“That was amazing. I don’t think you’ve ever sounded better.”
“So should we just post that as is, like that?” I ask.
She thinks. A grin crosses her face. “You know what? No. I have a better idea. If you’re really going for it, with this, then let’sreallygo for it.”
I set my ukulele aside. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning, let’s make it epic. I watched this tutorial on how to edit stills into videos with a musical overdub. Let’s make it, like, a movie montage. Really tell your story. Use all those photos and videos you’ve taken.”
She whips out her iPad Pro and sends herself the video from my phone, and then we spend the next several hours going through my whole camera roll and hers, and Mom’s. It’s a weirdly nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Paris, St. John’s, Florida, the Grand Canyon. The oncology ward—the infusion center, being wheeled from radiology back to my room. Days in bed when everything hurt. Mom and Bethie making me laugh. The awful gowns they make you wear, as if being sick isn’t undignified enough.
Bethany cuts it all together, with my song over top.
When she declares the project finished, we watch it from the top.
Bethany wipes at her eyes. “Girl, I’d marry you. Shoot.” She leans against me, blond hair tickling my nose. “I love you, Jo-Jo.”
“Love you too, B.”
“You think it’ll work?” she asks.
I laugh. “If this doesn’t, nothing will.”
“What if it does?”
I cackle. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just wanted todoit.” I sigh. “I may still die a virgin, but at least I tried. Right?”
“Right.”
“Thank you, Bethany.”
She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. Everything that might need to be said between us has been, by now.
“Post it?” She hands me the phone.
I cover my face and push it back to her. “You do it.”
A snort. “Fine. Ready?” She hesitates. “Last chance to change your mind. Then it’s on the internet forever.”
Face still covered by both hands, I nod. “Do it.”
I hear the melody start, and my voice singing: “Forever can never be long enough for me/
To feel like I've had long enough with you…”
Marry me…say you will.
The Smart Thing vs. The Right Thing
Westley
“…And it was like,sohot. The costume had like eight layers, and it weighed about twenty-five pounds I think, and I just absolutelyhatedwearing it.” Shania Knox, my opposite inSingin’ in the Rain, is a dead ringer for young Debbie Reynolds. It’s eerie, actually. But she’s…not a great conversationalist. She tends to just ramble and ramble and ramble. “I loved the character, you know. She was just so real, and I had a ton of fun playing her, but I’ll tell you what, I’m looking forward to this role because the costume will be so much easier. Not spending an hour and a half in costume and then another two hours in the makeup chair every single day will be just wonderful.”
A pause, but it’s brief, just long enough for her to take a sip of her sweet white wine and nibble at a piece of mahi-mahi.
“The dancing is killing me, though. I mean, I thought the stunts for the Marvel movies were hard? God, I was so naive. That’s wires and jumping around and stuff. Compared to all the dance moves I have to learn? Iwishfor something as easy as stunts.” She finally turns the conversation over to me, for the first time in the past fifteen minutes. “What about you? We’re going to start working on our choreography soon. Have you been practicing?”
