Unscripted - Nicole Kronzer Page 0,19

laugh-to-groan ratio.

Finger-flipper stepped forward. “185 lawyers walk into the bar. The bartender says, ‘We don’t serve lawyers here,’ and the lawyers say, ‘Objection!’ ”

The crowd was warming up now. I started to step out, but Crotch-grabber stepped in front of me. “. . . And the lawyers say, ‘We’ll be brief!’ ”

I jumped out again, but Finger-flipper cut me off. “And the lawyers say, ‘We’ll be the judge of that!’ ”

I was out before Finger-flipper even finished his joke, but Crotch-grabber was already talking. “185 lawyers—”

The crowd began to murmur in response to the tension building between the three of us. Some guy yelled out in a falsetto voice, “Get it, girl!” A bunch of guys laughed.

Now I looked out at the crowd. I spotted Emily and Sirena and Hanna and Paloma, urging me on with their eyes. I bit the inside of my cheek. Crotch-grabber delivered his punchline.

I hesitated. Crotch-grabber and Finger-flipper looked at each other and grinned. One of them turned to me in a sort of courtly bow. The other mirrored him.

I could feel my cheeks flush. My heart was a hammer against my sternum. They’d taken all of the low-hanging-fruit jokes. There weren’t any lawyer puns left. I looked to Ben to switch the occupation. It was clearly time. Roger leaned over to Ben, probably to tell him the same thing. But Ben shook his head. He glanced up at me like we were strangers. He clicked his pen and waited.

I stepped forward. The crowd cheered. I searched for Will, but he and Jonas hadn’t returned yet.

“185 lawyers walk into a bar,” I began.

Jenn, our coach back home, tells us anything can sound like a joke if you sell it like it’s a joke.

I increased my volume. “The bartender says—” I racked my brain for lawyer puns: defendant, prosecutor, bailiff—“ ‘We don’t serve lawyers here,’ ”—opening statement, verdict—“and the lawyers say—”

My brain popped. It was empty. Totally empty.

I backed up. “And the lawyers say—”

“That girls aren’t funny,” Crotch-grabber muttered only loud enough for everyone on stage to hear. The performers snickered.

I shuddered an exhale, but with my full voice, boomed, “The lawyers say, ‘We’d like a lawyer because we’re going to sue you.’ ”

Next came the last sound any improviser wants to hear: polite applause.

The scene was called, and I was furious. Furious at Ben, at those asshats, and at the three other guys who didn’t step forward at all. And mostly at myself for going blank up there.

I couldn’t just walk out of the Lodge, even though I wanted to. Then they’d win. I sat carefully in my folding chair. Will and Jonas were still gone and, assuming they’d stopped Jonas’s nosebleed, were probably making out somewhere. Sirena and Emily were in the next group.

Crotch-grabber and Finger-flipper didn’t say anything to me as they took their seats. They didn’t have to. They knew they were in my head.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I had to show my face at lunch. The Gildas invited me to sit with their teams, but I sat with Jonas and Will instead because they didn’t know about the one-liner disaster. I wanted to be in a space where I could forget it had happened.

The third time Jonas kicked me under the table in an effort to slide his foot next to Will’s, however, made me shift into lunch-inhaling mode. Once I disappeared my soup and sandwich, I pulled on my stocking cap and said, “I’m going for a walk. Shake off the morning.”

“Team lists are up in an hour, right?” Jonas asked. At my nod, he turned to Will and gave him a secret smile. “Do you want to ‘go for a walk,’ too?”

I messed up Will’s hair as a parting gesture and took the steps two at a time down to the main path. Inhaling the pine scent (and any air, really) as deeply as I could, I turned in the opposite direction from the cabins. Time to explore this place a little.

A couple minutes later, the dirt path narrowed, and the trees grew denser. They were skinny and white and looked almost like birches. Birds chirped and the wind cooled my skin. I pulled the flannel out of my bag, put it on, and buttoned it up.

You can do this, I told myself. Improv is your thing. This is where you belong. Maybe you’ve been coddled too much back home. This is the real world. Time to toughen up.

I jumped up and down a few times and shook out my hands.

“Hi.” A