“Nope. Not unless the twins are walking around New York wearing the same suit. So, no. Not a twin. Just one royal jerk.”
“Ouch,” Kirk said, shaking his head. “Sorry to hear that happened to you. Sadly, there are a ton of jerks out there in the world.”
“That there are. I’m glad I found out he was a jerk before we’d had a second date or before we’d gotten serious.”
I looked over at my washing machines and it was time to put them in the dryer. “Be right back.” I grabbed one of the rolling carts that helped transfer the clean, wet clothes into the dryer. I looked through what I was laundering. I threw a couple of dryer sheets in the dryer and plunked down more quarters to get the clothes dried.
“What were you doing before I got down here?” Kirk asked. “I didn’t mean to monopolize your time.”
“Not a problem. I was looking at some new lines the creative team sent out. Thankfully, most of the changes aren’t to me, so I don’t have much to work on.”
“I’m always amazed at how you actors memorize those lines. The high school play I was in was a disaster. I forgot all my lines, and when they started coming out of my mouth suddenly, they all came out in the wrong order.” I giggled at the mental image of a young Kirk trying to act when the gobbledygook flowed from his mouth. “That was my first and last time on a stage.”
“I’m lucky. I have an amazing memory for learning lines. Some actors put a lot of effort into learning lines. I’m not one of them. Sure, I must rehearse and practice. And I’ve had a few stage managers yell at me to stop changing the lines. But then, I wouldn’t need to change the lines if the writers wrote them right in the first place.”
“I’m sure writers love hearing that.”
“Of course not, but some of them desperately need to hear it.”
“Do you regularly work with playwrights?”
“Depends on the show. I’ve worked with some playwrights who are in rehearsal every day telling us exactly how the line should be said. Frankly, I want the director to banish those authors from the theater. Theater is collaborative. At some point, the playwright, the composer, the lyricist, or, in the world of musical theater, the book writer, must give up their baby and let the actors and directors do their jobs. If you’re too close to the material, you won’t see the giant, glaring mistakes in the show.”
“How so?”
“I think some directors who are involved in writing the show can get so invested in the show that they don’t want to see the problems. The classic example wasSpiderman: Turn Off the Dark.”
“I heard about that one. Wasn’t that show dangerous?”
“Dangerous? No. Were mistakes made on the stage that led to safety problems that should have been caught before actors were harmed? Yes. I think Julie Taymor, who is a brilliant director, got so caught up in making this weird Shakespearean version of Spiderman that she really did not see the giant fiasco that was right in front of her.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad. Was it?”
“Oh, it was that bad, and then some. I don’t think I do the level of horribleness enough justice in an explanation. It was that bad. Again, a director who was so caught up in writing the show that she didn’t see the problems. But anyway, what about you? Why teaching?”
“I was always the kid who wanted to be a teacher. When other kids played army, I wanted to play school. I used to get extra worksheets and bring them home and play teacher with the younger kids on my block.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did. Hey, there were some bright five-year-olds when I was in the second grade. By the time they got to school themselves, they were head and shoulders above their peers.”
“How did you pick which grade you wanted to teach?”
“The grade kind of picked me. I have a general degree in elementary education, then got my master’s in special education. I read that the school districts were not fully serving kids with learning disabilities or behavioral problems, so I decided I wanted to bethat guy. I didn’t want to work with the brightest and best students. I wanted to work with those who were struggling. I wanted to help them ‘become the best they could be,’ to steal from the Army.”
“I thought about teaching elementary English for a hot second, but I don’t really like kids.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing you decided against teaching. There tend to be kids in elementary schools.”
“Exactly.” The buzzing sound of my drier finishing snapped me back to reality. “Time to fold,” I said as I rose off the chair and headed toward the dryer. “Just as an FYI,” I said, leaning in close enough to Kirk to smell his cologne, “I take my stuff back to the apartment to fold. I don’t know when the last time those folding tables were cleaned. Personally, I wouldn’t trust them unless you bring a box of disinfectant wipes to clean them off first.”
“Thanks for the tip. And if you ever need help running your lines or something, I’m next door.”
“I may take you up on that offer.”
Chapter 12
Istoodatthefront of the stage, getting ready to belt the eleven o’clock number. I looked up at the monitor hanging from the mezzanine. The conductor’s arms were flying as the tempo for the song grew faster.Beep!Her arms grew more chaotic and became a blur on the screen. I kept staring at the monitor, waiting for my cue.Beep!Finally, there was a pause in her movement. She looked straight into the camera mounted above her station so I could see when she held out her hand to me, which seemed to come right out of the monitor, beckoning me to sing. There was a moment when, I swear, she could see me through the monitor. She gave me a downbeat.Beep!I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. The conductor had a look of confusion cross her face. She led the orchestra back around to my cue and she gestured toward me again, giving me my cue. I tried to force something out.BEEP! The sound of a foghorn burst forth from me. My arms flew to my open mouth, but covering my mouth with my hands couldn’t make the sound stop.BEEP! A new sensation rolled over my body. It was as if a ghost was standing on my chest, trying to give me CPR. I wanted to panic, but it’s hard to hyperventilate when a foghorn is roaring from your chest. I closed my eyes, wishing it would all disappear.BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
