Comedy Girl

  “Maybe you can retake it. There must be a way to get you in. Could Jelly Bean call?”

  “Jazzy, I don’t want to go to college now.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “I want to move to L.A.”

  “You are crazy!”

  “Well, my uncle Redmond has a beachfront condo. I can sleep on his sofa until I can afford a place of my own.”

  “California? That’s halfway across the world! We’re supposed to stay together.”

  “I know,” I said ambivalently. “But the business is out there. TV, agents, managers, tons of comedy clubs. The Douglas Douglas Show. I have to keep going while things are hot.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this? I thought we’d be sorority sisters. Or share a swank apartment and have college hotties stopping over for late-night studies!”

  “I really wanted to…,” I said, biting my straw.

  “No you didn’t. This is what you’ve always wanted.”

  I paused, then said, “That’s why I have to give it a shot.”

  “But everyone is so plastic out there. You’ll be miles away from me.”

  “You can visit me,” I offered. “I’ll be on the beach—Muscle Beach.”

  “You’ll have to have a car,” she rambled. “You can’t take a bus or train all the time like here.”

  “I know,” I said, imagining myself driving around the freeway in a dump truck.

  “And you’re not going to college?” she asked, pulling at her scone.

  “If I live in California for five years, I can get free instate tuition.”

  “Five years? You’ll be an old woman!”

  I laughed. “Now you’re being crazy.” I took a long sip of my iced coffee as I pictured myself a fifty-year-old student.

  “I can’t believe we won’t be hanging out every day,” she said, staring out the window.

  “Want to come with me?” I asked eagerly.

  “Me in L.A.?” she asked, shocked. “That’s Babesville USA! I’d have to get implants, tucks, and permanent eyebrows just to keep from looking forty. I can’t afford it!”

  The fear I was hiding inside me started to surface.

  “You’re right, Jazz,” I said, suddenly pensive. “How do I think I’m going to get noticed? The babes out there make Stinkface look like a circus freak.”

  “Don’t worry,” she reassured me. “You have talent. You can’t get surgery for that.”

  “There are a million people in L.A. with talent,” I moaned.

  “But you are really unique. And brave.”

  “Brave? I’m terrified,” I said, my stomach knotting up. “I’ll be leaving everything behind. How do I think I’m going to make it there? Sid is broke in Illinois and he shares rent with three other guys. I’m sure I’ll be eating Ramen noodles for the rest of my life.”

  “Whatever!” she encouraged me. “You’ve rocked in Chicago and in Vegas. L.A. will love you.”

  “You and my parents will be days away from me. I’ll be in another time zone. I’ll be breaking up the bush girls.”

  “A dream can’t separate us that easily! We’ll have videophones and the Internet. And don’t forget about beach vacations. I’ll have to escape the arctic Chicago winter.”

  “When you visit, you can have Uncle Redmond’s couch,” I offered.

  “You bring the surfer dudes and I’ll bring the sun-screen,” she said, excited.

  We gathered our school gear and headed for the door. I stared at my best friend as she fixed her hair in the window’s reflection.

  “I’m going to be so lonely without you!” I said with a lump in my throat.

  “You’ll forget all about being lonely when you’re onstage,” she said, putting her arm around me. “And when you’re not onstage, you call me.”

  Early that summer Sarge bawled her eyes out when she and Dad left Uncle Redmond’s Venice beach condo, after helping me settle in.

  “You take care of her,” she called to her younger brother as the taxi waited. “Or I’ll pull your ears like I did when you were little!”

  “And she did,” he whispered to me. “One ear’s longer than the other.”

  I laughed, but it only eased the pang of separation for a moment, the same pang I had felt when dropped off at sleepover summer camp in the third grade. But I knew this stay would be longer than two months, and I’d have to take care of my own meals.

  Uncle Redmond was almost louder than Sarge, a boisterous man, always screaming real estate deals into the phone. But he wasn’t a chore master like his sister. In fact I found myself cleaning up after him. I had to come to Hollywood to learn how to be a housewife.

  But it was worth it just to be near the ocean. I had never seen a more breathtaking sight than the view from his living-room window. Surfers and sunsets, plus a boardwalk crowded with hippie vendors, fortune-tellers and palm readers, a seventy-year-old lady dancing in a bikini, and countless runners, walkers, skateboarders, and Rollerbladers.

  For the next six months I worked at Tootsie’s Diner to help with expenses. Uncle Red said, “This could help your career,” as if a movie director is dying to find the “right waitress.” The restaurant business was as raunchy as stand-up. I even got heckled when I brought the check. In the meantime I waited for prospective managers and agents to return my phone calls. I called the Douglas Douglas Show show every week, and every week I hung up, intimidated by the receptionist.

  I began to feel homesick. I wondered where I really belonged.

  I couldn’t make a girl friend to save my life. There was no one like Jazzy. Every girl I met was always looking past me to see what producer or director was walking by, as if she was the newest IT Girl. I met several career surfers who must have taken one too many spills and several forty-year-old men Uncle Red knew who had never been married.

  “Maybe there’s a reason,” I whispered to him at dinner.

  The ironic thing was that in L.A. there was no Chaplin’s around the corner to do a quick set. There were certainly more clubs, but every comic in the world was dying to audition for the star maker, agent, or manager who might be sitting in the audience. I had to sign up months in advance just to get an open mike. Or camp out in a line for hours just to get a spot at one thirty in the morning.

  I missed my family and Jazzy. I even missed the rain. I missed the one thing I had moved out here to do—perform. I needed that rush, that high, that peace.

  After I dropped an order of chili fries on myself at Tootsie’s, I slipped over to the pay phone and called Cam.

  “I need your help,” I said. “I’m stuck—”

  “You’ve got a flat? You’ll have to call Triple A, babe. I’m in Denver.”

  “I mean I’m stuck careerwise. I need a gig! It’s been ages since I’ve performed, and I’m wondering why I’m out here.”

  “Trixie, your orders are piling up in the window!” the diner manager barked.

  “Sounds like your career is calling you,” he teased.

  “If I’m forty years old and am still wearing an apron to work, please shoot me.”

  “Don’t give up. You’ll just have to go on the road, babe. I could get you some college gigs. But you’ll have to live out of a suitcase. I don’t know if that’s the best place for a young girl like you.”

  “It can’t be worse than living on a couch or slinging food all day for tourists who keep saying, ‘Hey, waitress, you’re so funny! You should perform stand-up.’ And then they hide the tip in the ketchup bottle.”

  “Sounds like you need a vacation. But this isn’t going to be the Bahamas. This is going to be Dayton, Ohio.”

  “Thanks, Cam. I love ya!”

  “We’ll see if you still feel that way after you’ve played Dayton.”

  STANDING ROOM ONLY

  One year later, I was back in Chicago. I had a gig. At Chaplin’s. Headlining. Not only had I changed, but Chaplin’s had too. The brick wall behind the stage now had a neon bowler hat and cane to accompany t
he Chaplin’s sign. There was new carpeting and Vic had converted his office into a dressing room. There was even extra toilet paper in the bathrooms.

  I looked around the crowd, squinting to see my friends and family in the back row. Most people reserve the front row—Trixie Shapiro reserves the back.

  I saw my parents, Sid, Jazzy with a new beau, Mr. Janson, Aunt Sylvia, Eddie, and Ben. Now that I knew where they were, I wouldn’t look back there until I had finished my set. A flood of memories from the last year on the road rushed through me as I sat in the comforting surroundings of home.

  But as I continued to scan the crowd, another familiar face appeared. There he was, sitting with an elderly couple, as dreamy as the first time I had seen him in Mason’s parking lot.

  What if I forgot my new material? What if my timing was off? What if a table heckled me, and threw off my whole entire set?

  But I was a professional now—I had been heckled, I had bombed, and though I’d come offstage many a night with scratches and wounds, I’d survived the thorny shrubberies of the road without Jazzy to rescue me.

  True to his word, Cam had given my name to bookers around the country. I featured, headlined, and played fund-raisers and festivals. I e-mailed and phoned Jazzy and Sarge from every hotel in the country.

  I loved college gigs the most, because they paid well and the audiences were young, educated, and hip. Yet watching couples holding hands made me feel disconnected, and reminded me of the sacrifice I was making.

  I’d made new friends along the journey and gained confidence, experience, and a thick skin. My standard act was as much a part of me as my orange hair.

  “It’s great to be back at Chaplin’s, where I got my start. I’m living alone in L.A. now…. Man, dating sucks!” I said, taking a beat. “If they can send a man to the moon…why can’t they send one to my apartment?”

  The crowd laughed. I felt the familiar jolt of exhilaration. The crowd took on a personality of its own. I rolled through my set with the confidence of the professional that I had become.

  I left the stage feeling I could conquer the world.

  “It was good seeing you again!” Ben said, catching up to me in the dressing room.

  “It’s great having you back,” Vic said with a hug. “You’re not a mousy girl anymore. You’re a woman!”

  “And you’re a married man—,” I reminded him with feigned shock.

  “You better get out there,” Vic said. “Your fans await you.”

  Sergeant rushed me like a linebacker and hugged me hard, while Dad handed me flowers with a big squeeze and a kiss on the cheek.

  “You need to eat more!” Sarge commanded. “You’re skinnier than these roses.”

  “This is Greg,” a freshly tanned Jazzy said, introducing me to her studly beau. “Greg, this is my best friend in the whole wide world.”

  Sid was next, stinking of beer and cigarettes. I was ready for him to call me “shrimp.” Instead, he said, “My Stand-up Sister!”

  Mr. Janson gave me a warm embrace. “I discovered her!” he said proudly.

  “No, I did,” Eddie countered. He looked exactly the same, except for his hat, which read MICHIGAN STATE instead of PIZZA TOWN.

  Jazzy pulled my arm and pointed to a lone hunkster hidden in the shadows, leaning against a pillar.

  “He’s alone!” she whispered, nudging me. “No Stinkface, no Jenny Larson!”

  Everyone filed out, leaving Gavin and me alone to talk, something we hadn’t done in over a year. Our last words had been good-bye.

  Gavin looked as good as ever, wearing a black-and-white bowling shirt, blue jeans, and a black woolen jacket. His jet-black hair had grown longer, and a smooth goatee sprouted beneath his luscious mouth. For all my experience with improvisation, I couldn’t think of anything to say. I was no longer the headliner at Chaplin’s, but a bush girl again, awkward and shy.

  “Congratulations,” Gavin said, approaching me slowly, standing close, but stopping short of hugging me. “Your show was…wonderful.”

  “Thanks,” I said, wanting to smother him with kisses. But I kept my arms at my sides. “I’m surprised you came. I saw you from onstage,” I admitted.

  “So I guess I don’t make you nervous anymore?”

  “Well, I didn’t go blank,” I answered. “But you still make me nervous!” I paused. “Jazzy’s waiting,” I finally said, not moving. “It was great seeing you again.”

  “I wanted to thank you,” he said awkwardly.

  “Thank me?”

  “For being brave enough to follow your dream.”

  “But I thought you resented it.”

  “I did. But you also inspired me to start dreaming.”

  “You’re not going to be an architect?” I asked, confused.

  “Of course I am. But I realized it is okay to have a hobby.”

  I thought back on our conversation at his house about our dreams.

  “You’re writing?”

  “I’m taking some classes. I never would have allowed myself to, if it wasn’t for you.”

  I stared at him in shock, my heart pounding.

  “That’s not all I’ve been dreaming about,” he confessed, looking me in the eyes.

  “Yes?” I asked curiously.

  “Dating sucks, just like you say in your act. You don’t have to be stuck in a hotel room in Spokane to be lonely. You can be on a college campus with a million girls and spend all your nights dreaming of the one that got away.”

  I was dumbfounded. Gavin had been dreaming of me?

  “And Northwestern doesn’t even offer room service!” I said, trying to ease my nerves.

  He laughed, flashing that familiar sparkling smile.

  I felt what I always felt was true—that things weren’t finished. That we could talk forever, that we were still connected. But were we?

  “All finished, Trixie?” Ben asked, flipping the stage lights out.

  “I’m glad you came. Really,” I said to Gavin awkwardly. “It was nice to see you again.”

  “Trixie,” Gavin said, grabbing my arm.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “I wanted to tell you something else,” he began anxiously. “I want that day when we had a picnic in the park back.”

  “The picnic?”

  “I just want that day at the picnic back. ’Cause I would have reacted differently,” he said, looking into my eyes. “I wouldn’t have made you choose.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Tears welled up in my surprised eyes.

  “I counted your smiles in school,” I confessed. “Since I first saw you in Mason’s parking lot. I was up to smile number nine when we started dating—and then it happened so often, I lost track! After the picnic you never smiled at me again, and I haven’t been the same…. But since you smiled at me tonight, I guess I can start counting again. You’re on number three.”

  “How about the part where you lose track,” he said, hinting.

  Once again, feeling like I’d won the lottery, not believing it was happening, I was lost in his hipster spell.

  “I’d like to get to know you again.”

  “But you know that I travel…,” I began.

  “I could build you a mobile home, with a white picket fence around it.”

  I was stunned. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. “Don’t joke with me, Gavin!”

  “I’m serious—I’ll leave the joking to you.”

  “I thought I’d never see you again. When I saw you tonight in the audience, I thought I’d freak out. But I think I even performed better knowing you were there.”

  He smiled a sparking smile.

  “Number four,” I said, pointing.

  Ben placed my backpack and bottled water on the table next to me. “We’re closing up, Trix,” he said.

  “I know! I know!” I said reluctantly, grabbing my sack. “I have to go—,” I said, and opened the door to the lobby. “I’d like to read some of your writing…if you’d let me.
”

  “Well, it took years before I could see you perform.”

  “I deserved that,” I said with a cunning smile. “I’ll be looking for it in the mail, then?” I asked, stepping back.

  “How about I show it to you now. After you celebrate with your fans.”

  “I’d love to,” I said with a smile. “So you’re writing poetry?”

  “I started writing a novel,” he confessed. “I may never finish it, but…it’s called Comedy Girl.”

  My heart melted.

  “Comedy Girl?” I repeated, shocked, and put my hand to my mouth.

  “Hey, don’t cover those lips,” he said, pulling my hand away. But instead of letting go, he held on.

  Our fingers entwined. My heart raced.

  He stared into my eyes just as he had done on our first date. And then he leaned over and kissed me.

  Our arms wrapped around each other and I squeezed his body close to mine, as if I would never let go. I thought I was going to explode.

  He kissed me again and grabbed my hand, opening the door for me.

  “You can hang at my place anytime,” he offered. “It’s not a hotel room, but it’s the same size,” he joked. “I can break a bar of soap in half to make you feel at home.”

  “Your own apartment?” I exclaimed. “Maybe college isn’t so bad! Do they have room for a class mime?”

  Everything looked a little smaller at 1414 Chandler Street. The couch that used to swallow me was in fact only a love seat. The enormous kitchen table that I had to clean was barely large enough for a medium pizza.

  I opened the door to my lavender room, which was now powder blue. The posters of my comic idols, some of whom I’d since met, were no longer taped to the walls, and there was an ugly patchwork quilt covering my bed. But Paddington Bear, Snoopy, Hello Kitty, and my other wide-eyed fluffy animals—my perfect audience—still sat loyally on my shelf where I had left them.

  I opened my closet and tried on the pale blue Groovy Garments dress that I had worn on my first date with Gavin. My old dresser, once cluttered with cosmetics, barrettes, and snapshots, seemed tiny.

  I reached under my bed, looking for my most special treasure. Was it gone, I thought as my fingers stretched wildly. Suddenly I felt the edge of a box—my comedy treasure chest full of notebooks, journals, a tape-recorded laugh track, and a round brush. And then I discovered lying in the bottom of the box the most important possession…my original comedy notebook. It sparkled even though it was worn. I hugged it as if I was hugging an old friend.