Girls on the Verge

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  The automated voice comes in and the phone cuts out.

  I can’t go. I can’t leave her in jail like that.

  * * *

  “I don’t know what to do,” I tell Bea. “We can’t leave Annabelle to rot in jail with no way to get out. She doesn’t have anyone else to help her. What kind of person abandons her friend?”

  Bea’s face flushes.

  “Oh … no, no, no. Bea, I didn’t mean you.”

  “I know you didn’t.” Bea fiddles with the strap on her purse. “I’m sorry I said that, Camille,” Bea says. “About killing a baby. I shouldn’t have. I truly didn’t come on this trip to stop you. It was as if everything that my parents and church friends have been saying for years came flying out of my mouth and I couldn’t stop it. I saw the look in your eyes and wanted to just shut up, but I couldn’t.”

  “I know this must be hard for you, Bea, but you have to accept that it’s my decision and one that I have to make about my own body.”

  “I know. You’re right. You’re my best friend, and more than that, what kind of person would I be if I turned my back on someone who needed help? Even if the help is more about support than guidance?”

  “Hate the sin, love the sinner?”

  “I fucking hate that saying,” Bea says.

  “You said fuck. Again!” I say, laughing.

  “I think I love that word,” she says. “It’s so … perfect.”

  “It kind of is,” I say.

  “Look, I don’t have another hundred-dollars-behind-Jesus. But…” Bea takes out her wallet and counts her money. “I have seventy-six dollars.” She dumps her wallet on her lap and sorts through movie ticket stubs, a single gold earring, a hair band, and a pile of change. “Looks like eighty-five cents.”

  “I have seven hundred and change.”

  “Gosh, that’s a lot of money.”

  “It’s the money I saved for Willow and what’s left of my latest Iggy’s paycheck.”

  “I’m sorry, Camille. This whole thing stinks. You don’t deserve any of this.”

  “Yeah, well, at least I have it. So we have a little under eight hundred bucks. And I need six for the procedure, which means we don’t have enough to bail out Annabelle.” My shoulders slump.

  “We need money to get to New Mexico and back home, too,” Bea says. “And we need a hotel for at least one night. You won’t want to go home straight after the…” She swallows.

  “You’re right.” I sit back in my seat. “Okay, think, Bea.”

  “I could ask Mateo for the money, but I doubt he has that much.”

  I shake my head. “Remember, the fewer people we drag into this, the better. Besides, he’s saving up for a car.”

  She sighs. “And my parents are out for sure.”

  “How can we get some money quick?” I ask. “Think.”

  “Too bad we can’t have a bake sale. Our church gets tons of money whenever we have those.”

  I give her a look. “People would love that. Money for a poor pregnant girl and a jailbird.” I think for a second. “Actually, your bake sale idea isn’t all that kooky.”

  “Where will we bake things, though?”

  “I don’t mean baking. We could do a flash play, like how we do for the Globe.” Every year at the county fair, Mr. Knight takes a bunch of us, and we act out a scene from a play we’re doing. People look forward to seeing those every year.

  “We could do that!” Bea bounces in her seat. “We could do that easy!”

  “We’re four hours from Albuquerque, and it’s bound to be busy on the Fourth of July. If we put out a bucket or something, people will give money, I’m sure they will.”

  “How will it work, though? Mr. Knight had a big group, and people liked the surprise of seeing who was going to turn into a character. We have to get their attention somehow.”

  “That’s true. What if we start out having an argument, like the modern version of the scene, and then switch into Shakespeare?”

  “There’s a ton of fights in Shakespeare we could do,” Bea says. “But I think we should do a comedy. How about The Taming of the Shrew? The one with Katherine, Bianca, and Baptista. That one’s really funny, and we’ve done the scene together.”

  “It’s too short, though.”

  We throw out a few more ideas—As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, The Merry Wives of Windsor. It feels good to talk about acting instead of the abortion. And the more we talk, the more we get into the idea.

  “We did Midsummer a couple of years ago,” I say. “There’s that scene between Helena and Hermia. It’s really funny. People loved it.”

  “We had small parts, though. I was Cobweb and you were Mustardseed. Annabelle was Hermia.”

  “I was swing, though, for Helena, remember?”

  “Oh!” Bea says. “That’s right.”

  “There’s a small line from Lysander. You could do that.”

  “Get ye gone, dwarf!” she says. “That one?”

  “So it’s a plan, then?”

  “It’s a plan.”

  * * *

  The judge fines Annabelle three hundred dollars for the misdemeanor plus twenty-five for the pregnancy test. I pay the fine, but the prison is so crowded, it takes another hour for them to process her paperwork. Finally, people start trickling out of the jail. The man with the magazine is paired with his son, who is about twenty. The man hits him over the head with a rolled-up magazine and swears at him. The crying woman has a husband who doesn’t look at her. He storms out of the station while she follows behind, staring at the floor. No one comes out for the woman who begged me for a dollar. She swears, gets up, and leaves. Finally, Annabelle comes out holding a plastic bag that says PRISONER’S BELONGINGS. I can see her purse and phone inside it.

  “Oh my god, Annabelle.” I rush forward and hug her. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Annabelle says. She notices my shirt then. “You brought Wendy with you.” She smiles.

  * * *

  Annabelle drags her fries through a puddle of ketchup. “A flash play?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” Bea says. “We did the math, and we need some money to cover the, uh, you know—”

  “Abortion,” Annabelle says.

  “—that, plus some money to get home.”

  “You already know the part,” I say. “You were the best Hermia.”

  “I don’t think I can do it,” she says. “We have to figure something else out.”

  Bea and I exchange glances. “We thought you’d love the idea,” Bea says.

  Annabelle shakes her head. “No, I mean, I don’t think I can do it. Physically do it. In England, I sort of got in my head. It got so bad that whenever I put a foot onstage I’d freeze up. I literally couldn’t speak.”

  “Maybe you could be Hermia, Bea,” I say.

  “I don’t know. That’s a lot of lines to learn.”

  I find the lines on my phone, and Bea and I lean over it. Annabelle eats her cheeseburger and doesn’t say anything.

  Bea shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

  “Try it,” I say. “Hermia begins. You juggler!” I prompt.

  “You canker-blossom!” Bea says, picking up the line. “You thief of love! What, have you … have you … uh…” She tries to find her spot on the phone.

  “Come by night and stol’n my love’s heart from him?” Annabelle says.

  “Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,” I continue with Helena’s part. “No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! You counterfeit, you puppet, you!”

  “Puppet?” Bea says. “Why so?—Ay, that way goes the game. Now I perceive that she … that she…” Bea looks at Annabelle.

  “… hath made compare between our statures!”

  Annabelle continues with the monologue, all from memory, from a role she played years ago. She’s so good. Annabelle is so damn good! When she’s done with the monologue, she lets out a breath and sits back in the
booth.

  “Wow,” Bea says.

  “I thought you said you froze up. That didn’t look like freezing to me,” I say.

  “You should do it, Annabelle,” Bea says. “We’re not going to get any money at all if I do it.”

  Annabelle sighs. “Okay. I’ll do it. Just this once.”

  I’m hoping it won’t be just once. Annabelle is too good to give up on acting.

  We watch from our booth as the sun starts to set. A minivan pulls up, and a bunch of kids pour out, chattering and laughing, the boys pushing one another. They come into the restaurant and the adults attempt to get them in line.

  “They have no idea what’s ahead of them,” Annabelle says, nodding toward the kids. She sucks the last bit of Coke from her cup; her straw burbles and a little boy turns to look. He sticks his tongue out and does a goofy dance.

  “Well, maybe that kid does,” I say, and Annabelle laughs.

  We leave the restaurant, but we’re not ready to get back on the highway. We sit on Buzzi’s hood and lean against the windshield.

  “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Bea asks.

  “Mr. Rogers,” Annabelle says.

  “Love him,” I say.

  “Be serious,” Bea insists. “What do you want from your life? I feel like I change my mind all the time, and that can’t be good. I should have settled on something by now.”

  “Same,” Annabelle says. “I was so sure I wanted to be an actor and there was nothing else, but that can’t be true. There has to be more to me, right?”

  “I don’t know who I’ll be after all this,” I say. “How do you deal with awful things that happen? How do you forget them?”

  I can feel Annabelle shrug. “I wish I knew. I’m not sure how I can deal with being dumped by RADA, or telling Mr. Knight and my parents.”

  “My pastor says you can’t forget bad stuff, but you learn to carry it. I imagine it’s like a backpack; you stick all the junk in there and go on. Heavy things make you stronger.” She pauses. “That’s dumb, right?”

  “I think it’s perfect,” Annabelle says.

  “I read this quote from Virginia Woolf once, about how the future is dark and how she thinks that’s the best thing the future can be; that we can’t know how our actions can affect it, and how that’s good; otherwise we’d lose hope,” I say. “But I wish the future weren’t dark. I wish it were, like, full of light, so I could see what was ahead of me.”

  “Me too,” Annabelle says.

  “Me three,” Bea says.

  We all hold hands. Stars now fill the sky. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life.

  “The stars at night are big and bright,” Annabelle sings softly.

  “Deep in the heart of Texas,” Bea and I sing.

  “And that is why we aren’t musical theater actors,” I say.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Old Town in Albuquerque is no Holler Up. Talk about jacked for Fourth of July. As soon as we step foot in the town square, we’re hit with a holiday bomb. Bright-colored decorations, lights in the trees, and costumed people mix together in a summer kaleidoscope. We’d reached New Mexico last night and stayed in the first motel we found off the interstate. We’ve been practicing since breakfast, going over our lines until we have them down perfectly. It’s lunchtime now, and the plaza is packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder. Normally I hate crowds, but everyone is so happy and joyful that I want to dive in the middle of it and crowd surf.

  “Where should we start?” Annabelle asks.

  “By that old mission church over there?” I say. “It looks really busy.” The crowd’s energy has rubbed off on me, and I can’t wait to get started on our flash play.

  “Wait,” Bea says. “Before we start, I have something.” She takes a little paper bag out of her purse. “I got these at the Waffle Factory. I meant to give them to you both there, but that family came in … and well, it didn’t seem right. But now it does.” She takes out three matching silver bracelets, each hung with Texas charms—the Texas flag, the bluebonnet, the western boot, the cactus, and the mockingbird. She hands one to me and one to Annabelle. “You don’t have to wear them.” Her cheeks blush. “Maybe they’re babyish. I don’t know.”

  Annabelle puts hers on right away. “If it’s babyish to wear a charm bracelet from Beatrice Delgado, then call me a baby.”

  “Same,” I say, putting mine on, too. I hold my hand out. “Hey, let’s have the best performance ever.”

  Annabelle puts her hand on top of mine. “Best performance,” she says.

  Bea puts hers in.

  Our hands stacked one upon the other, I hold up my phone and snap a photo, but I don’t put it on Instagram. I don’t need to share it with anybody.

  * * *

  We merge into the crush of people and follow the signs to the eighteenth-century San Felipe de Neri church. There are other street performers along the way—dancers, singers, puppeteers, and even a magician. Each of them has a bucket out for tips, and I see people tossing money in. When we reach the church, the crowds are even bigger. The stone-paved square in front of it is crammed with people.

  Annabelle is shifting from foot to foot, her eyes glittering and a wide smile on her face. That’s the way she always looked before she headed onstage.

  “You and Bea go over to that tree, and I’ll ambush you there.”

  They thread their way through the crowd and stop in front of the tree and next to an older man in a button-up shirt with a camera hanging from his neck. A lady in a matching button-up stands next to him. Bea and Annabelle hold hands.

  I wipe my sweaty hands on my pants, take a deep breath, and step out onto the square. “Yo, Helena,” I shout.

  Annabelle looks up. She drops Bea’s hand and steps away from her. “Hermia. What’s up?”

  “I’ll tell you what’s up. So … what kind of friend steals her boyfriend?” I point at Bea.

  Annabelle scrunches her face. “Huh?”

  And it’s on. It’s me and Annabelle and Bea and nothing else matters. It’s like we’re back at the Globe.

  We launch into the modern Midsummer Night’s Dream we created, about a failing friendship, where two girls fight each other over a boy. We argue, we fight; we startle people into stopping and watching.

  “You are such a bitch! And the worst friend ever.” I give Annabelle a little shove.

  The couple next to the tree exchange looks. “Take it easy, girls,” the man says. “We’re all friends here.”

  “Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, no touch of bashfulness?” Annabelle says, switching into the actual play.

  The man begins to laugh. “Okay, I see what’s going on now!”

  “Is this one of those flash things?” the wife asks Bea, but Bea is Lysander now and doesn’t hear her.

  “Puppet?” I take a step back, hurt. “Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.” I turn toward the crowd. Several people start to laugh and applaud. “How low am I, thou painted maypole?” I stamp my foot. “Speak. How low am I? I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.” I run at her, my hands outstretched.

  Annabelle shrieks and hides behind Bea.

  “I pray you, though you mock me, sir, do let her not hurt me,” Annabelle says, cowering behind Bea. “I was never cursed. I have no gift at all in shrewishness. I am a right maid for my cowardice. Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think, because she is something lower than myself, that I can match her.”

  She exaggerates every word, making the line even more comical. I want to laugh along with the audience. Annabelle is so natural, so good, and acting with her feels so easy. Nothing is in our way. It’s why I love acting so much.

  “Lower? Hark, again!” I rush Annabelle, and we run in a little circle around Bea.

  “Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.” Annabelle pumps her arms ridiculously, as we chase each other around. The crowd laughs. “I evermore did love you, Hermia,” she says. Annabelle stops running
and takes a step toward me, her arms stretched out, blinking innocently. “Let me go. You see how simple and fond I am.”

  I stretch my arms out like I’m going to hug her, a dopey expression on my face. But as she leans forward for the hug, I put my hand on her forehead and shove. “Who is’t that hinders you?”

  Annabelle takes a few comical steps back and grabs her forehead. “A foolish heart, that I leave here behind!”

  “What, with Lysander?”

  “With Demetrius.” Annabelle pulls a teenage boy out of the crowd. His friends whoop and laugh. “Oh, when Hermia is angry, she is keen and shrewd!” She leans her head against his. “She was a vixen when she went to school. And though she be but little, she is fierce.”

  “Little again? Nothing but low and little, why will you suffer her to flout me thus? Let me come to her!”

  Annabelle screams and runs into the crowd. “I will not trust you,” she calls out. “I, nor longer stay in your curst company. Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray. My legs are longer, though, to run away.”

  “Get ye gone, dwarf!” Bea shouts out her line.

  I chase after Annabelle, weaving my way through the people. I never want the scene to end. I never want this feeling to go away.

  * * *

  We repeat our flash play under a sprawling tree in front of a line of restaurants. We collect three hundred twenty-one bucks and fifty-two cents total. With the money we already have, it’s more than enough to cover the cost of my abortion and get us home.

  We buy a plate of Navajo fry bread with our earnings and sit at a table cramming the food into our mouths like we’ve never eaten.

  “Oh my god, this is so good,” Annabelle says. Sauce drips down her chin, but she doesn’t wipe it off.

  I lick sauce off my fingers. “You know what? This is our first meal as professional actors. From our first wages.”

  Bea pauses, her plastic fork halfway to her mouth. “You’re right! I never thought about that.” She shovels a piece of fry bread into her mouth. “I like it.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  “So I did a lot of thinking in the slammer,” Annabelle says, wiping her fingers.