Starry-Eyed (14 page)

The ruffians of Boys Bunk Two bullied the poor lad, mocking him with mincing gestures, the cruelest of taunts spewing from their tongues like rotting food they had spit upon the ground. Crueler still, Sterling found no comfort in the camp director, a hulking furnace of a man who thrummered and thorshed, yet did not emit the slightest trace of warmth
.

The roles are clear: if Sterling is the hero and Larry is the villain, then Gale is the savior, just like Nancy in
Oliver!
, who wears saucy costumes and has lots of great songs and dies nobly to protect a child.

“He's helping me,” Gale says to Larry. “With my script.”

By her side, she feels Sterling exhale, turning to her like a flower facing the sun.

. . . . .

Gale scans the assembled cast, a patchwork of other campers who she cajoled, coerced, herded, and even bribed into doing the show. She savors the moment, preserving it for her future biographer:

The aspiring thespian, authoritative beyond her tender years, scanned the roomful of uncertain faces in the aptly named Drama Shack, a three-sided wooden fire hazard with an outdoor stage used primarily for movie nights, sing-alongs, alleged talent shows, and the occasional play. With a tin roof that clacked in the rain and screenless windows that allowed in bugs, birds, and bats, the Drama Shack called to mind a hastily remodeled carport because, indeed, that's what it was
.

Sterling hands out the scripts to each cast member, smiling and nodding in a manner that reminds Gale of airline stewardesses. The title page reads, “
The Sound of Music
by Rodgers and Hammerstein, adapted by Gale Rosalyn Rubenstein and Sterling Clark Jr.”

Like R & H, theirs is a true collaboration, Sterling having dictated the entire movie while Gale ruthlessly edited that which couldn't be recreated in the Drama Shack, like singing “Do-Re-Mi” through a dozen locations in Salzburg, performing “The Lonely Goatherd” with the Bil Baird Marionettes and having any party guests to address “So Long, Farewell” to. Based on limited space—and even less interest—the cast consists solely of the von Trapp children, the All-Jewish Nuns Chorus, some stray prepubescent Nazis . . . and Aaron Messner.

Aaron peruses the pages with his dark, unfathomable eyes. With his black curls and hawky profile, he resembles what Gale has always imagined King David looked like. As usual, he's barefoot, his cut-off shorts revealing sturdy, tan legs, corded with muscle like the trunks of two young trees. Instead of a shirt, he wears a groovy deerskin vest with fringe and Gale imagines for the thousandth time what it would feel like to have his lean, sinewy arms around her. He glances up, catching Gale staring at him and the movie in her mind goes into freeze frame for an internal musical thought:

Aaron Messner, Aaron Messner, what a beautiful, beautiful name
. . .

Aaron Messner, who can identify every plant and tree. Aaron Messner, who can start a campfire faster than anyone. Aaron Messner, who Gale
can't resist mocking anytime they speak, calling him “Nature Boy,” even though she wants to French kiss him to death.

Despite never having set foot upon a stage, Aaron agreed to play the Captain because his best friend, Conrad, wanted to play Rolf, the Nazi messenger boy. Conrad wanted to play Rolf to be near Barbie Bittman, who's playing Liesl. Gale wanted Barbie to play Liesl so Conrad would convince Aaron to play the Captain.

See “French kiss,” above. This month, astronauts will walk on the moon for the first time. Anything is possible.

“All right, settle down,” Gale says, trying to sound settled even though she feels like her veins are pumping Fresca. “Let's read through the script.”

Joni, the counselor nominally in charge, doesn't look up from her copy of
Rolling Stone
as the cast members fidget and squirm like amoeba under a microscope, buzzing as loud as the cicadas outside. How Joni can read through purple-tinted shades is anyone's guess. Then again, she's a major pothead, so who knows what she's thinking?

Amanda, being a True Friend, rises to her Full Height, asserting herself like a western sheriff ready to rid Prairie Junction of Black Bart and his Gang. “C'mon, people,” she barks, “listen up.”

The cast obeys, which is one of the reasons Gale cast Amanda as the authoritative Reverend Mother, despite Amanda being a female baritone who'll have to sing “Climb Ev'ry Mountain” an octave lower than it is normally performed. They pick up their scripts, freshly inked in purple from the ditto machine. Several kids raise the limp pages to their noses to inhale the clean, sinus-tickling aroma, the Scent of Possibility.

But not Barbie Bittman, who's sliding a comb through her smooth sheath of hair, making Gale feel vaguely homicidal. Not once in Gale's life has a comb ever slid through her hair. Combs are Instruments of Torture designed to Inflict Pain. Combs snag, tangle, and once even broke off on the left side of Gale's head, requiring an Emergency Hair-ectomy.

Like America, God has graced Barbie's fortunate head with amber waves of grain. Born with the name “Barbara,” she renamed herself after a
plastic doll whose feet are permanently pointed for high heels. By way of comparison, Barbra Streisand dropped an
a
, making her truly original, which is why Gale dropped the
y
from her name, so she could be a true original just like Barbra.

Gale casts a grateful glance to Amanda, telepathically thought-ballooning a “thank you,” then readdresses the cast. “For now, we'll skip the songs, so let's start with Scene Two at the Abbey.”

Over Amanda's shoulder, Gale can see her co-author Sterling, his eyes like high beams, completely unaware that his lips are mouthing the words of the teenage nuns. At his insistence, Sterling will play Kurt (“I've ALWAYS wanted to be INCORRIGIBLE”), though he's better suited to play Marta, the von Trapp who wants a pink parasol for her birthday. Which explains why he has no friends in Boys Bunk Two.

The first scene plays just like the movie until they reach the song. When Amanda sees the stage direction reading, “The Nuns sing ‘Maria,'” she tosses the script aside and croons:

“
Ma-riiii-a
. . .

I just kissed a nun named Maria . .
.”

Not everyone gets the joke—including Aaron—but those who do think it's hilarious, no one more so than Sterling, who laughs so hard he gets a nosebleed.

It only takes a couple of days to learn the music because they're singing in unison out of the Hal Leonard Vocal Selections. Their accompaniment is provided by Joni, who reluctantly parts from reading a collection of beat poetry to strum a guitar. Sterling complains that playing the whole show on guitar “doesn't sound ANYTHING like the movie,” but Aaron likes that it's “less Rodgers and Hammerstein and more Simon and Garfunkel.” Gale secretly agrees with Sterling, but enjoys any opportunity to watch Aaron's very kissable mouth say anything.

The two-week rehearsal period was a frenzy of activity
, Gale practices for her
memoirs,
exciting, scary, Fresca-vein inducing
. Whatever she does to prepare the show, there is Sterling next to her to help, eagerly skipping all other camp activities to aid in painting an Alpine landscape on the few existing flats or pick through the optimistically named Costume Shop. Together, they assemble nuns' wimples and Nazi armbands, giddily making up fake lyrics:

So long, farewell, our feet are saying good-bye
. . .

Climb ev'ry mountain, fall in every stream
. . .

I am sixteen, going on seventeen, I know that I'm not Eve
. . .

There's not enough time or fabric to create dirndls and lederhosen out of curtains, so the von Trapp children remain in white Oxfords with blue sailors' neckerchiefs. This lack of authenticity bothers Sterling, who quickly gets on everyone's nerves by continually starting sentences with the phrase, “In the MOVIE . . .” He insists on wearing a nightshirt in the thunderstorm scene, which he accomplishes by auditioning several girls' nightgowns, choosing the most masculine (not very), and drawing stripes on it with a magic marker.

Since he knows every frame of the film, he becomes the unofficial choreographer, putting the campers in the unusual position of taking orders from a nine-year-old. But he speaks with such authority—not to mention multisyllabic words—that he earns their bewildered respect. Indeed, his exuberant demonstration of flit-float-fleetly-fleeing-fly will be remembered for years to come by all who witnessed it.

“Far out,” Aaron says, not unkindly.

Despite being the director, Gale often finds herself standing aside and watching Sterling, shaking her head in astonishment. His passion is irrepressible, spurting out of him like a soda can that's been shaken. Secretly, she envies his flamboyance—never before has she met anyone who acts how she feels, who actually says what she thinks. Even here, in the shady
sanctuary of the Drama Shack, she represses herself—standing sideways when she's next to Barbie so she looks thinner; trying to control the pinball machine that's her mind so she doesn't keep insulting Aaron.

Gale's mouth: Hey, Nature Boy, you've got more hair on the tops of your feet than a Hobbit
.

Gale's mind: Throw me down and kiss me, you mad beast
.

But Sterling laughs every time, the Best Audience Ever. (“A HOBBIT! That's HILARIOUS! Amanda could be Gandalf—her voice is deep enough!”)

As the pressure builds toward the performance, however, Sterling grows increasingly agitated. “No, no, no!” he cries as Gale starts to sing “Something Good” to Aaron. “You're supposed to kiss BEFORE the song.”

Gale tries to communicate telepathically with Sterling, widening her eyes to send a thought balloon reading, “Leave this alone.” Yes, she wants Aaron to kiss her. But it should happen naturally, easily, and then . . .

Gale quivered with excitement, her bosom palpitating against his hairy chest as she left the loveless ranks of the unkissed behind her forever, her very essence entwining inexorably with that of her lover
. . . .

Sterling sighs ostentatiously, putting the kibosh on the romance novel in Gale's mind. “In the MOVIE,” he says, “the Captain takes Maria's face in both hands and kisses her before she sings—on the MOUTH.”

This kid is not going to live to see ten
, Gale thinks.

Sterling continues. “Then at the end they stand in silhouette with Maria's neck stuck out like one of those swivel desk lamps.” Sterling snaps his fingers at Joni. “Music! Let's go back to before the song.”

Joni shrugs, taking the command in stride. Being a pothead, nothing bothers her.

“You have to stand close enough to touch,” Sterling says, “like Conrad does with Barbie.” This elicits laughter from the prepubescent Nazis, which only seems to annoy Sterling. “It's TRUE,” he cries. “They're like Siamese twins!”

It's moments like these that remind Gale that Sterling is only nine and
doesn't understand that We Don't Talk About These Things.

Aaron takes a couple of steps toward Gale, so at home in his taut, tawny skin. He smells of leather and sweat and romance.

“We don't have to do this now,” Gale says, addressing her sandals.

“It's okay,” Aaron says. His tender lips—well, she assumes they're tender—curl upward in a shy smile, turning Gale's legs to Jell-O.
It's going to happen. It's really going to happen
. Over Aaron's shoulder, Gale spies the Jewish Nuns Chorus peeking around an Alp to watch.

Aaron's face is so close that Gale can see his pores, which somehow makes him seem even more irresistible.

“I'm not going to marry the Baroness,” he says.

“You're not?” Gale replies, her voice scarcely a whisper.

“How can I,” he continues, “when I'm in love with someone else?”

It feels So Real. Gale's heart beats everywhere in her body—behind her ears, between her shoulder blades, and in the arches of her feet. Aaron tilts his head toward hers. Gale closes her eyes and . . .

“No, no, no!” Sterling shouts. “Grab her face. Grab. Her. Face.”

Aaron reaches up with his whole hand, palming Gale's face like she was a basketball. The spell broken, they both laugh.

“Yeesh,” Sterling says. “You two are so immature.”

. . . . .

The remaining days fleetly flee and fly. Gale and Aaron never get around to practicing the kiss, making another joke of it during their one and only dress rehearsal. It will happen for the first time onstage—which is somehow less terrifying than the thought of kissing Aaron alone, yet also more terrifying because all of Camp Algonquin will be watching.
Them's lose-lose odds
, says a bookie in her brain.

The night of the show, Gale tries to make herself as pretty and kissable as possible, with the usual dispiriting results. With orange juice can curlers, a horse brush, and Immense Rigor, she can just manage to tame her willful
hair into obedience. Makeup helps, but then again, the whole cast is wearing makeup, so the bar for prettiness is raised. Even the boys look lovelier.

There is much hugging backstage. It feels like the show simply can't start until every cast member has squeezed each and every person like they're getting juice out of fruit. With at least two-dozen people buzzing about behind the scenes, Gale calculates that's over five hundred hugs, though math isn't her best subject. Still, it's Affection Concentrate.