“Hi, Mom.” Tracy came in, and Andrew slipped out of the kitchen, his glass rattling on the counter where he’d left it. “What’s for dinner?” Tracy asked.
“Quinoa salad with roasted beets.” Julia’s smile was coy.
“I mean for us,” Tracy deadpanned. She shook her hat hair, stretching a ponytail holder between her thumb and forefinger.
“Spaghetti,” Julia offered, lips pursed. “With meatballs.”
“Awesome.” Tracy turned away, her thick mismatched socks pulled up over black workout tights that looked a little thin over her backside. “I’m gonna shower,” she said.
Julia reached for her cell phone as Tracy padded upstairs. She’d order some new Smartwool knee-highs and decent leggings for her daughter that evening. Now she tapped out a text to Robin Bergstrom, another theater mom. Any buzz from callbacks? she asked. Andrew is useless. She watched her phone to see if the three blinking dots would appear, the indicator that Robin was texting back. When they didn’t pop up, Julia put her phone on the counter and turned to the oven. Her beets smelled done.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, Andrew thundered down the stairs ten minutes before the tardy bell and refused the muffin Julia shoved at him.
“I’ve got a bar in the car,” Andrew said. Julia couldn’t look to Henry, her husband, for support about the importance of breakfast because he’d left at five thirty a.m. for his squash game.
“You need to eat!” she called toward the mudroom, thinking of Andrew famished and reaching for something even more sugary after second period. “The cast list will be posted today!”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Andrew said. Tracy breezed by and pecked her cheek.
“I’ll take that.” She grabbed the muffin from Julia’s outstretched hand. “Love you, Mom.”
Sweet, Julia thought. A twang of gratitude softened the nerves that suppressed her own appetite. She was so jittery, in fact, that she forgot to register Tracy’s outfit as she headed toward the garage. Maybe she’d remembered pink? That Topshop button-down? Had she paired it with the midwash jeans that flattered her nonexistent waist?
“Have a good day!” Julia yelled, though they’d already gone. She grabbed her phone from the gray granite countertop and typed to Andrew, Text me as soon as it’s up!
Julia’s trainer, Ron, would be ringing the bell in five minutes. With only three weeks to go until the annual Theater Booster Club 5K, she desperately needed the cardio. She drained her can of Diet Mountain Dew and flipped on the electric kettle, which sat next to the Vitamix blender. She’d steep a cup of green tea and take a few sips as Ron lined up the weights in her basement. The trainer had lectured her so many times about the neurotoxins in artificial sweeteners that she’d started hiding her Diet Dew habit from him. “I did it!” she’d exclaimed a month ago after he’d asked how the quitting was going. She opened the recycling cabinet now and dropped the most recent can among six others just like it.
As she waited on her tea, Julia paged through a pile of graded work Tracy had left on the dining room table the previous night. She’d earned eighteen out of twenty on a recent math quiz, proving that Julia had been right to argue a space for her daughter in Honors Geometry after the dolt registrar had placed her in regular Algebra 2.
“Check your files,” Julia had beseeched her, leaning across the counter in the school counseling office, her face inches from the clerk’s. “Tracy Abbott has been a member of the Cirrus Program—which you must know is the gifted-and-talented pullout—since second grade.”
“I’ll verify with her counselor and get back to you,” the flushed fiftysomething had mumbled.
And now Tracy was getting an A. Sometimes all anyone had to do was advocate for her child.
Julia paged past Mandarin character practice and a half-finished study guide on geology. And then she came across the posting schedule for Humans of LHHS, the Instagram account of the Liston Lights, a leadership team that Tracy had been tapped for that fall. Their posts mimicked the famous blog out of New York, portraits of community members and first-person stories pulled from interviews. Julia scanned it and found that Tracy wouldn’t be set to post for several weeks. Maybe she’d be able to convince her to highlight Andrew, who’d certainly be deep in rehearsals for Ellis Island by then. She paused next on an assignment from English 9, a paper comparing Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” to The Hunger Games.
Tracy’s English teacher was a mostly attractive woman. Her hair, though, seemed to frizz over her ears in an unfortunate, slightly canine way. Julia placed the teacher in her mid-thirties and noticed she’d pulled distractingly at the waistband of a too-tight skirt during her parent-night presentation. That skirt, though. Julia thought she recognized it from last season’s Michael Kors collection. “Good start, Tracy!” Ms. Johnson had written on the Shirley Jackson paper. “Now go deeper. What about ‘unfairness’ is important here? And, be sure to check for run-ons!” She’d scrawled the grade in pencil: B.
B? When Julia was in ninth grade she’d been summarizing the plot of The Odyssey via CliffsNotes, and here was her fourteen-year-old, comparing themes of texts written sixty years apart.
And for a B?
Julia put down the paper and grabbed her cell. She’d already complained to Isobel Johnson about her methods at the Sadie’s dance. Maybe it was time to mobilize some other mothers. What do you think of this Johnson woman? she texted to Robin. Probably, she mused, everyone was having problems with the English teacher.
The kettle beeped and the doorbell rang simultaneously. Oh, well, Julia thought, leaving the mug empty on the counter as she went to the door. Ron could see her drinking green tea next week.
ISOBEL JOHNSON
Okay, everyone,” Isobel Johnson called to her class as the bell rang. She put her Nalgene bottle down on the desk corner and pushed her black pencil into her falling-out bun. “Books open! Let’s talk about Gatsby’s drive into the city. Big stuff!” Fifth-period American Lit was usually a highlight, the second of three sections she taught in addition to her two ninth-grade classes. Today, though, a weight had settled in Isobel’s stomach. Every time she caught herself enjoying her students, she began to wonder which of their parents might have left that voice mail. The words replayed in her head: “Marxist” and “anti-American” and “for the sake of your career.”
Certainly, Isobel thought, it wasn’t Sarah Smith’s mother. Isobel watched Sarah walk to her seat, lean toward Erin Warner, and whisper something, her curly brown hair skimming Erin’s desktop. They giggled, and Sarah glanced across the room at Andrew Abbott. The two of them had arrived together at the Sadie’s dance just as Julia Abbott had said that mean-spirited thing to Isobel. She’d been getting along with the Abbott kids, but clearly that wasn’t enough for their mother.
The bell rang then, three beeps from the intercom. Isobel licked her teeth behind her lips and cleared her throat, resisting a sidelong glance at Andrew. “Did anyone have a hankering to start our discussion today?” she asked, quieting the students. Maeve’s arm popped up, bent at the elbow.
“Ms. Hollister,” she prompted. It couldn’t have been Maeve’s mother, Isobel thought as the girl began to speak. Maeve was invariably enthusiastic, and she’d given Isobel a box of Godiva as she’d left for winter break. Perhaps Mrs. Hollister wasn’t friends with Julia Abbott.
“Did anyone notice those eyes on the billboard?” Maeve asked. “Right over Wilson’s garage?”
“What a marvelous place to start.” Isobel tapped a pencil eraser on Allen Song’s desk, and Allen promptly dropped his cell phone into the front of his backpack. Isobel gave him an exasperated stare and looked back at Maeve. “Maeve, tell us,” she continued, “what struck you about those eyes?”
“Um, the color, for starters? The blue seemed to create such a . . .” She paused, looking at the ceiling. Isobe
l followed her gaze up to the speckled foam tiles wedged in their aluminum grid. “It created such a stark contrast to the brown of Myrtle’s dress.”
Isobel could always count on Maeve. She took a step away from her desk toward the first row of students, her low heels skimming the thin carpet. “I’m so glad you brought up color,” she said. “And why would Fitzgerald want us to notice a contrast at this particular moment?” The front of Allen Song’s backpack buzzed. “Allen!” Isobel said theatrically. “How hard is it just to turn it off?”
“Sorry, Ms. Johnson. It’s my mom. She’s relentless.”
“Your mother is texting you?” Isobel put her hands on her hips. This was typical, actually. Liston Heights parents didn’t like to wait until dinner to hear the news of the day. “Doesn’t your mom know you’re in the most important class?”
“The cast list for Ellis Island is getting posted at two thirty,” Allen apologized. “My mom’s a little nervous.”
“Of course.” Isobel’s sarcasm elicited a few generous giggles. “Well, to keep her busy for the next forty-five minutes, why don’t you ask your mom to construct a theory about the significance of the color of Jay Gatsby’s car?”
“Really?” Allen asked, reaching for his bag.
“No! Just switch it off, would you? Now, everyone”—she scanned the room, lingering just a half second longer on Andrew, who looked placid—“what can we say about the colors?”
JULIA ABBOTT
At lunchtime Julia picked at a blueberry and goat cheese salad. Her phone pinged the arrival of a text from Robin Bergstrom. Anika says cast list will be posted at 2:30. Julia inhaled sharply and rotated her sterling silver Tiffany bangle, an ages-old gift from her mother, around her wrist.
While Tracy had been busy doing pullout enrichment projects, Andrew had tried out for every theater production since seventh grade. He’d finally, as a ninth grader, been cast as Ticket Seller #2 in some incomprehensible show about a shipwreck. Still, Julia and Henry had built sets on a Saturday and hosted the end-of-run cast and crew party. The next year, Julia had had her heart set on a speaking role for her son.
Andrew, alas, had won the part of prop master. She’d been livid. Nonetheless, she’d gritted her teeth and smiled when John Dittmer, famed Liston Heights theater director, complimented Andrew’s impeccable organization on opening night. “He found all the props and costumes we needed!” he gushed. “Even the emerald green size eleven pumps!” Of course, it had been Julia herself who had scoured every secondhand store in the greater Liston Heights area to get her hands on those hideous shoes for Melissa Young. Who’d ever heard of a high school girl—and a thin one at that!—with size eleven feet? And with an untrained alto? In a lead role?
At the Percys’ holiday party that year, she’d put a bug in the ear of the Theater Boosters’ chair about Melissa Young’s faults as a romantic heroine. “She’s four inches taller than Allen Song,” she’d whisper-shouted. Not to mention, she thought, her enormous feet. “Of course,” she clarified, “I’m a hundred percent in favor of a multiracial lead couple.”
This year’s musical, Ellis Island, had a perfect midsized role for Andrew, who had dutifully taken voice and dance lessons every week throughout the summer between his sophomore and junior years. Meanwhile, Julia had ingratiated herself with Allen Song’s mother at the juice bar after hot yoga. Vivian Song, the new board chair, had breezily offered her the communications position on the Theater Boosters. So this—Andrew’s junior year and just in time for college applications—had to be his moment. The part of Inspector Adams had a short vocal solo and several humorous lines. As a senior, then, he’d be primed to headline.
Two thirty couldn’t come soon enough.
WAYNE WALLACE
At twelve thirty-seven, just as second lunch dispersed, Principal Wayne Wallace meandered across the main entrance foyer, a gigantic Liston Heights Lion scowling down on the crowd from a banner mounted near the thirty-foot-high ceiling. He nodded at Jeanette, who sat smiling behind the welcome desk. “Chin up!” he said. The receptionist nodded, the phone to her ear.
“Everything okay at the district office?” she asked as she hung up.
“You know it, Jen,” Wayne said. He stood next to the desk and high-fived a few students as they walked by. “Go get ’em this afternoon,” he called to the room. “Go get ’em!”
“Wally!” shouted Per Skordahl, the starting center on the hockey team.
“Per shape!” Wayne shouted back his nickname for the boy as he thumped his chest. The kids had taught him this—the chest thumping—one afternoon when he’d swung through the weight room after school. Per raised two fingers in a peace sign and clumped toward the math hallway in his Timberlands.
Wayne turned back to Jeanette and leaned over the desk. “Hey,” he whispered, “what time is Dittmer posting the cast list?”
“Word is two thirty.” Jeanette smiled. “End of sixth period.”
“Can you do me a favor and ask Johnny to meet me in my office in ten?”
“John Dittmer?” Jeanette’s finger scanned the master schedule she’d tacked to the fabric behind her iMac. “I think he teaches fifth period.”
“He can have Alice cover.” Wayne turned toward his office as Jeanette dialed.
The principal had just enough time to crack open a bottle of green juice and scan the Instagram feed before John walked in. John had been featured on Humans of LHHS a year ago during the auditions for Witches over Willow Street. Wayne’s leadership team ran the account, and the principal took pride in its fifteen hundred followers.
“John!” Wayne greeted him. “Come in! Shut the door, would you?”
John sighed. “I need to run scenes with the drama kids. Can we do this quickly?”
“Absolutely,” Wayne said, gesturing to a chair at the black metal conference table. “I just wanted to check in on the spring musical. You all set for the cast announcement this afternoon?”
“I think we’ve got it.”
“Who’s getting the leads?” Wayne asked. “I’m assuming you’ve got Allen Song in there?”
“Allen”—John nodded—“and Maeve Hollister, of course. Justin Williams, Melissa Young. And I’ve got Tryg Ogilvie in the role of the inspector. Missy Porteus in the Russian ballet section . . .”
Wayne raised a hand. “Whoa,” he said. “What about Andrew Abbott?” He took a slug of Odwalla and peered at John. The poster hanging behind the director’s head was one of Wayne’s favorites: “Good things come to those who hustle” in blocky black lettering over a gold background.
“Ensemble,” said John. “He’s a luggage handler.”
Wayne nodded. “Listen, Johnny,” he began, “I wonder if we might bump Andrew up a little bit.”
John stiffened. “Wayne,” he said too loudly.
“Johnny, I’m not talking about the lead lead, but what about that inspector part?” Wayne glanced through the rectangular window to the hallway, where Assistant Principal Sue Montague walked by with a slump-shouldered kid in a gray hoodie.
John sighed again. “Tryg is perfect for that role.”
“Maybe,” conceded Wayne, “but Andrew has paid his dues. Kid’s a junior.”
“And,” muttered John, “his mother donated the new costume shop?”
“I think it’d be a nice gesture.” Wayne bobbed his head. “Thanks for considering it, John. Sometimes, when kids are equal in talent, we’ve got to think of the growth of the program.”
“Gotcha, Wayne.” John stood.
“Okay, buddy. Hey, have a great class. Get those scenes in shape.” As John left the office he drained his juice, and then slam-dunked the bottle in the small green recycling container next to his feet.
JULIA ABBOTT
Julia wrote to Andrew, 2:30?!?!? Text me back as soon as you hear. She sat in front of her computer, trying to read, but unable to stop watc
hing the clock in the upper-right corner of her screen. Every seven to ten seconds, she glanced at her iPhone, her bracelet clacking against it as she picked it up.
She messaged Robin next. Does our assistant stage manager have the inside scoop on the CAST?! Robin’s daughter, Anika, had fallen in love with behind-the-scenes work as a seventh grader when she’d run the light booth for the middle school production of Suessical. Now poor Robin had to attend every single show and pay her Booster dues, all so her daughter could wear black and hide in the wings. “It’s the technical side that really fascinates her,” Robin explained.
Julia had smiled supportively, but that evening over dinner, she surmised with her husband that if Anika were just a tiny bit more attractive or coordinated, she might have made a different “choice.”
Julia’s phone dinged. I wish she DID have the inside scoop, Robin responded, punctuating her short message with a string of eight or nine emojis. Hang in there! came the second text.
Definitely patronizing, Julia decided. Robin couldn’t possibly understand the agony of waiting for news of an actual lead role.
“Do something,” Julia told herself. She scanned Women’s Wear Daily headlines on her laptop for a few seconds. Nothing, not even the Escada brand revamp, held her interest, and after a quick trip to People.com to survey the latest white-and-denim Kardashian family photo, she found herself holding her phone again. Maybe a message to her husband.
Nothing yet! Send.
Henry would be in a series of meetings all afternoon, she knew, and unlikely to speculate about the cast even if he weren’t. “Is that Song kid trying out again?” he’d said last week when Andrew mentioned auditions at dinner.
“Of course,” said Andrew. “You think Allen would skip a Liston Heights production? He’ll almost certainly be cast as Evgeny.”
Minor Dramas & Other Catastrophes Page 2