Free Take Your Shirt Off and Cry: A Memoir of Near-Fame Experiences by Nancy Balbirer

Ned—how could I not? He was cool, smart, funny, generous, talented. We had a history. A history.
    One night, I got a call from the stage manager of the new play in which Ned was starring.
    “It’s Ned’s birthday. We’re having a cake for him after the show, and I know he’d love to see you. Can you come by?”
    I know he’d love to see you . Something about this was unnerving. Was it her tone? I kept replaying it in my mind, wondering. What was Ned telling her
     about me? Who was I to him? When I arrived backstage for the blowing out of the candles, the mostly female company and crew beamed at me beatifically.
    “Ohhhhh! Hiiiiiii! ”
    “It’s very nice to meet you!”
    “Soooo glad you could make it! Let me get you a chair !”
    “I love your coat!”
    “Hey, you,” Ned said, giving me a hug. His gaze was doe-eyed, his tone boyfriendy. “So glad to see you . . .”
    Jesus Christ. When had we turned the corner? Only weeks before, I had been dumped by the guy I’d thought I was going to spend
     my life with. I had told Ned about my desolation, how hard it all was, and how I couldn’t trust anyone again, so what was
     with the sudden pushiness? It seemed starkly different from the way he’d been behaving since my breakup. Or had I been so
     absorbed by my own anguish that I was only now noticing what he had been like all along? No, I decided. This was definitely
     different.
    “Where are you?” Ned murmured, love light in his eyes. “You seem a million miles away.”
    “I . . . I, uh . . . you know, I’m just—”
    “Tired?” Ned rubbed my shoulders sympathetically.
    “Yeah, I’m really tired. I’m—I’m gonna go—OK?”
    “Sure. Go get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning. Thanks for coming.”
    “Oh, yeah, sure,” I said as I walked to the stage door, calling bye over my shoulder to the Cabal of Yentas Who Knew Everything.
    “Bye!” they sang out affectionately. “See you soon !”
    Walking home, I struggled to figure out how I felt. Was I even attracted to Ned? I was—kind of. He was one of those “real
     guys” who did “guy things” like carpentry and camping and shooting pistols, yet at the same time he had an equanimity about
     him, a watery, offbeat, artistic side. I liked this; it was a hot combo. I loved watching him onstage, too. He had this uncanny
     grace, the way he moved about the space, even when he was just demonstrating something in class. He was electrifying.
    Also, there was the hippie thing; I’d always had a soft spot for hippies. All my babysitters in the seventies were hippies
     and I was obsessed with them. There was Julie, who wrote her class notes on her feet instead of using paper; Sherry, who told
     me she’d rather be dead than thirty; and Vicky, whose bitten-to-the-quick nails and schoolmarmish glasses belied the frenzied
     rendition of Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” she would perform on demand. On Saturday evenings, the moment my parents were out
     the door, I’d encourage whichever hippie babysitter was “on” that night to invite over her boyfriend—or “old man,” as they
     always referred to them—so I could watch them make out. I’d sit beside them on the floor, Mary Tyler Moore or The Bob Newhart Show blaring in the background, while they lay barefoot on the couch, wrapped up in each other’s hair, smoking joints. During commercials,
     I’d serve them Entenmann’s Fudge Brownies and Cheez Doodles and Coke and tell them about my dreams.
    Maybe it was the weed, but they always seemed so interested . They listened to me intently, as though I were some kind of prophet.
    “Far out . . .” they’d repeat. These people were fantastic; they always made me feel like I was OK.
    But . . . the Pass still made me uneasy. However absurd it may have felt at this point, I just couldn’t ignore it. It was
     like an alarm buzzer or a yeast infection.
    Ned called the next morning to make plans for dinner, since it was Monday, his day off from