Leave It to Them

All my life, it was very evident that I was the technical theatre queen, not the singing goddess. I knew this because of just how ordinary I had always been. There are plenty of things about me specifically that I felt as if went unnoticed or were too ordinary to catch the attention of someone else. I was a twenty-seven-year-old woman with the most simple brown hair, the most simple brown eyes, and a name that never seemed to cause question. My sense of fashion varied depending on the work I was producing at the moment, which often was never anything too grand. I also never was the singing type. Sure, I was involved in musical theatre for eight years, but as a seamstress. In an environment as rigorous as theatre, a seamstress has no business singing but instead seaming. I was okay with this fact considering I was more capable with a needle and thread than I was with some lyrics or a song. There was never a question asked from me, I just did as my art led me to do. When trying to think from an outsider’s perspective, I simply wasn’t anything grand.

I think this fact alone is what makes my story so bizarre. How is it that something so insignificant to myself could become the reason that someone new and wonderful came into my life?

Since my work was more steady and stationed than those of my coworkers, I typically worked in New York. Special occasions such as tour shows or invitations to other costuming jobs would move me for small amounts of time, but only then did I have to travel. My mother would joke on me saying that I had two homes, my small scale apartment in Brooklyn, and my costuming shop on Broadway. One of course was reserved for showering, sleeping, and sleeping, and more sleeping. The other was where I spent most of my time. I’d never expected to fall into a job where I’d be given my own space to work so I cherished it more than anything else in my life. Sometimes these lines of things I would do in each would blur but that was all part of the beauty of the process.

My apartment like I said was very small scale. I could afford more if I wanted to but since it was only me, the space was perfect. I had a few neighbors but because of the time I typically spent in the studio, I’d never had the chance to meet most of them. Sometimes I would see the older lady that lived below me in 321 in the mornings but other than that I was a stranger to almost all of them.

In order to start off right with the world in the mornings, I would take a somewhat lengthy shower. Lengthy because this time was all mine. I could sing as loudly and as horribly as I wished. Despite sounding like the human equivalent of a goat screaming, I would often attempt to sing all kinds of different genres. I would sing anything from show tunes like "Hamilton" to rock like AC/DC. No songs were safe from my terrifying rendition.

One morning I was caught off guard while getting into the shower. I didn’t have to be in the shop until 8 AM since we were far ahead of schedule for the upcoming performances of “Newsies.” In the midst of me trying to gather my things to take a shower I paused to try and hear the noise coming from next door. I couldn’t tell what the song was but it was definitely a man singing. He wasn’t a terrible singer but at the same time he would’ve only ranked somewhat lower than me on the imaginary “How terrible is too terrible” singing scale. I couldn’t help but choose to cast this singing man aside and carry on with my day.

I started my shower set list with “My Songs Know What You Did in The Dark” by Fall Out Boy so that I could get pumped up and wake up from the 5 hours of sleep I’d received the night before. After a minute of singing, I paused and once again heard the man next door singing, this time I could tell what song it is. Maybe it happened by chance but the man was singing the same exact song that I was. To make it even odder, he was only a few seconds off from where I’d left off. Once again I casually cast this aside and continued with my shower. We sang the ending together, a perfectly hellish sounding duet.

Despite my attempts to ignore my musical neighbor, I couldn’t help but think about him. Was he short or tall? Did he have brown hair and brown eyes or blonde hair and green eyes? Was he outgoing or chose to keep more to himself? Did he know his singing voice was terrible or was he ignorant to the fact? These questions flooded my head, all desperate for me to go searching for the answer.

My thoughts were interrupted by Jeremy Jordan singing the opening lines of “Santa Fe,” from the very show I had to finish working on was a reminder that I couldn’t stay in my shower forever. The man next door had become quiet and the water pouring from the faucet had become icy on my skin.

Time had escaped me causing a morning meant to be full of leisure and serenity to be one of immense stress. The time was 7:20 AM and it took me nearly forty minutes to reach the studio across town. I quickly dressed and snatched the costumes I’d brought home with me off of the dress forms cluttering my living room. After making sure I’d managed to fully dress myself, grab my costumes, and grab my sewing box as well, I was out of the door like lightning.

As soon as I made it out of the door, I bump into something and my sewing box tumbled to the ground, spools of thread and pins going in all directions. As soon as I went to pick my things up I was met with a tall and slender man that had the kindest smile. I couldn’t seem to get the words out to thank him for helping me so he started with a slight chuckle then decided to speak first.

“Save Rock and Roll is a brilliant album but I think we can both agree that we should leave the singing up to Fall Out Boy.”