Acts of Love (47 page)

“No.”

“Oh, God, I wish Sydney would pay attention to New York. Well, for your information, Lucas Cameron is one of the world's top directors, and he asks every cast he works with to bring him their ideas, questions, problems, whatever, and
he pays attention to them.
He even gives out his private phone number so anyone can call him at home, anytime, to discuss the play. That doesn't sound like worry to me; it sounds like he's confident enough to listen to others. So is Jessica. She has powerful ideas of her own, but she wants to hear your ideas, too. Does anybody want to disagree with me on any of that?”

No one spoke.

“Where did you hear these rumors?” Jessica asked mildly, as if it were not really important, but as long as they were talking they might as well get it all out.

“Oh, well . . .” He was taken aback by her mildness. “Here and there, you know, nothing specific. . . .”

“Really? It sounded quite specific to me.”

“No  . . . more like fragments, you know, bits of conversations  . . . I may even have been mistaken, you know how noisy some parties are. . . . Jessica, I want to work with you.
I do see
the dynamics of this play; I admire what you've done so far and your casting has been brilliant. I don't want—”

“Okay, we've covered everything,” Hermione declared. She looked at Jessica. “Half an hour for lunch?”

“Yes. No more.”

“Back here in thirty minutes,” Hermione said to the cast. She watched them leave, then turned to Jessica. “ ‘Your casting has been brilliant,' ” she mimicked, and they burst out laughing. “But it's not really funny; we have to talk about this. While we eat. I did tell you I was bringing lunch, didn't I?” She dug into her canvas bag and brought out two sandwiches and a container of vegetable salad, a thermos, plastic plates and glasses, and a wedge of chocolate cake. “Mostly leftovers from a small dinner party. Dig in.”

“What is there to talk about?” Jessica asked.

“Closing the rehearsals. No visitors, nobody from the press, no more students. Just Dan, the production secretary when she starts next week, and the cast. That's it. I was thinking about this even before Whitbread made his little speech. It takes practice to be a director, you have to get your feet wet before you can swim and spread your wings before you can fly—good Lord, listen to me, I'm a stew of clichés today—anyway, you need time to make yourself the kind of director you want to be, and I'm not letting anybody butt in on that. You need space and privacy and you're going to get it.”

“How often is that done?” Jessica asked.

“Now and then.”

“But don't people always assume the worst when they're shut out of something?”

“They might.”

“And that could hurt advance ticket sales.”

“We've sold so many theater parties, I wouldn't worry about that.”

“You said that theater parties fill the house for the first two weeks. But you still need individual ticket sales or you won't have any kind of a run. You've got your own money in this, Hermione.”

“So do you. And you're right about ticket sales. But that's not what I want you to be thinking about right now. You just do the best job of directing that this town has ever seen; that's all I'm asking. Let me take care of everything else; you forget about it. Promise me you will.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that. Think about the play. Think about dinner. Think about Edward. Who, by the way, was strangely silent, don't you think? Not exactly a knight in shining armor coming to your rescue in that whole conversation.”

“Is that the conversation you've just asked me to forget?”

“Oh, my, tripped up. Okay, we won't talk about it. Or Edward. But I will say that he was good in rehearsal. He's studied the play and thought about it. Much to his credit.”

“Yes. Thank you for lunch. Would you look at this list I have for Dan and add anything of your own? I want to give it to him when he gets back, and we'll talk about it after rehearsal. And I have a props list here, and some suggestions for wardrobe, and, I didn't mention it this morning, but I do have some alternative sketches for the set. What would you think of one turntable with an apartment on each side? Then we could show both apartments at once or only one. I thought we might talk to Augie about it after rehearsals. Can you stay?”

“You know I can. It looks like you've been working night and day. No time for sleep.”

“I don't need a lot.”

Hermione saw her look up as Angela Crown came into the room. “Bad dreams if you do?” she asked.

“No. Just . . . too much thinking.”

“You know, Jessie, if I could make it easier for you, I would.”

“I know and I love you for it. But I'm fine. You worry about theater parties and I'll take care of me. You forget about it. Promise me you will.”

“Just like that.”

“Just like that.”

They laughed together. “Well, I won't promise, but I'll try not to harp on it. You'll work it out. You're good, you know: tough and smart. Can't beat that.”

Not so tough, Jessica thought later that night. She had spent an hour with Hermione and Augie after rehearsals, then gone over wardrobe designs until almost eight. By the time she left, she was tired and feeling lonely, wanting companionship. Not even conversation, she thought, just the presence of someone else. She had not spoken to Edward all day and she missed his lugubrious commentaries and the sadness in his face that eased a little when they were together.

But as she maneuvered through the evening traffic and found herself going faster as she approached Point Piper, she remembered that a letter from Luke would be waiting for her. There was always a letter. He wrote every night, around midnight in New York, and his letter arrived instantly, in Sydney's hot summer afternoon, while Jessica was at rehearsal. And there it would be when she walked in at seven or eight o'clock, face up on her fax machine: crisp white pages filled with his handwriting. She would put off the moment of reading them by taking Hope outside and letting her run on her extra-long leash, then pouring a glass of wine and settling herself in a deep armchair beside the windows. And finally she would begin to read, and imagine that he was with her in the silence of her crowded rooms, with Hope curled up at her side and the sky fading to ocher and amber above the city's skyline and the ceaseless traffic in the harbor below.

Dearest Jessica, no letter from you for a few days, but I know what a busy time it is when you're just beginning rehearsals. You didn't say yes or no about Kent's play, so I've sent it to you without the revisions; I thought you might have suggestions that would help us with the third act. Not right away, of course; only when you want to take a breather from
Journeys End.
Kent, being Kent, wants to plunge right in, cast the play, and work on the third act while we're in rehearsals, a write-as-you-go method that causes me to break out in a cold sweat. Sometimes I wish I were as young as he is, filled with that absolute certainty that everything is possible, by brute force if not by intellectual savvy. But then I think it's better to be where I am, almost forty-six and perfectly willing to go slowly if I'm not sure what lies around the next bend or if I haven't got a foolproof answer for the problem at hand. I suppose that's what I'm doing with you, isn't it? Kent probably would have been in Sydney long ago, courting you and keeping alive the magic of that week on your island. And maybe I should have done that. In fact, whenever I see an airline ticket office, I think how easy it would be to fly to your new city and ring your doorbell and, perhaps with Kent's cockiness, invite you to dinner. Now and then I'm sure you'd like that. But all the other times, I'm just as sure that you'd tell me to get out of the way, that you have a lot to prove and unless you prove it alone you'll never be at peace with yourself.

And maybe you'll never want me back in your life, because I mean New York to you and you're determined never to live here again. Maybe you've met someone else who loves you and has no connections with your past. Maybe you don't know what you'll do next; maybe you're waiting to see what's around the next bend or what the foolproof answers are for the problem at hand.

Whatever it is, I'll wait for you to find out. As long as you write to me and keep me a part of your life, I can wait. But perhaps you shouldn't wait too long; you may find me, if you ever come to look, grizzled, feeble and doddering. Though no less in love with you. Always, Luke.

“Let's try it again,” Jessica said the next day, “from Stan's entrance.” She stood up, as if that might give them a feeling of urgency, perhaps even of tension, since tension was what she was after in this scene and had not found, though they had rehearsed it ten times already that day and it was only midafternoon. The trouble was, the heat was so oppressive they were all wilting and it made it more difficult to concentrate. “I have an idea. Edward, try stopping in the doorway instead of coming straight into the room. You thought this was your son's apartment and you're so shocked when you recognize Helen that you literally can't move.”

“But how do I come in if he's blocking the door?” Nora asked.

“You don't have to, at least not right away. You start talking, right behind Stan; Helen hears your voice before she sees you. Then Stan comes in and you follow and the three of you look at each other for the first time in twenty years. Let's try it that way.”

“I like it,” Hermione said as Jessica sat down. “When did you think it up?”

“About two o'clock this morning.”

“Still keeping your late hours.”

“Yes.”
But some of those hours were spent reading a wonderful letter over and over, because it was hard to think about anything else.

Angela took her place on the couch and a moment later Edward simulated knocking on the door and opened it. “Rex, we're here—” He stopped, his breath coming out in an explosion, as if he had been socked in the stomach. His body seemed to draw into itself as he stared at Helen.

“Good, good,” Hermione whispered.

“Rex? Where's my boy?” Doris was asking, behind Stan. Hearing her voice, Helen jumped to her feet. “Stan, you're in my way; I want to see my boy!” Doris cried.

Stan took two jerky steps into the room, with Doris right behind, almost pushing him. Helen took a step back as the three of them looked at each other.

“Much better,” Jessica said. “How did that feel to the three of you?”

“Nice,” Nora said. “It seems more natural.”

“Angela?” Jessica asked.

“I don't see much difference from all the other ways we've been doing it, but it's okay.”

“One difference is that now we know you've never forgotten Doris's voice; it helps explain a lot that follows. Now I want all of you—Whit, this includes you—to act out what you were doing before you came on stage.”

They stared at her. “What?” Whitbread said at last.

“Make up lines, make up stage business, whatever works for you. I want to see where you were and what you were doing just before you came into the apartment. Angela, that means where you were and what you were doing
in
the apartment before the others arrived.”

“Why?” Angela asked.

“Because your life doesn't begin the minute you step onto the stage. You're a whole person and the action on stage is
in between
other parts of your life. You're always coming from somewhere and when you exit you're going somewhere. If you can't feel that, nothing you do on stage will be truthful.”

“I've heard that talked about,” Angela said, “but
acting it
 . . . I mean, why go through all that?”

“Because I'm asking you to. Whit, will you start?”

Slowly, agonizingly, each of them began to invent dialogue and action. “I don't know,” Whitbread muttered. “I really have no idea what you're getting at.”

Jessica sighed. “This is what I'm getting at.” She took her cane and walked to the makeshift stage. “Angela, please.” Angela moved away from the box that represented a couch and Jessica sat in her place, pretending to hold a pad of paper in one hand and a pencil in the other. “The zoo benefit next Friday,” she said. Every word was audible, but it was clear that she was talking to herself. “The cancer benefit, the Botanical Gardens dinner, the Art Gallery dinner, and what's-his-name's costume ball . . . good Lord”—her voice rose, filled with pride and satisfaction—“I need a staff; one secretary isn't enough; this has gotten far too big for me to handle by myself.”

She knocked on the coffee table, mimicking Stan's knock on her door, and looked up sharply, then spoke a few lines of the dialogue that followed, taking all three parts. “That's what I'm getting at,” she said, standing up. “Of course, we don't know yet what Stan and Doris were doing before Stan knocked on the door, but we know that Helen was feeling very good about herself and therefore the shock of seeing her past suddenly appear in her doorway is even more devastating. Now you try it. Nora or Edward, one of you go first.”

Nora was staring at her. “That was wonderful. You made Helen sound  . . . I mean, if I could sound like that—”

“We're waiting,” Jessica said flatly, sitting again at the table.

Hermione leaned toward her. “Did you see Angela's face? Total shock. I'll bet she's thinking you ought to be in her shoes right now.”

“Angela? Believing someone is a better actress than she is? You don't really believe that.”

“Well, put that way, probably not. And she really is pretty good.”

“She's a good actress; she'll be fine.”

“I know she will. Well, would you listen to them now. They got the idea. Clumsy, but they're really trying.”