wide line—the widest line in our friendship: the boy-girl barrier.

  I think of Suzanne saying that Andrew liked me in that way. Marisol kept telling me how cute he was, and Romy said something about “the path of least resistance” leading to love. But none of their observations added up, not until now, of course. Now I get it.

  “I think we should cut the kettle drum band and go with the ukulele quartet,” Andrew says.

  This is, of course, what boys do when they are rejected, even if it’s a fake rejection based on a joke. Boys get right back to business. But we are too close to just drop it. I don’t want any weirdness between us. So I have to address the weirdness. “I think we should talk about your type.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Maybe I want to talk about it,” I tell him as I type a time code.

  “I freaked you out,” he says quietly.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “I totally freaked you out.” Andrew continues to look at the screen, leaning in as he edits a shot.

  “If you did, I wouldn’t be talking about it, I’d be avoiding it.”

  “Good point.”

  “I’m not going to let this affect our friendship, that’s all.”

  “It wouldn’t.”

  I learned a lot dating Jared Spencer, whereas Andrew learned next to nothing dating Olivia Olson.

  I had a real exchange about filmmaking with Jared, whereas all Andrew did with Olivia Olson was run around to beauty parlors and orthodontists on a binge of self-improvement that rivals the transformation of Megan Fox.

  Andrew has his head in the sand and in the video monitor when it comes to women. Romance affects everything, and it can kill a friendship. We need look no further than our own experience, by the way. Andrew doesn’t hang out with Olivia anymore, and I don’t email or Skype Jared. It’s over. I don’t ever want to lose Andrew Bozelli. Ever. No romance would be worth sacrificing our friendship. That would be the biggest mistake of my life. I count on him.

  “Do me a favor,” Andrew says.

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s forget I said anything.”

  I think for a moment. “Okay.”

  “I tell you whatever I’m thinking, and sometimes it’s best not to,” he says. “Besides, I didn’t mean it. I was joking around.”

  A wave of relief rushes over me. “Okay.” The wave of relief gives way to a bruised ego—just a little. “I guess.”

  Andrew keeps his eyes on the screen.

  I won’t let this awkward moment ruin our lifelong friendship. That’s all this is. A blip. A smash cut in the middle of the action—not a fade to black.

  I carry Cleo from Grand’s kitchen to the living room. An envelope marked VIOLA is on the coffee table. I put Cleo down on the rug and sit.

  I open the envelope.

  Dear Viola,

  You are doing a good job with Cleo. You’ve been on time every day. The extra money is to get yourself something nice for opening night. Love you, Grand

  I take out six crisp twenty-dollar bills. A hundred and twenty bucks will buy me a fabulous vintage dress at Shady Lady’s in the East Village. I can hardly wait to get over there and find something pretty. It pays to do a good job for Grand. She forgave me for my slipup, and I’ll spend the rest of the summer proving I could be responsible.

  I text Andrew from my seat, M101, in the Helen Hayes Theatre.

  Me: At the theater. Waiting. You?

  AB: Packing for camp.

  Me: Don’t forget the bug spray.

  AB: I got a crate.

  Me: Let’s get the Mermaid video done before you go.

  AB: Where are you later?

  Me: I’ll call.

  My internship with Julius Ross, the world-renowned lighting designer, could be done by Cleo—it’s basically drop off and fetch at its most difficult. Of course, I worked twice as hard after the coffee incident. I stayed after hours and volunteered for extra grunt work on top of my job, which can be described as grunt work. I fetch blueprints from his townhouse and bring them to his office on West 42nd Street, I pick up theater tickets to other shows and deliver them to whomever he has invited, and I even went to Hoboken, New Jersey, to sit in the work van while his assistant picked up some special lighting equipment. I’m basically a runner, and a professional bookmark. I hold the space while someone else gets the job done.

  Grand says that I’ll learn about lighting once the tech rehearsal is underway. That’s when the lights are focused with the actors onstage and cues are set. The sound design is also implemented during this time, so all that wah-wah music Mr. Longfellow has played all summer will, at long last, have a purpose.

  Today, there is nothing glamorous about the Helen Hayes Theatre. It’s a factory. Without an audience, it’s a black cave filled with rows of empty seats lit by bright, bare bulbs that dangle from the ceiling. This is the first day of load-in, where the sets for the play are brought from the warehouse where they were built. The work doors on the upstage wall are opened wide for the load-in. Daylight pours into the darkness. The sounds from the street are muffled, but the occasional siren cuts through, reminding everyone that the theater is not a sanctuary.

  A semitruck is parked outside, filled with walls, joints, cornices, and steps that, once assembled and mounted, will become the set for the play. The components have been wrapped in fabric batting, marked for placement onstage like giant puzzle pieces. The large flats will become the actual walls of the living room of the Brewster home in Arsenic and Old Lace.

  The theater has the same scent as the space in Phyllis Hobson Jones Hall at Prefect: paint, wax, and the last notes of old perfume, as though the matinee audience left in a hurry.

  The air-conditioning is on, but the hot air from outside blows through and creates a gust, causing me to shiver. The stagehands work in an organized fashion, as though they have done this a million times before. Occasionally they shout directions to one another or joke, but they never stop moving.

  The crew head, Timmy Donovan, a man with muscles wearing an AAOL baseball cap, directs the guys as they carry the delicate stuff: strips of painted crown molding, windows, and stained-glass transoms of the era. Four men carry a set of assembled stairs, hollow on the inside, reinforced with cross braces, downstage left, where they place them carefully on the floor.

  Through breaks in the batting, I can see that the walls are covered in vintage wallpaper, similar to a scroll of vines that I remember from my piano teacher’s apartment in Brooklyn. Robin Wagner, a world-class set designer (George says), captured the authentic details of homes of the 1940s, right down to the doorknobs.

  The production team, the designers and their assistants, confer with one another and occasionally look up and watch the proceedings from the house seats. They’ve created a temporary office with a makeshift folding table, propped over two rows of seats in the center of the orchestra. The table is littered with coffee cups from the Greek diner.

  Neil Mazella, the set builder, has his long hair pulled back in a ponytail (he would have survived about ten seconds at the Grabeel Sharpe Academy with that hair-style). He types into his laptop, lit by a makeshift work lamp with a bright bulb. He looks up and
issues orders from his perch.

  “Timmy, hoist the scrim.”

  A large black velvet drape attached to a long pipe hanging by hooks like those on a shower curtain is elevated by the stagehands from the upstage floor on pulley weights until it is suspended high and out of sight against the back wall.

  “Looks good,” Neil says.

  If I squint, the load-in of a Broadway set is a lot like the Egyptians building the pyramids. There’s a lot of hauling, lifting, placing, and levels to the action. I am watching the living room of a home being built from scratch; it really is like magic, which is the purpose of theater: to instill wonder and awe while gripping the audience with a good story.

  Caitlin and Maurice join me in the aisle.

  “Here’s a surprise. How’s rehearsal going?” I ask Maurice.

  “It looks great. Dad is on edge, but he’s always nervous at this point in the production.”

  “How’s Grand doing?”

  “She’s hilarious. Brilliant,” he says.

  “No Dr. Balu today?” I ask Caitlin.

  “I’m playing hooky,” Caitlin says. “I hope you’ll cover for me.”

  “No worries.” But I am worried.

  “I have to give this note to Mr. Mazella,” Maurice says as he goes. Caitlin watches him go down the aisle to the work table, and I swear, the look on her face is sad. Maurice walks ten feet into the distance and she already misses him. Love is like the flu.

  “I can’t believe Maurice is going back to England when the play opens.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I finally find someone who I can’t live without and I have to live without him.” She sighs.

  “Viola, take these schedules and place them in the dressing rooms,” says the production runner. “I’ve got to get back to the studio.”

  “No problem.” I turn to Caitlin. “Come on, I’ll show you backstage.”

  Caitlin follows me down a side aisle and backstage. Charlie, the attendant, sits by the exit door on a stool working a crossword puzzle. “Barry told me to paper the dressing rooms,” I tell him. Charlie doesn’t look up. “Uh-huh,” he says, looking at his crossword puzzle.

  Caitlin follows me through the wings to the stairs that lead to the dressing rooms. The actors’ names are already on the doors. George has his own dressing room with a tiny attached bathroom because he’s the lead. I leave a schedule on his makeup table.

  We climb the steps to the second floor. Grand shares a dressing room with Mary Pat Gleason. I leave them each a schedule on their makeup tables.

  “This is so cool,” Caitlin marvels. “There’s a whole life happening backstage. Not like an orchestra. We basically show up with our instruments, take our seats, and warm up. Actors have a home.”

  “Hopefully this one won’t be temporary. Grand and George are praying for a long run.”

  Caitlin helps me paper the rest of the dressing rooms with schedules. The Brewsters, Mr. Witherspoon, Dr. Einstein, and the rest of the cast of Arsenic and Old Lace are about to move in. Opening night is becoming very real very fast.

  “Hey, Viola,” Barry hollers from the bottom of the steps. I go to the landing. “Good, you’re sticking around. I need you to take a set of keys to Julius. He’s at the production office on West Forty-second Street.”

  “Sure.” I turn to Caitlin. “You want to come?”

  “Okay.”

  Caitlin and I head out of the theater. “He can be a big grouch,” I warn her.

  We get into the elevator at 1511 Broadway and get off on the fourteenth floor. I hear Julius’s big laugh coming from the conference room. I have learned not to linger and wait around outside when he wants something. I just get the guts and go right into a meeting and leave the envelope next to him. I tell Caitlin to wait outside for me, not that it would matter. He never looks up at me or says thank you.

  The conference room table is filled with the designers and crew heads for the play. I leave the envelope next to Julius and turn to leave.

  “Violetta?” Julius says. The room goes quiet. I turn.

  “Do you mean me?”

  “I don’t see another Violetta around here.”

  “I’m Viola.”

  The designers and crew heads erupt in laughter.

  “Julius gives his crew nicknames,” Jess Goldstein says. Clearly, he can see that I’m mortified at having been singled out.

  When I reach the door, Julius says, “Thanks, Viola.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say as I go out the door. The meeting resumes once I’m in the hallway.

  “What happened in there?” Caitlin asks.

  “I think I just became part of the team.” As I press the elevator button, I smile. After my running all over the city and northern New Jersey, Julius Ross actually knows I’m alive. Now I know what Grand means when she says the theater is one big family. I think I just officially joined it.

  The phone rings. I’ll let the machine get it. Or Mom.

  “Viola?” Mom calls up. “The phone is for you.”

  “Thanks!”

  “You know, you can pick up the phone when it rings too.”

  “Sorry!” I shout.

  “Hello?”

  “Viola, this is Mrs. Pullapilly.”

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. P.”

  “Is Caitlin there?”

  “I’m expecting her any minute,” I lie. “She stopped to pick up some sunscreen for me at CVS.”

  “Do you mind telling her I need her home by three o’clock? I have an appointment and her father is expecting a delivery, and we need her home to sign for it.”

  “Home by three. No problem.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hang up the phone and grab my BlackBerry to text Maurice.

  Me: Caitlin has to be home by three. Her mom just called me!

  ML: Will do.

  Me: She thinks Caitlin is with me. Tell her that I told her mom that she picked sunscreen up for me at CVS.

  ML: OK.

  Me: You guys should come over here. Cover my lie.

  ML: We’re in Central Park.

  Me: Get on the train. Now.

  ML: OK.

  I know it will break Caitlin’s heart, but I can’t wait for Maurice to go home to the UK. Enough of this Summer of the Sneak. I’ve had it. I do not like being the peanut butter in the Caitlin/Maurice sandwich. I’m holding their entire romance together with excuses, providing a place to meet and a sympathetic ear for both of them.

  If Mrs. P knew anything about acting, she would know I just gave a killer performance on the phone. But thank goodness she works in finance and can’t read anybody’s signals. Otherwise, we’d all be in big trouble.

  SEVEN

  SUZANNE HAS ARRANGED ANOTHER FOUR-WAY SKYPE from her mom’s office. I log in.

  “Hey, guys.”

  “Where were you?” Marisol asks.

  “Mrs. Pullapilly called, and I had to cover for Caitlin.”

  “Still?” Romy shakes her head.

  “I’m totally tense and freaked,” I admit. “Sorry. Anybody have good news?”

  “I do,” Romy announces. “I can come to visit! My aunt is coming down to the city on business and can bring me with.”

  “And I’m taking Amtrak in and Romy’s aunt is going to pick me up at Penn Station!” Marisol says.

  “Fabulous! Suzanne, we wish you could make it. But we totally understand,” I reassure her.

  “Don’t write me off yet.” Suzanne grins. “I’m coming—with my parents.”

  “What?”

  “Yep, my dad is feeling a lot better, and he wants to come too. Mom is going to email your mom. We’re going to drive in.”

  “I’ll get the orange cone out now and reserve your space.”

  “You’d better. We want to see everything. Dad especially.”

  I think back to the Santry family when I visited them for Thanksgiving. They made me feel so at home. We saw so much of Chicago: the museum, Lake Michigan, and Grant Park.
As hard as it was to be away from my own family for an entire school year, they stepped in and made the holiday fun. Now I get to return the favor. I’m going to make a list (points of interest, shops, restaurants, and parks) and a map (Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx) of everything I want to show them: my New York City, the Viola Tour.

  A full moon, pink and perfectly round like a Necco wafer, throws light onto our roof. Andrew and I have just polished off cold sesame noodles and are looking up at the sky over Brooklyn. We angled our chaise lounges for maximum planetary viewing.

  “Where are Maurice and Caitlin?” Andrew asks.

  “I have the night off from covering for them. Maurice is in the city having dinner with his dad, and Caitlin is home. She has family visiting. And I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”

  “Look at it this way. When you get nervous, remember you are on the side of true love.”

  “I feel like those guys who walk a tightrope between skyscrapers. One false move and bam.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “The very worst could happen. The Pullapillys could find out that we’ve been lying all summer, and that they can no longer trust us—and just as we enter tenth grade, they ban Caitlin from hanging with us. We could lose Caitlin forever. Her mother would love an excuse to send her to a convent school in India. Believe me, she would if she ever found out about Maurice.”

  Andrew leans back and looks up at the moon. “I don’t want to go to camp.”

  “You’ll make friends. You’ll have fun. You’ll lose a quart of blood a day to mosquitoes.”

  Andrew laughs. “I wish you were kidding.”

  “Why does Stewart’s make the best root beer?” I ask, holding it up to the light.

  “It comes in a glass bottle. Plastic containers kill flavor.”

  “Do you know everything?”

  Andrew blushes. “Not even close.”

  “What did you sign up for at camp?”

  “Theater tech.”

  “That’ll be fun.”

  “I went through the list of stuff to do that they offer, and one thing was more lame than the next. I don’t want to learn how to make lye soap, nor do I like woodworking.”