Summer in the City

by Fracaswell Hyman

  “So? Just shoot her from over my shoulder.”

  “We can’t shoot her from over your shoulder. There are no cameras here. This isn’t a TV show. It’s a play, a musical that will be performed on a stage where the audience won’t be able to spin around behind you so they can see her.”

  Gabriel turned purple, realizing how foolish he looked. He walked close to Bob and glared at him. “I still think your blocking stinks. It’s boring. Make it better.”

  “The blocking works fine, and you’d realize that if you’d stick to it.”

  “You’re not the boss of me.”

  “I’m the director.”

  “Yeah? Well . . .” He stomped his elevated shoes over to the door, pausing only to order Acorn to call his manager. “Tell her to meet me at the car. We’ll see who’s in charge around here.” The door slammed shut behind him.

  Bob balled his fist and turned around in circles as if he were looking for something or someone to punch. Larry jumped up from the piano and ran to him. “Hey, take it easy. Come on, calm down. Take some deep breaths.”

  I realized I was shaking. TJ came over and put his arms around me, trying to calm me down. Even though Gabriel had been pretty consistently awful in rehearsals, I’d never been in a situation like that before. Some of the cast started to peek in, trying to find out what was going on. Acorn called for a lunch break, even though it was only eleven o’clock.

  TJ, Chanté, and I joined the rest of the Yo, Shady-O crew for lunch, and Gabriel’s outburst was all we could talk about.

  “That boy is the biggest diva I’ve ever worked with,” LaRon said. “And I was a backup dancer in a Mariah Carey video, mmkay! We all know Madame Carey can carry on!”

  “She’s the mother of all divas,” Chanté agreed.

  Claxton said, “If she’s the mother, Faustie must be the father!”

  Chelsea chimed in, laughing, “Father? More like bratty little brother.”

  TJ did a perfect imitation of Gabriel as Romper—“Brats rule, fools drool!” We all cracked up. I knew it wasn’t very nice to talk about Gabriel behind his back, but I needed to laugh to let out the stress. A part of me was afraid to go back after lunch. Which Gabriel would show up, the charmer who had ghosted me? The silent insecure star behind the oversize sunglasses? Or the diva monster from this morning?

  On our way back into the building, Frances Francisco appeared out of nowhere. She stopped me at the elevators. “We need to talk.”

  When the elevator doors opened, she led me in and put her hand out to my friends to stop them from getting on, too—“Privacy, please.” The door slid closed and she pressed the button for the sixteenth floor. “Listen, Gabriel wants Bob fired. Thoughts?”

  I was stunned. My stomach started hurting all over again. “Fired?”

  “He says Bob humiliated him in front of the whole cast.”

  “The whole cast wasn’t even in the room, just me, Gabriel, and our understudies.”

  “What did Bob do?”

  “Nothing. He just asked Gabriel to do the blocking that was set last week, and Gabriel refused. Bob didn’t yell at him or anything. He just corrected Gabriel, who thought there would be cameras or something.”

  Frances Francisco sighed deeply. “Okay. Look, sometimes my little star needs a swift kick in the pants. Here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to take him away for a mental health day, so he can regroup. Tomorrow is a day off, and we’ll start again on Monday.”

  The elevator doors slid open at the sixteenth floor and I stepped out, but Frances Francisco didn’t. “By the way,” she said, “I spoke to Larry about lowering the key on all of Gabriel’s songs. It’ll only affect you on the duets, but I’m sure you can handle it. See you next week.” The doors closed and she was gone.

  The rest of the day was hard, to say the least. Bob was uptight and his fuse was pretty short. He did his best to appear normal, but the rumor about his getting fired was being whispered all around the room. We ended rehearsal two hours early. Bob made a short speech before he let us go.

  “Hey everyone, thanks for a great week. It’s been a little challenging, but the road to Broadway was never smooth. Get some rest tomorrow, because we have a lot of catching up to do. Keep the gossip down and your spirits up. I love you all. Now get out of here!”

  I was drained—mentally, physically, and emotionally. When I got back to Aunt Zendaya’s apartment, I saw Izzy had texted me. She wanted me to call her. But I shut off my phone because I didn’t want to text, talk, or think about what happened at rehearsal today. I let Aunt Z and Acorn take me on a long run in Prospect Park and then to a movie, where I promptly fell fast asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Summer in the City

  Hoooray for days off! Summer in New York City was everything I thought it would be and more. Yes, it was hot, sticky, and humid, but the excitement of the Big Apple made it all worthwhile. The cast had bonded, especially TJ, LaRon, Claxton, Chelsea, Chanté, and I. We worked hard, and we played even harder! Did we rest on our days off as we had been advised to do? Of course not!

  The Yo Shady-O crew took TJ and me under their wing. They showed us all around the city, which practically glistened in the summer light. We went to Central Park, the Museum of Natural History, and the Bronx Zoo. I loved the outdoor concert series at Lincoln Center. I saw an opera, Aida, and actually loved it! We had standing room tickets to see Wicked and The Lion King on Broadway (the best we could afford), and I even won a student rush lottery, so TJ and I got to see Hamilton!

  Back at rehearsal, lunches were a laugh riot. LaRon was a living, breathing cartoon. With his expressive face and the way he moved, you’d think he could squash and stretch like an animated TV character. Claxton was more reserved, but he had a sly wit that could make you laugh while thinking if that wasn’t so funny, it would be hurtful!

  The girls, Chanté (my understudy) and Chelsea, were like my big sisters. Sometimes we’d go window shopping on our lunch breaks or after rehearsal when Acorn was working late. At sixteen, Chelsea was the most mature and held us in check if we were about to go off the rails—like the time we were dancing around the edges of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, pretending we were in the opening credits of Friends, and LaRon fell in. The water wasn’t deep, barely up to his knees, but Chelsea turned down the volume on our turn-up, bringing us back to our senses before we headed home.

  I was having the time of my life. Mom was worried that I wasn’t getting enough rest and scolded Aunt Zendaya for letting me hang out with my new friends and stay up so late on my days off. But the world was spinning so fast and I didn’t want to get off. I was enjoying work (when he who shall not be named wasn’t causing drama), because it didn’t seem like work to me. I felt like I laughed all day, and I’ll admit, sometimes I laughed too much. In the middle of a serious scene or one of my solos, I’d looked across the room and there LaRon would be flaring his nostrils like a bull in a cartoon, and I couldn’t help it, I’d crack up. Bob would look at me, one eyebrow reaching for the ceiling, to remind me to stop playing around and be professional. I did my best, but then again, I was only twelve and a half, and some things were just too funny too be ignored.

  I didn’t enjoy lowering the keys on our duets, especially Duet Forever, my favorite song. I could still sing it, but I couldn’t soar up into my Beyoncé range, and that made it less fun. Was I being a diva now? I didn’t know, but maybe I wanted to show off a little. I felt like I was being held back and couldn’t reach my highest potential, just because Gabriel Faust couldn’t sing as well as TJ. His manager even insisted we keep the register lowered when TJ did the songs. That was unfair, but what could we do? It felt like we were being held hostage by a star the producers insisted we cater to because his name would sell tickets.

  Destiny Manaconda began to show up at rehearsals whenever she wasn’t performing at the Summer Jam concerts across the country. It made me a little nervous at first and I tried not to compare myself to her, bu
t it was hard. She was so glamourous. Her clothes, makeup, powder-puff pink hair, even the way she moved across the room. When she showed up, I started feeling like I did when we first started rehearsals, like a plain-Jane kid who couldn’t hold a candle to the rest. Even though I knew she was there to keep Faustie in check, I would find myself comparing myself to her, even when I didn’t mean to. Gabriel seemed calmer when she was around. He had somebody to sit with him and go on breaks with him. He never tried to be a part of the cast. It seemed as though he felt we were beneath him. But as long as he kept his diva behavior and tantrums to a minimum, we were relieved.

  The third week was so hard. We were doing run-throughs of the entire show two times a day. It was starting to affect my voice. My friends suggested I get a steamer to soothe my vocal cords in the morning and evening. Also, Chanté would meet me in the morning and we would warm up our voices together, before the company warm-up. She had been taking voice lessons for ten years and knew how to keep her voice in good shape. I was grateful for the way she was always volunteering to help and support me even though she was my understudy. I asked Bob if Chanté could play Juliet one night during the run, and he said, “Sure. We’ll give Chanté and TJ a performance during the last week. I was excited, because I’d actually get to sit in the audience and watch for the first time.

  I tried to keep my talking to a minimum when I wasn’t at rehearsal. I couldn’t afford to stay up all night face2facing with Izzy back at home or with Hailey Joanne across the Atlantic. I texted them when I could, but I seriously needed my rest. I was beginning to realize that an actor and singer’s body was her instrument, and you had to almost live like a monk when you were not onstage or in rehearsal. This was really hard for us kids, but when our voices got hoarse or we pulled a muscle, we learned to take care of ourselves the hard way.

  For our final week of rehearsal, we moved into a theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan called The Pure Space. Out front was a large poster featuring Gabriel Faust in his Romeo costume. My friends said I should have been on the poster too, but I didn’t mind. Gabriel Faust was the name that sold tickets; it was only fair he be featured. No one knew who I was . . . yet.

  The theater was what you’d call intimate, with about ninety-nine seats. It was a bit dusty and musty, but it felt as grand as Radio City Music Hall to me. There was an orchestra pit and more lights than we ever had at Trueheart’s auditorium. There was a green room where the actors could hang out. I don’t know why they called it a “green” room when the walls were gray cinderblock, but I guess it sounded better than “the gray room.” There were two “star” dressing rooms just offstage and three flights of cramped dressing rooms to share, but still, it was glamorous to me.

  TJ, LaRon, Claxton, Chelsea, Chanté, and I took the dressing room on the top floor, because we figured we could make as much noise and be as silly as we wanted away from the rest of the company. I could have used the second star dressing room, but I knew I’d be lonely next door to Gabriel Faust. I wanted to be with my friends, no matter how cramped the space.

  It felt like the cast was divided into three separate groups. There were the “kids,” which I was a part of. We were giddy with excitement about being in a professional show, a show that could move to Broadway and beyond. Then there were the “veterans,” or adults. Zippy and Roz seemed to be the leaders of this group; they’d all been in lots of shows and although they were hopeful of going to Broadway too, their enthusiasm seemed muted compared to ours. Last but not least, there was Gabriel Faust, his agents, managers, personal assistants, publicist, stylist, barber, driver, and his bae, Destiny Manaconda, who spent most of her time in Gabriel Faust’s dressing room with the rest of his entourage.

  Everything seemed to be going well, except when Gabriel Faust started complaining about rehearsing too much. Frances Francisco complained to the producers that he was not only rehearsing the show, but also recording an album at night. So Gabriel Faust was given a lighter rehearsal schedule than the rest of us. That was okay with me, because when he wasn’t around, TJ got to step in as Romeo and the band would revert the songs to their original keys—when the cat’s away, the band will play! It felt like old times back at Trueheart Middle School.

  The sets and costumes for this production were a humongous step up from what we had in middle school. At Trueheart we had just one painted backdrop for many different scenes and some set pieces built by the shop department. Here there were actual sets–of Juliet’s bedroom, a recording studio, a lavish nightclub, and the kind of places pop stars would hang at. The costumes were rented, but from a rental company that furnished actual Broadway shows, so they were lavish to the max. I felt like a real star, draped in sequins, rhinestones, and bugle-beaded gowns. I couldn’t wait for my parents to see me in the show.

  As opening night got closer and closer, I was uber excited—not only because of the show, but Hailey Joanne was coming to see me! She and her mother were flying in from Paris to do fittings for her mother’s vow-renewal ceremony, which meant they would be in the city for opening night. Hailey Joanne had already decided that I would spend a few nights in their penthouse suite at the Saint Voltaire, only the most exclusive hotel in Manhattan. Gabriel Faust had a suite there, too.

  I had a late call the day before Hailey Joanne was set to arrive, because I had to go to the doctor. Everyone had to do this in case someone became ill and we had to cancel performances—insurance stuff, I guess. I had been putting it off since I’d arrived, but with opening night almost upon us, the producers asked Aunt Zendaya to take me that morning.

  Anywho, when Aunt Zendaya and I got to the theater around eleven-thirty, I was stunned as I entered the stage door. Someone was singing my favorite song in the show, “Duet Forever,” with Gabriel Faust—in the original key! She sounded great. In fact, to my ears she sounded better than me.

  Watching from the wings, I saw it was Destiny Manaconda onstage. She was singing my duet with Gabriel Faust. They were staring deep into each other’s eyes, filling the music with such passion that the cast sitting in the audience was gawking at them in amazement.

  I wanted to slip out of the theater unnoticed, but Aunt Zendaya, maybe sensing my feelings of self-doubt and embarrassment, put her arm around my shoulder.

  At the end of the song, they kissed passionately, and everyone burst into applause and cheers. Even my Yo, Shady-O friends were snapping their fingers, shouting, “Yaaasss, diva!” and “You did that gurrrll!” and “You better saaannnnggg!”

  I was frozen in the wings, stage right. Destiny Manaconda was a star. If she were in the show with Gabriel Faust, it would definitely be a hit, because she was perfect. I was just plain old Mango.

  Bob leapt onstage noticing Aunt Zendaya and me. “Look who’s here!” he called out in his loudest voice, as if clueing everyone in on my presence. He took my hand and led me onstage. “Our star has arrived! Mango, good to have you back. How’d it go?”

  I had no voice. A series of padlocks had snapped shut along my windpipe and no sound came out. “Everything went fine,” Aunt Zendaya spoke up. “She aced the physical, of course.”

  “Of course! We knew she would. No doubt about that,” Bob said, clearing his throat. He ran his fingers nervously through his rust-colored hair. “We were just having a little fun here. Faustie wanted to run the song and since Mango wasn’t here, who better to run through it with him?”

  Aunt Zendaya said, “How about Mango’s understudy? Doesn’t she have one? It’s Chanté, if I’m not mistaken.”

  The moment was awkward to the extreme, and the room was so quiet you could hear the lights buzzing quietly up above. I glanced over to where Chanté was sitting in the front row, next to TJ and the rest of our crew. Her eyes seemed sad for me as she shrugged and glanced down at the floor. On stage, Gabriel was whispering into Destiny Manaconda’s ear as she checked her makeup in a jewel-encrusted compact mirror. I felt like a ghost in a movie, one that you could see right through. All the confidence
I had been building the last couple weeks of rehearsal was suddenly gone, and I was just the little girl in the mirror, out of her element all over again.

  When Acorn called for a five-minute break, I immediately headed for the dressing room. As I hurried up the winding staircase, I wasn’t sure how I was feeling. I felt as though someone had thrown a bucket of cold water on my face, making me realize I was not as good as I thought I was. Still, I was proud of how Aunt Zendaya stood up for me. For a moment, she was like my own personal Frances Francisco. Then there was another side of me, a side I had been working on since I started in my school’s production of Yo, Romeo! This side of me was trying to learn to assert herself and she said, Yes, I may be only twelve and a half years old, but I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, and I’m NOT giving up my part in the show!

  I stopped myself at the dressing room door. I didn’t really need to go in. I had come there to hide or maybe even cry, but no. That was the old Mango. The new Mango was going to go right back onstage and stand her ground. Why should I feel less than Destiny Manaconda? So what if she looked and acted like a star. I could do that too, if I really wanted to—and I decided that I did. That’s how I would build my confidence back up. I would show them all that I could be glamorous, exciting, and mature when I wanted to be. Luckily, the perfect ally was on her way to New York. If anyone could help with my transformation, it was Hailey Joanne Pinkey. I was not going to hold back. Not now or ever again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  A Castle in the Sky

  I made it through the rest of rehearsal by taking my mom’s advice—fake it until you make it. Yes, I was scared and nervous about being compared to a big star like Destiny Manaconda, but I didn’t have to let anyone else know it. If I put on a brave face and pretended that I wasn’t intimidated, then people would believe I wasn’t—and it worked. No one treated me any differently. The Yo, Shady-O crew and I laughed and joked as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But on the inside where no one could see my true feelings, I couldn’t help but compare myself to Destiny Manaconda. To my mind, she was perfect, and if I wanted to be a star like her, then I had to try to be more like her.