by Lance Rubin
Nameball is followed by Zip-Zap-Zop (the clapping-shouting game) and One-Word Story, and by the end, I’m feeling ready to, like, do twenty slam dunks.
“Okay!” Mr. Martinez says. “Our main exercise today is going to be about creating and exploring our environment within the scene. Obviously in improv we don’t have actual sets or actual props, so we’re always miming. And, no joke, scenes can be made or broken by the level of the improvisers’ commitment to the physical reality of the scene.”
“Miming?” I say to Leili, who nods.
“Shit yeah,” Fletcher says, more to himself than me.
“And this means exploring the environment on your own but also paying close attention to what your partner has discovered. It’s still Yes, and, but on a nonverbal wavelength. For example, if your scene partner establishes that there’s a table right over here”—Mr. Martinez swirls his arm around like a spastic wizard casting a spell—“and you don’t notice so you just straight-up walk through the table, that’s going to take the entire audience out of the scene. You feel me?”
Everyone nods. Only Molly Graham-Crockett responds aloud: “Totally.”
“Instead, you say YES, there’s a table over there, AND there’s plates on that table too!” I’ve never seen someone so excited about plates, real or imaginary. “So that’s what this exercise will be all about. Don’t worry so much about the scene, worry more about discovering the environment.”
“Totally,” Molly Graham-Crockett says again.
“Now which of our intrepid improvisers want to go first?”
“Hey,” Fletcher says as he shoots his hand up in the air. It’s the most confident I’ve seen him since the supermarket aisle.
“Great,” Mr. Martinez says, as visibly surprised by Fletcher’s confidence as I am. “Anyone else?”
My arm shoots into the air before I’ve consciously decided to volunteer. “Winnie.” Mr. Martinez is again pleasantly caught off guard, and hearing him say my name jolts me into reality too. Not sure why I threw my hand into the air. I think seeing Fletcher so confident made me feel like I wanted to be a part of whatever was about to happen. As I move into the circle, I catch a look on Evan’s face that might be jealousy, which, though it wasn’t my intention, is not unpleasant.
“So here’s the deal,” Mr. Martinez says. “Fletcher’s going to start the scene by doing some activity to establish an environment. Totally nonverbal. Then Winnie’s going to come in and add something. And then Fletcher can build on that and so on and so on…”
“So no talking at all?” I ask. I am not, nor have I ever been, much of a mime. What have I signed up for?
“I mean,” Mr. Martinez says, “you can exchange some words here and there. But the words shouldn’t be what the scene is about, if that makes sense. What the scene is about should be happening in the physicality.”
“Um, okay,” I say, glancing over at Fletcher, who’s staring straight ahead, nodding his head to the beat of some song only he can hear.
“All right?” Mr. Martinez asks, looking at both of us with care and concern, like he genuinely wants to make sure we’re fully equipped for this exercise in make-believe. It’s endearing.
“Sure,” I say at the same time as Fletcher says, “Oh yeah.”
“Great. Let’s get you two a word.”
“Heat!” Jess Yang shouts. I can’t help but think she’s trying to steer Fletcher and me into some kind of romantic scene in order to screw with Evan. I’m not normally so paranoid, but she was a total a-hole to me last week. So.
“Heat,” Mr. Martinez says, stepping aside. “Go for it.”
The wheels in Fletcher’s head spin for a few moments before he nods definitively and starts to grimace. At first I think it’s because he can’t think of anything, but then I realize he’s already started. He exhales as he undoes the two top buttons on his shirt, even though he’s wearing a T-shirt with no buttons. As he moves his imaginary collar back and forth and loosens his invisible tie, it’s completely obvious to me and the whole room that this type of improv is Fletcher’s sweet spot.
His miming is truly next-level. It’s like I can see every detail of the scene he’s setting, with him as this dude coming home from work on a hot day, taking a load off. Fletcher takes a few steps and struggles to open a nonexistent window, followed by the screen, and then looks authentically relieved as he sticks his top half outside the window frame. I’m so absorbed that Mr. Martinez has to whisper my name to remind me that I’m supposed to join in.
I don’t know how to contribute to this mastery, so I just extend my arm, cupping my hand as if I’m holding a glass of lemonade. I move it from side to side to indicate there’s ice inside. I don’t think it achieves the effect I’m going for.
“Hey,” I say to Fletcher, whose back is to me as he continues to cool off outside a window that’s not actually there.
“Huh?” he says, so convincingly that I’m thinking maybe he forgot I was in the scene with him.
“Oh, here,” I say, trying not to speak too much as I hand him the glass.
“Cool, thanks.” Fletcher turns around and takes the glass from me, then tilts it as if to pour the lemonade all over the ground. Of course, he had no idea it was lemonade. Or that it was a glass. I see that his free hand is now in a fist, suspended in the air a little way down from the other hand, and I realize he’s decided I’ve handed him some kind of pole. He hefts it into the air with a grunt and uses it to open a high-up window above us. He is clearly a mime genius. “Get a breeze going,” Fletcher says as he leans the huge pole against the wall.
“Right,” I say, no clue what to do next.
Luckily, it doesn’t matter because Fletcher slaps his neck and scowls, and I instantly get it. A fly. It just came in through the newly opened window. I’m telling you, next-level.
I’m excited because I’ve had an idea, thinking I’ll take out a flyswatter, but again, Fletcher is a step ahead of me, retrieving the huge pole thing from the wall and starting to flail it around. Hilarious. And much better than an obvious flyswatter.
“Oh shoot, sorry,” Fletcher says as his hands jerk, like the invisible pole has made contact with something above us.
“That was a new chandelier,” I say in a frustrated voice, which gets a huge laugh.
“I know,” he says, placing the pole down at his feet, then looking around the room with intensity, as if he actually is tracking a buzzing fly. “That’s why I said sorry.”
“Try this,” I say, holding up the invisible flyswatter I’d intended to bring out earlier.
“A welding torch?” Fletcher says. “You crazy? You’re gonna burn the house down.”
It’s so surprising and delightful, I can’t help but laugh.
“Stay committed to what’s happening,” Mr. Martinez tells me. “It’s going great.”
I put the swatter-turned-welding-torch down. “You’re right,” I tell Fletcher. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t move,” he says, his attention laser-focused on me.
“Huh?” I turn my head in his direction.
“I said don’t move!”
“Oh.” I freeze, contorting my face in this goofy way that gets some laughs.
“It’s on your head,” Fletcher whispers. “I think I can get it.”
His commitment to this moment is so deep that I find myself raising my own game, exploring the comedic potential of my physicality in ways that would make Lucille Ball proud. I screw up my face and hunch my neck, staring upward as if Fletcher’s imagination has manifested an actual fly on the top of my skull.
The whole room is rapt as he steps closer to me, silently, gracefully, a hunter stalking his tiny prey. He raises one hand in the air, as if ready to smack the fly. Which should be concerning, as that means he’ll soon be smacking me in the head, but I’
m so in the scene, I don’t even care. Fletcher wraps his hand around my wrist, as if to ground himself before he swings.
A chill rolls down my spine as Fletcher’s hand, simultaneously strong and soft, touches my skin.
“Okay, here we go,” he says, raising his other hand higher in the air.
“And let’s end it there,” Mr. Martinez says. “Before Winnie’s parents file a lawsuit against me.” Everyone laughs. I don’t because I’m still shaking off the scene, wishing it could have gone on a little longer. Fletcher takes his hand off my arm. My wrist feels like it’s glowing. “Nice work, you two. That’s the level of commitment we’re talking about with this stuff. Excellent. Set the bar real high.”
I look at Fletcher, who looks how I feel, blinking and reorienting himself to his surroundings, the fire of thirty seconds ago nowhere to be found. He gives me a bashful smile as we walk back to our spots in the circle. I smile back.
“That was really good,” Leili says to Fletcher and me.
“Thanks,” Fletcher says.
“Were you actually going to smack Winnie in the head?”
“I was wondering that too,” I say.
“Nah,” Fletcher says. “The fly was gonna get away before I could do that. I was thinking I might smack myself a bit, though, if it had gone on longer.”
“Wow,” Leili says.
“All right,” Mr. Martinez says, “who wants to follow that up?”
Evan practically leaps into the center of the circle, a man possessed. He and Mahesh do a scene where they play video games in a basement. Evan’s trying really hard to push the buttons on his pretend controller in a way that seems realistic, but he mainly seems spastic. Which is sort of endearing. Mahesh is sloppier and unspecific, looking much more like a dude with twitchy fingers than someone playing a video game.
Once their scene is done, Evan heads back to his spot in the circle and gives me a look and a big smile, like How’d you like THAT? I move my hand back and forth like It was so-so, and Evan’s face falls. I quickly smile and mouth I’m kidding as I give him two thumbs up.
The rest of the scenes are all fine—my favorite is with Leili and Dan Blern, who are paleontologists carefully uncovering dinosaur fossils; Leili accidentally uses the wrong brush and a rare bone crumbles hilariously in her hand—but none of them can match the brilliance of Fletcher Handy.
As Leili and I pack up (Dad is picking us up today) once rehearsal ends, I’m excited to tell Fletcher how great he was and how fun it was to improvise with him, but he’s already dashing out the auditorium door.
“Dan Blern always smells like Cheetos,” Leili says quietly as I watch Fletcher disappear. “Have you ever noticed that?”
“Maybe sometimes,” I say.
“He’s a nice guy,” she continues. “I just really smelled it during our scene.”
“Hey, girl,” Evan says, startling both Leili and me by inserting his head in between ours. “You were really funny today. You too, Leili.”
“Thanks,” Leili and I say at the same time. Evan seems a little jumpier than usual.
“Did you like my scene with Mahesh?” he asks. “It was kinda stupid, right?”
“Oh,” I say. “No, it was great. So funny.”
“Yeah. It was good,” Leili says.
“Hey, do you wanna maybe hang out sometime?” He spits it out so quickly that it almost seems like he’s directing the question at both me and Leili. But then Leili takes a few steps away, and Evan doesn’t tell her not to.
“Oh,” I say, heat rushing to my face. With all the texting we’ve done lately, I assumed this is the direction we were moving in, but it’s still a surprise. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Yeah?” Evan says, visibly relieved. Until this moment, I didn’t realize just how nervous he was. It’s sweet.
“Yeah, totally. Let’s, you know, hang out sometime.”
“She said yes!” Evan shouts up to the high auditorium ceiling.
18
“So you’ll text when you’re ready for a ride home, right?” Evan’s mom asks into the rearview mirror.
“I already told you,” Evan says, “Winnie’s parents are picking us up.”
“Oh, right, right, sorry,” she says, her brown bob cut gently undulating as she shakes her head. “I keep forgetting. Hard to keep all you kids’ plans straight.”
It’s Friday night, and Evan and I are sitting in the first row of his mom’s tan minivan on the way to the movie theater. It’s a little weird since no one’s in the passenger seat, like she’s our chauffeur, but Evan doesn’t seem to care.
I’m very nervous. When he suggested we hang out, I didn’t think he meant something as official as this. I’ve never gone on a movie date in my life. I always thought of it as something only our parents’ generation did.
But that’s part of what makes it charming, too. We’re, like, going on a proper date. I’m wearing an outfit approved via text by Leili and Azadeh. (Classy but hot, Azadeh wrote. Clot, Leili added.) I’m even wearing some light pink lipstick, given to me by my aunt last Hanukkah, and Mom’s eyeliner.
“All right, have fun, you two,” Evan’s mom says as we pull up to the multiplex.
“Thanks, Mom,” Evan says, having already slid open the door and gotten one foot outside it.
“Thanks so much, Mrs. Miller,” I say.
“Sure! Have fun,” she says for the second time. She’s so routine about the whole thing, it makes me wonder how many girls Evan has done this with before. At the very least, he had to have come here with Jess. Probably others. Or maybe she’s just been through it with Evan’s three siblings.
We walk into the lobby, stepping around popcorn crushed into the carpet, and stop at a ticket machine. Evan pushes a series of buttons and swipes a credit card. He takes the first ticket that comes out, and when the second drops into the slot, I grab it.
“Oh,” he says. “No, that’s— That’s just a receipt.”
I look at it and immediately feel foolish, realizing he’s only purchased a ticket for himself.
“I didn’t know if…,” Evan says. “Shoot, sorry. I didn’t want to assume.”
“Oh, of course,” I say. Honestly, I’m fine with it. Glad, even. The idea that a guy is supposed to pay for his date is antiquated and, frankly, pretty sexist.
I punch through the same screens Evan just did until I find the comedy we’re seeing, a new one starring Will Ferrell and Tiffany Haddish that I’m really excited about. They’re two of my all-time favorite people, mainly because of, respectively, Elf and Girls Trip, both of which Dad and I are obsessed with.
“Ohmigod, I won!” I say as my ticket comes out of the machine. “I won!”
“Wait, seriously?” Evan asks excitedly. “Did they give you a free gift card or something?”
“Oh, uh, no,” I say, deflating. “It’s…It’s actually just my ticket. That’s a joke my dad and I do sometimes.”
“Ah, I get it now,” Evan says. “That’s funny. I thought maybe you really did win something.”
“No.”
“That would be kind of funny if you had, though. Like if you randomly got a new car.”
“Right, yeah,” I say. “Definitely.”
“Hey, you want something to eat? My treat. If that’s okay.”
“Sure. Thanks.” I’m happy to move past my misunderstood attempt at humor as quickly and gracefully as possible. Evan usually gets my jokes, so I’m not gonna dwell on one misfire.
“So, are you a popcorn girl?” Evan asks. “Or do you lean candy?”
We’re almost to the snack counter when I see that Jess Yang is behind it. She looks different, her thick black hair up in a bun, but it’s definitely her. I almost choke on my own spit.
“Um,” I say. “Wait.”
“What?” Evan asks. He had to have noti
ced her, right?
“I didn’t know Jess works here.”
“Oh.” Evan looks at Jess, then back at me. “Yeah. She does. Not a big deal.”
“But maybe we want to get our snacks from the counter on the other side? Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Jess doesn’t really like me very much.”
“Well, that’s just because she’s cuh-razy. Seriously. She was really nice when we were going out or whatever, but then she turned total psycho. Like in your improv scene, remember?”
Of course I remember. “Isn’t that even more of a reason to buy food from someone else?”
“I guess. But I’m all about facing your fears, you know?” He puffs his chest out like a superhero and speaks with the gruff rasp of Batman. “Do you want to face your fears with me, Winnie?”
I’m about to say “Not really,” but he takes my hand and says, “Come on.”
So, yeah, we’re holding hands. Which would be nice, except…does the first time it happens really have to be as we approach his ex-girlfriend? I let go.
Two girls ahead of us walk away with a bag of Sour Patch Watermelons and a huge soda, and now it’s our turn.
“What are you doing?” Jess asks Evan without so much as glancing at me.
“Uh…buying food?”
Jess shakes her head, snorting out air. “Fine. What do you want?”
“Oh yeah, we never decided,” Evan says, looking at me. “What do you want?”
I want this interaction to be over, like, yesterday. Is what I want.
“I’m good with whatever,” I mutter, staring down at a lone gummy bear on the floor. I am painfully uncomfortable.
“Do you like Buncha Crunch?” Evan asks me, somehow ignoring the expression on Jess’s face (like she wants to wring his neck).
“Sure, yeah.”