But I’m not here to ask questions, so I put my coat on and walk out to the parking lot, where Tiny Cooper is sharing one of those hand-shake-followed-by-one-armed-hug things with none other than Clint. I open the passenger door and get into Tiny’s Acura. He shows up soon afterward, and although I’m pissed at him, even I am able to appreciate the fascinating and complex geometry involved in Tiny Cooper inserting himself into a tiny car.
“I have a proposition,” I tell him as he engages in another miracle of engineering—that of fastening his seat belt.
“I’m flattered, but I’m not gonna sleep with you,” Tiny answers.
“Not funny. Listen, my proposition is that if you back off this Tiny Dancer business, I will—well, what do you want me to do? Because I’ll do anything.”
“Well, I want you to hook up with Jane. Or at least call her. After I so artfully arranged for you to be alone together, she seems to have gotten the impression that you don’t want to date her.”
“I don’t,” I say. Which is entirely true and entirely not. The stupid, all-encompassing truth.
“What do you think this is, eighteen thirty-two? When you like someone and they like you, you f**king put your lips against their lips and then you open your mouth a little, and then just a little hint of tongue to spice things up. I mean, God, Grayson. Everybody’s always got their panties in a twist about how the youth of America are debaucherous, sex-crazed maniacs passing out handjobs like they were lollipops, and you can’t even kiss a girl who definitely likes you?”
“I don’t like her, Tiny. Not like that.”
“She’s adorable.”
“How would you know?”
“I’m g*y, not blind. Her hair’s all poofy and she’s got a great nose. I mean, a great nose. And, what? What do you people like? Boobs? She seems to have boobs. They seem to be of approximately normal boob size. What else do you want?”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
He starts the car and then begins banging his tetherball of a head against the car’s horn rhythmically. Ahnnnk. Ahhhnk. Ahhhnk.
“You’re embarrassing us,” I shout over the horn.
“I’m going to keep doing this until I get a concussion or you say you’ll call her.”
I jam my fingers into my ears, but Tiny keeps headbutting the horn. People are looking at us. Finally I just say, “Fine. Fine! FINE!” And the honking ceases.
“I’ll call Jane. I’ll be nice to her. But I still don’t want to date her.”
“That is your choice. Your stupid choice.”
“So then,” I say hopefully, “no production of Tiny Dancer?”
Tiny starts the car. “Sorry, Grayson, but I can’t do it. Tiny Dancer is bigger than you or me, or any of us.”
“Tiny, you have a really warped understanding of compromise.”
He laughs. “Compromise is when you do what I tell you and I do what I want. Which reminds me: I’m gonna need you to be in the play.”
I stifle a laugh, because this shit won’t be funny anymore if it’s staged in our goddamned auditorium. “Absolutely not. No. NO. Also, I insist that you write me out of it.”
Tiny sighs. “You just don’t get it, do you? Gil Wrayson isn’t you; he’s a fictional character. I can’t just change my art because you’re uncomfortable with it.”
I try a different tack. “You’re gonna humiliate yourself up there, Tiny.”
“It’s going to happen, Grayson. I’ve got the support on the student council for the money. So shut up and deal with it.”
I shut up and deal with it, but I don’t call Jane that night. I’m not Tiny’s errand boy.
The next afternoon I take the bus home, because Tiny is busy at the student council meeting. He calls me as soon as it’s over.
“Great news, Grayson!” he shouts.
“Great news for someone is always bad news for someone else,” I answer.
And sure enough, the student council has approved a thousand dollars for the staging and production of the musical Tiny Dancer.
That night I’m waiting for my parents to come home so we can eat, and I’m trying to work on this essay about Emily Dickinson, but mostly I’m just downloading everything the Maybe Dead Cats have ever recorded. I kind of absolutely love them. And as I keep listening to them, I keep wanting to tell someone how good they are, and so I call Tiny, but he doesn’t pick up, and so I do exactly what Tiny wants—just like always. I call Jane.
“Hey, Will,” she says.
“I kind of absolutely love the Maybe Dead Cats,” I say.
“They’re not bad, yeah. A bit pseudointellectual but, hey, aren’t we all?”
“I think their band name is a reference to, like, this physicist guy,” I say. In fact, I know it. I’ve just looked the band up on Wikipedia.
“Yeah,” she says. “Schrödinger. Except the band name is a total fail, because Schrödinger is famous for pointing out this paradox in quantum physics where, like, under certain circumstances, an unseen cat can be both alive and dead. Not maybe dead.”
“Oh,” I say, because I can’t even pretend to have known that. I feel like a total dumbass, so I change the subject. “So I hear Tiny Cooper worked his Tiny Magic and the musical’s on.”
“Yeah. What’s your problem with Tiny Dancer, anyway?”
“Have you ever read it?”
“Yeah. It’s amazing, if he can pull it off.”
“Well, I’m, like, the costar. Gil Wrayson. That’s me, obviously. And it’s just, it’s embarrassing.”
“Don’t you think it’s kind of awesome to be, like, the costar of Tiny’s life?”
“I don’t really want to be the costar of anyone’s life,” I say. She doesn’t say anything in response. “So how are you?” I ask after a second.
“I’m okay.”
“Just okay?”
“Did you get the note in your coat pocket?”
“The what—no. There was a note?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Hold on.” I put the phone down on the desk and ransack my pockets. The thing about my coat pockets is that if I have a small amount of trash—like, say, a Snickers wrapper—but I don’t see a garbage can, my pockets end up becoming the garbage can. And I’m not great when it comes to taking out the pocket trash. So it takes me a few minutes before I find a folded piece of notebook paper. On the outside it says: