Goodnight Sometimes Means Goodbye (Wrong Flight Home, #2)

by Noel J. Hadley

  “I remember you saying that on the phone about me. Leah, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done or how far you’ve run. All you have to do is repent by turning around, and God will be there. I constantly have to remind myself of that. If you take the time to read the Gospels you may just be surprised to find that Jesus is eager to dispense forgiveness as much as possible to as many people as He can. There’s no shortage of it, only a shortage of people who feel the need to be forgiven.”

  Leah didn’t look happy as she stared down at her lap. “Is this why you brought me here?”

  “Should I change the subject?” I said.

  “Yes. And no, you’re the only person who I can talk to about this sort of thing. You were like this in high school, always eager to protect my soul, when you weren’t trying to climb into my pants.”

  “I did no such thing.”

  Leah just looked at me.

  “Okay, so maybe I wanted the complete package.”

  “In college, when we were separated by an entire continent and two colleges....” (That would be NYU and UCLA.) “I convinced myself that you were a threat to my success. It was so much easier not to feel anything for anyone. And now that you’re back in my life I’ve forgotten how much I miss.....” She was having a difficult time getting it out. “....our conversations.”

  “You can talk to me about whatever you want. I won’t judge.”

  “Joshua, if you knew some of the things that I’ve done.”

  “Last night I watched you snort cocaine.”

  Leah held a hand to her head, as if the hangover was still attempting first-degree manslaughter. She was probably used to that sort of thing, but I figured the touch itself was almost subconscious, and the look of guilt was transparent; perfect Catholic material. And I hoped she didn't notice that I'd been staring at her breasts as she turned to me.

  I finished my train of thought. “You even said everyone was a Muppet or something to that effect. And I’m still sitting here next to you. I’m not going to reject you, despite the fact that I'm nothing like Rowlf.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. Last night, that was just the drugs talking. Clearly you're more of a Kermit, straight as an arrow among an assembly of chaos, when you're not staring at my ass or boobs, anyways.”

  Her apparent acceptance of that observation was a perfect segway. “You know, Kermit probably stares at Miss Peggy’s ass and boobs all the time.”

  Leah dramatically opened her mouth. “Hey mister, you’re married. You can’t hit on me, and in church of all places. I’m shocked, SHOCKED!” Underneath the playful sarcasm it was apparent that I’d made her uncomfortable. Real expressions off the stage often did. “What kind of girls wants to be compared to Miss Piggy?”

  “I’m in trouble again, aren’t I?”

  “Yes.” She prodded my chest with her index finger. That much was probably acting. “You most certainly are.”

  She rose to her feet and extended five fingers. Whether or not she was actually joking or being completely seriousness about my estrangement from Elise (I thought they both might simultaneously co-exist), I was happy to oblige and accepted her offer.

  “Did I win a prize?”

  “You sir, won a trip to the confessional.” She led me past several pews to the wooden box on the sides of the church, where a sign read off the confession hours. “You can confess to the fact that you've been staring at my boobs all morning. The only thing you've been hearing since we arrived is a bicycle horn.”

  I opened my mouth to refute her claim.

  “Lust!” She pronounced it as some sort of one-syllable song. When I opened my mouth a second time she repeated her accusation with all the gusto of a Broadway singer.

  “LUST!” she sang.

  It was actually quite adorable.

  “Okay, fine. But when I’m through,” I stopped just outside of the confessional, “it will be your turn to kiss and tell.” I opened the door.

  She said: “But I’m not Catholic.”

  I shrugged both shoulders. “Technically, neither am I.”

  7

  BUILT IN THE EARLY SEVENTIES, the George M. Cohan Theater was just short of nineteen-hundred seats, a massive auditorium for Manhattan, especially considering that the smaller Broadway venues could max out at around six hundred. It came in as the second largest house of performing arts in the metropolis, falling just short of the Gershwin Theater, which was currently headlining productions of Wicked. Standing up on stage, gazing out at the sea of empty orchestra seats (they ran alphabetically, starting with rows A and ending in double Z), with two balconies sandwiched over the other, front and rear Mezzanine, matched with the darkened lighting equipment soon to swamp the stage, was awe-inspiring.

  “I like coming out here sometimes,” the President's wife said, “taking it all in.”

  “So you basically like people watching without the people.”

  “Dork,” she said.

  “And imagining people in their underwear,” I snapped another warmly accepted portrait of REPUBLICAN BLUE's leading lady. Hiding behind a camera was my way of remaining safe. It didn't matter if I positioned myself in the presence of a tornado or a beautiful woman, so long as I had my camera I could always stand confident.

  “No. I don't do underwear.” Leah said it as straight-faced as possible.

  “Oh, come on. You telling me you've never imagined anyone in their underwear?” Click.

  “Okay, maybe once or twice.” She blushed. Click. “But only if its someone I like.”

  “What I don’t understand is how you do it, how you master one perfect performance after another, eight times per week.”

  “The trick is, as an actor, to not think about your next line. It has to flow naturally, like prose on a page or water over rocks or riding a bike through any memorable human conversation. The moment you ask yourself what comes next you’re in trouble. But you should know that, seeing as how we’ve been in at least several plays together.”

  “I never could get all my lines down.”

  “Yes, I know.” She elbowed me in the arm and smiled. “And yet you kept at it for four entire years. But how do I put this kindly? Your acting kind of sucked.”

  “Yeah, but compared to my singing, I was a regular Marlon Brando. Need I remind you of my comedic interpretation as Nick Bottom?”

  “No, you don’t. Nobody had the heart to tell you, you never had a chance at the spotlight. Even the spotlight wanted to sit you down and have a serious talk.”

  “I was only in it to get a part with the leading lady.”

  “And how did that turn out?”

  “I never had a chance.”

  “That's sad.” She said it rather sad too.

  “But if you think about it, I had the privilege of performing in more plays with Miss Leah Bishop than any other actor in the world.”

  “This is true.” Leah said it with an actual spark of enlightenment, laughing at the irony. Click. “I never once thought of that.”

  “And never once a kissing role.”

  “Oh, is that what you want, a kissing scene?”

  “I do recall trying out for the part.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to write one into the script.”

  “I'll make you an offer you can't refuse.” I utilized my best Godfather impersonation, and performed some sort of Italian thing with my fingers.

  “Brando?” She tightened the corners of her lips.

  I told her it was.

  “Yeah, sorry, I don't think that's going into the script.”

  “Brando probably wasn't the best on-screen kisser anyhow.”

  “Mm-hmm, only if you should get lucky.”

  “If I recall, you did write a kissing scene into the script a few weeks ago, in Boston, and you threw up in my mouth.”

  “I was drunk. And it’s called improvising.”

  “Just goes to show how overrated improvising can be.”

  “I'm holding try-outs again, you know.”

>   “For the kissing part?”

  “Yeah, but my stand-in is Richie, as try-outs are concerned.”

  “Richie?”

  “Hey babe,” she pecked my lips with the tip of her index finger. “It’s only theater. And besides, you've got to play the video game all the way through before you can get to the final boss.”

  “And you're the final boss.”

  “You've got that right. I am, after all, the President's wife; at least until the end of the weekend.”

  “Yes, but I thought the man was the head of the household.”

  “I'll pretend like I didn't hear that.”

  “He’s also always on top.”

  “And we all know the man may be the head, but it’s the neck that turns the head. And the woman is clearly the neck.”

  “In that case, maybe I can try it out with Miranda. You know, just to see if I’m right for the part. We'll probably need several takes though, and probably a dress rehearsal.”

  “Um, you mean undress rehearsal,” Leah said. “And let me tell you something. So long as I'm the writer and the director and producer and its star.....”

  “Oh, you're the producer now.”

  “And it’s only critic. When it comes to kissing Miranda, theater will never be that theater.”

  8

  LEAH'S DRESSING ROOM was purely utilitarian in space, cramped walls with broad mirrors and lots of lighting. Whatever ambiance or spirituality I found had to be improvised on the part of its resident actor, like the single wall shelf with a Buddha head and a stick of burnt incense. I'd ask Leah about her foray into Buddhism at another hour. Several pictures were taped to her mirror too. One such 4x6 contained a glossy image of that man I saw kissing her on the subway some two weeks earlier (he was Mr. Secretary of State in the show). Even in this picture they were having a gay old time, in the Flintstones tradition. I made a mental note of it and tucked that thought away for another time. In the next picture I recognized her elder brother Kyle, smoking cigarettes as usual. I wondered what he was up to. I recalled that he'd joined the Navy straight out of high school, probably smoking cigarettes in the Persian Gulf. I'd ask her about that some other time too.

  A small compartment-like closet, more of a vertical cubby without a door, contained every possible costume change. There were several of them. The name ISLA was crudely scribbled with a sharpie in signature RB production blue tape, just in case there was any confusion as to which character should slip these particular dresses on, and on the make-up desk a couple of wigs were slung over dummy heads. Inside one drawer were a series of official Isla Elliot character portraits, each with her signature for the occasional drop-in tourist. The room really wasn't much to look at, but it got the job done, and I tried to visualize the countless hours she'd spent in here, mentally preparing herself with the full knowledge that just down the hall and beyond those curtains a packed house of almost nineteen-hundred ticket holders were anxiously awaiting her.

  Leah gave me the quick thirty seconds tour. Closet. Make-up table. Wig. Mirror. We talked for a good fifteen minutes, maybe more, the minutes really added up fast, until she noticed the time and ushered me towards the door. The make-up artist, his name was Alvin, he’d show at any moment, she explained, and really, there were colored M&M's to sort out before she could even think about performing. I knew what she meant by it.

  “And this is the part of the script where you leave.” Leah smiled

  “Darn,” I said. “Just when I thought I was beginning to understand how all this behind-the-scene stuff really works.”

  “Yeah, well, this behind-the-scenes dressing room is about to have an actress stripped down to her skimpies, so off you go.” She brushed me with her fingers and started to close the door.

  “Nonsense, I'm an actor, and a gentleman photographer,” I said, head held high, “And above all else professional when it comes to these sorts of things.”

  “Mm-hmm, Since when hasn't a man with the aspirations of seeing a woman strip down to her bare skimpies been professional about it?”

  I thought about it. She had a point, so I said: “There's always a first.”

  “No, there’s not.” She closed the door on my face. I just stood there. And then a few seconds later she opened it a crack, with only her eyes peering through. “Maybe we'll work on those try-outs later, if you're lucky,” she said.

  “For the script.”

  “Oh, that's right, the script.” Her smile was intoxicating.

  Leah closed the door again. I didn't expect it to open for a third round, but waited anyways simply on the basis that she was on the other side of it, and that cute little white dress of hers was probably becoming unhinged at the buttons.

  She was right about that.

  Had I'd been in the room while that cute little white dress of hers fell to her ankles, I probably would have done one of those eye popping tongue rolling things that I saw a wolf do once in a Saturday morning cartoon.

  9

  WHEN NEXT I SAW HER again she was no longer the twenty-seven year old Leah Bishop that I'd arrived here with. She'd incarnated into the president's wife, a slightly older, wiser Isla Elliot illuminated on stage, and I was all the way in the back, row Double-Z. I was just thrilled that she could get me in. And I was used to that sort of thing, coming to know the perplexities that made up the person of Leah through her vast interconnected network of inner-character personalities. All good writers and actors know what it is to have multiple persons and to speak out of them. In high school she became the love-struck Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof, who forsook one unwanted engagement to marry another or the kind thoughtful Juror Number 8, singlehandedly casting a not guilty vote in 12 Angry Jurors.

  I still refused to believe that my comedic interpretation of Nick Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream, the fictitious actor turned donkey that was cursed to crave oats and hay despite the Fairy-Queen’s (she being played by Leah) lustful wooing of him, was anything less than memorably genius, another story for another time.

  Anyways, throughout high school I had always wanted intimate knowledge of Leah, whomever she became, whether on stage or in homeroom, or vying for her attention as she passed my locker in the hall. Even the Leah Bishop I'd stumbled upon at Jorel Seeger’s party, high on cocaine, I wanted to know that version of her too, the good and the terrible. It was never a power trip, love by association, that sort of thing. I loved her for every complexity; the mystery, the fact that I could never quite figure her out; and it wasn't until then, during the final ovation, that my subconscious also brought that fact to light.

  But perhaps far more importantly, I realized it then as she lifted her head, gazed across a vast sea of theater attenders, and narrowed her eyesight on me (I know there is an easy explanation to this illusion in theater, but I was quite certain of it, she knew my precise seat number and looked to me); I was in love with her. It was true, I couldn't deny it anymore. It wasn't just lust. I couldn't go home to Michael's bar, look him in the eyes, and claim any other truth. I loved Elise, and I loved Leah, two women at once but in separate dualistic compartments of life, if that is at all humanly possible, and I believe it is.

  I was head-over-heels in love with another woman back home. There-in lay the complication, because the identical summersault expression of love could be applied to this one. And that was a complication, if ever I’d known one.

  10

  IN-BETWEEN THE SATURDAY MATINEE and eight o'clock showing I was backstage again waiting for Leah to open the door of her dressing room, listening to the Beach Boys on my iPod, Heroes and Villains (one of my all-time favorite songs), two red and yellow roses clutched between my fingers. A stagehand dressed all in black, t-shirt and slacks used two pointer fingers to direct a small man with a red-headed buzz-cut and diamond studded earrings in my direction. He looked stubby but not fat in his tux, and dwarfed my florist offerings with an entire bouquet of reds, which in turn seemed to enhance the rosiness in his cheeks. I recognized him f
rom Jorel Seeger’s gathering of hoity-toity disciples. His name was Lawrence Greenberg, a powerful west coast mover and shaker of Hollywood astronomy, and he was intending to court Bishop into one of those constellations, most notably for the role of the president's wife in his big screen adaptation of REPUBLICAN BLUE. Or maybe his bed sheets required a turn-down.

  I nodded at Greenberg. He didn't nod back.

  “Girls,” I removed both ear buds and shook my head. “When they tell you they'll be ready in a quarter of an hour, they expect you to know that they're conception of time is more comparable to the last quarter of a football game.”

  “Hey, do me a favor and buzz off,” he said.

  “Why do people keep telling me that?”

  “Because nobody wants a fucking fly in their soup. This is an adult’s only party, yet you keep showing up like a cat pissing in the backseat of someone's convertible. It’s Thanksgiving and you can sit at the goddam kids table.”

  “And here I thought we'd made such strides in our relationship last night.”

  “Hey, pay attention, ass-wipe, because I don't like to repeat myself....”

  “Should I take notes?”

  “Don't let me catch you pussy-sniffing around here again. I'll crush your nuts into dust, mix it into my next shipment of coke, and snort you up with my friends.”

  “I'm kind of addictive like that.”

  “I'm gonna go through this door, have a pleasant gentlemanly conversation with the lady in there, and when I return you'd better split like a pair of John Candy's trousers.”

  “So what I think you're trying to say is, I didn't get the part in the picture.”

  “No shit.”

  “I can't say I'm not disappointed. I always get stuck with the one-liner inn keeper parts, and for once I was sort of hoping to play the president.”

  “Sorry if I missed the try-out. I must have been in the back screwing a pair of Double D's. A lactating nipple has a better shot at playing the president than you.”