Circus in a Shot Glass

by Beth Overmyer

  “The younger you learn,” said the old woman, “the easier it will be. Now, conjugating verbs.”

  Julianna groaned.

  I twisted the lid on my bottle and chugged down its contents in several large gulps. I had to be at the theater in half an hour but wanted to get there even earlier to get settled in. Since I didn’t have my license yet, Dad would be driving me. I sure hoped he remembered. As I left the kitchen and walked toward his office, I could still hear him yammering at someone on the phone.

  “Skip? Is that you?” Mom asked.

  I popped my head into her room. “How are you feeling, Mom?”

  She was rounder than I remembered her being with Julianna. Her stomach popped up in the middle of the sheets like a mound of blue dirt over a grave. And all around her were pillows and tissues—she’d been crying over touching commercials again—and the light from the TV flickered across her face. “Fine, honey. Could you open the curtains a little? It sure is dark in here.”

  I hustled over to the window and pulled the curtains open all the way. Turning back to my squinting mother, I said, “Are you going to make it to the play?”

  Mom grimaced. “I’m sorry, Skip. I would come if I could, but the doctor was serious when he said I needed bed rest.”

  For some odd reason my eyes were stinging, and a knot formed in my throat. I swallowed three times before I managed to nod and say something like “That’s okay,” before hurrying out of the room.

  “Skip! Come back, sweetie.”

  Instead I went back to the kitchen, where Julianna now sat alone; I guess the maid trusted her to do the work on her own. She shouldn’t have; my sister, she’d pulled out her sketchbook and was plugging away at it. “So, are you going to come see the play?” I peered over her shoulder and took a peek at her latest drawing, some crazy-looking red dress. “What’s that?” My thumb jabbed at the paper, but she nudged it away with an ink-stained hand. “Is it a dress?”

  Eyes wide, she started telling me about all sorts things she’d learned in Home Ec. Something about A-lines and hems and pleats and—my head started spinning as she rattled off all these fancy words. “My teacher says I’m getting an A+!”

  “Cool,” I said before snatching the book out from under her poised marker.

  “Hey. Give it back, Skip.”

  “I’ll give it back when you answer my question.”

  Julianna reached for the book, but I took a step back. Frowning, she began chomping her bubble gum with a fury not uncommon to prepubescent kind. “Not cool.”

  “Well?”

  She stood on her tiptoes, making mad catlike swipes for her papers. “Can I have my sketchbook?”

  “Are you coming to my play?” I said again, holding the book higher still.

  Julianna frowned and stopped reaching for a moment. “I saw most of your rehearsals, Skip. I don’t want to sit through it again. Sorry.”

  For some reason this irked me. She was my kid sister; wasn’t she supposed to be in awe of everything I did and want to follow me around everywhere? She couldn’t keep her nose out of her sketchpad during those rehearsals. I’d caught her drawing. Clothes. Always clothes. She was obsessed with clothing. “I went to your dance recital.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was five. And Mom already said I should stay home and help her.” Julianna wrinkled up her skinny nose and peeked around the corner into the living room. “Rose is taking the rest of the day off. Who’ll call the hospital if Mom has the baby?”

  Sis had a point. Mom was due any day. Still, Julianna was my sister and she should suck it up and support me in my big role. Mom was an adult; she could call the hospital herself if anything happened. I told her as much, but she just made a face and shook her head.

  “Sorry, Skip.” She reached to grab her sketchpad out of my hands, but I jerked it away and threw her collection of drawings into the cold dishwater.

  Julianna screamed like a banshee, pushed me aside, and ran to retrieve her prized possession.

  I didn’t bother sticking around to see how much damage I’d done. Dad called for me to get my stuff together, so I grabbed my duffel bag and ran out the door. But I froze on the threshold. “Forgot to say goodbye to Mom.”

  “Will you get in the car? Or don’t you have to be at the theater an hour early? Man alive.” This was him in a good mood these days.

  “Sorry, Dad.” I jumped into the passenger’s seat of his black sports car, and we peeled out of our driveway, almost hitting the neighbor’s muscle car, which was illegally parked, and flew down the road toward my school.

  What little Dad said on the short ride over was muttered under his breath. “Theater. Sissy stuff” and “Can’t believe I’m doing this” were the only comments I could make out. But I didn’t care; my prof said I was a natural on stage. My performance would blow my dad away—all the way to New York City with a couple of Broadway show tickets.

  I began plotting which shows I would catch first. It would be cool to see a play I’d acted in, of course. But would I start comparing myself to the professional actors and get discouraged? Nah, I was good enough; my prof said so, and he’d been in off-off Broadway productions. If I couldn’t trust his opinion, whose could I?

  When Dad and I pulled up to the school, he braked hard, sending my duffel bag in the back rolling to the floor. He swore. “Won’t this stupid headache ever go away?” He’d been getting a lot of migraines lately; he blamed Mom’s nagging. I blamed the cigarettes he’d taken to smoking. “Well, break a knee, or whatever nonsense you thespians say.”

  “Thanks, Dad. It’s break a leg.”

  He waved me off. “Yeah, well. I’ll be back for the show in—what is it? Two hours?”

  “Three.”

  “Right. See you then.”

  I’d gotten out of the car and had just pulled my duffel bag off the back floor and shut the door when Dad peeled out of the parking lot, putting rubber down on the fresh asphalt. “Yikes.” I sure hoped no one had seen that. The school board hated him enough as it was, never mind him tearing up their new parking lot.

  “Hey, Skip,” Professor Johnson said from the entryway. He carried a handful of pale blue flyers in his right hand, which he tapped against his thigh. “Glad you came early. Helen could use some help.” He rolled his eyes.

  The actress playing Helen Keller had been having . . . issues. Mainly she’d been way too docile in her role. During the breakfast scene where Annie Sullivan is trying to get Helen to eat from her own plate with a fork, there’s supposed to be this big struggle between the two. Helen slaps Annie, Annie slaps Helen. They crawl all over the table and beat the crap out of each other in the process. It’s a fun scene, but our Helen was afraid of hurting the actress playing Annie, since “Annie” was one of the popular girls. So it was a lot of half-hearted taps on the face and not so much thrashing around as mounting a minor and unbelievable struggle.

  Professor Johnson had gone over the scene numerous times with them, but the two weren’t hitting it off as well as they could. As he led me into the cafetorium, I wondered what he thought I could do about the lack of chemistry.

  “Now, I don’t want to wear them out before curtain,” he said to me, putting a hand on my shoulder as he turned back to face me in the narrow aisle. “But do you have any ideas to get our Helen to be—rough with Annie?”

  I stared past Professor Johnson to the stage. The green curtains were pulled back, revealing the split set, which was ready for the afternoon’s performance. On stage left sat Annie, doing her nails. Behind her stood Helen, looking awkward and unsure of herself. “Hmm.”

  “You have any ideas, son? You sure came up with some good suggestions for the doctor’s scene.”

  My chest swelled and I nodded. “Sure. I have an idea. Leave it to me.”

  Tap, tap went Professor Johnson’s flyers against one of the metal folding chairs. “Good. Good. Thanks, Skip; knew I could rely on you, son.” And he winked at me and went to sort out something with the box
office.

  Okay, so I had the beginnings of an idea, though I wasn’t sure how to approach the actress. I knew from previous plays that actresses can be pretty touchy when it comes to their acting. Insecurity, Professor Johnson always said. I would have to proceed with caution and tact.

  “Hey,” I said, waving at the girls on stage.

  Helen waved, nervously. I was more popular than her, after all.

  But I wasn’t as popular as the girl playing Annie, who flashed me the briefest of small smiles. Some might say she was smirking, but I liked to think the best of people.

  “How you doing, Skip?” Helen asked. Her hair was done up in curlers, which would be taken out later and teased. She was supposed to look like a messy deaf-blind girl, not like Annie, who was kinda blind, but not as slovenly. I whispered a line to Annie.

  Annie rattled the corresponding line back in her messed-up Irish brogue. We’d been doing that, throwing lines back and forth, trying to catch the other person off guard.

  I winced at her accent. She’d had some coaching, but she sounded more like a cartoonish leprechaun than anything. I patted Annie on the head, getting a scowl in return. “Hey,” I said again to Helen. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  To my discomfort, Helen blushed a shade of raw salmon and started preening. I wasn’t sure if she knew she was doing it or not, but the girl had begun stroking her over-large pink curlers.

  Annie smirked. I shot her a “be nice” warning glance before walking off with Helen to discuss her acting skills. Or rather, lack thereof. “So, er, you excited for this afternoon?”

  Her head bobbed and she started chewing on her bottom lip, so I took that as a yes. “Are you, Skip?”

  She’d caught me off guard. I glanced around at the crowded set, my eyes resting on the table which hadn’t been cleared for the top of the first act yet. “My dad’s coming.”

  “Cool,” she said, and blushed even darker. She fluttered her eyelashes, and I wondered if something wasn’t quite right with her. “Are you close, you and your dad?”

  Of all things, I started to laugh. “No—well, I mean, sorta.” Okay, enough of this messing around. I’m on a mission. I gripped the back of the rocking chair—another piece of furniture that needed to be moved before we opened—and fumbled for the right words to say. “Um. I wanted to talk to you about something.” It was now or never.

  “Uh-huh?” She seemed excited, and I wondered if it had anything to do with stage nerves at all.

  “So, the scene where—” Why was she batting her eyelashes? Warning bells went off in my head, but I tried to ignore them. I couldn’t let Professor Johnson down. I needed to talk to her, to coach her through the difficult scene. “You know the scene where Helen and Annie are beating the crap out of each other?” Yes, that’s right. Ease your way into the conversation.

  Helen blinked and jerked her head back a little. “Um, yeah. Oh, you want to talk about the play?” She sounded disappointed.

  What else would I want to talk with her about? I was smart enough not to say that part out loud, though. “Yeah. So, when Helen goes to slap Annie, she’s gotta be p—I mean, ticked at Annie, right?”

  Helen’s spine stiffened and she sat down at the breakfast table. “Yes.” Her voice was frosty, a bottle of water left out in the winter cold. I should’ve been waiting for the inevitable explosion.

  Dunderhead that I was, I continued prattling on. “So, when you hit her, you have to stage slap her, but you have to make it look like you’re hitting her for real, you know?” This was going better than I could’ve hoped for. Still, why was her jaw tensing?

  The color that had left her cheeks came rushing back. “Oh. You mean like hitting for real?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What? Like this?” She drew back her hand and smacked me a good one upside my head. “Thanks a lot, Skip; now I know how to act. I’m so glad I had you, O master of the theater, to train me.” And she slow-clapped me away.

  Rubbing my sore face, I took off for the dressing room. “Women.” It hadn’t been my first brush with a ticked off lady; it wouldn’t be my last. Why had I come to the theater early, again?

  I flopped down onto one of the folding chairs in the men’s dressing room and plopped my duffel bag down next to me. I sure hope my face doesn’t bruise.

  Just as I was getting ready to go in search of some ice, Professor Johnson bustled into the room, lugging an old stage light. “How’d it go?”

  “Wonderful. She practiced slapping...on me.”

  The prof clapped me on the back with his free hand. “Good man. Way to take one for the team. Say, want to take a look at the programs? I had Mrs. Edsel go through some of them, and she thinks they spelled your last name wrong.”

  “Wow,” I said, pulling my hand away from my face. “How is that even possible?”

  The old professor, he shrugged and chuckled. “If you want, you can go through them all and correct the misspellings.”

  I thought for a moment. It wouldn’t be good for me to call Dad to come pick me up. There was almost three hours left until curtain, and although we didn’t live far away, I knew Dad wouldn’t want to make the trip there and back again three times. That would have him boxing my ears for sure, and I’d had enough of it already today, thank you very much. “Sure, just point me in the right direction and I’ll have at it.”

  He hefted the stage light onto his shoulder, knocking the red gel loose. “Oops. Could you pick that up for me? Thanks, son.”

  I handed him the gel and followed him to the back of the house, where I spent the next hour and a half crossing out “Forde” and writing in “Ford,” the correct name, above in one-hundred fifty-one programs. By the time the rest of the cast had arrived, my hand was cramped . . . and inky.

  “Hey, Skip.”

  I sat up from the box office table, my knees creaking under my weight. It felt like I’d been sitting all day. “Hey, Danny.”

  Danny was my best friend and the resident idiot of our prep school. He was playing James, my—or, rather Captain Keller’s son.

  “Got those lines down pat?” I said, mimicking our line prompter, the girl who’d volunteered to help us with lines when we went off-book.

  Danny, he rolled his eyes and pulled a toothpick out of his leather jacket pocket. “Yeah, yeah. When is curtain again?” He stuck the toothpick, which looked used, in the gap between his two top front teeth and grinned.

  “House opens in an hour; curtain’s up in one and a half.”

  “Thanks,” he said, trying to clap me on the shoulder but missing and backhanding one of the techies instead. “Oops. You’d better watch where you’re going.”

  The irritated-looking stagehand shook his head and hurried away, slouching as all good lighting operators do. He shot us a glare that said, “You’d better hope I don’t miss my cues when you’re in the spot, if you know what I’m saying.”

  “Better not tick those guys off,” I said in an English accent for no reason at all. “Wot, wot.”

  Danny laughed like a donkey. “Should we get our costumes on or something?”

  I shook my head. “Makeup first.”

  He pulled out the toothpick and placed it back in his pocket. “Right. Right.”

  Ten minutes later, I stood in line to get my stage makeup done. I asked Danny a few times to check my face for a bruise, but he assured me every time there was nothing. Maybe it was nerves, but that toothpick kept making a reappearance in his mouth. “You’re going to be great, James,” I said. It was my turn to get “done up,” so I held still as the makeup artist tucked the towel around and under my collar.

  “Whoa, what happened to you?” she asked.

  I winced. “Ran into a door.” There was no way I was going to admit this one.

  She just stared at me, unblinking. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  She sighed. “If you say so.” She went mad with the pancake foundation, complimenting me on remembering to moist
urize ahead of time. “You have nice skin.”

  “Uh, thanks.” What is a guy supposed to say? It’s kind of a back-handed compliment, if you ask me. Nice skin can imply that a guy’s feminine.

  When she’d finished applying the shadows and highlights, she powdered me down and warned me to be careful putting my costume on. “Next.” She looked at Danny and his toothpick, made a face, and said, “You’ll have to throw it out.”

  Danny snorted. “It’s lucky.”

  I chuckled to myself and headed back to get my costume on. “Hey,” I said to Annie.

  She laughed and said, “Good one. You ticked her off so much she might actually hit me tonight.” And she sounded much happier about that than a normal person would. We’re a strange breed, thespians.

  With a groan, I left her and finished getting ready.

  The curtain went up late because some smart ace decided to smoke pot inside the boys’ restroom. But the play itself went okay.

  I remembered all my lines, which was no real surprise to me but was still a relief. Annie tripped up on her lines a few times, which was no real surprise either, and Danny/James tripped over his big, dumb feet during the ladder scene. The real highlight, though, was the scene with Annie and Helen and the doll—which she smacked Annie with for real, by accident—and the breakfast scene, where she punched Annie instead of slapping her, knocking out part of a canine tooth. Annie, spitting blood and clinging to her face, spent the rest of the play looking for the bit of tooth, crying, and asking other cast members if they’d seen her bicuspid.

  So that all made my early entrance seem like not so big a deal.

  When it was time for curtain call, Annie was ready to throw in the towel and bow out before curtain, but she was a trooper, and the show did go on. Fortunately, we had a decent understudy for the part, so the next day we’d have the girl come in and take over.

  With only a few glitches which are common on an opening night—missed light cues, rushed lines, one wardrobe oops, and the like—we made it to curtain. I wasn’t over the high of having dozens of people jumping out of their seats, slamming their palms together for something I’d done. It was intoxicating.