The Fat Lady Sings (17 page)

I need to vent. I need to yell and scream and have somebody say, "Damn right -- you should be mad." But who can I go to? All the people who usually listen to me rant and rave when I'm upset about something were in that room. I can't go back to Mom's and get some sort of June Cleaver advice. Karl is at some conference about delivering babies -- I mean, really, they've been getting born pretty much forever, do we really need a conference for this? Just catch them already. Dad is definitely not on my list of confidantes. Besides, if I go home -- either home -- Elliot and Cameron will find me. So I point the car towards the only place I can think of, a place I only know the location of because it was on the route when I used to ride the bus to school. I drive to Cynthia's house.

Cynthia's room is not
what I expected. When someone is perfect at math and has the lead in the musical and a great figure (even if it is man-made) I just imagine her living in perfect neatness, with a pink bulletin board covered with signed pictures of all the gorgeous guys she's dated. Until the other day I had created this vision of Cynthia at home as sort of an evil Elle Woods. But her actual room is great -- it's a total mess. There are piles of paper and those recruitment postcards you get from colleges scattered all over the place. Dirty clothes are heaped on the unmade bed, and nothing -- I mean nothing -- is pink. We plop down on two ancient looking beanbag chairs in the corner, Cynthia barely seeming to exert any pressure on hers, me threatening to burst the seams and send beans (or whatever they stuff these things with) all over the room.

"So what's the problem?" says Cynthia.

"What makes you think there's a problem?" I say.

"Other than the fact that you actually came to my house -- "

"I thought we were friends now," I say.

"We are," says Cynthia, more gently. "But there are friends who meet in secret in the practice room and there are friends who come to your house when anyone could be watching. Anyhow, you look awful."

"Thanks."

"No, I mean that's how I knew something was wrong. You look like your best friend just died or something."

"They hate the script again," I say.

"Who?"

"Cameron, Elliot, Taylor, Suzanne, everybody," I say.

"And they told you this?"

"That's the real problem," I say. "They wouldn't come to me. They had to plot behind my back."

"That sucks," says Cynthia, and I want to hug her right then and there. It does suck, and it feels so much better to hear someone say it out loud. So I tell Cynthia all about what happened at the church and how they want an arc to Act II that makes it more like a romantic comedy.

"The funny thing is," I say, "that I wanted more of a plot all along, I just couldn't figure out how to write one."

"Then this could be a good thing, right?" says Cynthia.

"That might be exaggerating the point."

"An opportunity, then," she says, and of course she's right, which I still find annoying, even though I like her now. "Why don't we read the play?" she says.

"What, you mean just read through the whole thing, the two of us, right now?"

"Why not?" says Cynthia.

Why not? It's a Friday night, I don't have any homework, I'm not going to rehearsal, I certainly don't have a date, and apparently neither does Cynthia.

"OK," I say. I only have one copy of the script because I left Cameron's in the car, but it's more fun to pull our beanbags together and read off the same pages.

Cynthia does really well for a cold reading -- a lot better than her audition for Dolly, that's for sure. She reads Suzy and I read Aggie and we take turns with all the other parts. She laughs occasionally, but not much in Act II, I notice. The further we get into it, the more I am forced to admit that Cameron and Elliot are right and that Taylor's idea is actually pretty good. It doesn't make me any less angry at them, but now I'm focused on the script and making it as good as it can be.

"So Taylor thinks that Aggie and Suzy should have a breakup in the second act?" says Cynthia when we've finished.

"Right," I say. "I mean, I guess I should have figured that out, but I was all caught up in this idea that they would ever be friends in the first place."

"You think it's weird for a skinny girl with fake boobs and a fat girl with low self esteem to be friends?"

"Not weird," I say. "I just thought it would make a good -- " and I look up and see Cynthia staring at me with this really odd look on her face, like a combination of "I want to hug you forever" and "I want to tear your head off and use it to play soccer."

"This play is about us, isn't it?" says Cynthia.

"Not exactly," I say. "I mean when I wrote it, I wasn't that crazy about you, so -- "

"But it's about us," she persists.

"Look, Cynthia, yeah, I may have used you, or your body at least, as inspiration, but -- "

"I'm a character in a play," she says, not seeming to hear me. I'm bracing myself for the outburst, and even I'm good enough at math to know that after this my number of friends will be zero, when she says, "That is so cool!"

"You're not angry?" I say.

"Why should I be angry?" she says. "Suzy's nice -- way nicer than me. You know everybody who sees this is going to think we're friends in real life."

It had never occurred to me that
The Fat Lady Sings
could out me and Cynthia as friends -- mostly because we weren't friends until last week.

"But it's made up," I say. "It's make believe."

"So what can you make believe for me to do that would make you break up with me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm Suzy, right?" says Cynthia. "And Suzy needs to break up with Aggie in Act II. So what could I do that would make you so mad at me you wouldn't want to be friends anymore?"

"Get cast in a part I wanted," I say.

"Yeah, but I already did that," says Cynthia, "and besides, in the play Aggie doesn't want to audition for the musical."

I'm tempted to say "Neither did you, before
Dolly
," but Cynthia is being really nice to me right now and I don't want to sound catty.

"So what else could I do?" says Cynthia.

What else could she do? It's totally obvious, isn't it? But am I actually going to say it to Cynthia Pirelli? What if the whole friendship is a sham? What if she set up this whole thing just so I would make this confession? What else could Cynthia Pirelli do that would make me never speak to her again?

"You could date Roger Morton," I say.

Cynthia gives a low whistle. "You like Roger?" she says.

"This isn't about me, it's about Suzy," I say.

"Yeah, but you like Roger Morton," she says again.

"Yes, OK, I like Roger, and I've got about as much chance of dating him as I do of fitting into one of your outfits."

"I wouldn't say that," says Cynthia.

For a split second I pretend that she knows something, that Roger has secretly confessed his adoration of me to her during rehearsals, but I force the fantasy away. I've got work to do.

"Let's get back to the play," I plead.

"OK, the play," says Cynthia. "So if you would hate me for dating Roger, wouldn't Aggie hate Suzy for dating that French exchange student kid she has the crush on?"

"Jean Paul?"

"Yeah," says Cynthia, "Jean Paul."

"Suzy could go out with Jean Paul right after scene three," I say. "That would make Aggie furious!"

"Exactly," says Cynthia.

"But why would they get back together? I don't really see Aggie forgiving something like that." This is true, but I'm also hoping Cynthia will take it as a veiled threat -- still, I can't imagine her dating Roger after this conversation. I mean, she likes me now.

"What if Aggie needs Suzy to give her singing lessons?"

"Like you and me," I say.

"Why not?" says Cynthia, and now she's getting really excited.

"That might actually work," I say, and then it suddenly hits me. "Oh my god!"

"What?" says Cynthia.

"You remember how David wanted me to not sing so many songs?"

"Yeah, but that was before you got your brilliant vocal coach," says Cynthia.

"True," I say, "But what about this. What if Aggie can't sing? I mean, the play is called
The Fat Lady Sings,
so what if the whole point is she can't, but she wants to. So she's entered in the talent contest, just like she is now, only she practices and practices and she doesn't get any better. And then she sees Suzy in the musical and she decides to swallow her pride about the whole Jean Paul thing and ask her for lessons and they become friends again and then in the final scene -- "

"The fat lady sings!" shouts Cynthia. "That's amazing."

"And it's the first time we hear her sing in the whole show," I say.

"But that means you'd give up two whole songs," says Cynthia, "plus all the solo parts you have in the chorus numbers."

"Right, so I can concentrate on 'Defying Gravity,'" I say. "If I'm in a musical that I wrote, and I don't sing anything, and then at the end I sing one song and sing the crap out of it -- that would blow people away. And Cameron wanted me to take a risk with the script -- well, what bigger risk than having the lead in a musical not sing until the final number?"

"And then the whole play makes sense," says Cynthia. "I mean not just the second act, but all the set up in the beginning, too. It's all leading to the moment when -- "

And we say it together, practically shrieking, we're so excited. "The fat lady sings!"

"Can I borrow your computer," I say, and two minutes later I've plugged in my flash drive and I'm at work.

Cynthia calls Dad and explains that I'm sleeping over and then she stays up half the night making me coffee and grilled cheese sandwiches and at ten o'clock the next morning I fall asleep on the bean bag chair to the sound of her printer humming away as it spits out a whole new play.

OK, maybe "whole new play"
is a bit of an exaggeration. I cut one of my songs from Act I and gave the other one to Suzy. Other than that, I only changed about three lines of dialogue in the first act. Even the first half of Act II is pretty similar, but the last twenty pages or so are completely rewritten. I know that's a lot of new material to learn and block and rehearse in two weeks and we need to get started right away, so when I wake up at three in the afternoon I hug Cynthia and thank her and then head out for the biggest session of pride swallowing I've ever had in my life. I keep thinking,
if Aggie in the play can do it, then so can I.

Cameron is in his editing studio writing a history paper and Taylor is with him, reading
Pride and Prejudice.
I have two copies of the new script, so I hand one to each of them without saying anything.

"Listen, Aggie," says Cameron.

"Just read the script," I say. "Then we can talk." I try not to sound angry, because the truth is I really want him to read it and respond to what's on the page, without worrying about my feelings. Of course if he hates it, I might not feel that way anymore.

Cameron and Taylor both start to read, so I pick up
Pride and Prejudice,
which I read last year for English and again over the summer, and turn to the chapter where Eliza meets Darcy at Pemberly. I get so caught up in my favorite part of the story that I almost don't notice the laughs and sighs and little sounds of surprise and delight coming from Cameron and Taylor. Almost.

Cameron puts his script down first, but as soon as he does, Taylor says, "Wait! Six more pages," and Cameron just crosses his hands on his lap and sits quietly. I take a quick glance at him to try to read his face, and it looks like he could be trying to hold back his excitement about the new and improved script. Then again I get the same look on my face when I have cramps, so I go back to Longbourne, where the newly married Lydia and Wickham have just arrived.

"OK, I'm done," says Taylor a few minutes later.

"So what do you think?" I ask.

"Don't you think we should talk about yesterday?" says Cameron. "I mean, listen, I'm really sorry that we -- "

"Look," I say, "yesterday was yesterday. We open in less than two weeks. I don't have the luxury of holding a grudge."

"So are we OK?" he says.

"I just wish that if you have anything to say about the script, you'll say it to me, instead of getting together behind my back."

"Yeah," says Cameron softly, "that was wrong. And I'm sorry."

"I have something to say about the script," says Taylor. "Don't change a single word."

"Really?" I say.

And Cameron finally cracks a smile and says, "God, I'm glad you think so, too. This is freaking brilliant, Aggie. But are you sure you're OK with it -- giving up those songs?"

"Trust me," I say. "It'll give me a chance to really work hard on that one."

"Say, did anything ever happen with that whole voice lesson idea?" says Cameron. "I mean, you have sounded a lot better the last few rehearsals."

And here is my chance to confess all. I'm secret friends with Cynthia Pirelli. My nemesis is now my voice teacher. The girl I hate above all others is the person I turned to when I was mad at all my friends, she's the person who came up with the idea of Suzy dating Jean Paul, she's the one who made me coffee and sandwiches when I was writing all night, she's the reason you just read a second act that actually works.

And I don't do it. I betray Cynthia for a second time.

Because how can I explain? How can I tell them that the foundation of this whole production -- my hatred for Cynthia -- is an illusion?

"Thanks for noticing," I say. "I've been working at home."

Scene 5
Cameron calls an emergency rehearsal
for that night and then heads out to Kinko's to copy the script. I know I should probably go home and do some homework, or sleep, but I end up staying at Cameron's and talking to Taylor about
Pride and Prejudice.
It's her second time reading it, too. Her English teacher told her that if she's going to take the AP exam it would be a good idea to be "intimately familiar" with at least one classic novel, so she chose this one. After the past twenty-four hours, slouching on Cameron's couch and gossiping about the Bennets is exactly what I need.