Say Goodnight, Gracie

by Julie Reece Deaver

  I looked down at my script. The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg. Suddenly the whole thing seemed pretty silly. I stood up. I made myself go over to Ben; I wasn’t going to just run out like I had in Mrs. Klein’s class.

  “Ben . . . I think maybe it’s too soon for me,” I said. “Would you call me for the next play?”

  “Oh . . . sure, dear. I’ll call you. Take care.” I turned around and took a shortcut through the backstage area. I pushed the stage door open and clanked down the same steps Jimmy had that night he’d come after me: the night we did the play together.

  I got in the car and started it. On the way home I spotted a small red car up ahead. I couldn’t even tell if it was an MG, but I had to find out. I had to see who was driving it. I did a totally insane thing: hit the accelerator and took off after that car like I was Alice going after the White Rabbit. I broke the speed limit all the way to Glen Ellyn. When I got close enough, I saw that the car wasn’t an MG, it was a Triumph. The driver wasn’t Jimmy, just some girl about my age who flicked her hair away from her face like she didn’t have a care in the world.

  When I pulled into our driveway, I took a good long look at myself in the rearview mirror.

  “You,” I said, “are crazy.”

  I had trouble sleeping that night. I got out of bed and went downstairs and turned on the television, but all I could find was a bunch of depressing news on one channel and Women’s Championship Wrestling on the other.

  “I thought I heard you up,” my mother said. She came over to the couch and sat down next to me. “What happened at the theater today? You didn’t say much when you got home.”

  “God, I must have been crazy. . . . I don’t know why I thought I could just go out there like nothing’s happened and try out for some stupid play. . . .”

  “It’s going to take a while, don’t you think?”

  “I guess. Yeah.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “I just want to sit here for a little while.”

  “How about some company, then? What’s on television?”

  “Women’s wrestling.”

  “I don’t think we’re that desperate!” my mother said. “Why don’t I read to you, okay? I’ll get the Nevil Shute book you gave me for Christmas; I haven’t started it yet.”

  “You don’t have to stay up with me.”

  “Mothers are supposed to stay up with their insomniac children. If they didn’t, they could be drummed out of the Mothers’ Union. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?”

  “Who, me? No. Never.”

  “Good.”

  I didn’t know it then, but that was just the first of many sleepless nights for me. And my mother and father were always there: As soon as I got out of bed, some weird type of parent radar would activate, and one of them would follow me downstairs. They wouldn’t let me sit alone and watch television. Instead, they took turns staying up with me and reading to me: a book, a newspaper, a magazine. Sometimes we’d work crossword puzzles. After a week or so we’d finished the Nevil Shute book, gone through seven Chicago Tribunes, two Time magazines, and at least ten crossword puzzles. I got so I liked the crossword puzzles best. As my mother put it at three thirty one morning: “You may not be getting much sleep, but your vocabulary’s really expanding. What’s a three-letter word for a flightless Australian bird?”

  I pulled the curtains aside and stared out into the night. “Emu,” I said.

  20

  “Loey called this afternoon,” my mother said Friday after school. “She wants you to come for dinner and stay over tonight.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Do you want to go? Your dad’s taking his paintings in to the gallery for the opening tomorrow; he said he’ll drop you off at the hospital—”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  “Come on, cutie,” my father said. He stood in the doorway with a crated painting in his hands. “Ride in with me, at least. Keep me company.”

  I thought about driving into the city with my father. I thought about getting away, seeing my aunt, and sinking down into that antique four-poster in her guest room. I’d never had any trouble sleeping in that bed.

  “I’ll go throw some clothes into my duffel bag,” I said.

  We were on our way by four thirty and downtown in the Loop by six.

  “I hate winter in the city after the Christmas decorations come down,” I said. “Everything looks so bleak and depressing.”

  “Have to have winter before you can have spring.”

  I looked at him.

  “Just an observation, kiddo. How’d it go last night? Did you sleep at all?”

  “No. I’m thinking of entering the Miss Teenage Zombie of America Contest.”

  “Yeah,” my father said. “I guess you’d win the title if you entered.”

  He drove down East Superior and swung around in front of the hospital. “I’ll be up in a minute; I have to find a place to park—”

  “You’re coming in?”

  “Just for a minute. I want to say hi to Loey.”

  I grabbed my duffel bag. “Park carefully,” I said.

  I took the elevator up to the psych floor. Mrs. Getz was at the nurses’ station. So was Rosalie, that student nurse Jimmy had teased the day I’d come to get my ears pierced.

  “Hi, Mrs. Getz,” I said. “Is my aunt around?”

  “Let me see if she’s in her office,” Mrs. Getz said. She picked up the phone. Rosalie smiled at me.

  “Dr. Hackett’s niece, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “I thought I remembered you. Where’s your friend?”

  I just stared at her.

  “You know,” she said. “The guy you were with that day?”

  “Oh,” I said. “He’s a dancer and he’s out on tour now.”

  “A dancer,” Rosalie said. “That’s really something.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it?” I don’t know why I lied to Rosalie, except it sort of made Jimmy seem alive again. In Rosalie’s mind he was out on tour, dancing somewhere.

  “You can go on into your aunt’s office now, Morgan,” Mrs. Getz said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Getz.”

  My aunt was sitting on the edge of her desk talking on the phone when I walked in. She was wearing this very pretty blue paisley skirt, which I unfortunately couldn’t see much of because her white coat covered most of it up.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “That’s not a real greeting,” she said to me. She held out her arm and I went over to her and she gave me this big hug. It’s very nice there are people in this world who are so happy to see you they want to hug you. “Tomorrow at eight,” she said into the phone. “Semiformal, I guess. . . . Okay. . . . I’ll see you at the gallery, then. ’Bye.” She hung up and looked at me. “Some of my friends are coming to your dad’s opening tomorrow night.”

  “He’ll like that,” I said. I sat down in the chair facing her desk. I put the duffel bag in my lap. “He’ll be up in a minute to say hi.”

  “Good.” She reached for her pack of Tareytons. “What’s going on with you, hmm? You look a little run-down.”

  “I don’t know.” I started tugging at the zipper on my duffel bag. “I don’t know what’s going on with me, exactly.”

  I felt her hand on my forehead. “Would you let me take you down to one of the examination rooms and check you over?”

  I looked at her. “Don’t you ever stop being a doctor?”

  She smiled and lit her cigarette. “Nope.”

  “I’m still going through stuff right now. I’ll be okay.”

  There was a knock on the door. My father opened it and walked over to my aunt and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hi. I’m triple-parked—I can’t stay long; I just wanted to talk to you about something.” He sat on the arm of the chair I was sitting in and looked at my aunt. “We need a little medical advice here. Morgan hasn’t been able to
sleep in over a week—”

  I shot my father a dirty look. “Dad, come on . . .”

  He put his hand on top of my head. “You can’t go on like this, kiddo; you’ve got to get some rest.”

  “Do you want me to give you something to help you sleep?” my aunt asked.

  “No.” I started zipping and unzipping my duffel bag again. “I just . . . I want to handle this on my own.”

  “Look, you’ve been without sleep so long you can’t even think straight,” my father said.

  I sat back in my chair. I was starting to feel sick, that’s how exhausted I was. I looked at my aunt. “Most of the stuff I’m handling. Most of the stuff I have under control.”

  My aunt nodded. “I’m going to call the pharmacy here and order a small prescription of sleeping pills for you, okay? We’ll pick it up on our way out.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

  She picked up the phone. “This is Dr. Hackett. I want to talk to the pharmacist, please.”

  My father bent down and kissed the top of my head. “I’ve got to run; I’ll pick you up for the opening, okay?”

  “Dad, wait.” I followed him to the door. “Why did you do that? Why’d you have to tell her about the not sleeping thing?”

  “Because, cutie, I knew you wouldn’t.” He gave me another kiss. “Get a good night’s sleep, okay? See you tomorrow.” I watched him walk down the hall and head for the elevators. I turned around and looked at my aunt. She was just hanging up the phone.

  “I guess you think I’m crazy or something,” I said.

  “No,” my aunt said. “I think you’re tired.”

  “How come I can’t sleep?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with stress.”

  “You mean Jimmy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe.” I cleared my throat. “Listen, I need to tell you something . . . and I need to know if you think it’s sick or weird or anything.”

  She put her cigarette down in the ashtray and looked at me. “What is it?”

  I went over to the window and pretended to be very interested in the traffic below. “That first night at home after the accident?” I said. “I threw Jimmy’s jacket away . . . but after everyone was asleep, I went down and got it out of the garbage. I wear it to bed every night. If I can’t sleep and have to get up, I hide it under my mattress so Mother and Dad won’t see me in it.” I turned around and looked at her. “It’s pretty strange, isn’t it?”

  “Why do you think wearing Jimmy’s jacket to bed is strange?”

  “I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like a normal thing to do.”

  She tapped her cigarette against the inside of her ashtray. “I think wearing Jimmy’s jacket is your way of holding on to him.”

  I felt heat wash over my face. “You’re saying it’s morbid.”

  “No,” my aunt said firmly. “I’m saying that when you start to deal with Jimmy’s death you won’t feel a need to wear his jacket.”

  I looked away again. I had said too much and gotten myself into an area I didn’t want to get into.

  “Is this what it’s like?” I asked. “With your patients, I mean. Is this what therapy is like?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Well, it hurts.”

  “I know,” my aunt said quietly. “Sometimes it has to.”

  21

  I slept that night! I slept hard, and straight through till eleven the next morning, thanks to a little red-and-white fifteen-milligram wonder of modern medicine. When I got out of bed, I pulled on my jeans and a sweater, tucked the bottle of pills into my jacket pocket, and went downstairs. I found my aunt in the entry hall; she was getting her medical bag down off the top shelf of the closet. She had a slice of pizza in her hand.

  “Cold pizza for breakfast?” I asked.

  “Hi, there. . . . No time for anything else; I’ve got an emergency. . . . Hold this for me, honey, will you?” She handed me her medical bag and her slice of pizza. She pulled her coat off a hanger. “How’d you sleep?”

  I took a bite of her pizza. “Fine. I feel human again.”

  “You look a lot better.” She leaned against the wall and pulled her boots on. “What are you going to do this afternoon? Do you want to meet me at Field’s for lunch?”

  “I thought I’d go over to Second City in a little while—I want to sign up for the new semester, and if there’s a workshop this afternoon, I could be a while.”

  “You’re cutting out on me, huh?”

  “You don’t mind, do you?”

  She smiled. “I’d never stand in the way of a future star’s career; you know that.” She took her medical bag and the slice of pizza from me. “You need money for a cab or anything?”

  “No, I’m pretty well set.”

  “Okay, honey; I’ve got to run. I’ll see you at the gallery later.”

  “’Bye.” I stood at the door and watched her get into the car. “Hey, the streets look icy!” I yelled. “Be careful, okay?”

  My father called that afternoon, just as I was about to go out the door.

  “I’m at the gallery,” he said. “I thought I’d pick you and Loey up; give you a sneak preview of the show—”

  “Uh, Aunt Lo’s out on an emergency, and I was just about to leave for Second City to sign up for the new semester.”

  “And your mom’s at Saks shopping for something to wear tonight! Are all the women in my life deserting me?!”

  “Why don’t you pick me up at Second City in a couple of hours, okay? You can give me a preview then, and I promise I’ll be impressed.”

  “I’ll pick you up out front. Hey, how are you feeling today?”

  “Great. I actually got some sleep last night.”

  “So did your mom and I.”

  “Not funny!”

  “I’ll see you about quarter to five.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Quarter to five.”

  Second City was pretty much deserted. I found the director of my workshop upstairs in the empty bar. He was sitting at a table reading the sports section from the Sun-Times.

  “Hi,” I said. “Where is everyone?”

  “Hi, there. . . . Well, the resident company’s in rehearsing and the workshop’s been over for about an hour.”

  “It’s not too late to sign up for the new semester, is it?”

  “No, I don’t think so; we have a few spaces left. I was getting a little worried when you didn’t show up last week—I thought maybe you weren’t coming back to us.”

  “Well, I thought . . . I thought I was going to do a play at Pheasant Run, but it didn’t work out.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go ask Joyce to make up your new membership card. Be right back.”

  I sat down at the table and flipped through the Sun-Times. I was chuckling over the comics section when this guy walked into the bar. He looked about my age, maybe a little older.

  “Do you work here?” he asked.

  “Me? No. I’m just a student.”

  “Me too. I mean, I want to be. I want to sign up for the workshop—”

  “The workshop director’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Thanks.” He looked around. “I’ve never done any improvisational comedy before. My agent thinks it’ll be good training for me.”

  “You have an agent?”

  “Mostly for film work. Hey, maybe you saw a local commercial I did last September for Jewel Stores’ back-to-school meat sale. I played a courteous box boy.”

  I smiled. “Gee, I must have missed that.”

  He laughed. He had a very nice laugh. Warm and friendly. “I guess I won’t exactly be getting an Oscar nomination for it. How about you? What have you done professionally?”

  “Nothing as glamorous as a meat commercial, I’m afraid. I studied here last semester, and I was an apprentice out at Pheasant Run for a while—”

  “That’s a great theater. I did Hello, Dolly! out there a couple of summers ago.”

&nbs
p; “You did? So did a friend of mine. Maybe you knew him. Jimmy Woolf?”

  He frowned. “Jimmy Woolf . . . I’m not sure. What does he look like?”

  “Tall. Tall and very lanky.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You must remember him. He was one of the dancing waiters.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know too many of the dancers. I was just in the chorus.”

  “Oh.”

  “Hey, you want to get a cup of coffee after we’re through here? You can tell me about the workshop.”

  I let a brief glimmer of interest flicker before I killed it. I wasn’t ready to be friends again with somebody. Not with him. Not with anyone.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “There’s a restaurant just down the street—”

  “No, I can’t. I just—I can’t.”

  “Maybe next time, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”

  My father was late picking me up. I kept checking my watch: fifteen minutes late. Twenty minutes. I took a couple of deep breaths of sub-zero city air. I tried to stay calm. I had warned my aunt about the icy streets, but why hadn’t I warned my father? He was a good driver, but Jimmy had been a good driver too. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and watched for our car. This was like being stuck in some weird Twilight Zone rerun of the night Jimmy was killed. I could feel it starting all over again. I couldn’t stop it: the adrenaline rush, my heart pounding wildly and out of control.

  “Hey, cutie!” I heard my father yell. “Over here!” I looked across the street. My father slowed the car in mid traffic and opened the door. I ran quickly, carefully, to our car, got in, and slammed the door. My father took his foot off the brake and we started moving. “How’d it go? You get all signed up for your workshop?”

  I turned to him. I couldn’t keep the shakiness out of my voice. “You said quarter to five! Where were you?”

  He glanced over at me, surprised. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know! When you didn’t come . . . it was just like the night Jimmy was killed! I thought something had happened to you!”

  “I got hung up in traffic; it’s rush hour.”