HEY DOROTHY YOU’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE
By
Karen Mueller Bryson
HEY DOROTHY YOU’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE
Revised Edition
© Karen Mueller Bryson 2011
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0251-2
No part of this book may be produced in any form, by photocopying or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the copyright owner, except for the minimum words needed for review.
This is a work of FICTION. Names, characters, places and incidents are
either a product of the author's offbeat imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Part 1: There's a Cyclone Coming
I was at my acting class the night it happened. It was the third God-awful week of an eight-week Stanislavski Strasberg Adler Meisner Hagen Method Acting group. I'm sure you've seen the sense memory classes in which acting students pretend to be ice cream cones melting in the sun, trees blowing in the wind, or other crap like that. Why I even took the class, I still don't know. It was a gigantic waste of money and it wasn't like I had any money to waste. Come to think of it, I still don't have much money, but at least I'm not wasting it on stupid acting classes anymore. The only reason I was even in the class at all was because my agent, Korkie Burke, suggested I needed something to boost my resume. This is what she said:
"Dorothy, Dahling, your resume is weak. Flimsy, really. You need something to, ah, how can I say it. Well, we want people to take you seriously. Why don't you go over to that Stanislavski Strasberg Adler Meisner Hagen Institute? You know the one, Dahling, over there by the University. They'll help you. I know they will."
Of course, I expressed some hesitancy. "I don't know. I heard they're kind of expensive and things are really tight right now."
"This is your future, Dahling. You've got to invest in your future. Are you going to trust Korkie?"
"I guess I could give it a try."
"There is no try, only do. So, you'll call them tomorrow. Here's the number."
And that's how I got talked into going to the ice-cream melting, tree blowing in the wind acting class.
I was sitting in acting class and the teacher, Mr. Stinky, was blabbing on and on about sense memory or something like that. It was completely boring. I was ready for a snooze. (His name wasn't really Mr. Stinky. At least, I don't think it was. That's what everybody called him because he always smelled like stinky old cheese.) I wasn't paying much attention to what Stinky was chattering about; I was more interested in checking out Luke, the fine-looking aspiring actor, who sat behind me. I was in the midst of this incredible daydream with Luke and I in a hot tub and Luke was just about to kiss me when my cell rang. It was my mother.
"Hello, Dorothy?" she yelled into the phone.
Like who else would be answering my cell phone?
"Yeah…"
“This is your mother."
"I know, Mom."
As if I didn't recognize her voice after twenty-six years.
"Something absolutely tragic has happened; you have to come home right away."
Normally, something tragic for my mother would be missing a big sale at JC Penny's, but this time, it really was tragic.
"What’s going on, Mom?"
"I can’t really discuss it on the phone. When can you be here?"
"Well, I’m in acting class right now."
"Can you leave?"
"I guess so."
I didn't want to leave class early because a bunch of us were supposed to go clubbing in Y'bor City after class and I wanted to get to know Luke a lot better. What could be that important, anyway?
"Dorothy, it’s your father. Please come home."
Then she just hung up. I never heard my mom like that before. Her self-help induced cheerfulness had turned somber and dark, somehow foreboding. I knew something was very wrong.
So I told Mr. Stinky I had a family emergency I needed to attend to, made sure to smile at Luke on my way out, and drove to my parent’s house.
When I got there, my grandmother opened the door. Now, in a so-called normal (dare I say all-American) family, this might not have been such an unusual occurrence, but in my family this spelled TROUBLE with a capital T.
You see, my grandmother, Frannie, is not really what you would call the grandmotherly type, which leads me to believe she probably wasn’t much of the motherly type, either. That may explain, in part, why she and my own mother don’t get along very well. When Frannie opened my parent's door, I knew something was truly amiss.
Now, the living room of my parent’s house could have been called a movie memorabilia museum of sorts, since both of my parents loved old films. Most of their furnishings had some connection to an old movie. Even my twin brother and I were named after the main character in one of my mother's favorite movies of all time. Growing up, we watched The Wizard of Oz five-hundred and seventeen times. Being named Dorothy Gale Robinson wouldn't be so bad if I didn't bare such a striking resemblance to Judy Garland herself. I often wonder if this is sheer coincidence or one of those incredibly strange twists of fate. I guess I feel kind of sorry for my brother, even though I hate him. He got stuck with Jude Garland Robinson for a moniker. At least he doesn't look like Judy Garland. He's actually more of the Matthew McConaughey type. I could go on and on about the trials and tribulations of being a twin. It’s bad enough having a twin brother; I could only imagine the stress of being an identical twin. I’m the oldest, if there really is such a thing in twindom. I’m not convinced. I was born first. My brother came three minutes later. I often wonder if the whole psychology-of-birth-order thing applies to twins. I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject. They say that fraternal twins are no more alike than other non-twin siblings. I'm happy to say that Jude and I are nothing alike. We have what is known as a love-hate relationship. We both love hating each other.
It must have come as quite a shock to my parents when my mom went into labor and twins popped out. They were living in a hippie commune at the time and rejected the whole prenatal care thing. There wasn't a doctor present at our birth. My parents preferred to have a midwife. I’ve never actually met a midwife, at least not since I was born. I imagine that they look all earth-motherly with long, flowing dresses and super straight hair, probably a few crystal pendants dangling from their necks. And they smell of patchouli oil, no doubt.
When I arrived at my parent's house on that ill-fated evening, my brother was sitting on my parent’s Gone with the Wind couch. An authentic replica from the actual film or so my dad always said. Jude was sitting there just staring into space. He didn’t say a word when I entered the room. If you knew Jude, you’d understand this was the only time in his entire life he didn’t have an overabundance of discourse spewing forth from his pie-hole. Jude is an attorney. It's a profession he was born to pursue.
When I sat down next to my brother, he acted like I didn’t even exist. This wasn’t really any different than the way he usually treated me except he didn’t make any rude or nasty comments about my hair, clothing, or lack of gainful employment.
After a brief but seemingly eternal moment, my grandmother broke the silence, "Your