Page 88 of Playworld
“Griffin’s in my spring play,” Damiano said to the trio. “And the new Alan Hornbeam picture.”
“An actorandan athlete,” Sophie said, and stamped her dropped butt. “Can he dance too?”
Dolinski shook his head at her, then flicked his cigarette to the ground and, chuckling, dragged his sole across it. “You are such a bitch,” he said.
“What hecando,” Damiano said, “is squander his talent playing a superhero.” Then he reached into his blazer’s breast pocket, produced his pack of cigarettes, and, shaking one out, extended it toward me. “But I’m trying to change his evil ways.”
“Well, you know what they say, Mr. Damiano”—I bit the filter between my teeth, cupped my hand over Dolinski’s flame, and, before inhaling, repeated an observation I’d heard my dad make a thousand times—“those who can’t do, teach.”
A ghost filled my lungs. Its steamy form draped itself against my chest’s cavity. Its barber-hot towel softly stuffed my ribs. Its billowy expanse, rising up, wanted to escape my throat; and I finally let it, in one great arrow-straight stream that hissed past my lips, this imitation of a seasoned smoker so spot-on I appeared like some street urchin who’d taken up the habit at ten.
“Be seeing you,” said Dolinski.
“Later, narc,” said Sophie.
“Nice to meet you, Ethan,” said Andrea.
“Rehearsal this weekend,” said Damiano, and pointed at me.
I flicked the butt to ash and, in a farewell gesture, winked at them as they took the stairs. As I watched them ascend, I felt the color leave my face and the blood abandon my buzzing brain. The moment they were gone, the nausea rose up while I bent double, palms to knees, and with a terrible gargle sprayed the carport with puke. There came a second gushing heave. And then with my back arched, I spewed a third time. I wiped my mouth and then flung my last cigarette ever onto the puddle, spitting several times at the mess. Spitting through my watery eyes. Spitting at the man that, to Amanda at least, I was not.
—
Several weeks passed. Spring was in full bloom. Central Park was the forest of Arden.As You Like Itwas about to premiere. I’d taken Marc Mason up on his offer to join the game in between rehearsals, and was deep into theD&Dcampaign. I almost ran into Naomi. One Saturday afternoon, on the way to Gray’s Papaya for a couple of hot dogs, I spotted her at the Greek diner, seated at a table in the window, with, of all people, my mom, as well as her daughters, Danny and Jackie, the four of them yukking it up like a group of ladies who lunch.
Did I long for our talks, as lovelorn as I was?
I most certainly did not. Now that Amanda had told me about Dolinski; now that, at her request, we were “just friends,” she called me almost every night, and I lived for these chances. It was like being her boyfriend’s understudy; it made me hope he’d actually break a leg. She, as if to increase my already terrible confusion, made me hope. She was so forthcoming and sweet I could, if I cauterized my heart’s ventricles, pretend to enjoy myself. “Can you hear that?” Amanda said, cupping the receiver, which made her voice breathy and, somehow, nearer to my ear. “That’s my mom on her ham radio. Listen,” she ordered. There was a pause while she held the phone in the air. I could barely make out what her mother was saying. “She likes to talk to friends from Australia late at night,” Amanda said when she came back on. “Because it’s fourteen hours ahead. Do you want to know the crazy thing?”
I wanted to know everything.
“The longer she talks to them, the more her accent changes. And she picks up their expressions too. You know what ‘hit the frog and toad’ means?”
“No.”
“Hit the road. You know what ‘crack a fat’ means?”
I didn’t.
“Then I’m not telling you,” she said, “because it’s embarrassing.”
“Okay.”
“Unless you come babysit tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
Oren, on his way back from the kitchen, a bowl of cereal in hand, paused before my closet’s open door, shook his head at me, and, between spoonfuls, said, “Sad.”
I pulled the door closed so that Amanda and I wouldn’t be interrupted.
And I made it a point, after the previous evening’s conversation, to march straight up to Mr. McQuarrie the next morning so I could impress Amanda with my knowledge that afternoon.
“Sir,” I said, “I have a question only you can answer.”
McQuarrie spot-checked me, shoes to tie. “That’s a lot of pressure, Mr. Hurt, but I’ll give it a fair go.”
“What does ‘crack a fat’ mean?”