I stayed behind. I baked cheesecake brownies. I rewatched the episode of Riverdale where Archie and Miss Grundy are busted for falling in love. After a longer-than-expected absence, Jeremy was back, announcing, “We’re all set. You hungry? How about pizza?”
“All set with, like, everything? Did she mention the shredding?”
“Only a dozen times. I told her a replacement was on its way.”
“Not that she’s getting it!”
“I don’t think she has any use for it. She’s not feeling too ambitious these days.”
It was hard for me to feign concern about Geneva’s well-being, but I did force myself to ask, “Is it her health?”
“Nope. It’s professional. The money’s dried up.”
“I thought her father funded everything.”
“Not anymore.”
“Yikes. Did she say why?”
“She tried to change the subject, but I kept at it. Eventually, she admitted that he’d listened to the podcast—she blames us, by the way; he hadn’t known about it till we tipped him off in the emergency room. It sounds like he went slightly ballistic.”
“Because he hated it that much?”
“More like he figured out that the actors were impersonating real people, reading bullshit scripts, which apparently can land a producer in court.”
Suddenly, this was turning into a very enjoyable conversation. I led him to the gray tufted couch in the living room and put my feet up on the coffee table. “I’m surprised she told you that much.”
“She didn’t. She was testing the waters. She asked if anyone I knew, maybe people from New Hampshire, had listened to it. And if so, did they have . . . issues? So, of course, I had to run with it.”
“How?”
“I told her your family was considering a giant lawsuit.”
How nice to have a boyfriend so skilled at improvising. I offered my hand for a high five. “And our show? You got to that?”
That earned me one of his signature when-did-I-ever-let-you-down looks. “I told her that I’m writing a one-woman show for you, the premise being what you’ve endured since the family heirloom fell into her hands, including getting fired thanks to her bad-mouthing you all over town. I threw in slander, defamation, character assassination. Oh, and on the spot I named the show The Yearbook Thief, which caused a little conniption. So I reassured her that I’d given her a new identity, that the title character who helped herself to the yearbook was not Geneva Wisenkorn but a man who drove around Pickering on garbage day searching for collectibles.”
“And the reason for your reassurances to the enemy?” I asked.
He paused. “I know you won’t love this. I know you’ll think it’s like asking your major asshole rival in a campaign to join your ticket, to which your loyal family members say, ‘No way; how could you ask him to be your vice president after all those awful things he said about you?’”
“Okay, now I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be. It’s so nothing. I told her, since she did make the story possible—and, believe me, she knew that ‘making the story possible’ meant the grief she caused you. So, here’s the deal: In lieu of suing her for X, Y, and Z, or her suing us for dramatizing her bad deeds . . . she’d give her blessing to the project.”
“That’s it? We want her blessing?”
“She’s running it by Daddy or, as she put it, ‘consulting with my attorney.’”
“And we’re not worried that when Daddy hears his daughter’s the villain of a one-woman show—”
“She’s not. Eugene Palumbo is. And you can put money on the fact that Lawyer Dad is saying, ‘That’s it? They’re not gonna sue you if you let them put on a play about a yearbook stolen by a guy named Palumbo in Bumblefuck, New Hampshire?’”
I said, “You’re good.”
“Thank you.”
“When do we hear?”
“I told her we’d have to know by the end of the week, or else we’d name someone else as an executive producer.”
Did he just say “executive producer”?
“Actually, coexecutive producer, i.e., nothing. She just gets her name in the playbill and she tries to raise some money.”
I asked if I’d have to meet with her and/or be nice to her.
That was Jeremy’s cue to slip into a new favorite role, impresario reassuring the ingénue. “You’re the star, darling. Always better to be a gracious leading lady than a diva.”
Diva . . . some days I pictured the press release chronicling my rise from high school Hair to Montessori failure to Drama Factory dud to leading lady—plucked from obscurity like a twenty-first-century Lana Turner.
Was that even true, that she was discovered in Schwab’s drugstore or was that just Hollywood legend? I’d be embarrassed to ask Jeremy. Next time I was back in my own apartment, I’d Google it.
41
Just Like That
We invited my father and Kathi to Jeremy’s apartment, where we’d begin the reading as soon as the sun had set over the Hudson. First, we lubricated them with drinks made from Jeremy’s well-stocked bar. My father’s Manhattan got a perfect stemmed cherry, and Kathi’s mojito looked like our host had just returned from the farmers’ market.
I stood in front of the picture window and began with “You know how shocked I was when you gave me acting lessons? Remember? I thought you were just feeling sorry for me—no job, no social life”—I smiled at Jeremy—“at that particular time? Getting back to school would give me a purpose in life or at least a reason to leave the apartment.”
“Guilty,” said my father. “But are you going to tell us that it paid off in some way?”
“Shush,” said Kathi. “I think she’s leading up to something.”
As choreographed, Jeremy joined me from the doorway between living room and hallway. “When I suggested acting lessons for Daff? That wasn’t random. I had an ulterior motive.”
The matching looks on both my father’s and Kathi’s faces was guessing-game earnest—eager to hear what might be next. “Did you get an acting job?” my father asked.
I checked with Jeremy. He said, “If all goes well, yes. We have something in the works. There’s a long road ahead. We’re going to start small—a reading and then, if we’re lucky, a festival and even a backer.”
I could see my father was trying not to look deflated. “Were you hoping I was getting a job on Jeremy’s show?” I asked him.
“Not really,” he fibbed.
Kathi said, “So it’s a play?”
I said, “Sort of. It’s a one-woman show partly about my experience with Geneva, the wannabe documentarian.”
“And producer of unnecessary podcasts,” Kathi finished.
“Unnecessary and a lawsuit waiting to happen,” I said. “Which is why we were able to gag her.”
Jeremy said, “I wouldn’t put it exactly that way—”
“I meant, I was petrified of Geneva. She’s just down the hall, and the day she fainted and I called 911, I was able to repossess it and eventually . . . I destroyed the evidence.”
“Evidence? What evidence?” my father asked.
“The yearbook. I destroyed it.”
“This is what your play’s about?” my father asked.
“Well, the plot isn’t ‘I shredded a yearbook.’ It’s more like . . .”
“Daphne’s journey,” said Jeremy.
“Not literally,” I said. “Not from Olde Coach Road to West Fifty-fourth Street, but starting with my bogus marriage, the divorce, the ups and downs with jobs, then to Geneva finding the yearbook and those complications.”
“It sounds to me as if the play is about bullying,” Kathi said.
“Very timely,” said my father. “In fact, it sounds like something that you could perform at high schools.”
I said, “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. We just need to find a venue or an open mic.”
Kathi asked if Jeremy’s connections—his being a real actor—would be o
f any help.
“Hope so,” he said. “I’m networking.”
“When do we get to see it?” asked my father.
Jeremy said, “That’s exactly why we’re here tonight.”
Preplanned was this semidelicate question: “Dad? Kathi knows about your marriage to Mom? How she might’ve been—?”
“Less than faithful?” Kathi filled in, with an edge in her voice—anger toward the woman who’d hurt her impeccably loyal boyfriend.
“I guess we know the answer to that,” said Jeremy.
“Does your play get into my journey, too?” my dad asked.
“Had to,” I said. “It’s all interwoven with the yearbook and Mom’s obsession with it.”
Jeremy said, “Mr. Maritch—please keep in mind that we put a spin on the events to make them pop from the stage. I was going for . . . well . . . entertainment.”
I said, “Believe me—I started out a nonbeliever. I mean me? A one-woman show? Airing the family’s dirty laundry? How could he? How could I? But that was only till I read it.”
“Anyone need a refill before Daphne begins?” Jeremy asked.
A yes, a no, a thanks, top it off . . . finally, we were ready. I hadn’t memorized much, so I read with an open laptop in the crook of my elbow. Every few lines, I’d look up to check my dad’s face. Was that worry? Disapproval? Queasiness?
He raised his hand when I got to Eugene Palumbo, second-string garbage man. “May I make a suggestion?” he asked.
I said, “Of course.”
“Here’s what I’m thinking: that it’s more believable if this Palumbo guy hung around the dump rather than drove around checking out what people left on the curb. The Pickering landfill has almost a party atmosphere on weekends.”
That’s how I knew he was on board. Jeremy got it, too. And Kathi was smiling. Yes, there was a grimace, but a resigned one, when I introduced Brendan Carswell, now demoted to mere crush.
After about a half hour, I said, “I could go on, but it’s about getting fired from Montessori and my chocolate career, and then the New Leash job. Do you want me to keep reading, or should we run out for dinner?”
My dad said, “If the rest is this enjoyable, I vote to save it for Broadway.” He turned to Kathi. “Do you agree—save some for opening night so it’ll be fresh and new to us?”
I could tell that Jeremy, like me, was pondering whether to disabuse him of all thoughts of Broadway, but we didn’t.
Kathi stood up. “Agree. Totally. Save the rest for opening night, wherever that may be.”
“Did I hear a vote for grabbing dinner?” I asked.
“Starved,” said my dad. “But first, I’d like a private word with Daphne.”
Both Jeremy and Kathi said sure, of course; they’d discuss where to eat and make a reservation.
Once we were alone, my father said, “Somewhere in the story, do you ever speak kindly of your mother?”
I couldn’t tell from his expression whether that would be a good thing or an unwelcome one.
“She wasn’t perfect,” he said. “But she had many wonderful qualities. Her students testified to that. I mean, seniors don’t dedicate a yearbook to a teacher unless she was everyone’s favorite. And, honey, you were so broken up when she died. Maybe you could think about that, the terrible loss, what you felt like when the call from the hospital came, when I told you she didn’t make it. And not that it’s my bailiwick, but wouldn’t it be a very dramatic moment on the stage, re-creating that phone call?”
I said, “It would be, for sure.”
“She loved her girls,” he said. “And I know you loved her back.”
What harm in saying that his fond wish had already come true, that there were beautiful lines toward the end about how we all loved one another despite bumps in the road? “Done,” I said.
“I didn’t want to meddle, but what a relief.”
Also ahead, still unaired, was a question it took a playwright in search of motivation to answer: Why did my mother want me to have the yearbook?
To Jeremy, her thinking was clear: She’d been younger than my dad and healthy. Surely she’d outlive him. He would die, then she would die, and I’d be an orphan, unlike Holly who had a husband and children. My mother would have wanted me to know that I wasn’t alone, that there was a spare parent on the bench. The yearbook was never meant to be a puzzle; she’d merely died before she’d had the chance to turn down the corner of Peter Armstrong’s page.
As soon as we were alone after dinner, Jeremy asked me what the powwow had been about.
“My mother. He was reminding me that I loved her.”
“I knew that.”
“I’d forgotten,” I said.
42
Sisters
The show was as fine-tuned as we could make it. We’d applied to every festival that had a reasonable submission deadline; we’d sent out what we thought was a charming and wry fund-raising appeal, and mounted a CrowdRise campaign that brought in $525.
Who did we know who had money to spare? “Any chance your sister would want to have her name on this as producer?” Jeremy asked me one morning.
I called Holly as soon as it was a decent hour in Los Angeles. First, I raved about the recent photo of her boys at their jujitsu-belt promotion ceremony. Then I asked if she missed work, not that I was discounting, no, not at all, full-time motherhood; but would she welcome an opportunity to flex her organizational and entrepreneurial muscles?
“I’m listening,” she said.
I explained that Jeremy had written a show starring me, and we needed a producer. And who better than a young, ambitious go-getter who lived in LA, had a year of law school, a nanny, and might welcome a new professional identity?
“Is this about money?” she asked.
“Somewhat. Plus the title, the prestige, and a very nice thing to have on your CV.”
“Let me talk to Doug,” she said.
We sent her Jeremy’s impressive credentials and the script, which she pronounced “cute,” an adjective we found slightly patronizing but not enough to turn down her first check. With it, she’d sent a contract stating that if her investment (postcards, my head shot, a portable projector, a case of wine for the reading) was a box-office hit, it would return to her 90 percent of the profits.
“It’s fine, since it won’t make a penny,” Jeremy said, handing me the pen. The assistant bank manager, acting as notary, asked if that was true.
I said, “We’re putting on a play.”
“Got it,” he said.
Dad, Kathi, Holly, Jeremy, and I dined together the night before the staged reading. I tried to talk Holly out of a get-together due to my superstition and nerves. But Holly was host and concierge, even in a city she didn’t know. She’d dropped her own name as producer of Dirty Laundry, scoring a table at Orso, chosen for its theatergoing cred.
We’d just been handed menus. Which daughter noticed first? Me. “Is that what I think it is?” I yelped.
Kathi looked down at her hand at the oval sapphire with its halo of tiny diamonds, then said apologetically, “It is.”
I jumped up, kissed her first, then my red-eyed dad. “It’s fine,” I whispered. “All good.”
“When were you going to tell us?” Holly asked.
“Day after tomorrow,” my dad said. “You’d come for brunch before you’d leave. We didn’t want to steal your sister’s thunder.”
“I considered leaving it at home tonight,” said Kathi. “I was picturing Holly meeting her father’s girlfriend for the first time, and boom, she’s his fiancée.” Her hand was splayed and she was gazing fondly at it. “But I can’t bring myself to take it off.”
Holly said, “Dad—nice job. It’s a beauty.”
“I think so, too.”
“The ring!”
Thankfully, she didn’t ask where he’d bought it, its weight in carats, or the retailer’s country of origin.
“We picked it out together,” said Kathi.
I rose, tapped my water glass with my knife, inadvertently catching the attention of strangers at surrounding tables. “Sorry, please carry on,” I told my expanded audience. “But you’re welcome to listen because we just got some thrilling news.”
Glass raised, I said, “Our father and this lovely woman are newly engaged!”
Applause at our table and beyond.
“My sister and I”—Holly identified herself with a wiggle of fingers—“were gathering for another reason, to celebrate what might be a one-woman show—”
Jeremy twirled his finger: Wind it up.
I said, “Okay, just this: Despite the waterworks, I’ve never seen my father happier. And for that, we thank this woman, Kathleen Krauss, who, I should add, specializes in piano lessons for adults—”
“Who gave up the piano as a child but regret that decision,” said my dad.
I heard Jeremy say to Kathi, “Maritch and Maritch Public Relations.”
“Did acting lessons do this to her?” asked Holly.
I said, “I yield my remaining time to the gentleman from New Hampshire.”
My dad didn’t stand up. He took a sip of water. “Daphne . . . Holly. I know this is sudden, but I hope my girls will understand and forgive me when I say I’ve been waiting for something like this my whole life.” He smiled a wobbly smile at Kathi. “We didn’t want to use this dinner as an engagement party. But here we all are—well, not Doug and the boys—but something tells me they’re going to get a text before dessert comes.”
“When’s the wedding?” Holly asked.
“We haven’t gotten that far,” said Kathi.
Holly asked her if she’d ever been married before.
“Holly!” said my dad.
“It’s fine,” said Kathi. “I’d want to know that, too. Nope. He’s the first.”
Jeremy said, “And I want to toast producer Holly Maritch-McMaster, without whom we’d be applying for grants we’d never get.”
Good Riddance Page 24