The Rehearsal

by Sarah Willis

  Everyone was kind. The understudy was dressed in less than five minutes. They were nice enough not to insist she take off her costume right there in the wings. The replacement wore something else until the next act. Will was supportive. Understanding. He said he’d heard of it happening to other actors. He didn’t name names.

  From that day on, Myra hated some part of herself. Some days it was a big part, like her heart, some days only a small part, hardly noticed, like a kidney or a lung.

  Will still loved her. Forgave her. Almost forgot about it. He had a short affair a few years later. It lasted only months.

  But Myra still sings. She sings when she is alone. She loves to be alone at their summer place: the kids at camp, Will at work, and she in the backyard, hanging laundry or pruning a fruit tree, and singing; the sound of her voice in the summer air, full and vibrant as it was years ago.

  As Myra unpacks the kitchen things and rinses mice droppings off the stored pots and pans, three things occur to her. First: she will not be alone for a whole month; she will not have a moment to sing. Looking out the kitchen window at the backyard, she feels a deep loss, as if something has been taken from her that sits out there, waiting, just out of reach. Already she misses the sound of her own voice.

  Her second thought is: Will wants to ask the actors here, to their farm, not just because he wants to put on a production so wonderful that it will save the theatre, but because he needs the actors to fill an empty place inside him, a space that needs constant validation—a place that Myra believed she once filled, but no longer does.

  Which leads directly to her next thought. The theatre, which she has left behind (although she sees plays, talks about plays, invites actors over for dinner, goes to opening night parties; still, she has left behind her vision of ever being on the stage again, left behind, she thinks, the pain of failure), is moving in with her, and her husband has invited it in her door. A vision flashes through her mind. She sees herself in an airplane, looking out at the bright, blue, perfect sky, a passenger who was once a pilot. Where the hell is she going?

  The water suddenly turns scalding, and Myra pulls back her hand, almost breaking the plate on the steel sink. Someone must have flushed the toilet. That will happen often in the next month. She will have to be careful.

  Beth is dying to know what is going on. As she comes downstairs, she can hear her mom banging pots and pans around in the kitchen, which means she’s pissed, probably at her dad and his new idea. He’s standing over by the phone going through his big tan briefcase with a scowl on his face. Any minute now her mom’s going to yell for Beth and tell her to scrub the floor or something. It always goes like that. Her mom gets pissed at her dad, so she takes it out on Beth, which pisses Beth off so much she’ll do something like trip Mac, who never gets picked on ’cause he’s so little, and Beth’s mom will get really pissed at Beth, and Beth will get really pissed at her mom, and they’ll have some big fight—like the time her mom told Beth she was a thorn in her side, and Beth told her mom to get a life—so that now when Beth sees her dad doing something that will piss off her mom, Beth just takes a shortcut and gets pissed at her mom. She kind of knows she should get pissed at her dad, who always starts this whole thing with his crazy ideas, but the idea of getting pissed at her dad makes her nervous. Also, she needs to be nice to her dad so he’ll put her in a play.

  “Damn it!” Orange scripts and yellow legal pads spew out of her dad’s briefcase and fall onto the living-room floor.

  “Do you need some help, Dad?” she asks softly, knowing sometimes it’s not a good idea to interrupt him.

  “My black phone book. It was in here. Goddamn it, I need it.” He doesn’t usually swear in front of her—actually, he does, but only when he’s too occupied to even realize she’s there, like now.

  “You left it on the kitchen counter in Pittsburgh, and—”

  “What?” He straightens up so quickly, the briefcase falls onto the floor, spitting the rest of the papers out in one solid heap as if throwing them all up. Beth knows how that feels. When her dad gets this mad it always makes her sick to her stomach. She hurries up with what she was saying.

  “And I picked it up. It’s in the box with the mail we brought.”

  His face changes from anger to gratitude so fast, it makes Beth dizzy. “That’s my girl! Can you get it for me?”

  “Sure.” It’s only in the kitchen. She’s back in less than a minute. He claps, like he’s applauding her. She bows.

  “You’re always there for me, you know that, don’t you, Pumpkin?” He takes the thick black book from her and starts flipping through it.

  He hasn’t called her Pumpkin in a long time, which is okay, since she’s really too old to be called by a childhood name, but she doesn’t mind it so much this time. “What are you doing? You seem pretty excited.”

  He stops flipping the pages and looks at her for a while, obviously trying to decide if he should confide in her. She tilts her head sideways with the look that says, I’m interested, please tell me. She’s seen it done in the movies, and she’s practiced it in the mirror. It works real well with boys. Finally he nods.

  “Yes,” he says. “You could be a big help, actually.” He glances toward the kitchen, where they can both hear her mother banging the cupboard doors. “I might need an ally on this one, until it gets going. She’ll see I’m right, eventually.” This last part is said to himself, but since he says everything loudly, that never really works. Beth’s heard him say all sorts of things he didn’t know she could hear. He talks to himself as he paces in the living room back in Pittsburgh. Once she heard him say, “The woman needs a good fuck.” She thinks he was talking about a character. He usually is.

  “Come and sit down. I’ll explain.” They sit on the couch, and he tells her how the theatre might change from a resident theatre to the kind that doesn’t have the same actors all the time. He tells her that he needs to try something bold to get the board’s attention, so he’s going to invite the cast of Of Mice and Men to the farm, to “live the play.” He is bound and determined to save his theatre. They must take this chance. Does she understand?

  “Of course I do, Daddy. It’s a great idea!” She can’t believe it. It sounds like they are going to have a commune, right here, at her house. And Of Mice and Men is her favorite play in the whole world. The part of Curley’s Wife is to die for. Melinda Holbrook played it in Pittsburgh, and she was so great. Someday Beth is going to play that role. Oh my god! The whole cast will be coming here for a month! Her father is so cool. “So what can I do?”

  “Well,” he says, looking toward the kitchen again, “just support me on this, could you? It’ll take a lot of work, having all these people here. I could need you to do just about anything. We’ll have to bring up the props, organize rehearsals, plan exercises. Make lists. You’ll be my girl Friday. With your help, we can save the theatre.” He taps her on the chin with his fist. She stops herself from thinking how corny that gesture is. “Can you do it? Be there for me?”

  “Sure, Dad, you know I will.” It’s like being the stage manager, she thinks. “What can I do first?” she asks.

  He’s already gotten up and gone over to the phone table to get his black book and doesn’t seem to have heard her. Beth gets worried, remembering last year when he said she could be in a play soon and then never mentioned it again. She tilts up her chin and smiles. To find an emotion, you can act it physically, and the emotion will come more easily. She’s really been studying hard. Being his girl Friday will be her chance to show her dad how much she’s learned. “What can I do?” she asks again, making sure her voice projects, even though her dad is only just across the room.

  “Well, honey, could you pick up all those papers I spilled?” Her disappointment must show, because he adds, “You’ll need paper to take notes for me. Make a list of the actors I call, and cross them off the list when they agree to come. Keep track of when they can get here. And Beth, thank you.” Before she can
even bend down to pick up a piece of paper, he’s dialing the first number.

  Will calls Ben Walton first, because Ben’s his best friend and would agree to go to the North Pole if Will asked him. Ben says he’ll come tomorrow. Will’s glad Ben doesn’t have a girlfriend right now. Otherwise he would have stalled for a few days. Sometimes Ben gets a little crazy over women. Ever since his divorce six years ago, the man falls in love on every first date. It never lasts. Women leave Ben behind like wet Kleenex, Will thinks. Like his character of Lennie in Of Mice and Men, Ben has the soul of a Saint Bernard. He’s a nice guy but needs a backbone. He’s a great actor, though.

  Will loves directing Ben. Ben could go on to Broadway, but he’s smart enough to know that without the right director, he could drown there. He chooses to stay at The Mill Street Theatre, a resident theatre, where he gets the best roles, delivers his best performances, and is a very large fish in a small pond. Will and Ben make a great team.

  Will calls Norton Frye next. Norton plays The Boss. If Ben is a Saint Bernard, Norton is a peacock—a man who wears an ascot and a toupee. Oddly enough, Norton is a matinee idol at The Mill Street Theatre and receives fan mail from elderly ladies that makes even the actors blush. Norton has a cat he brings with him for the summer and who lives with him in the small boardinghouse in the nearby town.

  Norton answers the phone on the first ring, glad no one is around to see him lunge for it the way he does. “Hey, Norton,” the voice says. “How are you doing?”

  Norton pauses. Not because he doesn’t recognize Will’s voice, since anyone would recognize Will’s voice, but because Will has never called Norton at home for anything except dire emergencies, like blackouts at the theatre, or an ill actor that Norton will have to fill in for. Since no plays are being performed right now, it must be that someone has died. Norton is preparing his shocked and upset voice when Will just goes on, oblivious to Norton’s nonanswer.

  “I had this crazy idea here, Norton, and I need your input,” Will says. “What I need, really, is you.” Will pauses, and Norton is confused. No one is dead, and the “I need you” routine sounds familiar, but the timing is wrong.

  “What?” Norton asks, just as Will starts again.

  “See, Norton, as I drove up our lane, I saw the barn, and somehow it became the set for Of Mice and Men. Boom, just like that. It was calling to me. And I thought, this is it! Rehearse it here! Not just for a few days, but live it, maybe do improvisations. Doesn’t that sound great? You loved rehearsing A Midsummer Night’s Dream in our field, didn’t you? Remember how rehearsing it in the great outdoors gave birth to all sorts of new ideas? How it enhanced the production? Brought it new life? And then when we took it back inside, all that carried right with it. The audience felt it. You know they did. Well, this is the same idea, but bigger. This might be our last season if we don’t pull something out of our hat. Let’s show them what we’re made of. What a resident company really means.”

  “What?” Norton says again, because he has no idea what Will is talking about. Norton wonders if Will is drunk, except Will is a sloppy drunk, and there is no slurring of words.

  “What I’m saying here is, I want you, and the whole cast of Of Mice and Men, to come up here to the farm and live with us. We will rehearse the play here. You’d get a room in the house, since you play The Boss. The guys would sleep in the barn. We’ll find its heart, its soul. We’ll blow the audience away when we take it back to the theatre. I know this is what you believe theatre is all about. I need you to help me convince the rest.”

  Okay. Now Norton gets it. Here is Will at his best. Manipulative, enthusiastic, so full of himself, he believes every word he says, and—the scary part—convincing as hell. Norton can feel himself wanting everything Will envisions: the experience of immersion in play to the point of becoming the characters and, just as important, the adoration of the audience. But live at Will’s farm? With all of them? Norton shudders.

  “What time period are we talking here, Will? A week?”

  “A month! Why not? We all have the time off. The farm is huge. There’s a lake nearby. What else are you doing?”

  “We’ve performed it already, Will. We only need a week to refresh it. And frankly, I was going to do a commercial for WJKL and make a bit of money on the side.”

  “Money? You’re thinking about money, Norton? How many commercials do you think you can do a year from now, when the board brings in the Show of the Month from Broadway? But I’ll tell you what. I’ll get you some money. Fifty a week, and all the food you can eat. That’s a promise. And we aren’t going to refresh this play, Norton. We’re going to reinvent it. We’ll have guaranteed jobs for the next decade. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, Norton, but I’ve got wind of more than I like. I’m nervous. If you can think of a better plan to save our ass, I’ll listen. But I’m not planning on doing commercials for the rest of my life. This is my life.”

  Norton laughs. He can see Will right now. The man must be having a fit trying to hold the phone to his ear and wave his arms about in the air like a bandleader conducting Beethoven’s Ninth.

  “Look, Will, it sounds interesting. Can I get back to you?”

  “No. It’s now or never. You say no, now, and I’ll call the whole thing off.”

  Norton almost says it. No, Will, you’re nuts. But the words don’t come, because Norton thinks Will is a great director. And truthfully, Norton hasn’t signed any papers for that commercial. It’s more like a good possibility. But it’s only a voice-over. It would take a day. The rest of the time Norton’s planning on taking day trips, writing up his adventures in his diary. If Will could get them some money for this …

  “What about my cat?” Norton asks. “I can’t leave Betsy here.”

  “Bring her. She’ll love it.”

  “But Lars will have to bring the dog.”

  “Norton, that dog is blind. He’s no threat to your cat. Will you come? Can I count on you?”

  “Look, Will, I’ll come. But I need some money. You understand that, don’t you? Something to make up for the commercial.”

  “Word of honor, Norton. I’ll get you the money.”

  “When should I arrive?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Norton laughs again. “Listen, Will. I’ll come, but I can’t come tomorrow. I’ll be there on Sunday.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Will. And I don’t really suppose you need my assistance convincing anyone, do you?”

  “Well, if I do, I’ll give you a call.”

  “I’m bringing the cat. Tell Myra I said hello.”

  “Thanks, Norton. I owe you one.”

  “You’ll owe me more than one, Will.”

  “You’ll be begging me to do this again next year.”

  I don’t think so, Norton thinks. He is pretty sure one month will be more than he’ll ever want.

  Beth watches her father with pride and fear. Her father is the director. He acts, too. He is the best Shakespearean actor of them all. His deep voice and tall height fit those roles perfectly. He would have loved to play Lennie in Of Mice and Men, but he’s too thin—there would be no believing Will could buck barley or break someone’s neck. And he would have loved to play George, the man who travels with Lennie, but besides being way too tall for the part, Lars Lyman is so obviously perfect for the part of George, it would be a crime not to cast him. Beth knows all this because her father tells her, and her mother, and Mac, at the dinner table every night, talking about the afternoon’s rehearsal before going back to the theatre for the evening. Beth ingests the theatre along with meat loaf and baked potatoes. She grows tall on her father’s words. Her skin shines from his dreams. Her stomach aches with his disappointments.

  So she listens with fear as he makes these calls, because she has just started to understand that her father may not be perfect. He may be a flawed god. Someone might say he’s crazy. Someone might say no.

  She can’t believe the theatre could be
disbanded, the actors cast out. These people are her family, and actors, and to Beth, there is nothing else in the world worth being. Except, recently, there are other things that seem almost as interesting. Like guys. Talking to guys. Being looked at by guys. Kissing them. Touching their bodies and watching them shudder. Being touched. It’s pretty great.

  Also, music: The Beatles, although she still can’t believe they broke up—refuses to believe it. Simon and Garfunkel. Three Dog Night. Janis Joplin. Music makes Beth feel things more strongly. Sadder, happier, lonelier. Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” almost makes her cry, and Beth hardly ever cries unless she gets so mad tears come with anger like goose pimples with cold. The last time she cried really hard was last fall, when her mom ran over their cat who was sleeping in a leaf pile, and those tears came back for days without warning. She hasn’t really forgiven her mom for running over the cat, but there are so many things she hasn’t forgiven her mom for, it just fits right in with the rest of them, like not letting her go see Five Easy Pieces with Mike, and the way her mother got pissed out of her mind when Beth got caught cutting school, and grounded her for two weeks. But really, Beth doesn’t hate her mom—it’s just that when Beth is a mom, if she ever decides to have children, she is going to do things differently. Like not blaming them for every little thing.

  Beth is going to be just like her father. If she had to be anything else in life, like a stewardess or a nurse, it would be like wearing the red A that that Pilgrim woman had to wear; it would show all the world she wasn’t good enough to be an actress. She couldn’t bear it. If Beth were her mother, she would be so embarrassed! Imagine walking off the stage right during the play! I would move to Alaska and never show my face again, Beth thinks. But she’s nothing like her mom. People say she looks like her, but looks are deceiving.