Nothing worked.
I figured she’d get through it in her own good time and that the only thing I could really do was just be there for her.
So, it caught me by surprise when one day in May, she just up and announced that we were going to the school’s Spring Musical. Bizarre, because normally, Lisa wouldn’t be caught dead at a school event that didn’t revolve around some sort of gladiatorial-type sporting affair. And the kids in the theatre group couldn’t possibly be at a more opposite end of the spectrum from the jocks.
But what I soon learned was that Penelope Redy was playing the part of Adelaide in the selected production of Guys and Dolls. Lisa and she had gotten pretty chummy over the past months, being that Penny was Pick’s twin sister and all. I thought it was a bit sadistic of Lisa to purposely put herself in the same room with not only Pickford, but most likely his entire family as well. I knew she blamed Dr. Redy for indirectly causing the breakup, and it’s not like he’d ever been the biggest fan of hers to begin with. But seeing as it was the first time she’d suggested leaving the house, I didn’t hesitate to agree to go with her.
Imagine my surprise when the first people we saw at the school’s entrance were Coop, Rymer and Sargento.
I walked right up to Coop. “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming to this thing!”
Coop looked a little uneasy when he answered, “Yeah, well. I didn’t talk to you today and these guys just decided we were coming about an hour ago.”
I didn’t know why he seemed so uncomfortable spilling the news that he’d made alternate plans without first consulting me on the matter. It’s not as though he owed me The Big Check-In. Whatever romantic relationship he and I were in had pretty much completely fizzled out before Easter. We were still pretty close, though, and I knew he’d been feeling a little ashamed about leaving me to deal with Lisa twenty-four-seven. We’d had a big talk about it the week before, Coop expressing his guilt at not being there for me more, stepping in to give me a break while I was consumed with the task of caring for her.
We all found seats together (on the opposite side of the auditorium from Pickford and the Redys, Lisa pretending not to notice the way her ex-boyfriend’s eyes followed her all the way down the aisle) and settled in. Rymer made some crack about “the theatre fags”, not too loudly, thank God, but noisily enough that I felt the need to reach over Coop and smack his arm to shut up.
Leave it to the big, burly football player to assume everyone else in the school was second-rate. I didn’t think he was being fair. Everyone has different interests. And maybe the theatre group was having just as good a time on stage as the meatheads were having on the football field. High school was a bumpy enough road to begin with. If you could find a group of people willing to have you come along, it made the ride a lot more fun. Just because this particular group had chosen a creative outlet as their vehicle didn’t mean they were losers. But I guessed Rymer’s attitude was that if you weren’t part of the cool crowd, you weren’t anything. No wonder so many kids hated us. Besides, what the hell was he doing at the damned play if he thought it was so beneath him?
About ten minutes after the curtain opened, I got the answer to my question.
Ladies and gentleman, the part of Sky Masterson was being played by the one and only Terrence C. Wilmington III.
Chapter 22
TOTAL RECALL
To say I was floored would be an understatement.
I stared at him from the safety of my seat, buried in shadow where I could watch without fear of being seen.
It was weird seeing Trip up there, perfectly at home, strutting from one edge of the scene to the other. I sat there, transfixed by the sight of him onstage. He looked so gorgeous in his suit and fedora that it almost put Brando to shame. And my God, the guy could actually act! He even managed a dead-on New York accent. Not bad for a kid who’d only been living here for little more than half a year. By his second scene, you could just feel the audience tuning in, holding their breath with anticipation, engrossed by the performance he was giving.