Comedy Girl (14 page)

“I
had no idea the prom was so important to him,” I cried to Jazzy as I sat on my bed, puffy-eyed. “He's attended the prom since he was a freshman. Seniors were always asking him. I'll be standing onstage with Jelly Bean for two seconds. Gavin will be holding a girl in his arms for hours. I can't even bear the thought. He can't go with Stinkface! You have to set him up with…your mother—she's beautiful!”

“You're hearing just prom—Gavin's hearing he's not important anymore,” Jazzy speculated.

“But he is!”

“The prom is the biggest night of a teenager's life,” Jazzy continued. “For bush girls to go is a dream come true—much less to be going with hipsters. But Gavin is a coolhead—his destiny wasn't to be taking tickets at the door. He could possibly be crowned Prom Stud.”

“I thought you said this wasn't about the prom!”

“Everything's changed! The biggest day of your life now far outshines the biggest day of his life. The rela
tionship was about you worshipping Gavin. Now Gavin has to worship you. He can be the big fish of Mason, but maybe he can't be Gavin Shapiro.”

“I'm not asking him to be.”

“Girl, he just realized you've outgrown him!”

Jazzy's assessment of the situation wasn't reaching me. “But I'm still a bush girl! I still love Gavin, whether I'm standing on a stage in Vegas or dancing under a disco ball at Mason High. Why can't he understand that? Why can't he understand that an opportunity like this only happens once?”

“He does, Trixie! That's why he's freaking out. I've been going to therapy long enough to see the situation. He's afraid of your success. He's afraid of losing you.”

“Well, he did lose me—and I lost him.”

“You have to forget him—you're on a rising rocket to fame! You meet comics all the time—there'll be hundreds of lonely guys just waiting to date you.”

“But not one named Gavin Baldwin.”

“Well, you can sit on this bed and cry forever, or you can go to Vegas and rock the world.”

I thought for a moment.

“You're right. You're right!” I said apologetically. “I guess I've made a decision—just like Gavin demanded.”

The show must go on.

 

My eyes were already haggard from performing at Chaplin's and school. Now they were puffy and swollen from crying. I couldn't turn my love for Gavin off like some amorous light switch. I buried myself in rehearsing and writing new jokes for Jelly Bean's show. I used cucumber eye presses, extra rouge, and Joyful aroma-therapy spray to mask my exterior, but nothing could hide or truly distract me from the hole I felt inside.

When I closed my comedy notebook or stepped off the stage at Chaplin's, I was sadder than I had ever been in my life. I felt more unappreciated than I had before ever knowing an audience's approval, lonelier than before I received my first smile from Gavin.

Gavin didn't call and beg for my return. He didn't say he missed me. He didn't smile when we passed in the halls. Now I was counting his frowns.

And I was supposed to think about Vegas. My offstage life had become desperate, torturous, endless. Each night as I slept in my Varicose Veins T-shirt, I asked myself if I'd made the right choice. Why did I want this crazy life anyway? Cam was lonely and miserable—and he was successful. Did I want to live the rest of my life out of a suitcase, eating meals from a vending machine, only to return home from the road to a moldy refrigerator and an empty bed?

 

The next week Sarge waited with us at the gate before Dad and I boarded the plane, as if I was a ten-year-old child. I was getting motion sickness from Sarge squeezing her “little baby” back and forth.

As I buckled myself into my window seat, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window. Unbelievable. Trixie Shapiro was heading to Vegas!

 

Millions of lights illuminated a neon paradise as the plane swept over the Strip. Mandalay Bay, the Luxor, Excalibur, the MGM Grand all flickered their welcome.

It looked like the airplane had landed right in the middle of a circus. I was truly in Casino Country. Gamblers didn't have to go farther than the airport gate with hopes of winning millions. Flashing neon lights, the
ching ching
of spinning slot machines were within sight of the departure and arrival gates. Huge video screens advertised shows as bags spun around on the conveyer belts.

Dad and I were greeted by a silver-haired man in a dark suit, holding a white sign that read:
TRIXIE SHAPERO
.

“You are going to be famous,” my dad said. “Look, they are already misspelling your name.”

I only felt the desert heat for the two minutes it took to follow my driver—yes, my driver!—from the air-conditioned terminal to his air-conditioned Ford
Explorer. Unlike Chicago, where it can take all weekend to get from O'Hare to the city, Las Vegas has its airport literally blocks from the Strip—mega blocks large enough to hold enormous hotels and their supercolossal signs, an Eiffel Tower, a pirate ship, a pyramid, a castle with a wizard, and Roman columns.

We pulled into the circular drive of our hotel—Legends. Before us rose the facade of a massive 1940s-style movie theater that housed twelve movie theaters inside—as well as the obligatory casino, three thousand rooms, swimming pools, restaurants, and an empty stage where I was to make my Vegas debut.

The driver handed the valet our bags and said to my dad, “Win a million, Mr. Shapiro.”

“What are you doing?” I asked my dad. His head was tilted back as he craned his neck to see the marquis.

“I wanted to see if your name is in lights.”

But all it read was “Jelly Bean Live.”

The Legends' huge oak doors automatically opened, revealing a moving sidewalk in a dark corridor. As soon as we stepped on it, lights flashed and camera shutters clicked, simulating a hundred paparazzi. Invisible fans “oohed” and “aahed” and shouted, “Look this way,” and “Can I have your autograph?”

We were swept into a bright, cavernous lobby. Long rows of check-in desks were designed like old-
fashioned ticket windows.

“Trixie Shapiro,” I announced as Dad sat next to a lobby poster of
Rebel Without a Cause
. Sarge had always been the one to check the family into hotels, and now Dad was letting me take charge. I felt a surge of self-confidence at finally getting the opportunity to take care of myself.

“Welcome to Vegas,” the woman said through the window. “Your name again?

“Shapiro.”

She pressed the keyboard on her computer. “We don't have a reservation. Could it be under another name?”

“How about S-h-a-p-e-r-o.”

She fiddled with the keys. “I'm sorry, no listing.”

Impossible. Did I have the wrong hotel? Did I have the wrong week?

“This is Legends, isn't it?” I asked, suddenly confused.

“Yes.”

“Jelly Bean is performing here tonight, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is.”

This was exactly the kind of thing Cam had talked about. Life on the road!

“Are you here with your parents?” she asked skeptically.

“No, I'm here with Jelly Bean. I'm opening for him tonight, and I need rest.”

“Hold on,” she said, suddenly polite, and tapped her
fingers again. “We're crowded this weekend because of a Barbie Doll convention. Let me see…I can put you in room four fifteen.”

“Thanks. But I'll need two rooms, please.” She looked at me strangely. “My entourage,” I explained, pointing to my father.

“You're in luck. Four seventeen is available too.”

“What kind of luck is that?”

The casino was magnificent. A huge movie screen showed Laurel and Hardy tripping on a banana, but the slot addicts only had eyes for apples, oranges, and lemons. At the blackjack tables, dealers were dressed in usher outfits, and Marilyn Monroes, James Deans, and Groucho Marxes pushed money-changing carts.

Dad and I were lost. We circled the Walk of Fame three times before Humphrey Bogart pointed us to the elevators.

A golden star with room number 415 greeted me. I stuck my key card inside the door slot and got the green light. My very own Vegas bedroom. What awaited me on the other side? A pink neon headboard? Glittery bathrobes? A roulette wheel Jacuzzi? A slot machine toilet handle that ching-chinged with every flush?

But it was like any other hotel room—except for framed pictures of Marlon Brando, W.C. Fields, and Mae West adorning the walls. After all, management didn't
want travelers wasting time on roulette wheel Jacuzzis when they could be losing money at the real thing. I waved Dad good-bye and, after he disappeared through the adjoining door, I immediately called Jazzy with his phone card.

“I have my very own room in Vegas!” I shouted. “I can bounce on the beds and there's no Sarge to yell at me. Only housekeeping!”

 

I was too wired to rest and opened the curtains. The neon lights glistened from the surrounding hotels, but in the distance lay vast desert and darkness. I felt its loneliness and was overcome with thoughts of Gavin. My stomach sank as I caught my somber reflection in the dark glass.

I rode the elevator back to the lobby to find my way to the Living Legends Comedy Club, not to be confused with their twenty-thousand-seat concert hall. I thought I had stumbled upon the ladies' room, but it was indeed the club's entrance. A poster of Jelly Bean hung on the wall.

I pulled the doors open and peeked in.

I expected Carnegie Hall, but this was more like Chaplin's on a good night. It held about two hundred people, with round tables and chairs and little unlit candles on the tables. The stage looked about the same
size as my hotel bed.

A man dressed in tech black walked in. “May I help you?” he asked.

“I'm Trixie Shapiro,” I said, extending my hand. “I'm opening for Jelly Bean tonight.”

“I'm Kevin,” he said, shaking my hand. “I'm glad you're here. I need to test the lighting levels.”

I jumped up onstage and looked at the empty chairs. In a few hours they would be filled. Stage fright set in. My stomach turned. This wouldn't be an Amber Hills audience.

“Where's Jelly Bean?” I asked as he walked back up to the lighting booth.

“You'll be lucky if you get to see him before he goes on. He usually secludes himself in his dressing room until he's announced.”

Good, maybe then he won't know if I bomb.

Kevin brought up the stage lights.

Then he hit the follow spot. I saw dust flying from the stage. I felt the warm glow from the Vegas spotlight.

I had arrived.

 

Two hours later a line formed outside the theater, reaching the casino bar. I hung out with Ray, the bartender. He passed a vodka to a businessman. I wanted to intercept the pass and liquify my nerves, but I never
drank anything stronger than wine at Passover seder, and that always sent me into a giggling frenzy. That's all I needed—to laugh at my own jokes while the audience sat quietly.

I took my Coke without ice back to the dressing room as more audience members arrived, waiting for the theater doors to open.

I gazed into the mirror, fixing my hair and makeup. In a few minutes I'd be playing Vegas. But instead of seeing “Trixie Shapiro, rising Las Vegas star,” I saw an insecure senior at Mason High who was missing her prom.

“Ready, Trixie?” asked Sandy, the stage manager, knocking on my door.

“No!” I called back with a quiver in my voice. “But that won't stop me.”

I could hear Kevin on the loudspeaker. “Tonight, Legends Hotel proudly presents live and in person, a true comic legend himself, Jelly Bean! But before we bring him out, we have a special guest to start you laughing, straight from Chicago—Trixie Shapiro!”

The audience applauded politely as I walked out onto a real Las Vegas stage. I picked up the microphone, gazed at the packed house, and panicked. The youngest person in the audience was at least thirty years old. I prayed they would remember how it felt to be in high school and took a deep breath. My mouth was sans saliva
and it was impossible to swallow.

“Vegas is really for adults. I was the only kid on the airplane. I had to use my fake ID just to get peanuts!”

The audience laughed. I gulped air.

“And this town is totally obsessed with gambling. My hotel room is crazy. The back of the toilet is set up like a slot machine. The only way to flush the toilet is to pull the lever and get three lemons.”

I looked around at the audience of smiling and laughing faces. “Legends just built a kiddie casino. I spent all my milk money. And wiped out my college fund!

“I loathe high school. I'm unbearably shy, afraid to speak up in class. I'm not the class clown—I'm the class mime!”

I had feared my fifteen minutes of fame would seem like fifteen years, but before I knew it I was saying, “Thank you, and now the man you have all been waiting for—the fabulous Jelly Bean!”

 

I watched Jelly Bean's brilliant performance from backstage. He closed the show himself. Afterward he secluded himself in his dressing room while I sat wired, washing my face in my dressing-room sink. Jelly Bean wouldn't receive visitors—or eager young comediennes—until after both shows were over.

 

The audience gave me a standing ovation as I finished my set. I ran offstage and bumped into a bright bouquet of roses.

“You were terrific!” Gavin exclaimed.

“But you're supposed to be at the prom!” I said, surprised.

“No,” he corrected, kissing me. “I'm supposed to be with you.”

 

Jet lag kicked in during my second set, and my monologue wasn't as punchy. The audience took an eternity to laugh.

I finished my last joke to courteous applause and sat in the wings sleepy-eyed while Jelly Bean won over the audience with a comical wizard's spell.