Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters (18 page)

In a rare turn of events, my sister is actually setting the table. Of course, she is wearing the Annie costume my mother bought her, as she has been for weeks now. You know, the red dress with the little belt? She changes into it the second she gets home from school every day. I’m frankly amazed that my parents put their collective feet down about her wearing it
to
school every day. When I told my parents about the play
I’m
in, did they offer to buy me my own deli-meat slicer? No. Of course not.

All I can think about is running up to my room to look through
The Reflector
—what could possibly be in it? The train was too crowded to get it out on the way home, and it’s practically burning a hole in my backpack. But I’m only halfway up the stairs when my mother hollers, “Kelsey Finkelstein! Get down here and help your sister!”

“Help her how exactly? By handing her forks?” I say, still poised with one foot on the stair above the other.

“Kelsey, please don’t argue with me. I’m tired and I’m hungry and I’ve had it with your Typical Adolescent Beha—”

“Ugh,
fine
!” I stomp back down, hurling my backpack on the floor next to the stairs. I plan to eat as quickly as possible and make my escape.

Once we sit down at the table, Mom announces, “Girls, I need you to find out about tickets for your plays ASAP.”

Travis looks up from the spaghetti she is smearing on herself and says, “Mommy, there are no tickets. It’s just during assembly period one day.”

“Oh,” Mom says, looking miffed. I guess she won’t be allowed to bring in the local news team to assembly period. Bummer. “Well, then you, Kelsey. Find out. Everyone’s coming to your big debut and I want good seats.”

Wait a second, what? “Uh, who is ‘everyone,’ exactly?”

“Well, us, of course,” Mom explains. “And Daddy’s partners, their wives and kids. The Goldsteins and the Eakeleys will come. We have to invite the Wurgafts and the Udells from temple—oh, and the Harrises. I’m sure Aunt Eve will want to come. Maybe some of the women from my tennis game … Marv, do you think your cousin Dana would enjoy the show? You know she never gets to the theater anymore …”

Great. Having a bunch of my parents’ friends see me portraying the thrilling role of Lazar Wolf the Butcher in a musical where everyone speaks the lyrics should be just the right mix of humiliation and trauma to help me solidify the memory forever. I won’t even need a cast picture.

“… and of course we’ll include Jed!” my mother finishes with a grand flourish.

“Jed?” I ask. “Who the heck is Jed?”

“Duuuuh,” Travis says, her mouth full of broccoli. “Jed is my agent.”

“Agent?”

“Yes.” My mother beams. “Travis is going to start trying out for commercials!”

“What? Since when?”

“Well, Kelsey, if you would stop locking yourself in your room and talking to your friends on the computer all night—what you could possibly have to say to them after seeing them all day, I can’t even fathom—you would know what’s going on around here!” My mother mouths “Typical Adolescent Behavior” at my dad. (Apparently Typical Adolescents don’t notice things like that, even when they are occurring six inches away.) Mom turns back to me. “Travis went with her friend Jessica to a commercial audition last week and just
loved
it, so we got her all set up with Jed. And he is no small potatoes according to Elaine Rabinowitz, who would know.”

Oh, of course. Elaine Rabinowitz. Whoever that is.

“So, why shouldn’t Jed come see your show?” Mom continues. “He’ll love it! Two talents in one family? He’ll fall all over himself!”

Uh, hello? Has everyone here lost their minds completely? I can’t have some Hollywood agent at my school play—especially when there is
no chance
he will do any falling all over himself. Maybe crying. But no falling, for sure.

“Um, I think this is approximately the worst idea in history, Mom,” I tell her as patiently as possible. “For one thing, the play kind of sucks. And for another—”

“Come on, Kels, don’t be a downer! We’re all excited about the big show.” My dad looks up from the brief he’s dripping sauce on to participate. “Hey, maybe you girls can do a TV show together! That’d pay for college, huh?”

“And don’t say ‘sucks,’ honey—it’s common,” Mom adds pointedly.

“Guys, you know I’m playing a butcher, right?”

Mom sighs with exasperation. “Oh, Kelsey, you’re exaggerating. End of story, everyone is coming, and you’ll be terrific.”

I don’t know how you “exaggerate” being a butcher, but I guess I should be grateful for a taste of familial support, finally. And yet, only thoughts of future embarrassment come to mind.

“Mom—”

“What, Kels? Do you want to try out for commercials, too?”

Travis snorts milk through her nose. Very nice.

“Yeah, no, thanks. Okay, well, I have a lot of homework to do, so … yeah. Can I be excused?”

I clear my plate and dash to my room, where I discover that Nancy the Cat has puked up a hairball in the middle of my bed. Dear God, how I wish I had my own apartment. I swiftly ball all my covers together and throw them on the floor in Travis’s room. Her cat, her hairball, I say. Blech.

I get out my books to finish the homework I didn’t get through during today’s riveting rehearsal. The newspaper with Lexi’s story is tucked inside my math notebook, and I put that on top of the pile—I should definitely digest before diving into homework. I also want to call Lexi and tell her how psyched I am that her article is in the new edition.

I dial Lexi on my cell, flicking through the newspaper while the phone rings. What was that guy talking about? There’s an article about the school’s carbon footprint. Maybe he thinks I look like an avid recycler?

“Hey, Lex,” I say when she picks up. “I just wanted to tell you … that I saw your article in the new
Reflector
! I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks!” she exclaims. “Wait—how’d you get it? The paper doesn’t come out until the end of the week.”

“Yeah, I know. Remember that guy, the one we met that day in the office?”

“Um,
yeah,
of course! The flirty one.”

“He is not flirty, Lex. He is smarmy. There’s a difference.”

“Ben is his name, I think,” she goes on, ignoring me. “I haven’t seen him since that day, actually, but I asked around for you. He’s a junior …,” she trails off teasingly.

“Well, that’s nice,” I say, not taking the bait. “Anyway, he was randomly at play rehearsal today and he gave me a copy.”

“Well, see? That’s flirty! I bet he likes you.”

“Yeah, yeah, he’s totally obsessed with me. First of all, I think he has a girlfriend named Val something—”

“What? How do you know that?”

“And secondly, he thinks I am a crazy person who smashes her own limbs on desks and yells a lot.”

“Well, that part is true. But maybe he’s into that.” She giggles. “Now, how did you find out about the girlfr—”

“And anyway,” I cut her off, not wanting to talk about Ben’s girlfriend, since that has
nothing
to do with me, “he said there’s something else in here that I would want to see, but I think he was just—” I flip to the back of the paper, which is the last page of the sports section.

Oh my God.

“Kels?” Lexi says after a few seconds of silence. “Hello? Are you still there?”

“Lex, I have to go. I’ll call you back.”

I am staring, yet again, at a picture of myself in the school paper. This one is a full-on face shot, middle of the page, resplendent with a “Kelsey Finkelstein, freshman” label. No photo credit, of course.

The shot accompanies an article about the sports awards assembly and a list of all the winners. You’d think they’d have used a picture of, say, the football MVP or something. But no. The picture shows me accepting my Unsung Hero Award from Julie, smiling my face off with surprise and joy. I guess it wouldn’t be such a bad picture—it might even be a
good
picture—if it weren’t for one tiny thing. Which is …

I am missing half a tooth! All that lip-clamping to make sure no one saw … and now every person in the entire school is going to have a picture of it!

Deep breaths. Damage control. Lexi is on the paper. Maybe she can help? I call her back.

“So, how hard would it be to change something in the paper? I mean, this new issue your article is in.”

“Uh … I have no idea. But if it’s been printed up already, I doubt they can. Why, what happened?”

“What about Kate Izzo? Couldn’t she do something? I mean, she’s supposed to be in charge!”

“Um … I don’t know, I mean … I’ve only met her for, like, five seconds. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Lexi sounds really worried.

“Yeah, just … humiliated. Again. You’ll see.”

I hang up with her and flop onto my coverless bed. I’ve been so good about not bursting into tears since the Scarves concert—even when I got cast as Lazar Wolf!—but I can feel them brewing now.

This is so silly. It’s just a picture.
Woman up, Finkelstein!
But I just don’t understand why that Ben guy would want to purposely make me feel like crap. Or Kate the Editor, or whoever these clowns are doing amateur photography, for that matter—I don’t even know them! Or do I? What if there’s someone with a grudge against me (Julie? Danny Zifner? Cassidy?) running around school with a digital camera, gleefully plotting ways to make me look idiotic? And why doesn’t the paper have a photography budget anyway? We have three different gym teachers and a separate theater building, for God’s sake! There’s a vegetarian menu in the cafeteria and ergonomic desk chairs in the classrooms. And they can’t afford a couple of cameras that only qualified people without grudges against me are allowed to use?!

This
stinks
.

The next morning, I contemplate storming the
Reflector
office again, but decide against it. After all, it didn’t do much good the last time. Maybe I only exacerbated the situation and should try a new tactic, like wearing a bag over my head at all times to avoid future photographic appearances.

Em and JoJo meet me at my locker and I show them the picture. Em shakes her head sympathetically, and JoJo doesn’t even laugh once, which I know is a struggle. She is a truly good friend, I tell you.

At least I know the storm is coming this time so I can prepare to be a laughingstock on the day the issue comes out. Who really cares about the school paper, anyway, right? Maybe there will be a surprise volcanic eruption that day and people will be too busy running for their lives to read anything at all.

It could happen.

At rehearsal, our brave director announces he’s been creatively inspired and wants to add a sort of performance art element to the big dream scene where Tevye lies to Golde about how his grandmother doesn’t want their eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to marry Lazar Wolf.

Although I don’t really understand why we can’t just stick to the script, this does mean another scene for me to be in, which means I get to do something besides sit in the audience for a change. And I don’t have to learn any lines for it!

The stage is set up so Tevye and Golde are in a bed (really two chairs next to each other) on one side and I’m in another “bed” with Pearl, the girl who plays my dead wife, Fruma Sarah, on the other. The idea is that while Tevye tells his story to Golde, Fruma Sarah suddenly goes flying out of our bed and into the air, where she hovers above the
other
bed and yells at Tevye about her pearls and stuff.

I personally think that Mr. Zinner just wanted to incorporate the flying apparatus left over from a production of
Peter Pan
from, like, fifteen years ago. Poor Pearl has to gamble her life on some stage-crew kid pulling a rope attached by a wire to a weird green harness she’ll wear under her Fruma Sarah costume. She is terrified. And rightly so.

All that week, we work on the dream sequence, we start blocking the wedding scene, where I actually have stuff to do as well. Now that I’m finally onstage, I’m feeling much more into being in this play. I like jotting down the stage directions in my script, and I feel pretty good about my lines, too. I am trying to infuse them with personality and flair.

Of course, I have to talk in a really deep, manly voice, so maybe I’m just infusing everything with idiocy.

Also, Mr. Mackler finally came to rehearsals and we added the singing to the lyrics at last. I feel like we look about sixty-five percent less absurd now.

Three more weeks till showtime … oh, and did I mention
The Reflector
came out on Friday?

By Wednesday, the fallout from the paper has mostly calmed down. For that I have to thank my friends’ undying love and my personal resolve to ignore any kid who asks me if I can whistle down a taxi for him, which is about half my class. But … it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, I suppose. I mean, it’s not like I got a face tattoo. Or maybe I’m just getting better at dealing with personal disgrace?

Either way, I haven’t seen Ben the paper guy since that day in rehearsal. I’ll tell you this much: hiding from me is the smartest thing he could do.

29

After another week of rehearsing, which consists mostly of Pearl trying not to cry whenever she has to go up in the harness, Ned acting like a buffoon, JoJo sneaking a toy rat into the piano and almost giving Mr. Mackler a heart attack, and so on, Mr. Zinner announces it’s time to start working with lights and costumes.

Mrs. Graves, the art teacher/costume designer, wheels a giant clothing rack of costumes onto the stage and starts handing stuff out. Now, there are some other girls playing guys in the show, too, like soldiers and men in the wedding scene and stuff, and they all get big hats and gray pants to wear—not so bad. I assume that’s what I’m getting, too, but she doesn’t call my name.

I’m sitting there thinking,
Am I supposed to perform naked?
when Mrs. Graves comes up to me, running a pen over her clipboard and clucking her tongue. She finally says, “Ah-
ha!
Kelsey Finkelstein … Well, I have a special ensemble for you, hon, but we need to do a private fitting. Please come to my office during your lunch period, okay?”