was baffled. Liza began fearlessly ripping into the number with a confidence and majesty she only prayed she could summon for the audition.
A DREEEAM THAT WILL NEEEEEEED ALL THE LOVE YOU CAN GI-I-I-I-I-IVE…. YEAH! EVERY DAY OF YOUR LI-I-I-I-I-IFE FORAS LONG AS YOU LI-I-I-I-I-IVE EVERYBODY!
Liza shimmied her shoulders, stalking the front of the stage. A surge of happiness engulfed her when the audience began singing exuberantly along with her:
CLI-I-I-I-IMB EV-ERY MOUNTAI-I-I-N! FO-R-R-RD EV-ERY STREEEEEAM!! FO-LLLOW EV-ERY RAINB…………
Everyone stopped as a great spinal FFFFZZZZZSSSST and spray of sparks made all of the lights and music electrically short out, plunging the room into total darkness as a cascade of warm, plastic-scented water began sluicing down from the ceiling, into the lighting booth and onto the petrified audience.
Queen-size waterbeds contain approximately 160 gallons of water; Barren and Misty-Dawn were amazed, in their postcoital exuberance, at the sheer amount of liquid they could force out of the long slits that Barren had gleefully carved into the mattress with a kitchen knife, as revenge for his various grievances against Peppy.
When the fire trucks came, Liza wandered outside, her makeup in streaky lines down her cheeks. Misty-Dawn was being pointedly asked by two cops as to the whereabouts of Barren, who had bolted into the night. Von Trapp children stood on the sidewalk with their coats over their shoulders and expressionless, traumatized faces as their parents hollered at Peppy, who looked small and meek. Ned appeared next to Liza; she grabbed his elbow and held it.
Chantal and Desiree had collected all of their belongings from the backstage by flashlight and were loading them into their parents’ car. Roland Spring jogged out of the theatre in his street clothes, past Liza, to hug the sisters. Liza watched as Mr. Baumgarten held Roland warmly by the shoulder and presented him with his business card.
“Let’s say goodbye,” Ned said, nudging Liza. “We probably won’t see them again.”
Liza began to cry.
Ned shuffled up to the Baumgarten contingent and began shaking their hands.
Liza waved goodbye at them, unable to move from her spot. Chantal and Desiree barely glanced at her; their parents shot Liza looks of pity.
Ned returned a minute later, bringing Roland Spring with him. Liza thought she might swallow her tongue.
“Hey, you brought the house down!” Roland teased gently, making Liza cough through snotty tears.
“Here,” he said, producing a folded handkerchief from his pants pocket. “I didn’t use it, it’s clean.”
Liza accepted it, smearing it with her runny face. “Thanks,” Liza forced out, wetly.
“You shouldn’t sing so loud, next time. You could have killed everyone,” Roland joked. Liza tried to laugh.
“Well… I guess I’ll see you around,” Roland said, sticking out his hand.
Liza flung her arms around his neck and clung to him direly. “Woah!” Roland exclaimed, suddenly supporting her whole weight. “You’re amazing,” Liza choked, wishing she could chain herself to Roland Spring forever.
Roland gently pried her off of his chest. “Thanks. You too, Liza. You’re… truly unique.”
Liza stared at him, her eyes bleeding moons of wretched love.
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
And Roland Spring, Golden Stag nonpareil, sprang past the twirling red lights and away from the Normal Family Dinner Theatre.
“You told him I liked him, didn’t you?” Liza cried, turning viciously on Ned.
Ned stared at the rubber toe guards on the front of his sneakers. The thought of never seeing Roland again was molten torment. Liza ran into the backyard and grieved in hard, hyperventilating sobs, clutching the stained hanky, its sweet laundered Roland-smell cracking her heart in half.
•AFTERMATH •
Two weeks later, Peppy was still “sleeping it off.” She rarely emerged from her room; Noreen brought in bowls of canned soup. She refused contact with everyone, even Mike and Ike, who offered again and again to work on the electrical box and restore basic light to the house. Since “the disaster,” the family had been living by candlelight, cooking on the gas burner and keeping things cold in a Styrofoam cooler.
Lalo had been picked up by cops that fateful night and put in the drunk tank; it was discovered, while processing him, that he’d been in the country illegally for the last six months. He was deported back to São Paulo.
Neville was gone—he and his nuns became a cabaret show in the city entitled Neville on a Sunday. Barbette quit; she wouldn’t be associated with what was now considered, around town, to be the lowbrow and hazardous nature of the theatre. Liza practiced her audition routine in front of the mirror, with no accompaniment, alone in the dark theatre on the sticky floor.
Liza was watching Brady Bunch reruns on the TV in a local electronics store when the ad for the OtterWorld Fun Park came on. Desiree Baumgarten was laughing, holding a handful of Mylar balloons. “Come join the fun!” she beckoned, smiling at Liza in a boundlessly friendly way she never had in real life. Liza left the store and slowly walked home, feeling like a mugger had just taken her lungs at gunpoint.
The school year was quickly approaching. Liza knocked on Peppy’s door.
“Mom?”
Silence.
“Mom?” More knocking.
“ Whaaaaat?!”
“Can I come in?”
“Do you have to?”
Liza opened the door. The place was a shambles—Noreen had been picking up the food trays, but clothes and wigs lay everywhere in dark piles, like melted witches. Peppy had been sleeping on a heap of blankets inside the empty waterbed frame ever since her bed was “murdered.” Liza sat on the edge of the frame and looked down at her. A brimming ashtray sat near Peppy’s head.
“Did you get the tickets yet?”
“What tickets?”
“For New York. For my audition. For the High School of Performing Arts.”
Peppy started laughing an awful, cracked laugh. Then she started coughing. Then she lit a cigarette.
“Oh. That.”
“Yeah that,” said Liza, her stomach filling with hot tar.
“Ah, Liza… you’re too much, baby. You’re a real killer.”
“What do you mean?” Liza asked, knowing but refusing to know.
“Look around you, kid.” Peppy gestured to the dark walls with her cigarette. “What more could you ask in the way of theatre
