We were cast as Nick and Honey in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and got better reviews than the kids who played George and Martha. After that we weren’t just coffee buddies, we were a couple. Sometimes we made out in a dark corner of the Union, although those sessions often ended with her crying and saying she knew she wasn’t good enough, she’d fail at acting just like her mother said she would. One night – this was after the cast party for Deathtrap, our junior year – we had sex. It was the only time. She said she loved it, it was wonderful, but I guess it wasn’t. Not for her, anyway, because she’d never do it again.
In the summer of 2000, we stayed on campus because there was going to be a summer production of The Music Man in Frick Park. It was a huge deal because Mandy Patinkin was going to direct it. Vicky and I both tried out. I wasn’t a bit nervous, because I didn’t expect to get anything, but that show had become the biggest thing in Vicky’s life. She called it her first step to stardom, saying it the way people do when they’re joking but not really. We were called in by sixes, each of us holding a card saying the part we were most interested in, and Vicky was shaking like a leaf while we waited outside the rehearsal hall. I put my arm around her and she quieted, but just a little. She was so white her makeup looked like a mask.
I went in and handed over my wish-card with Mayor Shinn written on it, because that’s a smallish part in the show, and damned if I didn’t end up getting the lead role – Harold Hill, the charming con man. Vicky tried out for Marian Paroo, the librarian who gives piano lessons. She’s the female lead. She read all right, I thought – not great, not her best, but all right. Then came the singing.
It was Marian’s big number. If you don’t know it, it’s this very sweet and simple song called ‘Goodnight, My Someone.’ She’d sung it for me – a capella – half a dozen times, and she was perfect. Sweet and sad and hopeful. But that day in the rehearsal hall, Vicky screwed the pooch. That girl was just clench-your-fists-and-close-your-eyes awful. She couldn’t find her note and had to start again not once but twice. I could see Patinkin getting impatient, because he had half a dozen other girls waiting to read and sing. The accompanist was rolling her eyes. I wanted to punch her right in her stupid, horsey face.
By the time Vicky finished, she was trembling all over. Mr Patinkin thanked her, and she thanked him, all very polite, and then ran. I caught up with her before she could get out of the building and told her she had been great. She smiled and thanked me and said we both knew better. I said that if Mr Patinkin was as good as everyone said, he’d look past her nerves and see what a great actress she was. She hugged me and said I was her best friend. Besides, she said, there will be other shows. Next time I’ll take a Valium before I try out. I was just afraid it would change my voice, because I’ve heard that some pills can do that. Then she laughed and said, But how much worse could it be than it was today? I said I’d buy her an ice cream at Nordy’s, she said that sounded good, and off we went.
We were walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand, which made me remember all the times I walked back and forth to Mary Day Grammar holding hands with Marlee Jacobs. I won’t say those thoughts summoned him, but I won’t say they didn’t, either. I don’t know. I only know that some nights I lie awake in my cell, wondering.
I guess she was feeling a little better, because as we walked along she was talking about what a great Professor Hill I’d make, when someone yelled at us from the other side of the street. Only it wasn’t a yell; it was a donkey bray.
GEORGE AND VICKY UP IN A TREE! F-U-C-K-I-N-G!
It was him. The bad little kid. Same shorts, same sweater, same orange hair sticking out from under that beanie with the plastic propeller on top. Over ten years had passed and he hadn’t aged a day. It was like being thrown back in time, only now it was Vicky Abington, not Marlee Jacobs, and we were on Reynolds Street in Pittsburgh instead of School Street in Talbot, Alabama.
What in the world, Vicky said. Do you know that boy, George?
Well, what was I going to say to that? I didn’t say anything. I was so far beyond surprise I couldn’t even open my mouth.
You act like shit and you sing worse! he shouted. CROWS sing better than you do! And you’re UGLEEE! UGLEE VICKEE is what you are!
She put her hands over her mouth, and I remember how big her eyes were, and how they were filling up with tears all over again.
Suck his dink, why don’t you? he shouted. That’s the only way an ugly no-talent cunt like you will ever get a part!
I started for him, only it didn’t feel real. It felt like it was all happening in a dream. It was late afternoon and Reynolds Street was full of traffic, but I never thought of that. Vicky did, though. She caught me by the arm and pulled me back. I think I owe her my life, because a big bus went past only a second or two later, blaring its horn.
Don’t, she said. He’s not worth it, whoever he is.
There was a truck right behind the bus, and once they were both by us, we saw the kid running up the other side of the street with his big ass jouncing. He got to the corner and turned it, but before he did, he shoved down the back of his shorts, bent over, and mooned us.
Vicky sat down on a bench and I sat down beside her. She asked me again who he was, and I said I didn’t know.
Then how did he know our names? she asked.
I don’t know, I repeated.
Well, he was right about one thing, she said. If I want a part in The Music Man, I should go back and suck Mandy Patinkin’s cock. Then she laughed, and this time it was real laughing, the kind that comes all the way up from the belly. She threw back her head and just let fly. Did you see that little ugly butt? she said. Like two muffins ready for the oven!
That got me going. We put our arms around each other, and put our heads together cheek to cheek, and really howled. I thought we were okay, but the truth of it – you never see these things at the time, do you? – is that we were both hysterical. Me because it was the same kid from all those years ago, Vicky because she believed what he said: she was no good, and even if she was, she’d never be able to get on top of her nerves enough to show it.
I walked her back to Fudgy Acres, this big old apartment house that rented exclusively to young women – whom we still called coeds then – and she hugged me and told me again that I would make a great Harold Hill. Something about the way she said that worried me, and I asked if she was all right. She said, Of course I am, silly, and went running up the walk. That was the last time I saw her alive.
After the funeral, I took Carla Winston out for coffee, because she was the only girl in Fudgy Acres Vicky had been close to. I ended up pouring her cup into a glass, because her hands were shaking so badly I was afraid she’d burn herself. Carla wasn’t just brokenhearted; she blamed herself for what happened. The same way I’m sure Mrs Peckham blamed herself for what happened to Marlee.
She came across Vicky in the downstairs lounge that afternoon, staring at the TV. Only the TV was turned off. She said Vicky seemed distant and disconnected. She’d seen Vicky that way before, when she lost count of her pills and took one too many, or took them in the wrong order. She asked if Vicky wanted to go to the Wellness Center and get looked at. Vicky said no, she was fine, it had been a hard day but she’d be feeling better very soon.
There was a nasty little kid, Vicky told Carla. I fucked up my tryout, and then this kid started ragging on me.
That’s too bad, Carla said.
George knew him, Vicky said. He told me he didn’t, but I could tell he did. Do you want to know what I think?