Starry-Eyed (23 page)

But Jesse shook his head. “That's not what I meant. You have this talent, and you could mess with people's heads all the time. Most people's anyway, apparently not mine.”

“No. Not that I ever tried to mess with your head,” Landon hastily added. “Except with acting. Not ever besides that, I swear.”

“I know. Because, Landon—do you realize how the average person would behave if they figured out they had that talent? They'd manipulate everyone. They'd screw with everybody's head to get whatever they wanted. But not you.” Slowly, Jesse started to smile. “You only got people off your back, when they shouldn't have been giving you a hard time to start with. And you made things easier for other people who were getting picked on too. You wanted to act, to make people enjoy themselves. You were so scared you might have made me like you that you told me the biggest secret you had. The biggest secret anyone ever had, probably. Just to protect me.”

Landon had never looked at it this way. Like he shouldn't feel ashamed—like instead he had something to be proud of. “I never wanted to hurt anybody. Least of all you.”

Jesse didn't acknowledge that, but he stretched out his legs so that once again their feet brushed against each other. For a little while they were quiet together, and something painfully tight around Landon's chest began to loosen so he could again breathe free.

Finally Landon said, “Do you have any idea why it doesn't affect you? My talent, I mean.”

“No clue. It's not like it would have come up before.”

“So you're not, like, the seventh son of a seventh son, or part of a secret necromancers' guild?” When Jesse laughed, Landon could too. “This isn't the part where you tell me only I can open the Magic Portal of the Something?”

“That comes later.” Jesse's foot thumped against Landon's. “I always knew you didn't force me to like you.”

“Even though I'm the first guy you ever—wait. I am the first guy, right?”

“Yeah. You are.” By now Jesse looked almost bashful. “But I might have noticed you before we started going over lines together.”

“Oh, really?”

“Maybe during tryouts,” he confessed. “You were so . . . alive up there. Having fun.”

“I love being onstage. I just wish I could act for real.”

“But you can. Come on, Landon! Today, during your death scene, you were in the moment, like Mrs. K says. That wasn't fake. That was genuine.”

It was like a tiny candle inside Landon flickering into flame. “I guess.”

“You told me you study other actors' performances. And you try to do the things they do. That's acting, right?”

“Yeah. But I always thought, because I used my talent too, that it . . . didn't count.”

“I don't see why you shouldn't use it as, like, extra,” Jesse said. Landon must have looked astonished, because Jesse shrugged. “Talent is talent, right? But you should learn how to act without always leaning on your more, uh, unconventional ability.”

“Because it's more honest.”

“Yeah. You know, every time I can tell I'm doing it right onstage, it's not because I'm pretending to be Tybalt. It's because I'm not pretending at all.” Jesse paused, obviously trying to find the words to say something difficult. “I know what it's like to have people expect everything of you, and not to know whether there's anything you could ever do that would get them off your back. So when I say Tybalt's lines, I'm
telling the truth for the first time. That's what I never got about acting before I tried it. That it's a way to be completely honest instead of being fake.”

Maybe that was why Landon had always felt so awful about using his talent onstage. Because he'd been using it to get away with a lie he was telling himself.

Landon let his hand rest on Jesse's calf, and when Jesse didn't pull away—when, instead, he smiled—Landon hadn't known he could be that happy and have it last. “Does this mean we can figure things out together?”

Jesse's voice was warm now, sleepy but not sleepy. “What kind of things?”

“Whether you're gay, or bi, or Landonsexual, whatever.” That made Jesse laugh, so Landon kept going. “If we fit.”

“We fit.” Jesse leaned closer.

Their lips met again, and this kiss was better than all the others put together, because Landon knew this one was real.

. . . . .

As he walked into his house after school, Landon started imagining how it would go. Claire was coming by later, so he'd make her swear every promise in the book, and then he'd tell her about him and Jesse, and—oh, she'd be bouncing off the walls. No, no, first he had to make her drink a Coke Zero. Or they should get coffee. No, espresso! It would be like shaking a bottle of pop before opening it.

Then it hit him: Should he tell Claire about his talent too? If Jesse could accept it, maybe she could as well.

I'll think about it
, Landon decided.
But for today, learning about Jesse and me is a big enough surprise. I don't want Claire to actually
explode.

“Landon?” His mother had a late shift at the pharmacy today. When
that happened, she was usually going out as he came in. “There's lasagna in the fridge for dinner. You just need to put it in the oven.”

“Bake at three seventy-five for thirty minutes. I know. Thanks, Mom.”

“You look like you're in a good mood. Anything exciting happen at school today?” She stood there at the door, all hopeful in her uniform smock. This was the part where he normally said nothing had happened—but today something had. And he wanted to tell her about it.

He wanted to find out how she'd really react.

Landon took a deep breath. “There's a guy I've been spending time with. We're—hanging out, I guess.”

“A new friend, you mean?”

“Like, a boyfriend.”

It took every bit of his courage, but he didn't smooth it over. Didn't use his power. It was past time for him to face what his parents really felt.

But Mom smiled. It was awkward, and a little unsure, but a smile all the same. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you really like him?” He nodded. She said, “Does he like you back?”

“Yeah. He does.” Landon kept waiting for the sky to fall. Maybe she was just in shock.

Instead she patted his shoulder. “Then, well, good. That's good.”

He had to swallow hard. “All right.”

It wasn't the plastic, ever-ready happiness he'd made them feel every time before. But it wasn't hate, either. If he hadn't used his talent, maybe Mom and Dad wouldn't have taken it as easily when he first came out, but it would have been okay.

Jesse had been right about his talent. It wasn't the only way he could get through the world. It was just . . . extra.

Landon had never thought about enjoying his talent before. About trusting it, or himself.

But if he thought of it as trusting Jesse, and what Jesse saw in him, then maybe he could give it a try.

ANECDOTE: GAVIN LEE

It all started on a chilly February afternoon in 1983. It was a Sunday, and I was eleven years old.

I had been involved in community theater in my little hometown of Woodbridge, England, for a couple of years and was taking tap and disco dancing classes. Hey, it was the '80s!

I heard a commercial on the radio for an audition, in London, for a brand-new show opening on the West End based on the film
Bugsy Malone
—which had made a child star of Jodie Foster. This was one of my favorite films: a 1920s gangster musical with the entire cast being played by kids. Sounds cool, right? I begged my mum and dad to take me, but there was a wrinkle in that plan.

The audition was on the same Sunday as my community theater's dress rehearsal for
Dick Whittington
. I was playing the park of Idle Jack, and it was my first speaking role. How could I miss this rehearsal? Well, my dad secretly arranged with the director that we could leave early—at 4:00—so that I could make the audition. I couldn't believe my luck!

Now the audition was in Earls Court, West London, and we lived about two hours from there. I remember my dad usually being a safe, sensible driver but that day he sped down the highway and straight through central London like a maniac. It was as if we were on
The Amazing Race
and had to win!

We parked and ran, sweating, to the audition building and literally bashed into the front door—it was locked. It was 6:05 p.m. We watched as the doorman took down the
BUGSY AUDITIONS,
10-6,
THIS WAY
sign. My dad and I told him our situation, we did a bit of groveling, and eventually he let us in.

I was the last kid to audition for the day. My name was put on a card and pinned to my chest, and I was shoved into a room with the last group of forty kids, where we were all taught a pretty easy dance combination. The director and choreographer came in, and we did the routine another three times—then we all got a green, yellow, or red sticker placed on our card. We stood in a large circle and all sang “Happy Birthday” in unison as two guys listened closely to us sing—again, another sticker was put on each of our cards.

I later learned the “traffic light” scoring system. Red =
Stop
(and go home. Fine job but this isn't the show for you). Yellow =
Okay
(let's try this again). Green =
Go
(onto the next audition). Thankfully I had two green stickers, woo-hoo!

Ten thousand kids auditioned that day, and every single one of us left with a badge that said
I AUDITIONED FOR “BUGSY MALONE”
and a Snickers bar. But more important than a badge and a candy bar, some of us left with callbacks too.

Over the next three weeks, I had two more trips to London. The auditions got harder, especially the tap combinations. The final callback was at the Globe Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in the West End. There were about 150 of us left. I was so nervous that I wouldn't do the tap combination well that I plucked up the courage to go up to Gillian Gregory, the choreographer, after my name was called. I told her that she had made a mistake and that I wasn't “a tapper.” I didn't want to be embarrassed by dancing badly in front of the other kids.

She looked, confused, at her notes and said, Okay, wait for the “non-tapper” routine. Then I sat in the auditorium watching the other boys learn and perform
the easiest tap routine ever!

I very nearly cried. I could do
this
routine—should I just run up onto the stage and join in? What to do? What to do?!

In the end, I sat it out and just knew I had to do a good job for the rest of the day.

After a full hyper-nervous day of auditioning and being switched into
different groups, all of us were tired. We were finally told to sit in the auditorium and wait.

After what seemed like a lifetime of nail biting, the creative team finally came back to the stage from their decision-making meeting. The energy and tension in the theater could have powered the city of London.

They told us how amazing we all had done. We thought, “yeah, yeah, but who got the job?” Then they said, “We are casting four separate companies of kids to appear in the show throughout the first year, and each of you will be appearing in one of those casts!”