“I don’t know how the fuck you do it,” Ethan stated late one night in their sophomore year. Robbie had just come in to the room they shared with a Bud Light in one hand and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray in the other. “I’m studying my fucking head off, and you’re out drinking and reading literature. Fuck—what gives?”
“It all makes pretty much sense to me,” Robbie replied. “You’ve got a gift. You just don’t see it. Have a beer, man.”
“I can see it. I just can’t remember it,” Ethan chuckled. “And beer doesn’t improve that.”
“How do you know? You’ve never tried it.”
“Yeah, right, just what I need—Lampwick in the flesh.”
Exams were tough, but Ethan persevered and made it through. At the start of the spring term, the police still were not forthcoming with any new information on Mila’s disappearance. Ethan was coming to grips with admitting that Mila wasn’t coming back. Even though at times he felt she was there, he had to move on. To help let go, he decided to audition for another school theater production. He hadn’t lost his knack.
“I know you,” said the director, one of two people evaluating his performing skill. “You were part of Another Color Blue, and that girl—such a tragedy. Ever find out what happened?”
The question caught Ethan off guard, but he didn’t miss a beat.
“Nothing. She just went away.”
The play they were tackling was Twelve Angry Men. Ethan was reading for the role of Juror No. 8, a role played by Henry Fonda in the 1957 movie. The jurors are faced with the task of deciding whether a son is guilty of murdering his father.
Nothing more was mentioned of Ethan’s previous experience. He began to read for the audition, and it was quickly evident he would win the part. He became the juror right in front of them. He really embraced the role and hoped it would help distance his thoughts of Mila; it didn’t. In many ways, it brought him closer to her. He could hear her direction to be more forceful with his words or to lighten up as his character tried to understand what really happened. Often, during rehearsals, she seemed right by his side on the stage. All he had to do was follow her direction. It worked beautifully. The cast and director again were often mesmerized by his ability to transform himself so completely into character.
Nights remained the worst. Despite the accolades for his performances, the play only served to make Mila more prominent in his mind. He longed to hold her, to touch her smooth skin, or to kiss her soft lips. On nights when he felt her memory coming on strong, Robbie was by his side. As often was the case, they did not leave the room. They’d purchased a small refrigerator that they kept stocked with beer. On the nights when beer didn’t dull the edges enough, out would come Robbie’s Black Russians and Ethan’s rye and Coke. Some nights, they went down to Roosters or the Bin, but their return to their room always was followed by a couple of nightcaps.
Ethan knew he was on a dangerous slope but couldn’t help himself. Mila wouldn’t leave, he thought on more than one occasion. She had introduced him to the world of acting; she had brought him to the stage. Wherever she was, he was sure she was watching him.
Sometimes Ethan would talk to Robbie about her vanishing act.
“How does someone just fucking disappear like that?” he commented late one evening at the end of their sophomore year.
“What do you mean, Eth?” Robbie replied. “She just signed out.”
“But why did she leave?” Ethan asked. “Was our whole relationship just made up?”
“I don’t know, but things do happen for a reason.”
“How so?”
“Well, for instance, our friendship,” Robbie answered. His eyes locked on Ethan’s. “Before you only needed me for the answers to physics and math. Now you need a drinkin’ buddy.”
Ethan laughed and raised his bottle.
“Don’t worry,” Robbie added. “I’ll still give you the answers, ’cause I love the drinkin’ part. Besides, I never saw you when she was around.”
They’d drink into the early hours, just the two of them in their room, with a small wooden night table between them, where they set their drinking glasses and liquor.
In the final performance of Twelve Angry Men, Ethan saw Mila for the first time in over a year. Backstage beside the curtain, she stood watching the cast perform. Ethan’s character was facing the other jurors, explaining his point of view. When his character was asked a question, Ethan looked off in the distance away from the audience. For a moment, he was dumbfounded, and then his heart lightened upon seeing his love. If it wasn’t for her hand rising and hearing her whisper, “The show must go on,” he would have left the stage. She distracted him enough that one of the stagehands had to hiss, “Ethan!”
He continued with the scene, but as he came off the stage, he cried out to Robbie, who was working as a stagehand, “Did you see her?”
“See who?”
“Mila!” Ethan shouted, exasperated. “She was standing right here, smiling, and watching the show.”
“I don’t think so,” Robbie said, astounded to hear his friend say such a thing.
“She was right here,” Ethan insisted. “How could you have missed her?”
Act II
Do not go where the path may lead,
Go instead where there is no path
And leave a trail.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chapter 8
Ethan’s Timeline
January 1990—near Ottawa
Ralph was one of a handful of engineers with whom Ethan worked at NewTec, a small engineering firm in the west end of Ottawa—Ethan had joined NewTec following graduation.
Ralph had just finished presenting his latest idea on a new cooling system for NewTec’s newest Tech2 engine when David, their boss and engineering manager, left the meeting to answer a call from the company’s president. Without the presence of the “dictator,” as the engineering group referred to him, the discussion digressed to comments on David’s wife’s pert breasts, which recently had been revealed at the office Christmas party.
The incident had become the talk of the office following the party when David’s wife, Martha, some fifteen years his junior, removed her blue fox-fur coat in the main reception area of the Ramada Renaissance Hotel, where NewTec held its annual Christmas party. While taking off her coat, it snagged the front of her dress, pulling the gown off her shoulders for a most revealing view of her chest—while she was not particularly attractive, Martha was well endowed. Martha’s cheeks had flushed, but she carried on for the rest of the evening, unperturbed, and no one within earshot of the dictator would admit to having seen her. In the weeks that followed, however, the male population of the office could not leave the subject alone.
As in many meetings that went off the rails in David’s absence, Ralph desperately tried to get the meeting back on track before David returned to assume control. “We’ve reduced the number of restrictions within the manifold,” Ralph stated, pointing to the drawing posted on the wall of the conference room, “by 30 percent.”
“Well, her manifolds looked just fine to me,” said Sam, one of the younger members of the team, like Ethan. Sam was a year out of college and single. Since the party, Martha’s breasts made up a significant part of his conversations. “Forget 30 percent. I’ll take them as they are.”
“Get a life,” retorted Ethan, tired of the discussion and the meeting. “What you need is a set of your own.”
“You’re just—” Sam started to say but stopped abruptly when David re-entered the room and assumed his seat at the head of the cherry wood table.
David shot Ethan a look of grave disdain. “So it’s settled? You’ve decided?” David said in his condescending manner. “I’d like to think this team can work independently, at least once in a while.”
Ethan was of the same mind but knew b
etter; it was David’s team. No one said a word as Ralph moved back to his drawing. “This, in turn, exceeds our 15 percent cost-reduction target.”
“Great,” replied David, always pleased with cost savings, “but what about the control system? How is it going to work? Tell me again why we should reposition the temperature sensors.”
“There’s no question we want them as close to the heat exchanger as possible,” explained Ralph, “for optimizing the fuel–air ratio.”
“Well, I think there is a question. The temperature farthest from the cooler is the most stable,” David remarked, pausing to clear his throat. “Surely we want to control the engine around this temperature.”
This was the third time they’d discussed this point in as many days. Ethan couldn’t believe they were at it again. His patience had run its course. “The temperature is definitely stable at that point, David,” Ethan interjected, surprised at the loudness of his voice. “We have to look at the system as a whole. We don’t want a meltdown. Measuring the temperature that far away, though stable, will not indicate soon enough when cooling is required. We’ll be into an overheat situation before it can be corrected.” The room was silent as he continued, trying to control his temper. “This is the third time we’ve been through this. Can’t we just decide and move on?” He turned toward the dictator among looks of surprise and continued. “David, let’s go with mounting near the cooler, and change it if it becomes too erratic.”
It’s not your company, Ethan. Let it go. Again, the voice.
The meeting was a waste of time, as the outcome of the previous two meetings had proved. They all had more than enough work to do and little time to finish it—and still there was no decision. Ethan knew to whom he was speaking but went on anyway.
Sam’s eyes were wide, reflecting his own shock, but he was beyond caring today. No one else said a word. The tension grew in the room. Ethan wanted to leave and get on with his day, and he wondered now why he’d started. His face was flushed with earnestness. Was this really a battle he wanted to fight? If he’d stayed quiet, the meeting would already be over, with plans for another one. No one else was going to say anything. Everyone knew better than to wade in now. Staring at David, whose eyes were fixed on the engineering drawing posted on the wall, Ethan looked across at Ralph, whose balding head was shaking back and forth in vexation.
“Well,” David began, when there was no further input from anyone else, “it appears we have some disagreement on how to settle this matter.”
That’s one way to put it, Dave, Ethan thought cynically.
Could David even make the decision?
“This is important,” David stated, turning to address Ethan. “We need to consider the position carefully because it does have serious implications. I would like some additional temperature readings around the reservoir.”
Ethan remained quiet, barely able to contain himself. They were in production on the first engines, but here they were, still finalizing the design. It was unbelievable! The first were to ship in two days. They needed decisions, not more testing and another meeting.
It’s not your company, Ethan. Let it go, the voice repeated.
This wasn’t about engineering.
“So what are you waiting for?” David announced after a moment when no one moved.
“A decision,” Ethan replied. The words were out of his mouth before he had a chance to check them.
Ethan was in turmoil that evening. His anger at his situation had grown steadily. His bouts of frustration with work were increasing. His thoughts kept returning to Mila. Her case remained open, and despite his attempts to bring closure to it, she continued to resurface again and again in his mind. Tonight, outside his apartment building, he saw her walking into the lobby. She was standing outside, looking off in the distance. He knew it was her, because she smiled at him. Her brown hair was shorter than before. Screeching tires jarred his attention. When he turned back, a woman stood by the entrance door, but it wasn’t Mila. Mila was gone.
As of late, he’d lost heart in his work. He loved the creativeness of design, but the dream of car design had been replaced by the drudgery of engineering practice, reconfiguring the same designs over and over again. The excitement of innovation seemed missing from his world. He’d simply failed to understand why he was doing what he was doing. Meetings and posturing had replaced meaningful discussions on new products. Disillusionment with what the profession represented—and his role in it—sat heavily upon him.
“You seem distracted tonight,” Beth commented. She set the box of lukewarm chow mein she’d picked up on her way home in the center of their small pinewood kitchen table. “Work okay today?”
Ethan had moved in with Beth a year after graduation. He looked up at Beth and wondered what life would have been like with Mila; a life with love. “Yeah, you know, David in indecision. He wouldn’t know if good design came up and bit him in the ass.” Using chopsticks, Ethan shoveled some chow mein onto the white Corelle dinner plate.
In a few scattered sentences, Beth spewed out her messy day at the office. They were losing a major account after months of planning. Beth was responsible but blamed her team for not capturing the “magic.” Failure to secure the account would impact management’s view of her ability to deliver. Her facility to perform would be questioned in the future. Discouraged, she was contemplating quitting. “I’m going to circulate my CV,” she stated.
“Whatever you got to do,” Ethan agreed, putting some of the limp bean sprouts into his mouth.
Beth was two years his senior and very career-minded. Ethan wanted to be with someone, and the two of them got on well. Both were looking for a relationship. Neither was ready to settle down, but living together fit their circumstances. Six months had passed since the move.
Tonight, however, seemed different. Ethan had never seen Beth so disillusioned. She was harder on herself than anyone else could dream of being.
“You know,” she began, as if reading his mind, “it’s hard not to question my own abilities. Scrutiny of my work will be brutal. It’s like I’ve never done anything right.”
“Oh, come on,” Ethan replied. “It’s one client. There’ll be others. Shake it off. They know the good work you’ve done.”
It was times like these that Ethan questioned having a family with Beth. It was always about her. If things were not smooth in her world, all was in chaos. He often wondered whether they were compatible. Tonight was hard because Mila had returned.
“It’s like I set myself up to fail,” Beth said.
Ethan looked back at her, surprised. “I thought you agreed to take on this client.”
“I did,” she replied, “but that has nothing to do with it. If they knew it was hopeless, they shouldn’t have let me take it on. No one wins here.” She sighed. “I wish I could stop analyzing everything I do.”
Ethan had had a bad day but Beth had again turned it around to be about her. He looked across the table at the woman whose bed he shared. Her cheeks were bright with agitation and her eyes bloodshot from so many late nights over the past few weeks. She was cute and professionally attractive. Her daily workouts kept her fit and trim. At work, he imagined she intimidated most people with her relentless drive and ambition. But beyond her professional acumen, Ethan discovered, was someone as unsure and fragile as any person he’d ever met.
The uncertainties of her work environment and her future with a certain client were a regular subject now, and she was paranoid that she had lost her edge. Ethan was not excluded from her group of oppressors—she often saw him as increasingly difficult to deal with. Some nights, if he so much as touched her, she felt he was over the line.
For Ethan, it was like trying to cross a minefield, picking each move carefully, even strategically, not knowing what would touch off an explosion. When things reached this point, the difficulties were compounded further by Eth
an’s unhappiness at work. His anger would build with one incident after another, often culminating in Beth’s making an offhand comment that he would take to heart. Something would snap inside him, leading to a sudden burst of fury and an unleashed punch at a wall or a door. There was no desire to hurt anyone, only an embarrassed lack of self-control.
Although he loved Beth in many ways, there was too much feeding into a tangled web of self-disappointment. He needed to affect the cause, not simply adjust to the effect.
In bed, lying beside Beth, his thoughts turned to Mila—her soft skin, her kind whispers, and her love. She would have known what to do.
Chapter 9
Ethan’s Timeline
March 1990
It wasn’t long before he saw her again.
Ethan had left the office because he was not feeling well. Sharp stomach pains and chills had plagued him throughout the day. He was heading back to the apartment and decided to stop at the pharmacy for some Gravol. He found the stomach medicine quickly. He exited the aisle while reading the instructions on the box … and that’s when he saw her, with a wisp of her brown locks across the center of her lovely face.
He thought his heart might explode, and the brightness suddenly made him lightheaded. She turned to go down the next aisle but stopped. Ethan looked right at her.
“Hello,” she said. It was the first time he’d heard her speak—beyond her whispers in his ears—in years.
“Mila?” he gasped. “You’re here?”
“Of course,” she replied plainly. “Where did you think I was?”
“You went away.”
Ignoring his statement, she continued as if only days rather than years had passed since they’d last spoken. “How’s Robbie doing?”
A previous life flooded back on hearing Robbie’s name. He hadn’t talked to Robbie Johnson since graduation three years ago. They’d gone their separate ways when Robbie left for California after being recruited by a major oil company for his engineering brilliance.
The Actor Page 5