Chapter Three “Shakespeare Returns”

three

" Shakespeare Returns "

The minute the hospital elevator door opens, I can see straight into Dad's room. The floral arrangement Chase sent is the size of a crosstown bus and dwarfs all the other bouquets on the windowsill. Sportscasters yammer away on the television, competing with the beeping sounds from the hospital machines. And sitting there like some self-appointed prince is Luke Carter.

"Not this fucking guy," I grumble and Mom immediately hisses for me to be nice.

As we're walking toward the room, Chase asks, "Is that the notorious Luke? You didn't mention that he was hot."

I stop. Chase stops. Mom continues on.

I speak with as much calm as I can muster. "I will admit that the animators over at Disney might have used Luke Carter as their model when they were creating the animated film Hercules , but you do not get to consider him hot. He is an idiot. He is a bully. And he's wearing a baseball cap. Backward. Which is a look that screams douchebag. Which he is."

We continue on into the room and there's Dad looking disgruntled in his hospital bed and Mom annoyingly hugging Luke. I choose to completely ignore the guy and hope that he'll take the hint and just go away.

I turn to Dad and consider whether or not to hug him. It would probably just make everyone uncomfortable, so I pass. "How are you feeling, Dad?"

"Annoyed as hell. They're just keeping me here to make money off the insurance company. I'm as healthy as a horse." Dad's face is tan and leathery from years of working in the sun. It's also baked into a permanent scowl. He used to have a tragic comb-over, but his hair eventually got so sparse that he just gave up and shaved his head. I think Mom was secretly relieved. Thankfully, I was born with Nancy Kay's thick dark hair and eyelashes that she calls "long enough to make a showgirl spit nails."

Dad fiddles with his IV. "I told your mother that you didn't need to fly all the way down here for this, son."

Mom rushes to make nice. "Oh, you're just as excited to see him as I am, Bill. And this is his boyfriend, Chase. He's not Jewish after all. Not that it would matter if he were."

Dad and Chase shake hands awkwardly. Chase is as smooth as they come, but Dad's gruffness makes everything prickly. "So sorry you're feeling under the weather, sir."

"Well, I appreciate you boys making the effort, but you didn't have to bother."

Chase switches into diplomat mode. "No bother at all. It's been a great bit of fun to see where Noah grew up."

Luke actually clears his throat and when I don't acknowledge him everyone starts looking at me like I'm somehow the bad guy. It finally gets so uncomfortable that I turn on my heel and give Luke an unenthusiastic, "Hey."

Luke bursts into a smile and shouts out, "Shakespeare returns!" His hand is up in the air and I'm astonished to realize that he's trying to high-five me.

"First of all, I'm an adult and adults don't high-five. Secondly, don't call me that." Unsure what to do with his hand, he thrusts it toward Chase. "I'm Luke."

Chase smiles a little too much for my liking. "Cheers. Chase Abrams."

They do a manly handshake. "We used to call Noah Shakespeare all the time in high school. He was always writing stuff."

"Well, Luke, I prefer Noah. Mainly because it's my name, but also because calling me Shakespeare makes absolutely no sense. Shakespeare wrote plays. I write musicals. It might make sense if you would have called me Sondheim or Richard Rodgers…"

Luke blinks. "I don't know who either of those people are."

"Of course you don't."

Luke has the gall to sit on the edge of Dad's bed. "Well, I know your dad is sure glad you made the trip." Luke pats Dad's knee like they're frat buddies. "You gave us all a scare there, Mr. A."

Mr. A? This fucking guy.

Chase does his best to keep the conversation going. "So, Luke, you work at the farm now?"

Dad proudly responds for Luke. "Oh, he's great with animals. A real natural."

I remind myself to breathe. In with the good air, out with the resentment over the fact that your father and Luke Carter are apparently BFFs.

It takes me a second to realize that Luke is studying Chase and me like we're some kind of puzzle he can't quite put together. "So, Noah, you got yourself a British guy!"

"Wow, you can detect accents?" I reply with mock surprise. "Did you take a course at the local community college or something?"

Luke actually looks confused. Or hurt. Mom gives me a disapproving scowl, then soldiers on, adjusting Dad's pillow to his great dismay. "Now, Bill, honey, they're going to let you out tomorrow and we can put this whole thing behind us." She turns to me. "So, Noah, we all want to hear about your play!"

"Musical," I mutter.

"Musical. You know, Chase, he forbid us from coming to opening night. Said we'd just make him nervous. We figured we'd fly up and catch it when all the dust settled."

Do we have to have this conversation in front of the ever-present Luke Carter? Is he always going to be around now? Driving our tractors? Patching the roof of our barn? Standing around with his hypnotizing greenish-hazel eyes and his very distracting biceps? Wait, is he flexing them? This is a hospital, not a gym.

I return my attention to Mom.

"Well, you can't see it now. It's closed. Big old flop." I cast my dead eyes out the window to stare at the parking lot as Chase consolingly rubs my back. Having another man rub my back in front of Dad is odd, but I'm too depressed to care.

"Well, surely somebody videotaped it, right?"

"Mom, that's not…there are issues with the unions, so they can't tape it. They'd have to pay everyone. The Lincoln Center library would usually record the show for their archives, but we didn't even run long enough to warrant that."

At this revelation, the entire room looks a little sad for me, even Dad. Which I hate. To my complete surprise, Luke's the one to change the topic.

"So, Shakespeare. Sorry. Noah. You excited for tonight?"

I pause. "What's tonight?"

Mom, Dad, and Luke share a round-robin of furtive looks.

"Dang it! Was it supposed to be a surprise? Oh, man, nobody told me!" Luke tugs guiltily at his stupid backward baseball cap.

And Mom consoles him right on cue. "Don't worry, Luke. It's no big deal."

"What's tonight?" I repeat.

Mom's all smiles. "The Plainview Players are having a little reception for you."

"They're the local community theater," Luke explains to Chase, seemingly committed to staying in the conversation.

Mom launches into full brag mode. "That's right! And they are just busting their buttons about Noah. He's been doing plays there since the fifth grade. People still talk about how he stole the show when he played an enchanted boulder in Robin Hood ."

Chase gives me a confused look. "There's an enchanted boulder in Robin Hood ?"

I give a tired shrug and say, "Apparently."

"Anyway…" Mom chatters away. "They also let him put on all of his little shows. All the other moms in town had to worry where their kids were at night, but I didn't. I knew exactly where Noah was. He was at the Plainview Players, teaching them his songs and generally ordering everyone around."

Chase nods. "He can be very bossy."

Mom seems elated. "But they loved it! And him! Noah made them all feel like stars! Like professional Broadway stars! Noah can really cast a spell when he wants to. Anyway, they're throwing him a little to-do tonight."

I have to put a stop to this. "And I am not going."

Mom looks like I've just slapped her in the face and says, "You most certainly are, young man."

"I'm not going to stand there and have them celebrate the worst professional disaster of my life."

Mom glares at me impatiently. "Now, Noah, they don't think of it as a disaster. They're thrilled about it. You got a show to Broadway, honey. They're all impressed beyond words!"

"That's because they don't know how real theater works. There is nothing to celebrate."

Luke stands up and leans casually against the wall, crossing his arms to make his biceps bulge in an even more annoyingly distracting way. "From what I hear, they've really pulled out all the stops, Shakespeare. Noah, I mean."

"They brought in toasted ravioli from St. Louis!" Mom adds, as if that somehow seals the deal. When I don't react, she repeats, "From St. Louis!"

"I don't care if they've flown in a naked Lady Gaga on a Goodyear blimp. I'm not going."

"There'll be booze," Luke adds.

"It is sounding better," Chase offers, like the traitor he is.

"Why can't you guys understand how colossally embarrassing this whole thing is for me?" Oh, God, I'm flat out whining now.

And then Dad weighs in. "Stop being a prick, Noah." That silences the room.

I stare at him incredulously. "I'm not being…you can't call me a prick, Dad."

"I can if you're acting like one." I try, but can't find any reasonable response to that. Dad elaborates. "These people took time out of their busy lives and money out of their pockets to put together a celebration in your honor. They made an effort, son. And you're not gonna spit in their faces. I'm sorry your show closed. I'm sorry it wasn't the next Hamilson —"

"He means Hamilton ," I whisper to Chase, who nods.

"But you need to quit the bellyaching and pull yourself up by the bootstraps and show those nice people a little gratitude."

The room grows still and Dad gives me the coldest stare he has in his arsenal. And I reflect it right back.

Sensing an impasse, Mom decides to step in. "Well, Chase, Luke, I'm sorry you boys have to see this, but I'm going to have to go with the nuclear option."

My face fills with dread as I turn to her. "Don't. You. Dare."

But before I can stop her she's wrapped her arms around me and is shaking me back and forth in a hug, using her squeakiest baby voice to chant, "Where's my little sweet potato at? Where's my sweet potato at? I know he's under that tough New York exterior, I wanna know WHERE'S MY LITTLE SWEET POTATO AT?!?"

I wriggle out from her embrace and give her a lethal look. "All right, I'll go! Just stop that!"

Both Chase and Luke are staring at me with bemused expressions. Only Dad has the common decency to avert his eyes.

Mom, of course, looks very proud of herself. "I know to everyone else he looks like a grown man, but deep down inside he's just my little sweet potato. I just have to summon him sometimes. Sort of like a reverse exorcism kind of a deal."

Chase slowly shakes his head. "If only I had known that to get my way with your son, I simply had to talk to him as if he were a very small poodle."

I give Chase a sideways glance. "You get your way enough."

Dad coughs and says, "Can someone ask one of those nurses for a bedpan? I gotta shit."

And that was our cue to leave.

Luke rides the elevator down with us. Because, of course.

And though most people look wilted from the relentless August heat, Luke looks fresh enough to shoot a shampoo commercial. He's removed his cap and his perfect blond curls somehow aren't matted down. Instead they look as if they've been carefully zhuzhed by one of Beyoncé's stylists. Whatever.

Luke tries to make small talk with Chase and me, I guess to show us that he's no longer a complete asshole.

"So, how did you guys meet? What's your origin story?" Origin story? Who talks like that? Clearly someone's read too many comic books.

I ignore him, so Chase answers. "I was on a panel at the Dramatists Guild and couldn't take my eyes off this guy. So when it was over, I accidentally on purpose stole his umbrella, a trick I learned from Howards End …I knew he'd come running down the hallway after me."

"It was a very expensive umbrella. It was from Paul Smith and I was poor," I add, half-heartedly.

"Wow, that's like the beginning of a movie or something."

And without warning, somewhere inside of me a switch is flipped and I'm furious.

"You know, Luke, it's nice of you to pretend you're not a raging homophobe, but no one in the elevator is buying it."

Luke looks hurt and, even more irritatingly, so does Mom. We reach the ground floor and Luke walks off without another word. Mom hisses my name as she exits the elevator.

Chase hangs back to answer his phone, but I'm right behind Mom, chasing her across the hospital lobby.

"Why are you mad at me ? You know what Luke and his friends started calling me freshman year? It wasn't just Shakespeare, no, it quickly morphed into Shakes- queer ! Every day in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the parking lot. And they knew I was too scrawny and too afraid to fight back. Four years of ‘Hey, Shakes-queer! How many dicks did you suck last night?' And the whole school laughing along while I pretended to have gone spontaneously deaf. And you want me to just forget all that?"

Mom stops short and turns to me, her eyes unable to meet mine for a moment. I continue on. "He scarred me, Mom. And you're suddenly his biggest fan? I just don't get it!"

Our eyes lock and she grabs my arm and squeezes desperately. "But people can change, Noah. I'm sorry if he did all that, but he's different now or your dad never would have hired him. And maybe I believe in…in…I don't know, in redemption."

And with that she crumbles into tears. And Mom doesn't crumble. So it's particularly terrible. I gather her up into my arms and immediately realize that she's also talking about Dad. If I don't think Luke can change, how can I think Dad can change? Not that I think Dad's homophobic, but I certainly don't think he'll be starting a PFLAG chapter any time soon.

But the important thing now is to comfort Mom, so I squeeze her tighter.

"Redemption?" I hazard. "That's a pretty fancy word. Have you been digging around in my thesaurus?"

Mom chuckles into my shoulder. "I figured it would impress you, being three syllables and all." She pulls a Kleenex from her purse and blows her nose in an unnecessarily loud way. Apparently pulled back together, she comes up with a plan. "I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to ask Luke to apologize for whatever he said to you in high school and we can all start over with a clean slate."

"That is the exact opposite of what you're going to do. I'll just let it go. I'll just figure out a way to let it go. Or push it down into my dark subconscious like I did back then. We're only here for a couple of nights. It doesn't matter. I'll just tell myself it doesn't matter."

Mom puts the used Kleenex back in her purse instead of throwing it away because she's Mom. "And he's not taking your ‘filial place,' he's working for your father and they just happen to like each other. They can yak about cars together."

"I don't get the big deal. Aren't cars just metal boxes with wheels?"

We're in the hospital entranceway when Mom stops in her tracks. "Oh, wait! I told your Aunt Sandy I'd get her some See's candy from the gift shop."

"Why are you buying food from a hospital, Mom?"

"It's the only place that sells See's candy and Sandy likes See's candy." She rushes off as Chase approaches.

"Everything okay?" he asks as Luke pulls out of the parking lot in his rusty pickup truck. If Luke notices Chase and me watching him drive past, he pretends not to.

"Of course he drives a beat-up pickup." I huff. "He's like every country music video I never wanted to sit through."