Fame, Glory, and Other Things on My to Do List

by Janette Rallison

  He turned the key again and got another click for his efforts.

  Mr. Hunter turned off the Jaguar and strode over to the rest of us. “I don’t think it’s the battery after all. That sounded like the starter motor. Have you had trouble like this before?”

  Jordan’s gaze darted to mine, then back to his father’s. “Now that I think of it, there have been a couple of times when it didn’t start right off.”

  Mr. Hunter shook his head and put his hands on his hips. “This is what comes from purchasing cheap cars. I’ll buy you something decent when we get back to town. What kind of car do you want?”

  Jordan turned the key again. Click. “You don’t have to do that, Dad.”

  “I want to,” Mr. Hunter said. “How about a Lexus? They’re reliable.”

  Jordan’s mom narrowed her eyes at her ex-husband. “This is just like you. You think every problem can be solved by throwing money at it.”

  “Every problem—no. Car problems—yes.”

  She folded her arms. “Jordan doesn’t need a new car. We can get the starter motor fixed.”

  Mr. Hunter matched her stance, putting his hands on his hips. “And then something else will fall apart. Do you think you’re the only one that worries about Jordan’s safety? He needs a new car.”

  “Then I’ll buy it,” she said.

  When my parents fight, they raise their voices. Jordan’s parents lowered theirs. “You don’t want to buy him a car,” Mr. Hunter said. “You’re just determined not to let me have any part in his life, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, that’s rich coming from you. Where have you been for the last seventeen years?”

  Jordan flung the door of the Civic open. “Stop it!” he yelled. “I can’t believe the two of you can’t get along for one evening. I can’t believe this!” He slammed the door, then stormed up the cabin steps. One slam later he was inside.

  Jordan’s mom and dad looked at each other. Then they looked at me.

  I had been on some bad dates in my life, but this one outdistanced them all. There is nothing more awkward than being stuck at a cabin with two arguing adults and their son who no longer likes you. The silence felt colder than the night air.

  Finally, Mr. Hunter’s gaze turned back to his ex-wife. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.

  Ms. Hunter looked at the ground. “No, it was my fault. I just . . .” She sighed, put one hand to her temple like she had a headache, and then looked over at the cabin. “We’d better go in and talk to him.”

  “Right,” Mr. Hunter said. Then without another glance at me, they walked up the steps. Together, but stiffly apart.

  With my hands in my pockets, I stared at the cabin. What exactly was a girl who was pretending to be a guy’s date supposed to do in the middle of a family fight? I’m not sure Miss Manners has ever covered this topic in her etiquette column.

  Finally—mostly because I didn’t want to go inside—I decided to try my Civic again. Jordan had left my key in the ignition, so I just slid into the car and patted the steering column. “There, there, you’re a good car.” I turned the key. Nothing. “All right then, you’re an awful car. If you had started when you were supposed to, everything would have been fine—but no, you had to turn this event into something truly horrible because you’re an evil, evil car.”

  I smacked the steering column just to emphasize the point.

  The next time Kate tells me about my charmed life, I’m going to give her a quick reality check by referring to this moment. I’d told my father for ages that my Civic was a piece of junk, and the only thing I ever got for my trouble was a lecture on the cost of car payments. Jordan’s car didn’t start once, and two seconds later his parents were arguing over who got to buy him a new one.

  I wondered if he would fess up that it was my car that didn’t work or whether he’d just let them buy him a Lexus. And if so, what would happen to my car? His parents would most likely fix the starter motor so they could trade it in—and wait—didn’t car dealers check the serial numbers on vehicles against the owner’s registration? They must. When Jordan’s parents tried to trade in my Civic, we’d be caught.

  I smacked the steering column again. “This could have gone perfectly smoothly, and now I’m going to be stuck flirting with some greasy mechanic named Gus.”

  I sat glaring at my car for another five minutes, and then because I’m an optimist, I tried the key again. This time it worked. I nearly cried out in joy. Letting the car idle, I ran up to the cabin, opened the door, and called out, “Um, excuse me, I got the Honda to start.”

  One by one Jordan and his parents emerged from the living room. Most of the tension had left the group. Jordan’s face was devoid of emotion, but his parents did their best to act happy.

  “Great,” his mom said. “That will save us a call to a tow truck.”

  “We’ll stick together on the drive home to make sure it doesn’t have any more problems,” his dad added.

  Jordan shrugged listlessly and walked back outside. “Fine.”

  Mr. Hunter watched him go, and then turned to me. “Hey, I’m sorry Jordan had to come up here and ruin your date and all. I’ll make it up to you kids though. I’ll make reservations in the nicest restaurant in town for you tomorrow night, okay?”

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “Really.” Because first of all, this would not make Jordan happier; second of all, it feels horrible to have someone apologize to you for something that is actually your fault; and last, the nicest restaurant in Three Forks is Applebee’s, and you usually don’t need reservations to go there. I slipped out of the door and hurried to catch up to Jordan. His mom must have said something to his dad because behind me I heard Mr. Hunter say, “Making a reservation at a restaurant is not throwing money around.”

  Jordan climbed into the Honda. His father came and stood next to the driver’s side window. “Don’t you want to drive the Jaguar home?”

  “No,” Jordan said, “I want to take a farewell ride in my Honda.”

  Mr. Hunter smiled. “All right. Just make sure you don’t turn the engine off when you take Jessica home, or you might be stranded at her house.”

  “Okay,” Jordan said. He didn’t look at his father.

  “We’ll follow you back to Three Forks.” Mr. Hunter tapped the car door with his hand as though giving it his blessing, and then walked over to the Jaguar.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything as I got into the car.

  Jordan pulled out onto the dirt driveway and drove silently back to the main road. Finally, when we were halfway down the mountain, he glanced over at me. “So, were you waiting for a sign from God before you got your car fixed? Because if so, this was it.”

  “I’ll tell my father it wouldn’t start again,” I said. “But unlike your father, he seems more concerned about his wallet than about his child having reliable transportation.”

  “Well, I guess that’s one more reason for you to be a movie star then. After you make it in Hollywood, you can buy off your children with new cars.”

  “Your dad was just trying to be nice to you,” I said.

  “If he wanted to be nice to me, he never would have left the family in the first place,” Jordan flung back.

  Sometimes people show you wounds too big to be healed with words. I wished I knew a magic phrase to make all his pain go away, but I didn’t. I wasn’t even sure what the right trite phrase to say was. We drove on, the quiet growing so big it seemed suffocating. “I’m sorry tonight didn’t go the way you wanted it to,” I said.

  He nodded, and didn’t speak. His knuckles were white against the steering wheel. His jaw muscles pulsed. We left the mountainside, and drove onto the highway. The silence stretched on like the road before us. Jordan was miserable, and I hated sitting there saying nothing.

  “Maybe they’re just happier without each other,” I said. “You want them to be happy, don’t you?”

  Jordan rolled his eyes. “My dad still has family pic
tures from ten years ago hanging up in his house. My mom never goes out with anybody past the third date. He sends me money on her birthday so I can buy her something nice. She has every one of his movies and every episode of his police show. She says they’re for me, but I’m not the one who’ll go on doughnut binges and watch episode after episode at midnight. The first thing he always asks me when I come for a visit is how my mom is. She still has her wedding dress stashed in a box in her closet. Why would a woman whose only child is a son keep her wedding dress?”

  Well, if it were my family, the answer would be that my mom wanted to get remarried and was too thrifty to buy a new wedding dress. But somehow I doubted this was the case for Jordan’s mom.

  Jordan shook his head. “They just can’t let go of the little things long enough to grasp what would make them happy.” He let out a grunt of disgust. “I don’t know why I even tried to help them. If they want to live miserable, lonely lives, there’s nothing I can do to stop them.”

  The only conversation for the rest of the car trip came from the radio. It was clear Jordan didn’t want to talk, and after a few more attempts, I gave up and just stared out the window into the darkness.

  When we pulled up at my house, Jordan turned off my car, took the screwdriver from his jacket, and switched the license plate from my car to his. Then he screwed my plate back on. “Well, your debt to me is paid.”

  “Right.” The word sounded hollow in my throat. “I guess I’ll see you at drama practice.”

  “Let me walk you to your door.”

  We made our way silently to my door. It seemed strange he was saying good-bye this way, since ours had never been a real date. Usually, when I said good night to a guy on the doorstep, I told him what a good time I’d had. I didn’t know what to say now.

  When we got to my front door, Jordan checked his watch. I knew it was about ten o’clock since staring at the car clock had been one of the few activities available to me on the ride home. “Are your parents still up?” he asked me.

  “Probably.”

  “Do you want me to go talk to your dad about the starter motor on your car?”

  “That’s okay. I’ll tell him.”

  Jordan looked at the door, then back at me. “You told him before, and he didn’t fix it. The problem will just get worse, and if you don’t take care of it, you really will be stranded someplace.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “Is it the money? I can loan you the money if you need it.”

  I put my hand on the doorknob, but didn’t open it. “My parents aren’t destitute, Jordan. They’re just cheap. And busy. And, well, they’re sort of procrastinators too, but they can get the car fixed.”

  “Right away?” he asked. “When you were stuck at Wal-Mart, you didn’t even have your phone with you, Jessica. What are you going to do if you get stranded out in the wilderness somewhere?”

  “I don’t usually drive my car out into the wilderness and then turn off the engine, Jordan.”

  He waved a finger at me. “See. I can tell you’re not taking this seriously. I’m talking to your dad.”

  And then he did. Jordan walked into my house, found my dad paying bills at the kitchen table, and told him my starter motor needed to be replaced.

  My dad acted all surprised about this, like it was the first time he’d ever heard about it, or maybe he was just surprised that Jordan had come inside to tell him about it. But at any rate, Dad promised he’d look into it tomorrow.

  Then I walked Jordan back to the door, blushing, though I’m not sure why. I guess it was partly because Jordan had sort of called my dad on the carpet for not fixing my car, but mostly it was because I’d just realized Jordan still liked me.

  This moment was like the family pictures hanging in Christopher Hunter’s house. It was an old wedding dress stashed in the closet. Jordan wanted to make sure I was safe in my car.

  “See you at rehearsal,” he told me.

  “Definitely,” I said.

  Eleven

  Over the weekend I thought of all sorts of things to talk to Jordan about—questions to ask, ways to comfort him. On Monday and Tuesday at rehearsal I never had a chance to say any of it. We were practicing with the orchestra for the first time, which meant Mrs. Shale made Jordan run through all his songs about ten times. When he wasn’t belting out “Something’s Coming” or “There’s a Place for Us,” Andre, Tye, and Jeff surrounded him. They came up with secret gang handshakes. And no, this wasn’t in the play—this is just how guys amuse themselves when they have too much time on their hands.

  Mr. Hunter didn’t come. Jordan told the cast his dad had some business to take care of in California, but would be back opening night. Which I suppose meant his parents hadn’t reconciled on the way home from the cabin.

  On Wednesday at dress rehearsal, almost everyone ran around in nervous disorganization. When Jordan wasn’t onstage, he stood in the wings with the rest of the cast to see how we managed our first live run-through.

  As it turned out, we didn’t manage it very well. The new lines still messed up some of the cast, who either forgot to change them or forgot what the new version was. As a protest to the new politically correct rendition of the play, Andre said all of his lines as though his character, Riff, was psychotic. He made the phrases “Riga tiga tum tum” and “Daddy-o” sound like something you could be arrested for.

  We finished our Jet dance four beats after the music stopped. Jordan dropped the knife when he was supposed to stab Jeff, so Jeff just stood there waiting for Jordan to pick up the knife and kill him. The Sharks and the Jets both broke out laughing until Mrs. Shale stood up to yell her You-are-not-taking-this-seriously speech. We’d heard this tirade along with her Timing-is-everything! outbursts in increasing intervals throughout the week, and I knew her near-nervous-breakdown screaming fit loomed just around the corner.

  The light crew apparently had some difficulties because every once in a while the stage lights would disappear, and then we’d stumble around in the dark saying our lines blindly while we tried not to bump into the sets. Half the time the spotlight trailed after whomever it was supposed to illuminate, so it looked like a huge white dot was chasing the characters.

  Then in the second act when Anita is supposed to push open Maria’s bedroom door, the door came off its hinges and toppled over. If Mary hadn’t jumped away, it would have flattened her. Instead of going on with the scene, Mary stormed to the edge of the stage and waved a hand wildly in Lauren’s direction. “See, Mrs. Shale! Lauren is trying to kill me to get my part. Now you have proof. She rigged that door!”

  Mrs. Shale tapped her pencil against her script and called backstage, “Someone from props crew get the door off the set!” She then turned to Mary. “Accidents happen. No one is trying to kill you. We’ll make sure it’s fixed for tomorrow’s performance.” Waving a pencil at Mary, she collapsed back onto her chair. “Continue on.”

  Mary put her hands on her hips. “Doors don’t just fall over!”

  For two seconds Mrs. Shale said nothing. Then she stood up, heaving deep breaths while her face reddened. She flung her script down on the chair and yelled, “I don’t care if the whole set falls down! I don’t care if you forget your lines, your props, or your dance moves. I don’t care if you develop a fullblown case of amnesia! When you run through a play, you don’t stop in the middle of a scene. Ever! Now continue on!”

  Evidently the near nervous breakdown had arrived.

  Mary went on and recited her lines sullenly, which matched Kate’s performance, since she’d been sullen ever since the rest of the cast stopped talking to her.

  Finally rehearsal ended, and Mrs. Shale gave us the usual half pep talk/half threat speech. She told us in drama tradition, a bad dress rehearsal meant a good opening night, and after today we were bound to have a great performance tomorrow night.

  But I’m not sure she meant it. I noticed she’d nearly chewed through her pencil.

  Jordan left be
fore I could say anything to him, which really annoyed me. I mean, he liked me. I knew it, and yet he still wouldn’t talk to me long enough to work things out. And then he had the nerve to be mad at his parents for doing the same thing. What kind of justice was that? I needed to talk to him while we were both still in the play and I at least had a chance to be alone with him. If I could ever get a chance to be alone with him again.

  At five o clock on Thursday, we all showed up at the auditorium to get into our costumes and run over trouble spots before the performance started. We went through the opening Jet dance until we ended at the same time the music did. Jordan stabbed Jeff so many times that Jeff nearly died before Jordan even pulled his knife out. The spotlight stopped chasing the actors and illuminated them instead. Mrs. Shale finally quit smacking things with her fists while she talked to us. She still mumbled out, “Timing is everything,” once in a while, but even this mantra had taken on a resigned tone.

  Then we went to the greenroom and waited for the auditorium to fill up. Lauren brought us all gingerbread man cookies shaped like our characters, which even I had to admit was way creative. Mine had long blond hair frosting. Jordan’s wore a bandanna to make him look like a tough-guy gang member. Andre made a big deal because his gingerbread man cookie was lighter colored than some of the others. “Is that some sort of racial slur? Are you insulting my Latvian heritage?” He waved the cookie in Kate’s direction. “I’d better run this past the mistress of political correctness.”

  “Shut up and eat your cookie,” I told him.

  “Or you can just give it to Mrs. Shale,” Jeff added. “She’s ready to bite your head off anyway.”

  Kate nibbled away at her Anita cookie. “One day you’ll thank me for making you aware of all the social oppression around us.”

  “Kate,” I said, “shut up and eat your cookie.”

  After Lauren put the Maria cookie in her hand, Mary eyed it suspiciously. “Thanks, did you add any special ingredients to mine?”

  Lauren’s expression twisted in disgust. “Sorry, I didn’t have any ingredients to boost your acting skills. So you’ll still give a lousy performance.”