The Fat Lady Sings (7 page)

Are you self-conscious, Tim? Probably not -- what am I saying? I mean, look at you -- you're practically a god. I mean, are those muscles even real? Sorry. Anyway, where was I?

Oh, right, so we're sitting in this steam room, naked. Naked! And of course Suzy is perky -- I mean, her ankles are perky and her -- well, you know. They're extremely perky. But not me. "Droopy" would be a better word for me. If I were a dwarf, I'd be Droopy the Dwarf. I know, I know -- I'm not exactly a dwarf.

So we're sitting there and I'm hoping maybe Suzy will think my cheeks are bright red because of the heat, not because I'm mortified with embarrassment to be naked in front of another human being, especially a perky one. And Suzy's just talking! Just chattering on like we were fully clothed and eating hamburgers. And I'm just wondering if it would be socially acceptable for me to wrap my towel around myself -- although to be honest, Tim, I am not sure it would fit. I mean, have you seen the towels in this place? They are not made for coverage, I tell you. When I buy a towel, I want acreage. These things are Lilliputian.

So just when I don't think I can stare at the wall any longer pretending not to see Suzy's body and hoping, please God, that she's not looking at mine -- though honestly how can you miss it -- the door opens and this other woman steps in. A complete stranger. And she's naked. And she's perky! And that's it for me -- I rush out, clutching the towel to try to cover at least some of my lack of perkiness, but as soon as I'm in the hall I see a woman walking towards me and she is wrapped in one of your towels, so you can imagine how tiny she is. So I turn the other way and there you are and -- well, you know what you look like, I'm sure. I mean, there are mirrors all over this place. I know -- I've been trying to avoid them all day.

Now I'm trapped, so I open this door and hide in this room. You know this room. And then of course I hear the handle turning, so I make a dash for the shower in the corner there, and that's when I drop my towel -- not that it was doing me much good. And then you come in and the other lady comes in and -- well, I guess you know what happened after that. I mean, you were here. What was that, like, a ninety-minute massage? Must have seemed a lot longer for you the way she rattled on and on about her husband and his poker club. Does everyone talk through the whole thing like that?

Anyway, after ninety minutes you start to forget that you're naked in a shower listening to someone else's massage. So when you leave, and then she leaves, I step out and I am just stretching because ninety minutes standing still on a tile floor is not great for my back -- since I'm not thin or perky -- and my sweaty foot slips on the tile and I grab the shower curtain and there is this brief
Psycho
moment when I hear the rings popping off the rod and I imagine you finding my body sprawled on the floor. But I'm OK. I mean until a second later, when I hear you coming in I'm OK.

Then I panic and wrap myself up in the shower curtain, which I have to tell you fits a lot better than those towels, and so now here I am. Your two o'clock.

OK, on the one hand, I think I kind of nailed it. I got all the beats right, and I think I balanced the humor and insecurity pretty well. I even heard laughter coming from the firing squad at a couple of points, which is a good sign. The problem is, I'm afraid they'll think I wasn't acting. I mean, even if they don't know I wrote it, they've got to realize that I'm an insecure fat girl just like the one in the monologue. I didn't exactly show range.

The singing audition is a blur, because even while I'm singing "Home" from
Beauty and the Beast
(or sixteen bars of it, anyway) I'm going back over the monologue in my head, trying to figure out if they laughed in the right places, if there's anything I could have done better. By the time someone says, "Thank you very much," I've pretty well convinced myself that all I've proven to them is that I'm crazy enough to do a man's speech from Shakespeare and I can be myself in front of strangers for four minutes. In other words: disaster.

I stagger back out into the hallway, and it's hard to believe it's only been ten minutes since they called my name. I feel like I'm either gonna faint or throw up, and then I remember that everyone else who's come out that door has looked sick, too, and that makes me feel slightly better, but only slightly.

Elliot is waiting for me
outside the front door of the building. He takes one look at me and wraps me in a hug.

"I'll bet you were fabulous," he said.

"You know, I hear banking is a very rewarding career," I say, doing my best to laugh off the feeling that my dream is ending here on this freezing cold sidewalk.

"Yeah, well, with your math grade, I think you'd better stick to acting," says Elliot.

I don't know whether to punch him or kiss him, so I just grab his arm and pull him towards the car. "Take me home," I say.

Elliot points the car
towards the interstate and I do my best to forget the fact that I will probably never see this campus again.

"I heard a rumor something was going on between Roger and Cynthia," I say. "Do you know what the deal is?" I figure I went into the weekend with three problems, one of them has now been dealt with one way or the other (the audition), I might as well start in on the other two (Roger and Cynthia, math class).

"I wouldn't call it a deal," said Elliot. "Although Roger did say that Cynthia's been kind of coming on to him."

"Coming on to him how?"

"I don't know, just being flirty and stuff. You know how girls are around Roger."

"She's up to something, trust me. She has a plan."

"Look, Aggie, I know you don't want to believe this, but Cynthia Pirelli is not a diabolical genius."

"Not a genius, maybe."

"Didn't you sort of like her before she got cast as Dolly?"

"And before she bought her boobs."

"Yeah, well, before all that, didn't you sort of like her?"

"I wouldn't exactly say I liked her," I say, though in truth I liked her just fine. In fact, she was the only skinny person outside the theatre department who ever gave me the time of day. And she did help a lot with math. But that was before.

"I know Roger Morton would never go out with me," I say, "but it just bugs me that she gets to spend so much time with him."

OK, it more than bugs me. As of yesterday, after I heard that Cynthia was into Roger, it officially keeps me awake at night.

"How do you know he would never go out with you?" says Elliot. I figure he's trying to make up for the other day when he told me not to get any "illusions" about Roger.

"Oh, come on, Elliot. Have you ever seen Roger with a girl who had an ounce of body fat?"

"You know, not every guy judges girls by their weight."

"And Roger's not every guy."

"No," says Elliot, "he's not. He's a nice guy, and you know that. And he's been perfectly nice to you."

Which is true, when we were in
Godspell
together and when I ran props for Picnic.

"Being nice and going out are two different things," I say.

"I don't think he's going to be going out with Cynthia, either," says Elliot.

"Really?" I ask, with just a little too much desperation in my voice.

"Really," he says.

"So how are rehearsals?" I say. "How is Cynthia doing?"

"Do your monologue for me," says Elliot.

"Changing the subject?" I ask.

"I just don't see any point with talking to you about Cynthia Pirelli. It only makes you upset, and I don't want to make you upset."

"How chivalrous," I say.

"Now seriously, do your monologue. I want to hear it, now that you're not nervous about the audition."

"Yeah, 'dejected because of' is more like it."

"Come on."

So I do Aggie's monologue for Elliot while we're driving seventy towards home, and he laughs in all the right places and tells me it's awesome and holds my hand until it's time to exit, and I feel better until I get home and find Dad and Karl sitting on the couch and something that looks suspiciously like my latest math test laying on the coffee table.

OK, I realize I've never been in a serious relationship with a guy, but even I know that "we need to talk" are four of the scariest words in the English language.

It turns out that while I was at my audition, Mr. Donahue, my math teacher, stopped by for a little chat about my plummeting grade.

"He came by the house?" I say. "Don't you find that the tiniest bit creepy?"

"He was concerned about you," says Dad, "and frankly, so are we. He said you've stopped turning in homework assignments, and when we phoned your history and English teachers, they said the same thing."

"You phoned my teachers? On a Saturday? Dad, that's so embarrassing."

"We want to know what's going on, Aggie," my dad says in his most serious voice. "Is it drugs?"

"No," I say, trying not to laugh -- I mean, this is a moment for righteous indignation if there ever was one, but it is pretty funny. I mean, me, on drugs? Be serious. "Do you honestly think I would be taking drugs? I can't believe you would even say that."

"Well, something is obviously wrong," says Dad. "Are you going to talk to us?"

I take a breath and think about what I should say. "I've been busy writing a play to get revenge on the evil Cynthia Pirelli and Mr. Parkinson and to win the undying love and affection of Roger Morton" doesn't sound quite right. Dad certainly won't buy it. I get a knot in my stomach whenever I have to have a serious conversation with him -- luckily it's not that often. I've just always felt more comfortable talking to --

"Can I talk to Karl?" I say.

"He's right here," says Dad, sounding defensive.

I was afraid of that.

"I mean, can I talk to Karl alone?"

"And you'll tell him everything?" says Dad.

"Everything," I say, quietly.

"And you'll agree to whatever solution he proposes?"

It's a scary deal to make, but it's probably my best shot at not being grounded for the rest of senior year. The one thing Dad takes really seriously is grades.

"OK," I say.

"She's all yours," says Dad to Karl, and he slaps the math test on the coffee table and leaves the room.

"So," says Karl, patting the couch next to him for me to sit.

"You remember when I auditioned for
Hello, Dolly!
" I say, and then it all pours out -- how Cynthia stole the part with her Poppin' Fresh boobs, how we hatched the idea to put on our own show, how my first try at scriptwriting ended in disaster, and how I basically gave up school for two weeks to be a playwright.

I guess that last part didn't sound so good.

"Why didn't you tell me all this before?" said Karl.

"I don't know," I say. "I guess it just seemed sort of -- personal." And I realize that sometime during the last few years I've gone from telling everything to Karl to telling everything to my friends. That's growing up, I guess, but I kind of miss this -- I mean, Karl was the one parent I always felt I could talk to.

"You know, you can't just stop being a student because you're mad at your drama teacher."

"But you should see the script, Karl," I say. "It's really good. Maybe the best thing I've ever written."

"That's beside the point, Aggie."

Beside the point! Beside the point! It is the point. It is totally the point. I thought at least Karl would understand, that after all those years going to the theatre he'd be excited that I'd actually written my own show. But he doesn't even care -- it's like he thinks math is more important than theatre. Theatre is my life! He knows that. Math is -- pointless.

Of course I don't say any of that, but I think it, and it makes me understand why now my confidantes are Cameron and Elliot and Suzanne, not Karl.

"Look," I say, crossing my arms over my chest in my best sulky-teenager attitude, "just tell me what you're gonna make me do and I'll do it."

"You don't have to be like that, Aggie," says Karl. "I want to help you."

"Then just let me go," I say. "We're having auditions tonight and I have to be there."

"You know I can't do that," he says. "You're going to have to stay here until you get caught up on your math homework."

"But I can't do it without help, and even with help it would take hours."

"Mr. Donahue said you could call him anytime you're having trouble."

"You want me to spend Saturday night on the phone with my math teacher? That's disgusting."

"It's the deal," says Karl. "And until you're caught up in everything else, there will be no evening rehearsals and you'll come straight home every afternoon."

"This is ridiculous!" I say. "Besides, I go to Mom's this afternoon, so how will you know what I'm doing?" I've been at Dad and Karl's for two weeks now, thanks to Mom's week switching.

"You're going to be here a while longer," says Karl. "Your mother called and said she'll be out of town for a while."

"Out of town?" I say. "She never goes out of town."

"Just your luck, I guess," says Karl.

"Look," I say, "I'll come straight home from school, and work all afternoon -- no phone calls or texting or anything -- but I have to go to rehearsals." I can feel the tears and desperation welling up inside of me, and I'm tensing every muscle in my body to keep from breaking down.

"Not until every one of your teachers tells us you're caught up."

And then I can't stop it any longer. The tears explode out of me and I yell as loud as I can, "I hate you!"

And the second the words are out I sooo want to take them back, because I know in that instant that everything Karl has said is right.

"I'm sorry, Aggie," says Karl quietly, and he lays his hand on my shoulder for just a second, then gets up and walks out of the room.

And I can't believe it. I've lost the one grownup in my life that I could really count on. I cry for a long time -- as long as it takes to feel empty inside. Then I go to my room, call Mr. Donahue, and get started on my math. And as miserable as that is, as much as I wish it could be Cynthia's voice on the line and that everything could be back the way it used to be, as horrible as it is to miss the auditions ("It's OK," Cameron says, "you've already got the lead"), even six hours of math and fourteen calls to Mr. Donahue doesn't hurt as much as the memory of what I said to Karl.