Starry-Eyed (9 page)

ALEX: Western Hills. I swear it's legit. They're a competitor to East Atlantic. They've been trying to contact you. They want to use your rap in a commercial. “East Atlantic Bank killed theater, and I hate their silly faces!” is the most famous phrase on the Internet right now. Also they're going to make a donation to save the theater program! And all of the other arts programs that were going to get cut!

(Wax's head explodes.)

ALEX (cont.): Dude! We did it!
You
did it.

ME: Hold on—I have another call. It's Tresta!

(Wax switches to the other call.)

ME: (cont.) Hello?

TRESTA: Dude, you're a terrible rapper.

ME: I know.

(There is the longest of pauses.)

TRESTA: But a pretty great guy.

. . . . .

A few short (long) months after the day I saved the arts/became the world's laughingstock, Tresta and I are again in an idling Subaru at the park. It's dark and quiet. The dashboard clock blinks 10:45.

“I should go,” she says. “I don't want to get grounded.”

“Again,” I say.

“Again. I have got to be the only girl who ever got grounded for sneaking out to go to a school board meeting.”

“Was it worth it?” I ask. She kisses me. Again. We have been kissing a lot.

“Maybe.”

There is a brief pause. The crickets sing to us from outside. And this time
I
break the cardinal rule.
I
bring up a girl's ex-boyfriend in a parked car. “Um, so hey—did we ever figure out why Javon didn't show up at the school board meeting?”

“Yeah,” she mumbles. “I thought I told you.” But the way her voice gets quiet and her eyes stare out the window tells me that she's lying.

“I'm pretty sure you didn't,” I say.

“Oh, well, I don't really know.” She looks down.

“You know, for a great actress, you're a really bad liar.” The icicles-on-my-skin feeling returns.
What is she hiding
?

“Shut up.” She punches me. “I really
am
a great actress. Say that part again and kiss me.”

“You're trying to change the subject.”

“It's working,” she says, kissing me again.

“It really isn't,” I say.

“Don't get all weird. Can we just go back to kissing?”

“No. No, we cannot.”

“Ah, you got weird.” She throws up her hands.

“I did not!” I say, though I totally felt myself getting weird.

“Fine. Read for yourself.” She taps her phone a few times and hands it to me. I will paraphrase the texts so as to save your brain melting from grammar sickness.

TRESTA: Dude, what the hell—where were you the other night?

JAVON: Where was I supposed to be, baby?

TRESTA: You don't remember? You promised to come to the school board meeting and help us save theater.

JAVON: Oh hell, sorry, I forgot. I got invited to a party up in NYC—couldn't miss it. I'll make it up to you. You know I still love you, baby.

I feel my ears turning red. “Keep reading,” she says.

TRESTA: The feeling is not mutual.

JAVON: Give me one more chance. ONE MORE CHANCE.

TRESTA: I told you, I fell in love with somebody else.

To this, Javon apparently did not respond.

I stare at the phone, out the window, and finally at Tresta. The girl in my car. The girl who apparently loves me.

“You broke up with
him
?” I say. “Who did you fall in love with? Do I know the fella?”

She looks at me with those big, beautiful eyes and smiles.

“What can I say?” she says. “You're a star. And besides, I told you Sondheim makes me hot.” We kiss again. A long, slow, soft, and beautiful kiss. “Just don't ever rap again.”

ANECDOTE: IAN HARDING

I remember the exact moment I decided acting was my life's passion. This epiphany, if one could call it such, came out of someone else's mistake.

I was a senior in high school, and had already auditioned for several colleges and acting conservatories, but I was still a little uncertain. I had been performing throughout high school, loved doing the work, and was reasonably talented, but could I actually do it for the rest of my life? Did I have what it takes?

The show was
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
, and I was cast as Mr. Biggley, a crotchety older man who runs the World Wide Wicket Company. I forget the exact point in the story, but in one performance the actress playing Rosemary, the young love interest, completely missed her entrance, leaving myself and the other actress onstage with nothing to do. In that moment, having never taken an improv class and without even being conscious of my actions, I started making up lines.

Something going wrong in a show is never fun. And trying to cover for someone else's mistake can be heart-wrenchingly nervous. Would people think I was the one who messed up? Would they be weirded out? Would the director be upset with me? But “the show must go on.” At that moment, keeping the audience entertained was all I could focus on—not whether I was scared or anxious about what might happen next. I remember referencing the other actor onstage. Then, seeing she was terrified and completely lost as to what was going on, I made some crack about her and being deaf for some reason. The audience lost it.

Finally, Rosemary walked out, also completely bewildered as to where I was in the script, and I covered that as well. We broke into song and dance as one is wont to do in a musical, and then Rosemary exited. In
doing so, the door she left from came off its hinge, swaying awkwardly, revealing all of the other actors getting ready to come onstage for their entrances.

Again it happened.

I made some comment about budget cuts, told the people standing in view of the audience to get back to work (I was playing their boss after all . . .), and slammed the door into place. The audience laughed and applauded, which startled me since I was used to applause at the fall of the curtain. The scene ended, and I left feeling something I couldn't articulate. To this day I don't know what I said, or even if what happened was any good. In that moment though, I got the certainty I needed: I was an actor.

It's not the applause, the laughter, nor the praise, (in fact, I've mostly received the opposite of praise). It was the alive-ness. I know that's not a word, but that's what it is. Danger, excitement, connectivity, the moment, and what comes out when those things are combined. Just throwing myself out there. That's why I do it. It doesn't matter if I'm brilliant, terrible, ugly, beautiful, happy, or sad. It's getting out there anyway and knowing it will turn out as it should.

I
AN
H
ARDING
is an American actor whose work can be seen in several films and television shows, most notably on ABC Family's
Pretty Little Liars
as Ezra Fitz. He attended the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, and would like to thank his friends Ted Malawer and Nic Cory for their totally unfounded faith in his talent. Along with his above anecdote, Ian would like to add that he is still learning the ins and outs of show biz, and would encourage the reader to remain forever a curious student.

TESSITURA

Maryrose Wood

“Sing a little something for us, Fiona. Come on, love, give us a song.”

A table full of bleary eyes and eager smiles swivels my way, like a bank of searchlights converging on an escaped prisoner. I flinch, can't help it. Then I laugh, to make like it's all right. They're Niall's friends, after all. I have to be nice. I'll sing whatever they like.

“Sure, Fiona, let's have a song. Sing ‘Molly Malone.'”

“Sing ‘Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye.' Gets me every time.”

“Bit military for a birthday, don't you think?”

“'Tis, you're right. Sing ‘Danny Boy' then.”

“‘Danny Boy,' that's it!”

Look, they're crying already. Just say the words “Danny Boy” to this crowd and their eyes turn to faucets. The Japanese may have invented karaoke, but we Irish have our own version. We call it
life
. We can't gather for five minutes without someone calling for a song. At least, that's the way it goes in Niall's circle of friends. They're all creative types to begin with, of course. Fiddlers, drummers, dancers, poets. New arrivals and nostalgic expats, their Irishness seems to double the minute they arrive in Woodlawn. And I don't mean the cemetery, though that's here too.

Woodlawn is the Bronx's own Little Ireland. Take a walk down Katonah Avenue; you'll see what I mean. You'll hear it too. The brogues are thicker than the head on a pint of Guinness, and contagious as a yawn. Listen to me, for fek's sake. I talk like an American at school—I was born here after all,
though my parents weren't—but when I'm around this lot. . . .

“‘Danny Boy'! ‘Danny Boy'!”

Like an under-rehearsed choir of drunken ghouls, they start moaning the tune in four different keys at once. Niall rolls his eyes and checks his iPhone. He's a busy fellow, even in a pub with friends. Even on his birthday. The Kilcommons Irish Culture Institute never sleeps. Might you be interested in a step-dancing class? How about some Gaelic lessons? Is it your lifelong dream to learn to play the uilleann pipes? If so, Niall's your man. He's all incorporated and everything. If I ask him for a few bucks and he won't give it, here's his reply: “Sorry, love, but I'm a nonprofit organization.” You can't imagine how often I've heard that one.

The moaning's over; now they're all lighting their cigarettes. There's no smoking allowed in New York City unless you're hunkered in your own bath with the windows nailed shut, but we're in the private party room at Kelly Ryan's pub, and it's Niall Kilcommons's birthday, after all. Rules do not apply. Frankly it's a relief to see people enjoying a smoke for a change, instead of standing huddled on the sidewalks in front of buildings, shoulders hunched in shame, eyes flitting about like murder suspects. I hear you can't smoke in a pub in Ireland anymore, either. That's a sure sign of the apocalypse, if ever there was one.

“Somebody get Fiona the microphone, now. Come on, love. Sing a song for your da.”

Yeah, Niall's my da, but I call him Niall. If I said my da, most people wouldn't understand who I meant. Fathering is not what he's known for. But he is known, make no mistake. He's famous in certain circles, among the barkeeps and bagpipers, the cops and the Catholic priests. He knows every fire chief in the five boroughs by his middle name. It's not much of a feat of memory, mind you, as about ninety percent have got Patrick for a middle name. That's another of Niall's jokes. Every one a groaner. I only repeat them so you know what I've been up against my whole life.

Niall's vast reputation makes Evelyn and me famous too, on the rare occasions we're all three together. Niall Kilcommons's two gifted daughters
are we. I'm the teenaged singer, the sassy one with the big chest, and Evelyn's the dancer and the looker. And a dental hygienist too, but Niall doesn't mention that part. Twenty-six years of life as Niall's daughter has blessed Evelyn with a sense of the practical, if only in self-defense. She was a brilliant dancer in her day, though. She used to win all the step-dancing contests, before she traded in her dancing slippers and beautiful costumes for her current wardrobe of powder-blue polyester jackets, boxy and unflattering, even on a tall, slim girl like Evelyn.