Misfit Theater Company (Wattys Winner 2018)

21. A Girl Can Dream (Part Two)

During the instrumental break, I ask, "Which house is hers?"

Thatcher turns the radio down and, pulling over, points to a house two doors down. "The one with the neat bushes outside."

Patti's front yard is huge, just like her house, which looks nearly identical to the one from Home Alone: Ginormous and made of brick, with black shutters and white window frames. The yard is framed with a low line of green hedge bushes, the only colorful bits of nature I've seen since the end of fall. Thatcher parks the car outside of her house, apparently behind Moth, because he gets out of the Jeep Wrangler in front of us once Thatcher puts his jalopy in park.

It's exactly 4:53 pm when I text my mom that I've made it safely, and put my phone back in my pocket.

"What up thespians?" Moth asks.

"Hey Moth," Thatcher replies.

"Is that your car?" I ask him.

"My sister and I share it, but yeah. It's nice, right?"

I nod. "Yeah, super nice."

I wouldn't mind driving in that car. It makes Thatcher's look like a literal death trap.

We walk up the pathway, all of us early for our dinner and rehearsal with the Weiners, until we reach the door. Moth is the one who rings the doorbell, and not even five seconds later, Patti opens the door with the biggest smile ever.

"Welcome to my house, everyone," she says. A strong smell of cooked meat leaks out of her house, even more welcoming than Patti's open arms. I feel a little nauseated by the smell. Gosh, I hope there are some vegetables for me to eat. I'm pretty hungry.

Patti's wearing her usual tights and dress ensemble, though it's definitely a different outfit than the one she wore to school earlier. Even her hair is different. All her curls and frizz have been tucked neatly into a bun and pressed back with a rhinestone-encrusted headband. Who knows? Maybe this is how rich people dress for dinner.

"You must be Patricia's friends," a woman whose hair is just as curly and frizzy and wild as her daughter's says.

"Yeah, Mrs. Weiner," Moth says. "It smells amazing in here."

"Brisket," she replies. Wooden stairs creak behind her, and Mrs. Weiner moves from the doorway so the three of us can see clearly into the house she gestures for us to enter.

Polished dark wood stretches from our gross snowy boots all the way back to an open kitchen with the fanciest looking kitchen island I've ever seen. It's the kind of kitchen island Mom says she wishes we had enough space for whenever she binge watches those off-brand home improvement shows on public access cable.

Then a man pops out from a room off to the right. This house has so many rooms. The man smiles--Patti's dad, I'm assuming--and the smile lifts his glasses off his face. He is short like Patti, but he has dark, smooth hair, combed to the side like you see dads wear their hair in sitcoms. In fact, he sort of looks like he was dressed entirely on a sitcom set. Checkered, short-sleeve button up shirt tucked into his brown leather belted khakis.

"Hello there, friends of Patti," Mr. Weiner says with a quick wave before shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Dad," Patti scolds him under her breath.

He shakes his head with a smile. "Right, so sorry. Dinner is on the table. Is everyone hungry?"

Moth chuckles. "Uh, yeah, of course," he says.

Mrs. Weiner takes our coats and Patti leads us back into the kitchen area where a long, dark wood table is set like something out of a magazine.

Every plate--each of which is so white and polished, it looks like ice--has another plate under it. I guess to make it look fancier or to catch food that falls? I don't know, but it looks super nice. The underneath plates and the cloth napkins (cloth... not paper) are all light blue and the table cloth is a lacey-looking white fabric. Two sleek silver candle sticks wait at the end of the table where Mrs. Weiner is sitting like it's no big deal that her house is straight out of a magazine, and on literal silver platters sit heaps of steaming food.