It was a black-and-white picture, shot in front of what appeared to be the farm a long time ago. Annie joined me with a mug in her hand and gave it to me. She noticed the picture I was holding.
“That’s been on my sill for over forty years, and I don’t think I’ve looked at it for ten. A piece of heaven,” she said wistfully.
“Sorry?” I inquired.
She chuckled. “That’s what my mother used to call it. The farm,” she said, looking out across the rolling hills.
In the picture, her mother’s hair was in the latest fashion for the time, an elegant cropped bob. She appeared to be in her farm clothes, her head tossed back. She was being held by a man, laughing, and I noticed that Annie had her smile.
“That’s my father,” said Annie, pointing to the man. “She had always wanted a farm and somehow she talked him into it. He loved her and would do anything that she wanted.”
I looked at the man in dark pleated pants with the same shape face as Annie, his white shirt turned to the elbow and his arms wrapped around his wife’s waist.
“This was one of those official, move-into-the-property photographs,” she laughed as she sipped her tea. “It was taken just outside here on the lawn. As the official photographer snapped it, Mom lost her balance on the uneven ground, and Dad had to catch her to stop her from falling. I love to look at it,” she said. “It reminds me of my parents’ laughter, and that they were young and alive . . . once.” Annie fished out a tissue and blew her nose as slow tears ran down her cheeks, again. She brushed them away forcefully, saying, “There’s no point in this. All this crying doesn’t solve anything.”
She took the picture lovingly from me and placed it back on the windowsill.
I looked around the room as I sipped my tea. And I thought she had a wonderful place, warm and friendly. Whereas my cottage had more of a modern, clean twist, everything in hers just felt loved to death. Old dark wood furniture and tapestry cushions and throws—everything frayed around the edges, but frayed with love.
Bruiser and four other dogs trotted into the front room to meet me. “This is my family,” said Annie with a smile. She looked down at them as she introduced each one to me. One was obviously a Labrador; it was hard to figure out the breed for two of them. They had large, buoyant bodies with wagging tails and kisses for both of us. However, the fourth one appeared to be the little pug from her story: a small black furry barrel. He nuzzled up to Annie and made strange sniffling noises as he rubbed his nose up and down her leg. She picked him up and introduced him.
“This is Popeye,” she said as she carried him around.
She locked him under her arm as she expertly wrapped Stacy’s gift with one hand and then handed it to me. I finished my tea, and she walked me out to my car. Outside, we were both drawn to the beauty of the moon and how it bathed the dark trees in its hypnotic, waning light. She rubbed her eyes.
“My mom would be so sad to know that I’m going to lose the farm.”
A lump found its way to my throat, and I took her arm.
“No, Annie,” I said. “You’re not going to lose the farm.”
She smiled and patted my hand. “I know that Doris means well, and you guys have been an amazing support. But somehow, I just have the feeling that this is not going to work out, and I’m going to lose all of this, and the thought of that crushes me like you wouldn’t believe.”
“It’s not going to happen,” I said, reassuring her. “We’ll find a way. Don’t you worry.”
She smiled and nodded, but more to assure me than herself.
I gave her and Popeye a hug, saying, “I need to get home and see if Stacy called.” I always carried my cell phone with me, but service was always sketchy on the island.
“Of course,” she said.
I got into the car and noticed the assertiveness books still on top of the pile. I picked them up, gently slipped them to the bottom, and placed Annie’s bundle on the top. I might not be the best director in the world, I thought, but I was going to help Annie in any way I could.
As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror. There was Bruiser and the three other dogs, silhouetted by her side in the moonlight. She still had Popeye in her arms. She was waving his little paw at me as she held him. I waved back behind me out the window and thought, Yes, we’re going to fix this, Annie. I’m not going to let you lose your home.
Chapter Ten
OOLONG TEA & JAPANESE SOYA BEANS
The next day, I was curled up on the sofa, sipping a cup of tea, when Martin came downstairs.
“Are you going to work at the library today?”
“I wish,” I grunted. “I’m going to work for Doris.”
Martin smirked. “Okay, what does she have you doing now?”
“Something apparently called Potluck and Paintbrushes, which, translated, means cleaning and renovating an old theater where, very soon I’m going to be directing a musical, which I am totally unequipped to do,” I said.
Martin glanced down at the pile of theater books that had remained unopened on the coffee table in front of me. “How’s that going?” he asked, smirking and sipping a cup of coffee.
“Fabulous,” I responded sarcastically. “I’m absolutely the ideal person for the job.”
“I think books work better if you open them,” he said loftily.
I rolled my eyes. “Can you pass me a coaster?” I asked as I sipped my tea.
He picked up a book from the top of the pile and handed it to me.
“Okay, okay,” I said, giving in.
I shook my head and reluctantly opened a book called Theater Craft.
Martin settled himself beside me.
I skimmed the first chapter, looking at all the pictures. The books were dated, maybe written in the seventies, early eighties, and the black-and-white pictures reflected that. In this first chapter were hippy, bearded men and leotard-clad women thrust into odd poses with “Warm-ups” typed underneath. Martin was highly amused as he pointed to a picture of a woman falling back and a partner catching her with the caption above it: “Trust exercises.”
“This should be interesting,” he commented, “especially if Doris partners with Ethel. In fact, I ‘trust’ that would be highly entertaining.”
As I turned the page, there was a knock on the front door. My look of surprise indicated to Martin that I had no idea who it could be. Martin put down his coffee and walked toward the hallway while I listened with interest. Maybe Doris hadn’t been able to wait another minute and had come by to pick me up on her way to the theater.
Martin opened the door, and I noted the sound of happy surprise in his voice. “What are you doing here?” he inquired.
“Surprise,” came the voice in response. The word was a happy one, but the tone was of misery. I knew that voice of disappointment anywhere, and I moved to the door to confirm my suspicions. There was Stacy, a bundled-up pregnant woman who looked more than a little harrowed. The next words out of her mouth were, “What a nightmare getting here. Could you pay the taxi, Daddy?”
I sighed, glad to know that impending motherhood hadn’t altered my daughter too much. I got to the door and hugged her.
“Darling, what are you doing here?”
She released herself quickly from my hug, saying, “It’s a very long story. Could I come in and have a drink first?”
“Of course,” I said, trying not to feel hurt as she pushed me away in her usual way.
While Martin went out to pay the taxi fare, I helped her with her coat and escorted her into the front room and to the sofa.
“Cup of tea?” I asked.
She responded automatically. “You know I don’t do black. Do you have peppermint?”
I frowned. “Let me see. Maybe in the cupboard,” I mused.
She continued, “I only want it if it’s organically grown. Not spearmint. I don’t like the taste of spearmint.”
I frowned again, thinking she’d be lucky if I could find any kind of mint. I did
n’t drink fruited teas. My grandmother, an import from Scotland, had been a staunch black tea drinker, as were my mother and I.
As I pulled out various tins from my tea cupboard—all those fancy Christmas gifts I had received over the years—Martin made his way into the cottage laden down like a packhorse, huffing and puffing all the way. He made it as far as the center of the kitchen and dropped the load.
Stacy’s voice floated in from the front room. “I’m starving. While you’re looking for a mint tea, Mom, any chance of a salad? Spinach would be great. Nothing with cheese. I’m not doing cheese, and onions turn my stomach, but I can stand a little grated carrot, tomato, cucumber, avocado, corn, beets, and either organic legume or edamame for protein.”
Eda-what? I recalled that I had nothing but half a bag of leftover Caesar in the house.
It was as I was stumbling to the fridge, a crumpled packet of Earl Grey in one hand and an old bag of oolong in the other, that I caught my foot in a Gucci suitcase strap and tripped over the bags that Martin was still sweating over in the kitchen. Saving myself by snatching at the fridge door, I remembered once again why I was glad that my daughter had decided to live in California.
Later, Martin and I were sitting, glazed over, on the sofa, a cold cup of coffee in his hand and a very strong black tea in mine, when I noticed the time. We had barely been able to get a word in edgewise for thirty minutes as Stacy started at the top of her day and complained about everything that had happened to her in the last six hours. Not that it mattered, but I found just saying “how terrible” every time she paused for breath seemed to be the correct punctuation to every sentence she uttered. From the tales of the sadistic taxi driver who had deliberately chosen to ride over every bump in the road to berating me for not knowing to refrigerate organic immature Japanese soya beans in the off chance that she might be popping in from California.
She informed us in the midst of it all that her husband, Chris, had gone to visit his mother in the hospital in New Jersey. They’d had a call late last night that his mother had taken a fall, and they had left early for the airport. Stacy, not wanting to be alone, decided to take the morning flight to Seattle at the same time.
Stacy screwed up her nose for the umpteenth time as she sipped her tea. It was tangerine, which was all I could find in a pinch. I gently approached the subject I knew was not going to make my daughter happy.
“I would love to talk to you all day,” I lied as I got up and placed my empty cup in the sink, “but the fact is, Doris has us all on a mission today.”
Stacy ground her teacup into her saucer and pulled a face. “Who’s going to look after me while you’re gone?” she whined morosely. “I was hoping you would drive me to Seattle. There’s an organic motherhood store that I read about, and I thought we could have lunch or dinner, spend some time down there.”
I turned and noticed that Martin had mysteriously disappeared from the sofa, and I caught a glimpse of the tail end of him trying to sneak off down the hallway. I answered her in a loud enough voice so he could hear. “I’m sure Dad would love to catch up with you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Martin stop dead in his tracks with one shoe on and the other in his hand. I grabbed my own shoes and breezed past the deer in the headlights who was rooted like a tree in the hall and tapped his face.
“Have fun,” I whispered into his ear as Stacy’s voice drifted down the hall, toward us. “Dad, could you get me a pillow? My back is still aching from the plane ride. Not feather. I’m not doing feather, unless it’s duck. I can just about tolerate a little duck down.”
“Duck?” he implored desperately as I opened the back door.
“Can’t miss it,” I responded dryly. “It’s in plum sauce right next to the fish sticks in the freezer.”
Through clenched teeth he whispered to me, “I will give you five hundred dollars and will wash up for a week if you’ll take this one.”
I grinned broadly, shutting the door behind me, whispering back through the keyhole, “Not a chance in hell, mister.”
Chapter Eleven
LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS, OH MY!
Ten minutes later, I swung my SUV into the parking lot behind the theater. Cars were lined up like a fleet of tanks waiting to go into battle, armed with their weapons of mass destruction: mops, buckets, and Pine-Sol.
I watched the show as various rejected writers performed a three-ring circus, attempting to juggle protruding implements without losing eyes or limbs.
We all gathered in a circle with our assorted accouterments. Lavinia blundered toward us, clinging to a rather bulky load of cleaning brushes in one hand while the other handled half of a cumbersome stepladder between her and her twin. The two of them looked adorable in their Rosie the Riveter–style headscarves, blue striped shirts, and overalls.
“So glad I joined this writing group,” she complained sarcastically. She was out of breath as she threw down what appeared to be the entire contents of her broom closet. “It’s so much fun sitting around discussing thought-provoking prose together.”
The group’s snigger was cut short by the appearance of Doris, who was wearing her don’t-mess-with-me face. She walked around the group, checking off from a list the growing pile of paraphernalia. She stopped short in front of Annie and Flora, who both automatically stiffened to attention as she peered down at them.
“Toilet,” she barked.
“I’ve been,” said Annie, bewildered.
Doris shook her head. “No, you girls are in charge of the bathrooms.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing I can’t handle after cleaning up after dogs all my life,” commented Annie.
Flora just looked sheepish.
“You and Lavinia can start on the auditorium,” Doris continued, pointing a pen at the twins. “Good, you brought the ladders I asked for. Janet,” she said as she reached me, “I think I’ll have you work backstage.”
We all stumbled toward the door. Doris rustled in her purse to find the key. As I waited, I studied the architecture of the building. An enormous white brick building, it was faced with black-and-white mock Tudor paneling with ornately carved finials. The heavy oak door was painted white with comedy and tragedy theater masks stenciled on it in black. To the side of the door, a small, quaint bow window appeared to have served as the ticket office. Through the dirt-caked glass, a yellowing poster, the faded victim of rain and sun, advertised a coming attraction, A Murder Is Announced, by Agatha Christie.
Doris produced a large brass key, placed it into the lock, and turned it. There was the unmistakable scurrying sound of animal movement and a blast of bleak, ice-cold air as the door creaked open. Inside, the lobby was pitch-black, and a faint smell of mildew crept up from the carpet to meet us.
Doris stepped boldly into the foyer and, reaching into her purse again, pulled out a flashlight. Mumbling something about the main switch that the theater owner had told her about, she stumbled off into the darkness. We all watched as her pinprick of light bounced away from us, till eventually we were just staring into the bleak abyss once more.
Sweet Gracie communicated the feeling of foreboding that we were all experiencing. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sang.
Ruby arrived, and her face joined the bouquet of heads surrounding the door. “This would make a great setting for one of my horror stories,” she mused, her voice barely above a whisper. “Couldn’t you imagine a darkened dressing room full of the heaviness of broken dreams and a drunken puppet master controlling a weak-minded woman?”
“Sounds like my second marriage,” quipped Lavinia, who had been married three times before her twenty-fifth birthday.
“Lavinia,” spat out Lottie in a heightened whisper, “no one needs you to air all your dirty linen.”
“Air it? I could have kept the Sheraton chain in bedding with all my dirty linen.”
Ethel stared up and blinked at her in disbelief.
“Do you think Doris is okay?” I aske
d nervously. “She’s been gone a long time. Maybe one of us should check on her?”
“I’m armed,” said Lavinia, holding up her broom. “Or do you think this would be better?” She held up a toilet plunger, Lady Liberty–style.
I took one step into the foyer and held up my phone in front of me, using the soft glow to illuminate the blackness ahead. All the girls followed, stepping gingerly just inside the door.
From a corner, there was another scurrying noise. I swung my phone in that direction but couldn’t see anything.
“Doris?” I shouted into the darkness.
Behind me, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I jumped and screamed, setting off a chain reaction of screams throughout the group.
As if on cue, the whole foyer burst into light, and I turned.
Behind me, a good-looking middle-aged man with graying hair beamed at me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you jump,” he said. “I just came by to check on you. I’m James Graham, the theater owner.”
“The puppet master,” growled Ethel as her eyes narrowed.
Doris rejoined us as we took a tour of the building. The reality was that the theater really needed a lot of work. Years of nonuse had created all kinds of problems: mildew, rotting wood, peeling paint. Doris made extensive notes. James informed us at the end of the tour that he was leaving right away to meet with a group of volunteer workers who had agreed to tackle the major repairs. Our job would be to start cleaning and getting it shipshape.
“Leave it to us,” Doris shouted after James as he left for his meeting.
Doris escorted me behind the stage. I couldn’t believe the mess it was in. It was as if whoever had finished their last show had just pulled everything offstage and piled it up behind the curtains.
“What do you want me to do with all this?” I asked Doris.
“There’s a little room back behind the stage for the bigger pieces,” Doris said. “And up there”—she pointed to a rickety set of stairs and a flimsy makeshift stepladder painted purple—“and through that door, there is an attic to store all the smaller props.”
Rejected Writers Take the Stage Page 7