Acts of Love

by Judith Michael

  "Okay," Luke said at last. "We'll try that again this afternoon before we go back to act one. By then you should have a feeling for the tension that begins to build there, and I'm hoping your pace will reflect that. Now, this has been a long morning and I think we should go to lunch. Back in an hour, please."

  He and Kent walked the short distance to Joe Allen and sat at a table along the red brick wall. Immediately the waiter was there. "You have just an hour, Mr. Cameron?"

  "As usual; what's good today.^"

  The discussion was crisp and brief, and as soon as the waiter served their iced coffees, Luke looked at Kent and smiled. "You look like you're expecting a spanking."

  "Isn't that what we're here for.^*"

  "You're too old for one and I don't believe in them. What do you think you've done wrong?"

  "Haven't a clue. I could just tell you were pissed."

  "I was wondering how long it would take you to go through all the women involved in this play."

  Kent stared at him. "That's what's eating you? What difference does it make who I date?"

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  "I'll tell you what difference it makes. I thought you'd have figured this out by yourself, but since you haven't, I'll try to make it clear. We created something new when we all got together for The Magician. We're almost a family. Not quite, but almost. We're almost a business, we're almost a club. Are you following this?" He looked up as the waiter brought their lunch, and shook his head as he saw the size of the meat loaf sandwich on Kent's plate.

  "It takes a lot of energy to be a playwright," Kent said. "Oh, black-eyed peas, my favorite. Go on."

  "This isn't some mystery I'm talking about: we've got a group of people depending on each other to bring a play to life, but also dealing with their own lives, and every day is a juggling act to keep them separate. Everybody knows—you sure as hell ought to know—that the minute you ask a group of people to work together in an atmosphere of make-believe and exaggerated passions, without letting their own passions interfere, you need to pay attention to what you're doing or it will get sloppy and destructive."

  "Hey, all I did was date a couple of them," Kent said.

  "You slept with at least one of them, but we won't go into that now." Luke ate some of his salad. "I don't want to sound pretentious about this, but there's more to it than just giving a few talented people a script and sending them up on stage to perform it. There are other things going on and we have to pay attention to all of them. There's almost no chance that this particular group will ever come together again, which is one of the reasons it's different from other groups, but that also means it's easy to get careless. I don't tolerate carelessness in my plays."

  "Which means.^"

  "You know what it means. Put the same amount of effort into being a part of this theater company that you do into writing your play. Put the same kind of effort into getting this play to a brilliant opening night. It's yours, for God's sake; who has a greater stake in it? We have enough tensions that go with the territory; we don't need rivalries or sexual bravado. Especially we don't need a crude kid celebrating his entrance into the big time by screwing all the women who are part of his play."

  Kent's face darkened. "You didn't have to say that."

  "No." Luke shook his head slightly. "You're right, I didn't. I apologize."

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  "You apologize?"

  "It was uncalled for. It doesn't help for both of us to be crude."

  "Jesus, you don't quit, do you.? Look, you never bothered to ask, but I'll tell you anyway. I didn't grab anybody. I mean, I let them know I thought they were dynamite, but they made the first move. Which I admire. But that's only part of it. Look." He put down his sandwich. "Look," he said again. "I've been all over the place—Europe, Africa, Japan—and I know a lot about the world, I know my way around, but you people make me nervous. This is your turf and you know what you're doing, you've earned the right to be here. I feel like a kid looking up at a bunch of grownups in a place where I don't know my way around, not yet anyway. So I grab—well, that's a bad word right now, isn't it?—I hold on to whatever I can. And Marilyn was—"

  "We're not talking about specific people."

  "Right, but I don't tell locker room stories, ever. It's just that I needed people to tell me how great the play is—"

  "I do that. So does Monte."

  "I need it all the time! If I don't hear it for a day or two I start to worry that it's no good, that pretty soon everybody'U realize it and you'll call the whole thing off. Or the critics will tear it apart. I've started a new play— I didn't tell you; I didn't tell anybody—and I wake up about two, three every morning scared to death because I'm sure the new one is no good, and neither is The Magician, and neither am I. So I grab—I latch on to people who tell me I'm great and then I feel okay for a while. You know, I used to smoke and I'd think I was about to curl up and die if I didn't have a cigarette.'^ This is worse."

  "I'll record it for you on a tape loop. You can play it anytime."

  "Now, that is one terrific idea. What will you say.?"

  "Damn it, you know what I'll say."

  "Tell me anyway."

  "You've written an elegant play, a moving, personal, meaningful play. The actors love it and so do the rest of us and we're going to give it the best production it could have. Will that do.?"

  "Yeah. When will you do it.?"

  Luke contemplated him. "I wasn't serious."

  "Well, I am. I mean, I know it's a joke and maybe it's stupid, but it'll be like my fix. Oh, what the hell, Luke, I'll behave whether you do it or

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  not, but I'd really appreciate it. It would be my mantra."

  Luke shrugged. It always astonished him how much writers needed to be stroked. But then, so did actors and painters and sculptors. Truly creative people were always reaching for more, and what woke them up in the middle of the night tilled with fear was the knowledge that they'd never do it all, or even most of it, as well as they hoped to. "I'll make it this weekend," he replied. "Now, can you tell me anything about the new play ?"

  Kent leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You'll keep it to yourself, right.''"

  Luke knew it was a good idea as soon as he heard it, with powerful roles for a man and woman in their forties. "Perfect for Jessica," he murmured.

  "Who.' Jessica.'"

  "Fontaine."

  "Oh. You know, I never think about her, but you're right; she'd be dynamite. I saw her a long time ago in London in Medea; she was awesome. But she's been gone forever, hasn't she.'"

  "Not quite that long."

  "So what happened to her.'"

  "I don't know. I'm going to find out."

  "And you think she might do it.' God, Luke, if we could get her . . . but I haven't got much to show her. I mean, I've got most of the first act, but that's all."

  "Get me a copy. I'd want to read it, and if I find her, I might show it to her. I won't promise anything; we'll just see what happens." He reached for the check. "Let's go back; we have a lot to do this afternoon."

  "Oh, let me. . . ." Kent moved in slow motion to extricate his wallet.

  "No, I'll take it. If you learned something, it was worth every penny."

  "Well, I did. You're good, you know. You're a terrific director and you're good with the cast, all of us, the crew, too. I'm not too good with people, I admit it, not all the time, anyway, so I admire people who are."

  "You'll get better. Just pay attention to what you're doing. Let's go."

  Rehearsals resumed with another slow motion exercise, and then went back to the beginning of the play. Kent sat beside Luke, making notes, muttering, fidgeting. Luke looked at him. "You feel it, too."

  "Yeah, something's wrong. I don't know why."

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  "I think I do." He stood and walked to the taped bord
er of the stage. "Abby, are you really angry with Daniel at this point? Why would you be?"

  "Good Lord, Luke, he's not paying attention to me! He's thinking about this girl he's met instead of treating me with respect and love."

  "So, he's distracted. How does that make you feel? Aside from angry, I mean."

  She looked up at the ceiling, one hand rubbing the back of her neck. "I might be confused."

  He nodded. "Because he's behaving in a way that you didn't expect. You thought you knew how the world functioned, but now your world seems to be turned upside down."

  After a moment, Abby said, "You think I'd be bewildered."

  "That makes sense to me."

  "Well, now. Bewildered. Yes, I could see that. She's an old woman; she wants her world to be predictable. Well, we all do, don't we. But at her age it's harder to accept not understanding. Let me think about that. It changes everything, even the way I move. I'd move toward him, trying to understand, instead of away from him in anger." A slow smile spread across her face. "We'll try it. Right now. Cort, if we could go back to your entrance . . ."

  Luke returned to his chair as the cast took their positions and began the scene again. "I love you," Kent whispered. "You're a genius. Will it cause consternation if I kiss you?" He leaned over and planted a kiss on Luke's cheek. "How did I get so lucky?"

  "Shhhh." They watched Abby work through the scene. At first she was tentative, and Luke ached to have Constance up there. But in a few minutes she began to find her direction: she showed puzzlement, then uncertainty and bewilderment, and also, Luke saw with growing excitement, just a hint of fear. "She's got it," he murmured, and he saw the others change their behavior to mesh with hers. Luke and Kent looked at each other and grinned, and Monte said, "God damn, it's just right. What'd you do to Abby? Hypnotize her? She's usually such a terror."

  "She loves the play," Luke said.

  "And you know how to handle her. Good job."

  "Tell her you like it when we break." Luke sat back, filled with the kind of deep satisfaction that came only with such a breakthrough. The feeling was powerful enough to stay with him all afternoon, and beyond.

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  to the evening, when he drove Tricia to Amagansett for the weekend, a date they had made weeks before.

  They were guests in Monte and Gladys Gerhart's starkly modern house and they had been given a wing with a sitting room and bedroom facing the beach, and two baths. "My, doesn't Gladys know how to do things," Tricia said, inspecting the rooms as she pulled off her clothes to dress for dinner. "And there's never been a breath of scandal about her. Him, either. Can you imagine a producer married to the same woman for thirty-four years? It violates all the laws of the universe. Luke.'' Do you agree.''

  "About what?"

  "The laws of the universe. Are you all right? You're mysteriously silent."

  "I'm sorry." He pulled off his shirt. "You know how involved I am when we're this far along with the play."

  "The play. Sometimes I think the play becomes a mighty handy excuse for everything. Have you found another lady?"

  He shot her a glance. "You'd be the first to hear if I was seeing someone else. And write about it."

  "True, but it has just occurred to me that something might be going on besides the play." There was a silence. "So you won't tell me."

  "There's nothing to tell."

  "Well, there is, but I'm damned if I know what it could be." There was another pause. "Claudia is still seeing Peruggia; did you know that?"

  "No. It hasn't been in your column."

  "Luke, do you really read it? I mean, more than now and then?"

  "All the time."

  She came up to him and kissed him. She was naked, her skin tanned and warm in the slanting rays of a setting sun. "And do you approve of it?"

  / can't imagine how someone can ma^e a living putting rumors and outright lies into newspapers where readers will assume that it must be true. What an awful way to live.

  "I don't, and I tell you that every time you ask. But what difference does it make? You have hordes of devoted fans and almost no one in Hollywood makes a move without wondering what you'll say about it. That ought to be enough for you."

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  Distancing herself from him, she picked up a silk robe and slipped into it. "I Hke to think you admire me."

  "I do. You've made your own way, with no help from anyone, and you do what you've chosen to do very well."

  "And it's worth doing."

  He chuckled. "No, but your tenacity is remarkable."

  "Don't laugh at me. I do the same thing all those talk shows do on television that get millions of people watching. We give people information they want."

  He nodded. "You're right. But from what I've seen, people watch those shows and read your column with a kind of malicious glee, and the only way I can figure it out is that watching or reading about a person having his guts scraped out makes them feel safe. It's as if they believe there's only so much agony floating around and if all those other people are suffering, there won't be any left to touch them. 'Serves him right,' they say, or, 'She asked for it,' or, 'Good looks didn't ^tther very far.' Passing judgement on pain that's usually quite real."

  Tricia turned to gaze out the window at an occasional runner on the empty beach and the lazy waves of the sound, lapping the sand with little sucking sounds. In another part of the house, someone turned on a radio and a jazzy beat filtered into the room. "I could ruin you with my column."

  "I doubt it. But why would you? Is that your goal.''"

  "Power is." She turned to him. "You know that."

  He nodded, understanding again why he still was attracted to her. She was the most direct woman he knew, the most unsparing in her dissection not only of society, but also of herself. She often seemed naive, but in fact she was as tough and knowledgeable as an army general planning an assault on a fort he had studied for years.

  "Anyway, I'm having fun," she said dismissively. "Let's stop, shall we? It's getting far too serious for me. Do you care if she's still seeing him?"

  "You mean Claudia? Care if Claudia is seeing someone? Good Lord, I'd do cartwheels if she found a man she could marry. I'd give the wedding. I'd give the honeymoon. If I could find someone for her, I'd arrange it myself, but you'd put it in your column. 'What Broadway director is playing matchmaker for his ex-wife?'"

  Tricia laughed. "I like that. I think I'll do it. I'll make up someone; it always adds spice. Not a director, though. I don't put you in my column."

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  "Yet."

  She contemplated him. "Maybe never. As long as we're friends, anyway. I may have another item about Claudia, though. She and Peruggia are gambling a lot; she took him to the Phelans' and I'm told he's become truly rip-roaring, especially at roulette, more cautious with cards. If he keeps losing, I'll have to do an item on him. How could I ignore so much drama?"

  "Why haven't you so far?"

  "Well, you stopped that one item I was thinking of running. And he and I had a fling once and I did like him—well, no, not like: I was fascinated. Besotted, you might say, until I woke up. He's not a good guy, Luke. Some people say dangerous. Claudia should watch her step."

  "I'll tell her that."

  "I didn't know you still see her."

  "Now and then. Trish, I'm going back to the city early Sunday morning. If you want to stay here for the day, I won't mind."

  "No, I'm sure you won't. What's happening in the city?"

  "I have work to do before rehearsal on Monday."

  "You're two weeks from opening out of town. How much more can you have to do?"

  "Sometimes most of the work is done in the last two weeks. I'm sorry, I know there's a brunch or something and you wanted me to go."

  "Some people I thought you'd like to meet."

  "Another time."

  She untied her robe
and let it fall to the floor, standing on her toes to put her arms around him, her breasts crushed against his bare chest. "This isn't to convince you to stay," she murmured, her lips close to his, "because I don't do that and anyway it wouldn't work. It's just because I want to."

  "So do I," Luke said.

  But by Sunday morning Tricia had orchestrated a chorus of guests and their hosts all urging him to stay for the full social schedule, including brunch for fifty and a cocktail party for two hundred just before they returned to New York. "Not this time," he said. "Another time. I'm sorry." Tricia stayed behind, to return that night with Monte and Gladys. Her eyes were cold and alert as she watched Luke leave.

  He reached the city at noon and went first to the rehearsal studio. His footsteps echoed in the large bare space as he walked through parts of the

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  second and third act on the makeshift stage, referring to a diagram as he shifted boxes and wooden chairs, working out new paths between them and a new pattern of movement. Better, he thought, studying it. Of course they'll have to like it, feel comfortable with it, but it adds to the tension and that should keep up the pace. He spent two hours drawing new diagrams, noting all the moves with crayons, one color for each actor. And then he became aware that he was famished.

  Time to go home, he thought. Still some more work to do. The Sunday Times. Twelve children's books to read. And Jessica's letters.

  Dear Constance, tnis island is no place ror people wno like to wander; it takes advance planning and some etrort to get on and orr it. One could own a private plane or noat (notn terriric wnen tne weatner cooperates), nut most people don't, and so tneir lives must narmonize witn rerry schedules. Tnis means lining up in one's car about an nour nerore departure, traveling ror close to an nour to tne mainland, then driving eighty miles south to Seattle or rorty miles north to Bellingnam. It makes grocery shopping quite a project! There is a very nice market in Lopez Village, tut ror the kind or selection we had in the city, the mainland teckons. However, it does not heckon to me hecause 1 have no desire to go anywhere. I'm completely satisried to be solitary amid waters or a thousand colors— midnight blue, gray, silver, turquoise, blue-gray, dark green, jade— depending on the sky and the clouds.