The Fan

for Brittany Velotta

NANCY CHAPIWIN. I like to keep the ticket stubs together. Some people hang them, others scrapbook 'em, some people don't even save them. But me? I like to keep them together in a pile. A nice big stack with a fat, red rubberband. It's easier to guess the number that way. And I find, that when I take them out at the stagedoor, the other fans -- well, they enjoy the guessing. But, since you don't exactly look like a guesser to me -- is that a fanny pack? Okay... Anyway, I'll spare you the details and just spit it out.

(She whispers this, as if it's size will shake the earth if she says it too loudly,)

Ninety-six. I've seen this show NINETY-SIX times. In fact, the star -- you may have heard of her -- Annie Ridley? She gave me her jacket a few weeks ago. Her assistant brought us backstage and Annie was SO excited to see me that she tossed it right at me! I've been wearing it ever since. Well -- except when I take a shower. Then I hang it on the bathroom door. (Models the jacket,) Do you like it? My mother thinks I look like a younger Annie, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's got some pretty great juju.

Y'know, the first time I met Annie, she stayed and talked to me for a while. She always signs my Playbill in block letters -- I think it's so she can spend more time talking to me and avoiding all of the crazy fans. (In a whisper,) There are some nuts out there. Let me tell you....

Anyway, Annie was writing in these big old block letters. A... N... N.... I... you know. And she looks at me and is all like, "Oh, honey, I LOVE your glasses. I have a pair just like these." And, you know, everybody else at the stage door just glares at me, the sharpie borrowers are all whathefuck? and I say, "Oh, yeah. You wore it in that Kiwi Shake video you did a couple weeks ago. I think I noticed that...." But I was totally full of shit, because I'd watched it fifty times. But shh. Don't tell Annie. I don't want to seem like one of those weirdos.

So, Annie asked me what my name was and I tell her, you know. Nancy Chap-i-win. Three syllables. Everyone always pronounces it wrong. Anyway, Annie keeps screwing it up, she can't pronounce it, and she's still block-lettering the 'd' in Ridley and laughing and goes, "You know what, Nancy Whatever? I'm just gonna call you Nancy Drew. 'cause I loved her when I was a kid and it'll just make it easier to remember." (beat.) I think I stopped breathing for a second. She loved Nancy Drew. She was going to call me that. Annie freaking Ridley LOVED me AND my freaking glasses!! One time, I heard someone at the stage door - you know the type, they always want to borrow your sharpie - anyway, I heard her saying that Annie only calls me Nancy Drew cause I'm nosy. Whatever. She's just jealous. And besides, I know that Annie calls me it deep down because she loves me just as much as she loved The Hardy Boys. Or whatever movie Nancy Drew is from. That's not the point. The point IS that Annie freaking LOVES me.

Anyway... Sorry. (She fixes her hair.) I get a little excited when I tell that story. It's all very... raw, you know? (Someone comes out the stage door.) Oh. That's the understudy. I've seen her once, but... I don't know. She's no Annie. (Beat. She whispers,) Too old. So. You two. You're from -- where? Minnesota? Yeah. Cool. I've never been there. I'm such a New Yorker. I mean -- I live in Hartford. Connecticut. But it's close enough. And I'm here ALL the time. I mean -- come on -- I've seen Next to Perfect 96 times. One time, I even saw two performances in one day. Yup. Matinee AND evening.

(The door opens.) Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. That's her. That's ANNIE! Don't freak out. She hates when people freak out. Hey-- is my mascara running? Ugh. I always cry when I see her up close. (Beat.) What? You don't have a sharpie? Oh, for God's sake, here.

(ANNIE steps up to her.)

Annie, hey! You were so fucking fierce tonight. I'm wearing the-- yeah. No. Nancy. (Beat. She's embarrassed. ANNIE is blanking on the Nancy's name.) Nancy Drew. (Beat.) No, it's not really Drew. You called me that last time I-- Chap-i-win. With the three syllables. (Beat.) No. Chap-i-win. Like "e". Chap-eh-win. eh, eh, eh-win. No... It's cool. Whatever. Everyone always pronounces it wrong, anyway.

Sense Memory

THE ARTIST (any gender).

There was a disconnect in the first grade. I'd gotten bored of the Legos all of the other kids loved so much. I was far more interested in Lewis Carroll than The Bernstein Bears. And somewhere along the way, an empty box on Saint Valentine's Day came to hurt deeper. When I'd discovered someone had torn a page of Charlotte's Web and put it back onto Mrs. Mullen's shelf, a piece of my heart broke and somewhere, a violin string burst.

You see, the artist feels things differently than most. (S)He is passionate and broken and ecstatic and expressive and sad and joyful and youthful and rosy-cheeked and his/her hair stands on the back of his/her neck when (s)he is anywhere near a stage, canvas, library, a piano, a guitar, a cello, a blank sheet of paper white as snow. (S)He is alive and dying at the very same time and when the door closes and someone leaves, that pain, it gets stored away, tucked in a pocket, a sleeve, a memory, a magic if. And somewhere the smell lingers forever and ever until (s)he uses it. If ever.

Some memories go unused. Like this one:

I was eleven years old when I was discovered eating my lunch in a second-floor janitor's closet. I'd been getting away with it for three whole weeks. And Mr. Brady told me I could stay while he rinsed the mop out. Someone had spilled paint in the art room and the water ran bright red for a while. Like blood. Mr. Brady told me I looked relieved when the water finally ran clear again. And it's true. I finally somehow eventually remembered to breathe because I'd been remembering this:

Memory. Eight years old. Pushed off my bike because I was tra-la-la-ing the Peer Gynt overture. I wasn't sure who had knocked me off as my glasses were shattered. My mother found me, after dusk, hiding in the Petersen's azalea bushes nursing a bloody knee. I'd thought it would taste like ketchup but instead it tasted like this:

Sucking on my mother's wedding ring when no one was looking. And coins. And my father's cufflinks. It was dull. Cold. Flavorless, but bitter. I wanted those germs. Desperately. They'd keep me home from school if I was lucky. Home, where I could watch my mother chain-smoke on the front stoop.

Memory: Six years old. The third time my mother had given up cigarettes. The smell had always been on our hands and on the walls and in the carpet and on our clothes, no matter how much detergent my father used. He hated the smell. Begged her to stop. Bought her the patch and the gum and it seemed to be working but sometimes, when she thought he wasn't looking or paying attention, she'd go outside. She'd hidden them in a hanging plant he never remembered to water. Her Marlboro Reds. I'd forgotten what it smelled like but when the nicotine came in through my open window like a ghost I knew exactly what it was.

Memory: I am young. 28 years old. When my mother dies of lung cancer. My father had sat in the hospital room for weeks and I was in New York. Rehearsing Chekhov. When the phone call came I opted to miss one run-through and half of a tech rehearsal in order to be at the funeral. The director said, of course, go. Be with your family. But I'd wanted to stay. Afraid that if I bottled up one more picture or place or smell or taste to use in a play or a story or a painting or a poem someday somewhere I would go insane. That if I stored it away in my being all of my memories would boil and brim over.

Memory: I am at Gisanti's Funeral Parlor on Merrick Road. I am smoking a cigarette outside. My father sees me through a window and shakes his head. I flick it away, not even half finished, and go back inside. Go on, I tell him. Say it. But he doesn't say anything. He just holds my mother's cold, hollow hand. And looks at her for a while. Crying. Not making any noise, just... crying. The tears keep coming and I keep hoping that they'll stop. I offer him a tissue but he ignores it. He just keeps looking at her and crying and eventually I hear him say, I'm sorry.

Memory: Age six. Back in my room with the smell of tobacco wafting in through my open window. And the sound of my father screaming at my mother words I've said in a speech by David Mamet. I climbed into the back of my closet, behind the shorts and the shirts and the pants and the jackets and the scarves, and I put on my my walkman and listened to Peer Gynt over and over and over until...

Until I learned to paint, write, draw, act, sing, reach, live & die, laugh, taste, dream, cry, breathe, see, create, dance, blacken white & whiten black and express myself. There were journals and scrapbooks and half hour showers where I'd discover notes & octaves that I didn't know existed. And when my voice changed and hair began to grow and I felt things I didn't understand I would write. Or sing. Or paint. Or draw. Even though I wasn't any good at it. And sometimes I would touch myself. Because I was curious. And somewhere, Alice was eating tarts and drinking fizzy drinks and I-- I was just-- I was here. In Land. No Wonderland. But if I explored and lived I'd see stars and rabbits where there were supposed to be clouds.

Memory: a recent one. I was at my nephew's birthday party and he'd asked me to lay in the grass with him. He wanted to tell me what he saw. He was very good at reading the clouds. And I'd realized that the clouds had become white. The clouds had become fluffy. The clouds had become something I'd never seen them as before: clouds. Nothing more, nothing less.

Memory: another recent one. I was in the rehearsal room with Uncle Vanya. And I was helping Aleksandr Serebryakov into his coat. And the coat felt light, almost weight-less. Until it hit his shoulders and his wrinkles wove their way into the fabric and somewhere another piece of my heart broke and somewhere else, another violin string burst.

Memory: yesterday. I was painting. My hand shook a little more than it used to and from the piano cello guitar playing, writing, touching myself, creating, drawing something inside of my hand had broken. A string. A muscle. A joint. A nerve.

Someone would have to help me into my coat somewhere someday. I would understand the gout and the rheumatism and maybe even Aleksandr Serebyakov's pride, too. Pride that I was still going kicking moving breathing living being.

These are the ways that I see things. Middle age came early. I was nine or ten when the onset began and the blood began to flow, long before I'd known it and long before any hair had grown. But death. Oh, it's here, now. It's palpable. I saw Him looking back at me from the painting, where a little white had dropped onto the purple. I left it there.

Maybe that's what happens to an artist when they're gone. The paint, paper, stage, canvas, sky. All goes white. Blankness. Back to neutral. Still.

Circle One: Yes or No

for Jennifer Spears

APRIL. I wasn't always this person. I didn't always have these hips. My cheekbones weren't always visible. My hair was sometimes greasy. My face was often broken out.

There were 9 diets. Atkins, Hydroxycut, South Beach, Anorexia, The Apple Diet, Nutrisystem, Bulimia, Weight Watchers and Cabbage Soup. And there were 4 facial cleansers. Apricot Scrub, Proactiv, Olay and Zenmed. And there were up-do's and down-do's, bobs and weaves, curlers and straighteners. It was brown and blonde and red and, for a little while, blue.

And, when you're an Unfortunate - that's what I like to call it when you're not pretty. When you're... ugly... When you're this Unfortunate person, you learn certain tricks in coping. You avoid mirrors. They're deadly. You get from class to class as fast as possible. Avoid the hallways. The hallways are where the mean kids look for bait. And you never, ever lust for boys. (Beat.) That last trick is always the hardest one to follow. Take Ian. Ian Galigher. With his bangs too long and his inability to be on time for class and his desire to always sit in the last row and that one time he shoved a kid for calling me fat. The one with his feet always on a cafeteria table. Ian was that guy. Pretty, but dumb. Tough, but gentle. Mean, but kind.

But when the spring fling was coming up and the girls were buying dresses and their fathers were renting limos and their mothers were taking pictures, I was date-less. Dress-less. Ticket-less. Unless I could get Ian to circle 'Yes' on my note. I suppose I should've known. I suppose I should've expected it. I suppose I should've seen it coming when Carol intercepted the note as I passed it from my desk to his in English Lit. And I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when she stood up and read, instead of the sonnet Mr. Warner had asked for, my note.

Ian. I'm sure you already have a date. I'm sure you already have plans. And if you don't, that makes sense too cause you're probably too cool for a school dance and all. But I really like your hair. And I really liked it when you called Billy a jackass for telling me I was fat. And I don't think you deserved to go to the Principal's last week for falling asleep in Warner's class. But I was wondering if you'd like to escort--

Jesus Christ. Escort. Like I was some fucking debutante. A roly-poly, potmarked debutante in Hackensack.

I was wondering if you'd like to escort me to the spring fling. Circle "Yes" or "No" and pass it back.

Red-faced and holding back tears, I was able to stay until the moment I heard Ian join the laughter. Mortified, I ran out. Burnt like toast. Fried like an egg. But cold. Like the waitress at the diner forgot about me. Left me there to be something someone doesn't want, something unappetizing, returned without receipt. That's how I felt. Like I took a bullet to the brain and my marbles kept bouncing around the room. But my body just kept on chugging, moving, avoiding the gap. I ran straight to the girl's room on the second floor, where I stood on the toilet bowl so the oh-so-concerned hall monitor that Mr. Warner had sicked on me would think I'd gone to another bathroom. That I'd called my mom to pick me up. That I was hiding in the library.

I was sick the next day. The spring fling was that night and I'd woken up with invisible hives. And an imaginary fever. And a self-induced cough. And a make-believe sniffle. And my mother's pity spared me the humiliation of going back and reading Elizabeth Barrett fucking Browning, when we first met and loved, I did not build upon the event with marble..., in front of 17 snickering teenagers.

(Beat.)

And then college came. And I jogged. And my peers were too busy to be mean. Or to care. And I learned how to use mascara. And the perfect shade of cover-up was always available for a pesky stress pimple. And Alan Buffett took me out for drinks and kissed me in the rain when I was a size 9. And Jeremy Reading told me I looked hot when I was a size 7. And Patrick Lendon got lucky when I was a size 5.

So, it wasn't very surprising when, at a coffee shop on Bleeker in a size 4 dress, a waitress handed me a note that said, I'm sorry I was such a douchebag back then. Can I buy you some coffee, April? Circle "Yes" or "No" and pass it back. This was the first time in an hour that I'd looked up from my book. It was Baudelaire. Beautiful. Exquisite. Far more appealing than a note on the back of a receipt for a corn muffin and a latte. I glanced around the room until she pointed to my right. Just a few tables away. Ian Galigher. He gave me a wave. A little one. Awkward, afraid. Did he have the right girl?

I circled "No". You have to understand, it wasn't a grudge. And it wasn't that I didn't believe his apology. Time had just... Passed. It does that. And things -- people -- change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse and sometimes not at all.... And Ian -- he still had those bangs. And his feet were still on the table. And the date on his note was wrong. One day late. (Beat.) I didn't want to go backwards. I didn't want to hit rewind. So,

...instead of giving her back the note, or passing him my polite ThankYouButNo, I crumpled it up into my hand. I never got my note back. Why should he? I left a couple of bills on the table and grabbed my purse. I didn't run this time. No fried eggs, no burnt toast, no running or red cheeks. Just my heels, the floor, and all the time in the world.

As I opened my umbrella outside, I let the little ball of receipt paper fall to the floor. Crumpled on the sidewalk in a rainstorm, just where it belonged.