Getting Warmer

by Carol Snow

  “My mother’s been asking my father to repaint this room for two years, but he keeps putting it off. She says he secretly likes the color, but mostly I think he just doesn’t want to cut into his golf time.”

  “It’s good that she’s so aware, though.” Jonathan put his arm around me. “That she remembers having asked before.”

  “Come this way,” I said, leading him below an arch. “I like a bathroom big enough to hold a dinner party in. Check out the double-headed shower.” I blushed, realizing what I seemed to be suggesting—and realizing that I liked the idea.

  “Actually, I, um . . .”

  “Yes?” My face was burning.

  “I need to use the, uh . . .”

  “Oh! Right.” I showed him the toilet, which was off by itself in a tiny, dark closet. “I’m going to get dinner going—meet me back in the kitchen.”

  Of course, “getting dinner going” meant taking the cold sesame pork out of Jill’s Rubbermaid containers and arranging it artfully in one of my mother’s Mexican bowls. I did the same for the bagged salad. The bread I wrapped in foil and stuck in the oven to warm.

  “It looks wonderful,” Jonathan said when he came down a few minutes later. “Where are the dishes? I’ll set the table.”

  As he headed for the patio with the dishes, silverware and napkins I’d given him, he said, “There was a scorpion in the bathroom. But don’t worry—I stepped on it.”

  “Good thing my mother isn’t here. Scorpions really freak her out.”

  A few minutes later, I walked outside to the patio, holding a tray filled with the various bowls. When I saw the table Jonathan had set, I burst out laughing. “Napkin swans?”

  “I spend a lot of time in restaurants, remember.” He bowed slightly and pulled out a chair. “Mademoiselle . . .”

  A bottle of Riesling sat uncorked on the table. Still standing, Jonathan poured a splash into my glass. I picked it up and sipped. “Fruity, with oaky undertones. Hints of ginger and fig.”

  He broke into a grin. “A wine connoisseur. I had no idea.”

  “Not really. I’m just good at pretending.” At this, I felt myself flush. I looked down at my glass as Jonathan filled it. Between us, a candle, half-buried in sand, flickered in a glass hurricane. Jonathan sat down and filled his own glass. He swirled the amber liquid around and took a sip, which he held briefly in his mouth before swallowing. “I would have said apricot overtones. Though I agree with you about the fig.”

  “Are you faking, too, or do you know what you’re talking about?”

  He shrugged. “Professional hazard.”

  I touched my swan napkin. “How did you do this, anyway?”

  He picked up his own napkin with two fingers. With a flick, it was a napkin again. “The napkin has to be square,” he said. “The thick commercial ones are best.”

  With some regret, I unfolded my perfect swan and laid the napkin flat on the table. I followed Jonathan as he folded, twisted and fluffed. My final product looked nothing like his. “Mine looks more like a pigeon. An old, fat pigeon.”

  He laughed and then reached for the bowls, serving me first. “So, what’s happening in the American justice system?”

  “Huh?” At first I thought he was referring to some news story. Then I realized he was asking about my job. “Oh, you know. The usual.” I picked up my pigeon napkin and spread it out on my lap. “We’re doing a play. Romeo and Jules. I’m the assistant director.”

  “Cool.” He speared some pork with his fork. “How are you going to do it with just women?” He put the pork in his mouth, and an expression of bliss flickered across his face. “This is wonderful.”

  I stopped mid-chew, then forced myself to swallow. The pork felt lodged in my throat. I gulped some wine. “We’re joining forces with the men’s prison,” I said, making prison sound like an exclusive boarding school. “How’s Krista feeling?”

  After all the quizzing I’d done on our last date, Jonathan probably didn’t want to talk about his stepmother—but it beat having me yap about my prison production.

  “Krista? Let’s see. She nauseous, she can’t stop urinating, and her breasts are enlarged and tender.” He wrinkled his nose.

  “Too much information?”

  “You have no idea. This was over cocktails, no less. When she started talking about her enhanced libido, I had to leave the room.”

  “Eew,” I said. “Are you okay now, though? I mean, about the baby?”

  He shrugged. “I still think it was a terrible idea. My father’s going to be too old to play catch with the kid, to teach him to swim and all that. But maybe I can help out, be a kind of favorite uncle. I always wanted a brother or sister when I was growing up. Better late than never, right?”

  I stuck a forkful of salad in my mouth before I had a chance to say any of the things I was thinking: that if he were a kind of favorite uncle, maybe I could be a kind of favorite aunt. That being a favorite uncle is a great warm-up to being a favorite dad.

  We gazed at each other over the candlelight. His eyes crinkled. He knew darn well what I was thinking.

  twelve

  An outdoor amphitheater probably seemed like a good idea when the school planners walked the site on a winter day. In mid-September, it was unbearable.

  “Maybe we could move the auditions into the multi-purpose room?” I suggested.

  Lars pushed his blond hair out of his face. “Girls basketball has dibs.”

  “Why don’t they just use the gym?”

  “Boys soccer is in there.”

  “Since when is soccer an indoor sport?”

  “Since soccer moved to Scottsdale.”

  Around us, students were starting to gather. They gazed listlessly at the concrete tiers, searching futilely for shade.

  “What about your classroom?” I asked.

  “Maybe. If there aren’t too many kids.”

  “I think there’s going to be a good turnout,” I said, perking up. “Did you see those audition notices? Really eye-catching.” He looked unimpressed.

  A lot of students showed up—almost sixty—but we wound up in Lars’s classroom, anyway, instructing the stragglers to wait in the hall. Katerina was there, of course, with Robert at her side.

  I hadn’t been in Lars’s classroom this year; we generally saw each other in either the English office or the lunchroom. I had assumed it would look pretty much like mine, with vanilla-colored cinderblock walls hung with Shakespeare quotes, an oversized calendar and a “Great Moments in Literature” timeline.

  But Lars’s room was different. First of all, it was a Mediterranean blue, a color that Lars had picked, paid for and painted himself the week before classes began. In a back corner, five computers and a printer sat under a banner that read, IDEA LAB.

  “You have a printer! Do you know how much time I wasted trying to print those audition notices on Monday? How’d you swing the computers, anyway? I thought only the math department had them.”

  Lars picked up a stack of photocopied scenes (copied by me, of course; at least the Xerox machine was working) and started passing them out. “There’s this foundation that collects and refurbishes old computers for schools. I wrote them a grant proposal last spring—and voila.”

  “You know how to write grant proposals?” I took a bunch of the scripts for the kids in the hall.

  “It’s a good thing to know if you’re going to stay in education.”

  “That’s a big if,” I muttered, heading to the door.

  Next we passed out “audition cards,” which were printed on yellow half-slips of paper. On them, the kids had to write their name, graduating year, acting experience, desired role(s) and—my favorite—their cell phone numbers.

  An angular blond girl raised her hand. “Where you ask for the cell number? What if we have two cells? Do we put both numbers?”

  I squinted at her. “Um, just put whichever one you use most.”

  She nodded. “Okay, that would be the one that takes pic
tures.”

  My next duty as assistant director was to collect the cards and divide them into two piles: boys and girls. (And to think that I’d worried that I wouldn’t be up to this job.) A quick glance revealed that all of the boys—tall, short, old enough to shave or not—dreamed of playing dark, intense, hunky Romeo. And all of the girls—gangly, chunky, cute or acne-prone—had set their sights on ethereal Jules. Nobody wanted to be a friend (Romeo and Jules each had two) or a parent (one apiece).

  In the end, we called the students up in the random order of their collected audition cards, a boy and a girl at a time, and had them read one page of a Romeo and Jules scene.

  Cody and Claudia, having secured their usual front row seats, read first. Claudia, perhaps not surprisingly, showed a dramatic flair, while Cody, who had only discovered an interest in theater after learning I was involved, read his lines clearly but without emotion. I glanced at his card. If he didn’t get a part, he wanted to help haul sets. I looked at his skinny frame. Maybe he could do props.

  After the fifth or sixth reading, the kids began to blur into one another. Cody’s flat delivery was fairly typical, I discovered. A couple of students showed potential, but in the interest of time, Lars cut them all off after a page. For the standouts, there would be time for further consideration during callbacks. Good and bad, they all looked so eager, so hopeful. I was glad that Lars would be deciding their fates and not me. We were still in the educational age of self-esteem, and the thought of rejecting any of these kids filled me with dread.

  When I pulled Robert’s name out, I cheated, flipping through the girl cards until I got to Katerina. I called their names out casually, as if I weren’t playing Cupid. I shot Lars a smile as if to say, “See? Robert showed.”

  Katerina wore a flowy turquoise skirt, a white eyelet shirt and black leather flip-flops. Robert wore a sleeveless Nike T-shirt, basketball shorts and high tops, yet somehow he and Katerina looked perfect together. Robert loped to the front of the room a step behind Katerina, gazing at her from behind his long lashes, while all of the girls in the crowded classroom stared at Robert, pleased to have the opportunity to examine him openly.

  Katerina held her script out in front of her. She put a hand on her hip and shook her filmy black hair out of her face. Robert eased himself onto a wooden desk chair and lounged back, immediately displaying the stage presence I’d promised Lars.

  The entire room was silent. Finally, Robert spoke without looking at the script. (We’d all heard the scene a good twelve or fifteen times already.) “People talk about love all the time. Until now, I didn’t know what they were talking about. I thought love was just a way for Britney Spears to sell CDs or for the Gap to sell jeans.”

  Katerina tossed her hair. “Sometimes I think you just love me because you’re not supposed to.”

  “You know that’s not true,” Robert replied, his eyes boring into her. “I love you because I can’t help it. From the first time I saw you, standing across from me at the Starbucks, there was no one else in the world.”

  It was clear Katerina had been on a stage before. She stood erect and spoke clearly, more to the audience than to Robert. A few lines in, she softened. Robert’s charisma was palpable. I stole a glance at Lars. His eyes were wide, thrilled. He bit his lip, trying to control his excitement.

  “Your friends think I’m stuck up because I carry a Dooney and Bourke purse,” Katerina said.

  “Your friends think I’m trash because I’m a barista,” Robert countered.

  She strode toward him and covered his lips with two fingers. “Don’t say that word.”

  Robert took her hand. “I don’t feel like trash with you,” Robert said. “With you, I feel like Gucci.”

  When they finished the page, Robert popped up from his chair and grinned at Katerina. She grinned back.

  “No—keep going,” Lars said.

  Robert stared at him. “You didn’t like it?”

  “I did. I want to hear more. I think we all do. Go on to the next page.”

  Robert sunk back onto the chair. Katerina flipped her script to the next page. Robert followed suit. The next line was hers. She cleared her throat and read: “You matter more to me than my family. Than my friends. I would die for you.”

  And then: silence. Robert looked at Katerina. He looked back at the script. He turned a page. “Where are we, again?” He seemed to shrink into himself.

  “Page thirty-two. Second line,” Lars said.

  Katerina took a step over and pointed to the spot on Robert’s script. She read her line again: “You matter more to me than my family. Than my friends. I would die for you.”

  Robert began to read—or, rather, to sound out. “Whaa . . . wha. Wha . . . air. Where? Aah. Are . . .” The room was still. I had stopped breathing.

  “Where are you going after this,” I said.

  “Oh, right.” He rubbed his eyes. “Where are you going after this?” he said, almost, but not quite, inhabiting Romeo again.

  “To the Rock ’n Roll Sushi at the mall,” Katerina responded. “My mother said to meet her there. She made me promise not to see you anymore.”

  Silence. I prompted Robert: “Why does your mother hate my father so?”

  “Why does your mother hate my father so?” he echoed, his voice wavering. He wasn’t even looking at his script.

  Katerina leaned toward Robert and put a hand on his arm. “It is because they both wanted to buy the same Mercedes dealership. And even though my father got it, and we’re rich because of it, she thinks that my father had a heart attack because of the stress.”

  Robert licked his lips. He squinted at the paper in his hand. “I wuh . . . I wuh-ih. I wiss. Wish.” He stopped. He looked up at Katerina, desperate. She looked confused.

  Robert dropped the script on the floor. “I can’t do this.” He looked up, focusing on no one. “I gotta get out of here,” he mumbled. He sprang up from his chair and rushed out of the room, leaving a baffled Katerina at the front of the classroom.

  “Okay,” Lars said finally. “Thank you, Katerina. Ms. Quackenbush, who’s next?”

  I thrust him two yellow slips of paper. “I gotta go.” I ran out the door and toward the student parking lot.

  “Wait!” I shouted once I reached the far side of the lot.

  He stood next to his little orange car, the front doors open to air it out. Robert’s car could have belonged to a teacher: it was that crappy.

  I hurried across the lot. Heat radiated from the dark surface. A bead of sweat slid down my back.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked when I finally reached him.

  “Tell you what? That I’m too stupid to read?”

  “You’re not stupid,” I said gently. “You have a learning disability.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’ve been hearing that since I was seven. Once I might have even believed it.”

  “Robert, there are people who can help you. There’s Miss Baker, the reading specialist. I can set up a time for you to meet with her.”

  “I’ve met her,” he said slowly. “You see what good it did?”

  “Well, maybe there’s someone else.”

  “Like Mr. Garcia? He was the reading specialist in junior high. Nice guy—he used to give me LifeSavers. But he couldn’t teach me to read. Neither could Mrs. Boroski or Mrs. Schmidt. They were the special ed teachers in elementary school. Don’t you see? It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless.”

  “You’re not. You just haven’t had the right kind of help. I’ll ask around, I’ll find someone who—”

  “Does this mean you’re going to fail me?” Robert interrupted. I stared at him. “If you fail me, I won’t graduate.”

  I blinked at him. “How did you get this far? There are tests. All those stupid standardized tests. Why didn’t they catch this? I’ve seen your scores. They weren’t great, but they were good enough to pass.”

  He smiled wryly. “So seat me next to a smart kid next year. My scores will go up.”

/>   We were quiet for a moment. His question about failing hung between us. I had no answer.

  “See you around,” he finally mumbled. He slid his tall, lanky frame into the little car and drove off without looking back.

  I almost skipped callbacks the next day, but Lars said he needed my input. I phoned Robert’s home number: no answer. I tried his cell phone and was rewarded with a, “Yo! This is Rob! Leave a mess!” I smiled. It was the old Robert, the slick Robert, the Robert who everyone assumed could read.

  In the end, Katerina got the part of Jules. I didn’t even have to push. Claudia was cast as her bitchy best friend, while Cody was named assistant stage manager. An overgrown, chunky kid named Ralph got the role of Romeo. He couldn’t hold a candle to Robert.

  thirteen

  Jonathan knew something was wrong. He called on Friday to firm up plans for Saturday. We’d talked about seeing a movie, going to the mall—anything to get out of the heat.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked when I told him how glad I was that the week was over.

  “Nothing. Everything. Maybe it’s just the heat. It’s almost October, for God’s sake, and it’s still a hundred degrees.”

  He called me Saturday morning a couple of hours before he was due to arrive. “What are you wearing?”

  I looked down at the oversized, faded T-shirt I had slept in. “Uh, a lacy black thong and a bustier?”

  He burst out laughing. “Actually, I meant what are you planning to wear later. Though what you’ve got on sounds okay.”

  I smiled. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Just something nice-casual, I guess.” Hadn’t thought about it? I was so full of crap. I had an above-the-knee white skirt, a pale green cotton blouse and silver jewelry already laid out on my bed upstairs.

  “Wear something casual and comfortable,” he said. “Do you have hiking boots?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Sneakers are okay, then.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise.”