Premiere: A Love Story

by Ewens, Tracy

  An intimate story of a father and son, the father’s suicide, and the conversations they have after his death. The play touched on so many things she was sure Peter wished he had told his father or vice versa. It was a young man coming to grips with his father’s death and learning to let go. Sad, intelligent, and funny at the same time. Sam saw it as true confirmation Peter was an exceptional writer. She and Brian didn’t go backstage. Brian didn’t even know she knew the playwright at the time. Sam never saw Peter while she was in New York. Looking back on it after she got home, Sam realized she simply wanted to be near him. Stupid, since he clearly didn’t want her, but the need to connect on any level drew her to the theater.

  “Right. Wait, how is it I owe you food? I kicked your ass,” Peter said as he stood and pushed his chair in.

  He was over the shock and now wondering if Brian worked out all day. Were they dating? Grady would have said something, right? Oh, wait, was this the guy Grady said she broke up with?

  “Brian, is it?” Peter asked and shook his hand again.

  “Great meeting you. Enjoy the rest of your lunch. And, hey, thanks for coming to see my play. If I’d known you were there, we may have met sooner.”

  There was an awkward pause as Brian tried to figure out if Peter was talking to him or Sam. Peter then looked at her.

  “Sam, enjoy . . . Brian.”

  With that, he turned and walked away with Grady. Sam stood, now alone with Brian, feeling . . . she couldn’t figure out what she felt. Was he mad or jealous? He didn’t have a right to be either. Why would she have seen him in New York? Did he really want to get into that mess? She all but had the argument in her head and then sat back down with Brain who was somehow much less appealing.

  Peter let Grady choose two seats at the bar. Peter’s heart was still too quick. He was angry, but he wasn’t sure at whom or for what. While he could hear Grady rambling something as he looked at the menu, Peter’s brain didn’t process one word. She’d been in New York, and she’d seen his play. She’d been in the theater and it was as if they were strangers. That thought seemed the source of his anger, but at the same time, what did he expect? He had taken responsibility for leaving her a long time ago. He knew the pain she must have gone through: he went through it too. Somewhere in the mess of his thoughts, the anger eased, and his mouth curved. She’d been there, two years after he had torn her heart, she’d been in New York, albeit with that Adonis, but it didn’t matter unless they were now dating again. He’d get it out of Grady later.

  She could have stayed away, ignored his work, but she didn’t. Grady was now staring at him.

  “What the hell, man? Are you going to order or sit there with that stupid grin on your face?”

  Peter ordered, but the smile stayed, he couldn’t help it. It felt like hope and hope was so much more than he had expected.

  Chapter Eight

  Two days later, Sam was cataloging some final props while Carmen, the props mistress, looked like she was about to lose her mind. Even beyond how any normal woman who was seven months pregnant with her first child and simultaneously bringing up a major production with an out-of-town creative team might look. She waddled over to her main prop table with what appeared to be a bunch of dried flowers. Throwing them down on the table, she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and then rested an arm on her belly. Sam was standing off stage and caught Carmen’s eye.

  “Tough morning already?” Sam asked with a hesitant smile.

  “You have no idea. Do you honestly want to know?”

  “Um, yes? Is that the right answer?”

  “Well, you know the scene in the second act with the oleanders?”

  Sam pursed her lips because she had been given Act II last night and tried to think back to where there were oleanders.

  “The one . . . oh, I need to sit down.”

  Carmen eased into the chair, took a sip of water, and began again.

  “The outdoor party scene that we blocked a couple of weeks ago. It’s after the father’s passing.”

  “Oh, right. His birthday?”

  “Yes, Sally is on the other side of the oleanders, the bushes. It’s the part with his mom. Such a sad scene, remember?”

  Carmen continued to explain her dilemma once Sam nodded. Sam did remember. How could she forget? Phillip, Oh please we might as well use the real names, she thought. Peter hadn’t wanted a party. His father had killed himself six months earlier, so, understandably, Peter had not been in the party mood. His mother, on the other hand, had finished having the house repainted and wanted to throw him a surprise party. Sam gathered the courage and pleaded with April Everoad, arguing that it was a bad idea. Sam’s mom and Grady’s mom, who was April’s best friend, had both chimed in and suggested something quiet, but April had been drunk since her husband died, and she wanted a party. She invited half of Pasadena to wish Peter a happy birthday. Sam had tried to help as much as she could. She told Peter about it before he was surprised and he asked her and Grady not to attend. That’s how Peter wanted it, so they stayed home.

  Grady lived right next door to Peter, so he covertly checked over the fence to see how things were going. He called Sam once the party got started and told her she needed to “get over here right away. He looks like a fucking zombie.”

  Sam was there in twenty minutes, looked over the wall of oleanders, and Grady was right. Peter looked lost and numb. Her heart broke again for him as he sat on the periphery watching his mother smile and serve drinks to the guests and to herself, of course. Looking at him, so lost, Sam felt the need to do something, so she threw pecan shells over the fence until she got his attention. The other guests were so busy kissing each other’s asses they never even noticed. Peter moved a chair over right in front of his side of the oleanders, and they talked. Well, Sam talked and he listened.

  It took her a while to break him out of the survival trance he had put himself in. She and Grady spent the rest of the party reading from a dirty joke book the senator kept in the bathroom. It was juvenile, but they were willing to do anything to keep Peter away from his pain. Sam or Grady would read a joke and Peter would pretend to cough as he laughed. Aside from a brief absence when he had to go cut the cake, they sat there for hours. Grady eventually had to leave for a date, but Sam stayed and talked Peter through what was, as Carmen said, a very sad scene. At the end of the party, as the caterers were cleaning up, Peter reached through the oleanders and took her hand.

  “Sam, thanks.”

  “Anytime. Great party . . . fabulous, just fabulous, darling.” They both laughed and he squeezed her hand.

  Thinking about it now, she remembered noticing warmth. If his touch stirred something more than friendship back then, she didn’t recognize it at the time.

  “Sam . . . seriously, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’m so . . .”

  He let go of her hand and was gone.

  “Sam? Hello!”

  Carmen was now standing again.

  “Oh, Carmen. Sorry, I was listening. I was thinking . . .”

  “That’s all right, it’s insane, right? I mean why can’t Spencer have Gordy shine little pink lights on the bushes so they look like oleanders? And, and why is it props job to fix a set design screwup? I need to glue every flower on that plain green bush, wall . . . whatever the hell it is. How am I supposed to even reach? And who cares if they’re actual oleanders? If they screwed up, can’t it just be a plain bush wall?”

  While Sam had not been paying attention to Carmen’s tirade, because she was lost in memory once again, she gathered from her last comment that she would need to glue flowers on a plain bush wall to make it look like a wall of oleanders for the audience.

  “Carmen, it’s fine. Deep breaths. I’ll help you with this. I’ll even do it myself. You’re right, you’ll never be able to reach or stand for that long in your condition. You concentrate on the place settings for Act II, and I’ll glue the flowers tomorrow. Okay?”

&nb
sp; Carmen started to cry.

  “Oh, no don’t. It’s fine. Everything is going great. . .”

  “I’m so sorry to drop all of this on you, Sam. I’m really so . . .”

  Carmen rubbed her belly.

  “Pregnant. Carmen, you’re beyond pregnant.”

  Sam walked over and put her hand on Carmen’s shoulder.

  “Give yourself a break.”

  She handed her a paper towel from the prop table for her tears. Carmen rested her head on Sam and sighed.

  Julie came blowing in from the green room like a dust storm. Hands filled with stacks of paper and her tea dispenser thing dangling from one finger. She plopped everything down. Always the sympathetic one, she said, “Oh Christ, hormones again?”

  “Good morning to you too. And my hormones are . . .”

  Carmen broke off and continued in Spanish. She did this a lot when she was angry, and Julie usually made her angry. They were different women to begin with and the fact that Julie was from New York made her that much more abrasive in Carmen’s eyes.

  “Julie,” Sam said, patting Carmen on the shoulder, “Carmen and I were talking, and I’m going to work on turning the large green wall into oleanders tomorrow. She has so many other things to work on, and her crew’s busy with the outside flower boxes, so I thought I’d help.”

  Julie looked at Carmen just as she said something under her breath.

  “Did she insult me in Spanish?”

  She then began doing a million things at once around her podium while Sam assured her that Carmen was really tired and would be fine after a little rest.

  “Okay, yeah, that’s fine if you’re sure you don’t mind helping with the oleanders. I don’t see why Gordon can’t project damn flowers on the bush wall with his lighting scheme, but since I can barely get him to light the stage correctly, I decided not to argue in this morning’s design meeting.”

  She huffed and looked at Sam. Sam was definitely starting to realize that everything, in Julie’s eyes, was poor Gordy’s fault. Must have been some breakup. Sam nodded and with that Julie turned, put on her headset, and was gone: lost in her world of shouted orders and professed disappointment.

  Chapter Nine

  The next day Sam walked into the theater prepared for oleander blossoms. She was ready to pick up a glue gun. It still struck her as ironic that she was adding finishing touches to a set of Peter’s backyard for a replay of her childhood. It was surreal actually. She opened the doors, letting the morning sunlight spill into the darkened theater. As the doors quietly closed behind her, it took a couple of minutes for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she stared at the stage stunned. Her stomach, empty of the breakfast she skipped, began to turn. The stage was lit cool blue and there were plants everywhere: a weeping willow, bamboo, and birds of paradise. Billowing green silk covered the stage. My God, he’s going to show everyone, Sam thought. She had hoped, based on what she’d read so far, that the play would stop just short of this scene from Peter’s life, her life.

  Overhead the sound guys were testing different levels of pounding thunder. Stagehands repositioned plants and fussed with the set, adjusting the details on one of the best days of her life. Sam’s heart raced into what felt like an anxiety attack. She had never had one, but she’d heard about them, and this seemed pretty close. She slid into a seat in the last row of the theater.

  The stage was set up as the Huntington and it was clearly going to rain; it couldn’t be any other scene. Peter was going to show all of Pasadena—and then most likely the entire country—something so private, intimate. Sam closed her eyes and tried to will the memory away, but it was too strong.

  Peter and Sam had been celebrating a victory over their medieval history professor. He was truly crazy, and his final exam had 300 questions. They had been studying for it since the first day of class and they had survived. Peter took Sam to lunch and then to their favorite place, the Huntington Library and Gardens, alone. Grady still wasn’t home from Stanford, and Peter had said he didn’t want to wait. It was the two of them, and it was a perfect day. They felt like a weight had been lifted. They were finally going to graduate. By the time they got through the exhibits in the galleries, the afternoon light descended diffusely through huge clouds. It didn’t yet look like rain, so they decided to go through the gardens quickly and see as much as they could. Sam remembered feeling exhilarated, running through each region like school kids on a field trip. She had slipped on the grass.

  My God, please make it stop, she begged, closing her eyes and clutching the seat, but the images kept flooding her mind.

  Peter took her hand. They were running toward the bamboo forest, when it began to pour. Sheets of rain soaked them instantly as they entered the forest. There was nowhere to go, they looked at each other and began to laugh. They stood drenched, on the bridge, wiping water from their faces, looking up at the massive bamboo that seemed to disappear into the clouds. Sam shivered, Peter ran his hands up her arms, met her eyes, and that was all it took. Everything crashed like the thunder above. Peter never hesitated. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Her fingers found his hair, their bodies connected, and they lost control. Peter’s lips were cold, and his mouth was so warm as one kiss melted into the other. He pulled back for an instant to look around and then lifted Sam up on the bridge railing. She wrapped her body around him as if her life depended on it. It was—continues to be—the most passionate, desperate moment of her life. Suddenly Sam knew she had been waiting a very long time for his touch.

  They could not get close enough. It was crazy and wonderful at the same time. Eyes still closed, Sam now touched her hand to her aching chest. She remembered every second as if it had just happened. It all felt so natural with Peter. There wasn’t a beat of awkwardness. It was as if they anticipated each other’s moves, and there was a flow she’d never experienced with another man. Their clothes clung, tongues twisting, the steam huffed from their mouths as the cold rain tried in vain to extinguish what had been building their entire lives. Time slowed, and Sam noticed everything about Peter’s face, his hands, his body. His eyes were the most exquisite bursts of green as he slipped his body into hers and began to move. They were suspended, inside of each other and grasping to stay right where they were forever. Peter’s face was buried in her neck and Sam kissed his shoulder, as the rain began to slow. They held on, exhausted, having given everything to one another. Running back to Peter’s car that night, she was soaked and happy. Genuinely, down to the bone, happy and lucky. She had always loved him, and now it would be much more.

  Sam’s heart hurt, sitting in the theater and going back to that day. She could still feel his lips touch hers for the first time. Still feel the instant they . . . the look in his eyes as he slipped over the edge with her. Isn’t that insane? she thought. Four years later and countless talks with myself and I’m right back there in his arms. . . .

  “It’s not the whole thing,” Peter whispered as he took the seat next to her.

  Startled out of her memory, Sam’s eyes flew open.

  “What?”

  It barely came out of her mouth. She recoiled from him as if anticipating the pain all over again.

  “Easy. It’s not what you think. It’s not the whole scene.”

  “Not, not what I think . . . what was I thinking? What is this? I didn’t see this in Act II.”

  “It’s toward the middle of Act III. We’re working it out of sequence because of the sound. They need extra runs.”

  Sam tried to collect herself, but her heart would not stop.

  “Sam. Listen, you weren’t supposed to be here today and I thought we could work on . . .”

  “I wasn’t supposed to be here today? What the hell, you’re sneaking rehearsals now? Peter, it’s clearly your play. If you want to include things from our, from your past, that’s your business. I’m just a little . . .”

  “Sam, you know what this scene is, and I can’t tell the story without it. It was huge and
important to . . .”

  “Was it?”

  Peter saw the anger take over her face.

  “Huge and important?”

  “Of course it was. I never said that it wasn’t.”

  “No, you said it was a mistake, that you, what was it again? Oh yes, that ‘you should have left well enough alone.’ Do you remember? Is that in your play?”

  Peter remembered, he’d replayed his choice of words over and over for the past four years. He was young and stupid, and he’d long run out of excuses. He tried to touch her hand, even though he knew she would pull away. She did.

  “You left. You were my best friend, you made love to me, we were . . .”

  Sam felt lost all over again.

  “And then you were gone. How? Why does someone do that? If it was so important?”

  “Sam, I was young, we were young and I wanted more. It was a special day.”

  “Special?”

  She was embarrassed and could feel her face flush. Peter was looking at her with . . . was that pity?

  “Oh God, please don’t, special? Wow! Peter, do whatever you want with your play,” Sam said, getting out of the seat.

  “Show the whole thing.”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell everyone how Peter Everoad screwed Samantha Cathner in the rain on his way to his successful life in the big city. How he looked into her eyes, shaking, and told her he’d wanted to touch her like that for as long as he could remember.”

  Peter stood and instinctively reached for her. She pulled away.

  “Do whatever you need to do, but please don’t sit here and tell me it was ‘special’ because I don’t want to hear it. I obviously meant nothing to you. I was disposable. Or maybe somewhere in your screwed-up mind, you decided it was all too much for you. You, Peter, because after all it’s always about you, right? You must’ve needed some steam for your pitiful little self-satisfying story. And damn it.”