“Thanks so much,” I said as I took my hot dog and drink away from the register to the area with extra condiments and napkins. He went right for the mustard dispenser, while I walked up to the ketchup, which is the only acceptable condiment to put on a hot dog. Everyone knows that.
“Ketchup?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Mustard?” I replied, raising one right back at him.
“Yep.”
There was a silence between us, and then I shrugged. “So, this has been fun,” I said, pretending to leave.
Cary laughed and nodded at my hot dog. “What do you think?”
I took a bite, then widened my eyes at him. It might just have been because I’d had nothing to eat since lunch other than two bags of Doritos, but it was the best hot dog I’d ever had. “Oh my god.”
“Right?” he asked happily, taking a bite of his. “I usually stop here either before or after work.”
“Which work? I mean,” I said, swallowing, “you’ve got a lot of jobs to choose from.”
“It’s true,” he said with a grin. “But I meant Maverick.”
“Well, I’m glad that after this you’ll be done for the night.”
He shook his head. “You’d think! But no. I have another job later tonight, but I’ll get a little break first.”
“Your sixth job?” He nodded. “What is that?” I asked, remembering that I still didn’t know. Cary took a breath to answer just as a woman, juggling four hot dogs and two little kids, walked up behind us.
“You done with the ketchup?” she asked, looking aggrieved, and I nodded and stepped out of the way.
“Sorry about that,” I said. Like we’d discussed it ahead of time, we both headed out and started walking down the street, finishing our hot dogs in companionable silence. When I was done, and had thrown out the little paper tray it had come in, I tried my papaya drink—cold and sweet and exactly what I wanted right then. “How’s the pineapple?” I asked, glancing over at Cary.
“Excellent,” he said, with an affirmative nod. “You’ll have to try it next time.”
I nodded, even though I had no idea the next time I’d be in the city—much less with enough time to wander up to the Upper West Side and get a hot dog. But it was a nice thought. “Absolutely.”
“So what’s this play about?” he asked me, after we’d gone into Maverick Cleaners West and Cary had picked up a large black duffel of laundry—since there was only one, it meant he didn’t need a cart this time. “The one we’re making sure you get to on time?”
“I don’t actually know.” I took a last sip of my papaya drink and tossed it into a nearby trash can. “But my drama teacher wrote it. And we were supposed to find out casting for our winter play this afternoon, but… he’s rethinking something.” The second the words were out, I felt an anxious twist in my stomach. “So I thought if I showed up at his play, showed him how committed I am…”
Cary laughed. “A plan! A stratagem. I love it. What’s the play you’re waiting on the casting for?”
“King Lear,” I said. Just talking about the play—even saying its name—was bringing all my anxiety from this afternoon back to me. Just how much I wanted it. How much was hanging in the balance, all to be decided by Mr. Campbell.
“Is that the one with the storm?”
“Yes,” I said, then paused. “Well—I mean, there’s a storm in The Tempest, too. And the Scottish play. And Winter’s Tale. And Twelfth Night, actually, come to think of it.”
Cary rolled his eyes. “C’mon, William.” I laughed. “Does Stevie do theater too?”
“Yeah,” I said, and flashed back against my will to the subway platform, Stevie telling me she was going to throw all of it—everything we’d done together—away. “She’s amazing. But she says she’s done after this year, which doesn’t make any sense to me. I love it.”
“What do you love about it?” Cary asked. When I looked over at him, he shrugged. “It’s just that I have no performing talent whatsoever. The last time I tried was fourth grade, when I was Linus in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” He leaned a little closer to me, like he was sharing a secret. “I was very bad.”
I laughed. We’d done some numbers from it for our musical revue, sophomore year. “A book report on Peter Rabbit.”
Cary smiled, like I’d surprised him. “Yes! God, I haven’t thought about that in years.” He shook his head. “Sorry if that’s a rude question. I’m just curious.”
I thought about it as we walked down the street, Cary adjusting the bag on his shoulder, and I somehow knew that he would give me enough time and space to answer this question, one I’d never had to put into words, exactly.
Unbidden, a flood of images and memories flashed through my head. The first cast meeting of every show—everyone sitting around with their new scripts, more high energy than usual. The way you could practically feel the excitement for the adventure that was just about to start and relief that the auditions were over, the play had been cast, and we could finally begin. Everyone laughing, knowing that over the next two months we’d be seeing a lot of each other.
Sitting in the back of the theater, wrapped in my big cardigan, watching a rehearsal for A Doll’s House as Stevie and Erik went over a scene again and again, tweaking it slightly, trying to make it perfect—trying to do something that felt true.
Standing backstage before the play started, how dark it always was back there—the glow tape never seemed to be quite bright enough—heart hammering, sensing the audience waiting on the other side of the curtain, the rustling of the programs, and the way I could always tell my dad was there from the way he’d clear his throat.
The ghost light at the edge of the stage, always, like it was keeping watch.
The rustle of long skirts and the clicking of the heels of character shoes, trying to keep quiet if you had to cross around backstage, the way everyone was transformed in our first dress rehearsal, a little more of the magic unfolding.
The feeling that came in rehearsals when everything started to click, started to work. The first run-through when we were off book, not even allowed to hold scripts in our back pockets, always about to break into laughter, and the terrified looks we’d all give each other, the feeling that we were all in it together.
The way Teri and Stevie and I would run lines in the greenroom—how we knew everyone else’s by the time we got to dress, and how the three of us could do the whole play in twenty minutes flat, then run it again.
The sound of the orchestra tuning up before the musical.
The monologue I got to give at the very end of Noises Off, when my character had finally had enough and was letting everyone know it—listening to the audience laughter build and build, riding the wave of it.
The superstitions, the rituals. Warm-ups and routines that we all had to do, and in a particular order, every time. What a to-do to die today at a minute or two to two; a thing distinctly hard to say but harder still to do.
The tech weekends when we basically lived at the theater, all of us hanging out in the hallway, everyone coming with lattes and donuts in the morning. Homework and card games to pass the time as the lights were tweaked, cue by cue, the way we’d get a lunch break and would bring back pizza or Rinaldi’s and eat it sitting on the floor, sprawled in a circle. The inside jokes and routines from every show, the way you could never even really explain them to someone who wasn’t part of it.