I can’t stop looking at Evan’s face.
I wish I meant that romantically.
We’re at improv, and Mr. Martinez has all of us attempting an actual Harold for the first time. Here’s (my limited understanding of) how a Harold works: It starts with a one-word suggestion, which inspires a group game, all of us onstage. In our case, we’re doing a stream-of-consciousness word association as further inspiration for the scenes that will follow, each of us shouting a word brought to mind by what the person before us said.
After we’ve all said a word, a scene begins with two performers, everyone else moving to the back of the stage. The scene keeps going until a performer not in the scene ends it by running across the front of the stage (that’s called an edit), after which an entirely different scene begins. Then another. Then another group game, after which we return to the stories and characters of those first three unrelated scenes, then another group game, then back to those three scenes to wrap them up and show how they’re actually all connected in these unexpected ways (like maybe a character from the first scene turns out to be the brother of a character in the third scene) (I don’t fully get what I’m talking about, that’s just the example Mr. Martinez gave). When done well, it’s supposed to be really amazing, like you’ve taken the audience on this journey, almost like an improvised play, surprising them (and yourself) with the way everything’s come together.
I don’t think we’re doing it well, though.
Since the entire Harold is inspired by one word (this rehearsal’s suggestion, provided by the ever-inventive Shannon Niola, is food) and then flows from there, it’s up to us to jump in instead of Mr. Martinez picking people scene by scene. Totally by coincidence, Evan and I both jumped out to start the second scene, which you’d think would be a fun thing, getting to do a scene with my boyfriend for the first time.
It wasn’t.
Ever since Mrs. Costa fell in love with me on the announcements Tuesday morning, Evan’s been super-weird, swinging from ooey-gooey-affectionate to pouty-mean, then back again. We’ve continued doing the announcements together, but it’s clear that he wishes I weren’t there. Which is bizarre since he’s the one who invited me to do them in the first place. It’s awkward enough that I decided not to go to the Speech and Debate meeting yesterday.
“I just feel like we should have some stuff that we, like, don’t do together,” Evan said right before the meeting as he walked me to the bus after eighth period.
“Fine,” I said, even though he’s the one who started sitting with me at lunch not thirty seconds after we started flirting with each other. “I don’t even care about Speech and Debate!” And that’s mainly the truth. I don’t have any burning desire to give speeches or to debate things, but I figured I’d at least show my appreciation for Mrs. Costa’s enthusiasm by showing up and seeing what the deal is. But nope, my new boyfriend doesn’t want me there. Cool!
“Aight, I gotta run to practice so I’m not late,” Evan said, leaning in to give me a half-hearted kiss I could have done without.
Then last night he called me, enthusiastic and flirtatious and goofy, and told me he did an impromptu speech at practice that went so well, everyone “lost their shit,” with no acknowledgment whatsoever that I could have been at that practice, was in fact supposed to be, until he put the kibosh on it.
“What even is impromptu?” I asked, my voice inflected with just a hint of attitude. “I still have no idea.”
“Oh,” Evan said, suddenly sheepish. “It’s like, you get a topic, and then you have seven minutes to come up with a speech inspired by it. Well, not even a speech, it’s almost like a little one-man show. Or one-person show. Sometimes there are different characters and stuff.”
“That’s really cool,” I said, suddenly struck by a powerful case of FOMO. Why didn’t I go to that practice? Because it was going to make Evan all pouty? That’s a terrible reason!
“It is,” Evan said, going on to describe in detail what he did in his impromptu speech, which involved lightsabers, an asteroid headed toward Earth, a malfunctioning robot, and Pennywise, the clown from It. Maybe you had to be there.
When he finally finished, I lied and said I had to go help my parents with something. He was disappointed and said he couldn’t wait to see me tomorrow. I agreed, but after I hung up, I stared at the ceiling and wondered what I was doing in this relationship. Did I even like Evan like that anymore? Had I ever?
Maybe I wasn’t being entirely fair. I had stolen half of the announcements from him, which was probably a little jarring. And I definitely can relate to the feeling that things are moving too fast, becoming a bit suffocating. Plus, I still think Evan’s cute, and we still make each other laugh sometimes. He’s fun to text with. I figured I’d give it another week.
This morning, though, Evan started the announcements charming but, by the end, he was chilly at best. He spent lunch at the library again.
So, of course, the last thing I’d want to do is jump into a frigging scene with him. But once we were both standing there in the playing space, neither of us wanted to back down. I looked at him with my loving girlfriend eyes, trying desperately to make things right between us before the scene started. He looked away.
But his assholeishness was fuel for my fire. I dove into our scene, initiating with a character inspired by this guy Anthony who works at Luigi’s Pizza (Dad and I do stupid impressions of him all the time), and I killed. Seriously, I was getting all the laughs.
And that is why I can’t stop looking at Evan’s face. During the scene, and even now that it’s over, he’s seemed a mix of broken and furious.
“Are you okay?” I asked him quietly as we walked to the back line after our scene.
“Yeah, totally,” he said, barely glancing at me.
“Are we okay?”
He didn’t answer, instead choosing to walk to a spot as far away from me as possible.
Not exactly a confidence booster.
And, like a terrible improviser, I’ve barely been able to pay attention to the scenes unfolding because I’m too busy sneaking glances at Evan, hoping to catch a smile or a wink or anything that might indicate he doesn’t wish I were dead.
Naturally, as is the way of the Harold, our scene is about to return. Super. I step back into the space at the same time as Evan. He looks slightly possessed.
“Yo, welcome to Anthony’s Pizza,” I say in a huge voice with my probably offensive over-the-top Italian accent, my chest puffed out. “What can I get for you?” People crack up as much as they did the first time around.
“Uh,” Evan says. “We’re not actually in a pizza place, you know. You’re just a homeless person.”
This gets a huge laugh, even though I can tell a lot of people also recognize that Evan has violated the key principle of Yes, and. Leili looks pissed. Fletcher, too. I refuse to sink to Evan’s level, though.
“I prefer the term street dweller, but thank you.” I wish he hadn’t put me in a position where I have to make light of homeless people. “But I am the best street pizza maker in the city! Look! I got a little oven over here and everything.”
“That’s just a box,” Evan says. More laughs.
Well, fine, I can be an asshole, too.
“No!” I shout, throwing one expressive hand in the air the way Anthony does when he’s making a point. “It’s an oven! Mamma mia, maybe you need some new glasses or something. Thinking an oven is a box. Either that or you got spaghetti for brains!” This gets a large laugh, winning everyone back over to my side.
“Nope, it’s definitely a box,” Evan says. This time not so many people laugh, as it’s a fairly blatant improv block. “And that’s not pizza in there, it’s a soggy magazine.”
“Heyyy!” I say, the way Dad and I have said many, many times, mimicking this moment when Anthony watched a delivery guy accidentally drop a pizza on his way out the door. “Why you come to my restaurant if you don’t like the pizza?”
“Because it’s actually a gross magazine.”
“It’s delicious pizza!”
Our peers’ heads snap back and forth between us, like they’re watching a tennis match.
“Magazine.”
“Pizza!”
“Magazine.”
“Pizza!”
“Magazine.”
We’ve now been reduced to a Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck–style confrontation, and I don’t know how to get out of it. I’m still in mild shock that Evan’s being such a dick to me in front of everybody.
Mr. Martinez seems like he’s on the verge of stopping the scene, but since he hasn’t yet, I will.
“Hey, hey, you know what?” I say. “You’re right, it’s a gross magazine.” I do some impeccable object work to mime picking it up by one corner. “Stupid Jerk Weekly. This’ll be a great read for you.”
Everyone gasps, some letting out a quiet “Ohhhh!”
I probably shouldn’t have said that.
Evan’s keeping up his apathetic façade, but I can tell I made a direct hit.
“Okay, okay,” Mr. Martinez says, and it’s immediately obvious he doesn’t know how to deal with this situation. “This, uh, scene has gotten a bit out of hand. What, uh— Let’s, uh, try and track back and see where we went off the rails.”
“Probably when she called me a stupid jerk,” Evan mutters, not looking at me.
“Right, sure, that was inappropriate, Winnie—”
“It was a character choice!” I say, knowing that’s very untrue but feeling compelled to defend myself.
“Okay, let me turn this question over to all of you.” Mr. Martinez looks out at the rest of the troupe. “Does anyone—”
“From the second this scene started, Evan wasn’t supporting any of Winnie’s choices,” Jess Yang says, her strong voice booming across the stage. It’s so unexpected, I have to squint to make sure the words aren’t coming from someone else.
“Right, yes!” Mr. Martinez says, as if Jess has knocked his circuitry back into working order. “Say more about that.”
“What’s there to say?” Jess rolls her eyes. “Winnie began with a strong, interesting character and Evan kept denying the reality of her choices. No, but instead of Yes, and.”
Did Jess just say I did something strong and interesting?
“Totally,” Leili says. “Like, it was funny, but cheap funny.” Leili, oh Leili, love of my life Leili.
“Like, for real,” Rashanda says. “I think lots of us were just laughing because we were shocked he was playing it like that.”
“Never heard of shock humor?” Evan says in a quiet voice only I can hear.
“What was that?” Mr. Martinez asks.
“Nothing.” Evan bites his thumbnail.
“I thought Winnie’s character was actually kind of obvious,” Mahesh says. “Like, we’ve all seen that Italian stereotype before. So when Evan was saying all that stuff, I thought it subverted the scene in a great way.”
Evan’s spirits are up for the first time all afternoon, and he’s nodding along with Mahesh’s point. Stupid jerk.
Sure, maybe my Italian guy character could have used some more nuance, but that is not why the scene sucked. And Mahesh and Evan and Tim and Dan do annoying stereotypical characters all the damn time.
“All right,” Mr. Martinez says. “I think there are insights to be drawn from all of those comments, so let’s see if we can learn from them as we continue with this.”
Oh man, he did not just end the discussion like that. Insights from all of those comments? But Leili and Fletcher are already coming onstage for the third scene, so I march back to my spot, seeing flames the whole time.
Leili and Fletcher do a scene where they’re ants in the process of moving to a new anthill, and it’s, of course, incredible. They listen to each other. They make discoveries. They collaborate. I’m very jealous.
I know that somewhere buried under my anger, I’m sad, too. I don’t know why Evan suddenly hates me so much, but it sucks. I don’t want to be mad at him. I wouldn’t even be here at improv practice, or doing the morning announcements, if it weren’t for him.
When our scene comes back around, I step out, but Evan doesn’t, so Rashanda jumps in, playing Evan’s sister. Our scene goes okay, but I’m barely thinking about it.
“And let’s black out there!” Mr. Martinez says. “Well, there you have it. You all just completed your first Harold.” Everyone cheers and whoops. I only sorta do, as I don’t feel very cheery. “Not bad at all! Some bumpy parts, but that could have been much worse. Bravo. This week please think about moments where you could have made stronger, more helpful choices, so we can learn from this and get better. Because reminder: our first performance of the year, the Homecoming week show, is just two weeks from tomorrow!” More cheering. More whooping. “Again, this should be very low stress: one Harold, about thirty minutes long, and I will let the audience know we are still new at this. But also don’t slack off—we need to be as good as we possibly can. If we do well, they might allot us more money in the budget! But don’t even worry about that—we’re just gonna have fun.” Mr. Martinez seems suddenly exhausted. “Okay, see you next week, everybody.”
As we’re all filing offstage, I’m still pissed, but I know that if I don’t go talk to Evan right now, I’m gonna feel crappy about it all night.
“Hey,” I say, touching his back. He flinches away. “Can we talk?”
“Oh. Sure. I actually was gonna ask you the same thing.”
Thank god. I can’t explain what a relief it is to hear him say that. He nods at Tim, who heads out. “Great,” I say, “because I want to make sure—”
“You know, you’re not really doing improv,” Evan interrupts.
“Excuse me?”
“Like, you have all these prebaked characters with all these catchphrases and lines you’ve thought about beforehand. That’s not improv. I mean, it’s fine and funny and whatever, but just so you know.”
“Oh.” My eyes are thick with shocked, angry tears.
“Anyway, I gotta roll.” He walks up the aisle and out of the auditorium before I’m even able to think the words Fuck you, let alone say them.
That’s what he wanted to talk about?
What a supreme douche. My boyfriend is a supreme douche.
It’s all very disorienting. I barely know where I am.
“Hey,” a voice behind me says, and I’m assuming it’s Leili, but it’s not. It’s Jess Yang.
“Oh, hi,” I say.
“Are you okay?”
“I…don’t even know.”
“Well, whatever he said to you, you should ignore him. It’s not worth it.”
I’m not sure why or when Jess has become my guardian angel, but I’m not entirely minding it. She looks down at her hands, pulling at her own fingers. “Also…I wanted to say sorry. For being such a bitch to you this past month.”
“Oh.”
“Evan and I broke up before school started, and I hated that you were his new person. But it was awful of me to take it out on you. And…” Jess looks away, possibly fighting back tears. “When I did that scene with you”—she’s whispering now—“I was trying to come up with something emotional and mean to say, but I didn’t know…I didn’t know about…”
Leili must have told Jess about my father. “Oh, it’s okay,” I say. “I mean, it sucked, but I figured you didn’t know.”
Jess nods. We sit in a mildly awkward silence until it’s interrupted by Leili.
“Hey, Winner,” she says. “I have to run, my mom is here.”
“I thought we were giving you a ride home,” I say.
“No, because I have a thing to go to.” Leili looks vaguely sheepish. Usually I know about all the things she would be going to, but she seems like she’s in a hurry, so I don’t press her.
“All right, I’ll catch you later, then.”
“I have to run too,” my new friend Jess says, which is how I find myself putting my jacket on alone in the empty auditorium.