Hannah felt alive when she was onstage. A sea of people in front of her, all hanging onto her every word. She was worth their time, their money. She lived in their heads rent-free. But she needed them, too. Their energy fed her, validated her, sustained her. And, of course, without them, she wouldn’t have a career.
It was more than the people, though. It was her. When she was onstage, she was alone. She had no safety net. Sure, everything she said and did out there was carefully scripted and rehearsed, but there was always a possibility that she would forget the words. Maybe the lights would get in her eyes. Maybe a heckle would throw her off. Maybe her opener wouldn’t get the laugh she wanted, and it would throw off her whole vibe for the night. It had happened before, and it would be stupid to think that it wouldn’t happen again. Her hands trembled with anxiety, just like they always did. She had been performing for, what, fifteen years now, and her hands had never been steady leading up to a gig. That was why she never held props during her routines. Comedy tip #1: Audiences can sense fear. Don’t let them think they can humiliate you.
She was supposed to go on in fifteen, so she was in the club dressing room. It was some shitty attic in Indiana, but everyone had performed there. The stairs you walked up as you entered the building had all these posters of comedians everyone knew, but from way back, before they were famous. These future celebrities had watched her as she had walked into the club for sound check earlier. A baby-faced John Mulaney had looked her dead in the eyes and whispered, “You’re not good enough.” Mitch Hedberg nodded in agreement. This happened every time she played here. It used to throw her off, but it didn’t anymore. Comedy tip #2: Don’t compare yourself to them. They were here, and now you’re here.
Hannah was looking in the mirror, making sure her makeup was perfect. She hated makeup, but she wanted to be seen. In high school, she had been in a play without wearing makeup, and her mother had told her that her face looked like the moon. She had never gone onstage without makeup again. It was always like that with her mother. There was always that one little thing she would point out, and it would stick in Hannah’s brain for the rest of her life. Her eyeliner was a little crooked, but the audience wouldn’t notice. Besides, at this point, her hands were too shaky to properly apply it. Her lipstick had faded, so she dug through her makeup bag for the right tube. She wore a neutral shade for this show. Comedy tip #3: Your appearance determines what the audience expects from you, and you can get laughs by subverting expectations. Don’t get gimmicky, though.
She was supposed to go on in fifteen. She was supposed to be using this time to go to the bathroom, warm up her voice, hydrate. But she wasn’t doing any of those things. Instead her shaky hands grabbed her phone and opened Twitter. She needed to see whether people were talking about her. Her tweet from earlier, the one about Stevie Nicks, was still getting noticed. Hannah thought Twitter was lazy comedy, thoughtless, even, but it was a good way to be seen, and, underneath it all, the likes and retweets made her feel good. Comedy tip #4: Cast a broad net. The more places you show up, the more people think about you.
She typed her name into the search bar. A few tweets from earlier popped up, stuff about being excited to see her tonight, here, in Indiana. One from that creepy guy, the one who came to both of her nights in Boston and wouldn’t leave her alone after the shows. He never said anything mean, but his tweets made her feel gross. The fact that his compliments made Hannah feel good made her feel even worse. She put down her phone, annoyed.
Hannah’s vibe was off. She couldn’t be feeling gross right before she went on. She needed a distraction. Fortunately, Caroline, an employee at the comedy club, poked her head in the door. “Hey, you’re on in ten.”
“Ten, thanks,” Hannah replied automatically. Then she looked up at Caroline. Caroline was pretty. Hannah had noticed that the minute they met. No ring on Caroline’s finger. And she had blue hair. In Indiana, that meant something. “Hey, Caroline,” Hannah said, before Caroline’s head could duck back out of the doorway, “are you busy after the show? I haven’t seen much of Bloomington.”
Caroline smiled. “Well, it’s no New York,” she said.
“I’m sure we can find something to do,” Hannah said.
Caroline looked at the floor, breaking eye contact. “Yeah, I’d love to show you around.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Hannah smiled.
There was a pause, then Caroline took a step back. “Well, I have to-”
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I’ll see you after the show.”
“Yeah.” Caroline said. Her head disappeared from the doorway.
Hannah closed the door and took a sip from her water bottle. She was feeling better already. She looked at the notes she took last night, right after the show. There was a part that she tripped over pretty badly the night before. It was a cheap shot at Ohio, which always worked. Hannah was from Dayton, so she figured she had every right to make fun of her home state. She had done it up in Ann Arbor the previous week, where, of course, it killed, but she had ended the joke with, “It could always be worse, I could be from Indiana.” Got a lot of laughs. But now, Hannah was in Indiana, so that wouldn’t work. She had changed the punchline to be about Michigan, which was a nice segue into her section on the Ohio-Michigan football rivalry, but last night, she almost said Indiana.
She recovered, but it was a close call. Comedy tip #5: Never be mean to the whole audience at once. She stood up and started pacing the small dressing room, holding an imaginary mic, repeating the lines over and over, barely louder than a whisper. “Everyone in Ohio wants to leave Earth. But hey, it could be worse. I could be from Indiana.” The same mistake again. “Shit, ass, fuck, shit. Everyone in Ohio wants to leave Earth. But hey, it could be worse. I could be from Michigan. I could be from Michigan. I could be from Michigan.” Her stomach was clenching up. “Oh, fuck.”
She sat back down, took another sip of water. The bottle was almost empty, so she filled it up from the sink in the bathroom. She chugged about half the bottle, then filled it back up again. Comedy tip #6: Hydrate.
Her leg was bouncing. Her throat was dry, despite the water. Her hands were still shaking. This was good. This nervous energy was good. Pure adrenaline. She needed that. Comedy tip #7: Don’t get complacent. If you’re not nervous, you’re not doing anything interesting.
Hannah looked at her phone. Four minutes until showtime. What if she utterly failed? This was a game she played often, running through every possible outcome. If she went out and didn’t say anything at all, just stood there for a moment and ran off, what would happen? Or worse, if she was straight-up mean to everyone in the audience, everyone who had paid money to see her. What would happen? The club wasn’t huge, and it was in Indiana. Nobody important was going to be there, right? Right? Bloomington was only three hours away from Dayton, and what if someone she knew had driven down? She had done that, once, in high school. What if her parents had driven down? They would have told her, right? They would have said they were coming. Unless they were trying to surprise her. But why would they do that? Oh, fuck, what if her parents were here?
What if they were outside, right now, and after the show they would want to talk, and her mother would say something about her eyebrows or her stomach and her father would say it was a great show, but, and give her some advice that proved how little he understood her. Or what if he didn’t? What if he got mad at her for insulting Dayton, where he, like her, was born and raised? What if neither of them said anything at all? What if they just left and drove back home to stupid fucking Dayton, because, in their eyes, Hannah had failed so miserably it wasn’t even worth it to lie? What if she had finally done it, confirmed to her parents that they had raised a failure?
Okay, this was bad. Hannah recognized this anxiety, the paralyzing kind. She took a few deep breaths, trying to rationalize her way out of this spiral. Her parents weren’t going to be here, and if they were, which they weren’t, they would love and support her even if she bombed. But she wasn’t going to bomb, and even if she did, her parents wouldn’t know, because they weren’t here. No big deal.
Hannah’s leg started bouncing again. She sighed, relieved. Back in the sweet spot. She looked at her phone. Two minutes until showtime. She drank more water. No big deal. No big deal. Michigan, not Indiana. You got this. You got this. You got this. She took a few deep breaths.
Someone knocked on the door. Hannah stood up, opened it. It was Caroline.
“It’s time! Are you ready?” Caroline said.
“Let me just check everything,” Hannah said. She looked in the mirror. Hair was good, makeup was good, outfit was good. She ran a hand through her hair, falling into her stage persona. The nerves were still there, but she hid them beneath a brash, swaggering exterior. “I’m ready.”
“You don’t need to check, you look good,” Caroline said.
Hannah smiled. “So do you. I’ll see you after the show.”
Hannah cracked her neck and stepped out into the club. The lights were bright, just how she liked it. It helped, not being able to read the expression on anyone’s face. She sauntered onto the stage. People clapped. She set her water bottle down on the stool and took the mic out of the mic stand, wrestling with it for just long enough to pull a face and get a quick, cheap laugh. Comedy tip #8: In for a penny, in for a pound. If they laugh once, they’ll do it again.
She put her left hand to her forehead and squinted, scanning the crowd. The room was almost full, pretty much what she had expected. Hannah had played this club a couple times before, always to a much emptier room. “Well, shit, looks like we got a crowd tonight. So, uh, I’m from Ohio. Dayton, to be-”
Sitting at a table, about halfway back, were two familiar faces. A tall man, salt-and-pepper hair, horn-rimmed glasses. A short woman, hair dyed brown to cover the gray, strong eyebrows. Her parents. Fuck.
Hannah could feel her façade start to slip. She dropped her hand a little, then raised it back, then dropped it all the way. Definitive moves were good. Audiences can smell fear. She forced her face back into an assured smirk. “-to be exact, so it’s great to, great to be here.” She wasn’t in it anymore. Shit, shit, shit. “Actually, it’s great to be anywhere that isn’t Dayton, Ohio.” Solid laugh, but she could feel herself floundering. She turned to grab her water bottle, but it was too soon. She hadn’t built up enough momentum.
As she turned, she caught sight of Caroline standing in the hallway. Caroline was laughing.
Hannah was alive, and she would be okay.