My Life: The Musical (22 page)

It’s not so bad,
he told himself as he rocked back and forth in the embrace of his own thin arms.
It’s not so bad
. He had something to read. He had numbers to crunch. He needed to go somplace warm, where he could sit and be welcome and not feel like a freak.

He could only think of one place like that.

By the time Philip boarded the 7:53 in Rockville Centre and rode it all the way to Penn Station, he’d skimmed through most of the book about producing.

The concepts were straightforward enough: you raised money from investors, you used the money to put on the show, you sold tickets, and with that money you covered the “nut” and eventually paid back the investors—but if the show closed before you “recouped” (that was what they called it when you’d made back all the initial cost of the show and actually started seeing a profit), the investors kissed their money goodbye and wrote it off on their taxes as a loss.

And yet it was a puzzling endeavor. To Philip it seemed neither business nor charity, more like flushing your money down the toilet. Still, there was no shortage of people willing to put their cash into such a dicey venture.

Philip had been most surprised to learn it was standard for the writers of a musical to get six percent of the box office. Six percent! That wasn’t very much, considering there would be no show at all without the writers. It seemed even skimpier when you broke it down: two percent for the book writer, two for the lyricist, and two for the composer.

Puzzling or not, these numbers calmed Philip a great deal. He hardly noticed the moment during his train ride when eight o’clock p.m. came and went and the
Aurora
ticket in his pocket officially became garbage. It was almost nine by the time he got to Don’t Tell Mama.

“Look who’s here! From the hinterlands of suburbia to a piano bar near you!” Ian was leaning against the bar, a Coke in his hand. He’d had a haircut and had let a bit of stubble grow on his face since Wednesday, when Philip had seen him last. He looked more grown-up somehow, and Philip was intensely glad to see him.

“Hey,” said Philip. “Looks like I came to the right place.”

“It’s the only place,” Ian agreed. “Friendly faces and musical theatre! Where’s Emily?”

“I don’t know,” said Philip truthfully. “I came into the city by myself.”

“Huh,” said Ian. “That’s a first. Well, I’m pleasantly surprised to see you. Pull up a drink and have a chair. Stay close to the piano, though—I’ll be performing in a bit!”

What would it be like,
thought Philip as he walked across the warm, softly lit room and took a seat at Ian’s table,
to sing a song or two myself?

Chinese food for dinner on Friday nights was a Pearl family tradition, but everything seemed like a tradition to Emily at the moment.
Tradition, tradition;
after three hours of rehearsing
Fiddler
the word was stuck in her head like gum to the bottom of a chair.

That afternoon the other cast members had been there. It wasn’t so bad, really. Michelle, Cindy, Chantal, and Beth gave her welcoming hugs and helped remind her which scene came next. Lorelei, who watched from the audience with her ankle in a cast and crutches propped nearby, even faked a grateful smile. “Thank you so much, Emily!” she’d said. “You saved the show!” But Emily had seen Lorelei’s lips moving through the whole rehearsal, mouthing every word.

Mr. Henderson had seemed pretty tense, but whether it was because his production of
Fiddler
was opening the next day or because he was worried about concealing his secret SAVEME identity from Emily, she had no way of knowing.

Emily thought of all this as she picked at her General Tso’s chicken. The vegetable egg foo yong that Grandma Rose always craved was still in its white cardboard container, unopened, since Grandma Rose wouldn’t be home until tomorrow morning and nobody had thought to change the order.

Mr. Pearl was gnawing on a spare rib when the phone rang. Mrs. Pearl got up from her meal to answer, worried that it might be the hospital, but it was Stan’s son. Their conversation contained a number of phrases that, to Emily’s knowledge, had never been spoken in the Pearls’ home before:

“Yes, of course, resisting arrest is quite serious. . . .

“It
is
a first offense, and at their age . . .

“I know, it’s unfortunate that she closed the window on the officer’s arm. At least he wasn’t injured. . . .”

The more she talked, the more ferociously Mr. Pearl bit into the bone. “Damn!” he suddenly exclaimed, sticking a finger into his mouth. “I think I lost a filling.”

“I have to go,” said Mrs. Pearl, on the phone. “But we’ll see you tomorrow, at the lawyer’s office. Yes, good night!”

She sat down just as Mr. Pearl got up to go examine his tooth. “Tell her about tomorrow,” he mumbled, exploring his mouth with his finger and peering into the hall mirror.

“What’s tomorrow?” Emily knew that whatever her parents had cooked up for tomorrow had to be bad, but she didn’t care. Every conceivable torment paled beside the fact that tomorrow was the very last day of
Aurora
. At two o’clock there would be a matinee, and then the final closing performance at eight. Did her parents know this? No. Would they care if they did? No. How she wished she could talk to Philip!

Mrs. Pearl sipped her wonton soup delicately before she spoke. “Emily. Your father and I are so worried.”

“They’re not going to send Grandma to jail,” Emily said. “That would be ridiculous.”

“Not ’bout her,” Mr. Pearl called. Having his hand in his mouth reduced him to caveman speak. “ ’Bout
you
.”

“There has been an awful lot of lying going on,” Mrs. Pearl said. “We understand that you’re sixteen now and entitled to some privacy, but this was too much. And all that money!”

“Unacceptable!” her father said with effort as he headed upstairs. “I take Motrin. Go call dentist.”

Mrs. Pearl sighed and turned back to Emily. “We feel you need some help sorting out your values right now, Emily, and your father and I don’t know where to begin. This drama club show of yours—it gave us an idea.” She paused to pick up her chopsticks, though her food was probably cold by now.

“Tomorrow,” Mrs. Pearl said, “we’re taking you to see Rabbi Levin.”

The bartender looked twice at Philip’s fake ID but ultimately poured him a pint of Sam Adams. It didn’t take long for the beer to start going to Philip’s head, since he hadn’t eaten and wasn’t accustomed to drinking in the first place. Ian perched on the edge of the piano bench next to the pianist, leafing through a fat binder full of sheet music and chatting flirtatiously about which keys sat well in his voice and his preferred tempo for each song.

The lighting in Don’t Tell Mama was pleasantly dim, but if you positioned yourself carefully, you could find a little pin spot of light at each table, just enough to read by. Philip sipped his beer and leafed through the spreadsheets from Miss O’Malley’s file. He found comfort in the columns of figures, the beautiful order and predictability of it all. A show was either in the red or in the black. One thing or another; there was no middle ground. No wondering. No waffling. Philip knew it was a high compliment to say of an actor that one would pay to hear him read the phone book, and now he understood why: numbers had no subtext.

“So hey,” Ian said, sliding gracefully into his seat. “I’m still hornswaggled to find you here in town, after dark no less. And don’t be offended, but you look a tad like shit. Is everything okay?”

Philip shrugged. “There was some stuff going on at home. I just needed to get out.” Suddenly words were coming out of his mouth that he hadn’t planned to say. “They keep hammering me about whether or not I’m gay,” he said. “And I think Emily’s mad at me, too.”

Ian’s eyes opened wider, but he just nodded. “I hear you. What happened with Em? You guys are so tight.”

Philip groaned and put his head in his hands. “I asked her to be my girlfriend. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“LaGuardia! You’re on!” It was the pianist, gesturing to Ian.

“Oh,” said Ian. “My. To be continued.” He jumped up and smoothed his pants. “What you need is a song. This one’s for you.”

“What is it?”

Ian’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Something even Philip Nebbling has never heard before.”

With that, Ian went to the piano and positioned himself behind the mike stand. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he intoned. “Welcome to Don’t Tell Mama’s piano bar, home of the stars of today, tomorrow, and even yesterday. But she’s not working this shift.” There was some rude laughter from the audience. “I will now perform, for the first time ever in public: selections from
Inferno! The Musical
.” He held up a hand to stifle the audience’s reaction, and spoke with solemn reverence. “Based on the epic poem—by Dante.”

There were some appreciative hoots and a bit of clapping. One person said, “He’s kidding, right?” loud enough to be overheard, which prompted a fresh wave of laughter. Then the pianist launched into the introductory vamp, and soon the patrons at all the nearby tables were listening in spite of themselves.

The first song was “Beatrice, Beloved, Be Mine,” followed by “Virgil Knows the Way” and “It’s a Helluva Fix We’re In”:

Hot up top,
Cold below,
Cries of torment wherever we go,
So much suffrin’ is really a sin,
It’s a helluva fix we’re in!

Ian was a terrific performer. He had a clear, tuneful voice, and he was wonderfully expressive. There was an energetic round of applause when he was done.

“Thank you!” Ian said. “I thank you! Dante thanks you! Thank you all, very much!” Ian grabbed a cocktail napkin and blotted his forehead as he returned to the table. “Oh my God,” he said, sliding back into his seat next to Philip. “I think that was the first time you’ve ever heard me really sing. You better say something nice! I’m feeling all naked now.”

Philip stared at Ian as if he were seeing a ghost.

“Who wrote those songs?” he said.

Ian shrugged. “I told you,” he said. “Some friend of that crazy director’s. Whassup?”

Philip hated to sound arrogant, but he knew what he knew, and he’d known it since the end of the first refrain of “Beatrice, Beloved, Be Mine.” “This director—do you know him? Is he your acting teacher?”

“Heaven forbid! No, he’s a guy they brought in. Eeeeeevil Smeeeeeeeeve. They want us to get used to working with pros, so they hire these freelance weirdos all the time.”

It couldn’t be the beer, could it?
Even as he thought this, Philip knew it wasn’t. He’d heard this songwriter’s work before. Many times before, in fact. Philip knew this the way an art expert could recognize a real Van Gogh from a brushstroke and tell a forgery at a glance. It was there like a fingerprint, in the vamp, the chord progressions, the twisted little rhymes.

“ ‘Smeeeeeeve.’ ” The name sounded familiar, too. Philip started rummaging through the file that still lay on the table, freshly anointed with a big circular beer stain. “How do you spell that?” he asked.

“With an ‘S,’ for merde-head. Show-canceler. Supersensitive sourpuss, that’s how I’d spell it,” Ian said. “Hey, didn’t you hear the part about me feeling naked? Are you gonna say something about my performance or not?”

Philip was staring at the papers he’d stolen from Stevenson’s office. He scanned quickly.

A. Smeave 6%

“With an ‘A,’ ” he said softly. “It’s spelled with an ‘A.’ ”

And then—call it an overwhelming moment—Philip leaned across the table and kissed Ian right on the lips.

“You were fantastic,” he said. “You’re a star.”

“Lawd, honey.” Ian grinned in delight. “You’re full of surprises tonight.”

“I gotta go.” Philip grabbed his bag.

“You’re leaving? Why? Was it my singing?” said Ian, bewildered. “My breath?”

“I have to tell Emily something,” said Philip, and he ran out the door.

24

“EMILY’S BAT MITZVAH”
(FLASHBACK SEQUENCE)

My Life: The Musical

1992. Music, lyrics, and book
by (and starring) Emily Pearl, as herself

Saturday. Two performances left.

In the middle of the second act of
Aurora,
there was a flashback sequence that never failed to give Emily chills.

Its beginning was signaled by the leaping, twirling entrances of a chorus of dancers, all dressed in variations of Aurora’s signature outfit: poncho, fishnet tights, leg warmers, stiletto-heeled boots, bustier, and mittens. Awesome strobe-light effects launched the second act into a toe-tapping journey through the fragmented landscape of Aurora’s fictional psyche.

Emily had flashbacks, too. It happened while she was drifting off to sleep, or muddling in vain through her trigonometry homework. And it was happening right now, during Saturday-morning services at the Rockville Centre Reform Jewish Synagogue. Emily’s parents had dropped her off to endure the service alone while they went to pick up Grandma Rose at the hospital, and then to a meeting with their lawyer to discuss the “case”:
Rose Pearl and Stan Lefkowitz v. the State of New Jersey, Cossack Division.

After the service Emily had an appointment to see Rabbi Levin privately for “spiritual guidance,” as her mother had described it. Emily hadn’t met with the Rabbi alone since they were preparing for her bat mitzvah, three action-packed years before, and her thoughts kept straying back to that time.

If my life were a musical,
thought Emily,
this would be the big flashback number, like the one in the second act of
Aurora
.
Back, back we would go . . . back to the night of Emily Pearl’s bat mitzvah . . . the night it all began. . . .