Betsy Burke - Performance Anxiety

My West End neighborhood was a jumble of architectural styles. On tree-lined streets, vertigo-inducing glass-and-concrete high-rises stood next to stout, comfortable, early twentieth-century brick and stone three-story apartments and stores. Punctuating them like a calm breath were the remnants of the earlier residential neighborhoods of old wooden houses, some painted and fixed up for the here and now, others drab and surrendering to damp rot and termites. Bordering it all was Stanley Park, and beyond that, the ocean, which was steely gray and matched the sky.

As I hurried along Davey toward the Super Value, not only were the ticket, trip, seeing my father again, the dessert and Kurt’s coming to the party all whizzing through my mind, but so was my Davey Street Song. The storefront names always made me smile. I had an urge to set them to music.

Quiznos, Panago, T Bone Clothing,

Gigi’s Pizza and Steam (breathe)

Launderdog, Love’s Touch,

Falafel and Shawarma,

Towa Young Sushi,

Thai Away Home.

Thai Away Home. It was like a lullaby.

As I went through the Super Value doors, I was just as nervous and excited as if Kurt had asked me to marry him. He hadn’t. But he’d said only the day before—a mere two weeks into our relationship—that maybe, someday, later, when things had settled down in our lives a bit, we might get married. I hoped he didn’t mean when my breasts had settled down to my navel. Still, I thought this was very promising, considering the stature of the person it was coming from.

And such a combo wasn’t unheard of. My singing teacher, the renowned mezzo-soprano Elisa Klein, had, in the last century, enjoyed a brilliant artistic fusion with her husband, Oskar Klein. Madame Klein had been barely more than a teenager when she met Oskar in a DP village at the end of WWII. He’d been much older than her, and their time together as man and wife had been more of a student and teacher relationship. But eventually, she made her debut as a mezzo-soprano, was applauded all over Europe and took her place beside him as an equal. After he died, she never remarried. Oskar had been her ideal. She had known and sung with the greats. She’d had a significant career. The idea of a musical marriage was enticing. Or at least, my waking mind thought so.

The night before, I’d dreamed that Kurt and I were both standing in a big white hall, a cross between a church and a city hall registry, and we were getting married. I’d filled out my part of the forms properly and I was watching his long-fingered hands and the way they were holding the pen. I was getting all shivery and a little crazy thinking about the way those hands were going to slide along my skin later.

The spoken questions that you usually hear in the ceremony were actually written down. Do you take this woman, and all that jazz. I looked down again at his hand hovering above the thick black ink and saw that he’d written lines and lines of gibberish. He had this half smile that he has when he’s being clever. He’d written strings of nonsense words and was smirking as if he’d pulled one off.

Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?

Instead of “I do,” he’d scribbled, “Spruckahaw broogie figgle foo ickle pickle beeky boo” in the provided space.

I’d woken up fast that morning, in a cold sweat, my heart thumping like a happy Labrador’s tail. The dream worried me a little. There were a lot of things about Kurt’s character that I still had to get acquainted with.

I was remembering all this as I grabbed a shopping cart and hurried along the aisles of Super Value. As my cart was picking up speed I was passing people casting me worried looks. I paid no attention as I wheeled around the end of an aisle and slammed into the side of another shopping cart.

Hence the collision.

The driver staggered toward the fresh-meat section and managed to catch his balance and avoid tumbling into the open freezer and flattening the chicken breasts.

He yowled with pain as his arm was mashed against the side of the meat display then he straightened up, rubbed his wrist and said, “Oh Jeeeeez.” He was staring at me, first bleakly, then his face lit up. It was like the sun coming out.

I moved in quickly to touch his arm but stopped myself. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “It’s all my fault.”

“Yeah, it is,” said the man, grinning, which I thought was odd under the circumstances.

“I’ve hurt you,” I said, although I meant it as a question.

“Just a few little fractures. Nothing major surgery can’t fix.”

I opened my mouth to say something witty but could only come up with, “I’m sorry,” again.

He was smiling crazily.

A long embarrassed silence hung between us.

Now I’d gone and done it. I’d probably slammed into my future downfall. The guy was smiling because he was going to try to sue me. But what about when he found out that I didn’t have any significant money? He’d get his revenge by creeping around in my shadow waiting for me outside my door.

Although, as potential stalkers go, he wasn’t bad looking.

He stopped grinning and said in a disappointed tone, “You don’t remember me, do you, Miranda?”

There was a little flutter in my stomach. I stared at him, his bulky height, the length of his crow-black hair tied in a ponytail, his scruffy jeans with the rips in the knees (boho fashion or pure poverty?), his perfect oval face, amused smile and slightly mocking eyes.

In the file cabinet of my mind, I started ransacking the faces drawer. Nothing appeared except the blank chaos of my lousy memory for faces.

There it was. The performer’s curse. All those people who remember you because you had a little solo role, and they were there in the back row, but you couldn’t possibly have a hope of remembering them because you were too busy concentrating on your performance. This guy had probably been in some production with me, carrying a spear, singing bass, wearing a periwig. Who could know?

He said, almost shyly, “Winston Churchill Senior High. Cold Shanks.”

“You’re joking,” I said. He’d caught me completely off guard. I started to giggle. Cold Shanks to Cold Shanksians was one of those places that got instant tittering recognition from its citizens. Like Moose Jaw (euphemistically known as Moose Groin) or Biggar, Saskatchewan (with its sign that read, New York Is Big But This Is Biggar). We Cold Shanksians were a race apart.

“You really don’t remember me,” he said again. His disappointment was almost tangible.

“I’m sorry, I’m so bad with faces…”

“A few years have passed. I’m Patrick Tibeau.”

The sound of his name went through me like a childhood taboo, like a decade of old schoolyard chants. There was always that weird kid at school who everyone treated as a pariah because he didn’t have the same ideas as the rest of the herd, was content to eat lunch by himself in a far corner of the playing field, and stand up in class and expound endlessly on theories that only the teacher could appreciate. That was Patrick Tibeau. I really should have been more discreet but I blurted out, “Oh my God. I can’t believe it. You’re Patrick Tibeau? You’ve changed so much.”

“You used to sing at assemblies. I thought you had a really fine voice. You still singing, Miranda?”

“Just a minute. Just let me get a handle on this. The Patrick Tibeau? You’re a legend.”

He was laughing now.

“The same Patrick Tibeau that set Winnie Churchill High on fire?”

He nodded. He was still laughing.

“And got sent to reform school?” I said too enthusiastically.

He stopped laughing and sighed. “It wasn’t a reform school. Reform schools don’t exist anymore.” He seemed so instantly disillusioned with me. Sometimes, I just have the biggest, stupidest mouth in the world and can’t stop myself.