Attack of the Theater People

by Marc Acito

  We’re interrupted by a sound that’s either my boss calling or a seagull flying into the side of the ship.

  “THERE YOU ARE!”

  Sandra charges over. “Who do I love? Who! Do! I! Love!?”

  “Uh…Barry Manilow?”

  “Eddie Sanders, that’s who!” She leans into me. “We need to tawk.”

  I start to say, “Will you excu…” to Lizzie, but Sandra grabs me by the arm and heaves me starboard.

  “What’s going on?” I ask.

  She’s about to answer when we find ourselves in a gaggle of giggling girls.

  “Eddie!” / “Hi!” / “Can I have a picture?” / “Hi!” / “Will you sign my shoulder?”

  “Later girls, later,” Sandra says, steering me inside and shutting the door on them. “Listen,” she whispers, “we’ve gotta—”

  Just then, a band of boys appears at the end of the hallway. “Hey, Eddaaaaay!”

  I wave and am abruptly yanked around a corner. Sandra opens the door to the ship’s library and pushes me in, motioning for me to duck behind one of those immense freestanding globes. Outside, the boys clomp past the door.

  The library is the kind where Hercule Poirot would gather suspects to reveal the murderer: rosewood paneling, Chippendale wingback chairs, and shelves so high they require a library ladder. As you’d expect on a night when guests have such late-night choices as laser tag or the vocal stylings of Miss Lainie Kazan, the room is empty.

  “Listen up,” Sandra says. “We’ve got some guests from London and, get this, there’s no such thing as British MTV. I know, who knew? Anyway, I told ’em that it’s coming, and you’re gonna be the star, but we’ve gotta get you belowdecks before they find you and start asking questions.”

  “Got it.” I rise.

  “But first,” she says, grasping my hand, “I wanna say thank you. You really saved my ass out there. From now on you are my number one motivator.” She pokes me in the chest. “BMs, corporate events, weddings, funerals, circumcisions: Edward Zanni is my go-to guy.”

  “You mean Eddie Sanders.”

  She gives an adenoidal laugh. “Trust me, that name’ll come in handy. Otherwise, you’ll have thirteen-year-old girls crank-calling you in the middle of the night.” She looks at her watch. “Speaking of, I’ve gotta round up the fire dancers. Can you make it downstairs on your own?”

  “Yeah. But as long as I’m here I think I’ll find a book to read before I go to bed.” My head’s too light to try to set it down.

  “You rest up. There are a lot more gigs where this one came from.” She speeds out, practically leaving skid marks.

  A lot more gigs! If my life were a musical, this would be the moment when the spotlight would hit me and I’d do a celebratory uptempo showstopper called “A Lot More Gigs!”

  In fact, the minute Sandra leaves, I leap onto the library ladder and slide along the shelves. Maybe I even go, “Wheeeeee!” And why shouldn’t I? I’m a hit! I’m a star! I’m—

  I hear a long, loud sniff.

  I’m not alone.

  Ten

  I turn around and there, in one of the wingback chairs, sits a man in his thirties so improbably handsome he must have been created in a petri dish mixing DNA from Paul Newman and Robert Redford. He has blond hair you imagine some gnome has spun into gold, eyes as green as spring, and a chin like a fist. The only flaw in his otherwise perfect visage is a crooked nose, proof that he, indeed, is real.

  “Sorry to eavesdrop,” he murmurs in a voice that can only be described as postcoital. “I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.” On the coffee table in front of him lies a neat row of white powder. “You want to do a line?”

  “No, thanks.” The few times I’ve done cocaine, it just made me want to stay up all night cleaning my bathroom.

  The improbably handsome man takes a snort with a rolled-up dollar bill.

  “Listen,” I say, “you won’t tell anyone, will you? Y’know, about my not being English?”

  He runs his index finger along the table, then rubs the remaining dust on his gums. “I’m good at keeping secrets,” he says, sniffing. He rises and offers his hand, not the one that was just in his mouth.

  “Chad Severson.”

  Even his name is gorgeous.

  I try to give him an assertive, masculine handshake, like I’m priming a water pump, when all I really want to do is cue the violins and sing “He Touched Me.”

  “Edward. Zanni.”

  He holds on to my hand just a moment longer than he should. “I watched you tonight,” he murmurs. “And you know what? You have a great ass.”

  Did I just hear him right? Did this perfect specimen of manhood just tell me I have a great ass?

  “And do you know what that asset is?”

  Never mind.

  “You’re a people person.” He slides a business card out of his breast pocket. “I could use a guy like you.”

  A week later I’m back in the snazzy sharkskin suit, but this time I’m the one who’s being entertained.

  The Café Carlyle is a low-ceilinged room, smaller than I expected, but every bit as swank as its reputation. The walls are covered with murals done in a loose, brushy style that seems typically French in a way I can’t define, and surreal in a way I can’t understand: a shirtless youth embracing a horse, a spaniel dancing in a dress, a nude woman painting. The waiter leads us to a spot in the corner, where he pulls out the table so I can scooch into the velvet banquette. I’ve had waiters pull out chairs for me before but never a whole table.

  This is glamour.

  I gaze at Chad basking in the glow of the little lamp between us on the table and hear myself nattering on about how “I’ve always wanted to see Bobby Short perform at the Carlyle, I mean, who wouldn’t, the man’s an institution, right, the epitome of Upper East Side elegance, of course, I’m no expert, but I do have a friend who lives just around the corner in an enormous town house, she’s Persian and she went to the shah of Iran’s wedding, well, not the shahshah, his son, the Almost Shah…”

  Meanwhile, another Edward, a sensible, more mature Edward, sits next to me groaning, For God’s sake. Shut. Up.

  Luckily, the waiter appears with our drinks, allowing me to gather my wits and remind myself to take a “sincere interest” in Chad. (On Sandra’s recommendation, I’ve been reading Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.) Of course, the only sincere interest I have in Chad is what he looks like naked.

  “So what does a broker do, actually?” I refrain from adding, “…in bed?”

  Chad gives a spreadsheet of a speech that I’m sure would fascinate my father, and I nod like I understand when he talks about call options, put options, and Morgan Stanley, whoever she is. We pause only to order from a menu where everything sounds like haiku:

  New Zealand spring lamb

  Leeks and baby artichokes

  Dandelion greens

  Then Chad leans across the table, his jade eyes lasering into me, and says, “How would you like to be a spy?”

  A spy? He might as well ask me to be an astronaut. Or a cowboy. “You mean, like, in a trench coat, passing secrets to the Soviets?”

  Chad smiles, flashing a row of tall, straight teeth, like the picket fence that will someday surround our cozy cottage for two. “No,” he says. “A spy for me.”

  I take a sip of my Scotch, which I only ordered because he did and now regret because it smells like makeup remover. “Brokers use spies?”

  He sits back, his jacket falling open to reveal a shirt as crisp as paper. He’s probably fifteen years older than me and is in much better shape. I resolve to start dieting. Tomorrow. Because they have crème brûlée on the menu. “‘Information is the currency of democracy,’” he says. “You know who said that? Thomas fucking Jefferson.”

  In that case, I guess spying’s all right. Though, to be honest, I’m so smitten with Chad, I’d poison pigeons in the park if he asked me.

  “What would I have
to do?”

  “That’s the best part,” he says, his green eyes shining like the Emerald City. “You’re already going to corporate events, right? All you have to do is talk to people about their businesses and report back to me what they said. I’ll give you a hundred bucks each time. Plus bonuses, if the information pays off.”

  A hundred bucks! That’s already what Sandra pays. In other words, I’d get double the amount for the same work. Even without bonuses, I could quit working for Irving. And save up for college. And maybe buy some of those baggy socks.

  “What kind of information are you looking for?”

  He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one’s listening. “Let’s say a company has a new product they’re going to launch, or they’ve got some new spank-ass technology, or they’re expanding into a new market. Or maybe there’s going to be a change in leadership, or in federal regulations, or, best of all, they’re part of a merger or an acquisition.”

  I’m watching his mouth, but all I’m hearing is, “Blah, blah, blah.”

  “So I just tell you this stuff…”

  “And we get filthy fucking rich. I tell you, Edward, you’ll be rolling in so much dough we could put you in an oven and bake you.”

  I like the way he says we.

  “But,” he adds, “it’s got to be our secret. You can’t tell anyone.”

  “Why? It’s not illegal, is it?”

  He gives a wry smile as crooked as his nose. “Does that really matter, Buddha boy?”

  I freeze. How’d he know I was arrested in high school for kidnapping a three-foot-tall ceramic lawn ornament?

  Chad seems to read my mind. “‘Information is the oxygen of the modern age.’ You know who said that? Ronald fucking Reagan. Now, is that the only suit you’ve got?”

  “What’s wrong with my suit?”

  “Nothing, if you’re headlining in Vegas.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have rolled up the sleeves.

  “Tomorrow morning take yourself to Brooks Brothers,” he says. “I’ll arrange for you to put it on my account.”

  The conversation proceeds amiably from there, particularly since this is the second time in less than a week someone has bought me a new suit. Our food arrives and, with it, a bottle of wine, and soon I’ve banished whatever worries I have that Chad knows anything about my past dealings with embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, fraud, forgery, and (just a little) prostitution. He tells me about his old Kentucky home, where his family raises racehorses, and about going to business school at Stanford, but I just luxuriate in his low bedroom voice, not to mention the ambrosial wine and the sophisticated surroundings. The men’s room even has those thick, napkin-like towels embossed with the Hotel Carlyle’s crest.

  What a week it’s been. First, to be the Life of the Party at a party written up in the New York Times, Women’s Wear Daily, and the New York Post. None of them mentioned me but I’m thrilled just to have been at an event that made Page Six, right next to a photo of Andy Warhol at a gallery opening with James Freeman Foster, the Brown University junior who’s the talk of the town with his debut novel, Coke Is It. And now, at last, an adventure! It may not be hopping a freight train or working on a fishing boat, but, still, it’s an adventure. Corporate espionage. Clandestine meetings. Maybe even a secret romance. Of course, I don’t know whether Chad is gay or not, but he did suggest we see Bobby Short. And is very well groomed.

  Just when I think the night can’t get any better, the lights dim and a cherubic man with a cannonball head and skin the color of cognac bounces into the room and springs onto the platform where a grand piano sits gleaming in the spotlights. Bobby Short smiles, his grin as white and wide as the piano keys, and he flings out his arms as if he were trying to give every one of us a hug. He is tastefully turned out in a tuxedo, yet has an eager, boyish quality to him, like the child performer he was in the 1930s. He hops onto the piano bench, plays a flourishing arpeggio, and begins to sing:

  The man who only lives for making money

  Lives a life that isn’t necessarily sunny…

  I don’t recognize the song, but am immediately struck by his husky voice, which has a tremulous, fluttering vibrato, the way you’d imagine a bird’s wings would sound if you could hear them. It’s a voice that invites you to inhabit the song with him, and his nimble, rolling style on the piano doesn’t so much accompany the lyrics as converse with them.

  When he reaches the chorus, I finally recognize the tune. It’s the Gershwins’ “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

  I take it as a sign.

  Eleven

  I’m roused, as usual, by the sound of construction, my alarm clock a wrecking ball. This after repeated wake-up calls from New York’s dedicated Department of Things that Go Bump in the Night, which apparently uses my street to crash-test crosstown buses. Even at the building’s quietest, I can still hear the scuttle of roaches and mice in my apartment walls, fighting for turf like the Jets and the Sharks. No wonder New York’s the City that Never Sleeps. Still, I feel invigorated because I’m off to Brooks Brothers. That is, after playing the following Neil Simon scene with Natie:

  NATIE: So how’d it go?

  EDWARD: How’d what go?

  NATIE: Your meeting. I thought you said this guy had a job for you.

  EDWARD: Oh, yeah. He wanted to talk to me about the internship program at Thorpe, Sharpton, and Riley.

  NATIE: You mean Sharp, Thornton, and Wiley.

  EDWARD: Right.

  NATIE: The internship program? To be a stockbroker?

  EDWARD: Yup.

  Natie goes to the window and looks outside.

  EDWARD: What are you doing?

  NATIE: Just checkin’ to see if black is white and up is down. Oh, look, there’s four men on horseback.

  Edward gets dressed.

  EDWARD: You’re not the only one around here who knows something about business.

  NATIE: Yes I am. Where ya’ goin’?

  EDWARD: For a walk in the park.

  NATIE: Good idea. I’ll come, too.

  EDWARD: You can’t!

  NATIE: Why not?

  EDWARD: I’m going to Brooks Brothers.

  NATIE: Brooks Brothers is in the park?

  EDWARD: No, it’s on Forty-fourth and Madison. I’m going after.

  NATIE: Great. I need a new dress shirt. Mine’s got pit stains.

  EDWARD: No!

  NATIE: It’s just pit stains.

  EDWARD: I mean…I need to shop alone.

  NATIE: Why?

  EDWARD: I’ve developed a phobia.

  NATIE: To shopping?

  EDWARD: I can’t do it in front of other people. It’s like being pee shy.

  NATIE: Fine. We’ll walk in the park; then you can shop alone. Hopefully, you won’t have to pee.

  EDWARD: Actually, I’m going to Brooks Brothers first, then to the park.

  NATIE: I thought you said you were going after.

  EDWARD: I changed my mind.

  NATIE: If you don’t want me to come…

  EDWARD: No, I just find that a walk in the park helps relieve the stress brought on by shopping.

  NATIE: And peeing.

  EDWARD: Exactly.

  If I’m going to lead a double life, I’m going to have to become a better liar. No wonder I got kicked out of acting school. The moment I step outside, however, I get another chance.

  “Eddieeeee! Hi! Remember me?”

  “Oh, hallo!” I say, instantly becoming British. “Of course. From the boat. Uh, Lizzie, rawght?”

  She smiles, revealing braces like the grillwork of a ’57 Chevy. “My friend Marcy and I looked you up in the phone book.”

  Damn. Of all the pseudonyms to use, I’m stuck with one belonging to a man who worked on Broadway for twenty-five years as a chorus boy and a stage manager. If Eddie Sanders’s name gets in the paper, the entire cast of 42nd Street will see that I stole his identity.

  Lizzie bends one leg against the oth
er, like a flamingo. “Marcy would’ve come with me, but she had to go to therapy.”

  “Sorry to ’ear that.”

  “She just does it for attention. Do you like my shirt?” She spins around to model an oversize Union Jack T-shirt, which she wears belted over a pair of leggings tucked into baggy socks.

  I wonder if Brooks Brothers sells baggy socks.

  “I’m, like, totally into everything British now,” she says. “America sucks. Do you know Morrissey? He’s so profound. Nobody at my school gets him.” She fidgets with the multiple jelly bracelets on her wrist. Across the street a drug deal takes place on the Devil’s Playground.

  “This neighborhood isn’t really safe,” I say.

  “It’s okay,” she says, reaching into her shirt. “I’ve got a whistle.”

  It’s pink.

  “Still,” I say, “why don’t I walk you over to Broadway?”

  “Okay. Where ya’ goin’?”

  “Just out to do a spot of shopping.”

  Her eyes widen. “I love shopping,” she gasps, as if this were evidence of our deep, spiritual bond. She thrusts a skinny arm through mine. “I know all the best places.”

  As we walk, Lizzie fills me in on All Things Sniderman: how her father’s girlfriend takes laxatives to stay thin, and that her brother knows the Preppy Killer, and her mother makes her carry condoms in her purse. (“In case I get raped.”) She also grills me on All Things British, so I teach her some Cockney slang, all of which I make up.

  “So,” she says, “if you’re confused, you say you’re wonky socks?”

  “’At’s rawght,” I say. “You also use it when somefin’s rubbish. Y’know, when someone acts like they’re all hump, but they’re really a Wimbledon.”

  Lying is much easier when you’re using a phony accent.

  Meanwhile, I try to figure out how to ditch her, but I can’t very well prevent her from entering Brooks Brothers. And I can’t very well tell her that British MTV’s hottest veejay has a shopping phobia.

  Once we arrive at the store, Lizzie charges in ahead of me, as if she were my publicist, announcing, “This is Eddie Sanders from British MTV. He needs a suit. Now.” The saleswoman directs us upstairs, giving me and my barely pubescent companion a look like she’s going to call Child Services. As Lizzie and I ride the escalator, she asks, “So, what kinda suit are you looking for?”