Everything Must Go
Page 12
Dean said, “I’m glad you made it. I’m sorry I’m late. The fucking printer in the library was being a bitch.”
I nodded, because I’ve had experience with the library printer too. It’s ancient and takes about forty days to print one sheet of paper.
I told Dean that I hadn’t been waiting too long.
She strode toward the stage and swung herself up onto it in one single hop, letting her legs dangle.
“So it’s called 300 Years of Mourning,” she said. “Mourning with a u. It’ll make sense once you read it. It’s Victorian and kind of wacky. I’m just deciding which …” She was shuffling around in her satchel. “Okay, I think I’ve got it. This is the part where the main character’s, Elizabeth’s, younger sister, Fanny, acts like kind of a brat. Fanny’s whole bit is that she’s obsessed with the guppies in the fountain outside. So do you want to skim the script and then read for me?”
I read the script. It was funny, definitely odd. I was wearing my cream-and-green knit skirt suit, so I felt a little too dowdy to be playing a seven-year-old girl, but I had no choice but to go with it.
“Are you ready?” Dean asked. “I’ll read for Elizabeth.”
Here’s what I remember of the first lines of script:
ELIZABETH: Fanny, come inside for dinner. Cook’s been calling you for ages.
FANNY: I’ve already got my dinner. It’s right here in the fountain!
Dean stopped me.
“That was good. I like the way you read. Most people don’t pronounce the words enough, but you’ve got a nice, slow tempo.”
She studied me up and down.
“The only problem is that you read it like you’re a ninety-five-year-old grandma. You’re all bent over and crooked, like a fucking C.”
I fell all over myself, apologizing.
“Don’t apologize. Just do it right next time.”
I swallowed and tried again.
“Okay, now that we’ve established that you can pronounce words and stand up straight, I need a little more emotion,” coached Dean. I liked that she was blunt, but it didn’t make me any less scared of her.
“Like this?” I tried to put passion into the line like I did when I played Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream back at Bowen.
“Not feeling it,” Dean said, shaking her head, and I panicked that she would send me away. “You’re supposed to be performing, for heaven’s sake. Can you change your voice a little bit? Like, the tone and the volume? Right now what I’m getting is like the color of the sky outside right now.”
I got the picture.
So the next time I read the line, I went all out. I screamed and stomped my foot. I wasn’t even humiliated, actually. I just really, really wanted to please Dean.
But Dean just laughed. “That’s supposed to be emotional? This is a wacky play, Flora, not Anne of Green fucking Gables.”
I was close to tears at that point, but there was no way I was showing Dean that. I filled my lungs with air, and before she knew what was happening, I burst out anew: “NO!” I wailed. “THOSE ARE MY GUPPIES! NOBODY CAN TAKE AWAY MY GUPPIES! I-I-I’LL THROW MYSELF OUT THIS WINDOW, I SWEAR I WILL!”
Not sure how else to convey Fanny’s despair, I threw myself on the ground, beat my fists against the floor, tossed myself this way and that, flung my limbs into the air like I was being electrocuted. When I was done, I lay on the floor, panting, a bit dazed that I had done something so crazy.
But it had worked. Dean was laughing, and she continued to laugh for what felt like three solid minutes.
“Totally overdramatic,” she said. “There it is. Thank you. You accessed your inner crazy. Insanity is the way to go for you, I think. Sometimes it is, especially for the people who seem as though they have it all together.”
I got to my feet, seeing stars.
We kept reading. We read every line perhaps twenty times, until my voice was hoarse and my arms and hip bones were bruised from all the thrashing on the floor and against the stage. When Dean was finally satisfied, she reached into her leather satchel and extracted a Mason jar filled with tinted liquid. As she unscrewed it, I realized it was alcohol, and I looked left and right to make sure nobody was around. The theater was silent, cozily thrumming with heat; even the hard-backed pews, lined with thin cushions, looked inviting. But there was the minor matter of the abstinence pledge we’d all signed in September, after all, and that was enough to make me squirm.
Dean chugged from the Mason jar for a few seconds and then held it out to me, gulping.
I accepted it and stared down into it. It was slightly cloudy, and I wasn’t crazy about putting my mouth to it, but Dean was watching me, so I took a small sip. It was repugnant and burned on the way down, doubly irritating because my throat was already scratched raw from all the screaming.
I must have made a face.
“It’s moonshine,” said Dean. “Louis makes it right on the back porch of his A-frame, no shit. It’s good, right?”
My esophagus felt scalded, so I just nodded and handed the jar back.
Then Dean told me I could go, and she said, “Between you and me, I think you’ve got Fanny in the bag.”
As I walked from Woolman Theater to my hovel, where Lucy and Benna were somewhat inexplicably curled up on our couch together in front of the woodstove, whispering sweet twin nothings into each other’s ears (and I didn’t even have Juna to commiserate with, because the few times I had tried to make snide comments to her, she had just stared at me, Quare-eyed), my elation dimmed just slightly. I know I should be happy, what with all the praise from my teachers and Dean, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s all kind of empty. I mean, as cool as it can be here, I miss you guys. A lot.
Love,
FMG
To: Elijah Huck
From: Dean Elliot
Subject: visit?
October 25, 4:11 p.m.
Hey, dude,
How’s it going, home slice?? We never talk anymore. And you don’t have any excuse: I’m a second-year now, so we can actually email.
You promised you’d come visit this fall and see all the teachers. I told them about how we’ve known each other forever through the Chicago Arts summer session and they’re all, like, “Wow, we really miss that guy.” Plus, a disturbing number of first-years have been fangirling over you ever since the latest of issue of Nymphette hit computer screens everywhere (classy move to not name Quare, btw).
So what gives?
D
To: Guild
From: Dean Elliot
Subject: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 4:11 p.m.
Elizabeth / Dean Elliot
Gregory /Michael Lansbury
Paul / Gary North
Calliope / Althea Long
Susanna / Luella Lookman
Carlos / Shy Lenore
Fanny / Flora Goldwasser
Lael Goldwasser
Harvard College
2609 Harvard Yard Mail Center
Cambridge, MA 02138
October 26
Lael,
Jesus Christ, I just had the worst and weirdest interaction with that girl Becca Conch-Gould, who’s my neighbor on one side. We’re in Guild together, and after I got Fanny and she didn’t, she’s been super cold to me in the dining hall and in class.
But then tonight, just now, she knocked on the door to my hovel. When I opened the door, she was standing there in the moonlight, arms crossed at her chest.
I was in there alone (Juna was at a meeting for the Feminist Underground, which she always invites me to, and although I considered going for once this time—just to see what it was all about—I ultimately decided that I had too much reading), so I invited Becca in. She sat on the floor, against Juna’s bed, and not wanting us to be on different levels, I sat on the floor against my bed. We faced each other. It goes without saying that Becca and I are not frien
ds; we’ve probably had three short conversations in the two months (!) that I’ve been here.
“Is everything okay?” I asked finally, after she’d pouted at me for thirty seconds.
She let out a beleaguered sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “There’s just something I have to get off my chest.”
“Go for it,” I said. My heart started to pound.
“The part,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t see you read, so it’s possible that you were really good, but a few of us have been studying acting for years, and it’s a little bit unbelievable that none of us got parts.”
I blinked at her. It was one of those moments that was so surprising that it felt, actually, entirely expected: this bug-eyed, chinless girl with feather earrings accusing me of playing the system, or whatever, and taking parts from those who were more deserving.
“Okay,” I said, not sure what else to say.
“I just wanted to say that we all get that you’re superspecial and everything”—a mocking grin curled at the corners of her lips; clearly she was amused by her own biting wit—“but that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to special privileges. I thought I’d bring this up with you directly rather than let it simmer.”
I stared at her. Lael, I thought I was going to punch her out. One of my hands actually rose automatically, but I gripped the side of my bed instead. And the way she kept reiterating her own maturity, manifesting in her ability to be directly aggressive rather than keep her petty bullshit to herself!! It was unbelievable, really.
“What do you mean?” I asked, struggling to control my tone.
She ignored my question and instead stood, presumably to leave. She took a step toward the door, and then turned to speak again.
“It’s clear that Dean feels bad for you because people think you’re really materialistic and everything,” she said. Her voice had now taken on a sickening sweetness, complete with an innocent shake of the head. My stomach flipped over. “But you get everything. People like you always get everything in the outside world, and I guess you’re allowed to have whatever you want at Quare, too.”
I jumped to my feet, seeing stars. Probably expecting me to deck her, Becca lunged toward the door and opened it, hopping like a cricket onto the porch but continuing to hold the door open. Her eyes danced around my face. We stared at each other.
“You’re really cool, Becca,” I said finally. “So great. We should hang out more.”
Her face crumpled, then curled into a grin. My sarcasm—on our first day, Miriam had spoken to us about Quare’s no-sarcasm rule, designed to promote vulnerability and sharing genuine emotion—was proof of my inferiority; this was what Becca had been expecting all along. She shut the door, not a slam but close to it, and sprinted back to her hovel. Trip, trip, trip, I chanted in my head, but she didn’t so much as stumble.
My body still feels funny.
I guess what’s really getting to me is that I honestly don’t even blame Becca for hating me. I have something she wanted; I probably have lots of things that she wants, at least things that make life easier for me in the outside world. But at the same time, her accusation, her bitterness, turned my stomach. Something about the way she wears her anger and sadness on her face, in her words, disgusts me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe the thing is that it—she—makes me sad. Lael, I feel so torn. Half of me is still shimmering in the glory of getting this part, but the other part doesn’t even want it anymore.
Love,
Flora
To: Dean Elliot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 5:10 p.m.
Dean! Thank you so much for the part. Can I get back to you on whether or not I plan to appear in the play?
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Dean Elliot
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 5:59 p.m.
Just so you know, Flora, the part of Fanny came down to you or either of two first-years—Juna and Becca. I decided that Juna and Becca weren’t ready for it. So while you’re up onstage, playing Fanny, which I’ve rewritten and tweaked especially for you, there are going to be some people in the audience who aren’t rooting for you.
We like to say, “This is Quare, so everybody roots for everybody,” but that’s pretty much bullshit. The thing about Guild is that it’s the only society on campus where it’s okay to be a little bit competitive—to admit that we’re not all equals at everything, and that some of us rise to the top because we’re that much better. In a school of thirty-four students, competition doesn’t work very often—not with grades or sports or anything like that—but in the case of Guild, it’s our lifeblood.
I shouldn’t be telling you this, but at the end of the semester, the master player picks a new apprentice for the spring. And getting this parts means you’re in the running for apprentice.
To: Dean Elliot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 8:12 p.m.
Were you in Guild as a first-year?
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Dean Elliot
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 8:25 p.m.
I was. And my first-year fall, I auditioned for my first play, just like you did. I lost the part to Michael, whom they decided to dress up as a girl rather than cast me. God, I was devastated. But then I auditioned for the next play, and I got a part, and then another, and another. And I’m planning to do more theater next year, at the University of Chicago (assuming I get in—I’m telling people I applied there early decision because I think jinxing is witchcraft).
Talk to Susan María Velez, who’s going to be the playwright in residence next term, if you ever decide to get into writing. She’ll also be the Guild faculty adviser.
You can do this, Flora. People are going to like you. To tell you the truth, nobody cares how deep or pure or Quare you are. They care about liking you, and they like you if you make their reality even a little bit better—more entertaining, funnier, smarter. That’s what’s real. I like your style, Flora. You’re different. Don’t compromise that to fit in here.
To: Dean Elliot
From: Flora Goldwasser
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 8:29 p.m.
I promise that I’ll try not to!
To: Flora Goldwasser
From: Dean Elliot
Subject: Re: “300 Years of Mourning” cast list
October 26, 8:27 p.m.
There’s one more thing. For years, Miriam has begged the Guild master player and apprentice to write and submit plays to the Young Innovators’ Promise Awards—YIPA, they’re called, for all sorts of literary and visual arts. If someone at Quare wins a YIPA gold medal, the entire school gets recognized by the government as a charter for the arts, or some shit like that, and its ranking goes through the roof. That means more people apply, fewer get in, and its tuition soars, which means of course that it becomes richer. It’s a money game, at the end of the day. That’s why they’re so insistent that we win, though they’d never breathe a word of this to any student. And they know that the Guild master player and apprentice are more likely to win than members of Languedoc or whatever, with their menstrual blood paintings.
I’m only telling you this because if you want to submit a play, you should start thinking and writing as soon as possible.
India Katz-Rosen
1025 Fifth Avenue, Apt. 9C
New York, NY 10028
October 28
Dear India,
Cora’s not writing me back. Can you b
ug her, please?? Or at least let me know how she’s doing?
I’ve been in the Free Store all day. It’s my favorite place north of Harlem.
What is this place, you might ask? It’s in the attic of the Art Barn, and it’s where old clothes find new owners. It operates on the premise of the gift economy: nobody charges, and nobody pays.
All this to say that if you’re willing to sort through some nasty junk, there are pretty neat clothes to be found, totally free of charge.
A sampling of the contents of the Free Store as of October 22
• A pair of sagging gray tights with holes in the crotch and down the legs
• A pair of cracked leather shoes with droopy tongues but awesome laces
• A suede vest with fringe and a little cowboy logo
• A khaki jacket, made for light spring, size 2X
• A pair of lime-green hot pants
• An assortment of thick socks
• A pair of Rollerblades, size five
• A tweed dress, slightly frayed but magnificent
• An A-line navy wrap skirt with a thick red seam (tried it on, a little tight but it’s a go)
I’m not sure how into Halloween people here get (some people seem to celebrate it by dressing up in wild costumes every day, but because of “no shell speak” we’re forbidden from commenting on any of it), but I’m sure getting into it. Do you remember when we—you, Cora, and I—went as Nancy Drew, George Fayne, and Bess Marvin?
I’m still a little pissed that you guys made me be Nancy and ask for the candy on all our behalves.
Anyway, Sam and I are going as Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky from Moonrise Kingdom. Sam has one of those beaver hats (fake, of course), and obviously I have a mod pink dress and knee socks. Sam is such a blast.
Climb ev’ry mountain,
Flora
Email from Elijah to Dean, published here with Dean’s permission
To: Dean Elliot
From: Elijah Huck