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—
It is chaosbackstage. Controlled chaos, but chaos nonetheless.
With only half an hour until curtain, Pope’s dowager wig can’t be found, the living room settee is refusing to roll smoothly, Tara James is cramming lines because Sara Lane has the flu, and Dennis is driving everyone up the wall withhis “vocal exercises,” which sound a lot like the chorus of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” fed through a meat processor. Mr. Horslen, who never yells, is yelling. Only Liz Macy seems unfazed by the hullabaloo, so Avery makes his way over to her.
“It’s even worse with the spring musical,” she tells him after they both take a look around. “People are even more insecure and precious about their singing. But don’t worry—everything will sort itself out. We just have to stand out of the way of the mayhem and let the clock take care of it.”
They finish getting into costume—Liz puts on her stockings, and Avery clips on his tie. (He wants to put on his fedora as well, but he doesn’t need it until the croquet scene.) True to Liz’s word, the clock sorts things out, because while curtain time can be held for seven minutes so people can get to their seats, it can’t wait much longer than that.
Avery offers a passing thought to who’s in the audience, and he certainly hopes that Ryan has survived dinner. But his phone is back in his locker and his mind has now entered the play. The curtain rises, and the family in the audience is no longer his family. No, this misfit ensemble, from Lavinia Stranglehold down to Baby Winston, is his family. He is now, he thinks, happily engaged to a woman who will end up in an attic.
They get laughs. Sometimes intentional, sometimes by mistake. But what a good feeling, to hear people laughing in the dark. While Avery’s head is in the play, his heart feeds offthis laughter, and the satisfaction when the dialogue zings the way it was meant to zing, and the physical comedy is pulled off without anyone losing an eye.
The only missed stitch is Dennis, who continues to rage like a thespianic plague. The laughter makes it worse, because laughter has never been Dennis’s goal. The more the audience laughs, the angrier he gets. When the confrontation scene arrives and Lucius and Laurent discover both-and-neither of them are affianced to Betty Lou, Dennis is channeling all the fury of Medea, to a degree that Avery wants to tell Baby Winston to hide, even though Baby Winston isn’t the object of Dennis’s onanistic volcano ofacting. Avery must stand his ground as Dennis spits and rends and howls. He is only saved when Pope-as-dowager runs in and says, “What in tarnation is all this commotion?” This gets a big laugh, and Avery expects Dennis to rip the couch from the stage and throw it at the audience.
Somehow he resists.
—
Ryan doesn’t reallyknow what to do with what’s playing out in front of him. As a kid, it was always much more fun to play dress-up than to watch other people play dress-up…and isn’t this dress-up? He’s not entirely sure why a high school would put on a play where nobody is even remotely high school age. There are laughs, for sure, but when Ryan is laughing, it’s mostly when things are going wrong, or whenPope does such a spectacularly out-there version of dress-up that the showbiz gods are summoned.
Every now and then, Ryan sneaks glances at the rest of their party, to see if he’s the only one feeling this way. Avery’s father looks perfectly happy and Avery’s mother looks a mix of nervous and happy. Avery’s uncle looks bored and his aunt looks utterly charmed. The most enthusiastic are Avery’s cousins, because they figure all high schoolers are adults, so it makes perfect sense for them to dress up as other adults. Every time Pope puts some whipped cream and cherries on top of a line reading, the cousins eat it up.
The one thing Ryan does love is how queer the play is. With no disrespect meant to Avery or his performance, it’s very clear to Ryan that the whole kit and caboodle—the fiancée, the inheritance, even Baby Winston—should be given to the sarcastic lesbian aunt. (They keep calling her a spinster, and because he’s never heard the wordspinsterbefore, Ryan imagines that in her free time she does something involving thread, like Penelope fromThe Odyssey,or the princess in “Rumpelstiltskin,” whose name he can’t remember.)
It’s fun to see how much fun Avery is having. But it’s starting to seem like a bad idea to sit through all four performances.
—
As soon asthe standing ovation is through, as soon as the curtain closes after the final bows, everyone in the cast startshugging each other, euphoric. They’ve done it. Somehow all the cogs, all the gears, were in working order. No lines were majorly flubbed. No entrances were majorly missed. No scenery fell, and Dennis didn’t pop any of his own arteries.
It’s a success, and everyone’s giddy to do it again, twice tomorrow.
They change back into their street clothes quickly, handing over the sweatier parts of their costumes to Penny’s mom and dad, who are in charge of cleaning the wardrobe. (Penny hasn’t been able to do anything to stop the rumors that her parents’ dry cleaning business was the reason she was cast as Baby Winston, and her parents’ presence backstage makes matters even worse.)
More than half the audience is waiting by the stage door. Even though Ryan’s hair certainly makes him stand out, Avery finds his parents first, based on his longer history of spotting them in crowds. Then he sees Ryan beside them, talking to his cousins. Because it’s opening night, there are lots of flowers being given and photos being taken. Avery’s cousins mob him like he’s a celebrity, and soon his mom, dad, aunt, and uncle are congratulating him, too, with his mother passing along her friends’ congratulations. (They had no desire to stay around.) Finally, Avery gets to Ryan, who gives him the widest smile and tells him how great he was. Avery, still euphoric, hugs him like a fellow cast member and then kisses him like a boyfriend. Other people around them notice, for sure. But for once, Avery doesn’t notice them noticing, at least not until his younger cousin,grossed out by kissing of any kind, yells at him to stop it. This, in turn, horrifies Avery’s aunt and uncle, who assure him and Ryan that Johnny’s display has nothing to do with their gender. Avery hugs Johnny tight and says he knows, then punishes Johnny with wet, slobbery mock kisses until Johnny is practically peeing himself from laughter.
Ryan tries hard to feel like a part of this.
—
It isn’t untilAvery’s in the backseat of the car that exhaustion sits upon the switch, and he feels his energy level shift fromontooff. He and Ryan are holding hands, something Avery’s never done with a boy before in his parents’ car. It feels quietly monumental, offhand major. Ryan is staring out the window, staring past his reflection while Avery stares at it.
When Ryan turns again to Avery, he squeezes his hand, as if to sayI’m back now. But then he says, “I just remembered I have to go to work tomorrow. I have a shift, and I forgot to arrange for a sub. But the good news is, I’ll be done by four, so I can be back for the night performance, if that’s okay.”
“What time will you have to leave?”
“Early? Around six, I’d guess. But that’s fine. I figure you have to go in early, right?”
“Not until noon.”
“Oh.”
Avery squeezes Ryan’s hand again. “It’s okay. We’ll still have most of Sunday. And you can come to the cast party, right?”
“Of course.”
Avery’s too tired to put up much resistance. He doesn’t want Ryan to lose his job. And he also feels that nobody, not even family, should have to see the play all four times.
