Crying Laughing

by Lance Rubin

  “Who even is Mrs. Costa?” I genuinely have no idea.

  “Her,” Ms. DiMicelli says, pointing into the lobby, where a wide woman with pinstriped black pants and dangly spiral earrings is striding toward us in the office.

  “Oh boy,” Evan says, a smug told-you-so quality to his voice, “here we go.”

  Mrs. Costa has an undeniably intense look on her face, but for some reason, I’m not afraid. I did what I came here to do: I absolutely killed. I don’t even need outside validation to know that’s true; I can feel it in my heart. So if I get in trouble, it was completely worth it.

  “What is your name?” Mrs. Costa says after she opens the door, barely two steps into the office.

  “Uh, Winnie,” I say. “Winnie Friedman.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t ask first,” Evan blurts out.

  “What?” Mrs. Costa says with a sharp turn of her head to Evan and an annoyed look on her face.

  “If Winnie could do the announcements with me.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about that. She was incredible.”

  A warmth floods my body, beams of light shooting out from my hands, feet, and eyes.

  “You were incredible,” Mrs. Costa says to me, not even like she’s trying to puff me up, just completely matter-of-fact, which is my favorite kind of compliment. “I want you to keep doing the announcements with Evan. You’re a good team.”

  “Oh wow,” Evan says.

  “Great,” I say, trying to seem calm and composed on the outside while inside I’m hurling chunks of birthday cake into the air as confetti rains down.

  “But also…” Mrs. Costa narrows her eyes at me, the ring of keys she’s inexplicably holding hovering in the air between us. “Have you ever thought about joining Speech and Debate?”

  The short answer is: no. I know practically nothing about it, other than it exists and doesn’t sound fun in the slightest.

  “We could really use you,” Mrs. Costa says. “In Impromptu. Or even CI. Maybe we’d actually start winning some tournaments again.”

  I don’t understand the middle part of what she said, but the first and last parts deeply resonate.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Are you tied up in a lot of other extracurriculars? What else do you do?”

  “Mainly just the improv troupe. I write for the newspaper sometimes.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. Evan does Improv and S&D, and he doesn’t have a problem, right?”

  I had no idea he was on the Speech and Debate team. It’s a reminder that there’s still so much about Evan I don’t know.

  “No, not really,” he says. “I mean, it can be overwhelming to juggle both at times, but—”

  “Hush, hush,” Mrs. Costa says. “We’re trying to recruit her, not scare her off.” She looks at me, very sincere. “We would make it work. You don’t have to decide now, but definitely think it over. Our next meeting is tomorrow after school in my classroom, Room 226. Speaking of which, I’ve gotta get back there. My class has probably torn the walls down by now and used the refuse to start a bonfire.”

  She left her classroom to come ask me to do this. Wow.

  “S’mores for everyone,” I say, but Mrs. Costa is already out the door, hustling back to her classroom.

  “Sounds like we’ll be seeing a lot more of you,” Ms. DiMicelli says, giving me a quick impish smile as she organizes papers, plopping them into various trays.

  “Sounds like,” I say.

  “We’ll get you a permanent laminated late pass like Evan has,” she says, scribbling on a piece of paper. A permanent late pass. That’s, like, the VIP all-access badge of late passes. “Probably won’t be necessary, since your homeroom teacher will hear where you are, but helpful in case there’s ever a clueless sub.”

  “Right,” I say, nodding my head like Clueless subs are the worst, aren’t they?

  “For today, take this.” She hands over the nonpermanent late pass for ordinary people.

  “Thanks, Ms. D,” I say.

  “Ooh, I like that,” she says, as if I’ve just given her some startling new insight into who she is, as opposed to engaging in the common practice of shortening someone’s last name down to one letter.

  “This is so cool, right?” I say to Evan as we leave the office, my body practically humming with energy.

  “It is,” he says.

  “We’re gonna get to hang out and make jokes every morning! Like you wanted.”

  “Yeah. For sure, it’s really cool.” But he’s not fully looking at me and doesn’t seem particularly excited.

  “I have no idea what those Speech and Debate words she said mean,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “If you end up joining, you’ll learn.” Or he could just tell me now?

  We walk in a mysteriously tense silence until the tone sounds. “I’m gonna run to first period,” Evan says, as if it’s totally normal for him to be concerned about punctuality.

  “Oh. All right,” I say, wondering what exactly happened to so dramatically alter his mood. Maybe he’s not feeling well.

  “I was a little too late yesterday. I think Mr. Eng was pissed.”

  “No prob.”

  “Okay, cool.” Evan’s already a few steps ahead of me. I guess we’re not kissing goodbye today? I wasn’t totally comfortable when it happened yesterday, but now…“And again, good job this morning.” He’s so businesslike, it’s actually alarming.

  “See you at lunch?” I ask, wanting this interaction to end on a less unsettling note.

  “Oh,” he says, scratching his neck as he turns back to me, “I think so.”

  I think so? He’s the one who got us eating lunch together in the first place!

  “Might have to do some stuff in the library,” he continues.

  That’s the first time I’ve ever heard Evan mention spending time in the library.

  “Okay, so…Maybe see you later, I guess.”

  “Later,” he says. I watch him walk away, my body’s hum reduced to a purr, my triumphant moment all but vanished.

  #Winning?

  22

  “Hey, what do you think of this?” Dad asks, seconds after I walk into the house.

  He’s sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over an index card with a pen, a dozen other chicken-scratched cards scattered in front of him.

  “Hold on,” he says, scribbling out one last thought, so expansive it requires him to write on the back. “Okay!” He looks up at me, a mad scientist fresh off an epiphany. “You ready?”

  “Sure,” I say, still standing in the exact spot where I stopped fifteen seconds ago.

  “Maybe take your backpack off,” Dad says, flicking his hand at my bag. “You’re less likely to laugh if you’re weighed down.”

  I finally understand what’s happening here: Dad is writing jokes. I play it cool, not revealing how surprised and overjoyed I am.

  “Is that a law of physics?” I ask.

  “It is, actually,” Dad says, frenetically arranging his cards. “Einstein discovered it. Any increase in gravitational pull leads to a proportionate decrease in comedic potential.”

  “Well, if Einstein said it…” I take off my backpack and chuck it near the front door, which Mom hates, but I’ll move it before she gets home.

  “I should really learn the names of some other physicists,” Dad says. “Using Einstein for a physics joke is such a cliché at this point.”

  “I was going to say that, but I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “I could have taken it.”

  “Sure you could have.”

  Dad now has all of his index cards in a stack, which he knocks against the table, like a dealer with his deck. “All right, so, okay, I, uh, have been writing some new material.”

  “That’s awesome, D
ad.”

  “Well, maybe wait till you hear the material first.”

  “No, just the fact that you’re doing it is amazing. It’s been a while, right?”

  “How old are you again?” Dad asks.

  “You know how old I am.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll be more dramatic this way.”

  “Fine. I’m fifteen.”

  “It’s been at least fifteen years since I wrote anything.” Dad looks a little shocked, as if saying it out loud really drives home for him how long it’s been.

  “Wow. And now I know it’s totally my fault, too.”

  “Not totally,” Dad says. “Only partially.”

  “Dad!”

  “I’m completely kidding. Obviously.”

  I guess I should be grateful he and I have as close a relationship as we do, considering I’m the one responsible for pulling his dreams out from under him.

  “All right, so you want to hear this?”

  “Yes! Just read your damn jokes!” I shout.

  “I’m gonna stay seated,” Dad says. “Hope that’s all right.”

  “Well, I’m gonna stay standing,” I say. “Hope that’s all right.”

  “So, okay,” Dad says, clearing his throat, “this first bit I wrote is something I’ve been thinking about for a couple years, but I think I finally—”

  “I don’t need an essay about your writing process, Dad. Just let the work speak for itself.”

  Dad looks stunned but also maybe impressed. I hope I haven’t overstepped.

  “I mean, I’d love to hear about process eventually,” I say, “but isn’t that what you always tell me?”

  “It is. Yes. Good call.” Dad reads over his card again. “I don’t know, it might not be ready to share yet.”

  Seeing Dad so nervous about sharing his jokes with me is kind of a revelation. I always think of him as so confident, especially when it comes to comedy.

  “Dad,” I say. “Just read it. You’re, like, my comedy hero.”

  “That’s what scares me,” Dad says. “I don’t want to lose hero status in one fell swoop.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say, but now I’m feeling the weight of what’s about to happen. The gravitational pull, if you will. The health of Dad’s ego (and maybe also his health in general) requires that I produce some very genuine laughs in response to whatever he’s written. No pressure.

  “Okay, okay.” Dad looks down at his card once more, then looks up, and I can tell he’s about to begin. “So, Facebook,” he says, speaking in a way I’ve never heard him speak in my life. Like he’s an old-timey radio announcer having a bad day. “Anybody here like to use the Facebook?” He stares past me, first to the left, then to the right, then clarifies, in his normal voice, “That’s me looking at different audience members.”

  “Gotcha,” I say, now very worried that I’ve entangled myself in something that could tear the fabric of my entire existence.

  “Here’s my problem with Facebook,” Dad says, back to the voice that sounds nothing like him. “I don’t care about most of the stuff I read on there.”

  I force out a laugh, trying to make it sound as real as possible.

  “Like, before Facebook ever existed, let’s imagine this for a moment: if someone told you, ‘Hey, I have an invention that lets you find out what’s going on in the lives of dozens of people you only sort of know or met through a friend once or hung out with briefly at a birthday dinner,’ would that be something you’d be interested in?”

  I laugh, half because it’s an actually funny idea, and half because I’m relieved that I am producing a laugh naturally.

  “And you might say, ‘Uh, I’m not interested in that, not even a little bit,’ but then that someone would persist, ‘But you can see what these people had for dinner! And amazing vacations they went on with their families! And hear their thoughts about our charged political climate! Doesn’t that sound wonderful?’ ” Dad takes a pause, giving his trademark skeptic look, the one I’ve inherited, eyebrows furrowed, smirk in full force, before saying, “ ‘No. No, that sounds like absolute hell to me.’ ”

  And, thank you, sweet universe, it really does make me laugh.

  Dad breaks character to look at me, his eyes lit up like a kid in an iPad store. It just about wrecks me. I had no idea my opinion would count for that much. “You really think that’s funny?” he asks.

  “I do,” I say. “I totally do.”

  “Okay,” he says, nodding. “Maybe this isn’t all total trash.”

  “Of course it’s not.”

  “I, uh, did a little research,” he says, staring down at his cards. “And Ted’s Roasters is doing an open mic night this Friday.”

  It takes me a few seconds to understand where he’s going with this. “Ohmigod, you’re gonna perform? This Friday?”

  “I mean, I don’t know,” Dad says. “I was just thinking about what you and Mom said, and I figured Ted’s could be good since it’s a few towns away, less likely to be performing in front of anybody we know. But maybe it’s a silly idea.”

  “Dad, it’s not! It’s an amazing idea!” I am astonished and delighted that he’s done such a one-eighty on this. It makes me think I should trust my mom’s intuition on things more often.

  “It would just be a start,” he says. “A place to get my feet wet before I dive back into gigs in the city. If I even decide to do that.”

  And suddenly a new vision of the future opens up before me, one where Mom and I are going to New York City comedy shows to watch Dad live out the dream he never got to pursue. It’s beautiful. Exciting. Inspiring.

  And then I, of course, remember that the reason we pushed him to do this in the first place is because his health is deteriorating. This past weekend Mom started replacing the buttons on his pants and on some of his shirts with Velcro because he was having too much trouble getting dressed. Who knows how long he has left before he’s physically unable to perform any comedy at all?

  “It’s a great start, Dad. A perfect start.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll see. I might not be ready by Friday.”

  “You’re doing it,” I say. “Case closed.”

  Dad raises his eyebrows. “Oh wow, if the case is closed, I guess I have no choice.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Well, in that case, I better get back to it, then.” He spreads out his cards, picks up his pen, and returns to scrawling.

  I walk over to the fridge and open it up, making it seem like I’m searching for a snack, but really I’m using it as cover so Dad won’t see how hugely I’m smiling.

  23

  I can’t stop looking at Evan’s face.

  I wish I meant that romantically.

  We’re at improv, and Mr. Martinez has all of us attempting an actual Harold for the first time. Here’s (my limited understanding of) how a Harold works: It starts with a one-word suggestion, which inspires a group game, all of us onstage. In our case, we’re doing a stream-of-consciousness word association as further inspiration for the scenes that will follow, each of us shouting a word brought to mind by what the person before us said.

  After we’ve all said a word, a scene begins with two performers, everyone else moving to the back of the stage. The scene keeps going until a performer not in the scene ends it by running across the front of the stage (that’s called an edit), after which an entirely different scene begins. Then another. Then another group game, after which we return to the stories and characters of those first three unrelated scenes, then another group game, then back to those three scenes to wrap them up and show how they’re actually all connected in these unexpected ways (like maybe a character from the first scene turns out to be the brother of a character in the third scene) (I don’t fully get what I’m talking about, that’s just the example Mr. Martinez gave).
When done well, it’s supposed to be really amazing, like you’ve taken the audience on this journey, almost like an improvised play, surprising them (and yourself) with the way everything’s come together.

  I don’t think we’re doing it well, though.

  Since the entire Harold is inspired by one word (this rehearsal’s suggestion, provided by the ever-inventive Shannon Niola, is food) and then flows from there, it’s up to us to jump in instead of Mr. Martinez picking people scene by scene. Totally by coincidence, Evan and I both jumped out to start the second scene, which you’d think would be a fun thing, getting to do a scene with my boyfriend for the first time.

  It wasn’t.

  Ever since Mrs. Costa fell in love with me on the announcements Tuesday morning, Evan’s been super-weird, swinging from ooey-gooey-affectionate to pouty-mean, then back again. We’ve continued doing the announcements together, but it’s clear that he wishes I weren’t there. Which is bizarre since he’s the one who invited me to do them in the first place. It’s awkward enough that I decided not to go to the Speech and Debate meeting yesterday.

  “I just feel like we should have some stuff that we, like, don’t do together,” Evan said right before the meeting as he walked me to the bus after eighth period.

  “Fine,” I said, even though he’s the one who started sitting with me at lunch not thirty seconds after we started flirting with each other. “I don’t even care about Speech and Debate!” And that’s mainly the truth. I don’t have any burning desire to give speeches or to debate things, but I figured I’d at least show my appreciation for Mrs. Costa’s enthusiasm by showing up and seeing what the deal is. But nope, my new boyfriend doesn’t want me there. Cool!

  “Aight, I gotta run to practice so I’m not late,” Evan said, leaning in to give me a half-hearted kiss I could have done without.

  Then last night he called me, enthusiastic and flirtatious and goofy, and told me he did an impromptu speech at practice that went so well, everyone “lost their shit,” with no acknowledgment whatsoever that I could have been at that practice, was in fact supposed to be, until he put the kibosh on it.

  “What even is impromptu?” I asked, my voice inflected with just a hint of attitude. “I still have no idea.”