Little Did I Know: A Novel (18 page)

One of the first guys we saw was a kid from the Boston Conservatory of Music. To call him handsome was to say Linda Carter might turn a few heads doing that run in her Wonder Woman costume. He was also cocky. His name was Zach Rush. Zach was more than six feet, trim and fit. He had perfect auburn hair that he combed straight back, yet it fell a bit with a perfect wave. With his neatly trimmed goatee, he could ride in on a horse singing “Camelot.” He was wearing a light, white cotton turtleneck and black slacks. His resume listed dozens of great roles played at good schools, and his resume picture was even better than the real thing.

“Would you like to sing first or read?” I asked.

“Sing, if that’s all right.”

“What did you bring?” said the good Dr. Elliot from his seat at the piano.

Zach pulled a book from his knapsack some one hundred pages thick. “How about ‘Maria’ from
West Side Story?”
I found myself not liking this guy. He was too good looking, too full of himself, and he told us that “Maria” was from
West Side Story
as if we didn’t know. What an ass.

He began.
“The most beautiful sound I ever heard. . .”

The entire room went WOW. No one breathed until he was finished singing—in perfect pitch with perfect timbre. Ellie’s face was flushed when he was done, and I guessed that her underwear was damp from multiple orgasms. I hated the guy. Not because he wasn’t great but because he was so good I simply wanted to punch him.

“So you can sing,” I said without emotion, and the room mocked me for my lack of enthusiasm.

“Yes, a little bit,” Rush replied with his big, stupid, perfect teeth smiling just right.

“Would you like to read?” I asked, almost hoping he would stutter.

“Sure.” What was he so happy about? Didn’t he know it was early in the morning and show business was a bitch? “Side C?” he asked.

“Jojo will read with you,” I said. “Any questions?” I hoped he’d ask if he could leave now and forget we ever met. Instead, he took a seat across from Jojo and began the scene.

One must note that in the musical
Company
, this particular scene is the denouement of the entire show. It is between two friends, one a midthirties, uncommitted bachelor and the other a three-time bride in her early forties, rich, bitchy, sexy, and on the prowl. The scene needs confidence and nuance. It needs understated sex and a sense of danger. When the married woman comes on to the hero, we have to wonder if she means it or is just attempting to jolt him so he might join the game of life. It’s a tough scene to pull off even after hours of rehearsing with an actress, not just a stage manger reading lines.

They began. Jojo read professionally, offering very little but keeping the cues coming. Zach Rush—Zach Fucking Rush—was electric. He was sexy and flirtatious, vulnerable yet tough. He had humor and a certain edge that made the whole thing textured, dramatic, and thrilling. The guy was great.

I looked at his resume to see if he had played this role before and come in with a replica of a previous performance. The role of Robert did not appear.

I looked around the room. Everyone was dumbstruck.

Elliot stepped in. “Zach, would you mind singing something from
Company?”

Zach couldn’t have been happier. He took center stage in the studio and then, with Elliot playing gracefully, Zach Rush sang “Being Alive,” my favorite show tune in the world, better than one could ever imagine.

“Well, Zach, that was all fantastic. Really great. Thank you,” I said. The others in the room tried to speak, making a series of indistinguishable grunts that sort of sounded like a herd of cows grazing.

“Thank you,” Rush said. “Thank you so much.”

“Zach, why do you want to come and work for us?” Elliot asked sincerely.

“Well, great parts. I have heard a great deal about you guys, and I saw your production of
Follies
, which was terrific. My folks live on the Cape, and my girlfriend lives here in Boston. Most important, I truly want to do something quality this summer and then kick off my career in New York.”

“Zach,” I asked, “and please don’t take this the wrong way—are you a dick?”

“What?” he said, the question carrying much more weight than you might imagine from a word with a single syllable.

“I’m sorry. I know it seems rude, but you are so good and we would want you with us so badly, unless you’re an asshole, you know, difficult, a diva.”

He laughed. “Wow, this is flattering, I guess. No, I am not an asshole. I work hard and I love doing theater, and I would like to be with you this summer. It would be a huge break for me. I have only one request.”

Here it comes
, I thought. “What is that, Zach?”

“If possible I’d like my own room. I’ll take less money if I have to, but a private room would be important to me.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, sir,” Rush replied with his big, stupid, perfect teeth.

“That’s just fine, Zach. We can make that happen. Jojo will call you tonight. Welcome aboard.”

Rush left the room knowing he’d be spending his summer on the Cape.

Jojo Backman got up from her chair and walked over to me. “‘Don’t mean to be rude, Zach, but are you a dick?’ Well, I don’t mean to be rude, Mr. Director, but you’re an idiot. Do you want bad people to work with us, or do you only want them to be good if they have big tits and long legs?”

“It’s not that,” I said, trying to hold on to a shred of dignity.

“Really.”

“They guy was just
so
good. I mean, he’s sensational. He’s gonna be a diva and I’m the one who will have to deal with it . . .”

The room erupted with a collective moan.

“It will be
our
problem,” Jojo said, her voice void of any warmth, “not solely yours. Let the guy show up before you dislike him. And grow up, you moron. You can’t cast all the parts with cute girls. Focus.”

I was humbled. I asked that we bring in the next person, before a trap door opened and I ended somewhere subterranean.

Next was a redhead. Frizzy hair. Big voice.

Leggy wonder from Harvard. Pass. She should go to medical school.

Beefy character actor. Huge voice.

The one girl I was ever truly in love with came in and sang “Adelaide’s Lament” from
Guys and Dolls
. I listened to her sing and turned to goo. She’d never noticed me when we were in school and she offered complete indifference today, but she had shown up. I was going to cast her.

Handsome guy. Pretty boy. Dark features. Hired.

Big heavyset girl. Good voice. Funny. Wants to dance with the other chorines. No way. Her ass needed its own zip code.

Janet Kessler. Enough said. Hired.

A kid all the way in from Philly. Looked like a rock star. Tenor. Amazing.

Really cute dancer from BU. Great voice. Really bad skin. Sorry.

Alan S. Kopit—ASK—from Tufts was a great friend of mine through my four college years. This morning, Kopit was wearing a canary-yellow golf shirt, navy Bermuda shorts, and moccasins with white socks. If he were carrying binoculars you’d think he was out bird watching. Atop his thick head of hair he wore a Cleveland Indians cap that he must have owned since he was six. It was faded and worn and gave him an aura of gravitas. Kopit was short with a big, easy smile of Chicklet-white teeth. He looked like a cross between Howdy Doody and Peter Noone of Herman’s Hermits. He had been in several shows we had done over the years and loved the musical theater. Yet he was a less than an adequate singer, moved awkwardly, and had the comic timing of a broken watch. But through it all his enthusiasm shone through, and the fact that he was having such a good time on stage projected across the footlights and made the audience share his joy.

He sang. He read. We all needed to discuss the boundaries of friendship when we made our final choices a bit later in the day.

New gal. Eat a salad.

New guy. Take a shower.

New gal. Marry me.

Next. I’m quitting the business. Going to law school.

Next. Kill me.

Next. Wash your hair.

Next. Is that hair?

Kill me. Marry me. Is it five yet?

What was I thinking?

She’s awesome. He’s great.

Our good humor was waning. We had seen so many good people I knew we would have more options than we could have ever hoped to find. Jojo told us we had ten more minutes and then we were going to take a short break and come back and cast our shows.

Then a mom walked in. She might have been a grad student or on the GI Bill, but I was certain she was a mom.

“Hi,” Jojo said with a welcoming and curious smile. “Can we help you?”

“Yes, I hope so,” she answered. “My name is Elaine Feston. My son Ronny is outside in the hall. We drove up this morning from Long Island. Ronny is finishing his junior year in high school and wants very much to audition for you. I wasn’t sure if you’d see him because of his age. So I came with him to let you know that if you choose him, well, I would be one hundred percent behind him and you.”

Wow
, I thought.
Even if he’s any good, would he fit in? Would it be legal? What about the pot heads?

“We’d be delighted,” Jojo said.

Ronny Feston looked like a high school kid who’d never seen the sun. He was slight, yet stood straight, and if he was nervous you could never tell. He wore crisp, pressed blue jeans, brand new unblemished Keds, a pink, cotton button-down with a polo pony on the breast, and a black tie with comedy and tragedy masks embroidered in silver. He had a mop top of curly locks. Without a word, he brought his book over to Elliot at the piano. He went through music, gesticulating for effect, telling when to punch it or slow down. He could have been Dean Martin talking with his musical director.

Feston walked to the center of the room, gestured for his mother to take a seat, scanned us all, and said, “I am Ronny Feston. Thank you for seeing me today. I am thrilled to be here. I’m going to sing ‘Trouble’ from
The Music Man.”

He nodded to Elliot at the keyboard, and Elliot played the intro to one of the great songs in the canon of American musicals. Then Ronny Feston sang. He had grace and confidence, nuance and humor. He had the body of a dancer and moved on all the right beats. He held galvanizing eye contact and made you hear the story of the song like it was the first time. Ronny Feston was a star. A bright, shining star that makes the sky sparkle, the theater a place to visit, a nugget of gold one might find in the rolling rivers of Northern California.

He finished. I turned to his mother and said, “Mrs. Feston, does Ronny have a curfew that you’d like us to enforce this summer? Because he’s officially on our dance card.”

I
drove south on Route 3 toward Plymouth. It was yet another perfect New England evening, more midsummer than late spring. I was headed to the theater compound, knowing it would be my home for the next hundred days. The past week had been an all-out sprint, and I thought about how my life had changed in just seven days. I would be sleeping at PBT tonight for the first time. It would be a sign that this was real, authentic, and tangible, no matter how wildly insane, no matter how circuitous the path to its front door had been. As I drove through downtown Plymouth, I felt as if I were part of the community. I held a certain fellowship with all these other vendors who were now my neighbors.

It was May 20. The company would be arriving in two weeks and the first rehearsal was a few days thereafter. On Monday, I was heading to New York City to “steal” a press rep. Secunda would travel with me and we’d secure the band.

Veronica had agreed to meet me for a casual dinner. I had promised to proffer no expectation; tonight we’d be just an old couple visiting and catching up on the events of the day, sharing a burger and a bottle of red. As I parked my car down by the wharf, I saw her waiting for me on a bench overlooking the bay. I realized that, although I had only been away for two days, I felt as if it had been a long, long time since I had seen her smile.

Veronica didn’t appear as pleased to see me as I had hoped. She was awkward and her eyes looked everywhere but at me. She gave me a quick hello and darted to the railing that overlooked the bay, doing anything, it seemed, to avoid connection.

It was early evening and the sun was setting behind the dozens of boats that danced gently in the bay. The wind off the sea was refreshing and pungent. They say that sometimes feelings lie, but often so does the weather.

Atop the knoll sat the stoic Barrows Building, which watched over the bay with disdain. I found it telling that whenever the sun disappeared and the air chilled, it was because it was blocked by the Barrows fortress rather than by a cloud moving within a sweet summer breeze. I sat on a bench and waited to see when Veronica would finally turn and address me. Sensing bad news, I was anxious, but in no rush to see how this would play out.

The harbor bell clanged long and strong. It was seven o’clock. She turned, but stayed by the railing. She leaned against it as if needing support. I would have moved to her, but her energy was that of a force field keeping me at a distance. Her face was drawn and she looked tired and deeply sad.