Page 15 of The Lookback

The dress rehearsal goes pretty smoothly, other than two small wardrobe malfunctions for some of the ensemble, but there’s always something different about the real performance. You know your lines cold, you’re surrounded by people who haven’t heard each scene a million times, and all the things you kind of planned to do but don’t really practice over and over, you’re finally doing.

The full skirt I’m wearing swishes as I grab my son Louis’s hand—really a bratty third grader who manages to annoy me constantly by popping his gum, stepping on my feet, and spitting out the wrong lines like a poorly behaved goat.

Luckily he’s a tiny kid, so when he bumbles a line in the opening scene, everyone laughs.

When Tommy walks on stage for his first appearance, it’s the first time he’s been bare chested, his vest gaping wide open, his chest shining with some kind of oil, and I can’t help staring.

Tommy plays football, too.

He ropes calves.

He’s even on the basketball team, though he’s not very good.

I should have assumed he would be in good shape, but I had no idea he was. . . He looks better than Clyde did with his shirt off. I almost fumble a line myself. I catch myself just in time, and the only person who notices is the bratty little kid playing my son.

“You’re embarrassing,” he mutters.

I squeeze his hand until he squirms. “Think about your own lines,” I whisper.

Luckily, even with the bright lights and the stress of the audience, even the children who make up a large part of the cast do quite well. Little Dolores elicits dozens of awws from the audience when she leaps up into Tommy’s arms, her father’s favorite child. It’s an easy transfer for her to be the audience’s favorite actress, but it’s also well-earned. She nails all the blocking and the lines.

And then it’s time.

The King and Iisn’t strictly a romance, of course, as King Mongkut has more wives and concubines than anyone could ever hope to manage, and Anna Leonowens is a widow from England. But the story definitely shows that the two star-crossed lovers did care a great deal for one another, and that by the end, they respected one another. Indeed, the king changes important behaviors and allows her to teach his children revolutionary things.

I love that it’s based on a true story.

So when I sing, “and shall you be my new romance?” I happen to glance over at Tommy, and he’s staring at me intently. It makes something inside my stomach flip over.

My voice wavers.

And my voiceneverwavers. That’s the one good thing about me. I never flub a song. Not in practice, not in performances, never. My voice is as steady as the sun in the summer.

Except in that moment.

Tommy steps toward me, his eyes wide.

But I forge ahead. I sing my last line or two and dance in circles around him, and then I stop. Tommy tells me to keep going, and I tell him I never dance that way, not at home.

That’s when he says, “But you will dance with strange men, holding hands, etcetera.”

He sounds so confused, so forlorn, that my half-laugh is genuine. “Well, yes, but not always a stranger. Usually a very dear friend or a loved one.”

“Good,” Tommy says, walking closer. “Then you’ll show me. Teach, teach, teach.”

“But I?—”

“Teacher teach,” Tommy says, his hands out.

“Well,” I say. “It’s quite simple, the polka. You just count one-two-three.” And I take his hands.

I’ve done this scene a dozen times, but never with his shining chest exposed. Never with a million people watching. Never while he was looking at me like he wants to eat me. When his hands touch mine, it’s like something I’ve never felt before runs through me. Whatever it is makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I inhale sharply, and his eyes fall down toward my mouth.

He noticed.

He’s noticed that I’m reacting to him strangely.

But I have to keep going—the piano’s keeping us on track. When I sing, “On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?” my voicecracks. It’s so embarrassing that I want to die.

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