Throughout the morning Ellie found herself in small groups. She was paired first with Eugene and Suzy, then George Castleman, who played the hilarious Ollie Stewart. His character formed a sort of love triangle with hers and Young Matt’s, as he was the rich city boy she was expected to marry, though her heart belonged to Young Matt. Ellie found it fun to practice with him because his character was so over-the-top silly, and he was perfect for the part. As a foil for Young Matt, and essentially everything good about country values, Ollie came off as prissy, superficial, a flake. George, who was instructed by Will to play up his interaction with the audience, practiced a slapstick, body-language-based humor that was interesting for Ellie to watch and learn from, especially since she tended so much toward the serious.
For her final segment Ellie ended up in a threesome with Seth, or the villain Wash Gibbs, and the guy who played Young Matt, whose name was Dillon Cody. It was strange, practicing with Seth, and their interaction brought back all of the reasons she’d been attracted to him in the first place back in St. Louis.
“You git over here and give me a proper howdy, Sammy.” Seth growled the lines, taking on a backwoods accent as if it were an old coat that fit him perfectly. He seemed to gain too much pleasure in pulling at her arm.
Dillon—as Young Matt—threw himself between them while Cheryl helped with the choreography. They repeated the move, with Ellie/Sammy serving more or less as a prop. Both of them practiced the maneuver, following Cheryl’s instructions and striving for authenticity. They reminded Ellie of two bulls fighting over turf.
She and Seth had met her sophomore year during the production of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, for which they both landed lead roles. Of course, his was the true lead—Oedipus—and hers a supporting role as the main female character, Oedipus’s wife/mother, Jocasta.
Ellie was a theater major, in the drama club, and involved in everything related to the arts at Saint Louis University. Before tryouts she’d never laid eyes on Seth or heard his name. But after tryouts it was all she heard. He was an overnight sensation among her peers and professors.
She hated to admit it to herself now, but he’d come by his relationship with her just as easily. She’d been swept off her feet by his talent and charm. As Katherine later pointed out, all of Ellie’s good sense left her the day Seth walked through the door. Their love affair lasted about six months—and took her a year and a half to get over.
But Ellie was well over it now. Dealing with his presence in this play was a nuisance, but not painful for her. With his gift for drama, his movie-star looks, and his unfortunate narcissism, he was a disaster waiting to happen to someone else.
“I don’t like you, Wash Gibbs,” she growled back at him over Dillon’s hulking shoulder. Other than perhaps the accent, Ellie didn’t need any practice to get those lines just right.
* * * * *
After Will dismissed the actors for the day, Ellie noticed that several people stood in line for his attention. Instead of waiting, she boarded the tram with Suzy, who had invited her to share a barbeque lunch in the picnic area. Back up in front of Aunt Mollie’s Mercantile, they each paid five dollars for a plate off the Chuck Wagon and commenced eating at a shaded picnic table while tourists walked by.
“That Seth Young is so good looking!”
Ellie almost choked on her mashed potatoes. “Oh Suzy, be careful.”
“That’s right! You know him, don’t you? I remember his comment now—yesterday when he introduced himself.”
“We were in a play together, and we dated for a few months in college.” Ellie paused, trying to balance fairness with honesty and discretion. “I can’t say what he is like now; that was over three years ago. But back then, well, he was not someone you’d want to be involved with.”
Suzy’s blue eyes widened to almost cartoon-like proportions. “Do tell.” She slurped on her Diet Coke.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Ellie groaned. “I’d rather leave it buried. I was pretty immature myself. Didn’t have a clue. I was sort of carried away with his good looks.”
“He’s a good actor too.”
“That’s true. Amazingly talented. That was a big part of my attraction. But our relationship wasn’t good. I hope we both have grown into better, wiser human beings than we were then.”
“That’s very diplomatic of you.” Suzy winked.
Ellie decided to change the subject. “What do you think of practice so far?”
“I really enjoyed today, working with you and the Shepherd. I don’t have that big of a part, you know, so I can relax as long as I have my little lines down. Gives me a chance to watch everybody else and try to learn something.”
Suzy’s eyes were so big and round that with her red hair she reminded Ellie of a young Lucille Ball.
“Your lines are so funny when you talk about love. Last night when I watched the play Mandy really got a laugh from the audience on that one.”
“I hope I do.”
“You will. I have no doubt.”
Suzy smiled, revealing deep dimples. Ellie was glad the girl invited her to lunch. She took another bite of her barbecued pork, which was surprisingly good.
After lunch, they decided to visit Aunt Mollie’s shop, where the air conditioning was on and they could browse a bit before saying good-bye. Ellie wanted to look at postcards to send her family and Audrey. While she perused the display on the wall, Suzy chatted with Darcy, the friendly store manager, about her ice-cream selections.
“I’ll get this one for Beecher,” Ellie said to herself, selecting a postcard with the caption HILLBILLY LIVIN’ at the top, and FAMILY PORTRAIT at the bottom. The picture was of five barefoot children—actors—in front of a shack. They were with their parents, and the father looked like most of the guys in The Shepherd of the Hills drama, with long hair and a beard and ratty overalls. The mother wore mismatched rags, a sunbonnet, and held the stump of a corncob pipe in her teeth. A dog played at their feet, and an outhouse stood in the background.
For Audrey she picked one with a grammatical error in the caption: YOU KNOW YOUR FROM BRANSON. The list that followed included:
• IF you think potted meat on a saltine is an hor-dourve.
• IF directions to your house include “turn off the paved road.”
• IF your mother has ever been in a fistfight at a high school sports event.
• IF you have a brother named “Bubba,” “Junior,” or “Jim Bob.”
And, Ellie’s personal favorite: IF you prominently display a gift you bought at Graceland.
Four out of five isn’t bad, thought Ellie, already imagining what she would write to Audrey, who, among other colorful characteristics and eccentricities, was a huge Elvis Presley fan.
The one for Opa and Katherine was tamer. It featured a picture of the Lookout Tower and the quaint white clapboard Lutheran church on The Shepherd of the Hills property.
Ellie was making a few more selections when she felt a familiar presence behind her and caught the scent of cedar in the air. He brushed her ear with his lips and his breath sent a shiver up her spine as he whispered, “Hey there, beautiful.”
She turned her head ever so slightly, touching her cheek to his lips. Her knees went weak. She was losing touch with reality, ready to melt into his arms again until she remembered where she was. Remembered Suzy.
She stiffened and turned to face him, creating a little space. “Hello there. I just had lunch with Suzy, and we came in here to cool off a minute.”
“And are you feeling cool now? It seems a little hot in here to me.” Will’s smile was crooked, his green eyes smoldering. He turned his head at just the right moment toward Suzy, who was walking up.
“Oh, hi!” She smiled, apparently a little nervous around the director.
“Hi, Suzy.”
“Look at the postcards I found. I’m going to send them to my family—they’re hilarious.” Ellie held out her treasures to Suzy, to distract her as much as anything.
“These are great.”
Will turned back to Ellie. “Yeah, so if you wouldn’t mind stopping by my office before you go, we can take care of that.”
“Sure.” Ellie nodded. “See ya.”
“See you ladies.”
They watched him walk away. When Will was out of earshot, Suzy elbowed Ellie. “Speaking of good-looking.”
“Do you think about anything else?”
* * * * *
The girls parted ways as they left Aunt Mollie’s Mercantile. Suzy had to get back to the campus of The School of the Ozarks, where she worked in the kitchen at the lodge to pay for her tuition. Ellie walked through the door of the main office, trying to avoid eye contact with Donna.
“Mr. Howard is expecting me,” she said.
“Yes,” Donna grumbled in agreement. From the tone of the woman’s voice, Ellie thought Donna hoped she might be in trouble.
She climbed the stairs that led to Will’s office. They creaked quietly under her feet, and that, coupled with the scent of old wood, reminded her that this was an old house. The door was open and he was standing, looking out his window toward the trees. Though she relished the thought of sneaking up on him sometime, for now she thought better of it.
She gave a little knock at the door. “Mr. Howard?”
But Will was already around the desk and pulling the door shut. He took her in his arms. They stood there together, holding one another for a long moment, and then he kissed her, hard. The muscles of his arms, chest, and abdomen were rigid, defined like chiseled granite against her comparative softness.
“You drive me crazy, you know that?”
“I think I have that effect on a lot of people.”
“Every man you meet, I imagine.” He scooped her up and carried her behind his desk to his chair, where he sat, plopping her into his lap.
She kept her arms around his neck and smiled up at him. “I don’t think so. Just you.” She stroked the stubble on his cheek. “I like this five-o’clock shadow.”
“You’re not going to like what it’s done to your face.” He frowned.
“You’re worth a little chafe, I guess.” And then, as if to prove it, she kissed him again.
“I’ve got to figure something out, Ellie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m not very good at being secretive. I don’t want to be. It’s just not me.”
His tone concerned her. Was this his way of breaking up what had hardly gotten started? She loosened her grip on his neck and started to ease out of his lap, but he hugged her to him.
“I don’t mean I don’t want to be with you—oh, no. I’m not sure I can stop what we’ve started, even if I wanted to.”
She cocked her head to the side, as though sizing up what he was saying.
“Ellie, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to hide the fact that we’re dating. I’m going to talk to my boss about it, if that’s okay with you. Of course, I don’t know how you feel about people knowing you’re dating your director.”
Ellie didn’t know how she felt about it either. She didn’t know anyone before she came here, so it wasn’t like she had a lot invested in these relationships. Yet she didn’t want anyone thinking she would get preferential treatment as Will’s girlfriend. Her work would have to speak for itself.
“In the end, Will, people are going to think what they want to think, just like that Cristal person. She’ll eat it up, won’t she?”
“Yeah, she will.”
Chapter Eleven
Dear Beechnut,
It’s me, Audrey. How do you do it? Seriously. The most interesting things about my job right now have absolutely nothing to do with the law. What’s wrong with this picture? Ray sends me to these crazy places to hand out subpoenas, get summons signed, and things of that nature. And I end up chatting it up with the people and learning all sorts of things about their lives, and coming home and writing it down in my journal, when I should be studying. The stories are about children, food, sickness, jobs, music, 9/11, you name it. Like I said, mostly unlegal matters. And yet, if I keep going in the current direction, that’s what my job will be one day—legal matters. Just like you. How did you know it was your calling? ’Cause nothing about it is really speaking to me at present.
Do you love München? What’s up with you and Vivienne? Do you plan on staying there? Or doing the double-continent thing forever? Is the law more interesting over there?
I’m going to tell you one of my most fascinating stories. It’s about this girl I interviewed, a server at a place ray loves to go for lunch. He takes the staff—including lowly interns like me—there at least once a week. It’s called Pies ’N’ Thighs, and it’s in Brooklyn, and just let me say it has the best fried chicken I’ve ever tasted outside of the South, and the catfish is no less successful. They even have biscuits—and lovely pies. Rhubarb in season! But I digress.
The girl’s name is Caroline, and she’s around twenty. Other than her rather assertive eyewear, she’s pretty in a Jennifer Aniston sort of way. Not stunning. More like the girl next door. Anyway, Ray is ready to go over paperwork, as he always seems to be. We’re sitting in this barnlike room behind the kitchen, and here she comes with iced tea for us in plastic beakers. She’s wearing plaid with a denim skirt.
She’s got this winsome sort of way about her and so I, eager to avoid discussion of paperwork, engage her with a question. “Was she in New York on 9/11?”
Even Ray got interested once she started talking. Turns out as a little kid she went to a private school. Her father, who worked in one of the towers, had come to her school for a meeting with her teacher, and the meeting had run late. Because the meeting ran late, he was not in his office when the airplane struck. He was miraculously saved.
The terrible twist is that her big brother, who was an NYU student at the time, had gone to see his father that morning in his office. He was there when the tower was struck, and his body was never found. Such a terrible tragedy!
And this, just one story from one girl in one hole-in-the-wall restaurant. There must be hundreds like it. That is where my interest lies this summer—not in the law, but in stories. Everyone I meet seems to have one. I’m afraid I may be leaning toward a life much less practical than the law, and it scares me. Whatever will I tell my father? I’m praying for wisdom.
Counsel me, counselor.
A.
Audrey,
It is good to hear from you. Your e-mails, like no others except perhaps my sister’s, coax me out of the insular world I’ve created for myself over here. It’s a world where I can avoid thinking too much about things like duty and what my place is in the world. I work hard at my job, but life abroad, for me at least, is something of a perpetual vacation.
That said, I need a vacation after the terrible visit I’ve had with Vivienne. I’m ashamed to admit that I put her through hell, and when I think about it, I feel very selfish, immature, irresponsible…and all of those other curse words normally attributed to my miscreant father.
The end of the matter is that we have called it quits. Because I am genetically predisposed to becoming a bad life-partner, it brings me great relief to know I will not cause her any more damage than has already been done. That was my greatest concern as we planned this trip. I think she came with the expectation of something totally different, however—something like an engagement.
We were quite the pair when I picked her up at the airport—she, shining and fresh like a new penny, and me, the scowling brown toad. I knew as I have known in my gut for months now that we’d never make it as a couple. I was being unfair to her—and finally summoned the courage to tell her so. She was gracious, as you might imagine, which made it even worse. I deserve to be hit over the head with a beer stein. She’ll surely thank me one day for doing her a favor. Anyway, there’s the answer to one of your questions.
The others are a bit easier to answer, I believe. Yes, I love München. It’s a great city. No, I
don’t plan to stay here forever, but I don’t think I’d mind keeping a bit of a double-continent lifestyle. You know I bore very easily. The law? Are you really asking how I knew it was my calling? Can you ever imagine me doing anything else, you who have known me through all of my various stages of law (life): i.e., political activism from age fetus–present, the relentless stalking of your father in his law office as a teenager, actual enjoyment of law review, obsession with Law and Order, etc., etc., ad infinitum? I’ve never thought about it as a calling. It’s what I’m good at.
Your waitress’s story is fascinating—so much so that a movie has been made about it, give or take a few details. Remember Me, starring some guy named Pattinson. You mean to tell me that after the Twilight craze you and my sister went through that you haven’t even heard of this movie?
Not to burst your bubble, though. You are right that everyone has a story, and it takes a special kind of person to be able to hear those stories and then give them voice through writing. You are an amazing writer—has anyone ever told you that? In just a few sentences you have me sitting at Pies ’N’ Thighs with you and Ray. I can smell the chicken; I can taste the pie. I can hear the tea beakers clanking. I want to go there the next time I’m in New York! Incidentally, have you considered becoming a food critic?
My advice is not to tell your father anything—yet.
Beecher
Beach comber,
Love Finds You in Branson, Missouri Page 8