by Sarah Willis
Feeling slightly smug in her generosity toward Will, she looks around the barn for the ax.
Beth’s repulsed by the mess of stitches and purplish skin on Greg Henry’s face, but he has other body parts to look at. Norton has convinced Greg that warm sunshine will help him heal, and has set Greg up in a lawn chair in the backyard, with an upturned crate for a table. Greg has taken off his shirt—a white shiny material with a wide collar that is now draped on the back of Greg’s chair like angel’s wings. So she looks at Greg Henry’s chest, and shoulders, and upper arms. She stands inside the kitchen door, Windexing the window. There’s a big smudge of peanut butter where Greg Henry’s left shoulder was, so she decides to clean the glass and look busy.
There’s something fishy going on with Greg Henry and Norton Frye. The way Norton fawns all over Greg Henry would drive her crazy, but it doesn’t seem to bother Greg at all. Beth wonders if Greg might be the kind of man who wants constant attention, like her uncle Pete. Beth really hopes Greg isn’t that kind of guy.
Gazing through the window, she begins to modify her fantasy about Greg, which didn’t exactly hang on marriage anyway. It might be okay if they just lived together. She imagines touching his chest, and her hand moving downward … She closes her eyes, a little queasy. A lot tingly. She hears a clip-clip-clip sound on the linoleum floor. When she opens her eyes and turns around, Chip Stark winks at her. The guy has winked at her so much today, she thought he had something in his eye.
“Hey, Beth, what you doing?” His voice is really low. Kinda sexy.
“Nothing,” Beth says.
“You know, neither am I. It’s pretty damn slow around here. Do you have a radio? If I don’t hear some music soon, I might do something crazy.” He flashes her a smile. He’s got small, even teeth. Cute teeth.
“Crazy like what?” Beth says.
“Just crazy,” Chip says. He sticks his hands in his pockets. They are very tight jeans. They look pretty good on him, tight like that.
“Well, I have a record player, but it’s upstairs.”
He grins real slow. Beth feels a bit nervous, but she likes the feeling. “And what albums do you have?” he says.
“A lot,” Beth says, flipping her hair over her shoulder and combing it with her fingers. “Spirit, Beatles, Black Sabbath …”
“I could get into Black Sabbath. The record player’s in your bedroom?”
“I could bring it down,” Beth says with a shrug.
“You want some help?”
Beth’s picking up all sorts of vibes from Chip, and knows this is not a simple offer of carrying a record player. But she’s not so fickle that she’d fall for some almost-bald guy, even though he’s got a pretty cool ponytail and really blue eyes. Still, music would be nice. “That’s okay,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be waiting,” he says.
Beth can’t help grinning as she runs up the stairs.
“Now,” Will tells Ben and Lars, “I want you two to spend the next couple hours here, just being Lennie and George. Make a campfire, spread out your blanket rolls. You can eat those cans of beans, we can get more. Then, when you’re ready, do the scene as written. Do it a few times. I’ll come back for you in, say, three hours. Okay?”
“Sure, Will,” Lars says.
Ben just shrugs and ducks his head. Will’s noticed how Ben’s been acting more and more like Lennie recently. At least someone’s going along with Will, trying to help him make a go of this. He pats Ben on the arm. “Good luck.”
“I’ve got some ideas, Ben,” Lars says. “How about we …”
Will figures Lars has just run out of whatever he was going to say, but then he notices Lars looking at him, nodding, with a tight smile. Will knows when he’s not wanted. As he walks away, Lars begins talking in a low voice. Will finds it annoying. The man should speak up.
Will doesn’t head back to the house. He’s stuck between wanting to ignore Myra and wanting to throw her down on the ground and screw her royally. He doesn’t know what to expect from her anymore. Myra’s been his backbone, his rock of Gibraltar, his—his wife. But she’s been acting so strangely. Today she was singing, right in front of everyone. She never did that before. He doesn’t really mind the singing, he’s just worried where it might lead. He has this feeling she might do anything—dye her hair black or join the Hare Krishna. He shudders, imagining her bald, passing out flowers at the Pittsburgh airport. If she dyed her hair black, now that wouldn’t be so bad.
Will has wandered into a patch of pines. Some kind of birds chirp from the branches, little black and white birds that remind him of Christmas cards. Aside from these birds, he’s alone. He’s always wishing he could have a moment alone, but now he feels awkward. He doesn’t understand what Myra sees in the woods. He looks around, trying to see things through her eyes. He starts by imagining himself as a woman, his body softer, curved, and much shorter. He squats down a foot, but that’s so obviously stupid, he stands back up. Now, he thinks, what else? How is Myra different from him? Besides physically, which shouldn’t matter anyway. She moves more slowly. He slows down, shortens his steps, lets his gaze linger on the sharp green needles and the thin bumpy branches of the pines. What he sees are the gnats that hover just in front of his face like those little fish that swim with sharks. He tries to swat them away, but they come right back. Damn things. Now, what else? She’s stubborn, he thinks, but gracious. People like her. Do people like him? He stops walking. Yes, he thinks they like him, but do they like him because they want a good role? Directorial wisdom? A job?
Will looks around the woods, depressed now. He doesn’t like the way the pines stand there, so damn patient and quiet, flaunting the fact that they will outlive him in the long run. The whole place is too quiet. He’s getting antsy standing here alone, with just his own thoughts rolling around in his head. What Myra sees in the woods is beyond him. He turns around and walks back the way he came.
When he gets close to the creek where he left Ben and Lars, he begins to creep quietly forward, sneaking from tree to tree, until he’s standing behind a thick pine. He peeks around the tree to watch the rehearsal. He feels much better.
Melinda makes dinner again. She has actually broken Will’s commandment about not leaving the farm, but she believes that what you don’t know can’t hurt you, just as strongly as she believes what you do know can hurt you. She bets no one will tell Will that the theater exercise of living the play this afternoon lasted less than fifteen minutes. Half the actors are sleeping in the sun. In character, if anyone asks.
This meal will be vegetarian. Brown rice with sautéed mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and of course garlic. There was absolutely no tofu to be found anywhere—or even anyone who knew what she was talking about. This revelation brought up a question she needs to consider: is living in the country actually healthier? The potbellies on the men she sees around here astound her. Haven’t they heard about high blood pressure?
Along with the rice and vegetables, Melinda has made a fruit salad. (The skin on fruit is great fiber, but possibly the worst part due to chemical insecticides. She’s decided to not peel the fruit but has spent a good deal of time scrubbing the apples, pears, and peaches with the hopefully pure well water, although she just read somewhere about chemical companies dumping their wastes in country creeks.) If anyone asks why there are no grapes in this fruit salad, she’s prepared to give a stern lecture about the treatment of migrant workers. You would think artists portraying field hands would have done a little research, but they are merely actors at a small resident company, and if they read anything besides Playbill, she would be very surprised.
She has also made steamed broccoli with cheese sauce and without, for anyone who might be lactose intolerant—not that she believes anyone here knows if they are lactose intolerant, but Melinda’s planning on explaining lactose intolerance before dinner. A little information on this subject might possibly stop some of those long waits for the bathroom
.
Myra has offered to help, but Melinda can see the woman’s in another world altogether. Possibly because of that workout with the ax. Exercise can bring on a high-like experience. Melinda told Myra that everything was almost ready, but if she wanted, she could pick some flowers and set the picnic table. Myra left the house singing “White Coral Bells,” the lilting notes sounding demented against Black Sabbath blasting from the living room.
Will, Ben, and Lars return from their rehearsal beaming. They were at the creek for several hours. Melinda slaps Will’s hand as he reaches into her fruit salad. “Just wait,” she says. “Go wash your hands. Use the green soap I left on the sink upstairs. You don’t want to know what toxins are in the soap you were using.”
The oatmeal raisin cookies are all done and it’s almost time to eat, so Melinda decides she will personally go round everyone up. First, into the barn, where Victor Peters snores on his bunk. She needs to give him plenty of time to come back to this reality. There’s a transition between sleep and wakefulness that should not be jarred or rushed. She firmly believes that alarm clocks should be outlawed. People can train themselves to wake when they need to. The mind controls the body. It’s so obvious.
After gently waking Victor and explaining that it’s time for dinner, Melinda goes out to the backyard, where Greg Henry and Norton Frye are relaxing in lawn chairs, each reading a book. On closer inspection, Greg Henry’s holding a book but is sound asleep. She gently wakes him up. His groggy response is not that of natural sleep. After dinner Melinda will have a talk with Greg to explain how the pills he’s taking are throwing off his natural clock, along with other things. Norton says he’ll make sure Greg gets to the table.
Mac and Nate Johnson sit on the grassy strip that runs down the lane, doing something with pebbles. “Dinner,” she calls to them. They wave back. Mac gets up first and offers a hand to help Nate up. Melinda thinks that if she were a photographer for Life magazine, this moment would have made the cover. Too bad her camera’s upstairs in the bedroom. No, a photograph would have frozen the moment. Now it can grow inside her. She will give away her camera at the first opportunity. Maybe Beth would like it.
Melinda doesn’t see Frank Tucker anywhere, but as she walks back to the barn to check on Victor—in case he needs another brush with a soft voice to get him moving—she hears Frank. He’s practicing a monologue from Hamlet behind the barn. There are no plans to produce Hamlet that she knows about, and to Melinda it’s a dead play, overdone and usually overacted, but she does admire Frank’s determination. She waits until the speech is over, then turns the corner of the barn and says, “Your presence at our evening meal is requested, prince, if you would so oblige us.”
“Certainly, my fair woman,” Frank replies. “It would be my pleasure.” They walk back to the house arm in arm. Inside, Melinda asks Beth if she wouldn’t mind putting on Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young for dinner, then opens the front window. Lars, Ben, and Will come downstairs, followed by Jimmy McGovern, who’s complaining about being kicked out of the bathroom just when he was about to take his shower.
“Argue with her,” Will says, pointing to Melinda.
“Food now, shower later,” Melinda says. “I’ll even scrub your back, if you like.”
For once Jimmy is speechless, and Melinda laughs.
“I’ll take that back scrub if he doesn’t want it,” Chip Stark says with a wink.
There’s something very cute about Chip that she’s never noticed before. Maybe living in the country has allowed him to free his inner spirit from the trappings of his macho egotism. “Anytime, handsome,” she says, grinning back. A screeching sound comes from the speakers. Beth has dropped the needle on the record, and it skids across the album. A long scratch defaces the vinyl.
Melinda reconsiders giving her camera to Beth. Maybe Mac would like it. She tells everyone to go out to the picnic table. Chip turns and looks over his shoulder at her before he leaves the room. Very nice eyes, Melinda thinks. The eyes are the window to the soul. Melinda turns over the record, pleased to find the song “Our House” on the unspoiled side. She turns the volume up, heads back to the kitchen, and picks up the bowl of brown rice.
Outside, the scene around the picnic table looks like one big happy family. Melinda takes a picture of this moment, in her mind, to save—and grow—for all time.
Ben can’t sit still. He wants to do the dishes. “Well,” he says, standing, “guess we better get things started here. There’ll be a lot of dishes tonight.” Melinda wouldn’t let them use the paper plates, citing the number of trees cut down each day for the sake of lazy Americans. (Ben had immediately agreed with the wisdom of this.) He picks up Victor Peters’ plate. There’s some food left on it, but considering that Victor’s eyes are shut and he’s snoring, Ben figures he’s finished for now. There’s always dessert. “I’ll do the dishes tonight,” he says, rubbing his stomach with his free hand. “I need the exercise.”
“Oh, Ben,” Myra says. “That’s so kind of you. But I’ll help, really. I’ll dry and put away, since I know where everything goes, and I’m finished eating anyway.” There’s a big pile of rice on her plate, but Ben’s not going to point it out. They go into the kitchen.
Melinda watches Myra skip into the house carrying dishes. She’s still on that high—if anything, it’s getting worse (or better, depending on how you look at it). Myra’s obviously very happy. Melinda’s slightly jealous. Myra has Will, and all these wonderful people staying at their farm, and two great—well, nice—well, slightly odd kids. This morning at sunrise, when Melinda rose to get an early start on her first day here, she noticed how peacefully Myra slept and how very lovely she is. Although jealousy’s an emotion Melinda disdains, emotions are not something that should be policed, and she allows herself this feeling, but then counters it by turning to Chip, who sits next to her. “Care for a walk in the woods later?” she whispers in his ear. Good emotions, such as an attraction to another human being, always outweigh the less desirable ones. Love conquers hate. Melinda’s proud she is part of the generation that will bring an end to war.
Beth can’t believe how Melinda’s flirting with Chip Stark. She’s so obvious! She’s been whispering in his ear all dinner and keeps touching him all over. Who does she think she is? She’s sticky sweet to all the guys, even playing up to old Victor Peters, but when Melinda fed the peach to Greg Henry, Beth almost went nuts. Greg nibbled it from her fingers, taking little baby bites because his mouth couldn’t open very wide, and then he licked her fingers! Everyone laughed and made stupid catcalls. Well, Beth didn’t think it was funny at all. Pretty immature, if you ask her.
Norton’s chest aches. It’s such an unusual feeling, he thinks maybe he’s having a heart attack, then wonders if it might be some lung disease—or maybe he is lactose intolerant. But he knows better. When Greg Henry licked the peach juice off Melinda’s fingers, Norton almost fainted right over his plate of brown rice. He’s begun to have the most ridiculous fantasies, like passing Greg Henry love notes under the picnic table. Norton blames Will for all this, bringing all these people together, saying, Open up your hearts, feel your emotions. That was easy for him to say, he’s happily married. But damn if it isn’t wreaking havoc on Norton’s normally calm, collected demeanor. He actually offered Greg a bite of his own broccoli, using a fork, of course, but Greg said he was too full. He said it with a grin, but then again, Greg has been grinning a lot tonight. All the attention, Norton supposes, is going to his head. That and the codeine.
Lars has been thinking about this “living the play” idea and feels Will’s got it all wrong. After four beers, he has the courage to say something. Maybe he can get Will away for a few minutes. He takes another slug of his beer and gets up.
“Excuse me,” Lars says, tapping Will on the shoulder. Will doesn’t hear him. Jimmy McGovern’s balancing a beer can on the sleeping Victor Peters’ bent-over head, and everyone’s laughing. “Hey, Will,” Lars says, a bit louder. “Can I
talk to you alone for a minute? I have an idea about this rehearsal.”
“All right! Everybody, listen up! Lars has something to say,” Will says, clapping his hands together for attention.
Victor Peters straightens up, and the beer can topples, spilling beer all over him. “What? I heard thunder. Is it raining?” He looks at his wet clothes and scratches his white hair. Jimmy and Chip hoot. Greg Henry starts giggling and can’t stop.
Will clears his throat. Everyone turns his way. “Lars has an idea about the rehearsal. Let’s get serious here for a minute. Someone call Ben out here.”
Eight people shout, “Ben!!!”
“I could have done that,” Will says.
Still, they have to wait more than a few minutes before Ben appears.
Will stands and looks around the table. “Now, what do you have to say, Lars? We’re all listening.”
Well, no backing down now. “I wonder if we’re not on the wrong track here.” If they weren’t quiet enough before, this sure does the trick. Lars wants to go sit down. He swallows and takes a deep breath. “Look at the stage directions … The creek is, at most, a lighting effect. The hayloft scene is a bare stage, a suggestion of hay. Steinbeck says don’t get a real dog. He’s not asking for reality. I think he wants to keep it simple, universal, so the audience can accept the characters’ problems as their own, not something that happens only to particular people on a particular ranch. I think we need to trust Steinbeck, not the trappings of a real bunkhouse, or busying ourselves building picnic tables. If we stick to the script and keep it honest, our work will be accomplished for us. What we’re doing is getting in the way …” He ducks his head, feels his face blush. He can’t believe he’s said all this. The way people are staring at him, they can’t either. “I mean, it’s something to think about …”