Circles

by Marilyn Sachs

  At Sloat Boulevard, Mark reluctantly turned and began heading back to his father’s—no—back home. It was his home now. Sure, some things seemed a little strange, but he would get used to them. His room was tiny, hardly more than a closet, and the place was pretty sloppy, and—this was kind of embarrassing but he was sixteen and a half—he knew he was interfering with his father’s love life.

  He stopped at a stop sign, and two women hesitantly swayed on the curb, watching him. Magnanimously, he motioned for them to cross, and they smiled and nodded at him as they passed. He smiled back, and kept smiling once he started driving again. His father would probably let him drive almost any time he wanted. Probably even on the Sundays when he visited his mother out in San Leandro, he guessed his father would simply toss him the keys and let him take the van. Wouldn’t she be surprised when he pulled up in it? She’d probably say his father was just being irresponsible to let him drive it. Well, it didn’t really matter what she said anymore. All he’d have to say was that it was okay with Dad.

  This Saturday he would start working in his father’s hardware store, and he would continue to work there every Saturday, and a couple of afternoons during the week as well. Maybe his father would need him to run errands with the van—make deliveries, pick up stuff. He’d do whatever his father asked him to do. He liked the idea of working in the store.

  Mark turned off the avenue and onto his father’s— his street. No problem parking—there were two spots up near the corner. He backed into the smaller one just for the practice. The van handled like a dream. He turned off the motor, pulled up the emergency brake, and patted the dashboard lovingly. He should have moved in with his father years ago.

  His father was sitting in front of the TV, watching Monday night football, when he came in.

  “Close game,” he said, smiling up at Mark. “They sacked Montana four times—but nothing can stop him.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Mark laughed uncomfortably. He hated football, but fortunately his father didn’t seem to know it. His father proceeded to give him some of the details of the game, and he tried to look interested.

  “I guess it’s too late to go out for the team?” his father said.

  “Uh—what?” Mark asked.

  “At school, I mean. I guess they’ve held all the tryouts already for the football team.”

  “Oh, right!” Mark agreed quickly. Then he added, “You know, Dad, I’m not really much into football.”

  “You’ve got the build,” his father said approvingly. “If I’d had a pair of shoulders like yours I could have been a first-string player in school instead of sitting on the bench most of the time.”

  Mark shifted around under his father’s scrutiny and tried to change the subject. “The library’s pretty good here,” he said. “They have a whole bunch of books on astronomy I’ve never seen before.”

  “Great! Great!” said his father, nodding at him and smiling. “Oh, I was also going to say I could take you to the game this Sunday. I’ve got an extra ticket.”

  “I thought you and Lauren were going. I thought you said all the tickets were sold out, and you only had two.”

  His father grinned foolishly. “It’s all over with Lauren. That’s why I’ve got the extra ticket.”

  “But Dad , . .” Mark began. He wanted to tell his father that he hoped it wasn’t because of him. He had a feeling that maybe Lauren used to stay over, before he moved in with his father, and he wanted to say that he was sixteen and a half, not a baby anymore, and that he understood all these matters. No sweat, he wanted to tell his father. He understood, and it was okay, and he wanted his father to know that he wasn’t a prude, and that he’d feel lousy if his father had broken up with Lauren because of him.

  Not that he liked Lauren especially. Not that he liked her at all, as a matter of fact. She was kind of a silly, over-made-up woman, who laughed a lot and looked at him in a bold, scary way.

  “No, no,” his father said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you. I know that’s what you’re thinking, and it just isn’t so. Besides, you’re old enough to understand. You’ve probably even got a girl of your own.”

  “No!” Mark felt his ears growing warm. “No. I mean ... not now.”

  His father nodded. “You’ll meet plenty of nice girls at school. A guy with your looks won’t ever have any trouble. But anyway, about Lauren, I’ve been getting tired of her. She spends money like it was water. The last straw was her birthday. I asked her what she wanted and she said a pair of shoes. So I told her to buy herself a pair, and I’d reimburse her. I figured fifty, sixty dollars—okay, maybe a hundred tops. So she went and bought herself a pair of fancy French shoes. She paid two hundred and fifty dollars for them. And they were on sale. That did it!”

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars?” Mark repeated in horror.

  “I’m not kidding,” his father said grimly. “That was the last straw.”

  “I could buy a new telescope mount with two hundred and fifty dollars,” Mark said.

  “That’s right,” his father said. “I told her if it was for something worthwhile—for a tape deck or something important—but just for a lousy pair of shoes. Wait, I’ll show them to you.”

  His father jumped up and hurried out of the room. When he returned he was holding up a red snakeskin, high-heeled sandal with one hand, and cradling a shoe box with the other.

  “Here—just look at what she paid two hundred and fifty dollars for, on sale.”

  He held the sandal out to Mark, who picked it up by one thin strap and held it out, away from him, as if it were something unclean. Mark shook his head and murmured, “Mom never wears shoes like this.”

  “Crazy,” his father said. “Absolutely crazy.”

  “But Dad,” Mark said, handing the shoe back to his father, “why do you have the shoes and not Lauren?”

  “Because,” said his father, carefully parting the tissue paper that lined the inside of the box and settling the shoe into it, “I let her know what I thought. I mean I gave her the money—I did say she could buy whatever she liked—but I also let her know what I thought of somebody who would go out and spend two hundred and fifty dollars for a stupid pair of shoes. She said I was cheap and I said—well, it doesn’t matter what I said, but she gave me the shoes. Actually, she threw them at me. Thank God she didn’t damage them. I want my money back.”

  “Oh,” said Mark, “are you going to take them back to the store?”

  His father put the box down carefully and closed the lid. “I did already but they don’t want to give me a refund.” He smiled at Mark. “But you know your dad, Mark. He doesn’t take no for an answer. I’m going back tomorrow, and you can be sure I’m going to end up with that refund.”

  Mark smiled back. “Do you want me to go along?”

  “No, no, son, that’s all right,” his father said. “But I will take you to the Forty-niners game this Sunday. Don’t forget. We have a date.”

  Mark retreated to his room, opened the window, and looked up at the sky. Although it was too foggy for him to see anything at all, he knew that tonight the lovely Corona Borealis would be shining in the western sky, the Big Dipper in the north, and Orion over in the east. The thin row of stars in Orion’s belt made him think of the thin strap on that ridiculous red high-heeled shoe.

  He rested his head on one hand, and thought about the shoe. No girl he’d ever care about would wear a shoe like that. No! The girl he’d care about would have to be a real person—interested in astronomy or something serious. Not one of those silly, giggly girls. She’d be a no-nonsense person, somebody you could talk to. She wouldn’t wear a lot of makeup or dumb high-heeled shoes.

  Not the girl he’d like. The girl he’d like would have to be somebody you could talk to, smart, serious, and interesting. She wouldn’t be giggling all the time, and looking at him with that bold, embarrassing look Lauren had. And she certainly would never wear high-heeled, expensive French shoes.

  Mark hadn
’t met her yet, but he knew she wouldn’t.

  Chapter 3

  Beebe bent over and tied the shoelaces on one of her running shoes. Then she leaned back in her seat in the back of the auditorium and listened. Dave Mitchell/Romeo was rehearsing up on the stage with Todd Merster/Benvolio. He was saying:

  “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;

  Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;

  Being vcx’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:

  What is it else? a madness most discreet,

  A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

  Her lips moved along with the words, but Dave was saying them too quickly and finished before she did.

  “Slow down,” Mrs. Kronberger said to him. “Try it again.”

  This time Beebe whispered them along with him out loud. There was nobody else sitting in the back of the auditorium to hear her. As far as she was concerned, this was the most beautiful passage in the whole play because it described so well how she felt about Dave Mitchell.

  “A madness most discreet”—that’s exactly what it was, because it was almost more than she could bear and yet nobody knew how she felt about him. Not her mother, not Wanda, certainly not Dave Mitchell.

  “A choking gall.” Yes, that too, because so many times when she met him in the hall, or saw him in class, or even here at rehearsal, so many times, when she’d practiced some cute or funny or charming words— they could never rise out of her throat. They died there while she only managed to choke out something inane and colorless.

  “A preserving sweet.” Yes, her feeling for Dave was a preserving sweet. Her daydreams about him had gone on and on for nearly a year now. They were preserved, and they were very, very sweet.

  “Romeo’s shallow,” her mother said. “He’s a typical, macho teenager. At the beginning of the play, he’s madly in love with Rosaline. Then he goes to a dance, sees Juliet, and in a few seconds, is even more madly in love with her, just because she’s prettier. He’s got no character. But Benedick ...”

  Beebe didn’t want to hear about Benedick. It was bad enough that her mother had insisted on naming her Beatrice—her father had preferred Miranda from The Tempest, a much prettier name as far as Beebe was concerned—but the two lovers in Much Ado About Nothing just yacked and yacked like middle-aged adults. They lacked the passion and ferocity of the lovers in Romeo and Juliet.

  “People change,” Beebe always said, defending Romeo. “You said you liked somebody in your acting company until you met Dad.”

  “Yes, but I fell in love with Dad because of what he was, not for what he looked like. Ted Ritter, the guy in my company, was very good-looking, but he was kind of shallow too, just like Romeo.”

  “People change,” Beebe repeated stubbornly. And maybe Dave would change too. Right now, he and Jennifer Evans/Juliet were going around together. They’d been together since last year when both of them had gotten the leading roles in Twelfth Night.

  Now they were both up on stage, rehearsing scene 5, the big one where Romeo sees Juliet for the first time. Beebe clenched her fists, and whispered the words along with Dave:

  “What lady is that which doth enrich the hand

  Of yonder knight?”

  “Don’t mumble,” Mrs. Kronberger said, “and remember to keep your chin up. We’re losing half the words out here.”

  Dave nodded and smiled good-naturedly at her. Beebe’s heart beat faster. How good-looking he was with his short, curly brown hair, his large, dark eyes, his slim, graceful figure. And how nice he was—for such a boy, such a star. He wasn’t at all conceited or mean-spirited. Just the other day when she met him in the hall, and dropped her notebook and all the papers had gone flying, he’d helped her pick everything up, laughing and making her feel almost good about dropping it, almost as if she’d finally done something right, something to get his attention and approval.

  His voice wasn’t really projecting well, but there were a couple of kids horsing around over on the left side of the auditorium. She shot them a ferocious look as Romeo mumbled:

  “O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright.

  It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

  Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear;”

  “Louder and slower, louder and slower,” Mrs. Kronberger repeated. “And get a little more feeling into it. You’re not reading a shopping list.”

  “Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!”

  Jennifer Evans/Juliet walked over to the front of the stage and called out, “Mrs. Kronberger, I’m going to have to go in fifteen minutes.”

  “I know, I know,” said the teacher. “You have to go to the dentist. I know.”

  “Well, can we just move ahead to my part?”

  “We purposely moved on ahead to scene five and skipped the first scene so we could accommodate you,” Mrs. Kronberger said crankily. “I thought your appointment was at four-thirty.”

  “No, it’s at four,” Jennifer said gently.

  “I don’t know why there’s always a bunch of people who have to go to the dentist during rehearsals,” Mrs. Kronberger said even more crankily. “What is it with this generation anyway? I never went to the dentist when I was your age.”

  “So would it be okay to do the end of the scene now?” Jennifer coaxed. “I’ll try to make my appointments later from now on.”

  “No, it’s not okay,” Mrs. Kronberger said savagely. “I just don’t want to rush through this scene. Especially since everybody else is here for a change. Where is your understudy?”

  Beebe stood up immediately. Her legs were trembling, but she stood up. It was going to happen, finally. Now. She was going to stand up there on the stage with Dave, and hold the part in front of her, and pretend to read the lines that she already knew by heart:

  “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

  Which mannerly devotion shows in this;

  For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

  And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.”

  And he would take her hand, and he would pull her close to him, and after a while, he would say:

  “Then move not, while my prayers’ effect I take.

  Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purg’d.”

  And then he would kiss her, and she would ...

  “I really will try, Mrs. Kronberger, to make my appointments later. Honestly, I will. And you know this is only the first time it’s happened,” Jennifer said.

  Mrs. Kronberger mumbled something and waved a hand impatiently. But then she told the others to sit down while Romeo and Juliet went into their big introduction scene.

  Beebe sat down too. She was bitterly disappointed but relieved at the same time. She watched as Jennifer and Dave moved together to the center of the stage. Mrs. Kronberger started to cough, and while she was coughing, the two leading players turned towards each other smiling. Beebe jealously saw how Dave leaned over and put an arm around Jennifer’s shoulder as he whispered something to her. Jennifer moved into the circle of his arm, and settled comfortably against him.

  There was a deep sorrow inside of Beebe as she watched the two of them together—Dave with his handsome, bright, humorous face so close to Jennifer’s long blonde hair. And Jennifer looking up at him, out of her large blue eyes. She was such a pretty girl it hurt Beebe. Such a pretty girl and, yes, such a nice girl too.

  Why did she have to be so pretty and so nice? It wasn’t fair that some people had everything. No wonder they always got the leading parts.

  Mrs. Kronberger stopped coughing. “Well, if you two can separate yourselves and concentrate on the play ...” she said, trying to sound severe but not really succeeding. How could anybody be severe with Dave and Jennifer? “... perhaps we can begin.”

  Beebe leaned forward and listened. The day she had had the crying jag she had said, spitefully, to her mother that Jennifer was a big, stupid girl with a loud voice like a yodeler. As Jennifer re
ad her lines, Beebe knew it wasn’t true. Jennifer was lovely, and not stupid at all. Her voice was rich and clear, and she spoke her lines with a sweetness and a playfulness that penetrated Beebe’s sorrow and made her want to clap her hands. She knew, without wanting to admit it, that Jennifer was much more talented than Dave. When Jennifer spoke her lines Beebe felt as if she were hearing them for the first time.

  “My only love sprung from my only hate!

  Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

  Prodigious birth of love it is to me,

  That I must love a loathed enemy.”

  Yes, yes, Beebe thought, wrapped up as she was in her knotted feelings for Jennifer. She was—she should be—a loathed enemy because Dave liked her, but yet Beebe couldn’t hate Jennifer just as Juliet couldn’t hate Romeo.

  It was all so complicated. There were times nothing made sense at all. If Dave hadn’t taken care of Mr. Ferguson when he had that epileptic seizure down in the lunchroom last year, she probably never would have developed a crush on him. Oh yes, she probably would have admired him in the drama group, but the memory of him, leaning over the purple-faced, foaming Mr. Ferguson, loosening his collar and gently turning his head to one side ... Dave’s bright, handsome face so kind and competent. If she hadn’t been down in the lunchroom that day, a warm, clear, lovely October day ... She had even brought a sandwich to school and planned on eating it outside with Wanda, and just because Wanda asked Leslie Cooper, who laughed all the time, to join them, she changed her mind. She couldn’t stand people who laughed all the time over nothing. So she didn’t go with them. She said she was in a hurry, and she went down to the lunchroom, and there he was, as she entered, surrounded by a circle of bit players, and poor Mr. Ferguson foaming and purple-faced lying on the ground and Dave occupying center stage. Ever since then, he had occupied center stage in her daydreams.