I liked Reanne. I did. And I could tell that she thought I’d been horrible and obnoxious just then. So I nodded and put my arms out like a tree.
But I felt sure I was right.
AFTER REHEARSAL, Lyle, Theo, and Starveling walked with me to Restoration Squash-your-boobs-up. “That was very Peter Quince of you,” Lyle said, putting his arm around me. “And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”
“How ‘Peter Quince’?”
“You know, he’s the director, he’s trying to make all these layabouts behave themselves and put on a decent play. But they’re out of his control.”
“Oh.”
“You fought the good fight,” said Theo. “Even if she didn’t want to hear it. I like the underwater idea.”
Lyle shook his head. “Oh, no you don’t. I personally veto the underwater idea.”
“Why?”
“It’s enough I have to wear a donkey head. No way am I wearing a bathing suit. That’s worse than the unitards!”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “We could all wear period bathing suits, like 1940s ones so we’d look like Esther Williams.”
“Excuse me, Madame With the Ideas,” said Lyle. “I’m like Winona Ryder. I insist on the no-nudity clause. The forest of roses idea was better.”
“Thank you. I like that one myself.”
“Were you, like, thinking of those in advance?” asked Starveling.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I didn’t plan to tell them to Reanne. They popped out. But I had to think of something while I was on tree duty.”
“Wow,” said Starveling. “I think about sex.”
“Is that why you’re always about to faint?”
“Maybe. Probably, yeah.”
Lyle squeezed my shoulder. “You know she’s never gonna do any of those, right?”
“Yeah. I know it.”
“I’m gonna drink some orange juice before rehearsal tomorrow,” said Starveling. “I really almost fainted this time.”
MY PARENTS drove up from Brenton the next night to watch Guys and Dolls. I saw them for an hour before the show—they came to dinner in the cafeteria. My dad brought me a bouquet of flowers, limp from the long car ride.
There wasn’t much to say, somehow. Demi sat with us, since he had no family there to see him—and I realized, thinking about Brenton for practically the first time since we’d arrived at Wildewood, that I hadn’t seen Demi’s straight-boy drag since we left Ohio. Not that he used it with my parents anymore, anyway—but all vestiges of it had disappeared.
He took one of my roses and put it behind his ear for the entire meal. Then the adults got coffee and we had to leave for our call.
“Break a leg!” my mother said, signing at the same time. “Break two legs!”
“Thank you!” said Demi. “I didn’t know you knew that phrase.”
“It’s the right thing to say, isn’t it?” she asked. “My friend at work told me.”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Paulson.”
“Okay, so break them!” she said. “Go, go!”
We went.
THE SHOW was fantastic.
Demi was dashing and manly and utterly convincing as the tough guy brought low by his love for the good-hearted mission worker. He had been a little off in dress rehearsal the night before, but in performance he didn’t choke, or lose his voice, or betray his broken heart in any way except that he sang with so much emotion I believed every note. Candie was wounded and gentle at the same time: her Sarah was a woman with a heart so big she didn’t know what to do with all her feelings about the world, so she worked for charity and squelched her personal life so her passions wouldn’t overwhelm her. Nanette was brassy and tough and falling apart underneath. We all looked sexy-ridiculous in our chicken hats. And Lyle brought the show to a halt with his fat man dance and his eleven o’clock number “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”
He had to reprise it three times before the audience let the show go on.
It was so different doing it in performance. With people responding. Looking up and laughing. Clapping after the songs. Seeing my parents smiling in the middle of the second row.
In dress rehearsal, Guys and Dolls had seemed good and clever and bright—but with an audience it became buoyant. Glittering.
There were six curtain calls. And I thought: I have to find some way to stay in this world.
I CHANGED MY clothes, said good-bye to my parents, and headed over to the cast party in the black box theater. Curfew was extended. I started out dancing with Demi and Lyle (as far away from Blake and Mark as we could get), then with Iz and Candie, then with Nanette, then with the other Hot Box Girls, and suddenly, someone put his hands over my eyes. Theo? No. James. “You were great tonight,” he said. Covered in butter, I thought. Theo ran away without kissing me, but James is covered in butter. “You were, too,” I said, smiling up at him. Which is rare—when there’s a guy I can smile up at.
“And you look fantastic.”
“Six pounds of makeup will do that to a girl.”
“No, it’s not that,” James said. “Hey, you wanna get some fresh air?”
I looked around. It was Theo I wanted, but all the evidence suggested I didn’t have a chance. I couldn’t even see him anywhere. “Sure.”
We stepped out into the muggy summer night, and James started walking. “Where are you going?” I laughed.
“I don’t know,” James answered. “Walk with me.”
But he did know. We went right down to the beach. The site of “several midnight debaucheries resulting in expulsion,” according to Lyle.
We took off our shoes and waded into the water, chatting about the show.
Then James took off his shirt and plunged in.
He had a good body. Here he was, doing something close to a jumbo-pounce. So I thought, why not?
I’m not Sarah with Lurking Bigness anymore. I’m Sadye, who is Big already. Sadye, who just performed in the most awesome show. Sadye, who is living the way she wants to.
I thanked the goddess Liza Minnelli that I was wearing a bra that matched my underpants, pulled off my dress, and went swimming.
James swam up to meet me, and before I knew it, we were kissing. I had never in my whole life kissed a boy with just my underwear on. In fact, I’d only kissed one boy ever in ninth grade. And now, here was boy with a bare chest. His braces were clunky, but his mouth was soft, and we were floating, and the water made us slippery. “I’ve been looking at you for a long time,” he whispered. “Have you been looking at me?”
“Yes,” I answered, lying a little.
We kissed some more, and part of me was thinking that this felt amazing, that this was what I wanted—but part of me was thinking this wasn’t the right boy. It was all moving too fast.
“I’m cold,” I said, pulling back.
“Let me keep you warm.”
It sounded like such a line.
I didn’t want a guy to keep me warm. I wanted a guy to make me laugh and play songs on the piano for me and debate me and tease me and then keep me warm. James and I weren’t at the keeping-warm stage.
I splashed up onto shore, shivering, and pulled my dress on over my wet underwear.
“Sadye, wait!” James followed me out of the water. “What’s up?”
“I’m just cold,” I said. “I think I want to go to bed.”
That sounded wrong.
“I mean, you’re great and all, I just—I just want to go home on my own, okay?
“Hey,” he said, pulling on his dry shirt and shaking his hair around to get the water out of it. “I didn’t mean to be pushy. You—you took off all your clothes.”
“I know,” I said. “I changed my mind.”
“Fine.”
“I know it’s probably not,” I said, putting on my sandals. “I know I’m being a jerk.”
“No, it’s fine, really. Whatever.”
“Okay, then. Good night.”
“See ya.”
I
left him standing by the shore, but I didn’t go back to the dorm right away. Instead, I went back to the party, my clothes damp and my hair wet, and I danced the rest of the night with Demi.
Theo turned up later, holding hands with Bec.
* * *
IN ACTING CLASS, we began doing monologues. A couple days after Guys and Dolls performed, I had to stand up and recite a speech from Medea. When I finished, Morales brought the entire group around to look at the way my foot had tensed while I’d been speaking. My toes were curled under, he pointed out.
Then he gave a long lecture on leaving our personal agita, our tics and pains—and in essence, our personalities—behind as we stood up onstage. People nodded and looked at my foot like it was some festering disease that they didn’t want to catch.
“What if we want to bring our personalities with us?” I asked Morales. “Isn’t that what people do who are method actors? Stanislavski and Strasberg and all that?”
I had read about the Method in a book, before coming to Wildewood. I had figured that since I had no acting training, I should study up on it so I wouldn’t be behind. Basically, the idea is that method actors don’t try to act like different characters. They try to be themselves and just respond to what is happening. They draw on their own personal memories and experiences rather than inventing ones for their characters, and they speak and gesture as naturally as possible.
“Method is for film acting,” said Morales dismissively. “That’s not what you’re learning here.”
“But there have been method actors on the stage,” I persisted. “What about Marlon Brando?”
Morales snorted. “You, whatever your name is. You cannot argue out of the fact that you have a tense foot. You have tensed this foot all through your monologue for a week now. Forget the Method. Forget Marlon Brando.”
“Why?”
“You are not Brando, and you’re not going to reinvent basic dramatic technique by arguing with me. Just attempt to learn what I am teaching. Do not try to be Brando. The man is dead, anyhow.”
“I—” I struggled to find the right words. “I’m not saying I did a good job with Medea, or anything. I’m not trying to say I know what I’m doing. I’m trying to have a conversation about acting. About what it means to be an actor. Aren’t there different methods we should have at our disposal?”
“Get your foot uncurled and maybe we can talk about it,” said Morales. But he didn’t ask me to do the scene again.
(click, shuffle, bang, bang)
Demi: Is it on?
Sadye: Wait. Wait. Yeah. Okay, go.
Demi: It’s July ninth--
Sadye: No, it’s the tenth--
Demi: It is? sorry. No idea what day it is here.
Sadye:--and we’re recording our impressions of Wildewood at a little more than two weeks in.
Demi: Oh, let’s sing the Blake song. We need to lay that down for posterity.
Sadye: Okay.
Demi: Sadye wrote me a Blake song, more of a rhyme, really, to be like an exorcism.
Sadye: To get Blake out of his system.
Demi: And it is working, can I just say? I heartily recommend the nasty Paulson rhyme method of recovering from heartbreak. Ready?
Sadye: Ready.
Demi: Five, six, seven, eight!
Together: Blechy, blondy,
Blake the buff,
Looking good
Is not enough.
You can smile
And bat your eye,
Shake your butt
And flash your thigh.
But until
Your IQ’s high,
You will never
Be my guy!
(self-congratulatory clapping)
Demi: Oh, that makes me feel so much better! I don’t know what I ever saw in him.
Sadye: Muscles?
Demi: Besides muscles.
Sadye: Just call me Love Doctor.
Demi: Love Doctor! All right. Now, for posterity’s sake, give us your report. Acting, Singing, Restoration-Squash-your-boobs-up, Combat-with-hunky-straight-boys, Midsummer Night’s Disaster--whatever you have to share.
Sadye: In Acting we are learning, like, the anti-Method.
Demi: You don’t think Morales is brilliant?
Sadye: I don’t know. I thought he was. He might still be. But do you think he should be telling people who are only seventeen that they’re not Brando?
Demi: Oh, you’re mad about the tense-foot lecture. That was mean, I give you that.
Sadye: He acts like he can see exactly what we’re worth and that’s the end of it. But who’s to say that’s the case?
Demi: He is a Broadway director.
Sadye: Yeah, but we’re not even out of school and he’s got everyone pegged already.
Demi: And?
Sadye: I mean, of course I’m not Brando, because Brando was Brando. I know that. I’m not trying to say I’m a genius. I mean, I basically suck at the moment. But the point is, I could be Brando. I mean, I could be Brandoish. Is he so sure by looking at me that I’m not?
Demi: Sadye--
Sadye: Maybe I have Lurking Brandoishness that would explode onto the stage if only my acting teacher weren’t humiliating me by having everyone stare at my feet?
Demi: He’s teaching us to take direction.
Sadye: Why should I forget the Method if I think it’s interesting? Lots of great actors have used it. Don’t you remember that book I had on it?
Demi: Part of his point is that if you can’t take the heat in his class, you won’t be able to take the heat in the real world.
Sadye: But don’t you think there should be a dialogue? Not just him yelling at me, but more like a conversation about what we’re trying to learn?
Demi: There are twenty people in that class, Sadye. Not just you.
Sadye: Yes, but they’re like sheep. Like acting sheep who do whatever he tells them to do.
Demi: I don’t think of it that way.
Sadye: Then how do you think about it?
Demi: Like learning from a master.
Sadye: (pause) We should change the subject or we’ll have our Second Official Quarrel.
Demi: Fine. (another pause) I had a first costume fitting today. For Birdie.
Sadye: You did?
Demi: Yes. And I have one word for you.
Sadye: What?
Demi: Gold lamé.
Sadye: That’s two words.
Demi: All right. Two words. But gold lamé. Tight, tight, gold lamé.
Sadye: Speaking of costumes, I have a word for you, too. For Midsummer costumes. Actually, I can’t believe I haven’t told you this yet.
Demi: What?
Sadye: Unitard.
Demi: Say it isn’t so.
Sadye: Unitard. Unitard. Lyle didn’t tell you?
Demi: I am sure Lyle doesn’t want to think about it.
Sadye: Unitard. Unitard!
Demi: I love that word. A Midsummer Night’s Unitard.
(click)
MIDSUMMER rehearsal, three weeks in. Reanne gave Titania this blocking to do that involved her circling me (the tree) in a relaxed, flirtatious fashion, the way someone might do with an actual tree that was round and not person-shaped—and Titania tried to do it, but she ended up feeling my boob by accident and then tripping twice over the balled-up bits of canvas at my feet, and the whole move seemed so wrong; it was an important speech, she was tripping and stumbling during it. I wasn’t stable and so I moved by accident when she hung on me; and the fact that I was a person (and not a tree) was going to end up pulling focus from Titania.
So I interrupted. “Reanne,” I said. “I’m going to distract everyone by accident, here,” I said. “When she hangs on me, I’m going to wobble, and everyone’s going to think I’m coming to life.”
“Thanks, Sadye, but we want to show Titania’s intimate connection to the magical forest here. That’s the reason for the blocking choice,” said Reanne.
“I’m so
rry I grabbed your boob,” said Titania.
“S’okay,” I said. “That’s not the point. I just think you’re going to get caught in all this canvas, and I’m going to wobble, and no one’s going to pay good attention to the drama going on with Bottom.”
“Sadye,” said Reanne gently. “We’ve just put this blocking in. If it doesn’t work after we’ve done the scene several times, we can restage it. But for now, let’s try to make it happen.”
“Can’t we try it without the trees?” I said. “Or what if the trees dance some kind of forest fairy dance and then left the stage so as not to steal focus? Like a scene-setting thing?”
“Looking at it from here, I don’t think you’re stealing focus, Sadye.”
“What if we moved Bottom and Titania downstage, to bring the audience’s attention closer to them? And maybe dress the trees in costumes, to make the distinction clearer between trees and characters?”
“Let’s run it, okay, my dear? Give it a try.”
I admit I rolled my eyes a bit when Titania stumbled again trying to swing herself around my trunk.
But honestly.
* * *
AFTER REHEARSAL, I was heading off to Stage Combat with some of the mechanicals when Reanne pulled me aside and asked me to stay. “I want to tell you, Sadye, that you’re a more powerful person here than you realize.”
“What?”
“You have a strong personality and a lot of magnetism. I know you’re not too happy with your part, but I gave you that part because I thought you’d have the strength to stretch yourself in ways that not many actors can—and because you seemed to have the confidence to take on a part most other girls wouldn’t want.”
“Oh.” I was flattered, but I didn’t buy it. Honestly, I think they were short one boy, I was the tallest girl they had, and from my audition they knew I could at least speak Shakespearean English, if not actually act it.
“You have the power to make this production as good as it can be,” Reanne was saying. “We’re in your hands. But you also have the power to erode our work with your negativity.”
“What do you mean?”
“The other mechanicals, Titania, their faith in our ensemble is being disrupted by your vocal lack of support for what we’re doing. If you could embrace your part and the world we’re trying to create, I’m sure the rest of them would follow your lead. People will follow you if you get on board, Sadye. But at the moment your interruptions and bad attitude are spreading like a cancer through this production, and I know you don’t want that to happen. Do you want that to happen?”