Chapter Eleven
I stood backstage at Porter Township High School and listened to murmurs of the audience fill the theater. Unhooking the loop of the large water bottle lid from between my middle finger and crutch handle, I gently set Harold on the table, though the water still sloshed back and forth. I undid the lid to give him air again. “Sorry for the whirlpool adventure, lil’ guy. Maybe I should have skipped my new policy about you for this show.”
It had only been two weeks since our first show here, but—look at me—so much had changed. A wave of weepiness consumed me. Why had I agreed to this?
Scared Scriptless had asked Spontaneous Combustion if we wouldn’t mind sticking to the short-form, game style we’d done at the first show, since they did long form and it gave the audience a nice mix. We agreed, and this time they started off the show.
I mostly fixated on Jason, the perfect distraction to get over myself. When he was on the sidelines, his eyes darted around, taking everything in. He kind of bounced on the balls of his feet with his arms crossed, ready to pounce in for a scene edit at any second. When he was onstage, I focused on the way his thigh muscles moved under his jeans, how his shoulder and chest muscles slid under his Scared Scriptless T-shirt as he morphed from regular Jason to his different characters—douchebag CEO, crass old Scottish man, sober pirate who found plundering distasteful. How his thick brown hair had a life of its own. How his lips moved when he spoke, begging to be kissed.
Between sets, Owen announced the contest again and shouted, “There are a few spots left in the contest lineup, so there is still time, folks. Don’t hold back. Commit. The prizes? Five hundred dollars and your performance featured on Comedy Hub dot com.” He continued bounding around the stage, his lanky limbs reminding me of those inflatable dancing tube men outside car dealerships.
When our set started, I lay low for the first few scenes, trying to get Jason out of my head so I could focus on how I was going to work this improv thing out on crutches.
Then came the game Forward/Reverse. Quinn started the scene with two others and Hana “called” it, which meant whenever she shouted “reverse,” the actors would have to go backward through their action and dialogue to the beginning, or until Hana called “forward” again. Like forwarding or reversing a movie. This scene was about medieval knights who had to compete in a joust.
I was enjoying watching from the sidelines when Chris, the ex-football-player in our group, appeared next to me pushing an office chair he must have found backstage. He raised his eyebrows as if to say, “Ya in?” I immediately knew his plan and, putting one crutch down, I sat in the chair and propped the other crutch out parallel to the floor. Within seconds both of us were yelling, “Charge!” as Chris wheeled me, the jousting knight, quickly across the stage. The audience went nuts for our prop-comedy, clapping and shouting. New electric energy fueled me. After that, I jumped into scene after scene, eventually having to hold myself back so I wouldn’t hog the stage.
After the show, Craig came up and gave me such a big hug he lifted me and the crutches off the floor for a second. “Impressive, sis. I was sure I would hate it, but it turns out improv is kinda cool. It’s like the jazz of theater, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Thanks.” I smiled, realizing Craig’s approval now meant something to me.
“This is my friend Luke, and you guys totally blew his mind,” Craig said, gesturing to his college-aged friend. He was a scrawny guy with black hair and elaborate piercings and tattoos. Apparently, Luke wasn’t much for words, but he mimed his mind exploding and made a bomb-like sound effect.
Hana came up, and Craig leaned down to hug her, too, in a long, lingering way. “You are a queen of comedy.” She blushed.
Then Scared Scriptless’s group gathered in with ours, and I was face-to-face with Jason. He was about to say something, when Mom came over to us, along with a handsome man in his forties or fifties.
“Hi, Dad,” Jason said to the man next to my mom.
“Hi, Ellie. I’m Jason’s dad, Michael.” He smiled, and I could immediately see the similarities. “I’ve heard so much about you and it’s nice to see all that talent in action. The joust scene was my favorite. Very creative use of crutches.” He patted me on the shoulder.
I managed to say, “Thank you. So nice to meet you,” and resisted saying: I’m so sorry about your wife. Your son is one of my favorite humans on earth. Why have you heard about me? How did you meet my mother?
“Jason has told me a little of what you’re going through, and I want to say, we are here for you if you need anything. Anything at all,” Mr. Cooper said. Jason came from good people.
He told us to have a fun night, and asked Mom if she’d like him to walk her to her car. She seemed charmed, gave me a kiss on the cheek, told me I did a great job, and walked off with him.
Jason turned to me, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Wow—my dad isn’t always that impressed with improv. Crutch-prov wins.”
“It almost felt like cheating.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, when a girl practically jumped between us, grabbing both of our shoulders and squealing, knocking my right crutch out from under me. Jason’s face flashed with concern as he reached out to grab me, but I’d already caught myself with the other crutch.
It was Marissa, the serious-theater girl from the beach, and she was oblivious to the fact she’d almost taken me out. “Oh my God, Ellie. You are so funny. I looooooved your group’s set. It was, like, nonstop.” She moved her face too close to mine and lowered her voice. “You are so strong. I cannot believe you have cancer. I almost cried for you, but instead you made me laugh, and I simply cannot believe it.”
Bam. A verbal joust to the gut. Did she just tell me I have cancer? Also? Not sure if I wasn’t offended she only almost cried for me.
“Who told you that?” I asked in such a scathing tone her head jolted back and I had to push back the venom. “I prefer tumorously challenged.”
Jason let out an airy laugh.
“Oh, um…” Marissa’s eyelashes fluttered at warp speed.
“There’s no diagnosis yet,” Jason said. “Sorry, Ellie, that’s probably my fault. The team asked why you were on crutches, and I told them you had a biopsy. It must have spread like the worst game of telephone.”
“They’re just being cautious. It’s probably nothing,” I assured Marissa, and myself.
“Well, you are just so brave.”
I didn’t really see how the misfortune of possibly having a disease made me brave. All that came out was, “Uh…”
Marissa whipped her long, silky braid over her shoulder and grabbed me again. In a teacherly voice she said, “If it is cancer, you should stop eating sugar. Have you already? The only thing I know about cancer is, don’t eat sugar. Cancer loves sugar. Cancer eats the sugar right up.”
It was so absurd that I couldn’t stop my first thought from popping out of my mouth. “Really? That’s so weird—I love sugar. Cancer and I must have a lot in common.”
Jason stifled a laugh as Marissa’s face made a nanofrown. “Oh.” Then she hugged me around the crutches. “Well, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I’m praying for you, okay?”
“Thanks, Marissa,” I managed as she bounded off.
Jason was covering his mouth with one hand, but the rest of his face was smiling, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “That was solid.”
I shrugged. He stared at me intensely. His cheeks reddened, and he crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and put his hands in his front pockets, then shifted them to his back pockets.
“Jason, what’s going on over there?” Balancing, I waved my hand around at him.
“Can I show you this cool grove of trees at the side of the building?”
“You want to show me some trees?”
“Yeah, I think you’ll like them.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I definitely want to see these trees. Real bad.”
We escaped out the back door of the auditorium, around to the side of the school, where there was a grassy area lined with the promised trees. Once we were hidden where no one could see us, I teasingly said, “Wow, you were right. I’ve never seen such a beautiful grove.”
He closed the distance between us, moving one of his hands to the small of my back, the other to my neck. He kissed me like every part of him needed to kiss me. I let my crutches drop to the ground and, while balancing on one leg and mostly being held up by Jason, I kissed back, my body softening into his hands, into his lips.
He picked me up, fully off the ground, and I let out a little “woo!” in surprise. Then he lowered me onto the grass as if I were one of the early fall leaves being gently guided to the earth by the wind. Because everything in me was wired to ruin moments like this, I said, “Impressive.”
“What can I say.” Taking the palm of my hand, he traced his fingers along it and up my arm, tingles trailing, adding to the built-up energy from the show. “You were seriously funny tonight. On crutches and everything. You…you’re amazing.”
My smile filled the whole of me. “Thank you. Not just for saying that. For all of it. These two shows we’ve done with you have been by far my favorite ever. And I never would’ve gone up there tonight on crutches if you hadn’t…” I trailed off, the happy-weepies choking me up a little. I wasn’t used to this. Being with a guy like this. I leaned down and kissed the palm of his hand, a tiny act that, for me, was a thing of boldness. “Just, thank you.” And with those three little words came an electric wave of realization. Oh. It happened, or was happening. I’d fallen, was falling.
Love. A giddy treasure of a word I was going to keep to myself a while longer.
He beamed and we kissed again until we had to catch our breath. Wrapping me up in his arms, he nestled his face to my neck. Dizzy with it all, I held on to him tight and ran my hand through his soft, perfect hair. The rustling leaves, the warmth of him, the cool night air…I could stay here forever.
We lay back on the grass, side by side, hand in hand, gazing up at the stars. It was a clear night, which was good because I had a lot of wishes to make. Tomorrow might bring good or bad news, but for this one moment it didn’t matter. I imagined if we stayed here long enough I could sink into the earth, my sickness melting with my joy, tangling in the tree roots underfoot.