“Hey. Winnie. Hey,” Fletcher says from behind me as Mr. Novack works through his self-important attendance-taking.
“Hello. Fletcher. Hello,” I say, turning around.
Since he came to Dad’s rescue at Stop & Shop, he and I are like actual friends now. Funny how that happens. I still know close to zero about him, but every day this week we’ve had a quick, pleasant conversation during homeroom, usually about nothing.
“You going today?”
“Yeah,” I say casually, as if I haven’t been thinking about improv since the moment school started Monday morning, about the chance to redeem myself after that heinousness with Jess. I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated Thursdays this much in my life. “You?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Sucking it up like I do every week.”
“You don’t suck.” I mean that. Maybe he hasn’t fully nailed any scenes, but he’s always so committed and in it.
Fletcher shrugs. “It’s cool. My thing is physical comedy.”
At first I think he’s messing with me, but his face remains dead sincere. And then I remember him being whipped around by imaginary gusts of wind, and it makes sense.
The PA speaker crackles to life. “Please stand for the Pledge to the Flag,” Evan says. I turn away from Fletcher toward the ol’ Stars and Stripes. Mr. Novack has his hand on his heart and a look of defiant pride in his eyes. He’s really into the Pledge.
It’s weird listening to Evan over the loudspeaker knowing he’s kind of maybe my boyfriend. I mean, nothing is official, but last night, we went a step beyond texts and Instagram messages.
He called me.
We were texting about improv rehearsal and what we thought it’d be like, and then suddenly my phone was yodeling (my default ring). I almost didn’t pick up, it was so overwhelming.
The first ten seconds were odd, clipped sentences and long pauses. “Do you feel like you’re listening to the morning announcements?” Evan asked.
“That’s a stupid thing to say,” I said.
He laughed, and then I laughed, and then it felt more normal. Evan said that with Mr. Martinez calling him out last week and all, he was really nervous about improv. It was the first time I’d heard him express vulnerability about anything. It was nice, like he felt he could open up to me.
“I’m nervous too,” I said. “My main memory from last week is getting fake cake shoved in my face, and I feel like anything I did well that first week was just good luck.”
“No way,” he said. “You’re really talented.”
That was nice too.
“I’ve just never done long-form before,” he continued, “and I might be really bad at it.” We talked about it awhile, and the strange part is, knowing he was so uneasy actually made me feel calmer.
Now PA Evan is making some dumb joke about athletes needing to get order forms in for their varsity jackets or else they’ll have to make their own jackets at home out of construction paper. I don’t fully get it, but it makes me smile just because of how confidently he says it. So different from the worried dude I talked to last night. And none of these people listening to the announcements have heard that side of him. Makes me feel cool, like I’m in on a secret.
And it’s definitely a better secret to be in on than the Dad-is-seriously-ill one. After the Weekend of Falls, Mom threatened to leave Dad if he didn’t start acknowledging the reality of his situation. I don’t think it was a serious threat, but it was still pretty intense and served as a kind of wake-up call for him. As a start, she said, he needed to get a cane because she couldn’t handle him falling every other day. I actually agreed with her, though I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to get entangled in their fight (more than I already am).
So when I got home from school Tuesday, Dad was waiting in the doorway with an iridescent cane, the metallic blue at the top blending into metallic purple in the middle and metallic pink at the bottom. It reminded me a lot of my bike in elementary school and clearly it reminded Dad, too, because he’d attached to the handle of his cane the same white streamers that had once protruded from my bike’s handlebars. Not only that, but he was decked out in his white suit and white top hat (he’d had to get a white suit as a groomsman for Cory and Ed’s wedding; the hat was his own idea) and a monocle like the Monopoly guy.
“Wow, Dad,” I said, cracking up.
“Whattaya think of the new look?” he asked, attempting to spin the cane but then thinking better of it after getting a little wobbly on his feet.
“I think I love it,” I said. “What’s with the monocle?”
“I’ve always worn this,” he said, totally deadpan.
“Oh, right, but you usually wear it on your other eye.”
He seemed so genuinely pleased with his cane that I assumed he’d gotten over whatever reservations he’d had. But when I came home from school yesterday and put away my jacket, I saw his cane in the closet. Less than an hour later, when Dad walked in from teaching his theater class, I asked about it. I didn’t want to be annoying, but I knew how important it was to Mom.
“Oh,” Dad said. “Yeah, I forgot to bring the cane. But I don’t really need it there, anyway. These days I spend most of class sitting down.” When I’d been to his classes in the past, he pretty much never sat down, so clearly he’d had to adjust. Or maybe he was bending the truth a bit. Either way, I didn’t want to be too pushy about it.
“Please don’t tell Mom,” Dad said. “I have been using the cane when it’s really necessary.”
I hated being in that position, having to lie to Mom on Dad’s behalf. But I also got that this wasn’t the easiest situation for Dad to be in.
“Fine,” I said. “But I am telling her you stopped wearing the monocle.”
“No! Don’t do it! She says that monocle is the only reason she married me.”
“Well, I relate. It’s the only reason I chose you as my dad.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I don’t know how freaked out I should be. I’ve thought on the daily about googling ALS for myself, but then I remember what I read on Azadeh’s phone that night, and I can’t do it. Dad seems to want to pretend nothing has changed. It’s a bit we do well together, our banter helping to relieve the pain. So, if he wants to keep putting that out there, I will Yes, and till the cows come home.
Support your partner no matter what, right?
Just like every week, Mr. Martinez isn’t there yet when I arrive at the auditorium, so I immediately scan the rows for Leili, who has a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.
“Where’d you get that?” I ask.
“Stole it from the teachers’ lounge,” Leili says, all nonchalant, taking a sip.
“What? Really?” Leili’s driven but she’s also a rule follower.
“Well, not exactly stole. Mrs. Fumarola got it for me.” That’s more like it.
“Of course she did.” Mrs. Fumarola is the yearbook advisor, and Leili is her all-time favorite student. That’s not hyperbole. She goes around telling people.
“Hey, if you worked your butt off on Yearbook ten hours a week, I’m sure you could be her favorite too.”
“Any other perks besides free coffee?”
Leili makes her mouth-to-the-side thinking face. “She gave me a Kind bar once.”
“Yeah, I’ll pass.” Evan is perched on the back of a seat in the front row, speaking in a weird voice and cracking up Dan Blern and Mahesh, seated below him on either side. He doesn’t look like someone who’s feeling anxious, but then maybe this is what that looks like for him: ham dials turned up to eleven.
“You can go sit over there with him if you want,” Leili says.
“What? Gross, no. I want to sit with you.”
“Okay, just giving you the option.”
“You’re a ridiculously impressive human being, you know that?”
“I do.” Leili smiles.
“Hey, are you okay, by the way?”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno. Just, like, with Oz dating someone. I didn’t know if that was weird for you or not.”
“It’s not weird.”
“Oh. Okay. Good.”
“I’m happy for her.”
“Of course, yeah. I am too.”
“Hello hello,” Mr. Martinez says, palpably shifting the energy in the room as he strides down the aisle. “Sorry I’m late. Let’s all get right up onstage.” Mr. Martinez vaults onto the playing space, giving us a good look at those surprisingly-hip-for-a-teacher two-tone blue shoes.
“Here we go,” Fletcher says from behind me as Leili and I take the stairs.
“Oh hey,” I say.
“Time for some improv duty,” he says.
“Huh?”
“It’s from the, uh, when we were at the supermarket. Like toilet paper du—”
“Oh yes!” I say. I wish I’d gotten his reference right away. He probably feels ridiculous now. “Improv duty. Totally.”
We arrive onstage, everyone standing in a circle. There’s a spot right next to Evan, but I don’t want to ditch Leili for a guy. So she, Fletcher, and I end up standing together on the opposite side from him.
Evan pouts out his lip while motioning me over with his head, which makes me smile. It’s too late now, so I laugh like he’s making a joke and redirect my attention to Mr. Martinez, who has begun speaking.
“So I want to start by reiterating how brave everyone was last week,” he says. “I really threw you all into the long-form fire, so to speak, and you all did good.”
“Did well,” Evan says in a jokey disciplinarian voice, which gets a nice laugh, even though I think it’s kind of rude to correct a teacher.
“Ha, yes,” Mr. Martinez says, “pardon my grammar. You all did well. Gotta love a good adverb stickler.” He points at Evan, somewhat sarcastically, and Evan bows his head. “But this week, we’re going to get back to some of the basics, do some exercises and drills, probably no time for long-form scene work.”
Leili looks disappointed, and several students good-naturedly boo.
“I know, I know.” Mr. Martinez smiles and gestures with his hands, like Keep it coming. “Get all the boos out. But this will make us better improvisers. You think Steph Curry played his first game and then said, ‘Okay, I’m all set, I got this basketball thing all figured out now’?”
I side-glance at Leili—my Explain this to me, please look—who quietly says, “He’s on the Warriors.”
“The what?”
“It’s a basketball team.”
“Oh.”
“Heh,” Fletcher softly chuckles, clearly having overheard.
“Of course not!” Mr. Martinez says. “Dude’s already won multiple championships, and he’s still out there every day, coming up with new ways to challenge himself, doing drills, shooting baskets from half-court with a blindfold over his eyes. And that’s what I want for all of you: to always be improving.”
Though I had no idea who Steph Curry was a minute ago, I’m finding myself weirdly inspired. I want to improve. I can. I will be the Steph Curry of improv. Somebody get me a blindfold.
“All right, enough of me jabbering. Let’s get our Nameball on. And in the spirit of Steph, I’ll start it off…with a basketball.” Of course that inspires cringe chills because, come on, it’s super-cheesy, but mixed in with those chills is a fiery determination that must be kind of like what athletes feel when they are doing sports. (I’d be more specific in my simile construction, but my involvement with athletics has been limited, and the involvement I have had, I’ve tried to block out.)
Nameball is followed by Zip-Zap-Zop (the clapping-shouting game) and One-Word Story, and by the end, I’m feeling ready to, like, do twenty slam dunks.
“Okay!” Mr. Martinez says. “Our main exercise today is going to be about creating and exploring our environment within the scene. Obviously in improv we don’t have actual sets or actual props, so we’re always miming. And, no joke, scenes can be made or broken by the level of the improvisers’ commitment to the physical reality of the scene.”
“Miming?” I say to Leili, who nods.
“Shit yeah,” Fletcher says, more to himself than me.
“And this means exploring the environment on your own but also paying close attention to what your partner has discovered. It’s still Yes, and, but on a nonverbal wavelength. For example, if your scene partner establishes that there’s a table right over here”—Mr. Martinez swirls his arm around like a spastic wizard casting a spell—“and you don’t notice so you just straight-up walk through the table, that’s going to take the entire audience out of the scene. You feel me?”
Everyone nods. Only Molly Graham-Crockett responds aloud: “Totally.”
“Instead, you say YES, there’s a table over there, AND there’s plates on that table too!” I’ve never seen someone so excited about plates, real or imaginary. “So that’s what this exercise will be all about. Don’t worry so much about the scene, worry more about discovering the environment.”
“Totally,” Molly Graham-Crockett says again.
“Now which of our intrepid improvisers want to go first?”
“Hey,” Fletcher says as he shoots his hand up in the air. It’s the most confident I’ve seen him since the supermarket aisle.
“Great,” Mr. Martinez says, as visibly surprised by Fletcher’s confidence as I am. “Anyone else?”
My arm shoots into the air before I’ve consciously decided to volunteer. “Winnie.” Mr. Martinez is again pleasantly caught off guard, and hearing him say my name jolts me into reality too. Not sure why I threw my hand into the air. I think seeing Fletcher so confident made me feel like I wanted to be a part of whatever was about to happen. As I move into the circle, I catch a look on Evan’s face that might be jealousy, which, though it wasn’t my intention, is not unpleasant.
“So here’s the deal,” Mr. Martinez says. “Fletcher’s going to start the scene by doing some activity to establish an environment. Totally nonverbal. Then Winnie’s going to come in and add something. And then Fletcher can build on that and so on and so on…”
“So no talking at all?” I ask. I am not, nor have I ever been, much of a mime. What have I signed up for?
“I mean,” Mr. Martinez says, “you can exchange some words here and there. But the words shouldn’t be what the scene is about, if that makes sense. What the scene is about should be happening in the physicality.”
“Um, okay,” I say, glancing over at Fletcher, who’s staring straight ahead, nodding his head to the beat of some song only he can hear.
“All right?” Mr. Martinez asks, looking at both of us with care and concern, like he genuinely wants to make sure we’re fully equipped for this exercise in make-believe. It’s endearing.
“Sure,” I say at the same time as Fletcher says, “Oh yeah.”
“Great. Let’s get you two a word.”
“Heat!” Jess Yang shouts. I can’t help but think she’s trying to steer Fletcher and me into some kind of romantic scene in order to screw with Evan. I’m not normally so paranoid, but she was a total a-hole to me last week. So.
“Heat,” Mr. Martinez says, stepping aside. “Go for it.”
The wheels in Fletcher’s head spin for a few moments before he nods definitively and starts to grimace. At first I think it’s because he can’t think of anything, but then I realize he’s already started. He exhales as he undoes the two top buttons on his shirt, even though he’s wearing a T-shirt with no buttons. As he moves his imaginary collar back and forth and loosens his invisible tie, it’s completely obvious to me and the whole room that this type of improv is Fletcher’s sweet spot.
His miming is truly next-level. It’s like I can see every detail of the scene he’s setting, with him as this dude coming home from work on a hot day, taking a load off. Fletcher takes a few steps and struggles to open a nonexistent window, followed by the screen, and then looks authentically relieved as he sticks his top half outside the window frame. I’m so absorbed that Mr. Martinez has to whisper my name to remind me that I’m supposed to join in.
I don’t know how to contribute to this mastery, so I just extend my arm, cupping my hand as if I’m holding a glass of lemonade. I move it from side to side to indicate there’s ice inside. I don’t think it achieves the effect I’m going for.
“Hey,” I say to Fletcher, whose back is to me as he continues to cool off outside a window that’s not actually there.
“Huh?” he says, so convincingly that I’m thinking maybe he forgot I was in the scene with him.
“Oh, here,” I say, trying not to speak too much as I hand him the glass.
“Cool, thanks.” Fletcher turns around and takes the glass from me, then tilts it as if to pour the lemonade all over the ground. Of course, he had no idea it was lemonade. Or that it was a glass. I see that his free hand is now in a fist, suspended in the air a little way down from the other hand, and I realize he’s decided I’ve handed him some kind of pole. He hefts it into the air with a grunt and uses it to open a high-up window above us. He is clearly a mime genius. “Get a breeze going,” Fletcher says as he leans the huge pole against the wall.
“Right,” I say, no clue what to do next.
Luckily, it doesn’t matter because Fletcher slaps his neck and scowls, and I instantly get it. A fly. It just came in through the newly opened window. I’m telling you, next-level.
I’m excited because I’ve had an idea, thinking I’ll take out a flyswatter, but again, Fletcher is a step ahead of me, retrieving the huge pole thing from the wall and starting to flail it around. Hilarious. And much better than an obvious flyswatter.
“Oh shoot, sorry,” Fletcher says as his hands jerk, like the invisible pole has made contact with something above us.
“That was a new chandelier,” I say in a frustrated voice, which gets a huge laugh.
“I know,” he says, placing the pole down at his feet, then looking around the room with intensity, as if he actually is tracking a buzzing fly. “That’s why I said sorry.”
“Try this,” I say, holding up the invisible flyswatter I’d intended to bring out earlier.
“A welding torch?” Fletcher says. “You crazy? You’re gonna burn the house down.”
It’s so surprising and delightful, I can’t help but laugh.
“Stay committed to what’s happening,” Mr. Martinez tells me. “It’s going great.”
I put the swatter-turned-welding-torch down. “You’re right,” I tell Fletcher. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Don’t move,” he says, his attention laser-focused on me.
“Huh?” I turn my head in his direction.
“I said don’t move!”
“Oh.” I freeze, contorting my face in this goofy way that gets some laughs.
“It’s on your head,” Fletcher whispers. “I think I can get it.”
His commitment to this moment is so deep that I find myself raising my own game, exploring the comedic potential of my physicality in ways that would make Lucille Ball proud. I screw up my face and hunch my neck, staring upward as if Fletcher’s imagination has manifested an actual fly on the top of my skull.
The whole room is rapt as he steps closer to me, silently, gracefully, a hunter stalking his tiny prey. He raises one hand in the air, as if ready to smack the fly. Which should be concerning, as that means he’ll soon be smacking me in the head, but I’m so in the scene, I don’t even care. Fletcher wraps his hand around my wrist, as if to ground himself before he swings.
A chill rolls down my spine as Fletcher’s hand, simultaneously strong and soft, touches my skin.
“Okay, here we go,” he says, raising his other hand higher in the air.
“And let’s end it there,” Mr. Martinez says. “Before Winnie’s parents file a lawsuit against me.” Everyone laughs. I don’t because I’m still shaking off the scene, wishing it could have gone on a little longer. Fletcher takes his hand off my arm. My wrist feels like it’s glowing. “Nice work, you two. That’s the level of commitment we’re talking about with this stuff. Excellent. Set the bar real high.”
I look at Fletcher, who looks how I feel, blinking and reorienting himself to his surroundings, the fire of thirty seconds ago nowhere to be found. He gives me a bashful smile as we walk back to our spots in the circle. I smile back.
“That was really good,” Leili says to Fletcher and me.
“Thanks,” Fletcher says.
“Were you actually going to smack Winnie in the head?”
“I was wondering that too,” I say.
“Nah,” Fletcher says. “The fly was gonna get away before I could do that. I was thinking I might smack myself a bit, though, if it had gone on longer.”
“Wow,” Leili says.
“All right,” Mr. Martinez says, “who wants to follow that up?”
Evan practically leaps into the center of the circle, a man possessed. He and Mahesh do a scene where they play video games in a basement. Evan’s trying really hard to push the buttons on his pretend controller in a way that seems realistic, but he mainly seems spastic. Which is sort of endearing. Mahesh is sloppier and unspecific, looking much more like a dude with twitchy fingers than someone playing a video game.
Once their scene is done, Evan heads back to his spot in the circle and gives me a look and a big smile, like How’d you like THAT? I move my hand back and forth like It was so-so, and Evan’s face falls. I quickly smile and mouth I’m kidding as I give him two thumbs up.
The rest of the scenes are all fine—my favorite is with Leili and Dan Blern, who are paleontologists carefully uncovering dinosaur fossils; Leili accidentally uses the wrong brush and a rare bone crumbles hilariously in her hand—but none of them can match the brilliance of Fletcher Handy.
As Leili and I pack up (Dad is picking us up today) once rehearsal ends, I’m excited to tell Fletcher how great he was and how fun it was to improvise with him, but he’s already dashing out the auditorium door.
“Dan Blern always smells like Cheetos,” Leili says quietly as I watch Fletcher disappear. “Have you ever noticed that?”
“Maybe sometimes,” I say.
“He’s a nice guy,” she continues. “I just really smelled it during our scene.”
“Hey, girl,” Evan says, startling both Leili and me by inserting his head in between ours. “You were really funny today. You too, Leili.”
“Thanks,” Leili and I say at the same time. Evan seems a little jumpier than usual.
“Did you like my scene with Mahesh?” he asks. “It was kinda stupid, right?”
“Oh,” I say. “No, it was great. So funny.”
“Yeah. It was good,” Leili says.
“Hey, do you wanna maybe hang out sometime?” He spits it out so quickly that it almost seems like he’s directing the question at both me and Leili. But then Leili takes a few steps away, and Evan doesn’t tell her not to.
“Oh,” I say, heat rushing to my face. With all the texting we’ve done lately, I assumed this is the direction we were moving in, but it’s still a surprise. “Yeah. Sure.”
“Yeah?” Evan says, visibly relieved. Until this moment, I didn’t realize just how nervous he was. It’s sweet.
“Yeah, totally. Let’s, you know, hang out sometime.”
“She said yes!” Evan shouts up to the high auditorium ceiling.