“Uh, I don’t know, sir.”
How could he not know? It was his job to know where everyone lived. Nevertheless, I spelled it out. “What apartment is Chase in?”
He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. We’re not allowed to give out residents’ information.”
What? He obviously knew I was expected but was now acting like I was a crazed fan trying to break in.
This was a continuation of my annoying morning (which, quite frankly, began Saturday night), and I decided to put the kibosh on it before it got worse. I took out my cell phone and called Hubert.
“Hello?” he said after it rang twice.
“Hubert, it’s Justin Goldblatt.”
“OK.” I guess that meant “hi.” “Did you get the package?”
Package? Oh, right. The one in my hand.
“Yes, I did.” Then I lowered my voice. “I just can’t find out from the doorman where to go.” I kept scanning the apartments, hoping I’d see Chase in one of the windows. No luck.
“Where to go? How would the doorman know?”
Huh? This was getting more and more bizarre.
“Just read the letter in the package,” he said, sounding irritated. “I need to go.” And with that he hung up.
I ripped open the package. Inside was a small glass jar of something that looked like lemonade. Maybe it was a lemony throat remedy for Chase?
I looked back in the package and saw a letter. Finally, some info.
Turns out, while I was staring up at various windows like an idiot, Hubert and Chase were nowhere near the Dakota…They were already at the theater! Hubert wrote that Chase wanted to get there early to warm up. Then why didn’t he take his throat remedy with him? And if they already left for the theater, why wasn’t I with them right now helping out?
Well, the rest of the letter gave me the answer.
Hubert wrote directions that told me where to go today and it was not to the theater. Not at all. I had to take a subway and a ferry to Staten Island! And then I had to take a bus to a doctor’s office. Specifically, a veterinarian where I would drop off the jar. Apparently, the jar I was holding was not a lemon-based throat soother. It was an ammonia-scented urine sample! According to the letter, Mookie possibly had a bladder infection and Staten Island had the best dog bladder/spleen vet specialist in New York. I hoped I’d be able to drop it off and rush to the theater to watch the rest of rehearsal.
Apparently not, since the end of the letter told me to wait at the vet until it was analyzed. Just in case I thought there was a chance I’d be able to stop by the theater, the letter ended by saying it would “probably take most of the day.”
Well, at least I could tell people I spent my first day of interning in New York on Broadway.
That’s right…Dr. Geraci’s address is 127 Broadway, Staten Island.
What a day. While the Staten Island Ferry is fun to ride with your grandparents when you’re a little kid, it’s not fun to ride in the deep freeze of winter. The river was so choppy from the waves that I began to feel seasick. Unfortunately, someone actually got seasick but wasn’t able to aim it overboard. He wasn’t even able to make it to the outside deck. So ten minutes into the thirty-minute crossing, the entire inside smelled like a vomitorium and I had no choice but to spend the rest of the ride outside in the freezing cold. I stayed at the vet for the bulk of the afternoon, and when I finally got the result of Mookie’s test (negative!), I had to take the whole ride back.
I figured that today was a pet emergency and tomorrow would really begin my stint working on a Broadway musical.
By the time I walked into Grandma Sally’s apartment, I was feeling better. That feeling was immediately cut short by her yelling, “Don’t get mud everywhere!” I don’t know what she could have been referring to considering I took off my boots outside her apartment!
“Grandma Sally, I’m wearing socks. How can I track in mud?”
“Socks!” she shrieked as she impressively changed what she was mad about within one second. “You’re going to slip on the wood floor, and I don’t have time to take you to the hospital. My friend Devon is coming over to play cards.”
Devon? Who was that? Some widower looking for a wife? Before I could ask, she said the thing I expected. “Put on the guest slippers.”
Oh no. She was holding one of the pairs of slippers she’d been giving guests since before I was born. She has four pairs that she keeps in her closet for whenever it rains/snows/sleets/is icy outside and they’ve been the same pairs for as long as I can remember. And they’ve never been washed. Ever. A part of me needed to prove it, so one year I decided to do an experiment. We had come over for Rosh Hashanah dinner during the year I was Bar Mitzvahed. There was a big rainstorm that day and we were all forced into the slippers. My father dangled my pair in front of his face and said the same thing he always does. “Ma…these look like the same ones I wore when I was a kid.”
Grandma Sally then gave the same response she always does.
Silence.
Neither confirmation nor denial.
Right before we left that night, we pried them off and put them back in her closet. I took out the rattiest pair (they were red, white, and blue and said ’76 across the top) and put one of my remote control cars inside the right slipper. When we came back for Passover, I brought my remote control console, opened the closet, turned it on, and guess what came riding out of the closet? Of course, I had to throw the car out because it had spent six months inside a stench factory and reeked worse than the inside of today’s Staten Island Ferry.
This time, however, I came prepared.
“Thanks for the offer, but I actually have my own slippers,” I said while heading to my suitcase.
“Not anymore!” she yelled. “While I was unpacking your stuff, I threw them out.”
“Why would you—”
“Covered with dog hair!” she said, and thrust out a guest pair.
Argh! She somehow figured out a way to thwart me thwarting her. I gave up. I knew I had to put on the slippers Grandma was threateningly holding toward me but I also knew it meant I’d have to throw out the socks I was wearing. I attempted to shut myself down emotionally as well as olfactorily and slipped them on.
“That’s better…,” Grandma Sally said, and then one second later she started screaming again. “You’re dripping!” She pointed to my winter coat, which was wet because it was still sleeting outside. I hightailed it to the bathroom and hung it in the shower so it could dry but immediately wanted to put it back on because it was freezing in the apartment. I went over to see if the radiator in the living room was working and as I got near it, I saw that the window was open!
“Grandma Sally!” I yelled to the kitchen. “You left the window open.”
“Don’t touch it!” she yelled back. She walked in, drying her hands and wearing an enormous down coat. “Every time I open the closet, the whole apartment smells like sour milk for some reason. I’ve got to get that stench out of the apartment.”
“For some reason?” Surely she must know the reason the closet lets loose a smell from hell is because of those stank bombs from 1976.
“You know what it is, don’t you?” she asked. Before I could answer, she did it for me. “It’s that old Russian couple in the next apartment cooking cabbage soup. That closet wall must be paper thin.”
Huh? The closet wall was made of brick. How could it be thin?
I told myself that I was getting a rent-free apartment on the Upper West Side and decided not to question her. But I did need something to warm myself up.
“I’m freezing,” I said as I headed toward my room for a sweater.
“Wait a minute.” She went back to the closet that held the slippers. “This’ll keep you nice and toasty.” She walked over and placed a knitted shawl around my shoulders.
Not only did it smell like the closet, but it was an ugly mustard color. And it was also stained in three places with actual mustard.
Huh? “Well, you can dry-clean wool—”
“And you can pay for it, Moneybags!”
I couldn’t wear something so ugly and that was stained and had the permanent slipper smell embedded in it.
“I think I’ll get one of my really warm sweaters,” I said as I walked toward the suitcase in my room.
“Don’t go in there!” she yelled. “I washed your floor and it needs a half hour to dry.”
Washed my floor? I just arrived that morning. How dirty could it be? She drives me crazy. A complete neat freak over things that need no cleaning yet zero concern over things that are actually disgusting.
“It’s so cold,” I muttered, half to myself.
Unfortunately, she heard the other half. “You lose eighty percent of your body heat through your head.”
She plopped one of her fur hats onto my hair.
She stepped back to admire it. “My mother used to wear that back in the day when New York really got cold. Not this global warming crap.”
The doorbell rang.
“That’s Devon!” she said as she scurried back to the kitchen. “You get it while I finish making dinner.”
I looked crazy but I assumed I was safe; anybody who was friends with Grandma Sally had to have some sort of a screw loose. If he was anything like the eligible widowers she’d dated before, I knew my outfit would be more attractive than his polyester suit.
I opened the door.
A teenager stood there.
He was taller than me and had blond hair and dark blue eyes. I couldn’t help but notice his leather jacket clung to what was undoubtedly a muscular chest and then tapered to a thirty-inch waist.
I stared.
He took off his Banana Republic glove and stuck out his hand.
“Hi, I’m Devon.” He flashed a smile.
No two ways about it, he was C-U-T-E!
I snapped out of my state of shock and put my hand out but it got caught in…Argh! My stupid shawl! I struggled to untangle it and it finally fell to the floor. I kicked it away but in doing so, one of my slippers flew off and bounced down the hallway.
“I’ll get it,” Devon said, and jogged off. He came back with the slipper but I noticed he was holding it farther away from himself than I had held Mookie’s pee jar.
“Thanks,” I said, slipping it back on. I instinctively went to pat my hair to make sure it wasn’t in its highest Afro. Instead of feeling my Jewish curls, however, I felt soft fur and faced the horrifying fact that I had opened the door wearing never-been-washed slippers, an old lady shawl, and a squirrel hat from the 1940s.
“Come right in,” I said, and as soon as he did, I muttered, “Excuse me” and ran into my bedroom. I didn’t care that the floor was just washed; I needed to counteract the first impression I had just given Devon. I peeled away the slippers and put on my sneakers. Off came the shawl and on came a baby blue sweater from Macy’s. I also squeezed two handfuls of product into my hair to shape it into something that would erase his memory of the dead animal on my head.
I came out and Devon and Grandma Sally were already sitting at the table.
I looked at Devon’s feet to see which pair of disgusting slippers he was forced into.
What?
He was still wearing his Nikes!
“Devon said it stopped sleeting out,” Grandma Sally said, following my gaze.
Unfair!
“Justin,” Devon said while pouring himself some water. “Your grandma’s told me all about you.”
Wow, I thought, looking at him. Who cares about the slippers? He’s cute. I better work it.
“Well,” I said, flashing a grin, “I’m here for a school project—”
“Didn’t you just hear him? He knows! I already told him you’re working with some model who’s starring in Phantom of the Opera.”
“What? No…I mean, yes…He used to model in the old days and I ran into him at Phantom, but I’m actually—”
“—interning for Chase Hudson while he’s rehearsing Thousand-Watt Smile,” Devon said, then added, “And today you got to go to the Dakota.”
“How did you—” I began.
He looked embarrassed. “Justin, please don’t think I’m a stalker, but I go to your website once in a while.”
Huh?
“Your grandma told me you’d be visiting and joining us for our weekly dinner, so…” He smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t resist doing a quick Google search to see who you were.”
“Isn’t it pronounced ‘goggle’?” asked Grandma Sally.
We ignored her and he started rattling off information.
“When I put in ‘Justin Goldblatt’ and ‘Long Island’ there were too many results, so I added words like ‘Broadway’ and ‘high school.’ ”
Smart!
“There were three Justins that seemed likely, but I wound up not having to check them all because I could tell that the first website I went to was yours.”
Oh! Now it was making sense. “You saw one of my daily blog postings?”
“What’s a blog?” asked Grandma Sally.
We ignored her.
“Your grandma didn’t have any photos of you—”
“I have ’em, but they’re in a good place,” Grandma interrupted as she passed me a platter of veggie lasagna. She keeps all photos in a shoebox on the top shelf of her closet. “Once you take ’em out, they start to get yellow.”
“But,” clarified Devon, “your grandma described you, so as soon as I saw your profile pic, I knew it was you.”
“Yep,” Grandma Sally piped up again. “I told him how you’re always complaining about your weird, curly hair.” I dropped a fork, hoping it would distract her. She continued. “What do you call it? A Hebrew do? The Jewish curse? A curly Jewfest?”
“A Jewfro,” I finally said to shut her up. I glared at her, but she didn’t see because she was busy diving into her lasagna.
“That’s it!” she said with cheese hanging out of her mouth.
I tried to start another sentence but she kept talking. “And I told him how I gave that pep talk to you about your dad also having a large belly and big backside like yours. What did I tell ya, kid?”
I didn’t respond.
“Justin! What did I tell you about your large, large—”
I cut her off before she could reiterate. “You told me to wait it out like Dad did,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Yep! Most of the lard melted away once he turned eighteen,” she said, nodding.
I smiled and mentally tried to signal the end of the conversation.
She squinted her eyes and looked closer. “I got no advice about the pimples, though. They seem to be relentless.”
“Of course,” Devon thankfully broke in as I passed him the lasagna, “the picture made me pretty certain it was you, but when I saw your blog update called ‘Moving to the City of My Dreams,’ I knew for sure.”
Why couldn’t he have said that before my physical faults were spelled out by the Wicked Witch of the West (Side)?
I started to eat and tried to counteract my devastation by bragging a little. “My favorite blog so far has been ‘Chase and I.’ It’s the one where I wrote about how excited I am to be working with him.”
“Aren’t you working for him?” Grandma Sally demanded.
I kept my eyes on Devon and spoke confidentially. “Well, it’s officially an internship, but he kind of handpicked me so…” I shrugged to imply He not only wanted an intern, but he also wanted someone who could inspire him. Yes, the innocence of the student might indeed rekindle the flame within the master. That was a lot of information to get into one shrug, but I think I was clear.
Then I remembered something Devon first said. “Go back a bit,” I requested. “Weekly dinner?”
“Well, I’m also doing a school project, just like you,” he said while wipin
g tomato sauce from his mouth. “My school’s guidance counselor said that colleges like to see some sort of volunteer work, so—”
“He was coming to the senior center where I go on Sundays,” Grandma Sally explained. “We wound up playing Scrabble.”
Devon laughed. “Your grandmother loves Scrabble.”
Hmph. More like she loves competing. She refuses to play unless she has stiff opposition. She flat-out forbid me from even asking to play Scrabble with her until I turned thirteen.
She’d always repeat the same sentence: “No way can you have any kind of Scrabble knowledge until you’re well into puberty.”
I was too scared to ask what her version of “well into puberty” meant. When I turned thirteen, I kept my mouth shut because I was afraid that if I asked to play, she’d put on rubber gloves and begin a Scrabble physical.
Finally, last year I brought out the Scrabble box but she immediately slapped my hand away.
“Don’t open it!”
She grabbed the box and clutched it to her chest.
“First, give me four three-letter words that have the letter Q.”
“Um…”
She held out her hand to silence me. “All right, that’s it.” She passed the box back. “Put it away,” she said, shaking her head, and I haven’t had the nerve to ask to play since.
I looked at Devon. “You won?”
“What?” Grandma Sally said with a cackle. “I kicked his behind!”
“But it was close,” he reminded her.
“That’s the point,” she said, slamming her hand on the table. “All those other codgers can’t play Scrabble worth a wooden nickel. When they saw me with the board, they started whining and asking if they could play. I was hoarse from saying no so much.” She pointed at Devon. “I told this one I’d make him dinner once a week if he’d come over and play here in peace.”
“So, we started a tradition. Every Monday I join your grandmother for a little Scrabble and some dinner.”
I passed him the salad bowl and he started to take some.
“Devon!” Grandma Sally yelled in his direction. “Don’t take all the tomatoes!”
The Rise and Fall of a Theater Geek Page 4