But Ryan’s right. There’s a time when you wonder if it’s worth the heartache.
Before I meet the firing squad, I see Mario onstage in his shoulder-to-hand cast. He raises his arm like Frankenstein. Without music, my musical… isn’t. Yesterday, when I logged on to Facebook, I checked the Closets Are for Mothballs page and not one single cast member had left a comment on the wall recommending another keyboardist. In fact, no one had IM’d or texted me since I skipped out of the last rehearsal. If they’re quitting, I hope they have the decency to tell the writer, director, choreographer, producer, and star.
I figure I’ll delay the bloodshed by sneaking in the back door of the theater. It’s dark except for the lights onstage. Music reverbs, but it’s not from an electronic keyboard. Mario’s playing some kind of horn. Not a sax or clarinet, because he only has the one good hand. I’m not that familiar with all the orchestral instruments. Is it an English horn?
I slither behind the set to listen. The horn sounds cool—kind of mellow and bittersweet. The way I feel.
People ask one another where I am. I crouch deeper in the shadows.
“Let’s just start,” Ryan says. “T.J., would you play Luke?”
He can’t possibly do me justice. The Mothballs dance the opening number, then T.J. walks out from stage left. “Ten,” he says. “That’s how old I was when I knew I was different.” The scene takes place in a classroom. One desk. “Sitting behind Zach Zimmerman, I’d doodle in my science notebook LO + ZZ = LUV. One day my notebook got swiped and I heard these girls snickering. ‘Hey, Luke. Is ZZ Zack or Zena?’ Yes, lucky for me, Zach had a sister named Zena. I loved her, too.”
I smile. It’s a true story.
T.J. begins the Zach and Zena song and I clap a hand over my mouth. OMG. He has a gorgeous voice. I had no idea—maybe because I gave him only one silly song, which a mime could do.
The musidramedy continues. T.J. knows every line and every song, and he’s good. His comic timing is impeccable. He even makes me laugh. I hate to say it, but T.J.’s better than I am.
The Mothballs dance out of the closet in a chorus line, high-kicking and singing, “Closets are for mothballs.” It’s hilarious. Mario’s switched to a trumpet to herald their arrival.
T.J. bursts out of the closet to the “Hallelujah” chorus. What a scream.
When T.J. gets to the part where he comes out to my parents, I’m mesmerized. “Mom, Dad, I have to tell you something,” T.J. says.
I feel the anxiety in the pit of my stomach all over again. How clammy my hands were at that moment. How dry my mouth felt.
“Are you flunking out?” Britny, aka Mom, asks. She even sounds like my mom.
“No,” T.J. says. “I’m bisexual.”
The silence is drawn out. I hold my breath until Mom says, “Are you sure?”
T.J. says, “Positive.”
Mom says, “You know we’ll always love you, no matter what.”
Gabe, aka Dad, goes, “But you still like girls, right?”
There’s no line here; only a nod.
Dad’s spotlighted with me, I hope, and I hear him say, “Then there’s hope for you yet.”
A tear slides down my cheek and suddenly I’m hiccuping. Onstage, T.J. will be hanging his head while the spotlight fades. There’s more to come, more humor to lighten the second act. But I’m so moved by the performance I can’t stop myself from standing and applauding. I start around the set, clapping all the way.
“That was…” I flap my hand to dry my tears. “You guys.” And I realize something: I wrote this musidramedy to engage the audience in my life, but it’s not only my life. It’s all our lives, every bisexual or gay or lesbian or transgender person who’s had to come out. My whole purpose was to share with the world how hard it is.
“That was a powerful performance,” I tell T.J. “You’re officially the lead.”
“What?” he cries. “Oh my God.” He covers his face with his hands.
“Mario, love how you improvised, dude. You’re a genius.” He gives me a peace sign with the free fingers sticking out of his cast.
“Mothballs, what can I say? You guys are the Rockettes.”
They squeal.
“Are we going to be ready for next Friday night?”
I don’t hear any nays. Everyone seems psyched.
A wave of pride washes over me and I think, I wrote, produced, directed, and choreographed an entire school production. If my acting career doesn’t pan out…
It will. My future flashes before my eyes. I’m accepting a Tony, a Grammy, and an Oscar, all in the same year. Look out, world.
AZURE
Why does the worst weather day of the week always blow in right before my silent auctions? The snow begins in the morning, and by noon there are drifts up to the windowsills in the cafeteria. Mr. Gerardi’s voice booms over the loudspeaker: “We’ll be closing at one today. Buses will be here by twelve forty-five.”
“Noooo,” I say to Radhika. “That means we won’t get anyone to come tonight.”
She says, “You should probably cancel it.”
If we can’t raise a thousand dollars or more… There’s no way I’m going to ask Radhika to let her father fund our prom. Especially if she’s not even coming.
She must be reading my mind, because she says, “Be reasonable, Azure. It’s nothing to him. A drop in the bucket.”
“But it’s everything to you,” I say. “It’s your future.”
She shakes her head and replies in a soft voice, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.” I love you, I want to say. I won’t destroy your life.
The snow continues to fall all Friday afternoon, and the weather forecasters are predicting one of those Colorado spring snowstorms that can dump two or three feet of heavy, wet snow on the city. Louisa calls to tell me she’s closing the thrift shop and not to come in tomorrow.
I hate feeling shut in, even though I don’t know where I’d go.
Dad comes home around six, stomping his wet feet in the foyer. “Whew,” he says. “What a mess. Traffic accidents everywhere. Turn on the news, will you?” He grabs a Bud and two Twinkies from the cupboard. Tossing a Twinkie to me, he pads into the living room.
I switch from MTV to Fox. The meteorologist, who is totally hot, is saying we’re going to get at least another five to ten inches in Denver, on top of the two feet that have already fallen at DIA. “Stay off the roads so emergency vehicles can get through,” she says.
Dad perches beside me, yanking off his wet socks and propping his feet on the coffee table.
“Ew,” I say. “What makes you think I want to look at your toe hair?”
“Sexy, isn’t it?”
I let out a puff of air. “To Cloud, maybe.”
He gives me a noogie. We watch as the poor weather reporters are forced to stand out in the blizzard and tell people how dangerous the driving is. I say to Dad, “You can thank me now for never wanting to drive.”
“What about driving me to drink?” He takes a swig.
“You’re doing that on your own.”
We watch for a while and I pull the comforter tighter around me, just listening to the snow pelt against the windows.
“What do you plan to do next year?” he asks.
I turn to him. “Why? Are you afraid I’ll stay or go?”
He holds my eyes. “I’m not sure.”
At least he’s honest. He’s gazing at me so intently I have to look away. “I haven’t decided. Go to college, I guess. Or join the police academy.”
He chokes and beer bubbles out of his nose. “No,” he says in a cough. “Absolutely not.”
“Why not? Don’t you think I can protect and serve?”
He sets his beer on the table. “Azure, you have the will and ability to do anything you want. I just don’t…” He gets all serious. “I’d be too worried about you.”
“Like I’m not worried about you? Every time you step out that door, I worry you w
on’t be coming back.”
He frowns. “Sweetie.” He tries to loop an arm around me, but I lean away.
“Don’t ‘sweetie’ me. I mean it, Dad. Why can’t you be an accountant or something?”
He says, “I suck at math.”
“Is that where I inherited it from?”
My cell rings and I push up from the sofa to go find it in my room. It’s Radhika. I kick my door closed and say, “Hi,” as I sprawl on the bed.
“Are you watching the news?” she says.
“Um, I was.”
“Go turn it on.”
“It’s all about the weather. Blah, blah, snow, snow.”
“Turn to channel nine,” she says.
I return to the living room and sit, snatch the remote off the coffee table, and click over to channel nine. It’s a breaking news story.
“Firefighters are blaming the weight of the snow for the roof’s collapse. Fortunately, no one was injured, although three events were scheduled in the meeting and ballrooms this evening.”
I sit on the edge of the sofa and ask Dad, “Where is that?”
“Some hotel,” he says.
“The Ramada is currently looking to relocate all the guests to nearby hotels. Needless to say, repairs will be extensive.”
My stomach drops through the floor. In my ear, Ra-dhika says what I already know: “That’s our prom hotel.”
My cell beeps; I have another call. My eyes are glued to the screen, where half of the hotel is rubble. “Azure, are you there?” Radhika says. I hear her voice, but it’s coming from outer space. This can’t be happening. Not now.
Mrs. Flacco writes in the old Google docs file, “Call around to other hotels. There are always last-minute cancellations.”
I spend most of Saturday on the phone. There’s one available ballroom, and it’s twenty-five hundred dollars. We could reserve it—at Radhika’s future expense. I refuse to even mention it to the others. By that evening, no one’s found anything, and in our new Google docs file, Shauna writes that Mrs. Flacco had a long list of hotels last year, but she probably wouldn’t lift a pinkie to help us.
As I’m lying in bed, listening to the wind rattle my window, I have a sudden epiphany. It’s almost midnight, but I get up and log on to Facebook. Radhika’s not there. Neither is Luke, which is surprising; he lives online.
On a whim, I search for Mr. Rosen. Eventually I find a Phillip Rosen who teaches at Roosevelt. I message him and hope he reads his Facebook tomorrow. Seriously, why be on Facebook if you don’t read it two or three times a day?
The first thing I do when I wake up on Sunday is check my computer. Mr. Rosen has written me back with the information I need. He adds, “There’s an outside chance, I suppose. If you want me to call, I will.”
I write him a message: “That’s okay. I’ll do it.” I’m kind of mad at him for being unavailable to us after he got fired and I got him reinstated. But whatever. I write, “I hope you get your deposit back from the Ramada. We’re going to need it.”
In our new Google docs file, I tell everyone what I’m thinking: “Remember the pavilion? Mr. Rosen said it’s a historic landmark, so what if we call the foundation and tell them we’ll clean up all the tagging so they won’t have to? We can remove the plywood and sweep the inside. Or we can paint the plywood with murals. We’ll get it all ready for them to open by May.”
No one writes back immediately, so I log off and call the number Mr. Rosen gave me for the Highlands foundation.
The president, whose name I can’t make out because of her whispery voice, sounds like she’s about ninety years old. She keeps repeating, “Speak up, dear.” I feel like I’m shouting as I explain our idea to use the pavilion for our prom.
At the end of my spiel, she doesn’t say anything. I wonder if she’s fallen asleep. Or… died?
“Hello?” I yell.
“I can’t make that decision,” she says. “It’s up to the foundation committee.”
Committees. Why do I suddenly loathe committees?
“Let’s see,” the president says. “Our next meeting is April twenty-eighth.”
“But our prom is April sixteenth,” I tell her.
“Oh. Then that won’t work, will it?”
Duh.
“I’m very sorry,” she says.
I sense that she’s about to hang up. “Wait. Can’t you hold a special meeting?” Like, tomorrow? I think.
“Oh, my,” she says. “That’d be breaking with tradition. We’ve always met once a month for as long as I’ve been on the foundation committee.”
Which must be a hundred years. “Just this once, could you meet early? We’d need to know as soon as possible so we’d have time to clean up all the graffiti and decorate for prom. It’d be such a gorgeous place to have it,” I add.
She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “You know, in my day there used to be an actual ballroom next to the carousel. Dances were held every Saturday night. ‘Dancing Under the Stars,’ it was called.” I hear the nostalgia in her voice. “It was romantic and wonderful. You’re right—the pavilion would be a lovely location for a prom.”
“I know,” I say. “So much better than some stuffy, smelly hotel room.”
She hesitates again. Please, please, please, I pray.
She says, “Let me contact the committee and see if we can call an emergency meeting. Why don’t you give me your name and phone number, and I’ll let you know.”
After I hang up, I squeal and jump around on the bed because I have a feeling the foundation is going to say yes. How could they not?
As I bounce in a circle, I see Dad standing in the doorway.
“I knew the day would come,” he says, entering my room and extending his palm. “Hand it over.”
I break my bounce with bent knees. “What?”
“Whatever you’re on.”
I click my tongue. “It’s a natural high.”
He goes, “Hoo boy. No more Twinkies for you.”
LUKE
Azure’s back to being Chatty Cathy on the way to school, telling us all about calling the pavilion president and how prom’s going to be so ultracool under the stars. I say what I’m thinking, which is, “What if it snows another ten inches?”
“I thought of that,” she says. “We’ll just paint the plywood on the inside. You can do murals or something.”
“I can, huh? I’m a little busy with my musidramedy.”
“Well, there are other artists in the school,” she says.
Which totally offends me.
I was worried about the roads today. It was a fast-moving storm, though, and the sun came out yesterday afternoon. Half the snow is already melted.
Azure seems so happy I get the feeling she’s talked Radhika into coming to prom. Maybe even with her. Although wouldn’t she have told me? That’s pretty monumental news. Maybe Azure’s going to keep everything to herself now, since we’ve sort of lost our connection. And Radhika—where does she stand? Only one way to find out. “So, Radhika,” I say, “I’m glad you decided to come to prom after all.”
Radhika says, “Who told you that?”
In the rearview mirror, I see Azure seething at me. Radhika turns to gaze out the side window. Under my breath, for Azure’s benefit, I go, “Bawk, bawk.”
The first thing Flacco asks at the prom com meeting is: “Has anyone found another hotel?”
No one speaks up. Azure checks her cell, like maybe she missed a call.
“If we don’t have a location, there’s no use going any further,” Flacco says.
“Wait a minute,” Azure speaks up. “I talked to the president of the Highlands foundation to see if we could use their pavilion.”
“What pavilion?” Flacco asks.
Azure describes the pavilion and how it was one of our initial finds.
“Is it indoors?” Flacco asks.
“Yes and no,” Azure says.
“Either it is or it isn’t,” Flacco says.
> Azure has to explain about the plywood.
“You want to have your prom in a cement building with plywood sides? Is it heated?”
Azure glances around the room. No one has an answer. “If it’s not, we could always rent heaters.”
“That sounds like a fire hazard,” Flacco says.
Azure continues, “But if the weather’s nice, we can take down the plywood, and it’ll be amazing.”
“It’ll be cold,” Flacco counters. “We just had a major blizzard. Do you want girls to have to wear their winter coats with their prom dresses?”
“Or pants,” Azure says.
Flacco repeats, “Pants? To prom?”
Tight-lipped, Azure says, “We don’t know what the weather’s going to be like. This is Colorado.”
Flacco bounces the tip of her pen on the table. “What do the rest of you say? You don’t seem very in favor of this idea.”
No one replies. Azure looks ready to strangle someone, starting with me. Finally, Shauna says, “I loved the pavilion. But I am worried about the weather. And it’s not big enough to put tables inside to sit and have cake, plus dance and set up the band. We might need to rent tents and chairs for outside.”
“How much will that cost?” Azure asks.
“My sister rented outdoor tents and chairs for her wedding last summer,” Connor says. “You don’t want to know what it cost.”
That shuts everyone up.
Flacco asks Azure, “How much is it to rent the pavilion?”
Azure swallows hard. “I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t exactly gotten permission to use it yet.”
Flacco’s face changes from irritated to indignant. “Then why are you wasting our time?”
I feel Azure shrivel—and she doesn’t wither easily.
On the way home, I learn that Azure knows curse words I’ve never even heard. I want to cover poor Radhika’s ears. Azure’s cell rings and she digs it out of her backpack. “It’s Shauna,” she says.
She listens, then says, “Thanks. I appreciate your support. Okay. I’ll let you know if and when the foundation calls.” She disconnects. “They’re never going to call.” Just then Azure’s cell bleats again. She still has it in her hand so she flips it open after one ring. “This is Azure,” she says. To us, she mouths, It’s them. She listens. We’re at Radhika’s gate and I roll down the window to key in the security code.