My Life: The Musical (9 page)

Surely there had been some warning embedded in his spreadsheets, some sign of impending disaster that he’d missed, like an idiot.
I made a mistake,
he thought, his fingers trembling.
A stupid, obvious mistake, and now it’s all going to come crashing down—

“Morris, darling! Table for—four?” The plump waitress was wearing twin streaks of teal blue eyeshadow above her enormous false eyelashes, which she batted shamelessly at Morris. Then she looked at Emily. “You need a tissue, honey?”

Emily nodded. She hadn’t even known she was crying, but when she touched her face, her cheeks were wet.

The waitress grabbed some paper napkins from the bar as she led the four of them to a booth near the piano. She handed the wad of napkins to Emily and bent over to stage-whisper loudly in her ear. “Whoever got the part, honey, she’s not half as good as you. Don’t ask me how I can tell—I have a nose for talent.” The waitress inhaled deeply, as if demonstrating her nose’s special ability, and left.

Emily, Ian, and Philip sat down without taking off their coats. Ian was making a pathetic whimpering noise every thirty seconds or so.

“All right. We’re here. Now please, Morris, tell us: what exactly is ‘the dreaded stop clause’?” Philip was trying not to sound hysterical. Morris had flatly refused to discuss the matter any further on the street, which he claimed was “full of ears.” It had taken three excruciating minutes to make it around the corner to Don’t Tell Mama, the famed piano bar on West Forty-sixth, and Philip’s head was gathering enough steam to start whistling out both his ears.

Morris looked around the room. The accompanist had just arrived and was still chatting with the bartender, a safe distance away from their table. “I’ll try to make this quick.” He sighed. “But nothing is simple in show business.”

One Tanqueray martini (dry, with an olive) and three Shirley Temples later (they’d asked for tap water, but the waitress brought these over on the house, since Morris was a regular), Ian, Emily, and Philip were still struggling to understand Morris’s explanation.

“So, the producers of the show rent the theatre from the theatre owner?” said Philip. “And the ‘stop clause’ says if ticket sales fall below a certain number for two weeks in a row, the theatre owner can cancel the lease and throw the show out?”

“Zactly,” said Morris, glancing about. “Keep your voice down.”

“And
Aurora
’s ticket sales fell below that number?” asked Emily, dumbfounded.

“Must have, if this stop clause business is true.” Morris glared at Ian, who was staring morosely at the maraschino cherry in his silly pink cocktail.

If only we’d bought more tickets!
Emily thought, her heart filling with remorse.
It might have made all the difference!

“I saw that dip in the box office!” cried Philip, remembering his spreadsheets. “But the weather was horrible that week. Ticket sales for all the shows went down.”

“Don’t matter why, kid.” Morris chomped on the olive. “Stevie Stephenson—he’s the fella that owns the Rialto—he’s not a sentimental guy. And he’s the lead producer on
Aurora
to begin with. Who’s he gonna argue with, himself?”

“But from a business standpoint,” insisted Philip, who was determined to comprehend this, “you have a show that’s selling, on average, eighty-three percent, and you’re going to close it on the chance that the next show will do better?”

“Correct,” Morris said. The accompanist had finally settled at the piano and was now playing rapid scales up and down the keys to warm up.

“It’s not fair!” Emily wailed. “
Aurora
is so much better than any other show they could bring in!”

Morris made a frantic shushing gesture at Emily, which just made her start crying again. Already the two chorus boys at the next table had taken out their cell phones and were making urgent, whispered calls, all while glancing at Morris’s table.

“But what if the new show’s a flop?” Ian asked. “I mean, it might be. Nobody knows what’s going to be a hit!”

“It’s a gamble. So what? So’s the stock market!” Morris was turning red with exasperation. “So’s a horse race. You want a sure thing, put your money under the mattress!”

“There’s only One Sure Thing in show business, honey, and I don’t mean talent!” the waitress interjected as she slapped their check down on the table. “Take me, for instance! In my day”—none of them were sure which day she meant, but it probably wasn’t recent—“I was gonna be the next Chita Rivera! Looks, voice,
legs
. I had it all.” She rolled her eyes upward, toward the balcony of her mind. “But the right part never came along.”

The waitress’s voice grew deep and round and fake British sounding. “The chorus is
not
for me. Some people were meant to be
stars
.” Her grand exit was only slightly marred by some people at a nearby table demanding water refills as she passed.

Philip, Emily, and Ian watched her walk away. “She was something, all right,” Morris remarked. “An ugly voice, but you could hear it all the way to the back of the theatre. Now let me ask
you
something, dancing boy!” His eyes pinned Ian to the back of his chair. “Who the hell told you this ‘news’? Don’t give me that ‘I promised not to tell’ crap! You told, you ruined the kid’s birthday, now own it like a man.”

“His name,” whimpered Ian, “is Lester.”

“Lester!” Morris pounded the table. “From Florida?”

“Palm Beach,” Ian nodded, turning pale.

“Wait!” said Philip. “What are the odds you both know a guy named Lester in Florida and it’s the same guy?”

“Odds? It’s practically a sure thing.” Morris scratched fiercely at the back of his neck. “This is the theatre, kiddo. It’s ten people. You’ve heard of those small towns in flyover country where everybody knows each other’s business? Talented dreamers run away from those towns and come to New York to breathe the air of freedom. Then they get into a Broadway show and guess what? Aunt Betty’s in your underwear drawer all over again.”

What?
thought Emily. She’d zoned out for one minute and now they were talking about underwear? It wasn’t that she’d lost interest; she’d just suddenly realized that she and Philip had missed their usual train back to Long Island. The next one wasn’t for an hour. She’d be getting home exceptionally late, and her parents thought she and Philip were at another PSAT prep class. What cover story would she cook up this time?

“Lester!” Morris went on. “No, no, no,
no,
Nanette!” He smacked Ian on the head. “You ruined the kid’s birthday for nothing.”

“Ahhh!” Emily keened, expressing neither joy nor despair, but rather the sensation of her last nerve finally snapping. “You mean it’s not
true
? The show’s
not
closing?”

“If it came from Lester, it’s crap.” Morris snorted. “He’s a crap flinger. Professional! An on-the-payroll crap flinger.”

Ian’s mouth fell open. “You know Lester?”

“Everybody knows Lester!” Morris drained his glass. “Stevie Stephenson, the guy who owns the Rialto? Lester’s his nephew. What a nimrod. He keeps a little place in Florida so the whole family can claim it as a primary residence and not pay any income tax. That’s his job, to live in Florida and fling crap. Sweet gig, huh? He told you some happy horse poo about who wrote
Aurora,
too, am I right?”

Ian slumped down in his seat. “Uh, yeah,” he admitted. “Did I fall for something?”

“Did you ever! That’s Lester’s other job—every couple of months he starts a new rumor about who wrote
Aurora
. For a while he had people saying it was Jerry Herman. Then Sondheim. Then the headwaiter at Sardi’s. What a joker.”

“But why would he lie?” said Philip, still struggling to understand. “What’s the point?”

“Sometimes it’s to impress some cute young chorus boy,” Morris intoned ominously. “Otherwise it’s just red herrings. Keeps the public confused. So far it’s worked. Who did he tell you it was?”

Ian was beginning to hyperventilate. “Oprah Winfrey,” he said, barely audible.

“Oprah Winfrey!” Morris guffawed. “That’s rich. Jeez, I can’t wait to tell that one to Ruthie.”

Emily looked at Morris with new respect. He was old and wise as the hills. Old Man Broadway, that was Morris.

“Morris,” she said suddenly. “Do
you
know who wrote
Aurora
?”

Morris shook his head. “Believe me, if it could be known, I’d know it by now.” Without asking, he grabbed the maraschino cherry out of Philip’s drink and popped it in his mouth. “Nobody knows who wrote
Aurora,
and nobody will ever know. Don’t waste your time thinking about it.”

Philip didn’t care about the cherry, but his head was starting to throb from trying to make sense of all this new data. “So—the show’s
not
going to close, then?”

Morris shrugged. “All shows close sooner or later,” he said. “Even
Cats
closed. You can’t take it personally.”

“But what about your toe?” asked Emily.

Morris hesitated, then shrugged again. “Who knows? Maybe it’s gonna rain.”

“It violates all concepts of rational self-interest!” Philip ranted. “It defies standard economic theory! Unless you could predict with a very high degree of certainty that the new show would do substantially better than the one you were kicking out . . .”

Philip, whose birthday it still was, continued in this agitated vein as the three of them headed crosstown on West Forty-sixth Street. It was only a little after six, but night had fallen and the theatre district was lit up like a thousand blinking Christmas trees.

“Relax, Philip. It’s not true, okay?” The false alarm about
Aurora
closing had been debunked, and Emily was only too eager to forget about it. She poked Ian. “Say something,” she mouthed.

“I’m really sorry, Philip.” Ian sounded convincingly humble. “I can’t believe I did this to you, especially on your birthday. That’ll teach me to repeat stupid rumors.”

“Forget it, please,” Philip said. “You didn’t ruin my birthday, okay? Honest. I had a great time today.” He smiled at Emily. “Orchestra seats! And a great show. And some, uh, excitement, too.”

“I’ll walk you to Penn Station, okay? It’ll be my ‘Pennance.’ ” Ian lived with his parents on the Upper West Side, but he didn’t often mention that fact, since it made him seem more like the high school student he really was and less like a star in the making. “But you have to entertain me along the way. Show question: which humungous star auditioned for but did
not
get the part of Mary Magdalene in the original Broadway company of
Jesus Christ Superstar
?”

“Easy,” snorted Philip. “Bette Midler, everyone knows that.”

“Consider it a freebie,” said Ian, warming to the game. “Name the Broadway show that ‘The Man I Love’ was written for.”

“Trick question! It’s
Lady Be Good,
but ‘The Man I Love’ was cut before the show opened,” said Philip, without hesitation. “1924. Music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson.” He grinned. “The song was later added to
Strike up the Band,
which closed out of town, and
Rosalie,
where it was cut once again.”

Everything is fine now.
Emily willed herself to believe it.
Everything is fine.

11

“SOON IT’S GONNA RAIN”

The Fantasticks

1960 (Off-Broadway). Music by Harvey Schmidt,
lyrics and book by Tom Jones

Sunday it rained all day.

That explains Morris’s toe,
Emily thought with relief. She looked out her bedroom window and saw the gray sky, the trees in the front yard swaying in a blustery wind, the surface of the street dark with rain. Most people would have called it bad weather, but to Emily it was meteorological proof that everything was right with
Aurora,
and thus, the world.

Further proof: her parents had gone to the movies last night and had not even been home to witness or inquire about her late arrival time. Surely this was another incontrovertible sign that Emily’s world was right as—well, as rain.

And yet she felt uneasy. Yesterday’s stop clause scare was the kind of close call that left you looking both ways before crossing one-way streets. What was it Morris had said?

All shows close sooner or later.

Even
Cats
closed.

Huh.

Buried somewhere in that self-evident truth was a warning that eventually, inevitably, Emily would have to plan for a life after—a life beyond—a life without—

But not yet.
She let the curtains close and climbed back into bed. She still had that stupid essay to write, but another half hour of sleep couldn’t hurt. It was Sunday, after all.