“You’re close enough.”
“I know you’re embarrassed having your mother around…,” Sarge began.
“We’ll see you after the show,” my dad said, leading Sarge out.
“Thanks for coming, Mom,” I called after her.
I felt exhilarated. I had climbed several rungs of life’s ladder tonight and I was pumped for the second show. I was pacing in the hallway when an intense-looking man wearing a million-dollar black suit left Jelly Bean’s dressing room.
Jelly never received guests before the show. This man had to be important. Maybe threatening. Was he with the mob? After all, this was Vegas.
The mobster did a double take when he saw me. He slowly approached, with an extreme seriousness that made me want to call for Elliot Ness. My overimaginative heart raced when he reached into his breast pocket. He pulled out a business card and said, “We’ll call.”
I felt faint. Mobsters Inc. We protect—you pay.
Maybe they owned Legends. Maybe they extorted comedians. Maybe they extorted the audience. Had I said anything in my act that might have offended him?
I searched my memory as I turned over the card:
Derek Jacobson
Booker
The Douglas Douglas Show
I almost fainted.
I’d hit the jackpot!
I was gathering my flowers, Sarge’s foundation, my bottled water, and my precious business card after the second show when I heard a knock on my dressing-room door.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Sandy said, peeking in. “It’s a guy, with luscious black hair. And boy is he cute!”
Gavin? I quickly fluffed my hair and re-applied ruby-red lipstick. He had skipped the prom after all to meet me in Vegas.
Gavin stood in the dressing-room doorway, his Carribean ocean eyes staring through me. “I’ve missed you, Starbaby. I couldn’t go to the prom without you. So I came here.”
“Hey, sweetheart!” my black-haired visitor shouted, pulling me back into reality.
“Sid! No way! I can’t believe you’re here!” My eyes welled up with tears. Although I was disappointed Gavin hadn’t forsaken the prom for me after all, I was overwhelmed to see my brother.
“I caught most of the second show. That bit about Sarge teaching classes to the hotel maids was killer!”
“Speak of the devil,” Sarge said, bursting in with Dad at her side.
“You were awesome. Did you tell Jelly Bean I discovered you?” Sid teased. “I knew you would be a star, even then.”
I glowed from my brother’s compliments. I’d never heard him speak like this.
I heard Jelly Bean pass down the hall. “Quick, guys!” I said, grabbing my brother’s arm.
“Jelly Bean,” I called. “Do you have a sec?”
“For you, I even have half a minute,” Jelly Bean said.
“Jelly Bean, this is my big brother, Sid.”
I hung back as Sid stood starstruck next to the massive Jelly. I hadn’t seen Sid smile like that since we played football in the basement and he scored a touchdown.
“And I’m her mother!” Sarge burst forth. “Thank you for giving her this wonderful opportunity.”
“Shh, Ma!” I whispered harshly.
“It’s my pleasure,” Jelly said.
“I’ve worried so, comedy being filled with filthy language and all. I didn’t want my daughter—”
“I wouldn’t want my daughter to do this either,” Jelly Bean confessed. “But kids have dreams, and the more we resist, the more scathing tell-all books they’ll write about us, right? I just don’t want to be the subject in Daddy Dearest!”
Everyone laughed and Jelly Bean ducked back into his dressing room before I could ask him what he thought of my act. But of course he hadn’t seen it. Still, it would have been nice to hear a few words of support and encouragement and maybe the promise of another gig.
But who knew if I’d ever see Jelly Bean again?
This could be my only chance.
“I’ll meet you guys back in the room,” I said to my family.
“Jelly Bean?” I said, meekly knocking on the open door when they had gone.
“Come in, Trixie.”
Jelly Bean wiped his face with a handkerchief. The energy he gave to his audience left him exhausted after two shows—plus he drank, smoked, overate, and traveled continuously.
“I just want to thank you for making my life’s dream come true,” I began.
“And to think, I didn’t even have to get naked,” he said with a laugh.
“I hope you have a great show tomorrow. I mean, I know you will,” I rambled. “I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity…Can I ask where you’re going next?”
“Mexico. I’m shooting a movie. After that I’m taking time off to write my memoirs. I won’t be back on the road till next year.”
He reached for his scotch and got up.
“Do you have any suggestions for me?” I asked quickly.
“Keep studying—comedy and school,” he said like a professional comic and a father. “But that’s not what you want to hear, is it? This business is crazy, Trixie. Even for someone like me. You can have a blockbuster hit movie one year and be the national spokesperson for garbage bags the next. But as long as you have the drive, keep performing. You’ll find your audience—and they’ll find you.”
“When I grow up, I want to be just like you!”
“Big and fat?”
“No,” I laughed. “Making people laugh.”
“You’re already grown up, Trixie.”
I hugged my idol with all my might before he turned to leave.
“I’d like to ask you something else,” I said.
“You want my buffet ticket? Actually, I need two!”
“It’s something I haven’t had the nerve to ask you before—”
“Well, shoot. But my wife keeps the checkbook.”
“Can I have your autograph?”
Sid wasn’t at the roulette wheel, the blackjack table, the buffet, or the arcade. Knowing my brother, he was skipping the flash of Legends’ neon for being flashed at a strip bar. Jelly Bean was plopped on a stool at the roulette wheel at Caesar’s with his wife and a pound of doughnuts. My parents were fast asleep.
I was alone, wired, and starved. How could I have stomach pangs at a time like this? I scarfed down every soft drink and all the candy and snacks in the minibar while I flipped through the cable channels. I wished there was someone to share my shining moment with. I realized it was like celebrating a birthday by myself.
The red digital clock radio showed 3:45 A.M. Jazzy was with Ricky at some Chicago hotel after the prom. And what if Gavin had rented a room as well?
This had been the best night of my life. Yet as I sat on the edge of the bed with a Snickers bar and diet Coke watching Bass Fishing with Bob instead of reflecting on my Vegas debut, all I could think of was Gavin pinning a corsage on another girl.
BUSH GIRLS
My first impulse when I arrived home was to call Gavin and tell him about my huge weekend. I pulled his senior year picture out of my drawer—where I’d hidden it after our fight—and replaced it on my dresser. I picked up the phone. Wouldn’t he want me back now that I was home? Surely it would be okay to just say hi? But when I heard a ring I just as impulsively hung up. I put his picture back in the drawer and closed it tight.
But there was always Jazzy. I shared all my news with her at the Sunrise Coffee Shop. “Who cares about the prom when you’re Vegas-famous! Douglas Douglas is going to scoop you up!” Jazzy shouted.
What if Douglas Douglas did call? What if I got my own TV show? Was I ready? I’d been waiting for this all my life! But I wanted Gavin to come with me. And the reality was that although yesterday I was in Vegas opening for Jelly Bean, tomorrow I’d be taking a social studies test.
After recounting every backstage moment to Jazzy, I had to get the prom buzz.
“Gavin showed up with some unknown airhead
in a dress that screamed Kmart. My guess is her parents were first cousins! I can’t tell you how long they stayed because Ricky got sick on the punch early. Or that’s what I told my mom,” she said, nudging me.
But I didn’t laugh. Instead I envisioned Gavin as Prince Charming and his date as Cinderella.
“She had warts on her chin and a crooked nose,” Jazzy said.
“Did he look happy?”
“How could he be happy without you?”
“Did I make the right choice?”
“You can’t live in reverse. You’re cruising in fifth gear now, and I’m not going to let anyone slow you down. The Douglas Douglas Show could call at any moment! You could be dating the talk show king himself. You’ll totally forget a high school senior named…what was it again? Garret? Greg?”
“Thanks, but Douglas Douglas is fifty years old.”
“And your point would be? Hello! He’s a handsome fifty. I bet his beach house is quite gorgeous, and his bank account very attractive. You could be his sixth wife!”
All I could think of was what Gavin would look like at fifty. Certainly more handsome than Douglas Douglas.
“Trixie Shapiro?” a familiar voice called. I was lying on my lounge chair next to the sparkling pool at the Beverly Hotel, rubbing lotion into my fifty-year-old body, when a jet-black-haired man with the torso of a teenager eclipsed the sun.
“Gavin? I can’t believe it’s you!”
We hugged as if we were still lovers in high school.
“I read the People article about you on the plane,” he said. “You’re doing everything you always wanted!”
Just then a perky, blond, bikini-clad teenager slithered out of the water and waved to Gavin.
“Is that your daughter?” I asked.
“My daughter? No, she’s my wife!”
My jaw dropped open.
“And you? I read you’ve split from Douglas Douglas.”
“Yeah, he got tired of having to leave the studio when I performed. And I got tired of feeding him through a straw. Would you—”
“Gavin!” called the wife.
“Listen, I’d love to hear all about your life sometime, but…. It was great seeing you,” he said. He gave me a quick good-bye kiss on the cheek before returning to his young bride.
I returned to my Beverly Hills hotel room and my fifteen cats.
My gig in Vegas was all over school. As Gavin’s girlfriend, I’d received respectful glares from senior cheerleaders, but now I was getting solo invitations to hip parties and stares from freshman boys.
My first invite was for head cheerleader Jenny’s baseball bash. This time I wasn’t on the arm of Eddie or Gavin. I was center stage.
My head began to spin from the barrage of questions.
“What’s Jelly Bean really like?” “Tell us a joke!” “Do you know Robin Williams?” It was a press conference. At least then I would have had an assistant fielding questions and writing my script. But onstage life hadn’t prepared me for life offstage. Months ago I had been an anonymous girl who couldn’t raise her hand in class to go to the bathroom. Now I fled to the bathroom to avoid attention.
Jazzy followed me there. “What are you doing?”
I splashed my face with cold water.
“Your fans await you,” Jazzy exclaimed. “We’re major populars now! Clark Fielding was hitting on me. Every guy wants you! Seth Martin wants to ask you out.”
Seth Martin was a major hipster who had never even smiled at me.
“Can I open for Jelly Bean next time?” Jazzy joked. “I want everyone to love me!”
“They don’t love me; they don’t even know me.”
“It doesn’t matter. You are the IT Girl.”
“Of course it matters. They aren’t asking me anything about me—they’re asking about Jelly Bean and Robin Williams. I don’t even know Robin Williams.”
“You’re missing the point! We’ve always wanted to be popular. Now the whole school knows who you are, and they know me because I’m your best friend.”
“This isn’t what I thought being popular was,” I confessed, leaning against the sink. “It’s so superficial!”
“Duh! It’s all about being superficial. Head cheerleader. Head jock. Now, head comedian. It’s about time we knocked those athletes off their pedestals.”
“I don’t want to be superficial. I just want to belong. And I’m not sure being invited to hip parties makes me feel like I belong any more than when I sat at home weekends and watched videos.”
“Trixie, we’re not bush girls anymore.”
“We’ll always be bush girls. Just because I can walk onstage and tell a few jokes doesn’t mean I’m not the same person inside.”
“But you’re not—you’re much stronger. A year ago you couldn’t even say hi to Gavin. Now you’ve said good-bye to him. You’ve come a long way, baby!”
“But I still love him, even more than I did that first day. I know he’s not perfect, like I thought when I used to pass him in the hallway. And I love him even more for that.”
“Well, fine, you can pout about your sudden celebrity, but I’m going to have fun. Clark Fielding asked me for my number!”
“What about Ricky?”
“He’s not popular. But everyone wants to go out with Clark,” she said, opening the door with a wicked grin. “See ya!”
I stepped out. Seth Martin was leaning against the wall in the dark hallway. “Heard you and Gavin are history,” he said.
I didn’t want Gavin and me to be “history.” I wanted us to be a “current affair.” But out of the corner of my eye I saw Gavin Baldwin leaning on the piano, stroking Jenny’s hair. Not Jenny Larson! I thought he didn’t want a ditzy bubblehead. I thought maybe now he’d be dating a sorority chick. But Jenny?
My heart ripped open and my lifeless body was filled with pain.
“I have to get some air,” I said, pushing past Seth and stepping out onto the back porch.
“Can I get you a drink?” Seth called.
“Yes! Two—one for each hand!” I demanded, the screen door closing behind me. I staggered to the swing set.
A minute later I noticed Seth, again, standing in front of me.
Seth was cute with his sparkling ice-blue eyes. He handed me the beer, and I watched him as he took a swig.
Then I stood up, grabbed him, pulled him to me, and kissed him long and hard, trying to kiss away Gavin from my mind.
We leaned against the frame of the swing set. Eventually Seth sat on the swing and pulled me onto his lap and we kissed again.
“So,” he said, nuzzling in close. “Now you’ll invite me to Vegas?”
I didn’t speak much to Seth after that night. What had I been thinking?
I didn’t tell anyone at school about the booker from the Douglas Douglas Show. I didn’t want kids asking me every day if the show had called. But Sarge was another story.
“It’s been two weeks!” she exclaimed, playing the saved phone messages while Dad watched ESPN and I stared at my History textbook. “I’m calling first thing in the morning!”
“You can’t call! They don’t talk to mothers.”
“They need to be nudged,” she argued, opening her mail.
“I thought you didn’t want me to pursue comedy?”
“You may never get another chance like this again.”
“I can’t have my mother call the Douglas Douglas Show!”
“I’m not calling the show—I’m calling him!”
“That’s crazy! You’re not calling him! You’re not! You could ruin any chances I have. Dad—,” I whined. “She’s not calling.”
“I think your mother is right,” my dad said, sitting up. “We’ve been talking about your career.”
“My career?”
I probably should have been thrilled that my parents were sharing my ambition. Wasn’t this what I wanted? Had I forgotten all those battles just to get their permission to perform at Chaplin’s?
“Yeah, I’ll be paid more at Chaplin’s because I have a major credit now. I can’t get more work from Jelly Bean because he’s taking time off. I’ll just have to wait.”
“It seems a shame. You’ve got a hook. You’re a teenage stand-up. That seems very marketable. It would be advantageous to get you noticed—”
“I thought you wanted me to go to school. Study. Be home early. Now you guys are talking about Douglas Douglas, hooks, and marketability?”
I felt a pressure to suddenly succeed. Wasn’t I successful already?
“You’re as good as any of those raunchy comics headlining Chaplin’s,” Sarge declared.
“I just played Vegas—isn’t that good enough?” I asked.
“All I’m saying is that Vegas is a good opportunity to get more exposure,” my dad said.
“Stand-up used to be my dream. Now it’s everyone’s! Jazzy thinks I should have a star on Mason’s front steps, the kids at school wonder when I’m going to be taping the sitcom Shapiro, and you two think I should be on Oprah promoting my memoirs.”
I had struggled so hard to win Sarge’s support, but now that she was supporting me, I wanted to hide in my bedroom. I wanted to fulfill my dreams, but without pressure or conflict—with Gavin by my side, and my parents’ expectations complementing, not exceeding, my own.
I left my born-again stage parents and went into my bedroom to escape, the same way I’d always escaped, since I was a little girl. I lay back on my bed, stared at a hundred cutout faces of comedians, put my headphones on, and listened to Steve Martin’s CD Comedy Is Not Pretty!
Laughter.
The very thing that had gotten me into this mess.
“Trixie, here’s the yearbook!” Jazzy exclaimed, p lopping the two-ton book in my lap as we sat on the bleachers during lunch the next day.
“Look, you were voted most likely! Look here, right by your picture!”
“Voted most likely to what?”
“Be a stand-up comedian!” Jazzy proclaimed proudly.
“Well, I already am, aren’t I? That’s no psychic prediction.”
“Yeah, but they mean famous.”