Pushcart Nomination Announcement

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our sixth and final nominee for this year’s Pushcart Prize is Rebecca Makkai’s story “The George Spelvin Players” (35.2).

Read the excerpt below, then purchase a subscription to Pleiades here.

 

Rebecca Makkai

The George Spelvin Players

Barnes Harlow was actually Jason something, but no one dreamed of calling him that. He was Barnes Harlow when he was robbed of the Daytime Emmy, he was Barnes Harlow all twelve years he played Dalton Shaw, Esq., and he was Barnes Harlow when, in that guise, he married Silvia Romero Caldwell Blake, poisoned his mother-in-law, opened a restaurant, burned down that restaurant, was drugged by Michaela, and saved the Whitney family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Soledad shared these details with the core company, who sprawled exhausted on the stage. In the five minutes since Barnes had left the theater, Soledad had relayed the basic history of the fictional Appleburg, Ohio, and told them what Barnes Harlow looked like with his shirt off. “Not greasy-smooth,” she said. “Just, you know, TV-star smooth.” She swore her grandmother had tapes of the show, stacks of VHS cassettes in her basement.

“On a more professional level,” Tim said, “what did we think? Star-struck aside?”

Beth vowed to speak last. Last week in the green room, Phyllis had accused her of treating every conversation like a race.

Phyllis lay back, staring into the rafters. Beth could see up her skirt, not that Phyllis would care. “Isn’t this your decision, Tim?” Her smoker’s voice lent her authority. “Cast him or don’t. Regardless of his chest-hair situation.”

DeShawn said, “You know how much they memorize on the soaps? You can’t be a slacker.”

But it would be different, Tim said, with someone like Barnes among them. (Tim undid and redid his ponytail—his deliberation pose.) Women who’d watched Barnes on Splendor of Love, who knew he’d moved back to Missouri to care for his mother and recover from whatever ego or amphetamine issue he was dealing with, would flock from miles around. They’d throw roses. They might throw underwear. At Bob Cratchit. With children in the audience.

“It’s called publicity,” Soledad said.

“Something’s wrong with him,” Beth finally offered. (Quickly—before Phyllis rolled her eyes, before Soledad crossed her arms like she was being bullied.) “Sure, they killed his character, but that happens all the time. They don’t leave New York and try out for, I’m sorry, a dinky-ass theater’s obligatory Christmas play. In what’s essentially a basement. I think we’re his rock bottom.”

DeShawn said, “All the soaps are getting cancelled. And his mom has lupus.”

So it was decided. But when Beth looked back later, she had to admit no one was thinking clearly that night. Tim had barely resisted stroking Barnes’s hair. All three women were involuntarily smitten. DeShawn, who had eyes for no one but his Dave, still couldn’t stop grinning. Barnes Harlow had been hired by five excitement-starved actors who were, every single one, sexually attracted to him. What they should have done was consulted Kostas, who was backstage writing up the performance report. A straight guy with a crush on Soledad would’ve been the first to call Barnes a prettyboy, to suggest they check his arms for track marks. Barnes’s good looks (the bone structure, that hair, the green eyes) were so cheesy, so predictable, that perhaps each of them felt alone in seeing through all that, seeing that the real Barnes Harlow—Jason, in fact!—was vulnerable and lonely. And the great danger in believing you alone understood someone was the sense of ownership that followed close behind. Beth knew this from hard experience, but it didn’t come to mind. Instead she mused that playing Mrs. Cratchit would be more tolerable this time around….

To read the rest of the story, subscribe to Pleiades.