I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU

I will never leave you

I will never go away

We were meant to share each moment

Beside you is where I will stay

Evermore and always

We'll be one though we're two

For I will never leave you

-”I Will Never Leave You”, Sideshow

We belted it out at the top of our lungs. Chip always took the top and I always took the bottom (though we were much more versatile in the bedroom.) We sang our way through the Original Broadway Cast Recording of Sideshow, a favorite because of its many duets. We were on our way to New York City to audition for the first non-Equity tour of Rent. Chip had been talking about this trip since the night I met him, and I’d decided to come along. We’d packed up a few outfits in his big brown boat of a car and headed east on I-80. I’ve made that trip many times since then, and it’s so dull—the perfect drive for listening to whole shows at a time. 

We’d only met three weeks before, June 3, when I noticed a tall stranger on the sidelines of my sand volleyball game at a bar in Toledo. I stuck around for a drink and flirted shamelessly. Chip was visiting our mutual friend Jason, who invited us all back to his house that night to watch the Tony Awards Broadcast. Jason encouraged our flirting, and after the show, Chip and I went back to my apartment to have sex and cuddle. I didn’t have any lube; we used Banana Republic Classic Body Lotion. We were monogamous from that moment and never once used a condom. This was 2001, before PReP, but I trusted him implicitly from the beginning.

He stayed with me again that night, and the next, and the next. He borrowed my clothes so we wouldn't have to be apart for a single day. We drove to Chicago with friends to see the premier of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last 5 Years. We had sex every day and went rollerblading and fell for each other hard and fast.

We sang our way across I-80. We laughed at a shocked passenger of a passing car when I surfaced from giving him “road head” just as she looked over. We crashed with his friend who was house-sitting on the Upper West Side, and very early on the morning of the audition, we lined up with hundreds of other hopefuls. 

I sang I’ll Cover You, which is sung in the show by a Black man, so totally wrong for me. Now I know if I sing from the show, it had better be for a character I could actually play! But I didn’t expect this audition to go anywhere; I just wanted to be with Chip. I wore a pair of low-rise ripped and faded jeans and a black Banana Republic stretch t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. I thought I looked very “Rent.” I walked in and gave my music to the pianist; he was wearing chunky glasses and I mistook him for Anthony Rapp. 

The Casting Director gave me “You’re What You Own” and asked me to come back when I’d looked it over. When I did, she said: “You’re clearly very trained; could you sing this without vibrato?” I did. “Could you come to Telsey tomorrow for a callback?” And she asked me not to wear a sleeveless shirt. Chip got a callback too! We headed to Kinko’s to make more copies of our headshots and resumés. 

We were sitting down for lunch when I saw Audra McDonald walk by the window. I’d been listening to her debut album obsessively, and I gasped. “Should I go tell her I love her work?” “You’ll regret it if you don’t,” Chip encouraged me. So I jumped up and followed the young Broadway star to a bodega on the corner, where I waited until she came out. “Hi, are you Audra McDonald?” When she confirmed, I absolutely gushed. “I love your work. I love your album; I just finished my Master’s in Classical Voice, and I’m so encouraged by your singing. I’m in town for the Rent auditions, and I have a callback tomorrow.” She asked me how the audition had gone, and I told her Anthony Rapp was the pianist. “Oh really? I didn’t know he played.” She was so gracious and told me to break a leg at my callback. I returned to lunch glowing at having been in the presence of a real star.  

I wore a black t-shirt the next day, with sleeves, and the callback went well. Whenever I return to the grey hallways of Telsey, with their exposed lightbulbs, it feels like a time machine to that day. Chip was called back for Roger, and I for Mark. Then we headed over to Ripley Grier’s red hallways for some open call auditions. 

Telsey called that afternoon: “Please don’t leave town. We’d like to bring you in for another callback on Monday.” But Chip was no longer being considered. I felt terrible. This was his trip, and I’d only come along for fun. We had a few hours of quiet, and as we laid in bed that night, we talked about how we wanted to be happy for each other’s successes. We said “I love you” for the first time on that foldout sofa on the Upper West Side. 

I called out of work for a few more days. My manager didn’t take the news well, and threatened my transfer to a store in Chicago. I told her that I was a singer first, and this was really important to me. 

Saturday morning, we went to a small concert, with performances by singers I didn’t know, including Kate Baldwin and Gavin Creel. Kacey came up from Philly and met us for lunch in the Village. We went to TKTS, as Kacey and I had always done (Kacey took me to my first, and second Broadway show) and got tickets to The Rocky Horror Show on Broadway. 

Kacey had to drive back to Philly after the show, but Chip and I headed downtown to see Adam Pascal and Alice Ripley playing with their bands. It was a small venue, and we pinched each other when we crowded into the back room and found ourselves rubbing shoulders with Brooke Shields and Luke Perry. Someone tapped us on the shoulder and asked if she could have a cigarette, and we turned to see it was Daphne Rubin-Vega herself. We kept our cool, but we were freaking out inside. Chip’s friend knew Adam’s management, so we went backstage after the show to tell Adam and Alice how much we’d loved them. We collapsed into the foldout that night with my journal and before we went to sleep, made a list of the people we’d seen so we’d never forget. 

Sunday, Chip’s friend told us to meet him downstairs for a parade, and when we arrived at 5th Avenue and Waverly Place, it was the NYC Pride Parade! I had been watching Queer as Folk with Brent in the Old West End, but I’d never seen anything like this. I took tons of photos because there were hot men in speedos and the near-naked cast of a show I’d never heard of, “Naked Boys Singing.” (I’d soon know this show quite well). I was wide-eyed. After the parade, I accosted Queer As Folk’s Dean Armstrong for a selfie at a bar in the Village.

Monday, despite a good callback, I was released, and we started our drive back to Ohio. I only had a few more days until I moved to Chicago. We didn’t listen to Rent on the way home, but I know we listened to the 2019 Kiss Me Kate Revival, Ragtime, and Sideshow. Chip stayed with me a few more days until the 4th of July, when Todd drove me and a few belongings to Chicago. We were apart for the first night since we’d met a month earlier. 

I returned to Toledo to celebrate my birthday (July 9), but I’d moved out of my cousin’s house, so I had to stay with my parents. Chip came down from Michigan to take me to Cedar Point, but I’d been told nobody I dated was welcome at home, so I  introduced Chip as my friend “from the Rep.” It was true that I’d met him through the Rep, but it wasn’t a fully honest description of our relationship with Chip. 

At Cedar Point, we ate corn dogs and elephant ears and rode all the big rides like all my high school friends had always gotten to do with their boyfriends or girlfriends. It was a magical day for me. 

In Chicago, I lived with Louis’ parents in the suburbs for a month while he finished his lease in another apartment. I had started rehearsals at Lyric, where my first professional engagement was 4 shows in the Chorus. I put the picture of Chip and me up at my dressing table; I wanted to live “out” in Chicago from the start.

I worked at Banana Republic: early morning Stock & Visual shifts, and Sales on the weekend. I loved stock shifts because the store was closed and we talked to each other the whole time; I told them right away that I had a boyfriend. I rollerbladed to the commuter train at 4:30am, and when I arrived at Union station, rollerbladed another two miles to Michigan Avenue for my 6am shift. After work, I went to the Opera House for rehearsal, and caught the last train home, only to repeat it all the following morning. 

Chip asked me to accompany his senior recital at U of M. His voice teacher was Shirley Verett, who had been in Carousel with Audra McDonald. He planned a whole recital of Stephen Schwartz songs, and I practiced Meadowlark in the practice rooms of the Opera House; Louis’ parents didn’t have a piano. Louis knew that Chip was my boyfriend, but he didn’t think that I should come out to his parents while I was living with them. He didn’t know if they were ready, so I asked them if my friend could stay with them when he visited. I was sleeping in the basement, and when Chip arrived, it was all I could do to keep my hands off him. They gave him the guest bedroom, and when they’d gone to bed, Chip snuck down to the basement where we talked late into the night and fell asleep cuddling. Early in the morning, he went back upstairs to his guest room, but I heard from Louis that the bedroom door had come open in the night, and Louis’ parents had seen that the bed was empty. They were disappointed at the deception and I apologized. We practiced for the recital at the Opera House, and I got to introduce him to my new colleagues, who loved him of course.

I drove to Michigan for the recital, and we stayed in a camper in Chip’s parents’ driveway. His parents welcomed me as his boyfriend. The recital went well, and it thrilled me to be introduced to Chip’s teacher, friends and family as his boyfriend. I’d never met Eric’s family, and my family wasn’t open to meeting someone. I returned to Chicago, and Chip left on tour with a children’s theater. They’d offered both of us a contract, but I’d declined. He didn’t have a cell phone, so each night I’d wait for him to settle into his hotel room and call me with his calling card. At the beginning, at least, he called every day. 

One of my managers, Aaron, was gay, and he and one of the cashiers were secretly dating. One weekend they invited me to go out to Chicago gay bars with them. I knew I’d miss the last train; Aaron said I could crash with him. We got really drunk and crashed into Aaron’s bed around 3am, and he rolled over and started kissing me. He put on a condom and fucked me, and we went to sleep. I woke up the next morning with a terrible guilt and shame hangover. I had a wonderful boyfriend and I had cheated on him. With a coworker who also had a boyfriend. 

I waited for Chip to call so I could beg for forgiveness. The suspense built, because he didn’t call that day. He called the next day, and I apologized over and over again. It was so hard to be apart, with him on tour in different cities every couple days and me in Chicago. He forgave me, but he called less often. For a while he called every other day, then every third day, and then once a week. And one day, he didn’t call again. I didn’t have any way to reach him. When it had been over two weeks since his last call, I walked into work and told my coworkers, “I don’t think I have a boyfriend anymore.” 

Violet: What have we done?

Daisy: Learned the truth

Violet: Closed a door

Daisy: Opened more

Violet: I'm scared, Daisy

Daisy: Of what?

Violet: Being alone

-I Will Never Leave You, Sideshow