AN: Took a brief hiatus from Lesser Forms of Love just 'cause I wanted to try writing something self-indulgent that was just sort of sappy and heartwarming featuring three characters whom I always thought would make a cute trio of friends.
By the by the by the by the by, I should mention that while this story does feature Luan and Maggie and Benny all interacting with each other, there's no real romantic shipping to speak of between any of them, which should come as a relief to some, a disappointment to many, and as a pleasure to probably nobody. I can't imagine that this will get much love, even amongst people who like Maggie as a character, but I still hope that I'm at least able to share a smile or two…
Set My Spirit Free
On the night of the twelfth annual Royal Woods High School Winter talent show, the sound of applause echoed throughout the auditorium in between each act like thunder rolling over the Huron Mountains.
There was no escape from such an omnipresent sound, not even when Maggie sprinted all blurry-eyed and lightheaded through the extra wide double doors of the backstage and into the outer hallway, where she continued her stumbling flight until she reached the restroom just outside the school cafeteria. To her horror, however, even within that tiled space that smelt pungently of disinfectant the percussive clapping still leaked through the walls, reminding her of war drums that signaled a fast-encroaching army. Instead of soldiers, this army consisted mainly of teachers and parents with their bored children, and they wielded cell-phones and cheap camcorders instead of rifles. Much deadlier weapons, as far as Maggie was concerned.
It took her a moment to realize that she was hyperventilating. Feeling as though she were simultaneously suffocating and burning to death with a fever, she untied that black scarf that constricted her neck and threw it to the floor, where it landed in a serpentine coil; a strange snake that looked as though it had slithered out of some distant jungle for no other purpose than to bite at her heels. The wool beret that sat atop her head and which had caused her scalp to itch terribly throughout the night was similarly cast aside, as was her black turtleneck. Clad now in her jeans and grey camisole undershirt, Maggie went to one of the sinks along the wall, turned on the faucet full blast and let it run until the basin was close to overflowing, and, with a final deep breath, plunged her face into the frigid water.
There, if only for half of a minute, all was silent. Peaceful, in fact…
She could almost hear the hiss of steam coming from off of her skin as soon as she threw her head back out of the sink, dripping wet and gasping for air, though she at least felt grateful that her impromptu bath had subsided the intense discomfort of her hot-flash. With concentration, she was even able to bring her breathing cycle back under control as well. Then a fresh round of applause erupted and she could feel her heartbeat begin to race anew.
The sound alone was enough to tie her stomach into knotted ribbons and send another wave of anxious heat crashing against her face, neck, and shoulders. Her knees began to buckle under, and she was forced to grip the sides of the porcelain sink to prevent herself from collapsing. Forgoing the mirror directly in front of her, she instead stared deeply into her reflection in the still-full basin, where she could vaguely make out all of the burst blood-vessels that were spread across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose like a star map. There was something mesmerizing and oddly soothing about watching her washed-away black mascara and white foundation swirl together in the water, as if the two colors were dancing.
It reminded Maggie of the Rorschach paintings that she once had to interpret during an ultimately unhelpful session with a school counselor back when she was in the fifth grade.
With her face soaking wet and the low rumble of the talent show audience a constant clamor in her ears, she felt rather like a girl standing in the middle of an empty field during a torrential downpour, with flashing stormclouds on the horizon drifting ever nearer towards her while she was powerless to do anything aside from count one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, etc… in between each thunderclap, knowing that it was only a matter of time before those stormclouds reached overhead and struck her with lightning.
Only a matter of time before it was her turn to perform.
Resigned to her fate, and with little else left to do as she awaited her transformation into a lightning rod, Maggie grabbed a few of the coarse brown paper towels from the dispenser on the wall by the mirror and dried herself to the best of her ability, with the napkins not really doing much else other than provide a sensation like sandpaper against her skin.
When she turned around to toss the resulting sopping clump into the trashcan by the door, she was greeted by a sight that was like a sundog peeking through the stormclouds.
Luan stood in the doorframe all dressed in full mime regalia, complete with black triangles painted above and below her eyes. Had Maggie not shed the trappings of her own costume to the floor and washed her own makeup away, then the pair of them would have been matching perfectly. The older girl also wore, in addition to her dark sweater and beret, a subtle smile across her face, the same one that nearly always graced her lips. Such a direct opposite to Maggie's own resting expression, which was that of a permanent near-scowl even when she did not intend for it to be.
"How long have you been standing there?" Maggie asked. She nervously brushed a wet strand of her jet-black hair behind her ear and darted her eyes away from Luan's Cheshire-cat gaze, embarrassed to have been caught in such a vulnerable state.
"About three minutes," Luan casually answered, sparing a quick glance to an imaginary watch around her wrist. "I'm honestly a little surprised you didn't notice."
Of course Maggie did not notice. It was rather difficult for noises like the opening of bathroom doors to capture her attention while her head was submerged in water. "I didn't hear you come in…"
"Well, I am a mime. Silence is sorta my whole schtick." With an overly dramatic flourish, she pulled her own scarf from around her neck and walked with purpose to her friend, not stopping until the two of them were less than a foot apart, then used the end of the garment to gently wipe away the residual beads of water that still trickled down Maggie's cheek and neck. "By the way, that reminds me; I came up with this absolutely killer joke on my way over here. You wanna hear it?"
"You're going to tell it to me even if I say no, so you might as well get it over with."
"That's the spirit!" came Luan's cheerful reply. "Okay, so these two mimes are walking down the street, right? One of them looks to the other and says…" Silence. It took Maggie a half-second to realize that the lack of a punchline was a punchline in and of itself, and once she did, she did not look impressed in the slightest. The older girl stood there for another beat with a wide and goofy grin on her mouth, awaiting for some kind of reaction to manifest. "Get it?" she finally prompted. It was something of a reflex for her.
"Oh, believe me; I got it," Maggie said with a roll of her eyes.
"What'd I tell ya? Pretty killer, amiright?"
"Well, it was so bad that hearing it made me wish that I was dead, so yeah, I guess so."
As was often the case whenever Maggie attempted to undermine her jokes, Luan simply chuckled at the insult. "Pretty sick burn there, Mags!" By that point, she had finished with drying her friend's face, leaving the end of her scarf slightly dampened. With her cheeks no longer shimmering in the cold fluorescent light overhead, Luan could better appreciate the details of Maggie's expression. "Gee, your face is awfully red," she ribbed. "Is that why you ran to the bathroom? 'Cause you're feeling so flushed?"
What Luan would have loved more than anything would have been for Maggie to fire back with a teasing jest of her own and for them to have a playful little bit of back-and-forth together. Instead, Maggie turned away and spoke all meek and mild. "I, um, have this thing called rosacea…"
Rarely did Luan's smile ever falter, but Maggie's confession unintentionally caused it to do so. "Oh…" Whatever internal line it was that governed what Luan felt comfortable making fun of a person for, she must have crossed over it. "Is that like a skin condition?"
"I guess so," Maggie answered. "It pretty much just means that my face is always red…"
"Is that why you wear so much of that pale makeup all the time?" Maggie's lack of a verbal answer, followed by a fresh bloom of shameful crimson to her already scarlet cheeks, spoke volumes. "Well, I kinda like it," Luan continued, and just like that her grin was back in full force. "It gives you this warm sorta glow. But anyway, I didn't follow you into the bathroom to ask why your face is red; I had a different color in mind." She took her scarf, still wet from being used as a makeshift towel, and slung it back around her neck, then started leaning against a nearby stall with her hands folded across her chest. "What's gotcha feelin' so blue, kangaroo? Pre-show jitters?"
"I'd actually call it 'soul-crushing anxiety,' but sure, 'pre-show jitters' works too." To Maggie's surprise, Luan giggled airily beneath her breath at her sarcasm. "There something funny about that to you?" she asked with faux offense.
"No, of course not," Luan insisted. "It's just that you remind me of my little sister Lucy so much sometimes, it's almost spooky. She was just as nervous the first time she ever read her poetry in front of a crowd, and she ended up doing great! You will too, trust me. You're an incredible mime; way better than me, and certainly better than Benny." She paused for a second, thought back upon her compliment, and seemed to almost reconsider it. "Don't tell him I said that, though. It'll hurt his feelings."
Such a prospect inspired little more from Maggie than a casually indifferent shrug of her shoulders. "And since when do I care whether or not I hurt Benny's feelings?" Being that she was the possessor of a far dryer sense of humor than Luan, the only clue to signal that she was joking was the single sharp tuft of air that blew out of her nostrils as she subtly laughed through her nose. It was about as mirthful as she ever allowed herself to be. "You, um, really think I'm a better mime than you?" The idea alone, though flattering, was preposterous to her. Luan, after all, had many more years worth of experience in the ancient and noble art of Pantomime than Maggie did.
"Totally! This routine you came up with is very beautiful, Maggie. I mean that."
Maggie could scarcely remember a time when Luan had sounded so genuine. The pair of them were similar in precious few ways, personality-wise, but one thing that they undeniably had in common was a certain disinclination towards emotional sincerity. Usually, Luan was far more likely to cut off a dramatic moment with an ill-timed joke than she was to initiate one herself, and Maggie had long ago cultivated this image of herself as someone who was cold and distant. Still, she figured that she at least owed it to her friend to match her tone. Just this once, if nothing else. "It was partly inspired by you, ya know?" she admitted shyly. "Or, at least, by your act at my thirteenth birthday party. It really spoke to me, especially the part where you and your brother were mirroring each others actions. It was, like, this great commentary on how society forces us all into these preconfigured roles to the point where individuality is eradicated and we all become nothing but clones of one another. You know, I had read this great book on nihilist philosophy at the time called The Nietzschean Self, and I think-"
"Um, Maggie," Luan interjected, fighting back a snickering laughter. "You do realize that routine was just something I had ripped off from an old Marx Brothers' movie, right?"
"…Wha?"
"Yup! There's this scene in Duck Soup where Harpo is pretending to be Groucho's reflection in a mirror and mimicking all his movements. I just thought it'd be a real hoot to try to recreate it myself was all."
It took Maggie a moment to process such a shattering of her worldview. "Oh…" was all that she could say at first. She sounded like a child who had just been told that Santa Clause did not really exist. "Am I just, like, the most pretentious person to ever live, or something?"
"Nah, you're fine," Luan said as she playfully elbowed Maggie's side. "In fact, that's something I really admire about you. You may like to pretend to be all cynical and closed off, but you're by far the most heart-on-your-sleeve person I've ever met. You've got such a unique way of seeing the world, and when you mime, you really treat it like an artform and pour all your passion into it."
"Yeah, and that's exactly why I'm so nervous about going out onstage tonight." As if to strengthen her point, another round of applause seeped through the bathroom walls, causing Maggie to tense her muscles ever tighter and breathe heavily like an injured animal. Only after Luan laid her hand comfortingly on her shoulder was she able to relax again. "Look," Maggie pressed on. "I know that, to most people, miming is just this dumb thing that nobody takes seriously, but it really means a lot to me. It's like…it's like…" She searched for a way to verbalize her emotions, but came up lacking. How appropriate, she mused to herself, that words should fail her as she spoke of Pantomime.
"…A way to express yourself?"
"Yeah, kind of," Maggie agreed. "I don't wanna bare my soul out there just for people to laugh at me."
"Trust me, I've been there, only my problem is when nobody laughs at me," Luan commiserated. "It may surprise you to hear this, but I've bombed my fair share of stand-up sets in my lifetime." Anyone else would have needed an electron microscope to notice the infinitesimal way in which the corner of Maggie's mouth twitched upwards, but for Luan, that tiny smirk may as well have been a full-bellied horse laugh. "Come on," she said in mock-resignation. "I know you've got something snarky on your mind, so you might as well get it out of your system."
"No, it's nothing," Maggie deadpanned. "I was just gonna say that considering the quality of your jokes, that doesn't surprise me one bit." Her voice was as dry as animal bones that had been bleached under a desert sun, but that could not hide the fact that making fun of her friend made her feel marginally better, though she had a feeling that was Luan's aim all along.
Whatever the case, Luan took the jest in stride. "I swear, you're really full of some good zingers today," she said, sounding like a proud parent. "But anyway, back to my point; I've bombed plenty of stand-up sets in my lifetime, but I've never let that stop me before! You can't let your fear of how a bunch of strangers will react stop you from doing what you love, Maggie. Think of it like this; the people who matter the most to you, like your friends and your mom; do you think that they'd ever laugh at you?"
Maggie scoffed as if the very notion were ridiculous. "Absolutely not." While her mother could be embarrassing at times in the way in which she doted upon her daughter, she was also always quick to throw her support behind Maggie in nearly all of her endeavors, from taking her to the mall and helping her pick out new clothes back in the days when Maggie's tastes first started to lean towards darker styles to clearing the coffee table out of her living room so that Maggie and Luan could have a nice open space with which to practice their mime routine in the weeks before the talent show. Any annoyance that Maggie might have felt regarding her mother's overbearing nature was secondary to her gratitude to have such a supportive parent in her life.
As for her friends, Maggie was not worried that they would laugh at her simply because they did not laugh, period. Most of them shared her glum disposition, and moreover nearly all of them had clapped right alongside Maggie when they stood together and watched Luan's performance at her thirteenth birthday party. If anybody could appreciate a good Pantomime routine, it was them.
"Well, there you go!" Luan said with triumph. "As for everybody else, sure, some of them might think you're a little weird, and yes, a few of them might even laugh, but that's just because nothing makes insecure people feel more uncomfortable than seeing somebody be totally themselves, and I'll tell you this much; even in the absolute worst comedy clubs that I've ever performed in, I often see that if I just look out and scan the audience there's almost always at least one person smiling at my jokes, and that makes all the booing and the heckling worth it. That's what I want you to try to focus on out there, Maggie. This auditorium seats about a thousand people, and I think you'll find that if you can reach out and touch even just one person in that sea of faces, even if it's only one, then the other nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine won't even matter."
As genuine as Luan had sounded earlier when she had called Maggie's routine beautiful, it was nothing compared to the sheer earnestness with which she had delivered her impassioned speech. Some small part of Maggie wanted nothing more than to undercut Luan's words with some snide quip about how sappy they were, and yet she could not bring herself to do so. Perhaps it had more to do with seeing Luan's genial face grinning down upon her than it had to do with the talk itself, but still to hear such an assurance that her silly little mime act could actually mean something to somebody besides herself lit a few scattered embers in her spirit. If Maggie were, in effect, a spun-steel spire planted in the middle of a field during a storm waiting to be struck by lightning, then Luan's calming words were like the soft-crackling sparks of Saint Elmo's fire, pleasantly warm, at the very tip-top of her head.
Much preferable to the crash of a lightning strike.
"…Okay," Maggie said with all of the resolve that she could muster. "Let's do this."
With her legs as wobbly as those of a newborn deer taking its first few steps, Maggie walked with her friend out of the bathroom, pausing only to gather up her shed articles of clothing. As they strolled lazily through the school corridors on their way back to the auditorium, Maggie pulled her sweater back over her frame, fit her beret back atop her scalp, and wrapped her scarf back around her neck, tying it loosely so that it would not feel so much like a strangling grip. Even after all of that, however, she was still not fully dressed. "We'll have to reapply your face-paint before our turn to go on," Luan pointed out along their journey. "Which should be…" She consulted again her invisible wristwatch and made a face like she were calculating how much time they had left. "…About eight minutes from now. Don't worry though, I know just the guy who can help us out, and with time to spare!" Finally, they reached the entrance to the backstage of the auditorium, and the mere sight of those heavy doors was enough to fill Maggie with a renewed sense of dread, as she knew that once she passed through them, there could be no turning back. Her earlier plunging of her face into the sink-water was nothing compared to this new endeavor that she was about to undergo; as soon as she walked through those doors, she would be as a diver swimming hundreds of leagues below the surface of a vast sea, miles away from land. "Chin up, Maggie," Luan then said suddenly. "You know what they say; what's mime is yours and what's yours is mime." She laughed her trademark laugh, clutching her sides and slapping her knee.
Maggie was not quite so amused. In fact, a joke that terrible was enough to break her out of her reveries of shark-infested oceans. "What does that have to do with anything?" she snapped.
"Nothing!" Luan answered all smug and self-satisfied as she gripped the door handle. "I've just been looking for an excuse to use that line all day and got tired of waiting!"
Within moments of entering into that massive space behind the curtain, Maggie found herself seated on a metal folding chair in an area that could generously have been described as a dressing room.
In actuality, however, it was little more than a small alcove nestled in the back corner beyond stacks of sandbags and racks of costumes, insulated from the hectic atmosphere of the rest of the area as other teens scrambled to get ready before their turns to step into the spotlight. Nailed into the brick wall was a long wooden board that functioned as a shelf, upon which performers throughout the years had left empty lipstick tubes and fake eyelashes and loose pages of scripts from productions long since ended. Above the shelf hung a mirror all lined around the edges with great spherical bulbs, half of them dim, that gave off an amber glow. Despite its lack of refinement, Maggie could not help but become swept up in the meagre splendor of it all. As Benny, dressed in an ill-fitting grey suit, worked with lightning efficiency to reapply what she had washed away, she found amusement in picturing herself as a shrill-voiced and overly demanding starlet during the Golden Age of Hollywood, barking orders at some hapless assistant.
Occupying her head with such thoughts helped her to take her mind off of the impending terror of performing.
"See, what'd I tell ya?" Luan said smugly as she good-naturedly patted Maggie on the back. "Benny's the best in the business!" The older girl stood to Maggie's left and watched as Benny worked with the speed and skill of a Broadway professional, using a small cosmetic sponge to dapple white paint onto Maggie's forehead and eyelids.
"Well, when you've been in Drama Club for as long as I have, you pick up a thing or two," he bragged with a relaxed confidence. "You know Maggie, you should join Drama Club. It's a whole lot of fun, and I think it'd be right up your alley."
"Yeah," Luan said, and by the tone in her voice Maggie knew that she was about to deliver an absolute groaner of a joke. "After all, you're already something of a drama queen!"
As was typical whenever Luan tried to be funny in the presence of her two friends, Maggie stayed stone-faced and rolled her eyes beneath their lids while Benny chuckled heartily. "Luan, please," he said in between giggles as he struggled to keep his hand steady. "I'm trying to work here." Once his laughter died down, he returned to his earlier question. "So, whaddya say, Maggie?"
"I'd say I'm barely able to put up with you, let alone an entire club full of obnoxious theatre kids." Another one of her nigh-imperceptible smirks graced her lips. Contrary to the popular belief shared amongst the students of Royal Woods High School, Maggie actually liked Benny well-enough, even though she would rather have died than admit so aloud. Much like with Luan, however, it brought her such joy to undermine him whenever the opportunity presented itself. "Besides, I'm not really all that much of an actress…"
Benny, who had long ago grown to view Maggie's verbal barbs as being more affectionate than malicious, barely even registered the insult, and instead devoted his focus toward reassuring her. "That's okay! I never said you'd have to act. There are still loads of jobs in crew that you'd be perfect for. You'd make a great stage manager, for one thing."
"Ooh, you'd love that!" Luan chimed in. "You'd get to dress all in black, hang out backstage in the shadows, yell at people over a headset…"
"Tempting, but I don't think so," Maggie deadpanned.
"How about you be a scenery artist then?" By this point, Maggie could tell that Benny would not let up until he had received the answer that he was hoping for. "I've seen some of the stuff that you've painted in art class, you know. You're really, really good. We're gonna start prepping to do Hadestown for the Spring musical as soon as Winter break is over, and we're gonna need a backdrop of Depression-era America. You'd be perfect! C'mon, at least think about it…"
"Fine," Maggie bluntly said with a resigned sigh, hoping that he would finally drop the subject for the time being. "I'll consider it." In truth, she had no real intention of honoring her promise. Just about the only thing that filled her with more dread than the prospect of going out in front of an audience herself was the thought of putting her artwork on display in front of thousands of judgmental eyes.
Unenthusiastic though it was, her answer was good enough for Benny, who grinned triumphantly as he put on the finishing touches to her makeup. "And…ta-da!" he exclaimed, in effect giving her permission to examine his handiwork in the mirror. "Whatcha think?"
She opened her eyes and looked in horror upon her reflection. "I think that you are about as mediocre a makeup artist as you are an actor," she quipped. Whereas Luan's face was done up subtly, with little more than a light brushing of foundation and a few black marks around her eyes, Maggie's face was slathered over with thick layers of Kabuki-white paint. Even for Maggie, who had experience in trying to make herself look as pale as humanly possible, it was a bit much. Black lipstick coated her mouth and a crimson teardrop was drawn on her cheek, and she had a gut-churning premonition of the audience bursting into laughter at the sight of her new appearance. "I look ridiculous…" she said miserably.
Benny at first seemed taken aback to hear his craftsmanship so harshly criticized, but that did not stop him from placing his hand gently on her shoulder to reassure her. "No you don't; you look amazing! The crowd's gonna love it." A conspiratorial gleam shimmered in his eyes as he then looked towards Luan. "In fact, I'd say that you two are gonna hit the heights…"
Something about the phrase conjured up some inexplicable sensation of nostalgia within Maggie. She could have sworn that she had heard those very words somewhere before, perhaps from some television show that she had once watched as a little girl. Before she could fit together all of the fragmented puzzle pieces of her memory, however, Luan picked up on what Benny was not-so-obviously hinting at and suddenly burst into song. "And oh what heights we'll hit!"
"On with the show, this is it!" The two older teens finished off the last line in unison, neither of them missing a beat and both of them bearing gigantic grins upon their faces, leaving behind an extremely confused Maggie in the wake of their song. They may as well have rehearsed it beforehand, though Maggie knew better. She had long ago come to accept, or at least tolerate, the many eccentricities that Luan and Benny shared with each other; their love for the performing arts, their fondness for old showtunes, their proclivity for awful jokes…
They too, at times, reminded Maggie of a Rorschach painting, mostly in the ways in which they were almost mirrored versions of each other, and much like with a Rorschach painting she was not always entirely sure of how to interpret their relationship or how well she fit into it. Benny and Luan had known each other for almost a year before Maggie had even met either of them, and while she had mostly gotten over her early insecurities of feeling as though she were a third wheel whenever the three of them hung out, there were rare occasions now and again where she wondered how it came to be that she should count two people so dissimilar to herself as her friends. Whatever the case, she supposed that, if nothing else, Benny and Luan's sheer gung-ho enthusiasm and extroversion made them a nice change of pace from her usual social circle.
Other times, however, they were just annoying, and especially on this night Maggie was in no mood for some of their more cringe-inducing shenanigans. "What. The hell. Was that supposed to be?" she spat, disgusted with their overly cutesy little song and dance.
"What, you've never watched The Bugs Bunny Show before?" Benny cheerfully asked her, completely oblivious to her revulsion.
Luan looked to him, perplexed. "Is that what that's from?" she countered. "I only know it from Seinfeld. You know, that one episode where Jerry and Elaine go to the opera…"
"Well, whatever it's from," Maggie interrupted, "never do anything like that in my presence ever again. Honestly, you two make me want to gag sometimes…"
"Fair enough," Luan said before bending down to speak into her ear. "Seriously though; you look great! And besides, think of it this way; at least now fewer people will be able to recognize you."
By the way in which she giggled afterwards, Maggie could tell that Luan had meant her statement only as a joke, though such a perspective did provide her with some small relief, however slight. She nevertheless needed help from her friends to rise from her chair, as she still lacked the necessary strength in her legs to stand on her own. Being that theirs was the next act scheduled to perform, Luan and Maggie walked with Benny to go wait in the wings of the stage for their turn. With nothing else to do, Maggie figured that she might as well peer out beyond the curtain to try and enjoy the current performance.
Maggie knew nothing of the girl onstage other than that her name was Margo, and that whenever they had passed each other in the school hallways in between classes, she was normally dressed in either plain shirts and jeans all stained with grass and dirt or in a little league uniform. Contrarily, her current wardrobe consisted of a simple black dress with a hem that fluttered at her knees, and as she strummed on an acoustic guitar and sang into a microphone on the stand before her, she stood awkwardly with her legs crossed; a girl unused to the glamour of the performing arts. Why she was so uncomfortable, Maggie could not fathom. She stood there at the side of the stage and listened to Margo's song, enraptured.
"…The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumpeter swan
Columnated ruins domino
Canvas the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?"
She was the possessor of a voice that was thin and rather scratchy; unpolished, perhaps, but nevertheless pleasant against Maggie's ear. Her playing of the guitar, likewise, was not exactly of professional quality and consisted mostly of her plunking at the strings with her hand in a simple down-down-up-up-down-up pattern. More than a few of the notes rang out all muted and buzzy. Despite all of this, and despite Margo's voice creaking at times like a rusty bicycle chain to hit the high notes, Maggie found her performance to be indescribably beautiful, and envied her talent. Suddenly she regretted even moreso her decision to perform a mime routine, and wished that she too could go out and play a strummy-strum acoustic cover of a Beach Boys' song rather than follow through with an act that carried with it such a risk for humiliation.
"Seems like a pretty tough act to follow," Maggie absentmindedly mused aloud. From behind her, Luan hummed noncommittally in response, though whether it was in mere acknowledgment or in disagreement Maggie could not be sure.
"…Surf's up
Aboard a tidal wave
Come about hard and join
The young and often spring you gave
I heard the word
Wonderful thing
A children's song…"
She had not felt so moved by a performance since she had watched Luan and her brother mimic each others actions at her birthday party two Summers prior. Best of all, Maggie could tell that this was so much unlike the song that Luan and Benny had serenaded her with only a few minutes prior. There was some deeper meaning to this one; she knew it, and was already mentally preparing a thesis statement.
Curious as to whether or not there was anyone else in the auditorium who was as affected as she was, Maggie scanned the crowd to gauge their collective reaction. Her eyeline naturally gravitated, at first, towards those that she knew best, starting with her mother in the third row. The middle-aged woman sat with her back straight in her seat, smiling politely with her hands folded upon her lap, but she did not seem particularly attentive towards what was transpiring on the stage. Maggie could have sworn that she heard the ticking of a clock in her mother's head that was counting down the minutes before she could watch her daughter's turn. Likewise, her circle of close friends up in the balcony appeared to be indifferent towards the song, with most of their faces illuminated by the faint blue glow of their phone screens. In fact, there was just about one other person in that massive room who Maggie could tell without a doubt was as enthralled as she was.
She was not entirely sure of the names of each member of Luan's family, being that there were so many of them and that she had only met them all once or twice, but she recognized Luan's older sisters from seeing them around school, and she knew Lynn from her and Maggie sharing a few classes. The sporty girl bore a wide and proud smile across her mouth, though Maggie had the hunch that it had more to do with her and Margo being friends than anything else. When the final notes of Margo's song echoed and died throughout the room, Lynn went so far as to cup her hands around her mouth and holler loudly enough to be heard over the rest of the audience's cordial but unenthusiastic applause.
"Okay guys, time for me to work my magic!" Benny said suddenly while Margo walked solemnly with her head downcast to exit stage left, practically dragging her guitar by its neck behind her. "Don't worry; I'll get the crowd nice and riled up for you." He gave Luan a quick hug and would have done the same to Maggie had it not been for the deathly glare that she gave him. Passing by Margo, he went to the microphone, took it off of its stand, and paced sprightly around the stage as the clapping died down. If there was one thing that Maggie envied of Benny, it was his ability to gain energy from being the center of attention. In fact, that was the entire reason he had volunteered to emcee the event rather than perform as a mime alongside Luan as he had done in talent shows passed; being the master of ceremonies meant more time in the spotlight. "C'mon now," he said into the microphone. "Is that all the gusta' you can musta'? Let's give Margo another round of applause!" The audience obliged his request unenthusiastically, clapping in another short burst that lasted only a couple of seconds. "Now, before we bring out our next amazing act, did anybody happen to lose a roll of hundred-dollar bills in a rubber band? Because we found the rubber band…"
While Benny regaled the auditorium with jokes so corny that even Luan was cringing at their delivery, Maggie walked over to Margo, who by that point had put on her coat and was sadly placing her guitar back into its hardshell case by the door. It seemed like such a shame to Maggie that a musician should leave after a performance without hearing a few words of genuine praise. Unfortunately for her, striking up conversations with strangers and being genuine were two things that Maggie did not have much experience with. "H-hey…" she began shyly.
After snapping the case's latch shut, Margo turned to look at the other girl with confusion. "Oh, um, hi there," she said, then scrunched up her face in concentration as she tried to mentally piece together a name to go with Maggie's black and white face. "It's…Maggie, right?"
"Yeah." A moment of awkward silence followed, during which Maggie rubbed at the back of her head and Margo slung her case over her shoulder, gripping both of her hands tightly around the nylon strap, her body language tense and apprehensive. It was clear to Maggie that the other girl was anxious to leave the talent show behind, along with whatever unpleasant feelings standing in the backstage conjured up within her. Maggie could empathize with her plight. "So, like, I don't want to keep you too long in case you've gotta get going, but I just wanted to tell you that I really loved what you did out there."
It was subtle, but at once Margo's nerves relaxed. "Really?" She did not sound as though she shared in Maggie's sentiment.
"Absolutely," Maggie reaffirmed. "Like, okay, so your playing and your voice were both great and all, but what really spoke to me was the song's deeper message about the collapse of Western civilization." She delivered the analysis casually, as though it were a simple fact as plain to see as the red teardrop painted on her cheek.
Margo raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?" she asked, her tone more amused than intrigued.
"Totally!" Suddenly the discomfort that Maggie had felt only moments before when she first struck up a conversation with the other girl was gone, replaced with an eagerness to share her thoughts. "So, like, those lyrics, 'columnated ruins domino,' for example; the way I look at it, that symbolizes how empires fall over time, you know what I mean? Like, it conjures up this image in my head of all these Greek columns in the pantheon or whatever crumbling to the ground after centuries of decay. Some pretty powerful imagery about the futility of human achievement, wouldn't you agree?"
"Well, maybe that's what the original songwriters were going for, but I dunno about all that," Margo said, blushing and smiling at Maggie's long-winded interpretation. "I pretty much just chose to perform that song because my mom used to sing it to me before bed when I was little."
For the second time that day, she felt a wash of embarrassment crash over her face at the thought that she had come across as pretentious. "…Well, that's pretty cool too," she practically whispered, trying to save face.
Margo giggled. "I'm still really happy you were able to get something out of it though, and it really means a lot to me for you to say that I did the song justice. And hey, who knows? Maybe your interpretation's right. I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder, or however it is that the old saying goes." Unlike Luan, Margo wore an actual watch around her wrist, and after she had finished speaking she glanced casually to its face. "Sorry to have to cut this short, but I really should be getting home. It's been nice talking with you, mime-girl. Break a leg out there!" With a newfound spring in her step, Margo walked through the doors leading into the hallway.
Whatever lingering sensations of embarrassment there were that still afflicted Maggie, they were overwhelmed by her slight feelings of pride at having been able to show Margo that at least one person was touched by her performance. All that she could hope for was that there was somebody out there in the auditorium who could do the same for her.
By the time she finally returned to Luan's side, Benny was just about wrapping up his duties as the Master of Ceremonies. "…Ya know, our next act reminds me of an old joke," he said. "A couple of my friends recently set off to pursue new careers as mimes." He paused a second for comedic effect. "I haven't heard from them since!" A terrible punchline as far as Maggie was concerned, and judging from the way in which Luan pressed her palms against her eyes and moaned as if she had a migraine, she was none too amused either. No doubt she was thinking of all the ways in which she could have told it better. Still, everyone in attendance chuckled amiably at its delivery, and, true to his word, Benny appeared to have successfully reinvigorated the crowd, as the audience seemed to be in good spirits. Not exactly the most appropriate mood considering the somber tone of her routine, Maggie figured, but she still appreciated his efforts. "Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Pantomime stylings of Luan and Maggie!"
There it was; the thunderstorm just overhead.
As trembling as her legs had been throughout the night, now it was as though they would not work entirely. She froze in place even while Luan confidently walked out to face the crowd, waving to them as she reached centerstage, completely unaware of the fact that her partner was still waiting in the wings too terrified to move. Unexpectedly, the worst sound to Maggie was not the roar of the audience's ovation, but the high-pitched whine of feedback distortion that came when Benny placed his mic back on its stand and set it to the side, though mercifully it disappeared once he switched the microphone off, leaving Maggie with nothing but the rapidly fading applause to assault her eardrums. Soon though even that died down, and all that remained in its absence was a deafening silence.
A whirlwind seemed to churn way high up in her stomach, and she felt as though she were about to be sick.
By this point Luan and Benny had finally noticed that their friend was still standing in the shadows near the curtain, and while Benny looked to Maggie expectantly in order to urge her to come out, Luan was much more forgiving; it must have been all of those improv classes that she had taken throughout the years, but she knew just how to make it seem like her friend's stage fright was simply a part of the act. She smiled a toothy grin that helped to set Maggie at ease and started pulling on an invisible rope with her hands, mimicking the act of drawing Maggie from out of her hiding place. Realizing what was going on, it was then that the younger girl remembered that she could walk, and she took her first uneasy steps out onto the stage to another small burst of confused but courteous clapping. At the very least, she counted herself lucky that nobody had yet burst into laughter at the sight of her makeup.
She had only made it halfway before her trembling legs failed her and she stumbled, and she would have fallen on her face if not for Benny rushing to reach out his hand for her to steady herself with. A few people in the back row snickered at her clumsiness, but considering how much worse it could have been, she did not mind too much. Besides, any negative attention that she had drawn to herself was siphoned away towards Luan as the brown-haired girl exaggeratedly slipped and fell on her rump after taking a few steps to come to Maggie's aid. She would have made for a good tummler in an old Vaudeville show. The crowd went into hysterics at Luan's pratfall, and Maggie saw Luan wink to her as she stood back up and dusted herself off.
Never before had she felt so grateful to have these two in her life. Unable to bring herself to speak, she instead looked up into Benny's hazel eyes and tried to convey with her gaze just how thankful she was that he had helped spare her so much pain. "You know," he said quietly, "in theatre parlance, when people say, 'break a leg,' they don't usually mean it literally!" She did not find his joke funny in the slightest, but nevertheless she forced a single chortle from her throat. He had earned that much, by her reckoning. She suddenly found the strength necessary to stand on her own, and after giving her one final encouraging smile and pat on her back, Benny walked offstage and left the two performers to their act.
Over the loud speakers came a melancholy song of violins and accordions; something that Maggie had found off of a website of royalty-free music. It would have felt right at home on the soundtrack of a bad movie during a scene set at a cliché French cafe, and once the first few notes pierced the air, Maggie was hit with the panicked realization that she had completely forgotten how her act, the one which she had spent so much of her free time rehearsing, was supposed to begin.
The lamps of her living room, where she had spent the preceding weeks futilely practicing, could not have prepared her for the blinding quality of the spotlights currently focused upon her. She saw everything as though in a sun-bleached photograph, and her hand formed a visor over her squinting eyes as she looked out into that sea of people, hoping to find at least a few friendly faces but mostly only seeing innumerable shadowy figures cloaked in darkness, aside from a few blinking red dots from cameras that were all set to record for posterity whatever humiliation befell her.
There was a fluttering of paper that echoed out above the music as a dozen or so bored crowd members opened up their programs to check to see how much longer they had to sit before they could go home, and Maggie could feel the pressure of their camera lenses and staring eyes upon her body as they impatiently waited for her to do something, anything, to entertain them. Though she was standing in the middle of a vast stage she still felt claustrophobic, as the sheer force of the audience's collective gaze felt almost solid, like an invisible force that was rapidly descending upon her. She felt like a doomed explorer in a silent adventure serial about to be crushed to death by the closing-in walls of a booby-trapped room-
Wait a minute…
Invisible walls; that was it!
She still could not remember how exactly her routine was supposed to go, at least according to her original plan, but in that moment she found inspiration for a new beginning.
Perhaps it was time that she show Luan that she could improvise as well.
She held her hands in front of her eyes with the palms facing outwards, shielding her vision from the bright stagelights and the audience's leering gaze all at once, though a few gossamer threads of golden light still managed to slip their way between her fingers like sunbeams through tree branches. Embracing that psychic weight which she still felt upon her body, she did as Luan had done so long ago at her birthday party and withdrew slowly upon herself until she was seated on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, her figure cramped and contorted. For the sake of those watching, she ran her hands illustratively against the interior walls of the invisible box in which she had placed herself; an imaginary prison of her own design. Ironically, she felt much less claustrophobic within its boundaries than she did out in the open.
Someone out there amongst all that darkness stifled a cough. Aside from that solitary noise, the crowd had no reaction whatsoever from what Maggie could tell. She suspected that nobody quite knew what to make of her.
The sound of footsteps on hardwood grew in volume over the music, and when Maggie looked up and to her right she saw Luan standing there above her, that same smile across her lips that suggested she were privy to some great cosmic joke that nobody else had yet to hear the punchline to.
Secretly, Maggie had always adored that smile. It was something that she felt she could rely on.
Luan threw her hands upon the unseeable box's lid and pantomimed the action of unhinging a latch. Once free, Maggie began to slowly rise from her position with her hands stretching out above her head; a blooming lotus flower with her petals unfurling towards a spotlight sun.
A few people were snickering under their breaths at the display. Maggie's heart seemed to stop for a second, but then went right back to beating at a steady pace.
Once she had reached her full height, she held her pose for a few seconds more until a new idea suddenly came to life within her head of where her routine should go from there. With a deep breath to brace herself, she bent forwards and, without having done so since a few gymnastics classes she had taken when she was in elementary school, cartwheeled all the way down to the opposite end of the stage, finishing off knelt down on one knee and with her arms extended at her sides while a few scattered members of the audience clapped politely but without much enthusiasm. Maggie did not mind, especially when she saw Luan looking at her with such pride in her eyes. That one look, alongside Luan's gentle smile, was enough for her to feel appreciated.
Besides, she had never exactly expected a standing ovation, nor even wanted one. She was satisfied with whatever scraps of acclaim the audience threw her way. The sound of their applause no longer bore the awful quality of thunderclaps, and now reminded Maggie of the low energy chittering of cicadas' wings outside of her bedroom window in the Springtime; relaxing, almost peaceful, in a way…
With her spirit now freed from its invisible cage, she suddenly remembered the rest of her routine, which she and Luan proceeded to perform perfectly.
Long after the audience and the other performers had left and the spotlights were dimmed, Maggie and Luan sat next to each other on the stage with their legs swinging lazily across the edge, both of them content to just enjoy the moment in silence. With how relaxed and at-ease she felt, Maggie very well could have been sitting at the bank of a creek in the middle of Summer with her feet submerged in the slow-trickling stream. She had cleared away her makeup following the show, aside from a few lingering streaks of white paint along her chin and neck, and she proudly let her ever-rosy face shine out for the world to see.
Her mother and Luan's parents stood in the center aisle that divided the auditorium into two halves, gushing to each other about how proud they were of their children. Ordinarily, Maggie might have been embarrassed to be the topic of her mother's conversation, but not tonight. The rest of Luan's massive family sat in a row of dark blue theatre seats, passing the time by chatting amongst themselves or texting or, in the case of her younger twin sisters, jumping up and down on their chairs.
Though there were many of them to keep track of, Maggie still recognized that one member of Luan's family was missing from the rest.
"Hello," came a small voice to Maggie's left, and while Luan yelped and nearly fell off of the edge of the stage in surprise, Maggie simply looked down to see a little girl staring up at her through a curtain of dark hair over her eyes. She was all clad in black clothes, much like those that hung on the racks of Maggie's bedroom closet. During the few occasions in which she had spent time with Luan's brothers and sisters, Maggie had always felt a certain connection with this nine-year-old girl who looked so much like a little black beetle. She saw a lot of herself in her.
"Hi there," Maggie kindly greeted. "You're…Lucy, right?"
The little black beetle girl shyly nodded and took to fidgeting with her hands. "I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed your performance," she said. "I particularly liked the symbolism of societal pressures forcing you into a box. I know what that feels like…"
Lucy spoke with a sense of sadness that was far beyond her years, and while Maggie was happy to have found somebody who shared in her love for examining the deeper meanings of art, it seemed like such a shame to her that a child so young should already carry herself with such an air of melancholia. She wanted nothing more than to let her know in some small way that the world was not quite so grim a place as she may have thought. "That's a pretty astute observation," Maggie admitted warmly. "But remember Lucy; the entire point of my act was that, even when it feels at times like society's forcing you into boxes, there are always people who care about you enough to help you break out of them, just like Luan helped me onstage."
"…Luan helped me break out of a box once, too." Lucy then smiled up at the two mimes on the stage, and even though Maggie did not know her very well, she still had the inkling sensation that here before her stood a girl who did not smile for just anyone, and that a grin from her was as rare and as beautiful as a wild thylacine.
Maggie felt truly honored to be in its presence.
Her message of appreciation delivered, Lucy ran off like a flighty little Raven chick with a slight blush on her cheeks to rejoin the rest of her family. Maggie watched her leave until a soft punch to her bicep jolted her attention back to the girl by her side. "See, what'd I tell ya?" Luan said smugly. "If you can reach out and touch just one person, then it's all worth it. Was I right, or was I right?"
"…Yeah," Maggie admitted with faux reluctance. "I guess you were." She was still in such good spirits that she could not think of anything snarky to say. All that she could think about was how she would have gladly put herself through a thousand talent shows just to see Lucy's precious grin just once again.
Luan's smile was still her favorite, however. If only by a slim margin…
"Hey guys!" Benny's jovial voice sounded from behind her, and when she and Luan turned around they saw him standing there looking all ready to go home, wearing a tattery pea coat and a blue book bag on his back. "My dad's in the parking lot with the car running, so I've gotta get going."
Luan stood up and ran over to the brown-haired boy to give him a big hug which he gladly returned. "See ya, Benny," she told him. "Great job tonight!"
"Please," he humbly replied. "You two were the best part of the show, by far." Once they broke apart, he looked to Maggie, still seated at the edge of the stage, and offered her a small wave goodbye. Evidently, he had learned his lesson earlier not to try hugging her. "Bye Maggie, see ya around!"
He started to make his way towards the back curtain when Maggie suddenly sprang to her feet. "Hey Benny, wait up a sec," she called after him as she ran towards his direction. He paused just as he was about to step through the red velvet and saw her standing before him, rubbing at the nape of her neck and staring down at her foot which was kicking sheepishly at the floor, leaving behind black scuff marks on the hardwood with her shoes. "So, let's say, hypothetically of course, that I knew a girl who wanted to join Drama Club. Is there like a form she'd have to fill out or a teacher she'd have to talk to or something?"
Benny's face lit up like a Roman candle, though, mercifully for her, he decided to play along with her act. "Well, hypothetically, all she'd have to do is swing by the band room where we have our meetings the Thursday we come back from break at four o'clock, then we can take it from there. You do know where the band room is, right?"
"That's around the corner from the gym, yeah?" He gave a small nod in reply, and Maggie sighed a breath of relief, thankful that, much like performing, asking him had not been nearly as painful as she had feared. "Okay, cool. I'll let her know that then."
"I look forward to seeing her there."
She would have let him go, but there was still one final urgent matter that she felt she needed to attend to. "Oh, and Benny?" He raised an eyebrow, curious as to what else she had to say. "…Thanks for helping me out tonight." There was no trace of irony or sarcasm in her soft voice. "You know, with my makeup earlier. I really appreciate it."
"No problem. That's what friends are for!"
"Hey now," she said teasingly with a grin so tiny that only Luan could have noticed that it was plastered on her red face. "I never said we were friends."
"Yeah, but some things are better left unsaid," he stated nonchalantly. "I'd have thought that if anybody would know that, it'd be a girl who's a mime!"
Suddenly she regretted that solitary pity laugh she had given him earlier that night. Judging by the confidence with which he delivered such a pathetic excuse for a punchline, clearly it had gone to his head. Still, she was feeling particularly generous on this night, so instead of calling him out on his terrible joke, she simply rolled her eyes subtly shook her head and told him, "Have a good break, Benny."
"You too, Maggie." With that, he stepped through the curtain and out of Maggie's life for at least the following week until Winter recess was over and they both had to return to school.
She did not realize that Luan had sidled up next to her until she felt the weight of the elder girl's arm around her shoulder. "So, you've caught the theatre bug, eh?" Luan finally asked, sounding so proud of her friend.
"Well, I dunno if I'd go that far, but I thought I may as well give it a shot. Tonight kind of showed me that it can be sorta fun to put your art out there for people to see. Besides, I figure that if nothing else, being in Drama Club will give me plenty of opportunities to torment Benny some more." A mischievously devilish smirk crossed her lips, and while of course she would never pass up a chance to playfully insult Benny, in truth there was another, far more important motivation that drove her towards joining the club; she hoped that by doing so she could, in some roundabout way, perhaps draw out another one of Lucy's thylacine smiles.
For a moment they simply stood together and watched in contentment as the curtain fluttered in the wake of Benny's departure, until finally Luan looked back and noticed her brothers and sisters all taking their coats from off of the backs of their chairs and putting them on. "Looks like I've gotta get going too," she said. Sorrow clouded her voice as faintly as an inkdrop in an ocean, though of course she quickly perked up again. "You know, my family and I are going to Burpin' Burger to celebrate. You and your mom are welcome to join us, and who knows; I might even be able to talk my parents into letting us have a sleepover."
"Oh, no, I don't want to impose…"
"You wouldn't be imposing!" Luan insisted, and much like with Benny when he was trying to convince her to join the Drama Club, Maggie knew that it would have been pointless for her to argue further. Not that she wanted to, of course. "It'd be our pleasure to have you over. Whaddya say?"
What she had to say was something that she was sure she would regret later, though in the moment she could not have cared less. "…I'd say that the pleasure would be all mime!" Something remarkable happened then. For the very first time in the year in which Luan had known her, Maggie started to laugh a bright and delicate laughter that rang out like sleigh bells through the air. "Get it?"
At first it seemed as though Luan did not, in fact, get it, though perhaps that could have been put down more towards her utter astonishment to finally witness so much joy coming from her friend. If Lucy's smile was as rare as a thylacine, than to hear Maggie's laughter was like stumbling upon a pegasus in a Michigan forest. It was not long, however, before her dumbstruck expression was replaced with one of utter delight, and she began to laugh along with Maggie, harder than she could ever remember doing so before.
She continued to laugh as she began to walk off of the stage, and once Maggie composed herself she followed along, as if she were being pulled by some invisible rope that bound the two of them together.
