by Tim Federle
“Follow me,” Roscoe says, “they can fetch us when they want us.”
I capture a glance at this circus man hovering high above the stage by virtue of a 747-size fan below him. He really does look like the wind, if the wind wore a skintight bodysuit.“Asella,” Roscoe shouts. “God, I’ve been saying your name for thirty seconds.”
He and I shuffle back to the girls’ trailer alone, my huge feet crammed into the E.T. slippers. Which I might be outgrowing already.
“You wanna take that mask off, Nate?” Roscoe says, just as I’m struggling to the top of the third step. “And maybe get a glass of water?” I’d like nothing more, in fact, but I don’t have a chance to respond. Not with Jordan suddenly bopping after us.
“Hey, Mr. Roscoe”—Mr. Roscoe, of all things—“could we run the number in my trailer? It’s just me alone, so I don’t mind if Asella’s in there.”
The Cirque performers are still garnering hoots and applause, seven of them currently airborne above the audience, like a tornado of abs.
“Asella, would that be all right with you?” Roscoe says.
I give a cautious thumbs-up and trudge back down the stairs, by now woozy in the suffocating costume. In fact, the stream of cool air through E.T.’s mouth vent is the only thing keeping me upright. That, and the fact that you’re literally unable to sit while wearing this suit.
“Follow me,” Jordan says, leading us back through the packed snow trail. But he doesn’t need to point the way. His trailer is the nicest of all: a bright white mobile-home of a thing, parked just next to the stage.
“Visitors!” Jordan’s Mommy says when we’re all inside. She’s at a dressing table applying so much makeup, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were joining the Cirque act. The lady is basically a bag of wind to begin with.
“Okay,” Roscoe says, “you two kids wanna do a dry run of the song?” He pushes a coffee lid through his extravagant moustache.
“Kids?” Jordan’s Mommy laughs. “Asella is probably double my age. Triple!”
This offends even me, and I’m not even the elderly in question. No chance Asella is double Mrs. Rylance’s age. She’s one of those moms who had a kid late in life and now pours her every ounce of soul into him. Not that I’d complain if my mom were a little more like that. The only things she ever pours into me are warnings.
“Oh, right, right,” Roscoe says, chuckling. Too hard. “Didn’t mean kids, but you know showbiz types. Kids at heart, forever.” He breaks into a little tap step. There isn’t a man in show business who doesn’t know a little beginners’ tap.
“Let’s get on with the routine, then,” Jordan’s Mommy says, turning to us after smearing gel across her helmet of hair. She plops into a director’s chair, the words Head Mom embroidered across the top. “Shall we have a look? I want to check Jordan’s angles.”
“Well, that’s actually Monica’s job,” Roscoe says, eyes flicking to his cell phone. “I don’t know why Monica’s not here yet, but angle checking is what the dance team handles.”
“Does Monica live in New Jersey, by any chance?” says Jordan’s Mommy.
Jordan looks like he’s about to fall asleep on his feet—swaying ever so slightly, like a FOR SALE sign in the breeze. Every house back home is for sale except ours, because “nobody’s gonna buy this piece of junk even if we had somewhere else to move,” according to the Dad of the Year.
“She does, actually,” Roscoe says. “Monica lives in Jersey City.” He’s frowning at Mrs. Rylance now—at least that’s the position of his moustache.
“Lincoln Tunnel suspicious package is trending on Twitter,” Mrs. Rylance says, holding up her own iPhone. “This Monica gal won’t be here for hours. Snap to it, Jordan. Top of the song.”
Whoa. Mrs. Rylance claps her knees, leans forward, and proceeds to mouth Jordan’s lyrics along with him. It’s twenty seconds into the routine before I remember I’m even in the routine.
“Look alive, Asella,” Mrs. Rylance bellows through a smile that could cut cheese or maybe even steel. “You’re on camera in fifteen minutes.”
“How do you know all of this?” Roscoe says, checking his walkie-talkie for signal strength.
“I slipped the head camera man a twenty when we got here,” Mrs. Rylance says, “and he keeps texting me updates on the shooting schedule.” Her phone vibrates.
“He what?” Roscoe says.
Mrs. Rylance plays with an earring. “Learn the system or die,” she says to Jordan, who nods so hard, his T-shirt comes untucked.
“Back to the top then, Mommy?” Jordan says, yawning.
“Yes, back to the top, for continuity. And if I catch you yawning one more time, darling”—with every word, her mouth grows bigger and smilier, like if Ronald McDonald went on a murder spree—“my Manolo Blahniks are going to end up down your throat, yes?”
She lifts a leg and wags a foot at Jordan, who stifles another yawn.
“Five,” she says, and Jordan goes, “six, seven, eight” and starts to sing again.
“Left in a place where I’ve nothing to hide, left with a dream that is pent up inside, I’m all alone but I’ve also got you. You, you, new and true.”
He turns to me.
He looks really hard into E.T.’s mouth.
“Okay, stop, stop,” Mrs. Rylance says, hopping up on her Blahniks. “Did we say we were going to hit the word new or the word true, J.J.-baby.”
“New,” he mutters.
“I can’t hear you,” she says.
But moments ago, he wasn’t even allowed to talk. Moments ago he wasn’t permitted to even flap his little gold vocal cords in the wind.
“New,” he says now, louder. “We’re emphasizing new, because anything new is more important than anything that’s true.” He speaks like a child robot, like the kind of kid who actually—and this makes me shudder, even in this mega-hot costume—studies for tests.
“That’s right, J.J.,” Mrs. Rylance says, but she’s not talking to J.J. She’s talking to me. “Ladies know that anything new is better than anything that’s true.” She jangles a gold watch at me, and I realize I’m supposed to react like a lady, so I cover my crotch for some reason. Idiot. “This might not be true gold—hello, Canal Street knock-offs!—but it’s brand-hot-new!”
“You got it, Mom,” Jordan says. “So we should go back to the top. For continuity.”
“Actually,” Roscoe says, “I think what we should do is throw a robe over Jordan’s costume and then get him a little tea, or chocolate. Or something. He looks exhausted.” No doubt he was up all night rehearsing. “Gotta pep him up.” Roscoe fiddles with the knob on his walkie-talkie. “And, to be honest, Mrs. Rylance, I don’t love the dynamic here. You are really not supposed to be coaching the kid on lyrics.”
Mrs. Rylance erupts into a shocking cackle that rattles the whole trailer. “Who do you think would coach him if I didn’t? Dewey? Mr. Dewey Decimal System?”
I search for the library joke in there but decide there isn’t one—though I do feel pretty checked out.
“Mommy, stop,” Jordan says, his eyes suddenly wet. “Just stop.”
“All I’m saying is, if you’re going to slap my kid’s name on a marquee, expect me to come on strong and fight for his performance.”
“We’ve got plenty of kids fighting for his performance,” Roscoe says. I turn to him. What did he mean by that? “Plenty of people, I mean. Plenty of people are looking out for him.”
“I think I know what you meant, and I don’t like it.” Mrs. Rylance leaps up from the director’s chair. “You bet your patootie there are other boys fighting for his limelight.”
“Mother.”
“Jordan Rylance?” A muffled voice creeps through the trailer door, followed by a couple of knocks. “Mr. Rylance, you’re onstage in ten minutes.”
Jordan’s face goes from sleepy to white, panic mode switched on.
“That’s right, baby boy,” his Mommy says, “let’s see that adrenaline pump.”
“Listen,” Roscoe says, “I’m going to go get Asella some juice, or something. You coming along, ’Sell?”
I jump at the chance to get away, but Mrs. Rylance is barreling past us before I so much as pivot.
“Where are you going?” Roscoe says.
“The camera man just texted.” She’s fishing a wallet from a leopard pocket. “I’m going to speak with him.”
For a moment, it’s just Roscoe, me, Jordan, and a swirl of snow blowing through the door frame. I lift an E.T. slipper to follow Roscoe back to our trailer, dying for a moment to breathe, when Jordan grabs my arm. Even through my rubber sleeve, he’s got a pretty incredible grip for such a puny kid.
“Please don’t go,” he says. His royal blue eyes are staring up at E.T.’s, the poor moron. My real eyes are easily two feet below. “I have to go over the dance break at least once. If this doesn’t go well . . . if this doesn’t go perfectly, she’ll kill me.”
Roscoe hesitates by the door. “Asella? Thumbs-up you stay with Jordan and rehearse, thumbs-down you come with me for juice. Or whatever a girl likes at this hour.”
But I don’t even debate.
“Okay then,” Roscoe says. “Thumbs-up.” He looks out into the cold. “Listen, you two: You’re onstage in a jiff. I’m running to Asella’s trailer to get the finger-wand hookup from Bernie.”
The wand! We never plugged in the finger wand, for the final moment in the number when Jordan and Mackey touch fingers. Asella says E.T.’s is supposed to turn red, and that I have to activate it by pressing some internal button in the costume. But I’ve never rehearsed with it. It’s all a theory.
“I’ll be back in five minutes,” Roscoe says. “Be ready to go then.” He starts to leave but turns right around. “And, you know what, you two? Have a blast. This is exciting.” He rolls his eyes in the direction of Jordan’s mom, ten feet away from the trailer and brokering some deal. You can tell because she’s grabbed a guy’s clipboard. “But it isn’t brain surgery,” Roscoe calls back.
The door shuts, and it’s just us.
“Easy for him to say,” Jordan goes, shaking his head. “He doesn’t have a mom with five credit cards. And a dad with zero jobs.” He laughs at his own joke, but it’s a sad laugh, like a butterfly without wings or a fire without heat. “I shouldn’t have said that. Please don’t tell the others. Especially not the kids.”
“Your dad doesn’t have a job?” I want to say.
For once, I want to rip my head off and talk to the kid. To tell him I had no idea. That it doesn’t make sense that a family that seems so rich, with Manolo Blankets and private voice lessons and wristwatches the color of an Oscar, could have a jobless dad.
But there’s no time for that.
“Let’s go right to the dance break,” Jordan says. “I could do these lyrics backward in my sleep. Literally. I had to, before I was allowed to sleep.”
I turn to face the trailer’s mirrored wall (always use available mirrors, according to Libby) and gear up for my big moment. After Elliott tells E.T. he could never imagine having a better friend, they’re supposed to do this sort of weird male-waltz thing.
“Good,” Jordan says, halfway through, when I’m circling him so fast my mask clamps start to rattle. “You’ve gotten superquick at this part!”
We’re building toward the final position, with our fingers touching, and Jordan launches into the last lyric: “Meeting you meant I finally got to be me.”
And then we’re done.
We both stop, our shoulders heaving, and a faint trail of perspiration glimmers on Jordan’s upper lip. I bet his mom sends him to bed without tofu if she so much as catches him sweating.
“Okay, good,” he says. He’s still both zonked and freaked, though, his eyes checking the corners of the room, as if his Mommy hooked up hidden cameras to capture his every missed step. “I guess we’ll just wait for Roscoe’s wand-finger thing. Maybe we should . . . sit.”
But he doesn’t move. His eyes drop from E.T.’s and settle on my mesh hole, looking straight through and starting to squint. At my real eyes. “You okay in there? You haven’t made a peep.” He leans in. “I’m so nervous I could throw up.”
He turns and looks into the mirror. Meeting you meant I finally got to be me. He looked so honest on that. So unforced. And in one clear moment, I . . . get it. I get why he got Elliott, and I didn’t.
Jordan’s more talented than I am.
“Are you sniffling?” Jordan says.
Thumbs-down.
He laughs. “It sounded like you were sniffling. But your voice was really low.”
I shrug, the rubber suit squeaking. Jordan yawns again.
“Maybe I’ll have a little coffee,” Jordan says. “My mom would murder me if she knew I’ve been drinking it with Genna on breaks. But it’s so good. It’s really mature.”
“We’re not allowed to eat or drink in costume, Jordan,” I wish I could say. I really do.
He starts to lift a huge carafe that’s sitting out for the adults. But just then, his determination is broken by the crowd’s alarmingly loud whistles and cheers. Cirque is done.
So is Jordan.
He is covered—no, drenched—in spilled coffee.
“Oh God, no!” he screams, staring at his formerly bright-white T-shirt in the mirror. “Oh God. Oh God. She’ll kill me. She’ll murder me. They’ll fire me and-and-and we won’t be able to pay for our house. Or the swimming pool. Or the koi pond.”
“It’s not so bad,” I want to lie.
He poured an entire steaming carafe of java down his own shirt, two minutes before we’re going live. His collar looks like a coffee filter.
“Oh no, if I cry . . . if I cry, my makeup will run.” He tilts his head back, just like the nurse taught me do to when the bullies got to my nose. “I can’t wear this T-shirt on the air. Elliott doesn’t drink coffee. Oh God, Asella.”
It’s not just his Mommy who’ll kill him. If he doesn’t nail it today, the producers will have his neck. E.T. is already a big question mark on Broadway—an industry joke, according to Asella. This could turn that question mark into, like, a period.
“What am I going to do?” he wails.
And that’s when I do it.
“I’ve got a white T-shirt on,” I say, unlatching the E.T. helmet and tossing it onto the dressing table. “You have to unzip the back of the suit, and then I can give you my shirt.”
He watches me through the mirror, his face frozen. At the very least, I’ve stopped him from crying. In fact: Is he . . . grinning a little bit? “This is impossible.”
“No, it’s not.” I give the thumbs-up. “It’s me. Your old friend Nate.”
“I can’t . . . what are you doing here?” He turns to look at me in living color. “We cannot let my mom . . . does Roscoe know?”
“Roscoe’s in on it, Jordan. Everyone is.” Not everyone, but for the purposes of drama, yes. “Learn the system or die.” I flip around so he can get to my zipper.
“I can’t wear your T-shirt, you monkey,” he says. You can tell his family says monkey as a swearword.
“Or what? You’re going to let your Mommy see you in a coffee-stained costume?”
That does it. He whips back to the mirror and screams.
“Jordan Rylance”—from the trailer door, some girl’s voice booms—“we need you onstage in sixty seconds.”
“I’ve got the finger hookup!” Roscoe bounds up the stairs, shaking the trailer so hard that Jordan loses his balance and crashes into the makeup table. That said, he’d already gotten pretty wobbly on his feet in the last thirty seconds.
“Oh God,” Roscoe says.
“Oh monkey!” Mrs. Rylance screams, entering right after. “What’s going on? Why is this mongrel here?” She takes in Jordan’s new state. “And what happened to your shirt?!”
“Mommy, I-I-I,” he starts, his face going white to purple to red, like that bubble gum that changes berry flavors. But there’s nothing sweet
here.
“It was my fault,” I say, managing to unzip my own costume, cracking my back while I’m at it. I’m really growing up these days. “It was totally my fault. I was drinking coffee. And tripped. And Jordan should take my T-shirt.”
“We need a boy and a woman onstage!” A girl in a headset and black sweats stampedes into the trailer. “You’re not a woman,” she says, tilting her head at me.
“He’s not an anything,” Mrs. Rylance says. “He’s an understudy.”
“Mom.”
“Enough!” Roscoe shouts. He points at me: “Shirt off, now.” He points at Jordan: “Shirt off, now.”
I’ve never done this, changing in front of another boy. Back home, it’s either skip gym altogether and fake a migraine (WebMD is remarkable for how specific they get with symptoms) or go into the bathroom stall to change my shirt. I’d never do this under any circumstance.
“Twenty seconds,” a production assistant calls through Roscoe’s walkie-talkie, “or we’re sending Cirque back out.”
But this isn’t just any circumstance.
“No!” Roscoe shouts. “We are not getting preempted by theatrical wind.”
Jordan and I switch shirts, and I turn my back on him as fast as I possibly can, likely leaving a little belly in my wake.
“Wow, this thing is so sweaty,” he calls out. But he doesn’t even sound ticked off, somehow. Like, at all.
“Oh, don’t you worry, J.J.,” his mom says. “We’ll have Daddy draw up some papers on this kid.”
“No, we won’t,” Jordan says, tucking my T-shirt into his jeans. Roscoe fiddles with Jordan’s microphone, and I zip myself back into E.T.’s costume, my shoulders straining in the reach. “We aren’t suing anyone, Mom. Not this time. Not Nate.” Jordan stares at me. “Just drop it. He knows.”
“Knows what?” she shrieks.
“Run for the stage,” the crew lady shouts. “Now.”
“Nate knows we’re bankrupt,” Jordan yells, pulling free from Roscoe’s grip. “And I don’t care that he does.”