Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,47

passed. She no longer had proof of herself. She had become a nothing. Not a nothing, but a former something, which is infinitely more complicated.

In the auditorium, I sat on the upright edge of a seat, dropped my knapsack onto the floor, and squinted to find Kate. You could find her by her hair, which in mythology would have been called a golden mane. She was in the middle of the second row.

Mr. McGintee complimented the group on the turnout—in addition to the seventeen existing members of the club, there were twenty-six new students who had come to audition. He launched into a clichéd speech about how so few dramatic works can accommodate that many actors, and he ominously extracted a sheet of paper from his briefcase, telling everyone to write down their names and interests, in case they didn’t make the cast.

“It’s important to remember that the backstage volunteers, the costume designers, the lighting technicians, and the sales crew are just as important as the performers.” He shouted up the aisle, again to me. “Isn’t that right, Eveline?”

“Sure,” I said. I don’t know why he always had to rope me into things. He never seemed to listen to what I said. “I mean, I guess.” It wasn’t really right, not if you wanted to act. I happened to like doing the sets, but Kate would have died if they made her property mistress.

When Kate asked me whether she should join the Drama Club, I said no. She was pretty, and her hair was long, but that didn’t make her a stage actress. Carol Channing was a stage actress. Julie Andrews. Ethel Merman. Helen Hayes. Lynn Redgrave. Rita Moreno. I told her my opinion, just not in those words.

I just said, “I don’t think it would be good.”

Kate would have been fine on film, playing herself or a type of fairy—an equestrian fairy, one that lounged on horse foreheads and sent wandloads of sparkles into horse ears. One thing is that the plays they pick have to be vehicles for three talented kids and an incompetent mob. If I were in charge, I would have had them act out the newspaper.

“Let’s see, Fiddler on the Roof was last year,” I said as I ate a chicken leg and fell back on the couch. “And Guys and Dolls was the year before. It’ll probably be South Pacific.”

“You’re so mean!”

“Five bucks,” I said. “The Mikado. I bet you. Damn Yankees.”

Kate felt I was making fun of her hobby, which I was. She wanted to act because she was beautiful, and beautiful people always feel entitled to extra attention. It was the same thing with everyone saying Daryl Sackler should play basketball. It didn’t mean he had the necessary stamina or agility or dedication or wits, it just meant he was tall, that his figure would have made sense on the court. People like things at least to appear to make sense, even if that visual logic comes at the expense of factual excellence.

There were boys all over the auditorium, sitting against the edges of things. I was surprised to see Jack there. He was on the floor against the wall at the far right with Dan and Troy Resnick, and he was staring at me with a piercing curiosity, as though I were stuffed and encased behind glass. I’d seen him look at me that way before.

“Are the rumors true?” he’d asked.

Twigs were caught on his red plaid lumberjack coat. He’d just returned from boarding school for Thanksgiving. His duffel bag was sitting out on the front step, where he’d left it. It was November 1978, five months after we’d met.

It was an uncharacteristic sentence for him to speak. I was confused not by the words but by the tone, the swiftness of delivery. It was as if there were a piece of me he’d lost in a strong wind, and he was frantic to retrieve it. He was staring at me furiously.

“It depends,” I said, “on what the rumors say.”

“That they slept with you,” he countered fearlessly. One thing—Jack could be fearless. He did not ever hesitate to ensure that we were both speaking of the same thing. We were sitting on the couch in the living room. His knees brushed the coffee table.

I looked at the ceiling. “Well, no one really slept.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It makes a difference, the words you use.”

“Did you have sex with them?”

“I wouldn’t say that either.”

Jack took a breath. “What would you say?”

“I would