My Life: The Musical (25 page)

“The drama club?” asked Emily dubiously. “Really?”

“Sure,” said Albert. “Pretending to be other people somehow made me feel like I knew who I was. I was Nicely-Nicely Johnson in
Guys and Dolls
. Herbie in
Gypsy
. Arpad in
She Loves Me
. They were character parts, but I always stopped the show.” He smiled at the memory. “Still, it wasn’t enough for me, so I started to put on my own shows. Pretty soon I discovered that writing was my passion.”

“Our school’s doing
Fiddler
this year,” said Philip, clutching the safety bar and fighting the urge to retch. “Emily’s in it, sort of.” The car ahead of them was decked out with characters from
Jimmy Neutron,
and from Philip’s perspective the leering, painted face of Jimmy was staring at him from over Albert’s shoulder.

“I’m just an understudy,” Emily said, suddenly feeling a twinge of disappointment that she wasn’t going on.

“Fiddler!”
Albert cried. “See—if I could have written
that
show! Or any of the great ones!
West Side Story
!
Oklahoma!
Gypsy
!” Albert sounded reverent. “But to make it big with this . . . professional embarrassment . . .”

Emily wanted to leap to
Aurora
’s defense, but an ocean of pent-up, unspoken suffering was ready to burst out of Albert, and he spent the next full revolve of the Ferris wheel in nonstop confessional mode.

All he’d ever wanted was to write serious, literary theatre, he told them. Like
Inferno! The Musical
. Now his dream was to complete an historical epic about the Black Death.

“It’s called
Plague!
” Albert sighed. “With an exclamation point. I slave for years on these projects, but no one understands them! No one will put them on! I wheedle little student productions here and there, just so I can hear my work, but—amateurs! It’s always a disaster.” The Ferris wheel spun them upward and stopped. Albert slumped in despair. “And I wrote
Aurora
over spring break my second year at college, because everybody else had a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a trip to Florida and I was broke and alone. It’s sophomoric crap, and look what happened.”

They were suspended at the top now, and Philip was paralyzed with the same fear that had gripped him at the top of the Space Needle. He was afraid to look out of the car.

“That’s why I can’t put my name on it,” said Albert. “If people know I wrote
Aurora,
that’s all they’ll want from me ever again. My chances for a career as a serious dramatist will be ruined.”

“But we
like
it, Mr. Smeave,” said Emily. “It makes us happy. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Kids!” Albert said, leaning forward so suddenly he rocked the car they were in. “Artistically, I am a
failure
. I want you to know this. Find another hero, okay?”

“It’s too late for that,” said Philip suddenly. Emily looked like she was about to cry, and he was feeling as green as the stack of Kermit dolls they kept whooshing past, but this cruel dismissal of the show they loved so dearly had to be refuted. “It’s much too late, Mr. Smeave. We’ve already given everything we have for
Aurora,
and you—you won’t even put your name on it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Albert.

So Philip and Emily told Albert the whole saga, starting with Emily’s bat mitzvah and encompassing all that happened afterward: the joy and lies and borrowed money, the uncounted miles on the Long Island Railroad, Lester and Morris and the Closing Toe, Grandma Rose and Stan’s failing eyesight and the Winnebago, Mark and his improbable romance with Stephanie, Ian’s performance at Don’t Tell Mama, not to mention a nasty bruise on the arm of a New Jersey state trooper.

By the time they were done, Albert Smeave was stunned. He considered himself a skilled storyteller, but only real life could cook up a tale as preposterous as this one. Philip and Emily sat there looking at him with big wet eyes, like two waifs in a black velvet painting.

“Well.” He tried acting gruff to cover up how touched he was by their story. “Huh. That’s some wacky tale.”

“And so you know, we’ll come see whatever you write,” Philip added, with conviction.

“Yes,” said Emily. “We’re fans of yours.”

“You are?” Albert was confused. “You mean, you’d come see something I wrote even if it wasn’t crap—I mean,
Aurora
?”

“Of course,” said Emily, as if it should be evident by now. “You’re our favorite writer.”

Philip wanted to sit up straight and proud, but these cars were designed for little kids and his head would bump against the top if he did that. With as much dignity as he could muster in a hunched-over position, he pulled an
Aurora Playbill
out of his backpack. It was the one from his birthday, with the signature of every single member of the
Aurora
cast on it. He offered it to Albert.

“Please,” he said. “Do you need a Sharpie? I have tons.”

Albert looked at the
Playbill
as if it were crawling with lice. “Phil. Roxie,” he said, his voice cracking. “You guys turned out to be a lot nicer than I expected. But I hope you understand why—I can’t, I just can’t put my name on that.”

“We understand,” said Philip. “Just sign it ‘Aurora.’ That way you can keep your secret.”

“ ‘Aurora’? But that would mean nothing!” said Albert.

“Anyone could write that!”

“But you’re not anyone! You’re the real Aurora,” Emily declared. And he was! She could see it now, just by looking in his eyes: the wounded idealism, the capacity for struggle and sacrifice, the creative fire burning inside. It was all there. “It’s who you truly are,” she said, touching his hand. “Even if no one knows it but us.”

Albert looked at them, with their shiny, somewhat zitty adolescent faces beaming at him, all innocence and trust.
Jeez,
he thought.
The boy’s got nothing, and the girl spends her grandma’s money on my stupid little show. And they don’t even look sorry.

Before he could change his mind, he scribbled something on the
Playbill
and shoved it back at Philip.

“Albert Smeave,” Philip read, with wonder. “You signed it Albert Smeave. Are you sure?”

Albert shrugged, but his heart was pounding in his chest. “If
Aurora
could mean that much to a couple of nudniks like you, maybe I have nothing to be ashamed of.” He sat on his hands before Emily and Philip could see that they were shaking. “Anyway, the show’s closing tonight. If I don’t own up to it now, when can I? Wait a minute. Maybe you guys want these, huh?”

He patted all his pockets before finding what he was looking for. A slim, white, rectangular envelope: the kind that held tickets.

“There’s two in there. Enjoy,” he said. “Stephenson’s office keeps sending me house seats but I don’t want ’em.”

Emily and Philip were practically cross-eyed staring at the envelope that dangled in front of them. Neither one of them reached for it.

“No, Mr. Smeave. You should go,” said Emily firmly. “But take Philip.”

“Take Emily,” Philip said, even more firmly and practically at the same time. “You both deserve to be there tonight.”

“How about
you
two go,” said Albert, grinning and tucking the tickets into Philip’s pocket. “I’ve seen it plenty, and I know how it ends.”

The Ferris wheel had returned them to the ground, and it was time to get out. “Anyway, I’m going to go home and write,” Albert said. “It’s possible you kooky kids have given me an idea.”

A miracle! A miracle! A miracle had happened and they were going to see
Aurora
one more time. Tonight, closing night. It was all Emily had wanted, just like the character Emily in
Our Town
was given one last visit to the land of the living. One more time, but
knowing
it was the last time, so she could breathe in every moment and collapse in an overstimulated heap afterward. Philip would be there with her, and the thought made Emily feel happy inside. Happy in a cozy, best-friends kind of way.

“Philip?” Emily asked as they walked together through Times Square. Her hair was all staticky and glued to her face because she kept touching it with her woolly mittens, and she had to peel the strands away from her mouth to talk. “I was thinking about what you said. About me being your girlfriend.”

“Really?” said Philip.

“Yes,” she said. “Did you mean it?”

“In a way I did,” said Philip. They continued walking, Emily taking two steps for every one of Philip’s. It was half a block before he spoke again.

“Except there’s one thing,” he said, as if he were continuing the previous sentence without a pause. “I think there’s a chance, maybe, that I might be gay.”

Philip stopped walking so he could turn and see Emily’s face. She still had a strand of hair stuck in the corner of her mouth. Without thinking, Philip reached over and brushed the hair away from her lips. “I mean, maybe, you know? But I thought you should know.”

“Okay,” said Emily. In a way she was surprised by what he’d said, but also, in a way, not. “So, maybe we should just stay friends for now? Would that be good?”

“Yes,” said Philip. It felt like a weight had been lifted. “That would be good.”

Emily felt relieved as well. “We’ll always be bosom buddies, Philip,” she said. “Always.”

“ ‘Bosom Buddies.’ ” A huge smile lit up Philip’s face. “
Mame,
1966. Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee.”

It was almost seven-thirty.

27

“NEVER BE ENOUGH”

Aurora

2005. Music, lyrics, and book by Albert Smeave

Never be enough,
My love for you could never be enough,
Ten thousand years could never be enough,
To say what’s in my heart . . .

There was a huge, buzzing crowd in front of the Rialto Theatre, but the first person Emily and Philip recognized was Morris. He was standing directly under the marquee, leaning on a cane. Ruthie was with him, weeping and dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

“Ruthie! Morris! What happened to you?” Emily asked, concerned. Ruthie jerked her thumb backward toward the theatre and sobbed.

“It’s the Closing Toe,” Morris said, rapping his cane on the sidewalk. “No worries. It’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

“Two hours and twenty-one minutes, to be precise,” Philip corrected.

“Not tonight.” Morris snorted. “Ever been to a closing performance?”

Emily and Philip shook their heads, which Morris seemed to take as an invitation to launch into one of his lectures.

“When a real turkey closes it’s hilarious, frankly. The audience is stacked with hard-core flop collectors. They come just so they can say they saw the stinker before it died. Hey, Ruthie—remember
Moose Murders
?”

Ruthie nodded, still crying.

“Man, that stank! Anyway, a flop closing is fun. The more people talk about it afterwards the worse the show gets. But this show . . .” He shook his head. “People love this show. It’s gonna get emotional. Figure a two-minute hand after every song, at least.”

“Such a tragic night,” sobbed Ruthie. “So sad!”

“You think it’s sad for us—what about the actors?” Morris said. “Tomorrow they’re unemployed. Back to the auditions, the catering jobs, the temp agencies.” Morris sighed contentedly and leaned on his cane. “Remember when
Cats
closed? What a party that was. The fur was flying. I was picking whiskers out of my clothes all night.”

“This is different.” Ruthie sniffed. “This is too soon!
Aurora
’s time hasn’t come yet!”

“All shows close sooner or later,” Emily said gently. “Come on, Philip. We’d better go take our seats.”

“You have tickets?” Morris was shocked. “For tonight?”

“Orchestra, eighth-row center,” Philip said. “And it’s not even my birthday.”

Morris was right about the audience’s mood. Emily could feel it in the air as she and Philip entered the theatre. Emotions were raw and explosive, a mix of loss and celebration and protest. Some people were already getting sniffly as they took their seats.

But not Emily and Philip. For them, being here was pure, transcendent bliss. There were lumps in their throats and butterflies in their stomachs, but from the depths of themselves they knew—as clearly and certainly as anything could be known—they were where they were meant to be, at exactly the moment they were meant to be there.

It was seven-fifty-nine.

“Cell phone?” whispered Philip. It was their ritual, and not to be omitted.
This is the last time,
Emily thought,
goodbye,
and she dug through her bag until she found the phone.

The light was blinking.

She had a message. She could turn the phone off and check the message later, but she had a whole minute, plenty of time. Emily pressed the voice mail button and listened.

“Hello, Emily? It’s Mom. Daddy and I just wanted to say we got your note. We were pretty upset to find out you’d gone into the city without permission.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” her father’s voice interjected.

Emily’s eyes filled with tears. Philip mouthed: “Who?” She held up a hand and listened.

“But we called Rabbi Levin as you suggested, and he encouraged us to have an open mind. In fact, he was quite adamant that we go see the drama club show tonight anyway, though it seems you’re not going to be in it.”

“Stan and I are going, too!” That was Grandma Rose in the background now. Mrs. Pearl’s voice became muffled.

“Rose, you know it’s just a high school production, right?”

“So?” answered Grandma Rose, distant but audible. “They’re doing
Fiddler on the Roof
and I should stay home?”