Mayor Ida Hamilton Walker herself took the phone and made it very clear that if my cousin didn’t take back that fence and refund my money, she’d have her daughter-in-law Teresa represent me in a lawsuit against him. She also informed him, right then and there, that I’d be throwing darts this year for the Mossy Creekites. “She’s one of us now.”
A curious heat rose to my eyes, and a tightness gripped my throat. I looked across the room at Bunkin. As if I’d called his name aloud, he met my gaze. The worry lines were gone from his forehead, I noticed, and his mouth was turned up at the ends—as much as it could turn up with all those wires clamping his jaw shut. The message in his eyes couldn’t have been clearer.
We’re home, Tammy Jo. Home.
That wondrous realization sent the sun rising in my chest, warming me with happiness. And pride: pride in my husband for his quiet wisdom, pride in my boys for their loving natures, pride in my community for being the kind that stands staunchly behind its own.
I realize I’m getting prideful again, but suddenly I’m not afraid.
For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid.
Oh, I reckon that sooner or later fate will give me another big ol’ shove. But there’s just something about being a Mossy Creekite that cushions even the hardest fall.
A WMOS Community Announcement
Bert Lyman here, for the Mossy Creek Dramatic Arts Guild. WMOS Radio, The Voice Of Greater Mossy Creek, is a proud sponsor of the production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Mossy Creek Theater. Tickets are still available for opening night next week. Guild publicity manager Maggie Hart promises some amazing surprises. Our own Anna Rose Lavender is directing and starring as Titantic, Queen of the Fairies. What? What, Honey? Excuse me folks, while I confer with my wife over at the station’s engineering control board, which doubles as our kitchen. Huh, Honey? Oh! Sorry. Folks, that’s Titania. Not Titanic. I guess you can say Anna Rose is playing a fairy queen who’s not going down with her ship . . . ouch! Honey, you promised not to throw biscuits when I’m on the air. . . .
ANNA ROSE
Life’s a stage, Shakespeare said. But some stages of life are more joyful than others.
ANNA ROSE
Bottoms Up
“Line!”
I stared at Waylon Sansbury, wondering how a man could forget lines he’d known perfectly only the day before. This was our big love scene. I disengaged myself from his arms and stepped back. “Waylon, how is it possible that you can’t remember your lines?”
“You’re real intense these days, Anna Rose. You make me nervous.”
“Shakespeare deserves intensity, Waylon.” I heard a chuckle and glanced toward my grinning daughter, Hermia, whom I call Mia. She was no stranger to my perfectionism, but she loved me, anyway. I nodded to Darva, our assistant stage manager. “Let’s try it, again.”
She cued Waylon and waited while he hesitantly practiced his line several times. Then, as if launching himself off a front loader at a construction site, he threw his arms around me again and nearly knocked me down with an awkward kiss.
I staggered back. Nothing. The stage chemistry that had made us a good romantic pair for A Midsummer Night’s Dream had simply vanished. I was intimidating him. And we had only one week before opening.
“Okay, let’s just take a break,” I said and stepped aside. “Please, everybody, let’s try to concentrate. Opening night is looming, and the drama critic from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is going to be in the audience for final dress rehearsal. What he says will either give us a boost or kill us. And, believe me folks, we need the ticket money—it’s not enough for our own Creekites to support us—we know we can count on them—but we need to draw people from the surrounding counties and down in Alanta’s northern suburbs, too. It’s a long time until we can get more grant money. So relax, prepare, and I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
“They’ll certainly relax after that speech, Mom,” Mia said, chuckling again, and dropped a kiss on my cheek. “I’m going to spend the night with Darva. We’ll work on my lines together.”
“Okay. But that working on lines better not include driving down to Atlanta to party at some Buckhead nightclub. You need your rest for the performance.”
She smiled. “This isn’t Broadway, Mom.”
“It is, to me.”
“I know.” She hugged me, ignored my scowl, and grabbed Darva by the arm. “Let’s go party all night! . . . Just kidding.”
“Beat it,” I growled.
Interesting twist on life, I thought as I watched my beautiful daughter leave. Hermia playing Hermia. My own daughter was playing the part that I’d played nearly twenty years ago when my heart had been permanently wrenched from my chest. I thought I’d die, but then she was born. When I saw her the first time, nothing else mattered. Not much anyway. There was still a vacancy, but Mia and my work usually filled the void.
Usually.
Directing and starring in this play had made me more depressed than I’d felt in years. I knew the reason, but couldn’t do anything about it. In fact, I’d chosen A Midsummer’s Night Dream as Mossy Creek’s reunion year production to challenge myself to forget the past. So far, it hadn’t worked.
I watched my cast members dash off toward the tiny cubbyholes that served as dressing rooms. As usual, they’d head over to The Naked Bean for a cup of coffee and discuss the rehearsal. Waylon lagged behind.
“Is something else wrong, Waylon?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just never acted in a real theater with paying customers before and I’m getting the willies, I reckon.”
I smiled, remembering my own stage fright back in my years at Mossy Creek High before I settled confidently into my position as the lead actress in every play and musical the Fighting Rams Theater Club put on. I was only a junior when the school burned, but I’d starred in a dozen productions by then. I patted Waylon on the back. “Don’t worry. Opening night is the best cure in the world for the willies.”
In his case, I wasn’t sure. I’d taken a risk, signing a novice to play Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was a pivotal role. Waylon, who owned Mossy Creek Heavy Equipment—Sales and Rentals, wasn’t my first pick. In fact, there had been no real first pick. Of everybody who’d auditioned, he’d been the most impressive. But Waylon was a lot better with bulldozers than with Shakespeare.
“Maybe I’d feel better if I could wear a tractor cap for the show,” he said.
I smiled. “Get some rest tonight. You’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
He gave me a thumbs up and wandered off stage. I heard him mumbling his lines as he headed for the dressing rooms. He got them wrong. My confidence evaporated, and I groaned. Replacing Waylon at this late date would be disastrous. Impossible.
Well, more disastrous than letting him continue in the role. I sat down on the edge of the stage’s lovingly scuffed wooden floor, then froze. I had an inkling I was being watched. It had happened several times recently.
I squinted into the darkness. It was almost impossible to see anything beyond the first couple of rows. I felt a sharp sense of life out there. Except for that presence, I was alone in the theater. I could almost feel someone breathing in concert with me. Strangely enough, it wasn’t frightening.
“You’re losing your mind,” I whispered aloud. “It’s the reunion year. And the play. And the memories.” I leapt up and hurried backstage to my dressing room, changed quickly, and headed out the side door.
Maybe I was being haunted by the Mossy Creek Theater ghost. The Phantom of the Mossy, we jokingly called him. Some folks said it was the ghost of Noah Widdington, the builder of the theater. He’d been a man ahead of his time, according to everything I’d heard. In 1922 he’d built the small, beautiful theater on the south end of the square, organized a theatrical society, and directed everything from the classics to vaudeville to the current Broadway shows. The theater had been a marvel of its time. And still was.
My usual encounters with Noah’s ghost, if it was hi
m, were confined to a sense of movement or a misplaced prop. Usually, finding that item or the search for it brought me to a better understanding of the play in production at the time. Noah was still directing.
But this time the visitor didn’t feel like Noah. This presence was very much alive.
As I stepped into the sweet, hot summer night, I inhaled deeply. Mountain air can be intoxicating sometimes. I turned on the sidewalk to stare back at the darkened Theater. From outside, nothing seemed strange or out of the ordinary.
I suddenly felt a strong urge to sit by the creek and think. I strode down a knoll behind the theater and headed into a small park lit only by a gentle street lamp. I’d loved the little park behind the theater as a child; it was a place where the outside world couldn’t intrude. A place where my father’s drinking couldn’t hurt me. It was my refuge and, for some strange reason, I desperately needed that refuge now.
Yes, I had a lot on my mind. For one thing, my very best friend in all the world, Maggie Hart, had become increasingly secretive lately, and I couldn’t understand why. Every time I visited her shop, she seemed to draw up in a knot. At first, I thought she was still adjusting to her mother moving out and just didn’t want to talk about it. But we’d always talked about our family problems, before. So what was up?
Sighing, I watched a fat moon rise golden over the mountains as I picked my way carefully down the bank to my favorite spot along Mossy Creek. The roots of a mammoth oak cradled me as I sank down into fragrant, wild thyme. I kicked off my shoes and dangled my feet in the water, as I had done so often in the past. The cool water rushing over my toes soothed me, and some of the tension floated away with the gurgling of the creek as it tumbled over time-worn stones.
Again, I sensed a presence. But as before there was a familiarity about it, as if to comfort and protect me. As I leaned against the old tree trunk, I closed my eyes and dozed as if I were a child, again. I’d dreamed I’d seen fairies once when I’d run away from home. Hundreds of them. All flitting about, soft and pastel, translucent living beings that had come to me when I needed a friend.
I dreamed now, as an adult. What was that twinkle just past the gnarled cedar? It pulsed with life, and a strong sense of magic enfolded me. The pulsing light grew stronger and was soon joined by others. Dozens of them hovering just out of sight, as if they were suddenly shy. I hardly breathed for fear of frightening them away. Ever since I’d seen them, that sultry summer night so long ago, I’d wondered about them. Was it just another dream?
I let myself drift back twenty years to the 1981 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was just a teenager then, eager and naïve and crazy in love with the best-looking troublemaker in the county, a hellraiser with a good heart and a wrong-side-of-the-tracks charisma that stunned people even then. When I coaxed him into taking a part in the play, everyone said it was either a miracle or a big mistake. He’d never acted before in his life, but when people saw him on stage with me they knew they’d never forget him.
Beau Belmont.
Those few weeks were the best and worst times of my life. The critical acclaim we received was unheard of. Every little newspaper in North Georgia reviewed the play and lauded our performances as ‘the most passionate performance of Lysander and Hermia ever witnessed.’ After the last performance, Beau and I slipped away to another county, got married, and plotted our future in the world outside Mossy Creek. There was only one problem—he was eighteen, and I was only sixteen, still legally under my father’s control.
When Dad discovered what we’d done, he threatened to kill Beau. He had the marriage annulled and locked me in my room. He swore I’d stay there for the rest of my so-called childhood. Very few Creekites liked my father, but they didn’t disagree with his reaction in my case—after all, Beau was considered nothing but bad news around the local girls. Dad even stirred up such righteous wrath that Battle Royden ordered Beau out of the county for his own safety and—not unkindly, but firmly—escorted Beau down to Bigelow and put him on a bus headed west.
“Come back in two years when she’s legal,” the old chief told Beau. “And I swear to you I’ll walk her down the aisle to you, myself. But come back before then, and I’ll throw you under the jail.”
So Beau didn’t have much choice, and neither did I. Being young and stupid, I was terribly hurt when he left town and felt deserted. Especially when I realized a couple of months later that I was pregnant. Yes, that’s an old saw of a predicament, and it went about the way you’d expect. I slipped away from home with nothing but one suitcase and Maggie’s help. She took care of me until Mia was born and helped me get an office job with a theater company out of state. I wrote to Beau and told him I never wanted to see him, again. And being so young, so stupid, and so wounded, I also told him I’d had a baby by another man.
It was years before I came back home to Mossy Creek. My dad was dead by then, and I wanted Mia to have a real hometown. Her mother’s hometown, and her father’s. She didn’t know her father was Beau. I’d made up a name and said he died in a motorcycle accident. God help me.
Beau began to show up as a supporting actor in action-adventure films. Those dangerous good looks of his combined with an expression in his eyes that said he’d never let himself love anyone again eventually made him a star. He hit the big time a few years ago with a film called Top Force that broke all box office records.
Since then, his name had been connected with every starlet in Hollywood at one time or another. When he never married any of his leading ladies, some of the tabloids speculated that he must be gay. I knew better. And I knew that Beau wasn’t the heartless ladies’ man everyone believed him to be. Even when we were young, I understood the difference between love and lust. We had both, but the love meant much more.
So here I was, twenty years later—dreaming of midsummer night fairies and loving Beau, again.
* * * *
When I opened my eyes, dawn sunlight was filtering through the leaves, sending sparkles of silver dancing over the creek. Appalled, I sat up and looked around wildly. What must Mia think? That her mother had been kidnapped by ghosts and fairies? That I’d lost my mind?
The fresh scent of thyme blended with cedar greeted me. A pathway of cedar branches led from the creek back up the worn track I’d followed the night before. There’d been no wind, so I couldn’t understand what happened to place the tiny branches in the path. My feet padded softly over the trail as I slowly entered reality again, sort of a soft green tunnel from the ethereal to the commonplace.
Suddenly, I had to see Maggie. Folks say confession is good for the soul. I needed to confess. Or, at least, talk about what had happened last night and all those years ago. Maybe she could offer some insight. At least she would listen and be non-judgmental.
I hurried through the woods, across the square and through the park. I realized it was too early for a social call but decided to take a chance. When I reached her flower-and-vine draped house, I took the porch steps two at the time and then rapped on the door. “Maggie, open up!”
A healthy dose of her tea and common sense would make my life seem much better.
“Anna Rose?” The door flew open and Maggie, dressed in a cozy nightshirt, stared past me briefly before hugging me. “Where have you been? I called last night after rehearsal and wanted to—”
“I’ve been at the creek all night. I fell asleep. I dreamed of fairies and Beau. Maggie, what’s happening to me? Why did I pick that damned play to do in the reunion year? Reunions. What do reunions mean to me? Heartbreak and loss and missed chances and lies and—”
“Fairies? You saw fairies down at the creek?”
“Don’t look at me that way. It’s not the first time.”
“Let’s have a cup of strong tea. Are you drunk?”
“Maggie, you know I don’t drink and—”
“Just an expression.” She grabbed a cup, measured some loose tea into a tea ball, and poured some boiling water over it. “Give that a m
inute. It’s good for you, especially when you’re overwrought. Now, start at the beginning. Slowly.”
We sat down on the plush sofa. I heard a noise upstairs. I groaned. “Oh, Maggie, I shouldn’t have come by. Tag’s upstairs, and he must think I’m the rudest person—”
Tag pulled up in Maggie’s driveway at that moment. I stared out a window as he climbed from his car carrying a take-out bag from Mama’s All You Can Eat Café. Maggie leapt up as he bounded up the porch steps then shoved her front door open with his shoulder. Maggie made little shushing motions with her hands. “Ham and biscuits and hot buttered grits, Magster, as promised—”
He saw me and stopped. Maggie pressed her lips together. I stared at their sneaky expressions. Something or someone made another noise upstairs.
“Maggie, did your mother move back home?” I asked.
“No. It’s . . . It’s somebody you . . . you don’t know.”
For the first time in our friendship, I knew she was lying to me. “Okay, Maggie. Tag, you too. Confess. What’s going on?”
“Going on? Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve both got that funny little pinched look over your eyes. What gives?”
“I’m getting ready to do a massage. That’s it. A massage. For somebody you don’t know.”
“At dawn?”
“He wanted the earlybird special. Look, Anna Rose, it’s not what you think. You’ll see. Soon. I promise. Now, I need to go and change clothes for my . . . appointment.”
She waved goodbye, then rushed upstairs. I heard the thump as she knocked hard on the door of Millicent’s old bedroom. “Sir, I’m ready to give you that massage! Hope you’re dressed! My friend, Anna Rose, is downstairs, and I wouldn’t want to scream and upset her! Anna Rose, that is!”
Someone opened the door, and Maggie disappeared inside. Tag and I stood downstairs gaping at each other. Me, shrewd but astonished. Him, awkward.
He held out the bag from Mama’s and cleared his throat. “Ham biscuit?”
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 20