One Man Show (14 page)

I didn’t know where all that came from. When the smoke in my head cleared, I saw LMNOP racing down the block.
Not
my fault. That kid doesn’t know when to let up!
But by the time I got home, I didn’t like myself very much. I wished I could’ve taken everything back. I mean, if anybody
knew all about the pain of rejection, it was yours truly.

For a second I thought I’d walked into the wrong house, ‘cause ours was never so dark and quiet. Right house, just nobody
home. I lumbered up the stairs and sat cross-legged on the living-room floor, chewing on a piece of dead thumbnail skin.
I’m pond scum. I didn’t even thank her for buying the masking tape.
I ripped off a strip of skin with my teeth. It stung. Bled a little.

The phone rang and I jumped. Naturally, it was some girl calling for Gordy. Rebecca something-or-other. She didn’t sound
too
gross. There was never any paper around, so I had to dig my spiral notebook out of my backpack to write down her info. Scrawled
across the opposite page was Dad’s cellphone number - the one Aunt Olive had written down.

I knew I was going to call that number sooner or later. But later always seemed like the better choice.
Now is the perfect time. You’re Dustin the Brave, right? And if you get too freaked out when you hear his voice, you can always
just hang up.

I ran to the window and back to make sure the coast was clear, limbering up my lips with a few rounds of “Unique New York.”
I picked up the phone and dialed. A woman’s voice came through.

“Please press one or wait for the tone if you would like to leave a voice message for -”

“- Teddy Grubbs.”

I hung up.
(Dustin the Dweeb.)
That was Dad’s actual voice saying his own name. My heart was rattling something awful.
I should probably think about what I’m going to say first.
Should I shoot for a casual/friendly message? “Hi, it’s me, Dustin. Just calling to shoot the breeze.” Urgent/formal? “This
is your youngest son, Dustin Grubbs. I need to speak to you ASAP!” Happy/curious? Bitter/direct?

Too many choices. Just wing it!

I took a gigantic breath and redialed.

“Hello, it’s Dustin… Grubbs,” I said after the message, the choices, and the beep. “Uh, Aunt Olive gave me your number, so
I thought I’d try to call and say hi. I hope that’s okay. So I guess that’s it. Just hi. Okay, bye.”

That two-second call probably took ten years off my life.

At school the next day, Wally acted as if I had the bubonic plague. But I wasn’t going to cave and make the first move again,
no matter what. I had my pride. I’d have my jaw wired shut if I had to. But he caught me off guard when he showed up for play
rehearsal.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

I didn’t expect an answer, and I didn’t get one. Later on I
overheard part of his explanation to Cynthia Zimmerman. Something about “my parents made me,” “finishing what I started,”
and “just steering clear of that selfish jerk.”

“Before we get to the blocking, kiddles,” Miss Van Rye said, “I’d like everyone to choose the animal that most reminds you
of the character you’re portraying. This is a fabulous exercise for making your characters really come alive.”

I picked a chimpanzee, ‘cause Jingle Jangles was always bouncing off the walls. I really got into it. By the time Miss Van
Rye shouted, “Scene!” I found myself attempting to swing from the curtain ropes. I caught Wally laughing, but as soon as he
saw me looking he stopped.

After rehearsal I was waiting for Pepper to get some junk from the girls’ locker room so I could help her carry it home. I
think she was cleaning out her gym locker or something. That’s when Jeremy snuck up on me from behind.

“Dusty, my man,” he said. “Awesome monkey, banana-breath!”

“Your snake was good too.”

Okay, why is he being so friendly all of a sudden?

“You are totally insane!” he said, throwing his arm around my shoulder.

I think he meant that in a good way.

“Bye, guys,” Cynthia said on her way out. “Dustin, you’re gonna steal the show!”

“Thanks. Hey, did you ever do acting exercises like these
before?” I asked Jeremy. I hated to admit it to myself, but I wanted our conversation to keep going. He was being pretty decent
to me during rehearsals, which was more than I could say for the Walrus. Oh, Jeremy was moody and snobby for sure, but I chalked
that up to living in Hollywood his whole life and then being dragged out to Buttermilk Falls.

“No way,” he said. “We were lucky if we had our lines memorized. You’re always racing against time on a sitcom.”

“Wow,” I said. “Pressure.”

Wally rushed by and gave us a dirty look. He slammed the door so hard when he left that the windowpanes rattled.

“What’s his problem?” Jeremy said, loading his black and brown suede backpack, which matched his jacket perfectly. (I didn’t
point it out, but the price tag was still on his sleeve.) “Just between you and me,” he said, “I think this stuff Van Rye’s
putting us through is a bunch of bull hockey.”

“So why are you even doing the play?” I said. “Did Futterman promise to graduate you a year early or something?”

“I’ve got my reasons,” Jeremy said. “Trust me.”

We pushed open the big metal door that led outside to the top of the stone steps. It was still light enough that we had to
squint after coming out of the dark auditorium.

“Don’t you miss it?” I asked.

“What?”

“Being on television?”

“I guess. But my series lasted for four straight years,” Jeremy said. “Been there, done that. I’m aiming for the big screen,
baby!”

“I hear ya. So why Buttermilk Falls?”

“Good question. Ask my parents.”

I heard music. It turned out to be Jeremy’s cell phone/camera/minicomputer. I swear it actually played the first six notes
of “Hooray for Hollywood” instead of ringing.

“Talk to me,” he said instead of hello. “Yeah, just now. Lame. I’ll tell you later. Where are you? Tammy’s House of what?
You’re cutting out. Well, how long? Five minutes? Okay, bye. On the Spruce Street side. Yeah, bye.”

He flipped the phoneamajig closed and slid it into his jacket pocket.

“Evelyn’ll be here any minute,” he said. “Can we give you a lift?”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’m waiting for Pepper.” I peeked through the window in the door. “I don’t know why it’s taking so long
to clean out a gym locker.”

“Whatever.”

“Maybe the fumes from her gym clothes knocked her out cold,” I said. “Nah, the stink factor is definitely a lot lower with
girls.”

“Funny,” Jeremy said without smiling. “So how’d you get to be so hilarious?”

“It’s probably genetic. My dad -” I stopped myself.
I don’t want to get into the whole Dad thing.
“Well, you’ve met my family I probably have monkey blood in me.” I pulled my ears out and gave him my best “ooh-ooh aah-aah
eeeee!”

“You’re hysterical,” Jeremy said, snorting. “You’re like Dustin Grubbs, One-Man Show!”

The day before, Jeremy would barely look at me, and now he was shooting off compliments and offering me rides home. In real
life he was a lot like the
Double Take
twins he played on TV. One day, nasty like Buddy Bickford; the next day, friendly like Bailey Bickford. Typecasting.

“Do the whole monkey thing again, Dusty. That cracked me up.”

“I’m all monkeyed out.”

“Oh, come on. Do it!”

“You
do it,” I said.

I couldn’t believe it. Jeremy launched into a bad imitation of me imitating a monkey. Armpit-scratching, the whole nine yards.

“Funny!” I said, ‘cause how could I not?

He stopped suddenly when Travis Buttrick came tearing down the street on his mountain bike.

“Real cool, Jer,” Travis yelled. He slowed down long enough to spit a giant loogie onto the curb. “See what happens when you
hang out with retards?”

We both ignored him and Travis pedaled off, popping a wheelie. Jeremy took a pair of chrome sunglasses out of his pocket,
cleaned them on his shirttail, and slid them on.

“You look like you’re having a blast playing the Jester,” he said quietly. “Not that the Prince isn’t a juicy role - it’s
probably the most well written in the whole play.”

“You think?” I said.

Jeremy leaned up against the wall like he was doing it a favor.

“Think about it. This dude comes on the scene looking good, talking pretty, right? And then
bam!”
He punched the palm of his hand, and I flinched. “He turns out to be the bad guy.”

“Hmm, I guess you’re right,” I said.

“Not much of a stretch for me, though,” he said, running his fingers through his hair in one smooth movie-star move. “Sometimes
an actor needs a little challenge.”

A car pulled up in front of the school and honked.

“Here she is.” Jeremy grabbed his backpack and hopped down a few steps. “Uh, this is a rental. Our Porsche is being detailed.”

“Hey, I wouldn’t know a Porsche from a porch.”

“Funny man,” he said. “Are you sure we can’t drop you? Come on. To heck with Pepper.”

“No, she’ll pound me.”

“Okay, then. Later.”

Jeremy glided down the steps and slipped into the passenger seat of the car.

“The play is gonna get a lot of attention, thanks to me,” he said, poking his head out of the window. “You’ll see. Ciao!”

The window rolled up and the car sped off, leaving a trail of black smoke down Spruce Street. I watched the car get smaller
and smaller until the covered bridge on Claremont swallowed it up.

I sat on the top step, thinking about what Jeremy’d said. It had never occurred to me before that the role of the Prince was
all that hot.
Am I missing something?
I took out my script and flipped through it.
I can see his point. The Prince is a cool part.
But when I put it to the ultimate test, it failed.
Prince Krispen has exactly thirty-six lines
-
not even close to the Jester’s whopping ninety-seven.

“What gives?” Pepper said. She was standing in the doorway, holding two full plastic garbage bags. “I thought you left without
me.”

“I was talking to Jeremy,” I said.

“Ugh! What did he want?”

“Nothing much. You know, he can be really nice when he wants to. He even offered me a ride. Didn’t want to take no for an
answer.”

“Well, obviously he did.”

“Did what?”

“Take no for an answer,” Pepper said.

“What have you got in those things?” I said. “You’re like Mrs. Sternhagen with her shopping bags.”

“Best behavior, Mr. Grubbs!” she said, dropping one of the bags next to me. “Coach Mockler was dumping out a bunch of old
equipment - knee pads, grungy softballs. I figured my stepdad could sell ‘em in the yard sale he’s having. You can carry the
smaller bag.”

“You’re
too
kind,” I said.

I unzipped my backpack to put my script away and a piece of paper fell out. I picked it up and unfolded it. It wasn’t my math
quiz, as I’d thought. It was from the
Tattletaler,
one of those tabloid newspapers they sell at grocery-store checkouts.

“What’s that?” Pepper said.

“Dunno,” I said.
DOUBLE TAKE
STAR IS DOUBLE TROUBLE!
the headline read. “I think it’s an article about Jeremy!”

“Read it!”

I began speed-reading the two-page article out loud while we lugged the lumpy bags up Spruce Street.

After months of putting up with Jeremy Jason Wilder’s tantrums on the set of his sitcom, producers threatened to pull the
plug on next year’s season. “He’s gone through six tutors since the show began three years ago,” Jonathan Michaels, the show’s
executive producer, told us. “And we’ve just lost the seventh. We’re bending over backward to meet Jeremy’s demands, but enough
is enough!” When asked to respond to these harsh accusations, representatives for the twelve-year-old Wilder had no comment.

“That doesn’t sound like the Jeremy we know,” Pepper said.

“You’re right,” I said. “The Jeremy we know told us he was eleven.”

“No, I mean he’s kind of stuck up and quiet.”

“Wait! This newspaper is a year old, so now he must be around thirteen!”

“Weird,” Pepper said. “Then why is he still in sixth grade? Keep reading!”

The sitcom star’s mother, Evelyn Wilder, a former child actress herself, broke down in tears when she spoke about Jeremy.
“He’s really a good kid, but he’s going through a lot right now, at home and at the studio. People just don’t understand all
the pressure he’s under.”

“Then there’s more about infantile behavior… violating his contract… lawsuit pending….”

“Jeez, if all this is true,” Pepper said, flicking the paper, “how come we didn’t hear about it on
Show-Biz Beat?”

“I remember hearing some stuff. Nothing this bad, though.”

The picture of Jeremy they’d printed with the article showed his mouth wide open and his fists in the air.
You can’t trust the tabloids. It looks like a still shot from the
Double Take
episode when he sat on a hornet’s nest.

“You know what the real mystery is?” I said, catching my breath.

“What?”

“How did this get into my script? Somebody must’ve snuck it in when I wasn’t looking. But who?”

“Let’s take a breather,” Pepper said, dropping her bag and plopping down on the bench in front of Finkelstein & Sons Hardware.
“Not that I need one.”

I dropped my bag too and collapsed onto the bench next to her. Pepper folded her hands on top of her head, as if she were
giving careful thought to my question.

“Well, it had to be someone in the play, right?” she said. “Maybe Darlene - she’s always sticking her nose into everybody
else’s business.”

“This whole thing reeks of Wally, if you ask me.”

“Makes sense.”

We both propped our feet up on the garbage bags and sat there thumbing through the rest of the tabloid pages.

“Hey, Pep,” I said, snickering, “I guess if we believe this stuff about Jeremy, then we have to buy the story on the other
side of it too.”