The Fat Lady Sings Read online

  And that’s when it hits me. This is not just Mom being crazy as usual. This is a big deal. A month without a drink — this has probably been the most horrible time of her life. She’s probably been through all sorts of nastiness, and she did it for me, so she could have one last chance at being my Mom.

  And I hold her a little more tightly and, OK, maybe I cry a little bit. But only a little. I mean, I’ve got a five-page paper due tomorrow.

  Scene 3

  And so begin the weirdest two weeks of my life — so far, at least. Every morning Mom is up dressed like Betty Crocker — apron and all — making breakfast, and I’m not talking frozen waffles in the toaster, but actual bacon, eggs, and grits breakfast. And she sits across the table while I’m eating and asks about rehearsals and about math class — because apparently Karl told her everything that happened while she was gone. In fact, it seems like Mom is talking to Karl practically every day — half the time he calls her during breakfast, and when I finally ask her about it there’s this long pause and Mom gets her sincere face on — which is a totally new look for her — and tells me that she’s going to Alcoholics Anonymous and that Karl is her sponsor.

  Well, knock me over with a chicken feather! Apparently Karl was this real heavy drinker during college and he started going to AA twenty-five years ago and he’s the one who convinced Mom to go into rehab (after years of trying, she said). Karl! Go figure. So I now officially live in America’s strangest family.

  Anyhow, I go from this surreal domestic drama every morning to school, where I continue my surreal mathematical drama with Cynthia Pirelli. She’s still nice, and I still act angry without ever really being able to hate her while she’s sitting right there, and she still explains math better than Mr. Donahue, and we still don’t talk about theatre, and it’s all still weird, weird, weird. You know that saying about nobody talking about the elephant in the room? Well, when I’m with Cynthia, it’s like there’s a whole herd of elephants in the room along with some camels, a couple of llamas, and a Sasquatch, but we just keep on talking about integrals. Who knew there could be so much unspoken drama in calculating the area under a curve?

  And then there is the dramatic drama. Maybe my first couple of days at rehearsal were some sort of grace period, but now I can’t even walk in the door without being pestered to death. Melissa Parsons constantly wants to change lines or add something or take something out. Walker Stewart, who’s playing Jean Paul, the exchange student, seems to take delight in finding typos in my script. Cameron wants to me to lengthen one scene to allow time for a costume change and shorten another since Janet Humphries has to miss four rehearsals because her family is going to Disney World next week. Everybody wants something from me.

  On the one hand this is really annoying and I wish people would leave me alone so I can concentrate on my acting — I mean, I am playing the lead. On the other hand — well, it’s pretty cool that everyone needs me. I mean, here I am, the kid who got ignored for most of school, and suddenly I’m in demand. I’m the expert. I’m the Creator — and yes, I spelled that with a capital “C” because in the world of this play, I basically am God.

  And so it goes for a week or so — breakfast with Mom, math with Cynthia, rehearsal with my ego. And then we finish blocking Act I, and it’s back to music rehearsals. Time for me to sing.

  There are eight musical numbers in the show. Three of them I sing all by myself, and in three more I have solo verses. Cameron’s lyrics are outrageous, and we all have to stop singing about a thousand times, we’re laughing so hard. Actually, not all of us. Our music director never laughs, as far as I can tell.

  He’s this guy David Larson who plays guitar and piano and writes songs and sings in the chorus and takes private voice lessons and has already gotten into Berklee in Boston. Cameron says we should all be super grateful that David has agreed to help us, like it’s totally condescending for him to work with musical peons like us. All I know is he makes a face every time I open my mouth, and it’s not a good face. I mean, I know I’m not the greatest singer in the world, but he’s supposed to help me, not scowl at me, right?

  “Look,” he says, at the end of our third music rehearsal. “I realize this is your play and everything and you have to play the lead, and I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but you might consider not singing so much.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.

  “It’s pretty clear what it means,” says Elliot, stepping to my side. “He doesn’t think you can sing.”

  “I’m just saying there are stronger singers in the cast, and maybe they could take some of the songs,” says David.

  “Look,” says Elliot, “couldn’t she just do them Rex Harrison style? Like in My Fair Lady.”

  “Did you know that in the original, Liza marries Freddie?” says Cameron, who seems to want to change the subject whenever it comes around to the topic of my singing.

  “Freddie is a putz,” says Elliot.

  “Well, Higgins is weird,” says Cameron.

  “He’s eccentric,” says Elliot.

  “He’s gay, is what he is,” says Cameron.

  “You mean Higgins and Pickering?”

  “Oh, yeah,” says Cameron. “Look, guys, I hate to interrupt,” says David, “but can we please get back to the issue of Aggie’s singing?”

  “So you want me to give up all my songs,” I say, crossing my arms across my chest.

  “No,” says David, “I never said that. Look, you’re not a horrible singer.”

  “Gee, thanks for that ringing endorsement,” I say.

  “I just think if you concentrated on one or two songs, you could be a lot stronger. And — “

  “And what?” I say.

  “And if you’re really interested in being a performer, maybe some voice lessons would be a good idea.”

  There is silence in the room for what seems like forever, and I know it’s because everybody is thinking that David is right, but nobody wants to say it to my face. Elliot tries to put his hand on my shoulder, but I jerk away from him. Still, I figure I’d better break the silence before someone else does. If there’s one thing I’ve learned being fat, it’s that the best way to keep people from saying mean things about you is to say them yourself.

  “Well,” I say, tossing my head as nonchalantly as I know how, “I’m being tutored in math, why not singing?”

  “Mrs. Carlton, the choir director — ” David begins.

  “Mrs. Carlton is probably the reason I’m not in Hello, Dolly!” I say. I just know it was the music audition that did me in.

  “She said she could work with you at four o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” says David.

  “It is so delightful to have my life all planned out for me,” I say. “May I have permission to go home now?” And I grab my purse off the table and walk out the door.

  Of course Elliot follows me and gives me a ride, because there’s no way he’s going to let me walk alone in this sketchy neighborhood. He didn’t exactly do anything wrong, but it’s easier to be mad at everybody right now, so I ride in silence and when we get home I get out without saying goodnight and slam the door as hard as I can. As soon as I’m inside I regret it and I know I should text him and apologize, but somehow it feels like that would be letting go of my final shred of pride, and that shred is something I want to cling to.

  The next day is Friday, so I’m not under imminent threat of voice lessons. I see Cameron walking down the hall with David before first period, so I find a compelling reason to turn into Mr. Donahue’s room and avoid them. That turns out to be not such a bad ploy, because Mr. Donahue gives me back Monday’s unit test and I got a B+.

  “You should thank Cynthia for this,” he says, handing me the test. “Studying with her has made a real difference in your work.”

  He’s right, of course, but thank Cynthia Pirelli? Let’s not overdo it.

  Lunch is extremely awkward, because if I don’t sit with Cameron and Elliot an
d everybody else from the play I’ll look like a snobby diva, and if I do sit with them I’ll have to talk to them, and I’m not ready for that yet. Maybe I’m being a baby, but it really hurt being told I shouldn’t sing songs that were written for me. Finally I decide to sit at their table, but at the other end from where Cameron, David, and Suzanne are huddled over piles of set sketches and sheet music. I eat my lunch in silence until Elliot picks up his tray and moves next to me.

  “You OK?” says Elliot.

  “I’ve been better,” I say.

  “Look,” he says, “they didn’t handle that very well last night.”

  “You could say that,” I say.

  “But they just want you to be the best you can be. They want you to be amazing and they want your show to be amazing. You know none of us would even be involved in this if we didn’t believe in you.”

  Leave it to Elliot to say just the right thing. For a second, I think they must have sent him down here to make peace, that they planned out exactly what he would say — I mean, they all know my buttons and exactly how to push them. But Cameron and Dave are arguing and Suzanne is absorbed in sketching — none of them is paying any attention to the drama at this end of the table. So I know Elliot is sincere.

  I also know he’s right. Here is a table full of people I basically walked out on last night, and they are passionately involved in trying to produce a script that I wrote and that I’m starring in. So they want me to get a little vocal coaching. What’s the big deal? They’re my friends. They want me to look good.

  And suddenly I remember my first lunch at Piedmont Day. I was in the sixth grade and I hadn’t met Elliot and Cameron and Suzanne yet. I hadn’t met anybody, and I was sitting at this same table, but I was alone. Mom was off on one of her “adventures,” and Karl had dropped me off at school on his way to the hospital. I had never felt so fat in my life as when I walked into that classroom. Something about knowing that all those kids were rich enough to go to private school (or smart enough to get a scholarship) made me feel more judged than ever. Nobody said anything, of course, but when you’re twice the size of any other girl in the class, they don’t have to. You can feel their stares and read their thoughts. And then came lunch and no one sat at my table and I was afraid if I ate anything people would think I was a pig. And now here I am, sulking, at the end of a table full of people who have given up all their free time to make me look good.

  And that was the point when I realized that The Fat Lady Sings wasn’t just about me anymore — that no matter how much I had felt like God at those rehearsals, I wasn’t. God creates all by himself, but a play doesn’t have just one creator — we were all creating it together, and the best way for me to be a part of that team was to check my ego at the door. Now this may surprise you, but checking my ego at the door of a theatre is not the easiest thing for me — shocker, right?

  I can tell from the way Elliot is looking at me that he’s about to say something more about everybody believing in me and everybody working to make me a star, so I put my hand on his and stop him before he even starts.

  “You know Elliot, I think it might be a good idea if I got a few voice lessons to help with my singing. It might be good for the show.”

  He smiles and squeezes my hand and knows not to say anything else. Then we pick up our trays and move to the other end of the table.

  “So how’s the set coming along,” I ask Suzanne, and for the next fifteen minutes she’s showing sketches and talking about electrics and all sorts of things I don’t understand and Cameron is chiming in with ideas and David is talking about sound balance, and it’s fantastic.

  David has a choir competition in Richmond over the weekend, so I’m spared any more music rehearsals until at least Monday. Since several other cast members are also in the choir, we decide to use Friday and Saturday for character work with just me and Melissa. After all, it’s just the two of us on stage for about half the play.

  I love character work, and not just because it’s what I’m good at. Being another person was what first attracted me to the theatre. First it was dreaming of being Annie or Dolly instead of my fat, socially inept self. Then, when I got to middle school, I actually got to have that experience.

  I remember the first time I stepped on stage as a society lady in the opening scene of Guys and Dolls (I was a Hot Box dancer later on — surprise, I know, even as a fat seventh grader I could dance). For the first time people were looking at me without seeing the slightly odd, terminally shy, chubby girl. I was somebody else, and that person didn’t worry about being fat and she certainly wasn’t shy — she was rich and successful and had spent the whole day shopping for high fashions while her boyfriend tagged along carrying packages. And somehow, when the show was over, a little bit of her stuck with me, and I was a little less shy and a little more confident and maybe I was just as fat, but it didn’t hurt quite as much.

  And that happened every time I did a show until you got what you have now — the fat kid who is brimming with confidence (or egotistical, depending on how you look at it), and borders on the obnoxiously un-shy most of the time, around her friends at least. You might not think it’s an improvement, but I do.

  Cameron and Melissa and I spend Friday evening and Saturday afternoon in his editing studio working our scenes in Act I. Cameron is constantly suggesting business, finding laugh lines that even I didn’t know were there, and generally making the characters so much more rich and full on the stage than I had envisioned them on the page. It’s the first time I’ve seen him as something other than a traffic director — because up til now we’ve just been doing blocking. But now it seems almost like he’s the co-playwright. You know you hear all that stuff about theatre being a collaborative art form, but you never really understand it until you write a play and then someone comes along and finds all sorts of things in the script that you had no idea were there.

  “So, Act II tomorrow?” I say when Melissa announces that she has to go baby-sit her little brother.

  “I’ve got to write a history paper,” says Cameron. “We’ll get these scenes on their feet and run them at rehearsal Monday night.”

  Melissa says goodbye and rushes off, and Cameron and I fall onto the couch. I’m suddenly exhausted from plumbing the depths of someone else’s personality.

  “I had no idea that Aggie in the play was so different from me,” I say.

  “It’s funny what you don’t see when you write something,” says Cameron. “I guess because you’re so close to it.”

  “You’re so good at this,” I say, squeezing Cameron’s arm. “Have you ever thought about becoming a director?”

  “Not before now,” says Cameron.

  “And now?” I ask.

  “Remember what you said about playwriting?” he says. “You told us all what a rush it was to discover something you were really good at.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s the same for me with directing. Here all this time I thought I was going to be a film editor, but yesterday I — ” He gets up and goes to the window.

  “What?”

  “I changed my application to film school from the editing program to the directing program.”

  “Cameron, that’s fantastic,” I say, and despite my exhaustion I jump up and give him a hug.

  “It’s all thanks to you,” he says.

  “That’s not true,” I say. “This whole thing was your idea. And besides, it’s been a team effort from the start.”

  “Yeah,” says Cameron, “but — well, thank you.”

  And we hug again, for a long time, and I’ve changed my friend’s life, and I don’t think I could feel any better if I woke up tomorrow morning with the body of a cheerleader.

  Scene 4

  If there is one thing you don’t want to see at Piedmont Day, it’s a piece of blue paper taped to the outside of your locker. We call them “blue notes,” not just because of the color of the paper, but because they’re always bad news, and almo
st always directly from Dr. Watkins, our headmaster. So when I spy blue flapping on the front of my locker on Monday morning, I’m not exactly skipping down the hall to find out the good news. Still, blue notes are like band-aids — it’s best just to rip them off and get it over with. I yank it off and unfold the paper and all it says is “Please see me in my office immediately after school — Dr. Watkins.” Great. Now not only do I have to see the headmaster for some unknown reason, but I have to dread it for the entire day. There’s something about that word “immediately” that doesn’t sound good. I can’t imagine he wants to see me “immediately” so he can tell me how marvelous my grades are or what a great actress I am. But my grades are pretty good right now, and I certainly haven’t been causing any trouble on campus. I haven’t even been actively mean to Cynthia.

  Finally I decide it must be the props shed. He probably found out we were using it as a lounge and wants to shut us down. But why summon me? I’ve hardly been out there since I started my math tutoring. And it was Cameron’s idea. I shove the blue note — which is now causing all my locker neighbors to stare at me — into my purse and try to put it out of my mind as I head to first period. But I have a sinking feeling that this is going to be a very long day.

  Cynthia seems distracted during tutoring, and I get the feeling she wants to tell me something but is afraid to. That suits me fine — “afraid of me” is the perfect emotional state for Cynthia Pirelli. Of course I’m distracted, too, because all I can think about is the perpetually closed door of Squatty Watty’s office and how I am soon to be on the other side.

  That’s what we call Dr. Watkins — Squatty Watty — because he’s about four feet tall and almost as wide. I have no idea what he’s a doctor of — probably he bought one of those degrees off late night TV or from some internet pop-up ad. He basically only appears for varsity football games and graduation. In four years I’ve never seen him at a play. We only have a theatre because the last headmaster was into the arts. Squatty Watty has built nothing but gyms and fields since he got here. That guy loves to knock down trees if he can replace them with something that will smell like sweaty socks. Apparently he hangs out with the NASCAR parents (our student body has several progeny of people who drive around in circles for a living), and that’s where all the money for the gyms came from. And this afternoon I get to have alone time with him. Oh joy!