by Susie Taylor
“I forgot,” says Jana. Then she starts singing, “I forgot, I forgot, I forgot.”
It sounds just like Millie, who sings her thoughts out loud when she’s concentrating.
Kleinberg, not unkindly, steps on stage and says, “Come on, Jana, let’s go have a chat in my office.” He takes her gently by the upper arm and guides her from the stage. Jana, her head still covered, glides along like a ghost beside him.
The rest of us sit quietly. When Kleinberg opens the heavy gym fire door, you can feel the gossip sweeping out and around the school, ready to fill Monday with whispers and rumour.
“Well,” says Gerry, “let’s take five, and then we’ll come back and go through the scene again.”
I know the lines by heart; I’ve even run them with Millie and Cora a few times. I’m also pretty confident about the blocking. I’ve practiced in my bedroom and had fantasies about Jana breaking a leg (literally), or her parents’ car breaking down and of me having to go on stage at the last minute and save the day. I always feel guilty afterwards, as if imagining some harm befalling her could actually make it happen. When we get back from break, I am ready.
“Okay, for now I’ll read Jana’s lines, and the rest of you just pretend she’s onstage,” Gerry announces.
Jude sees me looking deflated and pipes up, her voice confident with reason.
“Daisy is Jana’s understudy. Shouldn’t she run the lines?”
“No. We don’t need to put Daisy on the spot.” Gerry glances over at me, and I’m mortified. Everyone in the room seems to be staring. He turns back and starts bossing the Capulets around. Jude shrugs her shoulders at me.
No one has seen Jana at school this week. Everyone sits outside at lunch. It’s the first warm day of the year. You can lie back and close your eyes in the sun. The schoolyard is full of the usual detritus of the winter, the matted remains of lost mittens, cigarette butts, and faded chocolate-bar wrappers.
Jimmy’s encouraging me to skip my rehearsal tonight and hang out with him after school. He’s kissing the back of my neck and making innuendo-filled comments about rolling in hay. I am tempted. I feel shackled to the school gymnasium. While not going home used to feel like an escape, now it feels like a chore. I think about quitting the play.
In English, Kleinberg asks me to stay for a minute after class. I think I’m going to get in trouble for missing one of his classes last week. Damon makes “You’re in trouble” sounds and faces as he heads into the hall.
Kleinberg is not like Gerry. No one calls Mr. Kleinberg by his first name. He has the non-committal hair and clothes of the average teacher, but when I’m here alone in class with him, I think about him standing in the corner of a smoky bar, reading his poetry.
“So,” he says, “about last week…”
I don’t hear him. I’m busy worrying he’ll call Mum about my absence, and then I realize what he’s wittering on about is Jana. “It just seems she isn’t in a place right now where she can really commit to the play. So, Daisy, what do you think?”
“Well,” I say. I am not really sure what he’s asked me.
“You’ve done the work. You’ve gone to every practice, and Jana seems confident you know the lines just as well as she does. Why not?”
“Just for a few rehearsals?” I need to be clear about what Kleinberg is telling me.
“No, we need you to do the part. We can’t afford to take someone on who isn’t up to it at this stage of the game. Gerry asked me to talk to you since I know you better.” Kleinberg’s voice raises slightly at this last line. I can see Gerry with his list of grade twelve darlings, and Kleinberg tapping him on the shoulder and reminding him Jana has an understudy.
“Okay,” I say.
“Good. Congratulations. I have no doubt you won’t disappoint us.”
“Thanks, Mr. Kleinberg.”
“And Daisy, skip my class again, and I’ll have you in the office so fast your head will spin.” Kleinberg doesn’t smile as he says this.
When I turn around to thank him once more, I notice he is smirking, presumably at his own authoritarianism.
I am holding the birthday card from Wanda when Nathan walks by our locker.
“Hey, happy birthday, Nurse Daisy!” He high fives me, but his eyes linger towards Wanda. “Hey, Wanda, what’s up?”
“The ceiling,” she says dryly, tilting her head back.
“You should come to the play’s afterparty with Daisy. You can amaze us all with your sense of humour.”
“Fuck off. I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think about it, come,” he says, walking away.
“The guys from his band are going to be at the party too,” I tell Wanda. The Delinquent Penguins play at school assemblies and have recently started playing bars. The other members are a little older than Nathan.
“His band sucks,” Wanda says.
“He’s good looking.”
“I guess.”
To celebrate my birthday, Mum, Grahame, Jimmy, and I go to a Vietnamese restaurant Grahame has chosen. Jimmy only likes the appetizers. Grahame tries to teach us all to use chopsticks, but our food starts to get cold and he lets us fork up our noodles. Jimmy gave me an enormous white teddy bear carrying a pink heart. “Something for you to sleep with until you start sleeping with me,” Jimmy whispers to me when I lean in to kiss him after opening it. Its fur has a strange plastic feel to it. It sits in an empty chair beside me throughout the meal at the restaurant. I try taking the bear to bed with me, but the fur makes me itchy and turns my skin red and bumpy.
On the Saturday following my birthday, Jimmy’s working. I thought he might take me out for a romantic birthday date, but instead Wanda and I roam the aisles of the video store. In the cult-classic section, we pick out a movie called The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Neither of us has heard of it, but the guy at the store who always comments on our picks does not make any snide remarks this time, which means he approves of our selection. In my bag is a mickey of vodka Wanda gave me for my birthday.
“Happy birthday, Daisy! Sweet sixteen, I can’t believe it.” Wanda’s mom envelopes me in a perfume, smoke, and rum-scented hug.
“Happy birthday, kiddo!” says Wanda’s dad, who is sitting at the kitchen table with the rolling machine, getting cigarettes ready.
“Since it’s your birthday, you girls come have one drink with us, before we head out.”
“Mom…”
“Don’t Mom me, Wanda,”
Wanda’s dad hands us each a glass of rum and Pepsi.
“Now, you made them light, didn’t you?” Wanda’s mom says.
“Just a half shot.” Wanda’s dad winks at me.
When I take my first sip, I almost splutter, it’s strong enough it burns.
At the table Wanda’s parents reminisce. Her dad pours another round of drinks, and Wanda’s mom starts telling the story of Wanda’s birth, but Wanda cuts her off. “Enough, you’ll be late for your party.”
“Alright, alright, but your head was huge!” Her mom kisses us both goodbye.
“Be good, girls.”
Wanda mixes vodka and Wink. It is sweet, but thinner than the thick drink her dad gave us and slips down easily. We take our drinks and the movie into the living room.
Wanda fast forwards through the trailers, then once the video is cued up, she switches off the overhead light. I blink in the darkness and Wanda complains, “I can’t see a fucking thing,” as she stumbles on her way back to me. We sit on the floor with our backs against the couch and our legs sticking out in front of us.
The TV is a big old one with a wooden case, and occasionally I squint my eyes and think I can see the individual pixels on it. I can’t see Wanda, but am aware of where our arms touch, the bare parts just above our elbows that the arms of our T-shirts don’t cover.
At first, the movie just seems like some hokey horror film, almost like a grown-up version of Scooby-Doo. The Wink and vodka are on the coffee table, and Wanda and I have sloshed
more into our glasses a couple of times. Brad and Janet end up at a creepy house after their car breaks down. The music sounds a little tinny coming out of the TV speaker, but it’s flowing straight into me and making me move my feet in time. The movie starts getting weird. A man dressed in lingerie, with perfect red lips and a muscled body, appears on screen. I have a pang of desire. There is warmth spreading across my thighs; I’m relieved that we’re in the dark and Wanda can’t see my flushed cheeks. I take a big sip from my drink.
I’m having a hard time keeping track of the plot. Brad and Janet are in their underwear. Janet is exposed to the world in her plain bra and slip. I cross my arms over my own breasts. A new song starts, and Wanda’s body moves with the music. She hasn’t said anything for ages. She chugs back her drink, then stands up, grabbing my hand and pulling my to me feet. I feel dizzy with the sudden movement. Wanda turns the music up. The vase of fake flowers on top of the TV set vibrates. The dancing means I don’t have time to feel self-conscious watching so much naked skin and sex on screen. Dr. Frank N. Furter, the guy in the lingerie, has sex with Janet, and then with Brad. There are women kissing women. No one is fully dressed. When we aren’t dancing, we slump back on the couch and reach for our drinks.
When Susan Sarandon, who plays Janet, starts singing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me,” Wanda dances close to me. I close my eyes. She runs her finger slowly down the centre of my face right down over my nose, down my throat, to my breast bone. Her finger makes me shiver. She pulls it away and laughs. We are just acting, I remember, stumbling back to sit down and refilling my glass with the last of the vodka.
In the end Frank N. Furter gets shot, and I find I’m wiping away tears. His makeup is running and I want to fix it for him. He looks like a broken clown. I look over at Wanda and see her eyes are glossy when they catch the light from the TV. The credits roll. My ears buzz still from the volume we played the soundtrack at. With the lights turned on, we clear away the sticky glasses that held our drinks, and the room seems different. We are formal with each other. We set up our sleeping bags and pillows on the floor. Our heads are a few feet away from the TV. The movie has finished rewinding, and Wanda restarts it with the sound turned down. I can just hear it if I concentrate on listening. Wanda turns off the light. The dark comes as a comfort. We’ve hardly talked in the light. Wanda wiggles into her sleeping bag. I feel her playing with my hair, and I fall asleep.
The play opens tonight. Everything is surreal. Every time I run into someone else in the cast we clasp our hands together and whisper, “Break a leg.” Energy swirls around us, and the other kids’ drab demeanors are the only thing reminding us we are still here at school. I feel like I’m going to puke when I peek in the gym and see just how many chairs have been set up.
The numbers swirl on my page. This math test feels inconsequential. I try and concentrate, imagining the numbers as individual actors jumping around and on top of each other like they are on stage. I draw a cape on a number five. Time isn’t behaving properly, and the end of the day seems to come at first slowly and then very fast.
Mum and Grahame are coming tonight. Wanda and Jimmy have tickets for Saturday, the night of the cast party.
Roseanne’s dad has a huge bouquet of flowers delivered right to the school, and you can see some of the parents clutching roses to present to their daughters post-performance. On stage I hesitate for just a second, take a breath, and then I’m in. Nathan flubs one line back to me, but I gloss it over like Gerry told me to if this happens, and Nathan winks, picking up my cue, and recovers the scene. I watch the last scene from the side of the stage with Jude. We clap and cheer when the curtains go down before we step on stage to bow as part of the group.
Mum and Grahame wait for me to get changed. There are no bouquets of flowers, but Mum hugs me and Grahame shakes my hand and tells me it was a “no nunsense” performance.
Closing night, we’re all exhausted and jittery from running on three days of overdrive, too much caffeine, and not enough sleep. Girls are tearful in the dressing room.
“This is it, gang. You have put on two great shows. This one, this one, is the one that will stay with you. Tonight is the night to go to that place in your performance. You are not Roseanne or Nathan tonight. You are Juliet. You are Romeo. I need you to leave the part of your brain that’s whispering to you about the woman in the front row, or that’s worried about getting your lines right, behind you. Leave that voice in the dressing room. Tonight we are all magic, and that magic is going to fill the stage.” Gerry is incandescent. Parents and friends think this play is a diversion, an extra-curricular entertainment, but Gerry believes, and makes us believe, this is real.
I look into the gym from behind the curtain. I catch a glimpse of Wanda and her mom, but I don’t see Jimmy.
“Go get ready! You need to think about your performance and nothing else. Remember, you’re not Daisy right now.” Jude ushers me away.
I feel all the practices, all Jude’s hemming, and Damon’s lists of lighting cues underneath me and holding me up when I walk onto the stage. It is magic tonight. When I hold Juliet’s hand and mop her brow in her hospital bed, a tear forms in my eye. For a second I believe she’s in real trauma. We were good before, but tonight we are great.
Everyone is hugging and congratulating each other. Gerry and Kleinberg are toasting us with real wine. Gerry raises his glass towards me. “To Daisy, for stepping in to save the day in the play’s hour of need.” I’m coasting on adrenaline, remembering the audience laughing at my funny lines and the intensity of the moment when I told Juliet’s parents she might have brain damage.
Wanda comes over and grabs me up in her arms. “You were wonderful!” When she lets go, I catch a glance shared between her and Jude. I look around expecting Jimmy to arrive, a bunch of flowers and pride in his face. I spin around happy with anticipation, and then I see Jude’s face.
“Daisy.” Her voice is soft, meant to dull the sting of her news, but really just making it more of a prolonged agony.
“He’s not here,” I say, coming to the end of my ride on the joyous wave of creation.
“I just want to go home.” I am crying in the girl’s bathroom. Jude and Wanda have followed me in, and Damon, seeing me dash from the festivities, has come in to give moral support.
“Come on, you’ll have fun at Nathan’s party,” Damon says.
“What a shit, you should dump his ass. You were so good, Daisy. You don’t need him; he doesn’t appreciate you.” Wanda is twisting her Xeroxed program in her hand.
Jude holds wet brown paper towel to my eyes to stop them from swelling. It smells like damp cardboard.
“Maybe you should call his house and just make sure he’s okay?” Jude suggests. All the ways Jimmy could have died in the past three hours run through my mind.
Danny answers the phone.
“Is Jimmy okay?” I ask, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice.
“I don’t know. He’s at work. Try him there.” Danny hangs up.
Outside the school, Wanda wordlessly hands me a smoke. It settles my nerves. I abandon my hysterical self and take on a new persona. I exude reason and create excuses for Jimmy that sound acceptable until I say one out loud.
“Maybe he mixed up the time?”
“He’s known about this for weeks, Daisy,” Damon says.
“Fuck it,” says Wanda. “Let’s get drunk.”
“How am I going to get home from the party? Jimmy was supposed to walk me.”
“Daisy, we’ll make sure you get home okay. We’re hardly going to leave you passed out on the couch at Nathan’s house,” Wanda points out.
“I’ll walk you. Your place is on my way home,” says Damon.
Wanda gives me a look.
Damon produces a joint and lights it up as we walk to the party. I take a long draw and hold it in. I take another hit, and another. There is no feeling in my knees, and I keep looking down to make sure they are still there.
> Entering Nathan’s house, we pass Roseanne and her maidservants in the living room where they are drinking coolers.
“Daisy, you were awesome,” Roseanne says.
I beam. “You too, Roseanne.” I’m so high my head feels empty. My brain has developed a strange weightlessness. I try not to act stoned, which makes me feel more stoned. In the kitchen, Nathan and his band drink beer and strum guitars. They argue over whether the Doors suck or not, in the way that boys seem to need to do at every party.
Damon pulls a beer from his bag and drinks it warm. He joins the Doors conversation. Wanda raids Nathan’s freezer for ice, takes a lemon out of the fridge, and cuts three thin slices, which she puts in tall glasses. I pass her the vodka and she pours. Jude, Wanda, and I each have a glass containing one third of the vodka bottle. Jude disappears into the living room, but Wanda and I hover, resting our drinks on the kitchen counter.
Wanda observes the party with a bemused look on her face. The guys from Nathan’s band covertly look at her as they raise beer bottles to their mouths. I see how much effort she has made tonight for the first time. She towers above most of us in her high-heeled white boots; her hair is a cascading mass of loose curls. Her lipstick is just slightly smudged, and she catches me staring at this imperfection and puts her finger up to the corner of her mouth. I reach out to fix it for her, but Nathan calls her name and she turns her head.
My drink slides down my throat easily. The band boys offer tequila. Wanda and I do shooters together, licking salt from our fingers and sucking on lemons without flinching. The lemon tastes clean and cuts through the slick of tequila on my teeth.
At 12:30, Jude comes to get us. I’m sitting on a chair trying to determine if I’m moving, or if it is the tiles on the kitchen floor. Wanda’s standing and leaning against Nathan with the full length of her body. Jude ushers me to the front door. Jude, Damon, and I stand outside and wait as Nathan walks a swaying Wanda to the door. He turns her towards him and plants his lips on to her mouth. Wanda doesn’t pull away, but her eyes are open and she looks like she needs a gulp of air. I hear my name and look around to see Jimmy walking towards me.