My Most Excellent Year (37 page)

The train ride home was a lot quieter than the first one was. I bought cookies and milk for Hucky at the snack bar, but he nodded off just a couple of seconds after we’d gotten back to our seats. Who wouldn’t have? He’d put in a long day. And if I’d known what was good for me, I’d have caught some Z’s too—I had an algebra test in nine hours that I really needed to be awake for.

Speaking of algebra, I think I figured out the part that Lori forgot to tell me. Okay, maybe
x
and
y
do
have specific values—but they mean different things to different people. Pop’s
x
and
y
add up to taking care of me and falling in love with Lori. Alé’s add up to making her own decisions and falling in love with me (we hope). Augie’s add up to Katharine Hepburn and loving Andy and always being there for me. And mine add up to Mama, Pop, Augie, Alé, Hucky, Mom, Dad, Phyllis, Buck Weaver, and anyone else who finds a place inside my heart. So I was right to bring Hucky to New York after all. And Pop was also right to be pissed off at me for doing it. We just need to work out our third variables.

I don’t know if that’s going to help me on my algebra test, but seeing as it’s been February 16 for the past fifty-two minutes, it’s not a bad way to turn fifteen.

I glanced down at Hucky, who was out like a light—with his head on my chest and my arm wrapped around him. And for the very first time I saw something I’d never seen before while he was sleeping. A smile.

I love you,

T.C.

English Assignment

Augie Hwong, 11
^th
Grade

Ms. LaFontaine’s Class

MY MOST EXCELLENT YEAR

Conclusion

After
Kiss Me, Kate
, everybody knew that Alé was going places, but no one was prepared for her professional debut as Kim McAfee
in
Bye Bye Birdie
at the Lyric Stage. God, when she changed into a floppy sweater and baseball cap while she sang “How Lovely to Be a Woman,” you could practically feel the paint melting off the walls. The
Herald
called her “the find of the year,” and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical by the
Boston Phoenix
.

Actually, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the parts I was born to play are forever out of reach (especially Roxie Hart). That’s why I’ve decided to become a director/choreographer instead. We rule, we rock, and we also get to perform all of the roles first while we’re teaching them to our actors. Last year I directed a frosh/soph production of
Follies
, and no one who was at rehearsal will ever forget the way my “Story of Lucy and Jessie” turned Alexis Smith into a dim memory from a fading past.

And speaking of
Follies
, Mom may not write a theatre column anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s retired her poison pen. She recently contributed a commentary to the op-ed page blasting Stephen Sondheim for his stubborn refusal to allow anyone to
cast a same-sex couple in
Company
. “And this is supposed to be a musical about contemporary relationships??” (She never found out what his sentiments were after she called him “the Roy Cohn of composers,” but I’m pretty sure they weren’t “thank you.”) She also wrote a feature article on the three of us and Hucky, and now every stage doorman in New York has to deal with gate-crashing bogus relatives. Carol Channing’s son even got arrested, and all he was trying to do was pick up his mom and take her home.

Andy and I stayed boyfriends until last spring, and then we decided we were too young for a serious commitment. So even though we knew we’d be friends forever, we broke up for our own good. It lasted twenty-five minutes.

He finally told his parents, who weren’t exactly surprised. As a
general rule, when your son’s had a boyfriend for almost two years, it usually means he’s gay. They’ve come over for dinner a couple of times now, which means we have
three
people glued to the couch whenever the Patriots are on ESPN: Dad, Andy, and Andy’s mom. Mr. Wexler is probably the only pilot American Airlines employs who doesn’t have much use for football. His game is lacrosse, which he taught me during sophomore year. I’m a wing. And the uniforms are like
SO
hot.

Mateo was adopted by a deaf couple in Back Bay (she’s a teacher, he’s an author), but he and Hucky stayed best friends through all of the changes. And right after they’d both turned seven, Tick and I taught them the games they most needed to know: secret agents, astronauts, Galaxy Fighters, and brothers. “Brothers” seems to be their favorite—at 8½, they’re still playing it. Incidentally, when I got really proficient at ASL, I made Hucky sit still long enough for
All About Eve
while I signed it for him. He gave up in disgust halfway through it.

“What a ripoff!”
he fumed.
“They stole the whole ginky thing from the Tooth Fairy story! How do these people get
away
with that??”

I figured out something in ninth grade that I should have known at six, when I chose a brother who could teach me how to be Augie Hwong. Up until then, I was definitely the wrong actor for the part (Lea Salonga would have been
so
much more appropriate), but we worked with what we had. And after Tick brought Hucky into our lives and I watched what happened, I figured out that it’s not just the people we love, but the people we let love us
back
who show us how high we can really soar.

Last fall, Alé was one of the three leads up at Merrimack Rep in Stephen Sondheim’s
Merrily We Roll Along
(sorry, Mom), and for some weird reason I found myself crying when she sang “Old Friends”—ironically, one of only eight happy songs that Sondheim ever wrote. It made me remember conning her into the talent show, rehearsing
Kiss Me, Kate
with her, sitting over Mass Pike with Tick and getting each other through puberty, Christmas shopping with Aunt Babe, Dad’s heart-to-hearts with me about Andy, my boyfriend’s first kiss (and not recovering from it for three weeks), Hucky on skis, and the way Julie Andrews came through for us. So if I have to end on a quote—and baby, Augie Hwong
always
ends on a quote—I’m sticking with Sondheim.