All This Heavenly Glory (2 page)

thinly veiled autobiography of previous work reaches unprecedented levels of self-consciousness,
that sort of thing, also realizes that just because she realizes it doesn’t mean it still won’t happen, autobiography is
veiled at least insofar as the author of this personal ad is actually spoken for and therefore does not wish to mislead Owen
Wilson into thinking she is available while also not meaning to diminish his appeal in any way, supposes that her boyfriend
who admits to a crush on Drew Barrymore wouldn’t freak out if she admitted to finding Owen Wilson appealing given the likelihood
of either of them meeting and subsequently dating Drew Barrymore and Owen Wilson via the personal ads, although writing this
her mind is already going to the bad place wherein Owen Wilson reads the personal ad and shows it to Drew Barrymore, who somehow
finds out who the author’s boyfriend is and where he lives and then flies on her private jet to Chicago and they meet and
she jets the author’s boyfriend away and they have lobster and truffles in their water bed on the private jet and laugh about
leaving the SWF behind and Owen Wilson is already in a serious relationship and not even with Salma Hayek or whoever but with
like some over-hyped author she thinks is particularly bad; anyway, after that little digression the wrap-up becomes a bit
problematic in that you now know that this has a happy non—Owen Wilson ending, but that seems fitting under the circumstances.

C
HARLOTTE ANNE BYERS
, age eight, gets off the 104 at 63rd and Broadway at dusk and descends the cement stairs to the stage entrance of the New
York State Theater like she knows what she’s doing, which she does, but only marginally, and any appearance of deliberation
is only a lucky coincidence. Charlotte Anne does know where she’s going, but at this point, why is of no great concern. (Why
being ostensibly due to her employment but motivated by other things entirely, some of which she’s aware of and some of which
it only looks like she’s aware of.) Charlotte Anne Byers is in the children’s chorus in New York City Opera’s fall production
of
La Bohime
, for which she has been required to audition in spite of the fact that her mother is featured in the role of Musetta, the
saucy tart who dares to remove her shoe out of doors at a crowded cafe on the Left Bank of Paris. (Any speculation about her
mother’s typecasting can be put to rest, which is not to say that Charlotte Anne’s mother is or is not saucy and/or a tart,
but that unlike other theatrical fields of entertainment where one’s apparent individual qualities such as saucy tartness
might aid in their casting, in opera it helps to come to the table with some level of skill, and so if her mother were let’s
say of any formidable size, which she isn’t, but for the sake of making this clear, if she were, it would not prevent her
from being cast as a saucy tart if she could sing well enough, or possibly if she had modest talents, say if she had some
training and maybe sang out of tune occasionally [in spite of the training] but slept with the right person, which her mother
never does, sleep with people for that purpose, and which, in any case, could just as easily result in her casting in some
non-tarty role even though, clearly, a tartiness would be perpetuating itself in order to obtain the possibly non-tarty role.)
It happens that Charlotte Anne can also sing, and so impressed Miss Homan, the director of the children’s chorus, with her
rendition of “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” that she was cast as Urchin #2 and fitted for the green velvet costume, which she loved
because it reminded her of Scarlett O’Hara’s curtain dress. She had already seen
Gone With the Wind
three times, at the movies. If there is any suspicion of dubiousness regarding the matter of Charlotte Anne’s casting, it
is not recognized by anyone as nepotism, more like a sort of carnival thing where the bearded lady’s kids end up in the show
because they have beards too. Urchins #3, 4, and 6 are also children of those in the company, competent singers all.

A gift box of thin mints is passed around in the dressing room, let’s say they’re from the suitor of an attractive chorister,
and tonight for some reason, Charlotte Anne, who would eat sugar with a spoon if there were nothing else, doesn’t feel like
eating her chocolate-covered thin mint and decides to save it for later in between the waistbands of her three petticoats.
Charlotte Anne Byers, still eight, is right this minute thinking she maybe doesn’t want to add the extra calories on account
of Dante DiMedici, the boys’ soloist, having said, “Hi, Charlie,” at yesterday’s rehearsal, not knowing that no one called
her that ever, not having any way of knowing that she would occasionally ask to be called Charlie (like the perfume, signed
with a squiggle under it) to no avail, particularly by her mother, who of course always called her Charlotte Anne (leaving
her mother no recourse, in the event of misbehavior, but to add “Byers” at the end, seeing as how the already formal-sounding
“Charlotte Anne” had the potential, every time, to inspire worry, in and of itself without the “Byers” at the end, although
it wasn’t too often that the full Charlotte Anne Byers combination was necessary, which tended to be for situations in which
Charlotte Anne maybe spaced out [leaving something in something else for too long/doing some thing without doing some other
thing/leaving something on/off/open/out/somewhere], or acted like an eight-year-old [touching/watching/seeing/looking at/saying/doing
something she wasn’t supposed to touch/watch/ see/look at/say/do], which, don’t forget she is, eight), and even though she
wouldn’t know that Dante DiMedici, at twelve, is thinking more about a sandwich than anything else right now (and is not yet
thinking even in broad terms about his preference in gender, let alone one specific person), such as expressing something
above and beyond a greeting when he said the words “Hi, Charlie,” and although she suspects otherwise, Dante DiMedici is probably
not at all meaning to convey any type of psychic connection by way of his calling her Charlie without having been asked, and
by extension, via the psychic connection, saying to Charlotte Anne/Charlie anything like “I care about you enough to psychically
intuit your wish to be called Charlie and maybe you might like to go see
Love Story
with me sometime,” which movie choice he would also have to have psychically intuited, seeing as how this is also a favorite
of hers, even though she is, still, eight. Eight-year-old opera-singing
Gone With the Wind/Love
Story—watching Charlotte Anne Byers may have a certain sophistication slightly above the average eight-year-olds, but that
may have no bearing on whether she is going to think through what might happen to a chocolate-covered thin mint situated between
the waistbands of her three petticoats, and as such, this chocolate-covered thin mint is promptly forgotten about for the
duration of her appearance in the second act, largely because of Dante DiMedici being the cutest thing ever, in spite of his
undetermined gender preferences, the age difference, or the difference in their heights, which is not in his favor, which
lack of height Charlotte Anne’s mother explains by way of saying that Dante had been castrated by his own mother (in order
to preserve his glorious soprano), and even though Charlotte Anne doesn’t know what castrated is, and even though she would
have no reason, even if she did, to rethink her crush on the basis of this information, seeing as how (one would hope) eight-year-old
Charlotte Anne would have no particular use for/cause to see/need to see such parts at this time. Charlotte Anne has only
a peripheral awareness, at this time, that her mother is given to drama (and therefore lending a lack of credibility to the
castration theory, which Charlotte Anne, at eight, wouldn’t know was not currently in practice), and also does not know that
her mother is carrying some unspecified resentment toward Dante DiMedici’s mother, and thus, that the possibility is present
that this accusation is of dubious origin at best. (It wouldn’t be a year before her mother would just come out and say that
Dante Di-Medici got his balls cut off, which, needless to say, even to
Gone With the Wind/Love
Story—watching, public-transportation-taking Charlotte Anne, is disturbing, naturally, since this explanation comes not very
long at all after she finds out what balls even are, and at eight, with only a slightly more developed awareness of her mother’s
tendency toward drama, is still likely to believe what her mother tells her.) Also, tonight is Charlotte Anne’s turn to exit
the stage in the actual horse-drawn carriage with her mother, the Rodolfo, and Dante DiMedici in it, this combination of the
short-statured, non-gender-choosing, possibly psychic DiMedici and the carriage ride (chaperoned and public as it was) being
more than enough to distract her from the covert and irrevocable meltdown taking place in her bodice.

Onstage, Dante DiMedici pushes his way upstage through the Urchins (ever so slightly brushing against Charlotte Anne in the
process, which brushing she will interpret through the end of fourth grade) for his solo. Charlotte Anne imagines that Dante
DiMedici is dedicating his solo to her (“
Vo’ la tromba, it cavallin!”
Roughly: “Want a trumpet, want a horse), that he may be expressing, via the superficial desire of his character (Ragazzo),
his own secret passion for Charlotte Anne, that he is, in a way, publicly acknowledging his tenderness for her, and that the
audience present at the New York State Theater tonight is able to perceive this subtle message of love and therefore collectively
experiences this performance of
La Bohéme
as having particular depth and significance. At no time during this solo does Dante DiMedici actually look at Charlotte Anne,
but due to her growing certainty about their psychic connection, she does not find this troubling. As they exit in the carriage,
Charlotte Anne pictures around her a sea of bleeding soldiers amid the burning of Atlanta as she descends the buggy, nobly
tearing off her green velvet costume and its petticoats to fashion into bandages (in this fantasy there is of course no chocolate-covered
thin-mint stain, or if there is, the bleeding soldiers seem to pay it no mind) and therefore making more than a good impression
upon Dante DiMedici, still in the carriage in imaginary war-torn Atlanta, awestruck at her Scarlett O’Hara—like heroic actions.
In reality, what happens with Charlotte Anne’s petticoats is that they spill over into Dante DiMedici’s lap, and as she tries
to contain the wayward garments into her own lap (even though it’s a small carriage and Charlotte Anne, her mother, the Rodolfo,
and Dante DiMedici are squeezed together in a way that certainly doesn’t trouble her at all [and seems not to be troubling
to the Rodolfo either, similarly pressed against her mother] even though she cannot actually feel the contact between Dante
and herself, the knowledge of the contact is enough for her), Dante whispers to Charlotte Anne, “It’s okay,” as the carriage
moves offstage, confirming in her mind all earlier suspicions as to any possible feelings/psychic connection taking place.

The melted thin mint is finally discovered, of course, as Charlotte Anne changes back into her own dress, and an attempt is
made to wash off the offending deep brown stain with cold water and a gooey, gray, communal bar of soap, to little avail,
so the soiled undergarments are hung folded underneath the remaining stain-free slip and left next to a brown velvet costume
on the rack in the hope that it might be associated with the brown-velvetwearing urchin (#5) and not herself. (Charlotte Anne
has no particular bad feelings for Urchin #5 or anyone, really, for that matter, but is so unprepared for any possible consequences
of having stained the petticoats, having an exaggerated fear of getting in trouble wildly disproportionate to the amount of
trouble she actually gets in, ever, causing her to worry less about any possible trouble brought about by getting someone
else in trouble, in the hope that that person does not have any similarly overexaggerated fear of getting, or being, in trouble,
and of course also, that the extent of the trouble would be limited to some appropriate punishment here at the opera house
and not both here at the opera house and at home; it’s a long way from her mind to think of suggesting that she dry-clean
something :she knows what a dry cleaner is, to be sure, but will grow up and still never find out what “Martinizing” means],
because, again, she’s eight, and this is the sort of logical thing that you figure out with time and experience, and think
is an unsolvable problem when you are only eight.) The dresser will make a disdainful comment at a later performance upon
noticing the stain, but as it turns out, accusations are never made because of the rotating casts and also the rotating petticoats.
Charlotte Anne, age eight, concerned about castration, thumbs through a tattered
Good Housekeeping
during the brief speculation about the chocolate-covered-thin-mint stain, and the speculation turns to boisterous gossip
about “someone’s” mother “getting it on” with the Rodolfo, which thankfully goes far and above over her head, not only because
she’s eight but because she’s still thinking about Dante and the chocolate-covered thin mint.