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like it, that’s all.”
    Zac has always been a big complainer. His specialty is complaining about how people are always treating us as though we’re invisible. Some of his favorite comments are:
    1) They didn’t even say hello!
    2) That girl looked right through me!
    3) Are they just going to pretend we don’t exist? HEL-LO?
    Whenever Zac gets like this I explain to him that rather than waiting around for others to say hello or notice him, he’d be much better off DOING something in order to distinguish himself. “You need to make people take notice of you,” I tell him. “You need to stand up in order to stand out.”
    â€œRight,” he said with plenty of sulk in his voice.
    â€œI know!” I offered. “Why don’t you get involved in the chorus of Anything Goes ?”
    â€œYou mean like singing and dancing?” he asked.
    â€œIt’s not too late.”
    â€œDude,” he said, deepening his voice. “That is so gay.”

Six
    The show went on without a hitch. Tanya was brilliant and her rendition of “Anything Goes” got a standing ovation at both performances. Jed Steckler came down with a wicked case of flu and as a result the audiences never got to enjoy his hilarious portrayal of Public Enemy #13 Moonface Martin. Instead I had to step in at the last moment and double as both Moonface and Lord Oakleigh. It was exhausting—and terrifying. But people came up to me afterwards to tell me that they were utterly amazed, not only because I could play both parts so adroitly and make all of the quick changes, but also because in scenes where both characters appeared, I was able to slip seamlessly between the two without losing my place or my footing. A tour de force, they called it. I was pretty proud.
    It turned out to be a good thing that Pinky had dropped out of the show. If he had remained in the chorus, he would have been changing his costume backstage while I did my shtick onstage, and he never would have had the chance to see my performance from out in the auditorium. Besides, after two weeks of rehearsal it didn’t seem as though he was ever going to get the dance steps down and do them in a convincing or artistically pleasing manner. I looked for him afterwards, but I totally understood why he didn’t hang around. He had said on more than one occasion that he had already endured plenty of the cast’s barbed musical-comedy comments and self-congratulatory looks. Everyone was pissed at him for dropping out at the last minute, everyone except for Tanya and me. However, he did call me at home after our cast party to tell me what he thought of the show.
    â€œYou are the real star, man.”
    â€œBut what about Tanya?” I asked him as I was removing my makeup.
    â€œScrew Tanya,” he replied bitterly. “She’s a stuck-up bitch who thinks too much of herself for her own good.”
    I couldn’t believe my ears; I was so touched. He really thought I was better than Tanya!
    He went on to tell me that the situation at home was not good. Apparently his father had been on a rampage for the past twenty-four hours; he had turned the Faraday household upside down—literally. I didn’t want to pry, but I did ask him if he was safe. He told me that he was for the time being because he was calling me from the crawlspace up in the attic and that was why he had to whisper.
“If anything happened to you, Pinky,” I said, trying to hold back my tears, “I wouldn’t be able to go on. I really wouldn’t.”
    â€œYes, you would,” he said. “You’d be surprised how quickly people get over even the worst stuff.”
    A chill went up my spine because at that moment I realized that I was going to have to prove to Pinky that he was a person worth not getting over quickly.
    â€œNo,” I told him. “I wouldn’t.”
    And then very quietly, so that his father wouldn’t