Pacific Avenue

by Watson, Anne L.

  “Are there any Christmas pieces that do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know of any.” Martin shrugged and handed the scripts around.

  We voted unanimously to do it.

  Rehearsals of The Snow Queen began in earnest the next day. Now we were putting the production together, using temporary puppets while we made the permanent ones. Christmas seemed remote, almost impossible, in the blossoming heat of New Orleans. I would have given anything for some of the ice and snow in the story.

  I thought of the last line: “It was summer—warm, beautiful summer.” Easy for a Danish man to say. He should have tried being pregnant in a tropical climate. September could hurry up, as far as I was concerned.

  I borrowed Thu’s sewing machine and sewed puppet costumes with the breeze of a fan right on me. I had to weigh down the pattern pieces to keep them from blowing away. The costumes reminded me of doll dresses I’d made with Aunt Ruth. I wondered if she ever missed me.

  Richard came in from the yard, carrying a box. “We need to practice today—can you do the costumes later?”

  I sighed. There was so much to do later and so little later to do it in. It was only a couple of days until Sharon’s and Sam’s visit. I needed to buy food and clean house and do the laundry. And cook.

  And I had an assignment for Tex’s drawing class—I was working my way though an odd old book of drawing exercises. This week’s assignment was to draw something while looking only at the model, not at the drawing. It sounded impossible. And for Thu’s woodcarving lesson, I was supposed to carve a chain out of a single piece of wood, which also sounded impossible. And I had backdrops to do for The Snow Queen, under Thu’s watchful eye.

  But Richard was right—practice came first. We had to at least go through it once before rehearsal with Martin and Thu this afternoon. I put aside the costumes as Richard pulled puppets out of the box. We used the table as a stage.

  NARRATOR: Once upon a time, a demon made a mirror in which everything was reflected as evil. Everyone who looked into it believed it showed the world as it really was. And that was bad, but still worse was to come. For, one day it broke, and the pieces flew everywhere. All who were caught by one of the shards saw the world in the likeness of that mirror.

  With the glove puppets, it was easy to do fast vignettes of people dressed in clothes of all nations, jeering and criticizing each other and everything around them. We both talked at once in a babble of discord. I picked up the story again.

  NARRATOR: In a large city, there lived two friends, a boy named Kay and a girl named Gerda. One day when they were playing, Kay felt something strike him in the heart, and a cold splinter pierced his eye. He cried out and Gerda ran to help him.

  Too stiff. “This last bit should be dialogue, not narration,” I commented. I marked the script for revision.

  KAY: You are very ugly. Why should I spend time with you? I can find a much more beautiful girl. (turns and leaves)

  The Gerda puppet reached her hand out as if to draw him back, then lifted it to wipe her cheek.

  The phone rang.

  With the hand that wasn’t being Kay, Richard got it. He passed it to me.

  “Hey, doll. Francine says she doesn’t mind if I build a ramp up to your porch so Martin’s chair can get in the door,” Eddie said. “Is it okay with you?”

  “Good idea.” I didn’t want to have any more picnic dinners. It was warm enough now for a picnic, but the mosquitoes knew that as well as we did.

  “This afternoon work for you? I’ve got the wood and everything.”

  “This afternoon’s fine. I need to go to the market anyway. Sharon and Sam are coming, day after tomorrow.”

  “I’ll bring you some vegetables, then. See you later.”

  I told Richard what Eddie had said, then set the sleigh and Kay’s sled on the table. “The next scene shows kids playing in the snow. I don’t know what to do to get a realistic snow effect. We have snowflakes, but I can’t dump them like garbage out of a truck.”

  Richard laughed. “Any ideas?”

  “Maybe some kind of sifter? Maybe a net?

  “What would make them fall out?”

  “I could jiggle it,” I suggested.

  “I don’t see how, unless you can grow a third hand. Even with glove puppets, you can’t tend to a net.”

  “What about a mechanical sifter?” I wasn’t sure how this would work, but there had to be some way to do it.

  “Noisy. Fasten a string to your toe and tap your foot.”

  I considered this bizarre solution. “It would make me too stationary. But a foot-operated device is a good idea. Something with a pedal, or a stirrup thing that I could get out of when I needed to.”

  I was developing into the scenery and special effects person, which suited me fine. And a scriptwriter. Of course, I liked operating the puppets as well, but Richard had far more talent than I did. Neither of us was like Thu, who had mastered it all. Of course, she’d been doing it a lot longer than we had.

  We settled the boy puppets onto our hands and went on with the dialogue.

  BOY 1: Let’s tie our sleds to the carriage! The horses will pull us through the streets!

  BOY 2: Don’t let the coachman see us!

  I had constructed sleigh-and-horse combinations to glide across the stage. I managed these while Richard’s boy puppets sneaked rides behind them, laughing and playing.

  When they were offstage, we had a brief break that would be filled with music and falling snow—provided I could work out a good way to make that happen. The seconds without puppets would be effective, but they’d also give us a chance to set up for the remainder of the scene.

  I marked my script to insert a music cue for Kay to appear onstage alone, carrying his sled. From the other direction, a great white sleigh appeared, with a driver muffled in a furry white coat.

  “Ermine,” Richard said, studying the script. “What does that mean besides white?”

  “It has small black markings.”

  “Could anyone tell from the audience?”

  “Probably not. But I’ll do them anyway. I’ll know, even if no one else does.”

  Richard struggled to make Kay tie his sled to the sleigh runners. A hand puppet didn’t make for convenient knotting, but we couldn’t have the ties dangling. I’d have to work something out to make them stick. Something that would hold when Kay, tiring of the game, found he couldn’t escape.

  “So, he yells ‘Stop!’ and ‘Let me go!’ And then what?” Richard, juggling props, had lost his place in the script.

  “That’s the cue for more snow.” I marked my script. It looked like I was going to have a busy foot, twitching the net to make a blizzard. It would probably take a second person to pull the sleigh and manage the lights.

  NARRATOR: The great sleigh slipped along faster and faster. The wind whipped at Kay’s cheeks and tore his hat away.

  “How do we manage the hat?” he asked.

  “I’ll put a string on it.”

  He laughed. “Which one-man-band did you hire to do all this?”

  “I have an idea it’s going to be me.” It was true. When it came to special effects, everyone expected me to do magic. And I loved figuring out the effects, along with the scenery and props to go with them.

  “You could get a second job at Preservation Hall.”

  “My first job already takes up all my second-job time.”

  NARRATOR: All at once, the flurries cleared and the sleigh drew to a halt. A tall figure rose slowly from its high seat. Snowflakes glittered on her crown, and a diamond flashed from her cloak like ice. It was the Snow Queen.

  “That ought to sound scarier. Richard? If I don’t get to the market this minute, I’ll be late for rehearsal with Thu and Martin.”

  “I thought Eddie was bringing food,” he said indistinctly, hunting under the table for Kay’s hat.

  “Vegetables, Richard. Last time I checked, you hadn’t turned vegetarian, and I know Sharon and Sam haven
’t.” I kissed him quickly and got out of there.

  When I got back with the groceries, Eddie and Richard were laying out the framing for a platform and ramp. They took the bags from my arms and heaved them onto the porch. With the steps gone, it wasn’t easy for me to get myself up. I decided to try to manage some of the housekeeping chores before rehearsal. Richard was going to have to take the clothes to the Laundromat—I was out of time.

  I wanted everything to be perfect for Sharon, wanted to show her I wasn’t a hippie like Mom said. I scrubbed angrily at a stain on the sink. Mom should try something like this for a change—try and see how perfect she could make things without the big new house in Magnolia Woods and the twice-a-week maid. Try working full time and then some, and taking classes too. I’d like to see her try living with a man who woke up with battle nightmares night after night. Try being pregnant—well, she did that, twice. Probably she wished she’d quit after once. I slapped the dishcloth on the counter.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Richard asked behind me. I hadn’t heard him come in.

  “Mom thinks we’re hippies.”

  “Why that in particular? I mean, we don’t use drugs or any of the rest of it. Aren’t hippies passé anyway?”

  “Mom doesn’t know that.”

  “Guess not. But why hippies? We’re serious artists. We don’t do anything but work.”

  “She doesn’t think it’s work.”

  “Hell, in that case, let’s get her down here to move scenery. If she thinks it isn’t work, she’ll have a ball.”

  Picturing my mother as a stagehand made me laugh so hard, I collapsed into a chair.

  “That’s what you call serious?” I gasped.

  “No, but I’m glad you can see the funny side. I hate to see you quarrel with your folks. I wish now I hadn’t been so self-righteous with my parents. They were wrong about a lot of things, but I was too, and so what? I wish Mama was going to be around to see the baby.”

  A flood of relief took me by surprise. He wanted his mother to see Jamie. “Could you make up with them?” I suggested.

  “I don’t think so. Sergeant Johnson made it clear that I was dishonorably discharged from the family.”

  “But what happened?” I pushed out the other chair for him to sit down and talk to me, but he ignored it. He got out the laundry bag and went into the bathroom.

  His voice came muffled around the door. “I joined the March on Washington.”

  “The one where they threw their medals over the fence?” I called.

  “I didn’t have any medals to throw. But yes, that one.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “I never talk about the war. Somehow it dirties everything it touches.”

  “Even the protests?”

  He came back dragging the bag. “Even that. I can’t explain it too well, Kathy. I finally quit trying.”

  “I can see where your marching on Washington might bother your dad. Do you wish you hadn’t done it?”

  “No way,” he said, without a second’s hesitation. “But I wish I hadn’t been such a sanctimonious little shit when I told him. That’s what I mean by dirties. I was being a warrior. I had to win.” He opened a cabinet and took out the box of detergent.

  “Do you think your mom would care, with a grandchild on the way?”

  “Maybe not,” he said, pausing in the doorway with the bag of dirty clothes. “But there’s another angle. Racism doesn’t work all one way, you know. They’re not exactly going to be happy that I chose a white girl.” He went out, careful to keep the screen from banging behind him.

  My shock about what he’d said was followed by another shock at my own attitude. If I don’t have even a little bit of racism myself, why did I think they’d be glad to have me in their family? Mom may not be as far away as I thought. Maybe some of her is right here in my head.

  QUEEN (to KAY): Why are you afraid? (embraces KAY and kisses him)

  KAY: Why is it so cold? My heart is a lump of ice! Am I dying? (pause) But wait! Now I’m not cold anymore. (touches SNOW QUEEN’S face) You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  ~ 19 ~

  February 1975

  San Pedro

  Lacey

  Kathy was nervous about handling the office by herself. “What if there’s a bid?” she asked.

  “I’m only going for a week,” I said. “There isn’t anything right now, and if something does come up, they’ll be doing the estimating on it for days. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Where are you and Willis going?”

  “New Orleans. We decided to go to Mardi Gras.” I didn’t mention that I was planning to see her friends.

  Just the same, she looked startled. She opened her mouth and then shut it again without a word. After an awkward couple of seconds, she excused herself and went to the restroom. When she got back, I pretended I hadn’t noticed a thing.

  The day before I left, she crawfished around the subject again. “I thought you didn’t like Carnival?”

  “I don’t. I usually spend most of the time with my aunt. That and making sure Antoine’s and Brennan’s haven’t slipped in the past year. This time, it’s our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, so Willis is calling it a second honeymoon.”

  Since Willis had brought up the issue of lying and sneaking, I was trying to be more aware of cutting corners. I hadn’t exactly reformed overnight, though. If anything, I was mastering the art of truthful lying, for want of a better term. Using the literal facts to misrepresent the situation, like I was doing now. In my book, that was even worse.

  Kathy relaxed a little. She even tried to cheer me up. “Oh, a second honeymoon! Neat! Did you get some pretty clothes?”

  “Yeah—a glamorous new umbrella and some sexy galoshes,” I said, pretending a sour attitude. Actually, I had bought a few things. If Willis wanted a second honeymoon, I was ready to be the bride.

  “Lacey?”

  “Uh-huh?” I came back from my daydreams about what Willis would say when he saw me in my new things.

  “Well, I don’t mean to be too personal or anything . . . .” She didn’t finish.

  “But?” Her expression was so troubled, I just wanted to hug her like a little girl.

  “Lacey, how do you make a marriage work out right?” Her voice was low, so no one would overhear.

  I sighed. “Kathy, there has been more BS talked about that one subject than any other I know. Lately, seems like everyone thinks you have to not hold in your feelings. So, what you read is that the right way to do a marriage is to yell every time you get mad. And then, guess what? It doesn’t work.”

  “What would you do if the other person had a lot of problems?”

  “Get him to get help.”

  “What if he wouldn’t?”

  “You’d probably have to leave him. No way a woman can do a relationship on her own. A man either, but it’s the women who think they ought to.”

  She nodded without saying anything.

  “You can’t stay with someone who’s not good to you, Kathy,” I told her. “You’re sure to have your differences, but you both should be happy most of the time. And any man who raises his hand to you, well, he’s not much of a man.”

  The phone rang. “Giannini Construction, good afternoon,” I said brightly, my eyes on Kathy.

  She looked like she was close to tears. I wondered what kind of problems this Richard Johnson had. Enough to put him in Angola, anyway. And I wondered where Kathy’s mother had been while Kathy was finding out about him the hard way.

  ~ 20 ~

  May 1973

  New Orleans

  Kathy

  “So, what’s this one about?” asked Sam, turning the Snow Queen puppet over in his hands. I had done a good job on her. The “diamond” on her cloak was right over her heart. I planned to pick it up with a blue spotlight as she rose from the sleigh. I hoped it would make a cold flash.

  “It’s from The Snow Queen, a Hans Christi
an Andersen story,” I told him. “There’s a mirror that shows everything as evil. It breaks, and pieces fly all over the world. People who touch a piece of it see only the distortions the mirror shows them.”

  Sam laughed. “Sounds like my morning paper.”

  I went on. “The main characters are a boy named Kay and a girl named Gerda. A piece of the mirror gets in Kay’s eye, and another piece in his heart. He starts mistreating Gerda, then goes off with the beautiful Snow Queen.

  “The queen imprisons Kay in her snow palace and turns his heart to ice, but Gerda follows him to the ends of the earth—that’s how the story reads. And her tears wash the sliver out of his eye so he can see things again as they are. And she kisses him, and his heart melts and he comes back to life,” I told him.

  “Sounds like Snow White, except the gender roles are reversed.”

  “I guess it is, a little.”

  “Well, it’s always comforting to know someone will go to the ends of the earth for you,” Sharon said.

  The visit was going well—Sam and Sharon were fascinated with the puppets. Since they were staying in a hotel, they had no idea about Richard’s nightmares or the mornings when he seemed to have a piece of the Snow Queen’s mirror in his eye. With Sam and Sharon, he was charming, and part of the time I was sure he was acting. Good thing he can act well enough to pull this off. Wonder if his acting is going to make problems between us in the long run. I put it out of my mind.

  “What’s this one?” Sam picked up a marionette in the dress of the early nineteenth century.

  “That’s Jean Lafitte,” Richard told him. “You know, the pirate. Lafitte’s blacksmith shop, and all that. He’s part of the Louisiana History segment.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “A pirate? Isn’t this supposed to be about peace?” He investigated the puppet’s drooping mustache and elegant clothes, careful not to mess it up.

  “Oh, it is,” said Richard. “Because Lafitte was a complicated fellow. First of all, he didn’t do anything violent himself.”