“Your nose is too big.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Your smock is hideous.”
“I can’t believe I came all the way out here for this.”
On and on they came, like a dam had burst. I glanced at Lisa again. She bit her fingernails.
“Are you on drugs?”
“I find your beliefs offensive.”
“My father died fighting for your freedom to do this show. Sometimes violence is necessary.”
“Your husband doesn’t love you.”
“No one likes you.”
I froze, then craned my neck to locate the source of the barb, half expecting it to be Alan sneering at me onstage again: No one likes you.
The jabs at Evelyn continued, but I no longer heard them. My face burned as I remembered Sir’s shame in the front row while Alan high-fived his friends in the back. Show after show he had taunted me. He was merciless.
Until the day I rescued him.
It was the last week of freshman year. I’d stayed after algebra class to ask my teacher a question. When the bell rang, announcing the beginning of our next class, I hoofed it down the hallway, hoping I wouldn’t be too late to history. I whipped around a corner and spotted two students at the other end. They were Alan and Peter Levine, an eighteen-year-old junior who was perfectly sized for the football team but too much of a delinquent to qualify for extracurricular activities. Peter Levine had trapped Alan by the water fountain and was holding his face in the stream of water while Alan thrashed helplessly.
I turned back the way I’d come. I wouldn’t have won any popularity contests in high school but had a just-hostile-enough demeanor that my peers, drama club notwithstanding, generally respected. I kept my nose out of others’ business, and they returned the favor. I could handle the occasional nuisance like Alan. The last thing I needed was an actual bully after me.
As I walked the long route to class, I admit to being satisfied that Alan was getting his comeuppance. He deserved the humiliation. No one would have been more surprised than I was when I wound up heading back to the water fountain. Peter Levine had only an inch or two on me but had half a foot on Alan. Alan wasn’t going anywhere until Peter Levine got bored.
“Hey, Walking Cliche,” I said when I was within earshot of the fountain, not daring to get much closer. If anyone would strike a girl, it’d be Peter Levine. “Leave him alone.”
Understand that I didn’t stick my neck out for Alan because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t come from a home that put much stock in altruism. I stepped in because I saw an opportunity to save my show. I wanted to spend the next three years practicing in peace.
Peter Levine, still gripping Alan’s hair, turned to me. “Beat it. No one asked you.”
I took a couple of steps closer and put my hands on my hips, trying to live up to the rumors that swirled through the classrooms: I kept a pet bat; I slept in a coffin; I had a serpent’s tongue. All because I wore black clothing and makeup. Alan choked on the water, blubbering and flailing.
“Don’t you have a test to fail or an underage girl to impregnate?”
Peter Levine’s grin morphed to an expression of rage. His hold on Alan loosened for a moment. “Why don’t you fuck right off?”
Alan saw his chance, shook free, and sprinted down the hallway faster than I’d ever seen him move, without so much as a backward glance. A vein bulged on Peter Levine’s forehead. It was just him and me.
I relaxed my shoulders and affected a tone of nonchalance. Peter Levine was small potatoes compared to the bully I faced at home every day. “I’ll take that under advisement.” I walked past him into my classroom. He didn’t move a muscle.
The next morning I found a first edition of a hard-to-find Houdini manual in my locker. No one in the drama club ever bothered me again.
Back in the art gallery, the onslaught of abuse had continued unabated for ten minutes. I had assumed the crowd would tire of the charade and lose steam, but they were still shouting with enthusiasm.
All the while Evelyn stood in the middle of the room, blindfolded, with a serene expression on her face. The longer she stood there, the more curious they were. Her refusal to quit intrigued them. A realization struck me like a father’s fist: the best performances weren’t about escaping as fast as you could. Anyone with bluster and a key could do that.
They were about enduring as long as you could.
Houdini’s tricks were just that. He employed secret panels and trapdoors and concealed keys. He was an inventor, a salesman above all else. He sold his magic so well his crowds were blind to the smoke and mirrors right in front of them.