Page 25 of My Own Kind of Person

“This looks incredible,” I say. I’ve never actually watched anything he’s shot. “You could do this professionally.”

Andi grabs the phone. “This looks like the real deal.”

Tony takes the phone back. “Because Sean is the real deal!”

It looks like the videos I’ve watched of Joe Johnson. The Sean on screen smiles as the audience bursts into laughter.

“The set is good,” Tony says. “I’ll send it to Sal right now.”

He sends the email—he already had it drafted—and he messages me a link to the video. It’s almost scary how good the buzz in my pocket feels.

Ahead of us, Christy gets out of the passenger seat of Kaye’s dented grandma-gold Civic. I completely forgot I never wrote back to her photo yesterday.

“Christy!” I’m shocked to hear myself say, and even more shocked to find I’m jogging over.

“Hey.” She kisses me carefully so only the tips of our lips touch.

I should probably be panicking about how I irreparably messed everything up, but instead I say, “I’m sorry I didn’t write back yesterday. The photo you sent was so hot it set my phone on fire and I had to build a new one.”

She laughs a little. “It’s fine. I was just being—”

“Incredible. You were being incredible. I looked at my phone and I was speechless. I am only now regaining my speech because I’m looking at you again. This is the power you have.”

She shakes her head. “All right.”

“Are you still free tonight?”

Her face brightens. “I am.”

“Pignolis.”

She smiles. “All right,” she says again.

I give her a kiss and she pulls me closer. Relief pours through me. I feel proud of successfully patching up any weirdness. I feel proud of being a normal person.

I jog back to Tony and Andi as Jay Romero runs up to Kaye and begins a full-on make-out session against her car.

“Tongue before eight a.m.,” Tony observes.

“End mass incarceration,” I say with certainty, “but keep it for Jay.”

Andi laughs.

Jay wraps his arms around Kaye’s and Christy’s shoulders as they walk, but Christy pushes him away with two hands and says, “Don’t touch me.”

Andi cackles. “I do like that girl.”

We go our separate ways once we get inside, and I take out my phone to type the line that made Andi laugh. Joe Johnson mentioned in a podcast interview that he writes down ad-libs that make his friends laugh because they’re the best sign of his true sense of humor. I can’t figure out how to write the mass incarceration thing in a funny way, though. That’s the way it always is when I make Andi laugh. I never know how to phrase it like the jokes I tell onstage.

Walking into the main office to do the announcements feels the same as walking into McGuinn’s. My body hums. They call my name and I walk onstage—or, as happens now, the bell rings for homeroom and I step up to the PA system—and a surge of anxiety shocks me into my public-facing self.

“Good morning, Paumanok East!” I call like a wrestling announcer. “Let’s get ready for Friday!”

This is why I love performing. It transforms me into someone I’m not ashamed of.

Mrs. Farmer pumps a fist from her desk, I give her a solid finger point, and I add some extra oomph to the dates for the drama club auditions.

“Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours,” I say, and add in a spooky voice, “And yours alone.”