“I think we need to have a little talk, don’t you?” she asked, putting her hands on his shivering shoulders. Hucky nodded. It was the only time since that first day at Amory Park that I’d ever seen him speechless. (He’s kind of like Augie that way.) And when she stood up to take his hand, he turned to me in shock. Is this really happening?? You’d think he would have learned by now not to keep his nanny waiting.
“Spit-spot,” she signed sternly, tugging on his arm. As she led him into her dressing room, he glanced over his shoulder at me with his bottom jaw still hanging open. So I signed a fast warning right back at him.
“Close your mouth, Hucky. We are not a codfish.” Then they were gone.
Nine seconds later my phone rang. I didn’t even have to check Caller ID to find out who it was. My brother and I invented synchronicity when we were six.
AUGIE:
Any news there?
ME:
The Eagle has landed. He’s in her dressing room.
AUGIE:
Holy crap! I didn’t really think it was going to work!
ME:
Then what did you send us down here for??
AUGIE:
To see if I was wrong. What’s she saying to him?
ME:
I don’t know. Maybe she’s making things fly around the room. I’m out in this baby-puke hallway. You should have come with me. They have all of these women with big hair who you’d probably recognize.
AUGIE:
Like who?
ME:
Well, there’s a check-in sheet on this bulletin board that says Elaine Stritch—
AUGIE:
Oh, my God.
ME:
—Maggie Smith—
AUGIE:
Oh, my God.
ME:
—Judi Dench—
AUGIE:
Oh, my God. What about Liza?
ME:
Well, “Liza Minnelli” is listed, but I don’t know what she looks like.
LIZA:
She’s standing right behind you.
When I glanced over my shoulder, I recognized her right away. She was the “Maybe This Time” one. I had to watch her sing that damn song the whole year I was ten, before Augie got tired of her and moved on to her mother. Right now she was wearing a black dress and a black coat with fur, and she didn’t seem too pissed off that I wouldn’t have known her from Clint Eastwood.
“Who’s on the phone?” she asked, poofing up her big black hair and smiling at me like I was maybe her best friend or her agent.
“My brother Augie,” I said. “Look, do you think you could talk to him for a second? He knew your birthday by heart when we were seven, but he’s not really weird.” She didn’t say anything back, but instead took the cell phone out of my hand and put it up to her green earring.
“Augie? It’s Liza.”
Pause.
“March 12, 1946. It was a natural childbirth.” I couldn’t believe he was actually testing her to see if she was real! (Yes, I could. He’s Augie.) I guess she convinced him, because she stayed on the phone for another twenty seconds discussing her parents, her Oscar, and her next concert at Radio City. If her date hadn’t shown up to yank her away, they might have used up all of my unlimited air time.
“Bye, Augie,” she said in a rush. “Lenny’s here.” She flipped my phone shut and handed it back to me—but before she left, she took a program out of her purse, opened to the title page, and kissed it so that there were lipstick lips. Then she wrote, “For Augie. Loved our talk. Forever, Liza.” And after she handed it to me, Lenny dragged her toward the exit.
For the first time in almost twenty-four hours I had a couple of minutes to myself, and I was wiped. So I sat down on a gray stool, put my head into my hands, and tried to piece together exactly how I’d wound up in a vomit-colored hallway backstage at a Broadway theater 200 miles from home without stopping to ask any questions first. But the way it turned out, I wasn’t the only one doing the wondering—because right around then my phone rang again. This time it wasn’t my brother.
POP:
Tony C? I just called Augie’s to check in with Mom and Dad—but they haven’t seen you since this morning, and Augie wouldn’t talk. I want to know exactly where you are.
ME:
Um—the, uh, Shubert Theatre. In—um—New York. On Forty-fourth Street.
POP:
Is Hucky with you?
ME:
Yes. He’s in Julie Andrews’s dressing room.
POP:
He’s what?
ME:
That’s why we’re here. Augie and Alé and I got her to send him a letter, but it wasn’t good enough. We needed her to be Mary Poppins for him. So that’s who she’s being in her dressing room.
POP:
We’ll talk about that later. Right now I want you to listen to me very carefully. I’m calling a car company and sending a limo over there. You’re not to leave until you see one that says “Keller” in the window. Are you listening?
ME:
Yes.
POP:
The driver’s going to have instructions to take you to Penn Station, put you and Hucky on the train, and then call me after you’ve left. I’ll be waiting for you at Back Bay.
ME:
Okay. Pop, how pissed off are you?
POP:
Is he really talking to Julie Andrews?
ME:
Yes.
POP:
Then not as pissed off as you think.
I hung up the phone feeling like crap. Hucky was ten feet away from me, getting all of his wishes granted at once, and meanwhile I’d really let down my father. How could both of these things happen at the same time? X and y have specific values, and they only add up one way. But before I could figure out any answers, the puke-yellow door opened again. This time it was Hucky leading Julie Andrews, and not the other way around. His eyes were sparkling, and it didn’t take a spoonful of sugar to see that hers might have been too.
“I think we’ve just about got that straightened out,” she said to me in her let’s-clean-up-our-room voice. “I explained to Hucky that I can only come to stay with children who’ve been left alone. But since he has you, he doesn’t need me after all.” For a minute I thought she’d gotten me mixed up with somebody else. Me? Up there with Mary Poppins? ME?? And just to make sure I knew she hadn’t, she narrowed her forehead the same way she did when Uncle Albert was floating on the ceiling and spoke quietly so that I’d know it was just her and me. “Do we understand each other, Anthony? I don’t expect you to let him down.” By then I would have said yes to just about anything she asked. I mean, the last thing I needed was to piss off Mary Poppins. But this was a no-brainer anyway.
“Don’t worry,” I swore on my honor. “That’ll never happen.” She knelt in front of Hucky one more time and brushed his favorite piece of hair out of his face.
“I want you to write to me,” she signed. “And I promise to write back. All right?” Hucky nodded, not taking his eyes off of hers. “And always remember that if you ever do need me, I’m here.” I guess that was all he really wanted to find out, because he suddenly wrapped his arms around her neck and pressed his whole face against her cheek. And when she hugged him back, I had to turn away.
How was I supposed to know that I needed her too?
The rest of our adventure was wrapped up by Pop. The Keller limousine showed up in Shubert Alley just like he said it would, but there were so many movie stars looking for limos of their own that we wound up dropping off somebody named Vanessa Redgrave at the Ritz Carlton on our way to Penn Station. Hucky sat through it all in a daze, holding my hand and staring straight ahead into whatever world Julie Andrews had opened up for him. Meanwhile, I had the driver to deal with. His name was Tim, he’d been a Yankees fan since he was four, and Bucky F. Dent was one of his idols. I was ready to get out of the car at Forty-first Street and walk.
The train ride home was a lot
quieter than the first one was. I bought cookies and milk for Hucky at the snack bar, but he nodded off just a couple of seconds after we’d gotten back to our seats. Who wouldn’t have? He’d put in a long day. And if I’d known what was good for me, I’d have caught some Z’s too—I had an algebra test in nine hours that I really needed to be awake for.
Speaking of algebra, I think I figured out the part that Lori forgot to tell me. Okay, maybe x and y do have specific values—but they mean different things to different people. Pop’s x and y add up to taking care of me and falling in love with Lori. Alé’s add up to making her own decisions and falling in love with me (we hope). Augie’s add up to Katharine Hepburn and loving Andy and always being there for me. And mine add up to Mama, Pop, Augie, Alé, Hucky, Mom, Dad, Phyllis, Buck Weaver, and anyone else who finds a place inside my heart. So I was right to bring Hucky to New York after all. And Pop was also right to be pissed off at me for doing it. We just need to work out our third variables.
I don’t know if that’s going to help me on my algebra test, but seeing as it’s been February 16 for the past fifty-two minutes, it’s not a bad way to turn fifteen.
I glanced down at Hucky, who was out like a light—with his head on my chest and my arm wrapped around him. And for the very first time I saw something I’d never seen before while he was sleeping. A smile.
I love you,
T.C.
LAURENTS SCHOOL
BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS
VIA E-MAIL
Dear Ted:
Before you come to any hasty decisions, remember what the venerable W. S. Gilbert wrote in The Mikado. “Let the punishment fit the crime.”
Your son makes dreams come true for others. And not just ordinary dreams either. Hucky met Mary Poppins, and now she’s a part of his life. I still don’t know for certain whether I’m merely awed or green with envy. If that had happened to me when I was six, I might have turned out with a few screws tighter than they are now. At the very least, I wouldn’t have been idiot enough to date that treasonous quisling Wes Kibel in high school, and I may even have been more cavalier in my dealings with the noxious concept of purloined court-side seats.
Since there’s a slim chance that I might have a future say in the care and feeding of Anthony, I’m recommending leniency. I know he shattered a few dozen rules in order to pull off the improbable—but so did Rosa Parks. In other words, if you give him a hard time, I’ll break your neck.
Lori
KELLER CONSTRUCTION
BOSTON • GLOUCESTER • WALTHAM
ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
Dear Lori:
I hated The Mikado. H.M.S. Pinafore was more up my alley. I saw it in tenth grade, and our Buttercup was hot.
Don’t worry. Tony C may have scared the shit out of me, but if I had to balance that against how proud I am (and, not incidentally, how proud his mother would have been), there’s no contest. So he’ll be grounded for four weeks, but without loss of Internet or cell phone privileges. This is like sending a condemned man to San Quentin but taking all the bars off first.
By the way, I prefer you with your screws loose. But if you can find out where Wes is living these days, I’ll stop over there myself and rough him up for you.
Ted
English Assignment
Augie Hwong, 11th Grade
Ms. LaFontaine’s Class
MY MOST EXCELLENT YEAR
Conclusion
After Kiss Me, Kate, everybody knew that Alé was going places, but no one was prepared for her professional debut as Kim McAfee in Bye Bye Birdie at the Lyric Stage. God, when she changed into a floppy sweater and baseball cap while she sang “How Lovely to Be a Woman,” you could practically feel the paint melting off the walls. The Herald called her “the find of the year,” and she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical by the Boston Phoenix.
INSTANT MESSENGER
AugieHwong: When are you going to teach me the moves?
AlePerez: You’re not understudying me. So please stay away from the auditions. They may just cast you. And I can’t afford the competition.
Actually, I’ve come to terms with the fact that the parts I was born to play are forever out of reach (especially Roxie Hart). That’s why I’ve decided to become a director/choreographer instead. We rule, we rock, and we also get to perform all of the roles first while we’re teaching them to our actors. Last year I directed a frosh/soph production of Follies, and no one who was at rehearsal will ever forget the way my “Story of Lucy and Jessie” turned Alexis Smith into a dim memory from a fading past.
And speaking of Follies, Mom may not write a theatre column anymore, but that doesn’t mean she’s retired her poison pen. She recently contributed a commentary to the op-ed page blasting Stephen Sondheim for his stubborn refusal to allow anyone to cast a same-sex couple in Company. “And this is supposed to be a musical about contemporary relationships??” (She never found out what his sentiments were after she called him “the Roy Cohn of composers,” but I’m pretty sure they weren’t “thank you.”) She also wrote a feature article on the three of us and Hucky, and now every stage doorman in New York has to deal with gate-crashing bogus relatives. Carol Channing’s son even got arrested, and all he was trying to do was pick up his mom and take her home.
Andy and I stayed boyfriends until last spring, and then we decided we were too young for a serious commitment. So even though we knew we’d be friends forever, we broke up for our own good. It lasted twenty-five minutes.
www.augiehwong.com
PRIVATE CHAT
AndyWexler: Spidey, what’s a “wild oat” anyway?
AugieHwong: I don’t know. I think it’s just a figure of speech.
AndyWexler: Then why are we supposed to sow them?
AugieHwong: Nobody explained that part to me. Just because, that’s why. By the way, I still smile when you call me “Spidey.” It reminds me of the old days.
AndyWexler: When—this morning?!
He finally told his parents, who weren’t exactly surprised. As a general rule, when your son’s had a boyfriend for almost two years, it usually means he’s gay. They’ve come over for dinner a couple of times now, which means we have three people glued to the couch whenever the Patriots are on ESPN: Dad, Andy, and Andy’s mom. Mr. Wexler is probably the only pilot American Airlines employs who doesn’t have much use for football. His game is lacrosse, which he taught me during sophomore year. I’m a wing. And the uniforms are like SO hot.
Mateo was adopted by a deaf couple in Back Bay (she’s a teacher, he’s an author), but he and Hucky stayed best friends through all of the changes. And right after they’d both turned seven, Tick and I taught them the games they most needed to know: secret agents, astronauts, Galaxy Fighters, and brothers. “Brothers” seems to be their favorite—at 8½, they’re still playing it. Incidentally, when I got really proficient at ASL, I made Hucky sit still long enough for All About Eve while I signed it for him. He gave up in disgust halfway through it.
“What a ripoff!” he fumed. “They stole the whole ginky thing from the Tooth Fairy story! How do these people get away with that??”
INSTANT MESSENGER
TCKeller: I just checked out Brandeis online. They’ve got a theatre department for you and a poli sci department for me. What do you think?
AugieHwong: Andy’s going to be at B.U. and Alé’s going to be at Emerson. Brandeis is too far.
TCKeller: According to Yahoo, it’s 7.8 miles. What did you want, dude—walking distance??
AugieHwong: Yes.
I figured out something in ninth grade that I should have known at six, when I chose a brother who could teach me how to be Augie Hwong. Up until then, I was definitely the wrong actor for the part (Lea Salonga would have been so much more appropriate), but we worked with what we had. And after Tick brought Hucky into our lives and I watched what happened, I figured out that it’s not just the people we love, but the people we let love us back who sho
w us how high we can really soar.
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Boston University is okay, but only if you don’t have to live there. You can still come home at night, can’t you? Because I’m not old enough to know right from wrong yet without brothers to show me. Even when they go to college. I could get in a lot of trouble by myself, you know.
Pop and T.C. gave me a time out because I microwaved my Disk Man to dry it off from falling in the sink and getting soaping wet. How was I suppose to know it would make all the lights go out?
So I’m changing my name to Hucky Hwong again. Just until the weekend. It was Nehi’s idea and I like it.
Last fall, Alé was one of the three leads up at Merrimack Rep in Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along (sorry, Mom), and for some weird reason I found myself crying when she sang “Old Friends”—ironically, one of only eight happy songs that Sondheim ever wrote. It made me remember conning her into the talent show, rehearsing Kiss Me, Kate with her, sitting over Mass Pike with Tick and getting each other through puberty, Christmas shopping with Aunt Babe, Dad’s heart-to-hearts with me about Andy, my boyfriend’s first kiss (and not recovering from it for three weeks), Hucky on skis, and the way Julie Andrews came through for us. So if I have to end on a quote—and baby, Augie Hwong always ends on a quote—I’m sticking with Sondheim.
“Here’s to us.
Who’s like us?
Damn few.”
English Assignment
Alejandra Perez, 11th Grade
Ms. LaFontaine’s Class