Take a Lemon

I still felt like a fraud whenever I entered a public ladies’ room; usually I just kept my eyes straight ahead and went into an open stall because I was afraid to be seen staring at the girls. This time, I had a different mission, and I had no clue how to accomplish it, so I pulled my cell phone out of my book bag, turned it on, and called home. Mom answered.

“Marsh!” she laughed. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about us.”

Oh, right. Tina had said that Marsha spoke to Mom on a regular basis. That had never been my pattern, and I’d forgotten.

“So are you going to catch me up on things? How’s the play going?”

“Actually, Mom…” I said, cringing in guilt, “I’m on a quick break during rehearsal. I promise to call you as soon as it’s over, but right now I just need to ask Tina something. Is she around?”

The disappointment in Mom’s voice was evident, as was her attempt to hide it. “Of course, dear. Let me go get her.”

I paced the floor nervously, while waiting for Tina to pick up the phone. I wasn’t sure how long was reasonable for a girl to “fix her makeup,” but it was likely that I’d go over that and draw unwanted attention. So when she did answer, I almost yelled in eagerness.

“Teen, I was told to ‘fix my makeup.’ How do I do that?”

“Whoa, back up a second, Marsh. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“OK,” I said, “I was –” I broke off, suddenly realizing that I was about to confess to my sister that I had been crying. It’s normal for a girl, I reminded myself. Tina will understand. Still, habits die hard and admitting a weakness like that… I shook my head and plowed on.

“I was crying,” I forced out, “and I guess I must have messed up my makeup, and I need to fix it. How do I do that?”

“Why were you crying?”

“Does it matter?”

“Is everything OK?”

Why did she have to pry right now when I needed help? “I’m fine, Teen. Look, I’ll call you after rehearsal, OK? I’ll tell you all about it, but right now I just need to know how to fix it. Please?”

“Wait! You’re in the middle of rehearsal?”

“Tina!” I realized that I was shouting, and somebody in the hallway could have heard me. Plus, I probably shouldn’t have been yelling at my sister when I wanted her to help me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Teen. I’m just a bit nervous. The director yelled at me and I got upset and now I need to fix my makeup. Could you help me, please?”

“Sure, Marsh. I’ll try. Um… it depends on what’s wrong.”

I waited, but all I heard was silence. Apparently, she was waiting, too, and I hadn’t realized that it as my turn to speak again. She figured it out first and prompted me. “Marsh? So what is wrong with your makeup?”

“Oh! Wait. Let me check.” I had just taken Jared’s word for it that there was something wrong. In retrospect, maybe I should have looked at myself before calling Tina. I did so, now.

“Ok, I have these black lines part way down my cheeks,” I reported, and my cheeks are kind of blotchy.”

“Sounds pretty normal,” she said. “Blot the mascara as carefully as you can to keep from making it worse, and take out your concealer.”

“My what?”

“Concealer. You should have some in your purse.”

“Um, I don’t actually have that purse with me,” I admitted.

“What?!” I winced from the volume of her outrage. “Marsh, where is your purse?”

“I left it in my room,” I explained. “I only needed something for my script and my keys, so I took my book bag, instead.”

“No,” she scolded me. “Your purse goes with you. Always. Marsha never leaves her purse in her room. Now look – how are you going to fix your makeup without it?”

“Quite frankly,” I told her, starting to get a bit annoyed, “I don’t care about ‘my’ makeup. Why do girls have to wear makeup if it’s just going to get messed up when they cry? This doesn’t make any sense. I don’t get the whole thing. Guys aren’t attracted to girls because of their makeup.”

“Marsh?” Tina’s voice was very quiet over the phone, so I had to calm down to hear her.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want help or not? Marsha wears makeup. You’re in the bathroom, right? You’ve probably already been there long enough for the cast and director to start wondering what’s wrong, and you haven’t even started to fix the problem with your face. You don’t have your purse, which means that we’re going to have to improvise and I don’t really want to hear some boy who thinks he can be a better sister to me than my real sister complain about all the trouble we girls go to in order to look good for a bunch of ignorant and ungrateful boys!”

She’d said the whole thing in a quiet but intense tone of voice, and I don’t think she could have gotten my attention better if she had reached through the phone and slapped me. Through all of my complaining, she’d been incredible supportive, despite the fact that I had told her that I wanted to undo the change, with costs to her that she feared terribly. I didn’t know how to respond. I kept looking around as though there were a simple answer written on the walls or something. Something that would tell me what to do with my hands, or my feet, or any other part of me that had suddenly found no comfortable place to land.

“Sorry, Teen,” I finally whispered. “Just tell me what to do.”

Suddenly, the bathroom door opened.

“Marsh?” Nikki called, as she came in. “Are you in here?” Then she saw me. “Are you alright? What are you doing?”

“Um…”

“Everybody’s waiting for you. Are you…?” She stopped and looked at my face. “Problems with your makeup?”

“Um… I forgot my purse, and… I called my sister to help me figure out what to do…”

Nikkia tsk’ed at my foolishness, and opened her own purse. “Come over to the sink; I’ll take care of you.”

“Ah, Teen,” I said into the phone. “Nikki has it under control. I’ll call you as soon as rehearsal is over, OK?”

“As soon as it is over, Marsh,” she said, clearly not mollified.  “We have a lot to talk about.” And she hung up without even saying good-bye.

I have no idea what Nikki did; it felt almost as if I were back in high school, letting the girls make me up for a play. She clearly knew what she was doing, though, as she applied towels and creams and whatnot in an authoritative fashion.

As she worked, she asked, “What happened? You left, and then Alvin came back alone and started doing bits of scene two, and then Jared came back and said you’d be back in a minute, and it was like they were fine with whatever. But you didn’t show up. I was starting to get worried.”

I started to explain, but she cut me off. “Tell me later. Alvin’s waiting for you. Come here. Tilt your head.”

So I shut up and let her work her magic. Finally, she stepped back. “Have a look.”

When I looked in the mirror, I could see that all evidence that I had been crying was gone. It didn’t look quite the way it had when I had applied it in the morning, but I couldn’t tell exactly what was different.

“Thanks,” I said. “For everything. I guess we need to get back now.”

When we entered the rehearsal room, Alvin looked up and exchanged glances with Nikki, then favored me with a wink. Jared gave me a concerned look, and acknowledged my nod in return. Jo watched me all the way back to my seat next to her, a question in her eyes, and smiled when I nodded again to let her know I was alright.

Alvin finished the scene-two bit he was working on, then called Jared and me to do the start of scene one again. This time, it was much easier, even when we got to the point of the kiss.

“Leave it all to me. Shall I stoke the Aga?” he said.

“Done,” I responded, and tensed up.

But he gave me a friendly smile before leaning in for a quick peck on the lips. “Hullo, Sweetheart. Your nose is cold.”

And that was it. I said my next line, “I’ve just come in,” and crossed away from him, as directed. It was a bit strange, but not really uncomfortable. It was a stage kiss, nothing more. It didn’t mean anything. After all that worry, it simply didn’t mean anything. I almost laughed in relief.

The rest of the act felt very smooth as well. I did bobble a few lines and Nikki had to prompt me, but the sheer relief I was feeling over actually being able to work with Jared comfortably more than made up for any embarrassment I might have felt about it.

At the end of rehearsal, Alvin spoke to all of us again. “Great job, folks. It looks as though act one is coming along just fine. Tomorrow, we are going to start working act two in detail. As before, I expect you to be off-book in a week.”

Then as we were all leaving, he pulled Jared and me aside once more. “Excellent, you two. You’re starting to show me the ability I expected when I cast you. Now we still need to work on the intimacy. What we have done so far is to clean the emotional canvas. Now it’s time to start sketching in the feelings we want to portray – a young newlywed couple very much in love, enough so to justify the hurt feelings and anger when Trotter starts raising awkward questions.

“To do this, we are going to rely on emotional memory. I am assuming that each of you has either been in love before, or at least had somebody that you were very attracted to. Your homework is to find those memories. When you interact, I want you to have the memory of those feelings in your thoughts. So, Jared, when you are kissing Mollie, I want you to remember what it felt like to kiss a girl you were very much in love with. That’s the feeling you will actually portray. Marsh, same idea. OK?”

We nodded, and left together, but I excused myself from speaking with Jared almost immediately. I had a phone call to make.