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On the first day of second grade, Misty has a perfectly picked out outfit, carefully selected notebooks for each class, and a brand new backpack. She’s ready.
This is the year she is going to get into a group. A real group of friends. Not playdates her mom sets up, but friends friends; the kind that take over a table at lunch with their laughing.
She decides to make her move right when class starts. Misty has always been punctual. Everyone gets a moment to talk about what they did this summer, as they always do on the first day, and Misty listens closely for a chance to jump in.
“My parents took me to the city,” Vanessa Palmer is saying. Vanessa always has friends, people laughing with her, wanting to sit next to her. “I thought it would be fun, but we just saw Cats.”
It’s an opening. Misty grabs it.
“You’re so lucky!” She squeals. “My mom just got the soundtrack and I can’t stop listening.”
Vanessa turns around to stare at Misty, smiling like she’s about to laugh.
“You listen to that?” she asks. “Misty, it’s so bad.”
Misty feels her face go red, the giggles of her classmates slowly rising.
“It’s, um,” she starts. She doesn't know what to say. She loves Cats, spent most of the summer making her mom put on the record and dancing around to “Mr. Mistoffelees.” She doesn't understand how Vanessa can just dismiss it. But also, she wants—needs—this girl to like her. “It’s… not that bad.”
Vanessa outright laughs at her then.
“That was the worst freaking thing I’ve seen in my life, but okay, Misty.”
The whole classroom is laughing at her now, and Misty lets the horrible feeling settle in, the knowing that this is not the year she’s getting a group of friends.
Van gets a reputation, during the first few weeks out there, as their entertainment. Someone gives her a movie or a book or a show, and Van goes exhaustively into detail about it, and the rest of the girls are utterly captivated, Misty included.
“So then Alicia and Paul are sitting on the stairs, they lean in… and, bam, they start kissing. With tongue too, if you look hard enough.”
“Of course you look hard enough,” Taissa says, smiling at Van more than Misty knew Taissa could smile.
“Wait, aren’t they basically brother and sister?” Laura Lee asks.
“They’re ex-step-siblings,” Van says, “not incest at all.”
“Seems a bit sinful,” Laura Lee says.
“Oh, there’s no fun without a little sin, Laura Lee.”
Everyone laughs, like they always do when Van talks. Then there’s a brief moment of quiet. Misty takes it.
“Hey,” Misty pipes up, “can you do Cats? ”
“I don’t know, I’m more of a dog person.”
“No, silly. The show. You saw it on Broadway, right?”
Van narrows her eyes.
“Now, how the fuck do you know that?” It’s not said with any bite, though, just a deadpan that Misty has become very familiar with these past few weeks.
“I have a good memory.”
“Of course you do, Misty.”
“So can you describe it? I’ve always wanted to go.”
“Of course you have, Misty.”
“For the love of God,” Nat says, “please don’t describe Cats. I will walk into the lake right now.”
Van gives Misty an apologetic smile, shrugs a shoulder.
“The people have spoken. Ooh wait, I’ve got a good one. So Rosie O’Donnell, Melanie Griffith, Rita Wilson and Demi Moore all grew up together, and when they’re kids…”
Misty sighs, decides to go for a walk, to maybe “run into” Ben. They’re gonna be out here for a while, after all. She has all the time in the world to win over Van.
There’s a brief period of time out there when it’s just Misty, Lottie and Van. It’s kind of nice. Misty never really knew either of them that well before, but now they are a unit, they have a purpose. Like Charlie’s Angels.
It gets kind of lonely, though. Especially at night. Misty gets dreams. Not nightmares, but worse, dreams where she’s back home, but things are better than they ever were at home; she’s surrounded by family and friends and warmth , until she wakes up into none of those things.
One night, it’s harder than usual, Misty waking from a dream where she’s home with her parents, having a dinner with them where she introduces Ben, and they love him, and it’s soft and comforting and home , and when she wakes, it’s with a shock. She doesn’t even realize she’s crying, until Van is by her side, hand gently on her back.
“Sorry,” Misty says weakly. She doesn’t normally cry. People don’t like you when you cry. “I wasn’t—it was just a dream.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Van says easily, settling next to Misty. “It’s fucking shocking we aren’t all constantly weeping.”
Misty laughs a little, but it comes out more like a sob. It’s embarrassing.
Van looks at her directly in the eyes, and Misty feels pathetic, a child who can’t stop crying.
“Alright,” Van says, with an almost smile, “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s an emergency.”
“Doing what?”
“So the lights come up on something called The Jellicle Ball. Don’t ask me what the fuck that is. But there are all these people in bodysuits who are apparently cats. But just so there’s no confusion, they all start fucking introducing themselves.”
“What do you want to do, honey? Name anything.”
Misty’s parents have been overcompensating ever since she got home, hugging her at least every twenty minutes, her mom breaking down into tears twice as often. It’s a little much.
All Misty wants is for the others to return her calls. She thought that once they were back in the real world, they would form this bond, like they have been through something so tragic that they can only have each other.
But it turns out that no one wants to talk to each other now. Or no one wants to talk to you specifically, a voice in her head always reminds her. She shuts it down, turns back to her mom.
“I want to go to the city,” she says, “I want to see every show I can.”
So they do. Misty leaves messages on the answering machines of all the other girls to let them know she’ll be out of town and what her hotel number will be in case they want to call. Then she gets on the NJ Transit with her mom and goes to New York.
They start with Phantom, an old classic, and Misty is captivated, visuals finally put to one of her favorite soundtracks.
Once, about a year ago, she asked Van if her parents ever took her to see other musicals, and Van got very quiet and said her parents didn’t take her on many trips anymore.
Now, Misty finds herself a little relieved that Van never saw Phantom. It probably wouldn’t have been great for her self-esteem after the injury; all these people being horrified by the scars on the side of the Phantom’s face.
Misty thinks he’s kind of hot though.
Next is Titanic, which is a bit more historically accurate than the movie that Misty watched when she was trying to catch up on a year and a half of pop culture. But it also doesn’t have Leo in it and the songs are nowhere near the quality of Andrew Lloyd Weber. Plus, it all feels low stakes, compared to the last two years of Misty’s life.
Then they do Rent, which makes Misty’s mother very uncomfortable. Misty thinks the music is a bit too modern, but she likes Mark, how he feels ignored by his friends, too caught up in their own drama. She wonders if Ben ever saw Rent before they left, wonders if he and Paul ever sat in this theater and watched all these people sing about love.
Misty decides she doesn’t want to know.
The final show before they head back home is Cats. Misty’s not in a great mood that afternoon; there were no messages at her hotel from anyone, even though she’s been here for three days. It’s like no one cares about what they did out there together , like they are trying just to ignore it.
When the first notes of the overture soar out over the crowd, though, Misty’s bad mood flies away with them. She’s heard this tune a thousand times, but to hear it now, to know the strings are down there in the pit, to see the Cats crawling up the aisles—it’s otherworldly.
“How could you have hated this?” Misty would ask Van if she was still… if she wasn’t…
Misty blinks, opens her eyes. Not here.
The chorus hits, the cresting Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats over and over again and all Misty can see is Van, face illuminated by a fire, shouting “what the fuck is a Jellicle cat? ” so loudly she woke up Lottie, but neither of them cared, laughing so much they could barely breathe.
Van would make fun of this endlessly if she was here, would roll her eyes exaggeratedly, making sure everyone knew her disdain. But Van would have come here with Misty, Van would return Misty’s calls, Misty just knows that she would have.
“I wasn’t expecting you to cry so much at that one,” Misty’s mom observes when they get out of the theater.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Misty says.
When she goes back to the hotel room, there are still no messages.
“One adult for Cats!” Misty says cheerfully.
The guy behind the movie theater desk eyes her.
“Sure, lady.”
Misty feels a spark of irritation in the back of her head.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say, you know.”
The guy shrugs.
“Sorry, just not many people shelling out for this one opening night.”
“Well, it’s their loss,” Misty says simply.
The guy gives her a look, but doesn’t question anymore, just hands her her ticket. Misty takes it gratefully, gets her standard small popcorn and Diet Coke, and settles into a prime seat in the middle of the theater. It’s dreadfully empty except for a few teenagers a couple rows behind her who she’s pretty sure are smoking weed. No respect for art.
It’s not that Misty has high expectations for this film. She’s read the reviews, though film critics can be awfully harsh on the musical theatre canon. But what’s more worrisome is the visuals, the singular aestheticism of the show, lost on CGI and prosthetics. But still, Weber’s songs are Weber’s songs, and it’s not to be messed with.
Then the movie starts.
Misty but can’t help but let out a gasp when she sees the Cats themselves. She’s once seen a still beating heart ripped out of the chest of someone she one considered a friend, but she’s not sure she’s seen anything more horrifying than the pale imitations of felines present on the screen.
Halfway through the first number, she’s laughing so hard she can’t stop. She imagines a room in a cabin over two decades ago, the grin of a girl she once knew, eyes lit up by firelight and humor in equal measures, telling a rapt audience, “if you thought the play was bad…”
Misty can’t stop laughing all the way through “The Rum Tum Tugger.” At some point, tears start falling down her face, laughter almost becoming sobs.
“Hey, are you okay?” One of the stoned kids behind her asks.
“Oh, yes.” Misty wipes her eyes. “I just… I have a friend who really would have loved this.”