A couple of hours later, the hungry hordes are gone and Randy and I have a chance to go into the Sisterhood room so that I can practice my lines. We’ve gone over my lines together enough that we only need the script here and there as a reminder.
It’s fun to practice with Randy. The script is a little offbeat and he gives himself to the role of Joseph with grand flourishes and enthusiasm.
“I had a dream,” he says dramatically.
We’re sitting on the edge of the table, waiting for the place in the script where we’ll be pretending the table is the back of the pickup truck. Randy sets a couple of plastic pitchers around us to represent the chickens that will also be riding in the back of the old pickup.
The Depression-era play does pick up a lot of the flavor of the times.
We pick up the script from the beginning and run through the main scenes several times before we’re interrupted.
I hear a knock on the French doors and I look up to see Lizabett.
“Hey,” I say as I slide off the table.
Lizabett comes into the room. “I thought you’d be here practicing.”
Ordinarily, Lizabett and I would both be here about this time, but since we’re out of school for Christmas break and not keeping to our usual schedule, I’m surprised to see her.
“I was doing some last-minute shopping,” Lizabett says as she holds up a red bag she’s carrying. “I have everybody’s gift except the ones for my brothers. I never know what to get them.”
“Socks,” Randy says. “Guys always need more socks.”
Lizabett wrinkles up her nose. “That’s not very exciting.”
Randy shrugs. “It’s either socks or expensive electronics. Or maybe season tickets to the Lakers. Or sporting equipment. Do any of them golf?”
“No,” Lizabett says and then grins. “But they used to love to play horse basketball with the hoop at my mother’s house. There aren’t any balls left there anymore, but if my brothers had one, they’d love to play. They’re so competitive.”
“Still?” Randy asks slowly. “I mean now that Quinn’s—well, is he allowed to be competitive since he’s become a Christian?”
“Oh.” Lizabett stops and thinks. “I don’t know.” Lizabett looks at me.
I shrug. “I wonder, too. All I can say is that Mary wouldn’t take any pleasure in beating her brothers at basketball.”
Randy is frowning by now. “That kind of takes all of the joy out of life.”
The three of us stand there for a minute or two thinking about the ramifications of being a Christian.
“Quinn still watches television,” Lizabett finally offers. “I think it must be okay to do things. He’s not like a monk or anything.”
“I’ll have to ask him,” Randy says. “I’ve been thinking about what it’d be like since I went to church yesterday. I just can’t picture giving up sports.”
“Not all sports are competitive, are they?” I ask.
“If they’re not competitive, they’re just exercise like walking around the block,” Randy says firmly. “I like to keep score. It pushes me to do better. I like playing against my friends that have turned pro even though I lose.”
I hadn’t realized Randy was seriously thinking about our visit to church just like I had been.
“It might say something in those books we borrowed from Quinn,” I say as I point to the bookshelf behind us.
There are a dozen books on that shelf now. Lizabett has brought them here one book at a time over the past couple of weeks.
“If we don’t find something there, I’m planning to go to Pastor Engstrom’s group on Wednesday morning. I could ask him,” I offer.
Randy nods. “If I can’t figure it out, maybe I’ll go with you.”
“Good.”
Lizabett looks at us. “If everybody is going, let me know. I don’t want to be left out.”
“You won’t be,” I assure her with a smile.
When Marilee comes out of her office to join us, no one says anything about our questions. I notice we’re all looking at her though to see if she seems to be doing anything different than she used to do.
I clean off some of the tables in the diner and Lizabett refills some of the condiment holders. We serve the dinner crowd and wait for it to grow quiet again.
“Still watching those baseball games?” I finally ask Marilee when we are leaning on the counter in the main part of the diner.
The Pews will be closing in half an hour. Lizabett is also at the counter and Randy is restocking the glasses in the rack over the counter.
I notice Randy stops working with the glasses when I ask my question.
“Well, not now,” Marilee says.
“I knew it,” Lizabett says with a snap of her fingers. “Too competitive.”
“No, that’s not it,” Marilee says slowly as she looks at Lizabett a little strangely. “It’s just not baseball season right now.”
“Oh,” Lizabett says.
Marilee looks at me. “What’s this about baseball all of a sudden?”
I can’t think of anything to say before Marilee answers her own question. “Sorry I asked—it’s Christmas. No one should ask questions like that at Christmas.”
“Oh, yeah,” Lizabett agrees.
“So.” Randy leans against the counter. “You don’t have a problem with competition now that you’re a Christian?”
“Oh, no,” Marilee says. She sounds a little startled. “I mean if it’s a fair competition and all. Why?”
“I just wanted to be sure,” Randy says as he turns back to the glasses.
“I would have a problem with making fun of someone who lost,” Marilee adds. “And being compulsive about a sport—you know, to where you didn’t think of anything else ever and neglected your kids or your friends or your life.”
“Well, of course,” Randy agrees. “That’s only common sense.”
“What’s all this about competition? You’re not planning to try to get on that new reality show, are you?” Marilee looks at Randy with a frown. “Because I’m not sure that they play fair at all. Carly was telling me about it and—”
Randy holds up his hands. “I don’t even know anything about a reality show.”
Now, everyone’s looking at me.
“All I know is what I told Marilee,” I say to Randy. “There’s supposed to be a producer coming to one of the performances for the play to look people over to be in this new reality show they’re going to film in Cancún.”
“You’re not hoping to be on that, are you?” Randy asks, looking at me. “Those new shows are ruthless. I’d rather play football with the Mafia.”
In the play, Joseph makes a reference to the Mafia. They’re the ones out to get the three wise men instead of King Herod so they’re on our minds.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not going to be on the stage so the producer won’t even see me. Besides, I think I could handle a reality show.”
All three of my friends just look at me. Marilee, Lizabett and Randy. None of them look like they agree.
“Really,” I add. “I’m tougher than I look.”
“You’re a cream puff,” Lizabett says.
“Not that you’re not tough inside,” Marilee adds loyally. “And that’s where it counts.”
I wonder if they’d say something like that if I’d gotten my black belt in karate instead of that crown in the beauty pageant.
“At least, I’d get a trip to Cancún,” I persist just to show them I’m made of stern stuff and am not afraid of what a reality show could do to me.
“If you want to go to Cancún, I’ll take you,” Randy says.
Well, that takes the attention off of me. Marilee and Lizabett stop to stare at Randy.
“Really?” Lizabett says. “Cancún is halfway around the world.”
“And expensive,” Marilee adds.
Randy shrugs. “Carly’s worth it.”
“Well, of course, she’s worth it,” Marilee
agrees. “But—”
“No one’s really thinking about going to Cancún,” I say. “It’s just a for instance. Like a maybe if—”
People start talking about places they’d like to vacation and we get talking about European river cruises and African safaris. It all makes the Cancún trip sound pretty tame. I would imagine that the reality show has something else in mind besides a beach vacation in the sun, but that’s what I think of when I think of Cancún.
Randy is locking the back doors to the diner when it occurs to me.
“Nobody would think Becca couldn’t do a reality show,” I say.
Lizabett nods. “She’d tear the heart out of her competition.”
“Well, she’d at least hold her own,” Marilee adds.
“I miss her,” I say and we all nod.
“Her e-mail said she’ll be back in touch soon,” Marilee says.
“She better be,” I say. Becca might be able to tear the heart out of her competition, but I’ll stand firm with her if I have to. I’m not willing to lose her friendship.
Randy drives me home and I find I like riding along in his Jeep in the dark. The Jeep rides rougher than my parents’ car, but there’s a sense of adventure from riding up a little higher. Besides, Randy is here.
“Are you really thinking about this Christian stuff?” I ask.
He nods in the dark. “Trying to figure it out. That Joseph was some guy, you know.”
“Yeah,” I say. It makes me feel good that Randy is learning from Joseph and I am learning from Mary. Even if we’re not really in the play, I feel like we have the parts down.
It’s not late when we get to my house, so Randy parks on the street and we walk up the drive to my uncle’s house.
“Want to come in and say hello to my mother?” I ask as we get to the back steps. “It’ll make her day.”
“Sure,” Randy says.
He doesn’t stay long, but he gives my mother enough to talk about for days. I know it’s going to be coming. All the talk about how handsome he is and how polite and how everything that is wonderful. Surprisingly enough, though, it doesn’t matter. If it makes my mother happy, I’m glad. My mother has been looking a little depressed lately and I’m worried about her.
I walk Randy back down the stairs and we share a goodbye kiss just outside the door.
“Thanks for helping me with my lines,” I say after a kiss or two.
Um, make that three kisses.
Randy smiles. “And thanks for sharing your mother with me.”
I grin. “My pleasure.”
I don’t even need a kiss to make that one sweet.
After Randy leaves, I take the journal out onto the balcony and sit for a while writing about the events of the day. I realize that I forgot to ask Randy some probing questions to figure out what to get him for Christmas. I don’t know for sure if he’s getting me a present, but I think he might and I want to be ready. I was thinking about giving him the scarf I’m knitting, but it’s not a scarf I started with him in mind. If I do give him something, I want it to be more personal.
Randy had mentioned that guys like socks, but I hope I can do better than that since he sort of offered me a trip to Cancún. I mean, I know we’re not going, but still I think he was half-sincere. An offer like that deserves at least a tie.
There are only two more days until Thursday. That’s the day when we have the the opening performance for the play and the party afterwards at my uncle’s house.
That reminds me. I definitely need to find a time to talk with my aunt tomorrow and find out what she needs me to do for the party.
I close the journal and sit for a few minutes in the quiet dark of the night. Since no one’s watching, I look up and give God a little wave good-night. A slight breeze blows by me suddenly and I wonder if He’s waving back at me. I kind of hope He is. Wouldn’t that be something?
Chapter Twelve
“The most successful people are those who are good at plan B.”
—James Yorke
I brought this quote to the Sisterhood and it still amuses me. I am not a plan B kind of a person. None of us in the Sisterhood are. I wondered when we first talked about this quote if having cancer made us less flexible than we would have been otherwise. It seemed like so much was out of our control that we hung on for dear life to those few things we thought we could control.
I didn’t know I would need a plan B the first thing on Tuesday morning, but I did. I stopped to talk to my aunt before I left for my play rehearsal. We are standing in the doorway of the front door.
“I’ve heard Max Sullivan is going to be here,” my aunt says. She is rubbing her hands in anticipation or worry, I don’t know which. “I hear he’s the power behind all of those new movies. I can’t wait to meet him. Do you think he might come speak to our garden club some time?”
My aunt belongs to the San Marino Garden Club, the club that had part of its winter home tour at my uncle’s house last weekend. She would be ecstatic to bring in a well-known speaker from the movie industry. The other women would be all over something like that.
“I don’t know,” I say, wishing I could do better to please her. My aunt is always easier to live around when she has her way. “I don’t know him at all.”
“Well, he’s going to be watching your play before he comes to the party,” my aunt says. “Surely, he’ll want to meet the actors. You can ask him then.”
“I’m an understudy,” I say. “I doubt I’ll be there if he does meet the actors.”
“An understudy?” my aunt says with a frown.
My aunt has a fine smooth face; her salon appointments see to that. Frowning is her only vice. She wears sunblock; she eats the right vitamins; she has her skin renewed regularly with some kind of a facial. I guess she can’t stop the frowning though.
“It’s okay,” I say. “Really. I’m fine with being an understudy for Mary.”
“Maybe if your uncle spoke to the director.”
“No, no. That’s not necessary. The parts are already assigned. I’m fine with being an understudy.”
If the girl with the butterfly tattoo only knew how close she is to losing her part, she’d be screeching at me about now. I have no doubt that my uncle could throw enough weight around to intimidate the director of the play, especially when the director is having the cast party at my uncle’s house.
“It wouldn’t be fair to change things now,” I say.
“I just don’t like to see you overlooked.”
I have never seen my aunt being this nice to me. “Is everything okay?”
“Well, yes,” my aunt says hesitantly. “I think so.”
There’s no early sun this morning and the house looks shadowed inside.
“It’s my mother, isn’t it?”
I never understand why people don’t tell the families when someone is sick. I’ve always known that, if something was wrong with my mother, I would be the very last one to know. And she has been looking so frail lately. Like she’s sad and expecting worse to come.
“No, no.” My aunt looks startled. “It’s the food.”
“Food? For the party?” I ask in relief.
My aunt nods. “Our regular caterer is already booked and it’s only two days notice for the party so I don’t think we can get anyone else that’s any good. So, I was wondering if that place you go—you know, the place—if they would do it?”
“The Pews?”
My aunt nods. “We’ll pay, of course.”
“I can ask.”
The Pews doesn’t ordinarily do catering, but when I get there and mention it to Marilee, she thinks it would be a great idea. She sees that there will be enough of the right kind of people at the party to jump-start a side catering business for The Pews.
“Who knows? We might even start doing this sort of thing. For right now we have the kitchen space to fix the food and Randy has a Jeep so we can haul big pans of things for the party. What kind of food does your aunt want?”
Marilee and I are sitting in our Sisterhood room at The Pews. We’re waiting for the coffee in our cups to cool a little.
“Little bites of things. Something that will impress people.”
“That means silver trays,” Marilee says. “And we’ll need to hire some waitstaff.”
“I could pass around a tray.”
I think of the black shirt and white blouse I was going to wear to church last Sunday.
Marilee nods. “We might all need to help, but I think it would be fun.”
“We’d be doing something together,” I agree.
“You’ll need to talk to Randy about the menu,” Marilee tells me. “I’ll go check on our stock of plastic glasses. No, wait.” She looks at me. “I suppose we should use the real ones?”
I nod. “If you want it to look elegant.”
Marilee reaches behind her and pulls a white tablet off the bookshelf. “I’ll need to make a list.”
I swear, Marilee could launch a war if she had enough lists. She’s one of the most organized people I know. I’ve wondered for a while now if she isn’t a little bored with her job at The Pews. I know her heart is here. But, like I said, she could run any kind of a campaign. She’s just not using all of her talents at her job here.
Marilee is still making lists when Lizabett comes to The Pews and asks me if I want company for my rehearsal today. I nod. Lizabett enjoys watching the play take shape and its fun to sit with her and see everyone run through their lines.
Of course, Lizabett keeps hoping the director will yell, “Cut!” and call for the understudy for Mary to step forward, but I’m happy enough watching the butterfly lady do the honors.
If Randy weren’t needed at the grill, I would like him to see the role of Joseph played in rehearsal. Joseph is a short, stocky guy who looks like a computer technician. When he looks at Mary, though, he looks at her with clear fondness on his face. The director was smart to get a boyfriend-girlfriend combo to play Joseph and Mary. It makes for some believable acting.
By the time Lizabett and I slip into the church where everyone is rehearsing, the play is almost ready to go on. Since I’m technically part of the cast, Lizabett and I get to sit in the first few rows of the church so we can see everything well.
A Dropped Stitches Christmas Page 11