The Music of Your Life (28 page)

Lee calls out after me: “Get some rest, Jackson! Good show, kiddo, good show.”

There's a trail that leads up along the edge of the woods from the back of the theater to the back of the cast houses—I've gotten to know it pretty well this summer. It's easy to walk along it and stay in sight of the outlines of the houses; through the branches of the pine trees, you can see the lights coming through the windows and hear the sounds of people partying and rehearsing in their rooms. I always stay just inside the edge of the woods as I walk; it's like being onstage in front of forest scenery. And even though the woods are a little scary in the dark, even in this shallow, open part, tonight I don't care. Tonight I don't give a shit. And that's exactly what I yell out to the woods, spinning around with my dance bag still on my shoulder: “I DON'T GIVE A SHIT! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT ANYTHING!” Bears be damned. Come and eat me, for all I care. I wish I had a Purple Jesus.

I come up on the back of Mildew Manor, which I can easily see framed through the spindly pines. Most of the windows in the house are dark—a few of the guys have hooked up with a few of the girls, and they spend most nights with them in their house, which is a nicer place—so the Manor has gotten progressively emptier and quieter as the summer has gone along. There's only one true light blazing in the whole house, on the third floor. I can't help but be drawn to it, especially when I see the silhouette of two men embracing in the open window. They are held together in the window frame, as if in an oil painting, two men, or, more correctly, a man and a boy, surrounded by the light of a yellow overhead bulb.

I watch as Lee holds Thomas close—they look like they might be slow dancing, and Lee runs his hands through Thomas's dark, curly hair. He then pulls him close, and they kiss, and break, and then kiss again, this time holding it longer. Finally, their bodies disappear from the frame of the window, and one of them turns out the light.

I sit down on a tree stump and stare at the windows of Mildew Manor through the wispy branches, which are swaying and rustling in the night breeze. I can't concentrate on anything, and I don't want to think about stuff anyway, so I start singing to myself. I figure it will calm me down. Since the songs from
Damn Yankees
are still in my head, I start with my favorite one, a love duet in the first act—I know both parts—and I sing it quietly until I've gone through every verse. Then I stand up and give myself a round of applause, shouting out “Bravo! Encore!” I bow to the trees. So then, encouraged, I start in on one of the Devil's—Thomas's—songs, until I've performed every verse of that, too …

I don't applaud myself this time, however.

I notice that every window in the Manor has gone dark now; everything around me is pitch black, and deeply silent. If the woods
were
a stage set, this would be the moment where a lone stagehand carries out the solitary worklight from the wings and places it center stage, leaving it to burn in the empty theater throughout the night. He would be ready to lock up and go home.

That feels like a cue. I lift my dance bag over my shoulder and exit the woods, trudging slowly up to the dark, quiet house, not singing, and stepping cautiously inside, so as not to disturb anyone.

“You were great, as usual,” I say to Thomas, as he works his way across the patio from the back of the theater to our little group of Stage Door Johnnies: me, Perry, Duffy, and … Stephen Hopkins, delegate from Rhode Island.

“Thank you, Precious,” he says. He leans over to kiss me, and as he does, he whispers in my ear: “Does the show suck?”

“We'll talk,” I whisper back.

“I see you guys have already met Kevin,” he says, referring to Rhode Island.

“Yeah, totally,” says Duffy, beaming; this elicits a nervous glance from Perry and an
aw, shucks
grin from Kevin.

Thomas introduces us to Jake, the compact, dark-haired “gentleman” from Connecticut, and Wynn, the tall, redheaded “gentleman” from North Carolina, who, in their youthful, postshow excitement, appear eager to be complimented—they don't seem like gentlemen at all now, actually, they seem like frolicsome puppies. I tell them I enjoyed their work, but all Perry can manage is the even more slippery, “You know, I'd forgotten what a good musical
1776
really is.” Duffy, for his part, chimes in with, “You guys kicked ass. You rock!” causing three of the thirteen original colonies to suddenly light up in his presence. They immediately high-five him: he has spoken their language.

“Drinks at my house,” Thomas says, perhaps sensing the need to change scenery. “I can take four in my car. Perry, if you and Duffy can bring Kevin, that'd be great.”

“Sure we can,” says Duffy.

As we walk toward the parking lot, Wynn and Jake end up ahead of Thomas and me; the two of them are talking loudly to each other, and with great enthusiasm. Every now and then one of them belts out a line of a show tune, and then they have more discussion. Thomas just looks at me and rolls his eyes.

“Hey, we were like that once, if you remember,” I say.

“Yes, but we improved.”

As we round the corner of the theater, I see my own personal favorite Continental Congressman, Mr. Morris, gentleman from New York, walking alone, dance bag slung over his shoulder.

“Oh, there's New York,” I whisper to Thomas. “Can we invite him over too? I think he's hot.”

“Oh … Garrett,” he says, and I can tell by his tone that Garrett does not come recommended.

“Yes, yes. Mr. New York. The one who abstains. Courteously.”

“Yeah … you don't want him, Jackson. He's odd. And a loner. He's always going off in the woods by himself. Nobody can figure him out.”

“Odd? Odd … What is that code for? Does that mean straight? He's straight? Oh please.”

“Hmmm … well, none of us knows. But we have our suspicions.”

“Wait, don't tell me,” I say. “New York is undecided.”

Thomas sighs. “Yes … undecided. Or, perhaps he just hasn't cast his vote yet.”

We're almost at the car; Jake and Wynn are already there. Jake is demonstrating what looks like a
pas de bourée
, which is nicely executed, even in flip-flops. Thomas digs in his dance bag for his keys.

“Really?” I say. “Imagine that. Undecided.”

He locates his keys, and then looks up at me, staring me straight in the eye with a sly smile.

“Yes,” he says, “but he's courteous about it.”

At Thomas's rustic little cabin in the woods (Perry calls it “The House That Les
Miz Built
”), we seven boys of varying ages and varying talents and varying claims to chunks of that elusive dream called “A Life in the Theater” can at least agree on one thing, though no one has brought
this
to an actual vote: we like men. We also like: vodka, gin, vermouth, wine, beer, and—God help us—the Patti LuPone CD currently playing on Thomas's stereo.

“Oh,
Patti LuPone Live!
” says the chipper redhead Wynn, who is seated next to Jake on Thomas's battered old blue couch, and who has, I'm starting to notice, an annoying/endearing habit of phrasing everything he says like a question. “Is this great or what? This is the concert Patti did when she still thought she was going to star in
Sunset Boulevard
on Broadway? And she goes into character as Norma at the end? And—”

“And she jinxes it,” interrupts Jake, besotted with both red wine and the lure of telling tales of musical theater misdeeds, “because then they snatched it right out from under her nose and gave it to Glenn Close.” They are like a comedy team, this little duo of Connecticut and North Carolina, completing each other's sentences with breathless excitement, and then giggling. I've also noticed, and I'm sure Thomas has too, that as of five minutes ago, they've begun to hold hands. Earlier, as Thomas and I were icing glasses and slicing limes at his kitchen sink, he whispered: “I think Jake and I might be … well, you know. I
think
he's interested, and I definitely am.” Which was fine with me, since I was all set to go about trying to seduce the gentleman from North Carolina. “Maybe I can win Wynn,” I said, as I poured an obscene amount of vodka into the drink I was making for him.

Now, with Jake and Wynn holding hands and chirping like little musical comedy magpies, it's looking like Thomas and I are going home empty-handed, as it were. Both of us turn away from drink-mixing at the same moment to catch sight of Jake casually lifting his hand to smooth Wynn's beautiful red hair, causing Wynn to rest his head on Jake's shoulder and close his eyes.

“You mean,” says Kevin, from the corner where he's sitting next to Duffy and Perry, though closer to Duffy, of course, “that Patti thought she was gonna do
Sunset Boulevard
on Broadway and they took it away from her?”

The rest of us freeze instantly. No one takes a sip of a drink, rattles an ice cube, or bites into a pretzel. The sudden suspension of conversation, perhaps even of breathing, is truly deafening. Sitting in a roomful of musical theater aficionados and not knowing the tale of Patti LuPone's humiliating loss of the Norma Desmond role in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway is tantamount to being a scientist at a quantum physics convention who's never heard that Einstein was responsible for
E=mc
²
.

Finally, I take it upon myself to break the silence and voice what everyone else is thinking, which is: “Should he be allowed to stay?”

Kevin looks confused, wearing the slightly goofy, slightly querulous look of someone who is slowly realizing, with mounting horror, that he has committed a gross faux pas. “Be quiet, Jackson,” says Thomas. “Of course he can stay. You can stay, Kevin.”

“You can stay, Kevin,” says Jake. “Connecticut says ‘yea.'” This sends Wynn into a fit of giggles.

“And North Carolina yields to South Carolina,” Wynn says, smiling at Thomas, even as he continues to rest his head on Jake's shoulder.

“Not tonight,” says Perry under his breath, prompting Thomas to throw him a daggery glance.

“Well,” I say, “I'm the official representative now from New York. And, of course, New York abstains, courteously.”

“That's no fun, to abstain,” says Wynn, with a saucy lilt, suddenly lifting his head and focusing his pretty blue eyes on me. And I'm thinking: What?
Now
you're teasing me? Excuse me, where have you been all evening, North Carolina? And is it your mission to flirt with
everyone
in the room?

“The thing is, Rhode Island,” says Perry, blotto from the one-two punch of three martinis and Duffy's full frontal flirting with Kevin, “is … that there's a lesson to be learned from the saga of Miss LuPone and
Sunset Boulevard
and how she jinxed herself.”

“What's that?” I ask, playing George Burns to his Gracie Allen, Dean Martin to his Jerry Lewis.

Perry looks lasciviously around the room at the young folk.

“Don't count your chickens,” he says slowly.

“I think we'll go for a walk,” says Duffy suddenly. “Come on, Kev, let's go outside and look at the stars.”

“I thought that's what we were doing in here,” says Perry, indicating Thomas. I think that like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, he's been forced to admit a rather large defeat.

“Sure, man, let's go,” says Kevin, looking suddenly quite relieved. And they are out the front door.

“Do you wanna … go out too?” Jake asks sotto voce to Wynn, though not sotto voce enough that the whole lot of us can't hear it.

Wynn high-beams him back with those big blue eyes.

“We're going for a walk, too,” announces Jake, redundantly. And, clutching their drinks, and each other's hands, they, too, head out Thomas's cabin door.

“Watch out for bears!” shouts Thomas, pleasantly.

“And then there were three,” I say, looking around from my deeply slumped position.