My Life, the Theater, and Other Tragedies

by Allen Zadoff

  SUMMER

  Never so weary, never so in woe,

  Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,

  She kneels on the stage, her legs all but giving out beneath her. I focus in tighter so her body is wrapped in the light. At the same time I start to dim the spot.

  SUMMER

  I can no further crawl, no further go;

  My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

  I fade the spot further, changing the iris until the light shrinks down to a circle on her face. She sighs, curls herself into a ball on the stage floor.

  SUMMER

  Here will I rest me till the break of day.

  I fade the spot the rest of the way, dimming it until there’s just a glow over her sleeping form. Then, in the silence, I click off the light. It makes a loud snap that echoes through the theater.

  Summer kneels onstage looking up at me, her face partially in shadow.

  One of Dad’s paintings comes to mind. He called it Woman Reclining at Night. It’s a large expanse of white and yellow with the barest hint of a woman lying off to one side, her skin nearly the same tone as the rest of the painting. It’s like a pun on the idea of night, because instead of seeing nothing because of the dark, you see nothing because of the light.

  I imagine what it would be like to go home and tell Dad about this girl, tell him how I thought about his painting when I was looking at her.

  “Did my acting render you speechless?” Summer says.

  “I was thinking about something else,” I say.

  “Not what an actor hopes for.”

  “Sorry. Your performance was great.”

  “I auditioned with that soliloquy, and I got cast as a fairy. So I suck,” she says. “It’s pretty obvious.”

  “You don’t suck.”

  “I mean, I’m okay, but I’m not great. You know how there are some kids who get As and hardly do anything, and other kids who work super hard just to get a B? I’m the second kind.”

  “Wow. That’s harsh.”

  I’ve never heard anyone who’s as tough on themselves as I am.

  “Harsh but true,” she says. “Anyway, I can’t do a Hermia speech. Johanna will kill me. I need a Helena speech, and I don’t even know which one to do.”

  “Maybe you could do—” I stop myself.

  “What were you going to say?”

  “I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” I say.

  “According to whom?”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There are rules about things like this,” I say.

  “Oh, that. Yeah, you guys are weird at this school. In my old school the actors got along with the crew.”

  “There’s a lot of history here.”

  “What kind of history?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys. Someone stepped on someone’s ballet slipper a hundred years ago, and we’ve been at war ever since. No one remembers why.”

  “It’s kind of silly.”

  “Extremely,” I say. “On top of that, there’s the techie code.”

  “The code?” she says.

  “We don’t tell you how to do your job—”

  “And we don’t tell you how to do yours.”

  “No, you tell us, and we hate you and talk about you behind your back.”

  She laughs. “I need some help, mystery lighting guy. I give you permission to break the code.”

  The fan is whirring inside the spot. The vibration carries through the handles and into my palms.

  If Reach were here, he’d kill me.

  I look at Summer onstage, waiting for my help.

  Reach on one side, Summer on the other.

  “Anyway—” Summer says, starting to walk offstage.

  “I was thinking about the speech ‘Happy is Hermia,’” I say.

  “Ah,” she says, her face lighting up. She takes a breath, steps back, shakes out her hands. Her smile disappears.

  SUMMER

  Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;

  For she hath blessed and attractive eyes.

  She pulls at her hair in frustration.

  SUMMER

  How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:

  If so, my eyes are oftener wash’d than hers.

  “I love that speech,” she says. “It’s sort of like, if crying made people beautiful, I would be the most beautiful girl in the world.”

  She smooths down her hair, white fingers running through black.

  Beautiful.

  “You must cry a lot,” I say.

  “All the time,” she says.

  She stops, thinks about it.

  “Oh, I get it,” she says. “Thanks for the compliment.”

  I’m sure I’m blushing. I’m glad she can’t see me.

  “Do you cry because you’re sad?” I say.

  “Sad, happy, frustrated. Lots of reasons.”

  “I guess it’s okay for girls to cry.”

  “You don’t cry?”

  “Not for a long time.”

  Ignacio appears onstage dragging the ghost light behind him.

  “Who are you talking to?” he says to Summer.

  “The guy on the spotlight,” she says.

  “Nobody is supposed to be up there, not without my permission.”

  He looks up to the catwalk.

  “Who’s there?” he says.

  “Hello,” Summer says. “Lighting guy?”

  “What his name?” Ignacio says.

  “He didn’t tell me his name.”

  “Answer me,” Ignacio shouts up at me. “Chain of command!”

  The spot has cooled down, so I click off the fan and run for it.

  I hear Summer and Ignacio calling behind me, but I’m already gone, retreating on the catwalk, slipping down the backstage ladder, and disappearing into the shadows at the rear of the theater.

  THE VILLAIN IS MUCH LIGHTER-HEEL’D THAN I.

  I’m taking books out of my locker the next day when Reach comes up behind me.

  “What’s with the new black shirt?” he says.

  “How can you tell it’s new? I wear black every day.”

  “It’s a slightly different shade of black.”

  “You’re good,” I say.

  “There’s a reason my job is called props master,” he says. “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing’s up.”

  “Interesting. Let me pass that through the bullshit detector.” Reach sniffs the air and makes a face. “You failed.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “Let’s start with that wannabe techie yesterday. What’s her name again?”

  “Grace. And she’s not a wannabe.”

  “You’re into her, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  Reach sniffs the air.

  “Okay, fine,” I say. “There is somebody I like. But it’s not Grace.”

  “Who?”

  “You don’t know her,” I say.

  I barely know her.

  “I know everyone with breasts,” Reach says.

  “She doesn’t go to our school.”

  “My radar extends for a seventy-five-mile radius,” Reach says. “That makes me a threat throughout the tristate area.”

  Summer comes around the corner, walking right towards us. She’s wearing shorts with white cutoff socks that make her legs look very long.

  “We’ll talk about it later,” I say.

  “And you’ll tell me everything?”

  Summer is getting closer and closer.

  “I’ll show you a friggin’ video,” I say. I push Reach towards his classroom. “But later. I don’t want you to be late for class.”

  “How sweet. You’re worried about me,” Reach says. He takes a step into the classroom, then turns back.

  “Don’t forget to put gas in Derek’s car,” Reach says.

  “Okay, Mom,” I say.

  Reach looks hurt.
“I’m trying to help you,” he says. “You don’t want to take Derek down, so you’re going to have to build him up. It’s one or the other. I don’t make the rules, so don’t bust my balls about it.”

  He slips into the classroom just as Summer walks up.

  I want to say something to her, but when she gets close, I chicken out and turn around like someone called me from down the hall. I hold my breath, waiting for her to pass by.

  Only she doesn’t.

  “Excuse me,” she says. “Were you in the hall yesterday?”

  I turn around like I’m surprised.

  “When?” I say.

  “When I was dancing.”

  “You were dancing in the hall? That’s kind of strange.”

  “Sorry, I thought it was you,” she says.

  “It wasn’t,” I say, hating myself even as the words come out of my mouth.

  “You look like a theater guy,” she says.

  “I’m not a theater guy. I’m a techie.”

  “But you’re not that techie.”

  “The one in the hall? No. I don’t hang out in halls.”

  “You’re in the hall now,” she says.

  “I’m in it, but I’m not hanging out in it. I’m just passing through it.”

  The first bell rings. Students speed up around us.

  She says, “It’s just… Someone helped me out yesterday, and I wanted to thank him.”

  Derek comes strolling around the corner. He’s wearing one of those pageboy caps, whistling, and walking like he owns the place.

  “It wasn’t me,” I say to Summer, and I head in the opposite direction.

  “Whatever,” she says behind me, sounding a little pissed.

  I don’t blame her. I’m an idiot.

  I nod as I pass by Derek. At first he looks at me like he’s never seen me before, then he stops.

  “You—” he says like he’s trying to come up with my name.

  “Z,” I say.

  “I remember now. I have something for you, Z.”

  “For me? What is it?”

  “A bit of Tennyson.” He recites: “‘I must lose myself in action, lest I wither in despair.’”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s how I live my life,” Derek says.

  “Very interesting,” I say, which is what we say in the theater when something is not interesting at all. For example, if your friend does tech for a bad play and then asks if you liked it, you say, It was interesting.

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Derek says.

  “I guess not.”

  “Translation: If you want something, go for it. Or else you’ll spend your life thinking about it.”

  “I see,” I say, which is another thing we say in the theater when we don’t see at all.

  The second bell rings and the last few stragglers rush off to class.

  “You have to ask yourself what you want,” Derek says.

  He reaches into his pocket and takes out his BMW keys.

  “And what are you willing to do to get it?”

  I stare at the keys.

  He says, “I could have gotten rid of you after the spotlight incident. The actors wanted me to. They’ve got some crazy idea that you’re trying to sabotage the show.”

  “That’s not true,” I say.

  “Of course not,” Derek says. “I told them it was ridiculous. But rumors have this nasty habit of reviving themselves. Unless, of course, one is diligent about squashing them.”

  A light flickers overhead. The hall is empty now except for the two of us.

  “Never fear,” Derek says. “I’ve got your back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got plans for us.”

  “What kind of plans?”

  “First things first,” he says.

  He dangles the BMW keys in front of me.

  The hall lights are glinting off the metal.

  I think about Summer. I think about being the spot op, lighting her night after night.

  I think about how she looked onstage, smiling up at me, running her fingers through her hair.

  Pull him down or build him up. That’s what Reach said.

  I take the keys.

  “Good man,” Derek says.

  LOOK, HERE COMES HELENA.

  When I walk into the theater that afternoon, the cast is milling around onstage, chattering and whispering. I slide into the wings without being seen.

  Grace pops out of the curtain behind me.

  “What’s up?” she says.

  “You scared me,” I say.

  “Hey, you’re not the only techie with invisibility skills.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you,” I say. “But Reach heard I was in the Cave with you. He’s on my case in a big way.”

  I scan the backstage area.

  “Yeah, I’m real scary.” She holds her arms out in front of her. “Beware Frankentechie. She crushes young techies and throws them into the river.”

  “I’m serious, Grace.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll play it cool.”

  She shrinks back so she’s hidden in shadow.

  I look at the actors waiting onstage. Summer is in the rear of the group, hanging back with the fairies.

  “Why are the actors out here?” I ask Grace.

  “They had auditions. They’re waiting for the Big Apple to announce his decision.”

  “That’s exciting.”

  “Maybe if you’re an actor,” she says. “For me it’s a yawnfest. Pick someone and let us stuff her into a costume and get back to work.”

  She rolls her eyes, and I laugh.

  “Don’t let Reach see you laughing. On pain of death!” she says.

  I’m starting to like Grace despite myself.

  Mr. Apple shuffles out to the front of the stage, and the actors surge forward.

  Summer stays in the back. I see the anxiety on her face.

  Derek’s voice pops into my head. “I must lose myself in action,” he said.

  The last thing I want to do is take advice from Derek, but looking across the stage at Summer, I think he’s right. I have to act.

  There’s no chance Summer is going to get the part, not when she’s up against more experienced actors who have paid their dues. I imagine she’ll be heartbroken after the announcement. She’ll turn to me with tears in her eyes, and I’ll comfort her. She’ll thank me and fall into my arms.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell Grace.

  Mr. Apple says, “I want to thank everyone for reading for the role on such short notice.”

  I move up behind Summer.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” she says to the fairy next to her.

  “We had an excellent round of auditions,” Mr. Apple says, “but one actor stood out from the pack.”

  Summer senses me behind her and turns. She looks confused.

  “You—” she says.

  “I want to tell you something,” I say.

  “Summer Armstrong!” Mr. Apple says.

  Summer looks up when she hears her name. Actors pull at her, dragging her towards the front of the stage.

  It all happens in slow motion like that scene in that movie when everything goes wrong and you can’t stop it.

  “It’s me?” she says.

  “Congratulations,” Mr. Apple says. “You’re the new Helena.”

  The actors burst into applause.

  I walk back to Grace.

  “What was that about?” she says.

  “My brilliant plan,” I say. “Which turned out to be not-so-brilliant.”

  I look at her in the front of the stage, surrounded by actors.

  “She’s a lead. I’ll never be able to talk to her now.”

  Grace looks at me, surprised.

  “Are you crushing on an actor?” she says.

  I grab her arm and pull her deeper into the wings.

  “Don’t say anything. You have to promise me.”

  �
��Okay, okay,” she says. “I’m just a little shocked. I didn’t know you were a rebel.”

  “I’m not a rebel.”

  “You’re talking to me, you’re crushing on an actor… Face it. You’re the techie Che Guevara.”

  I think about that for a second, the possibility that I’m getting more courageous. Then I look at Summer basking in the applause. I’ve run away from her three times now.

  I’m not courageous at all. Not without a spotlight in front of me.

  “I give up on girls,” I say. “I’m going to join the priesthood.”

  “Aren’t you Jewish?” Grace says.

  I slump down to the floor.

  Something digs into my thigh. I tap my pocket and feel Derek’s BMW keys.

  I take them out.

  “Those look like Derek’s keys,” Grace says.

  “He gave them to me.”

  “Wow. Nobody gets to touch that car,” she says. “He made me put a towel down before I sat in it, and that’s when he was going out with me.”

  “I’m supposed to put gas in it.”

  “Do you want me to show you where he parks it?”

  Grace and I go out to the parking lot. She leads me to the back corner where Derek’s red convertible is angled across two spaces so no other cars can get near it.

  “I have to admit it’s a beautiful car,” I say.

  “Everything Derek has is nice,” Grace says.

  “Except his ego,” I say. “I’m going to take it around the corner and put gas in the tank.”

  “Do you have a license?” Grace says.

  “Learner’s permit.”

  “Don’t get pulled over.”

  “No kidding. That would suck.”

  I unlock the car and get in. I look down at the gearshift.

  “Problem: I don’t drive stick.”

  “You’re a techie,” she says. “How could you not drive stick?”

  “My dad was supposed to teach me,” I say.

  “Why didn’t he?” she says.

  I don’t feel like talking about it now, so I say:

  “Plans change. You know.”

  “Dads suck,” Grace says. “Mine is on me like a barnacle.”

  I look down at the gearshift, wondering how far I can get by faking it.

  Not far, I decide.

  “What am I going to do about the car?” I say.

  “Move over,” Grace says. “I can drive anything with wheels.”