Short

by Holly Goldberg Sloan

  Is that what it means?

  Who knows? This doesn’t feel like the right time to ask.

  Olive dives right in to say her piece or her peace. “Discrimination is about bias!”

  I wish she’d get her point across in a simpler way.

  I can’t stop myself from asking, “What’s bias?”

  She turns to me. She looks happy to answer my question. “It happens when opinions have been formed in advance, and action is taken based on these prior ideas.”

  I’m lost, but I’m still listening. And I have to say that Olive really has a way with words. Also, she has excellent delivery.

  Plus, her cork heels are so high. It adds something to think that she might just lose her balance and fall over. It’s like watching one of those races where the cars speed around the track really fast and you have to pretend you aren’t just waiting for one to slam into the wall.

  I don’t watch those kinds of things on TV, but my brother Tim does.

  Olive’s voice is filled with emotion as she says, “People look at me and they see someone who is short—before they see a woman, or before they see a person of color.”

  I have to admit that this happened to me when I first laid eyes on her. I saw a short person and I thought she was a kid.

  I really didn’t think at all about her being a person of color.

  Now I look at her more carefully. She does have brown arms and very dark hair. I just figured she had a great tan.

  I try to think of her last name, and I can’t remember. Maybe I got caught up in her size and never moved on from that. Is she Hispanic? Or maybe Native American? She could be from India. Or the Philippines?

  I know here and now that I will never be a detective when I grow up. So much gets past me.

  Olive continues, “I met Yan Chang today, and I saw a very active, very interesting woman. Her age was not a factor. I think we owe her the right to audition.”

  Shawn Barr seems to have had enough. He isn’t yelling, but it’s close to that: “Are you finished?”

  Olive nods. “I guess.”

  Shawn Barr’s voice would fill a big school lunchroom: “Then sit down.”

  Olive takes a few steps to the single curved chair by the window and sinks into the cushion. Gianni moves closer to her, which is a nice way of showing support. I bet she’s relieved to be off her feet.

  Shawn Barr says, “I agree. The world is filled with bias, and it’s consumed with judgment and opinions that are hardened and even institutionalized. That’s why we do theater. That’s what it’s about. We are asking people to take another look at themselves and at each other.”

  I can’t stop myself. I say, “I didn’t know that.”

  Gianni stares down at the floor, and I can see that he’s trying not to smile. But I was serious. I wasn’t going for a joke.

  Shawn Barr’s really in the moment. He takes charge of the whole room as he says in a voice that has the pitch of a musical instrument, “This is the reason we make art.”

  I think of art as cutting and pasting construction paper (which isn’t actually used to construct anything real).

  I think of art as the big hunks of clay they give us at school, which we are told to shape into something that will go in a super-hot oven and then come back a week later looking a lot worse than what you sent in, because in your mind, while you were away from the clay, the thing turned into something special.

  I think of art as using your hands.

  I’m wrong.

  According to Shawn Barr, who is talking and staring right at me, “Poets and painters and performers ask us to examine what we see and feel and hear. They understand discrimination and bias. It is the reason they get up in the morning.”

  But he’s not done.

  “I have spent my whole life confronting discrimination on a daily basis. I don’t need to be told what it feels like to be seen as different. Age discrimination is my final frontier. Do you think if I didn’t understand what that was like I would be here, in this town, for these seven weeks, working on this play?”

  Sometimes when a person says something very important (even if you don’t really understand what is being said), there is nothing to do but let them know.

  I put my hands together and I clap.

  I expect Olive and Gianni to join me, but they don’t.

  Olive just shrugs.

  Gianni turns to Shawn Barr and says, “We’ll bring in Mrs. Chang for an audition. If she can handle the harness, she’s in the cast. She’s already got her monkey suit.”

  Shawn Barr has one final thought. “Make sure she doesn’t have a heart condition.”

  Ramon had a heart condition and that’s why he got up into Dad’s leather chair. His instinct was telling him to go to a safe spot because something bad was going to happen.

  I hope that if Mrs. Chang has a heart problem she already knows. It doesn’t seem like being up in the air in a harness is a safe spot.

  Shawn Barr looks away. He stares out one of the round windows. I don’t think he’s worrying about flying a seventy-six-year-old woman around onstage. He picks up what he was reading, and I see that it’s something called Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.

  I’ve never heard of it. The cover says that it’s written by August Wilson.

  I suddenly wish my parents had named me August instead of Julia. It’s a great name.

  But I was born in February, and their imagination didn’t extend that far. I wouldn’t want to be named February. People might want to make the word into a nickname, and then I’d be Feb.

  I feel like someone with that name might be a liar.

  We barely say good-bye, and then we leave Shawn Barr and walk out into the sunny afternoon. It seems brighter than before, because his room had a lot of shadows. But also because maybe we learned something and we now see more.

  I’m not sure what really happened in there, but I don’t feel like singing “One-two-three—Look, you fool: Aren’t we cool.”

  Our mood has changed. We’re different. Maybe in our own way we’re all thinking about art.

  I look around at the motel, and I can see the building as if it were made of blocks. It feels like there are ideas behind the walls. Maybe it’s just because I know that Shawn Barr with all of his books and plays is here, and that Gianni sleeps in one of the rooms and maybe he has equipment inside to make people fly.

  Once we are on the street Gianni holds the car door open for Olive. He didn’t do that before. She tosses in her purse and doesn’t try to hide the fact that she then sits on it to make herself taller.

  We’re just getting ready to go when I realize that I don’t have anything from the Bay Motel for my scrapbook and I really want to remember today.

  I say, “Wait, I forgot something.”

  I jump out and run back into the courtyard. I look around, and there’s still no one in the office, so I can’t ask for a postcard or printed stationery. But the laundry room door is open, so I go inside.

  I spot something. There is a matchbook on top of a blue plastic bucket that has lint. The matchbook cover says:

  YELLOW BRICK BAR & GRILL

  I turn the matchbook over, and I see that the Yellow Brick Bar and Grill is a long way from here. It’s in Kansas!

  This feels like some kind of sign. It might be called an omen. Or maybe the Wizard of Oz connection is just a crazy coincidence. I take the matchbook and I put it into my pocket and run back out to the truck.

  I don’t tell Olive or Gianni about my incredible find. It’s okay to have secrets.

  Once I get into my seat, I feel like they might also have a secret. They are talking in softer voices, and I catch just the end of what they are saying, and the words: “We can drop her off first.”

  Maybe they’re going out for ice cream or they want to drive somewhere and t
hink more about discrimination or art and I’d just get in the way.

  Or maybe they are just planning to go play a round of miniature golf.

  I’m okay with that. I feel lucky that I got to be part of this much of the day.

  It doesn’t take long to get back to my house, but on the drive I stare at all the places in town that I’ve seen but not actually looked at before.

  I’m wondering what’s going on inside the apartments on Walnut Street and who is standing at the counter in the florist shop on Fairmont.

  There are so many people with so many stories behind all the walls and doors. It fills me up just thinking about it. Plus, I wonder how many of the rooms have round windows.

  Does everyone have something that causes heartache?

  Shawn Barr said that the reason to get up in the morning was to make art.

  Maybe that’s not what he said, but he did say we were artists.

  Or at least he was.

  I’m going to concentrate on seeing more of the world around me.

  • • •

  Randy is in the kitchen when I get home, and he’s making a cake. Not from scratch, but by adding eggs and water and oil to a mix that comes in a box. My mom told him it was okay to turn on the oven. She’s still on the phone at her desk probably talking about drip systems.

  When I investigate further (with my eyes) I see that he has two different bowls and two different cake mixes.

  One is for yellow cake and one is for chocolate cake.

  I take a seat at the counter, and I watch as he pours part of each batter into round pans. He then takes a spoon and slowly moves it through the batter.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “It’s a marble cake. I used two boxes, so it’s going to be six layers. It’s enough for two regular cakes.”

  “Is it someone’s birthday?”

  Randy says, “Sure. Somewhere. Not in this house, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a party.”

  I would stay and talk to him, but I want to work on my scrapbook, and also, he’s having fun and doesn’t need me.

  One of the best things about Randy as a little brother is that he’s very independent.

  We live only eight blocks from Condon Elementary School, and when Randy first started kindergarten it was my job to bring him home and watch him until Tim got back from middle school. This shouldn’t have been a big deal, but Randy doesn’t ever walk in a straight line. He stops to pet a cat or to stare at ants. He’s never in a hurry.

  I always wanted to get home quick because Ramon was waiting. The first thing I would do when I unlocked the back door of our house was climb on the stepstool and get a beef strip from the container that was on the top shelf in the laundry room.

  “Treat!” I would say. Then Ramon would twirl around in circles and finally sit.

  After a week of trying to make Randy move faster, I came up with the idea of giving him a treat too.

  I said, “We need to get home so that you and Ramon can both have your treats.”

  That got Randy going. He’s always loved food.

  Once we were inside the house I went for Ramon’s beef strip, but Randy said, “What about me?”

  I was planning on giving him a cookie or something from the kitchen, but he was the one who asked for a beef strip. And he liked it.

  Everything went along great until I got a sore throat right before Halloween. My mom didn’t go to work because I was sick, and when the time was right she walked to school to get Randy. When they got home he wanted a treat, and she started for the kitchen.

  But Randy pointed up to the beef strips and said, “Julia gives me one of those.”

  I bet you could hear my mom shout “Julia!” a block away.

  The only thing Randy ever said to me was that the beef sticks were salty. He liked the taste. And also, he enjoyed pretending to be a dog and sitting next to Ramon before they got their rewards.

  That’s not my fault.

  Now he’s in the kitchen mixing chocolate and yellow cake mixes. I don’t want to get blamed if it doesn’t work out.

  Once I’m in my room I put the matchbook and the napkin on top of my scrapbook and I go curl up on the bed.

  I have so much to think about.

  I can see that Olive likes Gianni in a special way. This is so interesting because Larry and Quincy both seem crazy about her, but she doesn’t care.

  I don’t want to set my goals low, but when I’m ready, I think it will probably be easier to find a boyfriend if the person already likes me.

  Gianni is from out of town and he’s worked with famous people, so that might make him more interesting to Olive. Or maybe it’s that Quincy and Larry aren’t tall like Gianni.

  It could be Olive wants the world to know that she can get a guy over six feet to like her. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. But Mrs. Vancil said we live in a culture where fame is too important and that because of this, people will do all kinds of things to show off.

  I guess if everyone is showing off, then there is no one to show off to, which can be a problem.

  When you are showing off, you stop thinking about other people.

  I hope being in a play isn’t showing off.

  It might be.

  I think that true art isn’t showing off, but maybe bad art is.

  Only, how do you tell the difference?

  If art isn’t just taking construction paper and making a picture using four shapes and three colors—if it’s trying to make people see the world and their life in a different way—then maybe that’s what I want to do when I’m an adult.

  I’m wondering how you get paid for that.

  I would like to put something in my scrapbook to remind me not to lose this idea about art, and to think about it more.

  With my eyes closed I can really concentrate (and I just hope I don’t fall asleep, which happens a lot when I’m trying to work out stuff).

  I decide that art might have two parts: Making things up and feeling things.

  I open my scrapbook, and I leave space for the black paper napkin with the gold stars and for the matchbook from the Yellow Brick Bar and Grill in Kansas. I then take a pen, and I write:

  Maybe the biggest question for me is, what is art?

  Maybe the answer is: Imagination mixed with Emotion.

  Or maybe not.

  Maybe art takes time to understand.

  Also, maybe the artist is the person to know the art, and the rest of us are there to feel the art.

  Or maybe the other way around.

  I decide I might get a headache if I don’t stop thinking about this, so I quit. But I may have made some progress. And I have an excellent scrapbook page, because this is the first time I’ve put in a written entry.

  I realize I’ve been in my room for a long time, because I smell Randy’s cake and then I hear him shout, “Who’s ready to celebrate a birthday?”

  TWENTY

  Rehearsal is big today.

  Shawn Barr’s walking now!

  Little steps. He’s on his feet and doesn’t have to be carried, which is the greatest.

  I give him a wave and I take my place in a front-row theater seat, which is how we are supposed to start every rehearsal. He doesn’t wave back, but he does make a thumbs-up sign to me. I then do a thumbs-up, and I see some other kids do the same.

  These theater kids are real copycats. But maybe that’s why they are theater kids.

  Shawn Barr sits in a special chair that I’ve never seen before. It has what looks like a donut or a baby’s pool float on the seat. It’s plastic and round and filled with air and it has a hole in the center.

  Shawn Barr closes his eyes as he lowers himself, and his face wrinkles up in a way that says Wow. This hurts.

  But this is a big day not just becaus
e our director is walking. This is when we will meet the stars of our show.

  The first new people are college students, and they play the parts of the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man. The correct way to call the Tin Man is to say the Tin Woodman.

  But no one does this.

  The Tin Man is played by Joe Carosco. The Scarecrow is a guy named Ahmet Bulgu. And the Cowardly Lion is Ryan Metzler.

  I like them right away. Especially Joe the Tin Man.

  All of us Munchkins come up on the stage, and we’re supposed to sit with our legs crossed. This is easier for some kids to do than others. Adults think kids love to sit this way, but it’s not very comfortable. At least not for me. My knees stick up high, and Olive says that’s because I don’t have flexible hips. Her advice is to do yoga.

  I don’t want to carry a mat anyplace or wear super-clingy pants, so I’m not interested. But I act like yoga is a great idea.

  Once we are all settled in our places Shawn Barr says, “We’ve been waiting for her and now she’s here. We have our Dorothy. I’d like you all to meet Gillian Moffat.”

  He then looks into the wings, which is the side of the stage you can’t see from the audience, and a woman comes out. I guess she’s been hiding from us because she understands about making a good entrance.

  I want to give her a big, warm welcome. This is something I’ve heard people say on television. “Let’s give the person a big, warm welcome!” So I start to clap.

  All the Munchkins then clap with me.

  I think I have the possibility of becoming power mad, because getting the other kids to do something is a great feeling. Maybe I will end up working for the military. I don’t like weapons, but it turns out I enjoy having people follow what I do. This could just mean I want to be the boss.

  Gillian Moffat is not a college student.

  She plays the part of a fourteen-year-old (or whatever age Dorothy is supposed to be in The Wizard of Oz), but in real life I think she’s in her late twenties. However, she looks like a teenager because she’s thin and seems flexible. She moves in a young way that involves turning her head a lot and speaking in a voice that is high-pitched and lively.