Starry-Eyed

by Ted Michael

Finally Landon said, “Do you have any idea why it doesn’t affect you? My talent, I mean.”

  “No clue. It’s not like it would have come up before.”

  “So you’re not, like, the seventh son of a seventh son, or part of a secret necromancers’ guild?” When Jesse laughed, Landon could too. “This isn’t the part where you tell me only I can open the Magic Portal of the Something?”

  “That comes later.” Jesse’s foot thumped against Landon’s. “I always knew you didn’t force me to like you.”

  “Even though I’m the first guy you ever—wait. I am the first guy, right?”

  “Yeah. You are.” By now Jesse looked almost bashful. “But I might have noticed you before we started going over lines together.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Maybe during tryouts,” he confessed. “You were so . . . alive up there. Having fun.”

  “I love being onstage. I just wish I could act for real.”

  “But you can. Come on, Landon! Today, during your death scene, you were in the moment, like Mrs. K says. That wasn’t fake. That was genuine.”

  It was like a tiny candle inside Landon flickering into flame. “I guess.”

  “You told me you study other actors’ performances. And you try to do the things they do. That’s acting, right?”

  “Yeah. But I always thought, because I used my talent too, that it . . . didn’t count.”

  “I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it as, like, extra,” Jesse said. Landon must have looked astonished, because Jesse shrugged. “Talent is talent, right? But you should learn how to act without always leaning on your more, uh, unconventional ability.”

  “Because it’s more honest.”

  “Yeah. You know, every time I can tell I’m doing it right onstage, it’s not because I’m pretending to be Tybalt. It’s because I’m not pretending at all.” Jesse paused, obviously trying to find the words to say something difficult. “I know what it’s like to have people expect everything of you, and not to know whether there’s anything you could ever do that would get them off your back. So when I say Tybalt’s lines, I’m telling the truth for the first time. That’s what I never got about acting before I tried it. That it’s a way to be completely honest instead of being fake.”

  Maybe that was why Landon had always felt so awful about using his talent onstage. Because he’d been using it to get away with a lie he was telling himself.

  Landon let his hand rest on Jesse’s calf, and when Jesse didn’t pull away—when, instead, he smiled—Landon hadn’t known he could be that happy and have it last. “Does this mean we can figure things out together?”

  Jesse’s voice was warm now, sleepy but not sleepy. “What kind of things?”

  “Whether you’re gay, or bi, or Landonsexual, whatever.” That made Jesse laugh, so Landon kept going. “If we fit.”

  “We fit.” Jesse leaned closer.

  Their lips met again, and this kiss was better than all the others put together, because Landon knew this one was real.

  . . . . .

  As he walked into his house after school, Landon started imagining how it would go. Claire was coming by later, so he’d make her swear every promise in the book, and then he’d tell her about him and Jesse, and—oh, she’d be bouncing off the walls. No, no, first he had to make her drink a Coke Zero. Or they should get coffee. No, espresso! It would be like shaking a bottle of pop before opening it.

  Then it hit him: Should he tell Claire about his talent too? If Jesse could accept it, maybe she could as well.

  I’ll think about it, Landon decided. But for today, learning about Jesse and me is a big enough surprise. I don’t want Claire to actually explode.

  “Landon?” His mother had a late shift at the pharmacy today. When that happened, she was usually going out as he came in. “There’s lasagna in the fridge for dinner. You just need to put it in the oven.”

  “Bake at three seventy-five for thirty minutes. I know. Thanks, Mom.”

  “You look like you’re in a good mood. Anything exciting happen at school today?” She stood there at the door, all hopeful in her uniform smock. This was the part where he normally said nothing had happened—but today something had. And he wanted to tell her about it.

  He wanted to find out how she’d really react.

  Landon took a deep breath. “There’s a guy I’ve been spending time with. We’re—hanging out, I guess.”

  “A new friend, you mean?”

  “Like, a boyfriend.”

  It took every bit of his courage, but he didn’t smooth it over. Didn’t use his power. It was past time for him to face what his parents really felt.

  But Mom smiled. It was awkward, and a little unsure, but a smile all the same. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you really like him?” He nodded. She said, “Does he like you back?”

  “Yeah. He does.” Landon kept waiting for the sky to fall. Maybe she was just in shock.

  Instead she patted his shoulder. “Then, well, good. That’s good.”

  He had to swallow hard. “All right.”

  It wasn’t the plastic, ever-ready happiness he’d made them feel every time before. But it wasn’t hate, either. If he hadn’t used his talent, maybe Mom and Dad wouldn’t have taken it as easily when he first came out, but it would have been okay.

  Jesse had been right about his talent. It wasn’t the only way he could get through the world. It was just . . . extra.

  Landon had never thought about enjoying his talent before. About trusting it, or himself.

  But if he thought of it as trusting Jesse, and what Jesse saw in him, then maybe he could give it a try.

  ANECDOTE: GAVIN LEE

  It all started on a chilly February afternoon in 1983. It was a Sunday, and I was eleven years old.

  I had been involved in community theater in my little hometown of Woodbridge, England, for a couple of years and was taking tap and disco dancing classes. Hey, it was the ’80s!

  I heard a commercial on the radio for an audition, in London, for a brand-new show opening on the West End based on the film Bugsy Malone—which had made a child star of Jodie Foster. This was one of my favorite films: a 1920s gangster musical with the entire cast being played by kids. Sounds cool, right? I begged my mum and dad to take me, but there was a wrinkle in that plan.

  The audition was on the same Sunday as my community theater’s dress rehearsal for Dick Whittington. I was playing the park of Idle Jack, and it was my first speaking role. How could I miss this rehearsal? Well, my dad secretly arranged with the director that we could leave early—at 4:00—so that I could make the audition. I couldn’t believe my luck!

  Now the audition was in Earls Court, West London, and we lived about two hours from there. I remember my dad usually being a safe, sensible driver but that day he sped down the highway and straight through central London like a maniac. It was as if we were on The Amazing Race and had to win!

  We parked and ran, sweating, to the audition building and literally bashed into the front door—it was locked. It was 6:05 p.m. We watched as the doorman took down the BUGSY AUDITIONS, 10-6, THIS WAY sign. My dad and I told him our situation, we did a bit of groveling, and eventually he let us in.

  I was the last kid to audition for the day. My name was put on a card and pinned to my chest, and I was shoved into a room with the last group of forty kids, where we were all taught a pretty easy dance combination. The director and choreographer came in, and we did the routine another three times—then we all got a green, yellow, or red sticker placed on our card. We stood in a large circle and all sang “Happy Birthday” in unison as two guys listened closely to us sing—again, another sticker was put on each of our cards.

  I later learned the “traffic light” scoring system. Red = Stop (and go home. Fine job but this isn’t the show for you). Yellow = Okay (let’s try this again). Green = Go (onto the next audition). Thankfully I had two green stickers, woo-hoo!

 
Ten thousand kids auditioned that day, and every single one of us left with a badge that said I AUDITIONED FOR “BUGSY MALONE” and a Snickers bar. But more important than a badge and a candy bar, some of us left with callbacks too.

  Over the next three weeks, I had two more trips to London. The auditions got harder, especially the tap combinations. The final callback was at the Globe Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End. There were about 150 of us left. I was so nervous that I wouldn’t do the tap combination well that I plucked up the courage to go up to Gillian Gregory, the choreographer, after my name was called. I told her that she had made a mistake and that I wasn’t “a tapper.” I didn’t want to be embarrassed by dancing badly in front of the other kids.

  She looked, confused, at her notes and said, Okay, wait for the “non-tapper” routine. Then I sat in the auditorium watching the other boys learn and perform the easiest tap routine ever!

  I very nearly cried. I could do this routine—should I just run up onto the stage and join in? What to do? What to do?!

  In the end, I sat it out and just knew I had to do a good job for the rest of the day.

  After a full hyper-nervous day of auditioning and being switched into different groups, all of us were tired. We were finally told to sit in the auditorium and wait.

  After what seemed like a lifetime of nail biting, the creative team finally came back to the stage from their decision-making meeting. The energy and tension in the theater could have powered the city of London.

  They told us how amazing we all had done. We thought, “yeah, yeah, but who got the job?” Then they said, “We are casting four separate companies of kids to appear in the show throughout the first year, and each of you will be appearing in one of those casts!”

  Wait? You mean, we all got the job?

  I think the roof of the theater actually lifted off! We screamed and cheered as all of our nerves were released. It was the loudest, most joyous sound I’d ever heard.

  Then the producer said, “We are now going to announce the forty-eight of you that we would like to be the very first opening cast.” Suddenly the silence, tension, and nerves were back in the auditorium. Of course we all wanted this icing on the cake.

  I was a lucky, lucky lad that day. Just four weeks later, my mum and dad were dropping me off at the Holiday Inn at Marble Arch, where I met my fellow, opening castmates for the first time. This was where we would stay during rehearsals. I shared a room with three other kids, and it became our home away from home.

  The next four months were full of brilliant new experiences from fittings for tailor-made costumes, fancy new haircuts, tech runs on dangerous giant, moving sets, opening night parties, television specials, and standing ovations.

  For most of us this was our first and only experience as professional performers. Every single moment from that first nervous dance call to the bows after our final show (picture a stage full of kids blubbering hysterically) made me realize this is it. This was what I had to do when I grew up! And I’m so, so lucky to have been able to make a living following my ambitious dream.

  GAVIN LEE originated the role of Bert in the London production of Mary Poppins, for which he was Olivier Award—nominated. He went on to play the role on Broadway, for which he received Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards as well as a Tony Award nomination. While in New York City, Gavin has appeared at Carnegie Hall in Show Boat and, on TV, guest starred in Law & Order: SVU and The Good Wife. His other London credits include Crazy for You, Peggy Sue Got Married, Me and My Girl, Over My Shoulder, Oklahoma!, Contact, and Top Hat. His regional theater credits include Singin’ in the Rain, Snoopy, Noël Coward’s Masterpieces, Of Thee I Sing, Saturday Night, Alan Ayckbourn’s Whenever, and Chicago.

  OTHER LIFE

  Garret Freymann-Weyr

  When Megan Walker was trying to survive being young, she spent almost three years as a moderately successful model and actress.

  Megan had landed her first job at twelve, when a woman named Erika Bauer, who was from her mother’s other life, visited New York. She lived in Berlin (almost everyone from the other life lived in Europe) and had come to the States to shoot an ad campaign for a couture label, which had been taken over by a luxury conglomerate. Erika had been hired to reintroduce the label by using one of the models from its old advertisements and Megan’s mother was the one chosen. Back when her name was Lena Legarde instead of Lena Walker, her mother had been a very successful model referred to in the trades as High Fashion’s Movie Star. Megan often thought of Lena’s other life as an old and valuable fur coat, wrapped in tissue paper and put away.

  It was always exciting and confusing when anyone from the other life appeared, making Lena’s daughters and husband remember this precious, unworn garment. This time, however, the talk turned to actually using it. There were new technologies, Erika Bauer told them when she came to the apartment for drinks. She could manipulate old photos and blend them in a way that had once been a dark room trick, but was now quite simple.

  Megan’s father was uncharacteristically quiet, just listening to Erika talk. Lena sipped at her wine, her usual half smile in place; it was always impossible to tell what she was thinking. Megan’s sister sat without moving, a sign that Liv was bored.

  Trying not to stare at Erika, Megan instead studied her family and made herself useful by passing the cheese plate. Erika was the first woman Megan had ever seen whose face suggested that beauty could look more like strength than adornment. Erika’s body was long and spare, and her big hands moved in rhythm with her talking so that it looked as if two large birds were fluttering all around her.

  “I take it that this is not exactly a social call,” Jesse Walker finally said, surprising his daughters by the hardness in his voice and eyes.

  Normally Jesse loved having guests, lavishing them with welcome.

  “No, not entirely,” Erika said.

  “Lena said that would be the case,” their father said, as if their mother weren’t sitting right next to him and perfectly capable of speaking for herself.

  “Did she?” Erika asked.

  “Either way, I am delighted for the chance to see you,” Lena said finally. “Of course.”

  “As am I,” Erika said, the back of her hand briefly brushing against Megan’s as she accepted another piece of Port Salut. “Of course.”

  If she hadn’t been holding the tray, Megan would have snatched her hand away. Touching Erika was as surprising as winter’s static electricity, which flew off of door handles and people’s cold fingers. Except that Erika’s skin was warm and made Megan super aware of her own. It wasn’t unpleasant but it was still a shock.

  “Tell me, how is Stéphanie?” Lena asked.

  Stéphanie, it turned out, was Erika’s friend (or roommate, it wasn’t clear) and a former model who was now a fabric designer. Megan always loved to hear about women who had once worked with her mother. She wondered if this Stéphanie also had a box like the big leather hat box which Lena kept under the bed. In it were eleven magazine covers, sixty-seven print ads, and endless pictures of her modeling all manner of clothes, walking down runways.

  Megan and Liv understood that their mother, though no longer famous for it, was still seriously beautiful. They could see it in the way people—not only men—were almost stunned into a silent appreciation. The odd part, for Megan at least, was how Lena didn’t even notice. Whenever mention of her fame arose, Lena would always say, “Briefly famous. And for such a silly thing.”

  While Erika and Lena spoke about what had convinced Stéphanie to move from Paris to Berlin (“Lord knows, it wasn’t me,” Erika said, citing a job offer with more creative control), Megan remembered the time she’d asked her mother what it felt like to be beautiful.

  “It’s like having a Siamese twin,” Lena had said. “You don’t love walking through life joined to this other being, but . . . it’s part of how you live.”

  “I have the old negatives of you from that campaign,” Erika was saying. �
��The agency wants to use the ones from Rome.”

  “The spring collection,” Lena said. “Yes, that makes sense.”

  Liv arched her neck while flexing and pointing her feet, indicating that she was well past bored and was now irritated. Liv, who spent most of her waking hours at ballet class, knew a lot about how to plié, but wasn’t interested in much else. Megan had seen her sister dance professionally many times, in awe of how the years of hard work turned to magic on the stage, but being bored as much as Liv was seemed too high a price to pay for art.

  Or magic.

  “I have an idea that the company loves,” Erika said, slowly dragging out her words. “I would like to shoot you with your daughters.”

  Megan thought that Erika was studying Liv. Everyone always looked at Liv, whose body practically shrieked, Soon, I will be a prima ballerina. Megan felt that she had, over the years, learned a lot by watching people look at both her mother and her sister.

  “Would you,” Lena said. It was not a question.

  “Absolutely not,” Jesse said, in his I-am-the-Dean-of-Faculty-and-I-know-best voice.

  “Darling, it’s up to the girls,” Lena said, looking at her daughters as if seeing them for the first time.

  It often seemed to Megan that her mother was surprised by who she and Liv were. It was as if Lena were forever meeting them for the first time. Sometimes she was clearly pleased to know them—but not always.

  “I’m a dancer, not a model,” Liv said, her voice dripping with disdain.

  Liv was fifteen and viewed everything about her mother as being beneath contempt. Megan could never understand how her graceful and talented sister didn’t see how she too was walking through life with almost the same Siamese twin as their mother’s.

  Most of the time, Megan was content not to have a similar burden. It was true that people often remarked that Megan was beautiful, but she thought they were probably being polite. Her face and body each had nice bits, but there was nothing about either that would make her famous.

  “Thank God you have some sense,” Jesse said to Liv.