Babylon to Jerusalem

After the play wrapped, I started to hang around under the stairs at the high school entrance with Michael, David, and their friends. We goofed around, but honestly we barely got to know each other to any extent. I confided in David about my crush on Michael, and Michael did the same. David decided to arrange for us to go on a date (read: us and 20 other high school freshmen), which, incidentally, he forgot to explain to me. So we rounded up a group of people to go see Star Wars Episode 1. Michael felt a bit awkward since he didn’t know anyone but David and me. I remember we went to Hardees for food, and then we all walked en masse to the theater. Once we got inside the theater, Michael and I were both a bit shy, so we sat on the same row but left a seat between us. Almost immediately, my well-meaning but clueless best friend Joanna (bless her) plopped herself down in that seat and asked Michael to please explain the entire Star Wars universe to her. She was trying to make him feel at ease, but she also managed to make sure we didn’t say a single word to each other throughout the entire movie. I, not realizing this was supposed to be a date, didn’t make much of it. Michael, knowing it was a date, assumed I wasn’t interested and was too much effort. So that was that. I did borrow his oversized Superman shirt when I was in a Godspell dinner theater later that year (I was supposed to be a skater punk), and he claims I never gave it back, but I’m sure he’s wrong - because why would I keep that?

We remained acquaintances, but not really friends. My sophomore year, a friend asked me to prom, and we ended up going with the same group Michael and his date were in. Again, I don’t really remember interacting with him much during that time. I do remember we ate escargot for the first (and last) time that night, and that we all had our pictures taken on the lawn of the doctor who would perform lung surgery on me two years later (sorry for the details that mean nothing to you - but this is for my benefit too!).

He started dating someone else, and so did I. We continued to do school plays together. My sophomore year our school did Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma (noticing a pattern here?). I was assistant director or stage manager or something or other, and Michael had a few bit parts (no pun intended - you’ll see why in a moment). There is a quick-moving auction scene in Oklahoma, and poor Mike could never remember where his line (“Two bits!”) came in. I would sit in the wings with the script, ready to prompt actors who forgot their lines. On opening night, the auction scene came, and Mike’s line came up, and....nothing. I knew he wasn’t going to say it without prompting, and I knew prompting was going to create an awkward pause onstage. So I deepened my voice and called out from the wings, “Two bits!” The auction scene continued without a hitch.

My junior year, we put on Annie, a vast improvement over Rodgers and Hammerstein. Michael played Drake (the butler), and I was assistant director, a fishnet-wearing chorus girl, and a dancing maid. Fun. This was Mike’s last play before graduating. I don’t remember interacting with him much other than taking a picture together when the play wrapped.