The Home For Wayward Ladies (29 page)

34

NICHOLAS

Even though it’s Eli who I’ve got pinned against a wall, it’s Hunter who can’t find a paper bag to breathe into fast enough. In a flash, he is gone, disappeared behind the lobby door that thumps behind him like it’s eaten him alive. Judging from the sorry state of Ye Olde Pocono Show Barn, he should have the sense to run the other way. 

To demonstrate my purpose, I selflessly try to follow. Ever the petulant obstacle, Eli bars the door. I try to squeeze past, but his largesse has never come in so handy. It’s obvious he’s been stress-eating again. Why, since the last time I saw him, his chest has grown at least a cup size. The words “Mackinaw University Theater Department” stretch across his sagging lumps like a letterbox movie that’s being broadcast in widescreen.  

“Eli Bodner-Schultz, you and your sack of pumpkins better get hell out of my way.” He takes the burning butt of his cigarette between his forefinger and thumb and flicks it over my shoulder. It whizzes past my ear. I don’t happen to see where it lands; his eyes are fixed on me and I won’t give him the satisfaction of looking away. “How can you be so selfish? Move. Now. Hunter needs me.”

He remains firmly planted wider than a moat. “You seem to be mistaken, Lady. No one here needs you. Hunter and I will be just fine as soon as you leave us alone. Go run home to Danny- or did the financing not come through on his next blow job?”

“For shame, Lady. Jealousy is not flattering on you; green never was your color.”

“Jealous?!” His cackle is as unbecoming as the breath it rides upon. “What reason have I to be jealous of the bitch who hasn’t earned a thing since the day that he was born?”

“That sounds like reason enough to me,” I reply, throwing my head back to offer a better view of my nostrils. I am surprised he can’t appreciate them--being the only hairy holes he’s likely to have seen in months. His resort to obscenity is further proof he’s sinking in the mud.  

“You know what, Nick? Go fuck yourself.”

“If I ever stoop to self-gratification, I’ll be sure to first consult with you. After all, fucking yourself seems to be a particular area of your expertise. Now, Eli, if you’ll allow me to impart an iota of my all-knowing wisdom: it’s time to let him go.”  

“That’s for him to decide.”

“He already has, Lady. Why do you think I’m here?” Aside from hurried blasts of shallow breathing, he remains silent. I continue, “You seem a little confused so I’ll offer you a hint- Chernobyl has better career prospects than this disaster area. I’m here to get your pudgy fingers off Hunter’s throat.”

“Be gone before someone drops a house on you. You’ve no right to show up here trying to cast your magic spells.”

“I have every right to show up here when it’s my intent to stitch back together our tattered remains. We are a family, Lady. Lest you forget, you took an oath. We all did. With the greater good at stake, I’m here to interfere. Your business is my business is Hunter’s business. It’s all one and the same.”

Eli scoffs unceremoniously, “I was a child when I said those things.”

“Which isn’t any more than you can claim to be now.”

“That’s not true. I’m a director,” he says. “My imagination is my livelihood.”  

“Let’s keep things in perspective, Lady. Yes, you’re a director, and a good one at that. That makes it your sole responsibility to serve as king of the playground. You get to tell all the other malcontented children how you expect them to behave while living in the land of make-believe. But this is life, Eli. You have to wake up from the dream.”

He tries to manufacture a response, but it’s hard for him to speak with a harpoon lodged in his blubbery gut. I continue without mercy. “You love him, Eli; I don’t need a lorgnette to see that is true. But what about Hunter? Think about what you’re doing to him. Eli, if that boy crawls any father inside himself, he’s going to spontaneously combust. I’m sorry that you can’t see this from my enlightened perspective. But, for Hunter’s sake, I need you to dig down deep inside yourself and plant a roach motel that will kill this infestation once and for all. For as much of a mess as Hunter is, I’m worried about you.” The way his face straightens makes it impossible to tell if I’ve defused the bomb, so for good measure I throw in, “This is all that’s left of us, Eli. Look at what your love has done. The Ladies’ empire is crumbling at your feet.” 

“Don’t you dare try to pin this all on me,” he says. ”There’s plenty of blame to go around. Our dissolution is as much your fault as anybody else’s. You and that stupid Bette Midler show. It’s a real fucking laugh that you go into the world searching for your own voice and all that anybody wants to hear from you is someone else’s. You were the guest of honor at one tea party in Wonderland and- poof- you forget that you’re nothing more than some stupid bitch that fell asleep while reading a book in a tree. Your life is make-believe too, Nick. You’re a contracted phony for hire.”

“Well, this contracted phony is the only reason you’ve got this gig. And if that’s the thanks I get, even this fucking dump is more than you deserve. Instead of running that mouth of yours, maybe you should put it to better use by kissing the hem of my gown.”

“I would never consider such a thing,” he replies. “I can only imagine the piles of shit you’ve had to drag it through.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I reply. “I’ve avoided every obstacle in my path but you.”

The door quickly opens behind Eli. Its knob hammers into the small of Eli’s back. He’s groaning long before he’s hit ground. At first, I assume the intruder must be Hunter. But it couldn’t be. Although this woman shares his frantic disposition, she appears far too masculine to be a Lady. As she exits the building, her jaw cuts the air to clear the way for her mannish face to follow. 

“Omigod!” she wails, squatting down next to him in the dirt. The flexing of her muscular thighs constricted by her Daisy Dukes causes an unfortunate bulge. “I’m so, so, so sorry. Should I get an icepack?”

Eli rubs his knuckles into his side and tries to make it to his feet. The girl offers him a hand. He hisses at her and angrily swats her away. The façade of the theater creaks against his heft when he uses it for leverage. “I don’t need a fucking ice pack, Mandy. What I need is for you to get far enough away from me so I can breathe. What do you want?”

She bites her lip, too nervous to respond.

“Well?!”

“I, uh…” She desperately struggles to remember the English language. I don’t know her from Adam, but I’m praying she succeeds; Eli can’t have further validation that his scare tactics triumph above all. “I, well- I’m sorry to interrupt but I need your help. Hunter is dry-heaving in the men’s room. It’s the most awful sound I’ve ever heard.”

“It can’t be any worse than Robin’s harmonies at the end of Act One” Eli replies.

“Please,” she says, “that’s a baby’s laughter compared to the noises Hunter’s making. I’m surprised you can’t hear him out here.” I close my eyes to listen more intently. I hear nothing over the belching of cicadas in the forest of evergreen trees.

Eli hurries to get her gone. “Mandy, please, this isn’t the first time that the Pocono Show Barn made someone toss their cookies. And it certainly won’t be the last. If Hunter’s heaving is so goddamn bad, why don’t you go put your finger down his throat to make his efforts worth his while?”

“That’s a lovely notion,” she replies, “but you must not have heard me clearly. I said he’s in the
men’s
room. This job has required that I do many things that I don’t plan to tell my grandkids, but I’m not going in there. It would be a violation of ethical code.” I think the lady doth protest too much; if it weren’t for her plum dumplings, I’d expect her to be able to piss standing up. 

“Ethical code?” he shrieks. “All of a sudden you’re concerned about an ethical code? Mandy, take your lead from management; those criminals are paying us in unmarked bills. And, furthermore, where the fuck is Robin? Let him use his self-proclaimed powers of magnanimity to solve this one.”

“He’s meditating in his dressing room. I was expressly told that he is not to be disturbed.”


I wedge myself through the window of opportunity before Eli finds a way to slam it shut. “I’ll go,” I say. “I’ve had plenty of experience talking Hunter Collier down from ledges.”

The girl’s shoulders appear more broad than they were just seconds before. For the first time since her arrival, she sees me standing there. She looks on me like a mother bear that would rip off your face if it meant to defend her cubs. “Pardon me for asking,” she says, “but who the hell are you?”

“I’m Nicholas Irwin Applebaum, the faggot taking over for the guy this place almost killed. And who the hell are you?”

Her threatening air concedes to the excitement of a child that’s been handed a lollipop by a teller at the bank. She goes softer than butter in the microwave. “Who the hell am I? Why, I’m only your potential future cousin-in-law! I’m Mandy Olsen. Danny’s told me so much about you.” She quickly adds, “All good things. I swear.”

“That’s a laugh,” Eli says. “Give him a week and he’s sure to prove them wrong. Now, if you two will spare me the family reunion, Hunter needs me.”

“Not so fast,” I say, grabbing him by the arm. “I said that I would go. Eli, there is no time like the present for you to start considering the greater good.”

“Look,” Mandy says, “I don’t care which one of you goes but it has to happen now. The sound of him yakking is upsetting Carolyn’s condition. I didn’t get into this business to spend my evenings cleaning sympathy vomit off linoleum floors.”

“Then it’s settled,” I say. “Eli and I will both go. After all, we both want what’s best for Hunter. Don’t we, Eli?”

“Yes, of course we do, dear Lady. Why, that’s what I’ve been saying all along: friends to the end.”

“Yes, Lady,” I reply with a snort, “to the bitter, bitter end.”

35

ELI

It takes me thirty seconds to figure out that I’m of no use to Hunter before I leave the bathroom. Nick’s got his back, quite literally on this occasion. He’s rubbing it in small clockwise circles while Hunter hugs the toilet bowl. I pardon myself and walk to the stage where I am truly needed. Mandy accosts me as soon as I open the men’s room door.

“I’ve gathered the cast,” she says, sweat glistening on her neck like an ostrich in the rain. “If you could just scoot a little faster: Vicki is demanding to know what’s what. If you’re not holding them to rehearse, she wants you to let Carolyn go home so she can get some rest.”

“Let me get this straight: her theater nearly killed her co-star and the bitch didn’t blink. But now the day is running long, so she’s pulling her hair out over the pregnant girl? Mandy, please. Vicki’s lazy so she wants to go home. Either that, or she’s just kissing up to Carolyn so that, when the baby is born, she can eat the placenta in another misguided attempt at eternal youth.”

As Mandy promised, the cast is sitting in the house awaiting my State of the Union Address. I take center stage. I figure, after what Nick and Hunter have put me through, I have earned this moment in the spotlight. Vicki sits with her arm draped around Carolyn, an expression of their newly formed bond of forced femininity. Robin, as usual, sits alone. The Hermes headscarf he’s wearing is a clear indicator that he’s traveling incognito. In actuality, the peacock feather print only helps give him away.

“Well, folks,” I say, calling the room to order, “I’ve got some good news.”

“Finally,” Vicki sighs, “some good news. My heart is still in pieces over losing Mickey to that flu. It’s a crying shame worth honest-to-God tears. I’ve been busting my humps to nail down them dances and now I got no partner. I’m a Ginger without a Fred.” Even if I had rehearsed with her for an entire afternoon, her delivery couldn’t sound more stilted.

Until this very moment, Vicki has been exclusively Hunter’s problem. Since day one, I’ve considered her to be a situation that would be best left ignored (what with her being the boss’ wife and all). But, this time, Robin won’t allow it. Vicki’s been patrolling the backstage working to clear her husband’s name, putting a bug in everybody’s ear that it wasn’t cast housing that took Mickey down. Robin’s eyes roll so far back in his head that he could admire his skull from the inside out. Having reached the pinnacle from where he has nothing to lose, he jumps.