by Sarah Willis
“Jesus, Mom,” Beth says. “Keep it down. Greg Henry’s sleeping.”
Myra stands with her hands on her hips and stares at Beth, who is wearing orange lipstick, thinking she is the Queen of Sheba. Myra bursts out laughing. Big mistake. Beth’s face reddens, and her lips get tight. She gives Myra that I hate you stare and turns and walks out, heading back upstairs. Well, her motherly instincts are shot to hell right now, right along with her wifely duties. What she’s got left is just a whole lot of love, for Ben Walton. Myra rolls her eyes and—very quietly—sings a refrain from “Love Me Tender.” God forbid she wake up Greg Henry.
Beth and Greg Henry come downstairs for dinner: hamburgers, baked potatoes, canned corn, and leftover salad. After dinner Will lights the bonfire Myra built, and everyone plays charades in the firelight. Melinda shows Beth how to load the camera, and she takes a dozen pictures of the fire and the shadowy shapes of the actors sitting around it, then she sits next to Greg. Every now and then she touches him on the shoulder to get his attention or wake him up. Norton sits on the other side of Greg, doing the same thing. Melinda and Chip sneak off after charades and make love in the flattened grass behind the barn. Victor Peters, going into the barn to bring out a blanket, hears them and grins, remembering a night he and Helen had done something just like that. Everyone drinks, except Melinda and Mac. (Beth takes a beer out of the cooler, and no one even notices.) Frank Tucker goes into the house and calls his wife long distance and talks to her for an hour, leaving a dollar under the phone when he’s done. No one gets too drunk except Jimmy McGovern, who does an impression of Mae West and staggers into the bonfire but is caught by Will, who has been standing by the fire all night as the master of ceremonies, a title Melinda has bestowed on him, which includes a paper crown she made from a cereal box. Myra kisses Ben out behind the house. Shakes is fed pieces of hamburger until he wanders off and throws up, coming back to beg for marshmallows. Melinda, on impulse, lets out Norton’s cat, who wanders into the barn, catches a mouse, eats its head, then comes to the fire and curls up next to Norton, who, drunk on the nearness of Greg Henry, doesn’t mind at all that she has been let out. From the open window, music drifts into the yard. Nate Johnson looks up at the stars and thanks God for this life.
Monday
Will wakes Monday morning before anyone else and eases his stiff legs out and over the bunk, slowly unbending them. He has lain curled on his side on the short bed, and his body protests even these minor movements he must make to put his feet on the ground. His age and his doubts combined have made him feel feeble; he wants both to take it easy and to shout profanity into the damp, gray morning. He’s fighting more than the board of directors. Here, on this farm, this summer, he’s fighting to be part of the future. That he’s had honor in the past for his talent is not enough; he needs to know that he possesses something now. He needs to show Melinda, and the world, that he is not old yet.
Standing in the opening between the barn doors, Will looks out at the morning and this place he can call his own. The pebbled lane, the fields of tall grass, his house. Lying across the front yard is the old tree, its branches roughly hewn off and burned to cinders in a bonfire. It’s too much symbolism, even for him. Will closes his eyes and rubs his face, bringing back circulation and warmth. He’s not old; he just needs to sleep in a regular bed, next to his wife. He’s hardly spoken to Myra in two days—but he has been proving a point; the point is vague, and Will decides it must have been made. He will sleep with Myra in his own bed tonight. Will knocks three times on the barn door before heading into the house.
The house is oddly clean for the number of people using it. The dishes are washed and put away. Something about the clean dishes nags at Will, something he can’t exactly put his finger on. He discards his worry. He will not worry today. Neither will he act naked.
Pouring coffee from the pot, Will imagines Melinda acting naked. There’s no way he would allow such a thing, but his mind begins to list several reasons he could give it a try.
Will walks into the living room where Beth sleeps on the couch. She’s curled up tightly, and there’s just enough room to sit on the end of the couch near her feet. Will sits there, drinking his coffee, smelling the warm, sleepy scent of his daughter. He places his coffee cup on the side table and picks up Beth’s feet, sliding them into his lap. Gently he rubs a foot, pressing with his thumb against the soft arch underneath.
“Hi, Daddy,” Beth says, her voice husky from sleep.
“Hi, Pumpkin,” Will says. “Good morning.”
“What’s happening?” Beth asks.
“Nothing. Just rubbing your feet. You don’t mind?”
“No.”
Will switches feet. Beth tucks the already-rubbed foot back under her blanket. No one talks for a while. It’s the moment when people don’t speak that tells us what their hearts say, Will thinks. He wonders how often he has used the love he feels for his children, and his wife, while acting. Is it possible that his distance from Myra is more poignant because he sees its theatrical possibilities?
“I love you, honey,” Will says to Beth. He’s already thinking, In what play might love be shown by the simple act of rubbing a foot?
“I love you too, Daddy,” Beth says.
“You want to act, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve asked you a lot. When can I?”
“Soon,” Will says. “I’ll look for a small part for you next year. If we’re still together.” He pauses. “The theatre, I mean. I just worry about you. It’s not all fun. It’s hard work and disappointments. It’s playing small roles and wanting the big ones. It’s patience, and taking chances, and failing. And talent. It’s not for everyone.”
Before Beth can answer, someone can be heard coming down the steps. They both turn to look. It’s Myra.
Myra stops about halfway down the stairs and just stands there looking at the two of them on the couch. Something about the way her mother looks at her father makes Beth uneasy, and then her mind goes Oh! Beth knows, with some female instinct, that her mother doesn’t feel the same love for her father that she did only weeks ago. Looking at her dad, Beth thinks that her father doesn’t know what he’s lost. Or maybe he does. Maybe that’s why he’s sitting here right now. Maybe her dad is lonely and sad and has turned to Beth for some comfort. Which makes her feel really weird, and mad. Shouldn’t her dad care for her all the time, not just when he’s sad and needs comfort?
And who does her mom think she is, standing up on the steps looking down at them? She’s the one who’s been smiling at Ben Walton, trying to look all young and flirty. What’s her problem? Beth thinks both her parents are a little fucked up right now, which makes her feel older, and alone.
Myra walks down the steps and goes into the kitchen. Will doesn’t say anything, like he’s scared of her or something. Beth has this strange thought. Right now her dad is like Superman exposed to kryptonite, and her mom is the kryptonite. Beth feels like she should protect him. The thought doesn’t make her feel all warm and caring, just angry. She pulls her foot back under the cover. Her dad doesn’t seem to notice. He stopped rubbing her foot when her mom came downstairs anyway.
Myra stands in the kitchen watching Mac make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast. Beth and Will sit on the couch. Suddenly she wishes all the actors, including Ben, would disappear, poof! and her memory of the past week with them. She knows it won’t happen. She knows the actors will wake and come into her house, that today she will make love to Ben. She has balanced this idea, of making love with Ben, against everything else—God, family, honesty, self-respect, and duty—and she knows there is not one single argument that outweighs the simple fact that she will make love to Ben. She doesn’t understand it, she just feels it. Last night, by the fire, Ben had whispered to her, just once, and she had known exactly what he meant. Her heart races as she thinks about it. Maybe, she thinks, it is her heart racing that compels her. Maybe she is just afraid to let it stop. What then?<
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One by one the actors stumble in. When Melinda kisses Chip good morning, right there in the kitchen, Myra notices a flash of jealousy on Will’s face. How dare he? Ben walks in. Myra looks at him and thinks, Yes, today.
After everyone has had some coffee, Will rounds the actors up on the front lawn. “Okay,” he says, “I think we need a run-through. We need some congruity here. I want to see what needs work, and set a schedule. If you’re not in the scene, stay out of sight. Anyone who wants can come down to the creek for the final scene. I think Ben and Lars hit it on the head yesterday, and I’d like you to see what they found. Sit on the top of the small hill by the pines. Okay? All right. Let’s get moving.”
As the actors walk over to the barn, Myra feels left behind. Knowing Beth must feel the same way, she turns to her daughter. Beth glares at Myra as if this, too, is all her fault, and walks out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Myra turns the other way just in time to watch Mac walk out the kitchen door and head down the lane. Her children have abandoned her, and she feels an odd satisfaction in this. A justification. A permission to do as she pleases.
She spends the rest of the morning thinking about making love to Ben. There is not an inch of her skin that doesn’t think about it. She even thinks about the fact that these thoughts she has now might be the most exciting part. Ben is a large man. How will he look without clothes? Will it bother her? But then she thinks about being touched by hands that have never touched her breasts. His mouth sucking her nipples. His thick fingers going inside her. Myra burns three pieces of toast trying to make something to calm her stomach, then gives up and eats the burned bread, taking little bites with her front teeth, wandering around the house. She begins to notice small things, the red roses in the hooked rug her grandfather made, the book on gardening she has always meant to read, the way the sunlight falls on the brass vase she picked up at a garage sale: the small things that make this house her home, the one she may be leaving behind. They tug at her, they say, Stay. But I need this, she tells them. Can’t you see that? She expects the couch and the chairs she has brought to this place, the pillow she has sewn, the curtain she has hung, the things she has touched, to understand, to say, Go ahead, it’s your turn to shine. They don’t. They accuse her in silence. She walks out the kitchen door and sits on the side porch, her back to her house.
Lars, Ben, and Will hike into the woods for the first scene. Lars, like Will, is anxious to begin the play at the beginning and keep going; doing the improvs has just whet his taste for Of Mice and Men, and he feels like a man who wants to drink the whole bottle. Lars also wants to immerse himself in the play because living here at the farm and rehearsing Of Mice and Men is like being in two different plays; he’s uncomfortable with the one that is happening outside of Will’s direction. Even though Lars is oddly fascinated by whatever is going on with Ben and Myra and wishes he could secretly film them, he knows the difference between film and reality, and he does not want to be around when Will figures out what’s happening.
Will doesn’t say a word, just sits down by a pine, his thin body becoming part of the tree, so when they look that way, they see pine, and not Will. Lars and Ben kneel down by the creek, in the flat, dry spot they found the day before. They spread out the props, and together they take a moment to imagine themselves alone. A minute of silence. Then the curtain rises.
Lars falls into George’s role as easily as breathing. He’s frustrated. Lennie has lumbered behind all day, looking behind him every goddamn second hoping to see a rabbit hop out onto the dirt road they have been walking down, and hell, when one does, they’re stuck there, staring at the stupid rabbit forever, until, of course, Lennie has to try to creep up on it. The damn rabbit stays all hunkered down till the last minute, just when Lennie’s hopes are high, and then it scampers off, and George has to cheer Lennie up by telling him the story about them getting their own farm. And right now the big hunk has got a dead mouse in his pocket, which George knew about but was letting pass, just to keep him walking, but no way in hell is Lennie going to sleep with a dead mouse in his pocket. George tells him to take the goddamn mouse out of his pocket, and Lennie’s moaning and begging start all over again. When George tells the farm story this time, he gets excited himself. Maybe it will really happen this time, maybe they can make some money at this job and put a deposit down on that farm he heard about. When George lays his head down to sleep, he imagines himself waking up in his own bed, walking out his own door, a cup of coffee in his hands, thinking about the work that needs to be done, his own boss. It’s a nice dream.
Then the scene is over, and they pack up their stuff. No one speaks. No one wants to break the spell. They walk into the bunkhouse, all empty—the rest of the ranch hands are off in the field. A chill runs through Lars, first because it’s all so real, and then because he’s George, and George is worried. They are back again among men, and the hopes he had last night hitch in his throat. Something always goes wrong. He warns Lennie again not to say a goddamn word, let him do the talking. But don’t you know it, as soon as this old guy Candy walks in, Lennie goes and opens up his big mouth. Jesus Christ, the guy can’t remember nothing. And sure enough, there’s a woman here. She walks in smelling of perfume, and George can see Lennie’s eyes get all big. Damn it. Just let that woman stay away from them. Let them earn a little cash, and they’ll be out of here in a few months.
The rest of the play moves forward easily. Lars remembers something Will said, and he builds a house of cards during the card scene, the house being the farm he dreams of. At the end of the scene, he scatters the cards and they fall to the dirt floor. He wonders if someone in the audience will notice that, the subtle meaning in a small action. He has to believe they will.
Everyone goes down to the creek for the last scene, silently finding places by trees where they won’t be so obvious. When George kills Lennie, the air is as still as a held breath. Lennie lies on the ground, face against the dirt. From up on the rise, Lars hears Melinda begin to cry.
Ben tries to sit up. His face is pale. Sweat trickles down his forehead. “I feel shot,” Ben says. “Damn if I don’t feel shot.” Lars reaches out and helps him up. Above them on the ridge, the trees applaud.
The rehearsal’s over, but some of George stays in Lars, as if he has soaked too long in a warm lake. Lars is happy to have George linger on. Better George than many of the other characters Lars has played. George is a good man who has worked hard, made hard decisions, and followed through with his choices. He’d like to think that maybe George has stayed with him because he has always been there; that by finding George, Lars has found Lars. A decent man, not loud or pushy, but one of the guys. Someone with a dream, someone he can be proud to be. Lars stands and bows. The audience on the ridge stands, still applauding. A bluejay shrieks. The breeze picks up and whispers bravo through the boughs, and a pinecone falls by Lars’s feet. He picks it up and holds it in his hand, as happy with it as if it were an Oscar.
It was a great rehearsal. It’s only one-thirty, and even Lars feels full of acting.
The other actors, Will, and his family come down to the creek.
“You were acting naked,” Melinda says, the excitement raw in her voice. “My heart aches.”
“Hey, lady,” Ben says, “aren’t you dead?”
“I am so alive it hurts,” Melinda says, and she kisses Ben, then kisses Lars.
“How about lunch now?” Jimmy McGovern says. On cue, his stomach growls. The actors laugh. Together, almost, they walk back to the house.
Lars notices that Ben and Myra trail a short distance behind. He also sees Beth turn and look back at her mother and Ben. If Jimmy goes fishing today, Lars will ask to go along with him.
Mac watched the end of the play. He knew what was going to happen since he saw it before: the big guy got killed, and the dog, and the girl. One death would have been enough for him. And not the dog, for sure. After he saw this play back in Pittsburgh, he didn’t want to see plays anymore a
nd had told his mom. She promised him that in the next one, something about flowers, no one would die, but then some girl skinned a cat and brought the skeleton onstage to show everyone, and he wouldn’t go to the next play, no matter what his mom promised.
He had watched the end of this play again, hoping that maybe it would end good this time, since his father kept talking about making this play better. So why not let the big guy get away in the end? He might mention that idea to his dad tonight. Maybe he just hadn’t thought about it yet. Maybe his dad would be real proud of him to think of it, when he’s already asked everyone else for ideas and nobody thought about making the end not so sad. Mac is pretty sure if he ever becomes an actor, which he doubts ’cause he doesn’t want to talk that loud, but if he did, he’d only want to play the good guys. He’s not too sure who the good guys are in this play. Maybe the big guy, but he killed a puppy, and a girl, so he can’t be all that good. Mac is glad it’s over now and time for lunch.
On the way back to the house, Mac wonders if his dad wouldn’t mind if he became a construction worker, or maybe a fireman. He could tell his dad the costumes were pretty good.
While Mac eats his sandwich, Nate asks him all kinds of questions, like what sports he likes and who his friends are. Mac tells Nate about his friend Stephen Nickelson, imagining how he will tell Stephen about Nate Johnson. He will have to tell Stephen how cool Nate is before he mentions that Nate is an old black man, ’cause Stephen wouldn’t listen the right way if he told that part first.
There’s very little food, so lunch is a hodgepodge of leftovers laid across the table like an absurdist’s painting. Three cold hamburgers. A sliced green pepper next to a container of plain yogurt. A bag of cheese corn found in the back of Ben’s car. A box of Froot Loops. Ritz crackers. A bowl of hash browns from three days ago. A large bowl of heavy-syrup cling peaches. Green olives. Peanut butter and jelly, and seven slices of white bread. Oatmeal raisin cookies. Bruised apples. An orange. A quickly made pot of Campbell’s vegetable soup (two cans with a bit more water than the directions called for). A large bowl of baked beans swimming in ketchup. A variety of beers, half a pitcher of lemonade, a large can of V8. (No one knows how old this last is, or remembers buying it.) A hot dog.