Tart by Jody Gehrman Page A

waiting for their instructor, you think they’re going to tough it out when their agent hasn’t called in months? You think they’ll have the stamina for those long hours of nervous fidgeting when they’ve got a couple lines in act one, scene one, and they don’t have their big deathbed soliloquy until act three, scene four? If they have to go running to the dean’s office whenever things don’t go precisely as planned, you think they’ll tolerate the wild, passionate life of the thespian and all of its incumbent bull—”
    â€œOh, Claudia.” I spin around and Ruth Westby, the department chair, is watching me from the doorway. “You are here.”
    â€œYes. Of course I am,” I answer innocently.
    A bony, middle-aged woman in enormous pink glasses files in with a handful of disgruntled others in tow. “Well, she wasn’t here,” the woman tells Ruth. “She must have just—”
    â€œIt’s fine, Ruth,” I say. “It’s an exercise I like to do on the first day. Nothing to worry about.”
    She hesitates for a second; her dark eyes linger on my face, and I feel my stomach knotting up painfully. Then she nods and smiles pleasantly. “Happy first day, then.”
    She disappears. And suddenly it’s just me. And them. Withno lesson plan. The woman in pink glasses is staring me down like a babysitter who just watched her ward tell a bald-faced lie to the clueless mother. “All right, then. Let’s see. Why don’t we start by learning each other’s names?”
    â€œWhere’s the syllabus?” Pink Glasses asks.
    â€œSyllabus?”
    â€œYeah. You know. Piece of paper. Says what we can expect, how to get an A, all that. Frankly, I’m just shopping around.”
    â€œI see.” There’s an awkward moment of silence. I clear my throat. “Well, frankly, I don’t offer a syllabus until after the first week. So, as I was saying—”
    â€œWhy not?” Pink Glasses again. She reminds me of a praying mantis, folded at hard angles into the too-small chair. Her real eyebrows have been completely plucked, and she’s painted new ones into high arches above the rims of her glasses, Wicked Witch style; she would be terrifying if she weren’t so annoying.
    â€œTell me your name, please,” I say in my coolest, most collegiate tone.
    â€œRalene Tippets.”
    â€œWell, Ralene, I don’t want to call this an audition, precisely, but I need to know who’s serious before I commit. You understand? Once I know who’s staying, I’ll hand out a syllabus.”
    â€œThat’s not even legal,” she says. “You can’t discriminate.”
    â€œI’m talking about a series of exercises, Ralene. A get to know you week, during which we will determine who is serious and who is not. You’re shopping around for classes. I’m shopping around for students. I think that’s fair, don’t you?”
    â€œIt might be fair, but it’s not legal, ” she scoffs, looking around her for support. The others are noncommittal; they study their fingernails or keep their eyes on me obediently.
    â€œOkay,” I say agreeably. “So phone the police.”
    Her spidery eyebrows arch halfway to her hairline, but she shuts up.
    â€œNow then,” I say. “Anyone care to review what we’ve covered so far?”
    Tuft of Indigo raises her hand. “Yes?” I smile. “Go ahead.”
    â€œYou were just telling us how the losers who went running to Westby were never going to make it.”
    Â 
    By four o’clock I’ve got a screaming headache. I know I should go to the health club I picked out in the yellow pages and get a membership, then swim laps and end the day deliciously sweating to death in the steam room, but any activity involving human interaction sounds positively impossible. I can’t bear the thought of