The Voiceover Artist (27 page)

“Not my usual opening move,” I said.

“It was a risk,” Andre said, but his smile told me he had found the risk delicious. “You might have lost the audience before you started.”

I saw no point in regretting the move after the fact. If I'd lost the audience, Raam and I had won them back. I tried to shrug off the entire line of questioning. “I heard a few people laugh when I did it.”

“Maybe,” Andre said. “But no one thought you were joking.”

I felt two quick taps on my shoulder and turned to find two women standing behind me. The taller one wore a Cubs t-shirt tied up tightly at her back, exposing a tan, flat stomach. Her shorter friend stood next to her, smiling. Her teeth were whitened to a faintly blue hue, and her big breasts bowed the thin vertical pinstripes on her Cubs baby tee.

“Great show tonight,” the taller woman said.

“Yeah, you were awesome,” her friend said.

They looked me up and down as if they wanted to take me backstage and take turns blowing me. The men I guessed were their boyfriends, muscle-bound guys with bent-brim Cubs caps pulled low over their eyes, were standing right behind them, watching me. This was the kind of dead-end flirting and bit-part, psychodrama playacting that Improviso's mingling policy threw me into.

“I'm really glad you enjoyed yourselves,” I said, hoping that they could hear I didn't mean it. “Were you guys at the game today?”

I made a point of including their boyfriends in the question. I wanted them to see that I knew what the fuck was going on here and that I wanted no part of it.

“We were supposed to,” the shorter girl said, “but it was rained out.” She frowned like a child.

“Yeah,” the taller girl said. “But we hung around the park for a while. And drank a lot.” She shrugged as if to say,
So there's that.

“And we've been out ever since!” shorter girl said.

Then both women raised their arms above their heads and hollered, “Woooo!”

With a wide, river-rat smile, the taller woman's boyfriend slipped his T-bone of a hand under her long, rain-tangled blonde hair and massaged the back of her neck.

“That's great,” I said. “Well, thanks for coming.”

“Yeah!” the taller woman said. “Awesome show!”

I raised my glass to them and turned back to Andre with my eyes wide.

“Yeah,” he said, hiding his lips with his glass. In that word, I heard Andre's agreement with everything there was no need to say.

Andre took a sip of his drink and swallowed. “So. I heard from Denny Fabris.”

“Oh, yeah?” Denny had been one of the top young improvisers in Chicago before he moved out to Los Angeles. “How's he doing out there?”

“He's great,” Andre said. “Lots of hiking.”

This was code, and I understood it. Andre was telling me that Denny had become yet another ambitious improviser who had moved to Los Angeles for career reasons and now, when he chatted with old pals back in Chicago, talked mainly about his outdoorsy hobbies and the fantastic weather that made them possible. Because these transplanted comedians didn't mention work, we assumed they hadn't found any worth mentioning
.

“I like Denny,” I said. “I hope something shakes out for him.”

“I don't give a shit,” Andre said bitterly. “He can keep hiking in the sunshine.”

That made me laugh.

Then, over Andre's shoulder, I saw the guy whose shoe I had kicked. He was moving toward us, and his eyes were locked on me.

“Shit.”

“What?” Andre said.

It occurred to me then that a paying customer could use his “access to the talent” for something other than conversation. As the guy bore down on me, with a buddy as tall as he was, but thicker, right behind him, I had only one thought:
I'm about to get my ass kicked in front of the writers from
Saturday Night Live.

When he was right behind Andre, the guy in the hi-tops said, “Hey, man.”

“Hey,” I said.

“I just wanna say great show—”

“Thanks,” I said, bracing myself.

“—and I'm sorry about having my foot up there, man. That was some bullshit, right there.”

The guy dropped his eyes and shook his head, laughing at himself, and I felt myself smile.

“No problem,” I said.

The guy swung his hand up and back, but not to slap me. I put my hand out and he took it, curling his four fingers around mine and giving our fists one sharp bounce.

“We cool?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

“Alright. We're gonna roll out. We'll catch you again.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for coming out.”

I watched the two of them walk up the ramp to the front doors. The bouncers stiffened as they passed.

“That could have gone very differently,” Andre said.

“Yeah.”

I sought out the reassuring sight of Erika sitting at the bar. But before they could find her, my eyes landed on another face coming toward me through the crowd.

Simon's.

It had been nine days since we'd met at the lakefront. In that time, I'd more or less put Simon out of my mind. But seeing him at Improviso, uninvited, with Erika just across the room, ripped off the scabs that had formed over my worry and paranoia. Nine days was more than enough time for Simon to find out or piece together what Brittany and I had done. And this was the only place he knew to find me.

As Simon made his way through the small groups clustered around the bar, I tried to act as if I had nothing to worry about. But when Simon had maneuvered into earshot, the first thing I said was, “What are you doing here?”

These were not the words of someone with no worries—not the way I said them, at least. Until he followed my eyes to the guy standing next to him, Andre seemed to think I was putting the question to him.

Simon took several headshakes. “What do you mean? I came to see the show.”

“I didn't know you were coming,” I said, trying to recover.

Simon shook his head again. “I didn't want to make you nervous or anything.”

My first reaction was to laugh at the idea that, with two writers who held my career in their hands sitting in the audience, knowing that Simon, too, was in the crowd could have made me nervous. But it would have. Standing next to Simon, I was more anxious than I'd been at any point that night.

“Andre,” I said, “this is my brother Simon.”

Andre squared his shoulders to Simon's and shook his hand. Simon shook hands the way our father did, without looking the other man in the eye.

“Are you in from out of town?” Andre asked him.

“I live here now,” Simon said.

“Excellent,” Andre said. “What did you think of the show?”

Inhaling, Simon nodded and shifted his eyes from Andre to me, and back again. Then he did a headshake and said, “It was really, really good.”

“They're fucking incredible, aren't they?” Andre said.

“Yeah,” Simon said. “They are.”

I believed that Simon had meant what he said—that the show was really good. But when given little choice but to agree with Andre's exaggerated praise, I heard my brother's resentment creeping in at the edges.

None of us seemed to know what to say next. Andre and I sipped our drinks. Simon didn't have one, which made things even more awkward. I would have offered to get him one for a chance to get away, but I recalled Brittany telling me that drinking fed his stutter, and anyway, I didn't want Simon here long enough to finish a drink. But Simon just stood there, glancing at the people drinking and laughing around him. I got the idea he was waiting for Andre to leave so that he could say what he really wanted to.

I tried again to catch sight of Erika—this time, to reassure myself that a thick crowd still separated her from Simon. But someone else, a woman with thick, magenta-streaked hair, was sitting in Erika's place.

“Is he gone?”

Erika put her hand on the back of my upper arm and gave it a gentle stroke.

“Is who gone?” I asked her.

“The guy you kicked.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, he's gone.”

“I thought he was going to start something,” she said.

“So did I.”

“I would've had his back,” Andre said, putting his hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks, Andre,” Erika said, smiling at him. “And what does that look like? You having Connor's back?”

“In this case, it would have consisted mainly of me getting my ass kicked, I think.”

“Well,” I said, getting ready to bolt, “we should really get—”

Erika stuck her hand out in front of Simon and said, “I'm Erika.”

Simon took Erika's hand in his and, I noticed, he had no trouble meeting her eyes. “Simon,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

She would tell me later that it was not his face, or even his name, but his voice—so much like mine—that gave Simon away.

“Your brother?” Erika asked me.

“Yeah,” I said.

Erika gave me a shove, my punishment for not introducing her to Simon the moment I knew he was here. “It's so great to finally meet you, Simon,” she said. “I've been asking Connor about you for weeks.”

Simon smiled, but said nothing. I was a little surprised that my brother had enough sense to play along with the idea that this meeting, with the girlfriend I'd never mentioned to him, was a long time in coming.

I rested my hand on the small of Erika's back. “Are you ready to go?” I was willing to miss my chance to meet the
SNL
writers to ensure that Erika's conversation with Simon was a short one.

The look Erika gave me made it clear that she found my question rude. “No, I'm not, ” she answered. Then she turned to my brother. “Simon, what do you say we find a booth and talk some shop?”

Simon looked confused. “What kind of shop?”

“You're a voiceover artist, right?”

I could have kicked myself for sharing that detail with her.

Simon did a headshake and said, “Yes.”

“So am I! Who are you with?”

“Skyline Talent.”

“Me, too! Are you with Todd?”

“No,” Simon said. “Elaine.”

“The queen bee herself! Impressive. I'm with Todd. He's okay. You can tell me if Elaine is any better. I kind of hope she's not. No offense.”

Another smile spread slowly across Simon's face, as if he could not believe his luck.

I started after them and said to Andre, “I'll catch you later.”

Erika spun around and pressed her hand against my chest. “Where do you think you're going?”

“With you guys,” I said.

“No, no,” she said. “No comedy boys allowed.”

“Very funny.”

“I mean it,” she said. “You stay here. Come on, Simon.”

I think she thought she was doing me a favor, leaving me out in the open for the
SNL
writers to find me. Erika was the only person I'd told they were coming. But she was also teaching me a lesson: that I shouldn't have kept Simon from her for so long. She headed toward the back of the club, and Simon followed her. My brother and my girlfriend were about to have a conversation I could neither hear nor control, and Simon would have every opportunity—if he knew—to tell Erika what I'd done with his girlfriend while he slept.

“Fuck.” I said, letting my backpack fall to my feet.

“What?” Andre asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “It's just that I kind of wanted to get out of here, and now I'm going to be here a while.”

“You can't leave yet,” Andre said.

I assumed Andre was referring to the mingling policy. “I probably could. I've done my twenty minutes.”

“They still might come by.”

“Who?”

Andre forced out a fake laugh. “Please. Do you think I don't know what's happening here?”

I understood then that Andre knew the
other
secret I was keeping. He'd been banking on my chance to meet the
SNL
writers becoming his chance, too. And he wasn't alone. If Andre knew that the
SNL
writers were here, so did most of the other comedy nerds crowded around the bar. Suddenly, my need for the
SNL
writers to validate what I'd done onstage was about more than my career in New York: it was a matter of saving face in Chicago.

Now I
have
to stay,
I thought.