Open Mic Night at Westminster Cemetery

by Mary Amato

  The group is into it now, counting and dancing. Mrs. Steele walks between them, looking for Lacy. She has the distinct feeling that the girl has something to do with all this, but Lacy seems to have gone to sleep.

  MRS. STEELE: I don’t like this. I am not a medical doctor, but I can’t see how this . . . this ridiculous dancing about can bring forth anything but agitation. (She notices Peter among them.) Peter Brown! You, too? You’re never up before it’s time for daybreak.

  PETER: Actually, it is almost time for daybreak. I was just about to do my rounds, ma’am. (He pulls out his bell.) Oyez! Oyez! Daybreak in five.

  MRS. STEELE (relieved to have a sound excuse to send everyone to bed): You heard him! Daybreak.

  Disgusted with the lot, Mrs. Steele returns to her grave.

  The group holds its collective breath, looking at each other to make sure she is really gone, and then Lacy’s and Edgar’s heads pop out of their graves with huge smiles, and they all burst into grins. Lacy gives a thumbs-up to Dr. Hosler, the Spindly sisters, and Maria for being so devious and fast on their feet.

  LACY (whispering): Everyone get to bed. We’ll start our plan at midnight tomorrow!

  The group begins heading to their graves, when the door to the Poltroon crypt opens. Virginia peeks out, as she usually does when she hears Peter’s warning, to see if the coast is clear of Mrs. Steele so that she can safely return to her grave.

  Edgar sees her pretty face and cries out.

  EDGAR: My love!

  Immediately, Mrs. Steele’s door flings open. Edgar and Lacy duck back down into their graves. Virginia shrinks back into Cumberland’s crypt and shuts the door quickly from the inside.

  MRS. STEELE: What was that?

  Dr. Hosler realizes that a man’s voice is needed, and so he pretends to be finishing the routine.

  DR. HOSLER (performing the routine): Reach above and step! Just finishing the count, Mrs. Steele. Off to bed now, everyone.

  As everyone returns to their graves, Mrs. Steele does the same.

  Lacy peeks out, trying to decide if she should try to get Edgar’s attention and somehow warn him about Virginia’s tendency to . . . well, roam, but Edgar doesn’t give her a chance. He opens his door and tiptoes out to whisper at Cumberland’s crypt.

  EDGAR: Virginia? Are you in there, my darling?

  The crypt door opens and Virginia sheepishly steps out. All we see of Cumberland is his pale, nervous hand, pulling the crypt door closed. Edgar envelops Virginia and she fakes a smile.

  VIRGINIA: Eddy. You’re Suppressed. How can you be up?

  EDGAR: I have allies, Virginia! (He waves at Lacy and Owen.) Isn’t it wonderful? Oh how I’ve missed you! Wait . . . what were you doing in Cumberland Poltroon’s crypt?

  VIRGINIA: Of course it was empty. I went in to borrow . . . a handkerchief. But no one was home. Absolutely no one.

  It’s a ridiculous lie. Doesn’t make a bit of sense. But Edgar is too excited to see through it.

  EDGAR: Come! We have exciting plans. I’ll tell you the abridged version, darling. We don’t have much time.

  As Edgar whispers the plan to Virginia, she turns and looks at Lacy.

  Much can be accurately read into a look and much can be projected. Lacy sees annoyance. Virginia has no desire to play wife and the waking up of Edgar is presenting a problem that she’ll have to solve. But there is also admiration for Lacy in Virginia’s look. Lacy’s plan is ambitious. The waking up of energy . . . Virginia has been craving this. She’ll be an ally, Lacy thinks, although she’ll be jealous and prickly. The open mic will be something she won’t want to miss.

  Peter finishes his rounds and descends into his grave. The ritual countdown begins.

  ALL: Ten, nine, eight . . .

  Virginia and Edgar descend.

  On his way to his own grave on the other side of the church, Owen catches Lacy’s eye and gives her a nod and a smile.

  Lacy returns it, but the happy feeling catches in her throat. She looks to Sam’s grave, missing him. When they can emerge again, she will convince the others to include him. She can’t have an open mic without Sam.

  [Speaking of poor Sam, you’re probably wondering about him, dear Reader. Take a look. He is face down in his grave, hands covering his ears, seething with anger at his friends for leaving him out and at himself for being too timid to speak. Even in this ultimate privacy, he chokes back his tears instead of letting them go.]

  ALL: Seven, six, five, four, three, two . . .

  Raven flies back to his perch on Poe’s monument. There is one last violent crack of lightning and . . .

  Blackout.

  Scene 3: Soundtrack of Another Ordinary Day

  The Dead are sleeping—even Lacy. We begin again in darkness, which is pregnant and familiar, and we sit on the edges of our seats, listening . . . waiting . . .

  Gradually we hear the soft chirping of morning birdsong, the far-off whir of a car, and then the slow crescendo of a city street waking up.

  As the sky lightens, the cemetery and the street beyond its iron gate take on colors as if the world is being dyed before our eyes, growing more vibrant with each passing second.

  Amid the increasing sonic traffic, we hear footsteps and an argument between a homeless man and a business owner. Obscenities stab the air. The horn from a passing car blares into prominence and then fades. We hear another person passing by, possibly mentally ill, singing a song of exuberance. For a few seconds it fills the space and then drifts away.

  Morning rolls by. Noon brings tourists, laughter, and music. At some point, a bus rolls up, the door sighs open, and immediately, there is the clatter and scuffling of a school group getting off.

  For a few moments the cemetery is all chaos and cacophony as thirty-three middle-school students spread out like a virus. The teacher’s voice competes for attention. They have already been to Poe’s sad, claustrophobic house on Amity Street; this is their last stop, and the teacher is exhausted.

  She begins a recitation of the history of Westminster, the name Poe rising to the surface over and over like the whitecap of a wave.

  After a while, the school group floats away and eventually we hear the sighing of the bus door and the rolling away of the tires.

  Late afternoon settles down like a nap, and then there is a burst of activity at rush hour. The sounds build and then lower in intensity and volume as another day draws to a close.

  Again, Owen and Clarissa emerge for their secret rendezvous. Her face glows. He wants to walk over and take her in his arms, but he reminds himself to be patient. They whisper I love you and descend back to sleep.

  Time passes. In the late evening, we hear the distinct creak of the iron gate, and once again the hairs on the back of our necks stand at attention. The sound of footsteps on crunching leaves betrays the Living. In the moonlight, we see Olivia enter.

  She stops and looks up at Poe’s monument. Perched on top, Raven regards her, unmoving.

  Olivia bends down and picks up a stone. She throws it at the bird, who doesn’t flinch, and then she laughs when it misses by a long margin. In the next second, her cell phone vibrates in her coat pocket and she ignores it, sitting on the stone bench.

  OLIVIA (looking around the cemetery): This place sucks. Sorry, Lacy. I know you liked it. (She pauses.) Mom didn’t know that. I mentioned it to her when we were talking about your ashes and she said, “What cemetery?” And I said, “The Poe cemetery. You know how she went there all the time to write her poems?” She got quiet and then she went into the bathroom and closed the door. I could hear her puking. I think she was sick to her stomach that she didn’t know this basic thing about you, Lacy. Then she came out and smiled and said, “That’s a good idea,” like nothing was wrong.

  At the sound of her name, Lacy wakes up. Immediately, she rises to peer out, knowing now to stay halfway in. Although she thinks she is prepared, the vividness of her sister’s face in close proximity catches her off guard.

  Olivia is
looking down with eyes that see only dirt. She’s wearing Zane’s coat and jeans and her red fleece gloves, the ones whose tips she cut off last year. Her legs are bouncing slightly to keep warm. Her nose is running and she keeps dragging the back of one gloved hand across her face.

  OLIVIA: A week ago, I woke up at around three or four in the morning and I heard breathing. And I could just feel this living presence behind the curtain, you know, and I was fucking terrified, like you were back but not in a good way. Like it was some fucking horror movie. And I lifted the curtain and it wasn’t you. It was Mom. She was sleeping in your bed. It still freaked me out. I slept on the couch and when I woke up neither of us talked about it. She hasn’t done it since.

  LACY: A week ago? How long have I been dead?

  Disturbed, Lacy looks at Raven, who shifts slightly as if trying to decide whether to explain. Lacy can see in his eyes that it’s true. She has been dead longer than she thought. How long, she doesn’t know. She recalls Effie saying that it took Edgar weeks to rise. Perhaps it’s different for every person. She turns her attention back to her sister, determined not to miss the chance to hear more.

  As it happens, that slight movement of Raven has made Olivia turn to look at him. She and the bird lock eyes.

  Breathlessly, Lacy watches her sister stare at the bird, not wanting to blink, wishing she could open the door to her sister’s mind and hear what she’s thinking.

  [Unlike her, dear Reader, you have the benefit of an omniscient narrator, so you can lean forward now and hear what Lacy cannot.]

  A thought occurs to Olivia, the way thoughts do: suddenly, mysteriously. She’d like to change places with the bird. Be some emotionless, solitary creature, accountable for and to no one.

  Raven remains silent.

  Olivia turns away, looks up at the moon. The painkiller she took about half an hour ago, the second to last one from the prescription bottle she stole out of the medicine cabinet at Zane’s dad’s house, is starting to kick in. It will melt one area inside her—a zone that runs from the base of her skull all the way down the back of her legs—but, mixed with the vodka, it will make her stomach ache; and she knows that neither the drug nor the booze will be able to soften the cold, hard shell that now defines her. Ever since Lacy’s death, it has felt like something physiological has happened to her: her top layer of skin has fused with her body’s chi, or whatever that energy is called that is always supposed to be flowing just under the skin, and it has hardened like a coating. I am bitter and brittle, and this is my new life, she thinks.

  She digs the fingernails of her left hand into her left cheek, which she does now and then, just to see if she still has any feeling left in her skin. Is she pressing hard? Does it hurt? She can’t tell.

  A shiver runs through her. There is no wind, but the cold is intensifying.

  OLIVIA: Everything is hard. Going to sleep is hard. Waking up is hard. School is . . . fucking impossible. I couldn’t go today. I went to Crimmson’s Café.

  A sudden image comes to Olivia. She is sitting on her bed and Lacy is tucked into her own bed, listening through the curtain. Just as the image begins to comfort her, it dissolves.

  OLIVIA: I sat at the table you like, the one outside, even though it was kind of cold. And I ordered your favorite . . . cinnamon crumb cake. I bet you didn’t think I remembered.

  Olivia laughs, but it comes out choked. Lacy holds her breath.

  OLIVIA: It was the waitress with the big hair. Remember when we went there with Mom on Valentine’s Day and that song came on the restaurant’s playlist and the three of us started singing really softly and then the waitress came over and sang really loudly with us? That one.

  Lacy remembers. It was last year. She and Olivia had surprised their mom by taking her out to dinner and paying for it with their own money. The waitress had told them all that they were as cute as peas in a pod, which their mom had loved.

  OLIVIA: Anyway, I don’t think the waitress remembered that because it was just me sitting there. She brings the cake, and I say thanks, and . . . I can’t eat it. She comes back after a while and says, “Is there something wrong with it?” And I say no . . . nothing’s wrong . . . and I smile at her and she smiles back and she pours a little more water into my glass and walks to the next table. And the cake is sitting there on the plate. A perfect piece. A middle piece, which I know is exactly what you like, and it’s a big piece, a lucky one, perfectly baked, not too brown, with just the right amount of crumbles on the top. And it smells so good. It smells really fucking delicious, Lacy.

  It hurts Olivia to talk, as if something bitter is expanding in her throat, but she keeps going. Lacy blinks back tears. She wants to climb out and put her arms around her sister, but she doesn’t move.

  OLIVIA: And then the waitress comes by again and she says, “Really, if there’s something wrong, I can take it back.” And I smile and I say, “It’s fine. I just ordered it for someone else.” And she says, “Oh,” and she brings another glass of water to the table, assuming someone else is on their way. And now the glass of water is sitting there with the cake and the empty chair. And then after a while she comes by again and says, “Can I get you anything else?” And I say no thanks, just the check. And she says, “Do you want to take that home?” And the word home does something funny to me. It kind of stabs me and I can’t talk so I nod and she gives me a to-go box and the check and walks away. And I open the to-go box and time shifts into slow motion. For a few seconds, I’m just looking at this open box, which is waiting for the cake. And then when I pick up the piece of cake to put it in, the body of the cake feels so perfect. It doesn’t fall apart or break. It holds its shape, and it’s like I’m picking up a little baby, and I’m setting it in the box, and the way it feels when I let go and the cake comes to a rest in the box is killing me. It fits perfectly in the box and it’s killing me, Lacy. I have to close the fucking lid and I just sit there and stare at it.

  Olivia closes her eyes tight, and Lacy can hear her breath coming in shallow bits.

  OLIVIA: Goddamn it, Lacy. I need a drink.

  Olivia gets up.

  LACY: Liv . . . don’t.

  In his grave, Sam feels the tension of Lacy’s distress, her thwarted desire for her sister to stay. He wakes up and looks out.

  An image comes to Lacy unbidden. It is the night she wanted to go to the open mic at Tenuto’s. She is standing in the kitchen, arguing with Olivia.

  LACY: We had a fight that night . . . didn’t we, Liv? Mom texted you and said you had to drive me to school and you got mad.

  The image of the two of them in the kitchen becomes fuzzy. Lacy tries to grab the memory, but it disappears.

  LACY: No . . . that can’t be right . . . I wasn’t going to school that night.

  Lacy is sure that if Olivia stays, more of her own memory will come back, but Olivia walks to the gate.

  LACY: Liv . . .

  Lacy doesn’t move, but her soul reaches out with such longing, Lacy feels as if something inside her is going to break.

  Sam is about to whisper Lacy’s name, when Billy rises from his grave. Billy looks to see if Mrs. Steele is up and sees Sam peering out. Quickly Billy jumps out of his grave and goes to Lacy before Sam moves. Ashamed, Sam ducks underground.

  BILLY: Are you all right?

  LACY: You shouldn’t be out.

  BILLY: I heard you. What can I do?

  LACY: Go back, Billy. I don’t want to get you in trouble. I’m going, too.

  Lacy looks at Sam’s grave, hoping to see his face. Billy is attentive, but it’s Sam she needs. Reluctantly she returns underground. Billy returns to his grave.

  High overhead there is a helicopter sound. The last light of the evening fades.

  After several long minutes, Sam emerges halfway. It isn’t midnight yet. He looks out at the quiet graveyard, wondering if Lacy is sleeping, if she’s alone.

  He takes out his pencil and journal and writes without stopping.

  Dear Lac
y,

  Fear is a crippling disease. It has paralyzed my feet when I should have stepped forward. It has withered my hand when I should have reached for yours. Yet fear is also the firm push at my back. If I don’t act now, I will forever regret my cowardice, and we both know what forever means.

  Three days ago when the bells tolled, I woke, believing that the night would unfold as all the others had, and then Raven spoke your name. How conflicted I was, for your arrival brought immediate joy to me and sorrow to you. With every passing second, my affection for you grew. How, in such a short time, can feelings blossom so? Truthfully, I do not know. All I know is that my love for you feels miraculous—a garden springing from a parched desert.

  Yes . . . I will say it . . . I love you, Lacy.

  Is this confession wise or ridiculous? I cannot begin to parse it. The attention from Billy Bodley and your sweet gazes back at him have robbed me of any confidence; and yet, here I am, revealing my heart to you.

  And now I must also confess that I eavesdropped on your plan to host an open mic with the others. If I were alive I would say that it is killing me to be excluded. Yes, I am a Steele. But I thought that you, Lacy, would see into my heart and know the truth: that I despise the Steele yoke that I was born to bear, that I long to be free of it, and that I would never betray you.

  My hope is that a seed of love for me is tucked in the folds of your heart and that my words will nourish the garden within you. If nothing else, perhaps my admission will release the pressure in my chest, for so powerful is my love for you, my heart threatens to burst.

  Please give me a chance.

  But do not think that my thoughts are only for myself. In addition to telling you of my love, I want to tell you that my thoughts are with you. I am sorry for your homesickness. I am sorry for the pain of not understanding how you died. I am sorry for the heartbreak that you experience when your sister comes. I know how hard it must be to see her and not be able to communicate with her.