forget.”
“Not with her mom’s cancer coming back,” I say.
“Yes,” Heidi says, sighing and sitting down. I follow suit. “And that all Libby wanted was to auditionfor the part of Elliott’s younger sister. And that her good friend Nathan was so sweet, such a sweetheart, that he offered to go all the way to New York City to drop off her headshot and résumé in a manila envelope, and to bring a CD of the two of you doing some duet.”
Not some duet. “I’d Give It All for You” from Jason Robert Brown’s seminal Songs for A New World . We recorded it in the soprano key, even though it’s usually for a (normal) guy’s and girl’s voices. On us, it ended up sounding like a lesbian rock ballad. But still.
I know exactly the CD Libby would’ve secretly packed for me.
“Apparently you’re quite a bold friend, Nathan, but what were you thinking ?”
“Mom is going to kill me,” I say.
“So it is true?”
“Is what true?” I say. A hip-hop dance class begins in a studio directly behind us. That, or a really, really angry guy has started sledgehammering the wall, such is the way the music pulses. If it is a guy with a sledgehammer, I hope he finds the spot right where my head is resting.
“Is it true that you came all the way here for your friend? That she actually sent you with a package of her materials?”
I reach into my bookbag and pull out the manilaenvelope, sliding it open, and I lift a piece of paper that says, “You’re only reading this if there was an emergency and I had to cover for you. Good luck, prince.”
I put the paper back in and realize there is no duet, no headshot of Libby, no résumé or CD.
That Libby knows she is six years too old for Elliott’s younger sister.
That she has neither the right body for the part nor the right voice. Libby’s is a husky, throaty torch voice, and I can’t imagine the songwriting team has given Elliott’s younger sister a song on a piano with a bottle of scotch.
And forget all that, even: between you and me, Libby only acts for fun . She’s the world’s biggest theater fan , but she doesn’t want to be the world’s biggest theater star. Libby wants to be the world’s biggest theater star’s agent.
Libby wants to be . . . my agent.
“Yes, Aunt Heidi,” I say. I lie. “Yes, I came all the way here for Libby.” I did in a way. I did it for us, and Libby and I are practically one.
“Well, we’ve got to get you back on the bus, then,” Aunt Heidi says. “Come on.”
From down six sets of halls, I can hear the mean Starbucks-dumping casting assistant shouting for the next fifty children to line up. And to have gotten allthe way here, to have survived the night and two slices of awful pizza, to have lived through Jaime Madison not noticing me on the street . . . to return to Libby having not even stood in front of the director of the musical: I wouldn’t be her hero, and I have to return her hero. Even a fallen one.
“What time is it?” I say to Aunt Heidi.
She looks at her cell phone. “Late enough. Way late enough.”
“Okay. Okay. Listen: I think there’s a one forty-five bus, and I’m already in trouble anyway. Mom’s already going to kill me. So maybe I could hang out at the studio just a little longer, and, I dunno . . . while I’m here, peek my head in and sing a song or something, myself. Once I—uh—drop Libby’s CD off.”
“Nathan,” Heidi says, holding her coat tight around the neck, “your mom doesn’t even know you’re here.” She shakes her head. “And she doesn’t have to. Anthony found my phone number at the back of your mom’s address book, since she’s the only person in the world who still has a handwritten address book, and he called me. And he told me to get you home.”
To save his own butt, I think to myself, but actually: Wow, he could have just called Mom and Dad at the Greenbrier Hotel, interrupting their anniversary vacation to rat me out.
“Is he okay? Did you
“Not with her mom’s cancer coming back,” I say.
“Yes,” Heidi says, sighing and sitting down. I follow suit. “And that all Libby wanted was to auditionfor the part of Elliott’s younger sister. And that her good friend Nathan was so sweet, such a sweetheart, that he offered to go all the way to New York City to drop off her headshot and résumé in a manila envelope, and to bring a CD of the two of you doing some duet.”
Not some duet. “I’d Give It All for You” from Jason Robert Brown’s seminal Songs for A New World . We recorded it in the soprano key, even though it’s usually for a (normal) guy’s and girl’s voices. On us, it ended up sounding like a lesbian rock ballad. But still.
I know exactly the CD Libby would’ve secretly packed for me.
“Apparently you’re quite a bold friend, Nathan, but what were you thinking ?”
“Mom is going to kill me,” I say.
“So it is true?”
“Is what true?” I say. A hip-hop dance class begins in a studio directly behind us. That, or a really, really angry guy has started sledgehammering the wall, such is the way the music pulses. If it is a guy with a sledgehammer, I hope he finds the spot right where my head is resting.
“Is it true that you came all the way here for your friend? That she actually sent you with a package of her materials?”
I reach into my bookbag and pull out the manilaenvelope, sliding it open, and I lift a piece of paper that says, “You’re only reading this if there was an emergency and I had to cover for you. Good luck, prince.”
I put the paper back in and realize there is no duet, no headshot of Libby, no résumé or CD.
That Libby knows she is six years too old for Elliott’s younger sister.
That she has neither the right body for the part nor the right voice. Libby’s is a husky, throaty torch voice, and I can’t imagine the songwriting team has given Elliott’s younger sister a song on a piano with a bottle of scotch.
And forget all that, even: between you and me, Libby only acts for fun . She’s the world’s biggest theater fan , but she doesn’t want to be the world’s biggest theater star. Libby wants to be the world’s biggest theater star’s agent.
Libby wants to be . . . my agent.
“Yes, Aunt Heidi,” I say. I lie. “Yes, I came all the way here for Libby.” I did in a way. I did it for us, and Libby and I are practically one.
“Well, we’ve got to get you back on the bus, then,” Aunt Heidi says. “Come on.”
From down six sets of halls, I can hear the mean Starbucks-dumping casting assistant shouting for the next fifty children to line up. And to have gotten allthe way here, to have survived the night and two slices of awful pizza, to have lived through Jaime Madison not noticing me on the street . . . to return to Libby having not even stood in front of the director of the musical: I wouldn’t be her hero, and I have to return her hero. Even a fallen one.
“What time is it?” I say to Aunt Heidi.
She looks at her cell phone. “Late enough. Way late enough.”
“Okay. Okay. Listen: I think there’s a one forty-five bus, and I’m already in trouble anyway. Mom’s already going to kill me. So maybe I could hang out at the studio just a little longer, and, I dunno . . . while I’m here, peek my head in and sing a song or something, myself. Once I—uh—drop Libby’s CD off.”
“Nathan,” Heidi says, holding her coat tight around the neck, “your mom doesn’t even know you’re here.” She shakes her head. “And she doesn’t have to. Anthony found my phone number at the back of your mom’s address book, since she’s the only person in the world who still has a handwritten address book, and he called me. And he told me to get you home.”
To save his own butt, I think to myself, but actually: Wow, he could have just called Mom and Dad at the Greenbrier Hotel, interrupting their anniversary vacation to rat me out.
“Is he okay? Did you
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