And the Next Thing You Know... Read online

“He’s directing.”

  “Ah,” said everyone, nodding.

  “Tanner and I have been working on the show pretty closely now for a couple weeks.” Carol cleared her throat menacingly. “Carol, too, of course. But less. It’s all going very quickly, but Tanner’s been so inspiring—”

  “Demanding, he means,” said Carol.

  “I’d love to see what you’ve got,” I suggested. Hint.

  “It’s still very fluid.” And Mads brought us up to date on the bright ideas good old Tanner had brought to their show. I was skeptical.

  “That’s a lot of changes. I’d love to see how you make that work.” Hint hint.

  “Tanner knows what he’s doing,” said Madison, answering my look. “Anyway we’ve got a read-through, sing-through planned for Wednesday. We’ll know more after that.”

  From the above hints, you might have noticed that I was waiting for Madison to turn to me and say, ‘Hey, you want to come up to Chester?’—where the Goodspeed Opera House is. ‘Spend a few days, meet some important people?’ That’s why I was so coy with Rebecca about when I could start this stupid-ass day job at her office. I was waiting for Mads to ask. But he hadn’t asked.

  Did he just not want the distraction? Or was he being protective/jealous of his contacts? What?

  Of course the number of times the word ‘Tanner’ had dropped into his conversation should have been a clue.

  At the end of the evening, we stood on 57th Street in front of the diner, before we went different ways.

  “So. Have a good time up at Goodspeed,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “Be brilliant.”

  “Hey, thanks. See you when I get back.” And he turned to go.

  Bastard.

  Fine.

  So we’re not boyfriends. And I’m an idiot.

  Fine.

  I turned.

  I stopped.

  Screw this, I thought.

  I turned around.

  “Hey!” I yelled. He was like twenty feet away now. “Can I come up and see what you’re working on? The read-through?”

  “Um, it’s for a very select group, Theo.”

  A select group, I thought. Sounds like me.

  “Perfect—I’ll see you Wednesday, you said?”

  “Theo—”

  I turned and headed toward the C train. I hadn’t realized how miserable I’d been about this until now that it was done. Even if I had to invite myself.

  I was going to the Goodspeed!

  E-mail to Jeffrey

  From: McPherson, Rebecca

  Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 8:15 a.m.

  Subject: We Have a Vacancy

  My little brother Theo—whom you’ve met—has informed me that he intends to go to Connecticut with his boyfriend for a few days.

  So mi casa, su casa.

  Or at least mi sofa. Theo tells me it’s pretty comfortable.

  Chapter 6

  My First Sleepover

  Jeffrey

  “Hey, Rebecca,” I said, dropping my gym bag of clothes on her living room floor, “it is really great that you’re letting me stay here. I was not looking forward to commuting from the Fort Lee Econo Lodge.”

  “What does this mean for your birthday party? Will the hole-cutters be finished in time?”

  “With the hole, yes. The stairs, no. So I have no idea what I’ll do. Right now I’m thinking of skipping the whole thing.”

  “I’d be happy to throw you a party here, but we’d have to scale it back a bit.”

  “Last year did get a little out of hand. But I don’t know how much I really feel like celebrating turning thirty.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “And if I don’t have a birthday party, does that mean that I don’t turn thirty?”

  “That how that works?”

  “Seems like.”

  “Then again, do you really want a do-over on twenty-nine?”

  “Good point.” Twenty-nine had been the absolute worst. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

  “Seems a shame when your birthday falls on a Friday and everything.”

  “Yeah, but a gigantic hole in the middle of the living room floor? It’s a sign. In the meantime, while I’m here, I’ll buy you dinner. Every night. And you won’t hear a peep out of me. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. You’ll hardly know I’m here.”

  “That will definitely make a change from Theo.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “What do you mean?” she said laughing a little.

  “Do you let him out often without supervision?”

  “He’s not that bad.”

  “Maybe a leash for little Theo then?”

  “Don’t ever let him hear you call him that.”

  “It was about the second thing I said to him. He threatened to neuter me with a butter knife.”

  “And you’d deserve it. Don’t be so condescending.”

  “Funny, that’s the word Theo used, too.”

  “If you look at it from his point of view, his reaction is understandable. A guy he’s never seen before sits down at his table and tries to break it to him as gently as possible that he doesn’t stand a chance? I mean, c’mon.”

  “I suppose...”

  “You just got off on the wrong foot. Feet. I admit he has a temper, he always has. He was always lots smaller than other kids, but nobody ever really messed with him—they were all terrified of his mouth. That and his big brothers.”

  “Are the brothers all like him?”

  “Oh God, no! Nobody’s like Theo. Rodney is about six-foot-two. Gilbert is six-one, but even bigger. Both football players—Gil played college ball even. And then there’s Theo, of whom we are all extraordinarily protective, especially Gil, who’s just a year older. No, we have always understood that Theobald wasn’t really like any of us.”

  “Theobald? Not even Theodor?”

  “Nope. Rodney, Gilbert and Theobald. Did I luck out or what?”

  “Well, I hope he’s having fun with his boyfriend.”

  “Madison. I get the idea that it’s not going so well, but he doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Well, I’m grateful that he has relinquished the sleeper couch.”

  “I should warn you that the environmentally conscious co-op board turns the heat way down at night. I don’t notice so much in the bedroom, but Theo tells me it’s freezing out here in the morning.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “I wear flannel pajamas.”

  “Seriously?

  “No joke. It’s just a suggestion.”

  “The things you learn about a person when they let you sleep over. I’ll think about it.” I never wore more than boxer-briefs to bed, and most often, not even those. I was not about to try to sleep in flannel pajamas.

  “Anyway—you know where everything is. Help yourself to whatever you need.”

  “I even packed a towel,” I said fumbling through my bag.

  “The thoughtful houseguest.”

  “So. Dinner out or dinner in? Your call.”

  “Chinese—and definitely in.”

  “I was hoping you were going to say that. I’ve still got a couple hours’ work to knock in.”

  “Me too. My friends back in Iowa think I live this fabulously glamorous life in New York. Every night a different man. Little do they know.” She picked up the phone and speed-dialed. “Four nights a week, it’s just me and General Tso.”

  Chapter 7

  When the Train of Thought Pulls into the Wrong Station

  Theo

  The train lurched forward before I could even throw myself and my bag down into an empty seat in the practically empty car on this train I had only juuuuuuuust caught.

  So—was this me, all exci
ted to be heading off to the Goodspeed Opera House, ready to learn new things, meet new people, have an adventure and reconnect with my—whatever Madison was?

  No. You missed that train ride. That was this morning. This train ride, my second for the day, was taking me back to New York only a few hours later on the last train to—New Haven. From there you can get a train to Grand Central. That’s how much fun this trip was.

  Breathless and sweating, I hadn’t even had a chance to think about what had just happened that had got me here.

  Which was probably a good thing, because if I did think about it, I’d scream.

  Of course now I had nothing to do for the next two-and-a-half hours but to think about it. Let the screaming commence.

  Madison was of course busy in rehearsals all day.

  Fine. I expected that. I figured I’d sit in the back with him. No, he didn’t want me around for his rehearsals, because he wanted it all fresh for me when I heard it in the run-through—like I hadn’t heard most of this material before????

  But okay, fine.

  And then the run-through.

  He wouldn’t sit with me. He didn’t even sit with Carol, his collaborator—I did. He had to sit with the director, Tanner. Tanner, who turned out to be incredibly good-looking—and very aware of it. And a complete fucktwit—and not aware of it at all.

  Fine.

  Okay, this week wasn’t about me, it was for Madison and Carol, for their show, and making it the best show possible. I could subvert my ego for a day and just try to be helpful to Madison and his director, this ass-arrogant tool of a director with a permanent can’t-fuck-this look on his face.

  Madison barely even introduced me to the tool.

  “This is Theo.”

  That’s what I got.

  I kinda thought he might have said something like ‘this is my boyfriend Theo,’ or even ‘my boyfriend, Theo, who’s a really talented songwriter, they’re doing a couple of his songs next week at Don’t Tell Mama, you should go.’ I mean, wasn’t that sort of the thing to do?

  Okay, subvert the ego, right? This wasn’t about me.

  Fine.

  But you’d think he was ashamed of me. A boy could get a complex! And it’s not like Madison is exactly centerfold material himself. Older, pudgy. Whatever.

  But that was all the introduction I got. This is Theo. He didn’t even say ‘and this is our director, Tanner.’ I was just supposed to figure it out.

  And of course Tanner, in all his self-absorbed loveliness, could have cared less.

  Do I sound angry to you? Just wait, because it gets so much better. Because the real killer was after the run-through. We went to dinner—me and Madison. Romantic? No, just separate from the others, like he was still keeping me as far away from everyone else as possible.

  Okay. Fine.

  Now I had hardly said a thing about his show, which was—I’m not gonna lie—maybe not so good.

  Of course you’re thinking I was being my usual, super-critical, bitch-mouthed self. But I wasn’t, and this time I mean it. I was absolutely on my best behavior, all Iowa farm-boy manners, I swear.

  I’d said all the nice phony things people say, I’d said congratulations, I’d said what a terrific opportunity this was, and how great everyone seemed to be, how everybody should be so proud, and all the usual horse apples.

  I didn’t say any of the stuff I was thinking, and this in spite of the fact that—after the way the day had developed, being treated like total crap by Madison—I was just a wee bit edgy and not particularly in a mood to suck up to anybody, no matter what their showbiz credentials were, and who the hell was Tanner, anyway???

  So. Dinner. Just the two of us. He talked about actors, some he liked, some he wanted to throttle. You know—actors. I agreed sympathetically, I nodded supportively. Finally, as we were about done, he said it.

  “So?” said Madison.

  “So?”

  “So what did you think?” I mean, this was the reason I was here, right? To give another point of view, an objective eye.

  In hindsight, I realize that he was asking with the full expectation that I was going to gush all over him and his precious Tanner. He thought I was going to lavish praise, assuring him that the show should transfer to Broadway immediately and if he didn’t have a Tony and a Pulitzer (not to mention a penthouse) by spring, something was seriously wrong with the universe.

  But I didn’t know that at the time. No, at the time, I thought he actually respected my opinion. At the time, I thought he was asking me because he genuinely wanted to know what I thought.

  My bad.

  Thinking he wanted an objective, critical opinion, I gave it—or started to anyway.

  The first twenty-five minutes, I explained, needed to be the first five. The two new songs (Tanner’s ideas) weren’t nearly as good as the songs they replaced. The whole thing felt slack and overwritten and had been in much better shape two months ago. There was a running gag (Tanner’s invention) that wasn’t funny the first time, let alone the third.

  And I was only halfway through the first act.

  Of course all through this, Mads was increasingly huffy and defensive and started every other sentence invoking the name of the divinely talented director. It was obvious he had a total boner for the guy.

  Too bad for Madison because it was equally obvious that Tanner did not have a boner for anybody but Tanner.

  Now, could I have expressed my criticisms a little more tactfully? I don’t know, maybe.

  Okay, probably.

  But. I wasn’t used to being treated like somebody’s embarrassing cousin who doesn’t speak English, and I really really didn’t feel much like looking out for anybody else’s feelings when my own had been handled so shabbily. I’d been a goddamned cheerleader, I’d done everything but give out hand-jobs all afternoon, and look what it had got me.

  By the time I’d got as far as the running gag that wasn’t, however, old Madison was done listening. He started slurping on that stupid vape thing of his—which always looked so frigging Freudian, they should just make them dick-shaped if you asked me—until the cute little waiter-boy, who’d otherwise been playing eyesy-eyesy with me all night, had to come running over in a lather to ask Madison to stop.

  And did I make eyes back at the flirty little waiter whose name was Eddie? No, I didn’t. And let me tell you, flirty little waiters were way more my style than older, pudgy, vain, vaping lyricists.

  “This is exactly why I didn’t want you to come,” said Mads, still surreptitiously sucking on that thing and exhaling into his napkin—he looked like an overweight dragon with a head cold.

  “Then why did you invite me?!”

  “You invited yourself!” Fucker. “And I can’t, Theo, I literally can’t. You and your terrible chakras. You’ve been oozing negativity ever since you got here. Everyone’s felt it.”

  “Nobody’s paid the tiniest bit of attention to me all day.”

  “With your attitude, are you surprised? I know it’s bothering Tanner.”

  “Tanner doesn’t even know I’m here. There’s no way he said something.”

  “He didn’t have to, I can sense these things.”

  “I see. Same-wavelength kind of thing? Sympatico?”

  “He’s very spiritual. And he wouldn’t say anything because he thinks you’re my guest—”

  “Which I am—!”

  “—but I can sense it.”

  “Soul mates, I can clearly see that.”

  “Go ahead and mock, Theo. I don’t expect you to understand. In any case you still need to get a train back to New York tonight.”

  “Tonight?!”

  I was totally stunned. I mean, what the fuck?

  “I can’t have you around me, not like this, not when I have so many people depending on me to be creative.”<
br />
  “What the hell time is it, that I’m going to get a train?”

  “I’m sure they run all night.”

  Of course in this, as in so many, many things, Madison had his head fully up his ass. I had it on good authority—from Eddie, of course—that there was one last train, I would need to hurry, but if I missed it, Eddie told me, I could crash with him—which was sweet but I was hardly in the mood. He slipped me his phone number anyway, just in case. Madison didn’t even notice.

  Some little assistant stage manager, who had absolutely no idea what was going on, was roped into getting me and my blocked chakras to the train station at warp speed.

  Now that I was sitting in this fucking train, which was freezing and fuck-me-running what was that smell???—only now did I realize: Mads had started to lose interest in me about three weeks ago; Mads had first got a glimpse of the ravishing Tanner about three weeks ago. Hmmm.

  I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, right? Yeah right.

  And now Madison, spiritual and enlightened as he was, was making artistic decisions with his willy-wonka.

  I know I’m only twenty-four. I know I don’t have a bunch of Broadway shows on my resume (Tanner has exactly one—I checked—he was somebody’s assistant, meaning gopher, and I’m pretty sure I know what he did to get that job), but in spite of my skimpy résumé, I can tell you this much: Madison’s willy-wonka didn’t know piss-squat about writing musical theatre—and neither did Tanner.

  I just wished Mads had told me not to come.

  I changed trains and stared out the windows at the darkness that was Connecticut until Grand Central. The crosstown shuttle got me to the 1 train to the Upper West, and back to Rebecca’s apartment.

  And one more thing? I was, by this time, fall-down-dead tired.

  It would have been wonderful to have had a place of my own and a real bed to collapse into, considering how monumentally shitty I felt—but as it was, Rebecca’s couch would have to do.

  I let myself in super quiet, and set my bag down. I didn’t want to wake Rebecca, and not just because it was a work night. More than anything I did not want to have to explain to anybody the humiliation of going all the way up there, wasting an entire day, only to be sent packing in the middle of the night. By my ostensible boyfriend. Of course Becca would be sympathetic. I just wasn’t ready for sympathy.