by Sarah Willis
Jimmy got here first, even though they both left Pittsburgh at the same time, ’cause Jimmy is an asshole sometimes and probably drove ninety miles an hour. He’s Chip’s best friend, but the kid needs to grow up. He’s only a year younger than Chip, who’s twenty-six, but he acts like a teenager half the time, and dresses like one. He looks like an idiot with his red hair, his freckled round face, his damn ugly pink shirt, and his green Day-Glo pants. Chip can’t help grinning, though. The guy’s a barrel of laughs with his bad jokes, and a gold mine of weird headlines. Jimmy’s Irish background shows in more than just his freckled face and red hair; he’s full of blarney.
Chip gets out of his car and walks up to the two men. “Howdy, Will,” Chip says. He has to practice his southern accent for the part of Whit. He and Jimmy play minor parts in Of Mice and Men, just ranch hands with a few lines, so his role needs that extra kick of an accent. He’s already got a slow strut down real good, since that’s the way he already walks. “Howdy, Jimmy. Kill any small animals on the way here?”
“Hello there, Chip,” Will says. “Jimmy here tells me you two are going fishing? Today?”
Chip rubs the top of his bald head, a habit he picked up in college when he started losing his hair. What little hair he has left now, he wears in a tight ponytail. When he lost his hair so early, he quickly learned that the best defense is a good offense. He wears mirrored sunglasses, black jeans, a black T-shirt, a black leather jacket (unless it’s just too damn hot), and an expensive pair of cowboy boots. Then he draws attention to his head by rubbing it with his palm to a high sheen—and just waits for some asshole to look his way. And he changed his name as soon as he joined Equity. John Blimpe was dead and gone.
“Well, Will, we told you we were going fishing today. We were on our way to Michigan when you called. You’re the one reminded us we got a big lake full of muskie just ten minutes away. Remember? You weren’t saying all that just to get us up here any old way you could, were you?”
“Well, no. But I thought we could get some things set up today.”
Jimmy McGovern laughs, although Chip’s not sure what strikes him funny. “There will be plenty of time for that, Will. You’ve got us captive here all night long. But the fish are jumping right now. And I had to drag this guy out of some woman’s bed just to get here so early, and let me tell you she was … oh, hi kids, how you doing?”
Will’s kids, Beth and Mac, have walked over from the house. Beth is a real hot babe. The little kid always looks like he just woke up.
“So the lake has muskie?” Jimmy says, changing the subject from women to fish, which Chip thinks Jimmy probably likes better anyway. Chip’s never seen Jimmy with a woman, but he isn’t going to make any judgments. Frankly, he doesn’t want to know.
“I think so,” Will says. He puts his hand on top of Mac’s head. “We tried to catch crayfish in the creek this morning.”
“Those little bitty things?” Jimmy says. “Mac, you got to think bigger than that. Want to come fishing with us in a real lake? We’ll rent a motorboat. Maybe we can catch the Loch Ness monster.”
Mac’s face is blank, as if the question wasn’t asked of him but of someone else. Will looks at his son. “Sure, Mac will go with you guys, won’t you, son? You won’t be gone too long, will you?”
Chip’s worked with Will long enough to know how they have just been manipulated to come back early. Except it goes right over Jimmy’s head.
“Heck, no, we’ll be gone till dinnertime,” Jimmy says. “But you’ll love it, kid. We’ll get pop and chips and sandwiches and make a day of it. Just what a kid like you needs. Fresh air and slippery fish. You get bored, I’ll tell you some stories that will wake you right up. This will be fun. Good idea, Will! Tell Myra to stick some spuds in the oven, and we’ll bring the rest of dinner home in a bucket. Come on Mac, climb in.” He opens the car door and takes out a big black suitcase, handing it to Will. Mac looks up at his dad, who shrugs. Mac climbs in the backseat. Fishing rods are sticking out the windows.
“Oh, Beth!” Jimmy says, getting into his car. “Why don’t you bake a cake! Let’s celebrate. I hear you’re part of the crew this year. Congratulations!” Beth grins ear to ear, beaming as if someone just crowned her Miss America. I’d vote for you, Chip thinks. The girl’s got legs up to here. He watches as she runs off toward the house, then he goes to his car to get his rod and tackle box.
They drive off down the lane, pebbles spraying like popcorn. Will stands there holding the black suitcase like the bellhop in Plaza Suite waiting for a tip.
Myra watches Beth make the cake and offers no advice. She refuses to be drawn in by any of this party atmosphere. The truck with the scenery, which includes the bunks, won’t arrive until Monday. On Sunday night six grown men will be sleeping on her living-room floor. She is determined to hold on to the anger she feels every time she walks through that living room, even though she had a really sweet conversation with Ben this morning, and Jimmy and Chip have won her heart by asking Mac to go fishing, and the glow on Beth’s face as she stirs the batter is priceless.
Around noon Ben insists on making everyone lunch and says they must eat on a blanket outside. He won’t let Myra do a thing. He makes grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and carries them out on a platter with a jar of pickles and a bag of chips. Beth brings out a pitcher of cherry Kool-Aid and the Flintstones jelly glasses. As they sit on the ground, Ben tells stories about his ex-wife and her white poodle. Once, after a bad argument, he painted a red bull’s-eye on the poodle’s freshly groomed fur. She made him pay for that prank through the nose, he says, but it was worth the story.
The rest of the day is spent idly for Myra. There is nothing yet to do but relax and imagine what is to come.
At five o’clock Chip, Jimmy, and Mac come home with eight fish on a stringer. Bluegill and largemouth bass. Mac caught a fish himself and can’t stop talking about it. His cheeks are red and shiny from the sun, and his curly light-brown hair has glints of gold. Jimmy cleans the fish outside, and Chip lights the grill. They tell Myra they’ll take care of everything. She tries to remind herself this is simply the calm before the storm, that as soon as the rehearsal begins, she will be forgotten, but then Mac shows her exactly which fish he caught and asks her if she’ll eat it.
“This one, Mom, I caught it for you. See that yellow stripe there? Jimmy says that’s a special fish. Will you eat that one? I put the worm on the hook all by myself. It’s really gross. Jimmy said he’d keep his eye on my fish so you can have it. He says you’re the hostess with the mostess. I drank four Cokes, but I’m still pretty hungry. Jimmy and I are going to share that big one. It’s a bass, and he caught it. He caught most the fish. He says a man in Michigan caught a fish with three gold rings inside. Maybe my fish’ll have a gold ring. You can eat the fish, but I might want to keep the ring, okay?”
Myra kisses the soft top of Mac’s head and tells him she can’t wait to eat the fish he caught for her. Her eyes moisten, and she busies herself with setting the table.
At dinner Mac can’t eat the fish. Myra can see his fear as soon as the plate is set in front of him. He cuts it up and moves it around and slides some under the potato skin. He’s terrified someone will mention it, but no one does. Chip says, “Great fish, pardner,” and Ben says, “Sure is,” and Jimmy says, “Good job, doc,” and nobody, not even Beth, says, “How come you’re not eating any fish, Mac?” Myra says the fish Mac caught for her is the best-tasting fish she ever ate. And it is.
After dinner, when Beth brings out the cake, round with perfect swirls of white frosting, Myra thinks this dinner is the moment she will choose to come back to, if given a choice. She looks over at Will, needing to catch his eye, to be proud of what they have created together. He’s talking to Ben about the play.
The sun begins to set, and amber light illuminates the back windows like a warm-hearted song. Myra hums “Let It Be” as everyone retires to the living room. On the coffee table is a bottle of Jack Daniel’
s and five glasses.
Ben tells the story about the time a row of lights fell during the first act of Three Sisters and missed every actor onstage. Will says they were saved by his talented blocking. Then Will tells about the time Ben’s tights split wide open in the crotch during the swordfight scene in Henry V, and they improvised lines, in blank verse no less, to get him offstage. The stories shift back and forth between Ben and Will, with Jimmy and Chip adding the desired laughs and clever asides. Myra watches Beth, who listens to these stories with a show of bright anticipation, even though she has heard them at least a dozen times before. And Mac, her shy son, is grinning ear to ear, sitting between Jimmy and Chip. Myra is so exhausted by the up and down feelings of the day, she just listens. Finally, she closes her eyes and lets the sounds of the men’s voices rumble across her face.
When she wakes up, Mac is asleep with his head resting on Jimmy’s shoulder. Beth is asleep on the floor. Jimmy, Ben, and Will are talking about a production of Wine and Roses. Chip isn’t talking, but he’s awake. He smiles at Myra. No one else notices she has woken up. Getting up to go to bed, she thinks she hears Will say good night, but maybe he’s just quoting a line from the play.
Chip watches Myra walk upstairs. She’s a good-looking woman, kind of like a soft version of Gena Rowlands. Gena Rowlands is sexy, Chip thinks. He wouldn’t mind a love scene with Gena, even if she’s a little old. He’s been thinking about going out to Hollywood. Well, who the hell isn’t? But damn if he’s going to wait tables. He needs to get some credits first. Get an agent. He’s got plans.
Chip wonders if Will’s going to go upstairs after Myra. Chip would, if she weren’t Will’s wife. He’s never gone so low as to sleep with a married woman, not that he knows of, anyway.
That Beth, though, she’s hot, with those long legs and full mouth. She must be almost eighteen. Not that he’d take it too far with Will’s daughter—that wouldn’t be smart. But hell, he’s not brain dead. Funny thing, though, he can’t get Will’s daughter to look at him more than a second, even flashing his best grin her way. Well, she’ll notice him. He’ll make sure of that. The days of fat little John Blimpe are long gone. He feels sorry for that sad sap he used to be. You turned out okay, kid, he wants to say. The girls like you. And contrary to the jibes he used to hear, he likes the girls. Yes, he does.
All in all, it’s been a damn good day. The fishing trip was a hell of a lot more fun than he expected (he laughs, remembering the look on Mac’s face when Jimmy told the story about the kid who had been locked in a cage by his parents for six years), and that fish dinner was great, and now, listening to Will talk about the theatre, well, Will’s one of Chip’s idols. Still, he can’t believe Will stays downstairs after Myra goes up.
Sunday
Beth wakes at seven, the alarm sending shivers down her spine. Today’s the day. Greg Henry is coming! To stay at her house. And there are no other women here, except her mother, who doesn’t count.
Beth wants to be the first in the shower, just in case Greg comes early, say eight a.m., which he might, it could happen, and God forbid she be in her nightgown when he comes, because her nightgown is so drab. Now, if she had something slinky and low cut, then she might want to be caught off-guard, but not in this flannel thing with the ruffle on the bottom. He’d think she was some dorky kid.
Even though she knows there are a few extra people in the house this morning, and the hot-water heater takes an hour to heat back up, Beth takes a long shower, using lavender soap and strawberry-scented shampoo. Afterward, wrapped in a towel tucked tightly around her breasts—pretty decent-sized breasts she must admit, ample even—she combs out her chestnut-colored hair. If she had a driver’s license, it would read “chestnut” for hair color and “dark almond” for eye color, even though Patsy Martin, who already got her license, says those aren’t real choices, but what would she know, with her plain brown hair and plain brown eyes? Beth’s hair is parted evenly down the center, falling to about five inches past her shoulders. Combing it out nice and smooth takes quite a while, during which time she imagines that Greg Henry has shown up, and when she walks out of the bathroom with only her towel tucked tightly around her ample chest, and barely covering her butt, she will bump into him as he comes upstairs to use the bathroom after his long trip, for which he woke up at four in the morning because he was just dying to get here quickly—for some vague reason that he only figures out when he is confronted by the nearly naked, and still slightly damp, Beth.
Coming out of the bathroom, Beth runs into her mother, who says, “Good morning, sweetheart.” Beth rolls her eyes and goes into her room to change. If her mother calls her “sweetheart” in front of Greg Henry, she will just die.
Will wakes to the sound of the shower running and thinks he has been dreaming about the shower running all night. Why would he dream that? But now the dream is gone, and a headache takes its place, as if it were just waiting for a conscious mind to ravage. Bang, it’s there, and there’s little room for anything else. God damn Melinda, Will thinks. He’d be fine if he just knew where the hell she was.
Light strikes through the front window like a viper. Will closes his eyes. Only after his eyes are shut does he realize he’s in his living room, and that there is someone on the couch, and someone else in a chair. Slight aches in his shoulders and knees become stiff dull pains. The shower stops running, and it’s as if someone has turned off a jet airplane. Will’s thankful the maddening sound is gone, but only for a second, because now all he can hear is his head pounding.
He could get up, move very slowly, and get coffee, which might help, but it’s doubtful. Even moving slowly is a bad idea. He can’t go back to sleep, not with this headache. He does the only thing that might really help. With his eyes closed, he thinks about the play. There are many plays Will loves, but none as much as the one he is about to direct, whatever play that might be. Only last month he was in love with Summer and Smoke. What a magnificent play that was! But now there is only Of Mice and Men. And even though they already produced this play eight months ago, he wants to look at it anew. He is ready to fall in love again.
Every play has its spine, a theme that holds the whole thing together, Will thinks, as if he’s lecturing a class of young actors, something he loves to do when he has the time. In Of Mice and Men, the spine is: a dream of a better life. George and Lennie dream of owning their own farm. Curley dreams of being a pro boxer. Curley’s Wife dreams of being a movie star. Candy, once he hears about George and Lennie’s plan, dreams of joining them. The same for the black stable hand, Crooks. They all want in on the dream. Is Lennie’s death, in the last act, the death of dreams? Of hope? Will doesn’t think so. It’s a sad and tragic ending for the play, but there is hope for a better life now for George. Can a man keep a promise forever? Should he?
He’s read the play dozens of times and asked these and other questions over and over. The questions give him ideas, they get him excited. He feels “on.” It’s that “on” feeling that makes Will feel alive, a true part of the theatre. It’s addictive. A week after the last good review, he needs another one. He needs to move men across the stage with purpose, find themes, come to great realizations, feel that eureka moment that startles and inspires him. And here he sits like an old potato. There are things to be done. He stretches his arms above his head. He stands up. The headache is gone.
Squinting, Will thinks it’s going to be a very bright day. Myra walks down the stairs. She’s smiling.
“Good morning!” she says. “Sleep well?”
She doesn’t wait for his answer, just walks into the kitchen, hopefully to start the coffee. Will wants to sit at the table drinking coffee with Myra, discussing the play, as they used to do. He remembers holding her hand, struggling to understand Ionesco. Talking about Ibsen for hours. That hasn’t happened for a while. It’s not that she doesn’t act that bothers him; he no longer dreams of being the next Bogart-Bacall team of the resident theatres. He did think that once, b
ut it was his love for her that had been thinking, not his brain. She was a charming ingenue with a lovely voice. Never Bacall. He should never have suggested she go back to the stage. That it was his idea that failed still bothers him. All those people looking at him afterward … But it’s not her not acting that distances them, or even the few affairs he did have. It’s that she doesn’t quite get his ideas anymore, his passions. He will tell her all about his plan to rework Hedda Gabler, and she will only ask him how he plans on getting the hot water tank fixed. But he still loves her. She must know that.
He imagines himself kissing Myra good morning, with a little tongue, like they used to during the first few years of their marriage. Maybe they’ll go back upstairs to bed—well, figuratively speaking, since he didn’t sleep in bed last night. Maybe after they make love, she’ll listen to his ideas for the next few days. Maybe she’ll get excited. Maybe she’ll join in on the fun. Maybe he should brush his teeth first.
Myra has made a decision. It’s going to be a gorgeous day. She will pack up a book, some fruit, some bread, and a bottle of wine, and go for a hike. A long hike. She’s not going to sit around here all day as actors invade her house. She’s going to leave now, while the going’s good, before anyone asks her for anything. It takes two minutes to pack, and one more to write a note.
I’m going for a walk. Be back by before dinner. Have a nice day.
Me.
Nate Johnson, who plays Crooks, the black stable hand, arrives around one in the afternoon, after rising at seven to attend church. Nate’s not thrilled with God, but old habits die hard—that, and the fact that his dead mother would roll over in her grave if he didn’t go, an image that bothers him as much as God does. The only thing Nate is sure about is that God couldn’t care less what Nate thinks of him, considering He hasn’t struck Nate down dead yet for his suspicion that God’s not all he’s cracked up to be.