Chapter 43

THE LONG RIDE TO NOWHERESVILLE

I roll into rehearsal and I don’t choke or freeze or bomb.

I’m actually pretty good, if I say so myself.

So, the next morning, knowing there’s only four more days before the big live broadcast on Friday night, I’m raring to go. The more we rehearse, the more confident I feel.

I roll out the door bright and early.

The limo isn’t there. Neither is my tutor, Ms. Warkentien.

Instead, BNC has sent an Access-A-Ride handicapped taxi and a driver named Fred.

Guess there’ve been some budget cuts on Jamie Funnie.

While Fred is hoisting me up on the hydraulic chairlift, Gilda, Gaynor, and Pierce come running up the sidewalk.

“Jamie!” shouts Gilda. “Wait! This is super-important!” She’s waving a sheet of paper.

“Um, can we wait a second, Fred?”

The driver shrugs. “Whatever. My meter’s running.” He ambles over to the driver’s seat, leaving me suspended halfway between the sidewalk and the van.

“Where’s the limo, dude?” asks Gaynor, eye-balling my humble handicapped van.

“This is no way to treat a TV star,” adds Pierce.

“So, uh, what’s so super-important?” I ask Gilda, basically ignoring Gaynor and Pierce.

“I just found out there’s a deadline. For my film. Okay, I could’ve found out, like, last week, but I forgot to read the fine print on the e-mail.…”

Fine print? I can relate.

“I have to send in my finished movie in two days! That means we have to shoot this afternoon so I have at least a day to put it all together.”

“We’ve scheduled the filming for four o’clock,” says Pierce. “On the boardwalk.”

“Cool,” I say.

Pierce checks his notebook, where I see he has drawn up some kind of scheduling flowchart. “You typically wrap your rehearsals around three, so you have an hour for the commute from Queens.”

“You can even get there around four thirty,” says Gilda. “We’ll have to set up the cameras and lights and stuff. Vincent will be getting into his bully costume and makeup around three.”

“But,” says Pierce, checking his chart, “we have to be completely done in time to return all the camera gear to the rental facility by eight.”

“So be there or be square,” adds Gaynor. “Uncle Frankie taught me that. People used to say it in, like, the Civil War or something.”

“But I can’t say for sure they’ll let me out at three,” I tell my friends.

“Why not?” says Gilda. “You’re the star. Hello? They can’t do Jamie Funnie without a Jamie playing Jamie.”

“But it’s not that simple—”

“Then make it simple.”

Finally, Fred the driver starts honking his horn.

“Hey, look at me,” he shouts. “I’m a tooter now, just like you wanted. Can we leave already? I’ve got two more pickups at the old folks’ home.”

“Four o’clock, Jamie,” Gilda pleads. “Otherwise, I don’t have a movie. And if I don’t have a movie, I won’t have a college scholarship, either.”

I nod.

I understand.

I also know that if I goof up again on Jamie Funnie, Uncle Frankie won’t have a diner.

And I won’t have a house.