Part 5 (1/2)
”You're s.h.i.+tting me.”
”No s.h.i.+tting. Terrible going to gym that way. Stair-master. Terrible.”
”Oh, Yoya so shy,” teased Lili.
”Yoya so shy,” Yoya concurred. I couldn't tell if she was being sincere or sarcastic. Maybe both. Maybe she was truly shy in her heart, but under the present circ.u.mstances it was comical to say so.
I didn't need Yoya to tell me that the fulcrum of the room was Robin. Everything was a show put on for Robin, an audience of one. The men, even his closest friends, were his paid playfellows as much as the women were. But Robin didn't seem to have any interest in me, so I turned my thoughts to audiences I imagined would have a greater appreciation for my talents. I drank champagne and studied the crystal prisms of the chandelier while I schemed about my acting career. How would I get the killer audition? How would I meet the right people? How would I make meaningful art? Where was that a.s.shole Sean and did he miss me uncontrollably? Would he take me back when this was all over and done with? What was going on over at the Performing Garage? How was Penny's show coming along? What would I wear while gracefully accepting my Academy Award even though I thought they were trite and gauche?
Eddie surprised me out of one such reverie by plunking himself down in the seat next to me and blurting out a question in the typically blunt Bruneian way.
”You will sing tomorrow night?”
It wasn't really a question. If Eddie was asking me to do something it was because he had been told to do so by Robin. I looked over at Robin and saw both him and Fiona nodding at me with encouragement. I decided the two of them were having a little joke, but I was happy to be singled out for anything that proved I wasn't just a piece of furniture.
”Of course. I'd love to.”
Eddie acted overjoyed. People around the parties, even the sensible ones like Madge, always behaved as if every little thing was so life-and-death. It was as if my refusal would have been followed by a summary execution.
They didn't know that I was a singer of sorts. I'd grown up singing along with my father's piano repertoire every night of my life. I'll bet you a dollar I can sing any show tune you can name. And I can usually put on a show entertaining enough that you won't even notice I don't have a particularly good voice.
When I started out this grand singing career of mine, I was the One. Technically, there were two of us, but only technically. We stood in front of the other performers, making our own row. The rest of the seven-year-olds in group 5A wore top hats and carried canes that had been smeared with Elmer's glue and rolled in red glitter, but ours had been rolled in gold. Randy Klein and I got the gold hats and canes.
I suspect we were cast as the Ones simply because we already knew the words. I had the alb.u.ms from A Chorus Line, Cats A Chorus Line, Cats, and Grease Grease, and I could sing each score by heart. Every song had an accompanying dance number rehea.r.s.ed to perfection for an audience of attentive stuffed animals lined up on my bed. Whatever I lacked in talent, I made up for in dedication and enthusiasm. If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I responded that I wanted to be the white cat in Cats Cats, the one with the spotlit dance solo at the top of the show.
As the camp talent show approached, a special period each day was designated for practice. Our counselor sat cross-legged in the corner of the basketball court and rewound a tape in a battered boom box again and again, chewing an enormous wad of Bubblicious while calling out the counts and the steps.
Canes out. And. Bounce up and down from the knees.
One. Singular sensation, every little step she takes.
And turn.
Dadadadadadada.
Bounce again.
I found the dance routine embarra.s.singly easy. We took a rest every five minutes, during which we drank apple juice from crumpled boxes and scratched our mosquito bites through our tights. I was annoyed with the constant breaks, with the lack of commitment. The other girls were bored and slow, watching the feet in front of them rather than learning the steps. Being the One made me bossy.
”Don't forget to smile. Smiling is the most important,” I told the other girls.
I didn't care that they rolled their eyes. I didn't need them to like me. I needed for us to be good. I needed for everyone to love us when the day of the show came. Randy felt the same way. We practiced our side-by-side box step when we were on break. We insisted that we do a kick line for the last bars of the song, just the two of us.
My plan was for my parents to see me s.h.i.+ne and change their minds about allowing me to go to Stagedoor Manor the next year. I wanted to go to the sleepaway theater camp, not the camp with the endless afternoons full of soccer games and lanyard making. Everyone knew that girls from Stagedoor Manor went on to be in the casts of Annie Annie and and Really Rosie Really Rosie. The kids in Broadway shows slept late and went to special schools and lived their nights floating between the orchestra and the scaffolding, the scenery and the audience, in that magical kingdom where conflict is resolved by big dance-number finales. That was the kingdom where I wanted citizens.h.i.+p.
In response to my ardent begging, my father said, ”If you want to be an ice skater or a dancer or a gymnast or something special, you have to get up at four in the morning and practice every day before school and you have to have no friends and never do sports or eat ice cream or go to parties or have boyfriends. If you want to be like that blind girl in Ice Castles Ice Castles, you will never go to college and you'll ruin your feet and your back and your career will be over by the time you're thirty. It's okay for a hobby. Don't get out of hand about it.”
He was just trying to be merciful, trying to spare me the heartbreak. I was too chubby for ballet; it was a waste of time. I was too uncoordinated for ice skating. I was too mediocre to really sing. ”Don't try and you won't fail” was his motto. But I had seen Ice Castles Ice Castles and I knew that he had missed the point. and I knew that he had missed the point.
I knew that when my parents saw me as the One, my strong voice clearly leading all the others, my gold-glitter cane sparkling in the afternoon sun, I would convince them that I was tailor made for a life of singing and dancing, that I would happily ruin my feet. I didn't care if I had to wake up early. I didn't even like boys or ice cream that much anyway. They would see me s.h.i.+ne and, even to my dad, my destiny would be undeniable.
On the day of the show, my parents were there, front and center. They snapped pictures and mouthed the words. I was adorable. They were delighted. They showered me with kisses and praise. But when I pushed again, I got the same response about the early mornings and the ice cream. In spite of my stunning debut as the One, I never did make it to Stagedoor Manor and was instead condemned to a purgatory of campouts and color war. But my father did indulge my thespian aspirations up to a point. After all, his hobby corresponded with mine.
Years later I stood next to his baby grand in the living room, rehearsing my song to audition for the school play.
”You're no fantastic singer,” my father said. ”So you've got to pick your song well and then you've got to sell it.”
A successful stockbroker, he was an expert on selling nothing. Together, we chose ”t.i.ts and a.s.s” from A Chorus Line A Chorus Line for that particular audition, perhaps a strange choice for a fourteen-year-old, but it did its job. It didn't get me the part-that went to my friend Alexis, who actually could sing-but I was the one who got the laughs, who got the attention. I was the one people talked about. So that's what I learned to do. I still can't ice-skate worth a d.a.m.n, but I can sell it. Whatever it is, I can sell it. for that particular audition, perhaps a strange choice for a fourteen-year-old, but it did its job. It didn't get me the part-that went to my friend Alexis, who actually could sing-but I was the one who got the laughs, who got the attention. I was the one people talked about. So that's what I learned to do. I still can't ice-skate worth a d.a.m.n, but I can sell it. Whatever it is, I can sell it.
I pulled aside Anthony, the keyboard player.
”What's Robin's favorite song?”
”Well, he likes a couple of Malay songs. American songs? I don't know. What can you sing?”
”I'll sing a Malay song.”
”How long do you have?”
”Tomorrow night.”
”Too hard. Can't do it.”
Angelique, the queen singer and rumored to be the unrequited love interest of Prince Sufri, overheard us and interrupted.
”Sing 'Kasih.' It's his favorite. You can learn it. I'll help you.”
Angelique took a sheet of blank paper out of one of Anthony's many three-ring binders. She found a pen behind the bar, wiped the counter in front of her, and began to write out the words phonetically. She had the bubbly handwriting of a junior-high girl.
”It's a love song. 'Kasih' means 'darling.'”
Then she went over every word with me, correcting my p.r.o.nunciation. Anthony handed her a ca.s.sette tape and she wrapped it in the lyric sheet.
”Just sing it simply,” she said. ”You can do it.”
I was touched by Angelique's encouragement. As she pressed the ca.s.sette into my hand, the thought flew through my mind that she'd make a good mother one day.