Zero Regrets

(October 11-12, 2017)


30: Downs and Ups

Wendy, still bothered, made five or six phone calls on Tuesday. That afternoon, she told Dipper and Mabel, "Myrtle's will requested that she be buried next to her sister in the cemetery near Rose Grove Methodist Church. I found out she doesn't have much in the way of family—some cousins, I guess. But one of them's the youth minister of the Rose Grove Methodist Church. I got his number and told him I was a friend of Myrtle's and that I wanted to help pay for her funeral."

"I think that's nice," Mabel said. "I'll chip in!"

Dipper called both Stan and Ford. Altogether, the Pines family contributed a thousand dollars—which Mr. Michaels, the youth minister to whom Wendy had spoken, said would be more than enough to provide for a nice monument. They went a little bit further and arranged for flowers and made sure the local newspaper offered a kind and moving obituary.

"Wish we could go," Wendy said on Wednesday. "But it's tomorrow at eleven A.M. and Rose Grove is too far. We'd have to skip school and all."

"I think Myrtle would understand," Dipper said.

On campus they noticed the trucks parked outside Colby Hall—workmen, carpenters and electricians, already at work repairing the damage. They puzzled over what caused the destruction, but settled on "freak fire." Dipper learned that the girls on the top floor of the dorm would continue to be temporarily housed at the motel, not far off-campus. With luck, they could be back in the dorm by the end of the month.

At lunch, Eloise told them that Allie had indeed dropped out. Brandi was paired with a girl whose roommate had flunked out and had moved from the fourth floor to the second of Colby, so now she and Eloise were just down the hall from each other. "She's gonna need a lot of emotional support," Wendy said.

Eloise said, "We'll kind of support each other."

"You going to be OK?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah. Bad dreams last night, but they weren't paranormal. Just stress dreams, you know. No monsters." She shrugged. "Just stuff like one of my classes has changed classrooms, and nobody can tell me where it's meeting, and I'm super late and angsting over it."

"I get that one all the time," Dipper admitted. "With me, I'm back in high school and off at a track meet, but somehow the school our team is visiting has this gym that's like a labyrinth, and I get lost and can't find my way out to the track!"

"Meh," Wendy said. "Me, I just have nightmares about wrestling myself!"

Dipper had been through stressful paranormal eruptions before, and he bounced back reasonably fast, though all Wednesday he felt a vague disconnect, as if his classes really were in themselves a dream. Fortunately, he had no quizzes or conferences with teachers. At the end of the class day, Wendy drove home without him. He'd agreed to go to track tryouts at three that afternoon, though he had to admit that he was out of practice for sprinting. Wendy would come back for him at five, and they'd go from there.

Dipper dressed out for the tryouts in the gym, in the company of other hopefuls. That threw him right back into high school—the other guys were, to a man, taller and longer-legged than he was.

Not that he was particularly short, not any longer—Dipper had his full growth in, and he just shaved six feet without shoes. But the other guys topped that by an inch up to five inches. Some of them looked as though they'd be more at home on a basketball court than a running track.

One guy came over to him as they went out to the practice track and settled on the bleachers. "You're Pines, right?" the guy asked.

"Yeah," Dipper said, wondering where he'd met the other guy, a skinny, lanky African American dude.

"Yeah, thought so! I ran against you couple years ago. Name's Jerry Clayton. Coleridge High. You got hurt that day I think—fell?"

"Oh, right, I had a pretty hard fall," Dipper said. He didn't add that it was because an opposing runner—not Clayton—had bumped him deliberately. "I had to take six weeks off because I sprained my ankle pretty bad."

"Tough, man. Hey, I'm glad you're here! I'm nervous as crap."

"Join the club," Dipper said.

The coach introduced himself as Barnaby Ditterling—"Call me 'Coach' or 'Mr. Ditterling,' but if you once call me 'Barney,' you're cut!" That afternoon he was trying out sprinters for the 100, 200, and 400-meter dashes. "Let me explain the rules. Here you can compete in two events per meet. I'm looking for guys who can run one sprint, one other event. This week you just have to qualify for a sprint, though. Everybody up and let's stretch out, and then we'll do time trials."

Dipper tried out for all three dashes. In his group of six, he came in first in the hundred-meter, third in the two-hundred meter, and then—with a different assortment of runners for the other five spots—first in the four-hundred, surprising him because his strength had always been the shorter dash.

An assistant coach, a senior guy with a buzz cut, took information from him after the trials and said, "You took state high school championship for the hundred-meter, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Dipper said.

"Good job. In a week you'll be signing up for spring semester. I won't say now you've made the team, but I'll advise you—watch your schedule and don't have any classes after three P.M."

"OK," Dipper said.

He showered and changed and came out to find Wendy waiting with a grin. "Good job, man!"

"How did you know?" he asked her. "The results won't be posted until next Monday."

"Yeah, but I kinda hung around in the crowd and watched. You looked good out there, Dip."

"Well," he said, "we'll see." However, he had a good feeling about the day.


Mabel had the knack of throwing herself into the play, and during her rehearsals she managed to forget the events of the past weekend, at least for the time being. The director gave her the assignment of helping to train the other actors, who hadn't had much practice with puppets. Since the toughest part of the puppeteering was doing the singing, she did that by lining everyone else up and taking them through their songs.

The guy who had the worst problem was Alvy Quarrels, who was puppeteering Rod, the closeted gay character. Rod was a conservative Wall Street investment banker, impeccably dressed, bespectacled, and testy. His big number was "My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada," in which he—to stay in the closet—insisted that he had regular enthusiastic relationships with an imaginary girlfriend.

The trouble was that Alvy wasn't gay, but was, for an actor, introverted. He had a good baritone singing voice and his comic timing was on the money—but when he had to sing as Rod, he got embarrassed and red in the face and lost coordination. After one Friday session, Alvy said in frustration, "I think I gotta just quit! I can't get through the damn song!"

"You sing it great," Mabel pointed out. "You just get flustered."

"Yeah," Alvy agreed miserably. "Anything romantic. I mean. Oh, I'm a dweeb."

"Everyone's a little bit dweebish," Mabel sang, adapting one of the tunes in the show.

He chuckled weakly.

"OK, OK," Mabel said. "Let's toss away the script. Pretend that Kate here is a guy. Cross-dresser. So you suspect, and you want to flirt with, uh, call him Ken, and wind up by getting a kiss. Let's just role-play the puppets."

"I'm not sure that will help."

"Play along, Alvy, OK? If you can get through this role-play, you can get through the song. Remember, even though these are puppets, you're still an actor playing a role. What was your favorite role in high school?"

"Uh, I guess when I played Dromio of Syracuse. Comedy of Errors."

"Yeah, I know that one. Shakespeare. The Dromio brothers are twins, right? The servant guys?"

"Right. The main characters are the Antipholus brothers, one from Syracuse, one from Ephesus. The Dromios are their servants. Now, the Antipholus brothers are twins, too, but they were separated at birth . . .."

He ran through a quick precis of the play. "Great," Mabel said. "Now, are you a twin?"

"Uh, no. Two older sisters—"

"Ah-hah! That explains your insecurity! You should've arranged to be the oldest sib. Big brothers are always self-confident. OK, anyhow, you weren't a twin, but you played one. Great. So you're not a guy puppet who secretly likes other guy puppets. No big deal! Just play one. Let's do our role-play. OK, Kate is Ken, and you think she's really a guy, but you aren't sure. My puppet is sitting on the bench in front of the library, where you've seen her every day. Come up and flirt!"

"Uh, hi—"

"No, no, don't do it wrong. Walk over there. Little farther. Now. Make your approach and check my puppet out. Try to decide."

Alvy did a good job. He made Rod stroll past, notice Kate, do a double take, and slow down. Then he turned and shyly approached. "Uh, hi."

Mabel, giving Kate an unusually low voice, said, "Oh. Hi, yourself."

"Nice day, isn't it?"

"Yeah, pretty great. I like sitting out here in the sun."

Alvy made Rod hesitate, looking so intimidated that Mabel had to laugh. "Uh," Rod said, "uh, well, uh—Mind if I share the bench?"

"No, there's plenty of room."

Both Mabel and Alvy were kneeling, to simulate their puppets sitting. "It's a really nice day."

Kate said, "Yes, really nice."

Rod: "Yes, sir, a beautiful day here on the old . . . the old campus."

Kate: "Yes, it is. Are you a student?"

Rod: "Me?"

Kate: "Yup."

Rod: "Yes, I'm a sophomore drama student. Uh, how about you?"

Kate: "I'm a freshman fine-arts major."

Rod: "What's your name?"

Kate: "What's yours?"

Rod: "Al—uh, I mean Rod. Rodney. Call me Rod."

Kate: "Well . . . you seem nice. Everyone calls me Kate, but—I have a secret."

Rod: "What is it?"

Kate: "You'll be upset with me. Forget it."

Rod: "No, you seem nice. Really, I won't be upset. Tell me, please."

Kate: "Well—I'm not really a girl. My name is Ken."

Rod: "Oh, well. That's fine. I don't mind that. You, uh, you like dressing . . .."

Kate: "I like dressing like a girl. Because inside I feel like a girl. People just don't understand."

Rod: "I see. That's . . . it's . . . Ken, I understand. I do."

Kate: "May I tell you another secret?"

Rod: "Sure. You can tell me anything."

Kate: "There's a reason I sit here every day at this time. It's because I noticed you a couple of weeks ago. I wanted to meet you, but—I was afraid—you'd—"

Rod: "Don't worry about it. I've been trying to get up my nerve to talk to you for days."

Kate: "Well. Now you have."

Rod: "Now I have. Uh. Ken, I'm on my way off-campus to get some lunch."

Kate: "Are you asking me out?"

Rod: "I guess I am."

Kate: "Do you like sushi?"

Rod: "I adore sushi!"

Kate: "My soul mate!"

Rod: "Kiss me, Ken!"

Mabel broke down laughing as the puppets went into a clench. "Perfect! You didn't mess up on the mouth movements once. Now—OK, nobody's at the piano. I can play keyboard, but I'm not so hot on the bass line. If I play the melody, how about singing 'My Girlfriend' for me?"

"I'll try."

Mabel's command of the melody was a little shaky, but she got through the song. Alvy stood a few feet away and went through the choreography for the number. When he got to the last line,where he'd been dropping to a soft register, he belted it out—the song ends with Rod's yelling out his eagerness to perform a sexual act with his non-existent Canadian girlfriend.

Mabel broke off her playing. "If you can do that for me, you can do it for an audience. Just remember to pace your hand movements to your mouth movements, and you've got it. And you're acting! You're not a gay puppet—you just play one!"

"Thanks," Alvy said. He bit his lip. "Uh, would you like to go out after rehearsal tonight and—"

Mabel smiled and held up her left hand. "Engaged, Alvy. But don't feel bad. You're a fun guy and a really good actor. There are girls in the cast who have their eye on you. One in particular."

"Oh. Who?"

Mabel said, "Gloria."

Alvy blinked. "You're kidding!"

"Nope."

"But she's so—I mean, she's out of my league!"

"Dummy!" Mabel said. "The gorgeous girls don't get hit on all that much. Every good prospect thinks a girl like Gloria's out of his league! And the ones who don't think that are all stuck-up and full of themselves." While Alvy absorbed that, Mabel added, "Tell you what. I'll suggest to Gloria that she and I stop off for some ice cream at Freezie's tonight after rehearsal. If she takes me up on it, when the time comes, I'll claim that I have to go home for some excuse. Then I'll say, 'Hey, Alvy loves ice cream! You And he go out for some. We'll all go next time!'"

"Do you think that would work?"

"I can practically guarantee it," said Mabel, Queen of the Matchmakers.