Big Stone Gap (5 page)

Theodore enters from stage right in full costume and beard. He crosses downstage, jumps off the lip, and comes toward me with a look of concern on his face. We have a powwow about the gizmo that leaks fake blood from his chest (he gets shot at the end of the play). Pearl Grimes is my props department, so she listens in.

My stage manager waves a clipboard in my face. “Miss Mulligan, we’re ready to open the house.” He calls off, “Dancers! Positions, please.” The dancers take the stage. By day they are majorettes with the high school marching band, under Theodore’s capable direction. Majorettes are the prettiest girls in school, even ahead of cheerleaders. Let’s face it: Twirling takes skill; cheering only takes volume. By night, they’re my dancers, providing storytelling through movement.

I have no twirling in the Drama, although the majorette captain, Tayloe Slagle, lobbied hard to incorporate it. I explained that historical accuracy is the entire point of doing the Drama. I don’t see a bunch of mountain folk from 1895 twirling batons in the middle of a hoedown.

Tayloe enters from the stage-right wings. She takes her mark at center stage, owning it like it’s the only pin dot in the universe. Bo Caudill, the follow-spot operator, widens the beam of light from her perfect face to include her body—shapely, bursting in ripe perfection in a simple red dress with a scoop neck and ruffles.

Tayloe is compact but leggy, like all the great movie stars. She has a well-formed, large head with a clear, high forehead set off by smooth, small features: a prominent but straight nose (like Miriam Hopkins), blond hair (like Veronica Lake), and wet eyes (like Bette Davis). Her right eyebrow is always slightly raised in a delicate swirl, giving me the impression she is skeptical of anything she is told.

Tayloe plays June Tolliver, the ingenue lead, the coarse mountain girl who transforms into a Kentucky lady. Tayloe won the role because she has true star quality. It cannot be invented. But it sure doesn’t keep every other girl in town from trying to develop That Certain Something. We have girls who practice their footwork, suffer hours of vocal coaching, and diet down to pool-cue thin, but what they don’t understand is that this luminescence is inborn and unteachable, and Tayloe’s got it. All any good director has to do is exploit the obvious, so we incorporated a dream ballet into the second act, featuring Tayloe in a pale pink leotard and a wee chiffon skirt. Tickets flew out of the box office.

She’s our starlet, so all the girls seek her approval and imitate her. Tayloe gives them a standard, a marker by which to judge themselves. Other skills and attributes can be appreciated and duly noted, but beauty is instantly obvious to all. I have never met a girl (including myself) who did not long to be beautiful, who did not pray for her own potential to reveal itself. When a girl is beautiful, she gets to pick—she never has to wait for someone to choose her. There is so much power in doing the choosing.

Pearl Grimes touches my arm. “I think I got a better way for the blood to spurt. I’m gonna rig a tube down Mr. Tipton’s pant leg so he can step hard when he’s shot.”

The summer of 1978 will forever be remembered as the summer of wily stagecraft. No matter what technique we’ve tried—and we even called the folks up in New York City to find out how they do it—we have not been able to get Theodore shot on cue. Either the blood spurts too soon or too late. Either way, it destroys the authenticity of the moment.

“Did Mr. Tipton like your idea?”

“He’s mighty impatient.”

“Most great artists are, you know. Michelangelo said, ‘Genius is eternal patience.’ ”

“Do you think Mr. Tipton’s a genius?”

“Genius or not, we gotta get him shot correctly so he can die at the end of the play. It’s the last show of the season. Wouldn’t it be nice to go out with the right bang?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Poor old Pearl; what she’s got, Tayloe is missing. She’s got the thin brown hair, the thick ankles, and the weight problem. Pearl has beautiful hands, though. Pretty-faced girls usually have ugly hands. But then again, I don’t know a lot of people who notice hands.

“Tayloe sure does look pretty,” Pearl decides as she stands there.

“Yeah.”

“That costume is mighty tight.”

I’m thinking that I would never wear that dress myself. That’s the difference between me and Pearl: She still has the dream of wearing it.

“She’s stuck-up, though,” Pearl zings.

I let the comment pass. It doesn’t do me any good to try to convince Pearl that beauty comes from within and that age will eventually wither a pretty face. I get a pain in my left temple watching poor Pearl looking up on the stage at Tayloe like there is some answer up there. She is hoping that beauty will be truth. But that observation was surely made by the father of a very beautiful daughter, not Pearl’s and surely not mine. Tayloe is conceited. But so what? Tayloe, not Pearl, is in the beam of the spotlight. Tayloe, not Pearl, is being examined and appreciated from all sides like a rare ruby. How Pearl wishes she was The One! Of course, I could lie. I could tell Pearl that being the prettiest girl in town is no great shakes, but eventually she would find out the truth. When you’re fifteen, it is everything. And when you’re thirty-five, it’s still something. Beauty is the fat yellow line down the middle of Powell Valley Road. And it’s best to figure out—and the sooner the better—which side you fall on, because if you don’t do it for yourself, the world will. Why wait for the judgment?

Pearl squints at the stage and breathes the night air slowly like a drag off a cigarette. She is trying so hard to understand, trying to understand why Tayloe and not her.

“Maybe you ought to check your prop table. Curtain’s almost up,” I remind her.

Pearl straightens up and goes backstage with a purpose. Having a purpose is the little secret of the nonpretties. Something to do always beats something to look at.

The cast looks terrific onstage. They’ve worked five shows a week all summer, yet they still have pep. They’re still excited about doing the show. I’ll spare you the details of the auditions and casting that take place every year from March till June. Let’s just say it is highly competitive. Nothing like the theater to bring out the claws and pepper in people. Folks want the part they want and that’s it. Never mind they’re the wrong age, or can’t sing, or can’t dance. They’d leave notes on my Jeep, call me at home, give me gifts of cakes and jellies—anything to sway me. I can’t imagine the competition on Broadway itself could be any more brutal than it is right here. Thank goodness there are parts that actors grow into: Li’l Bub becomes Big Bub, who can then play Dave Tolliver, then, as he ages, Bad Rufe, all the way to the patriarch, Devil Judd. We’ve been doing the show so long, the cast members know one another’s lines. We never have an understudy problem.

We do have an annoying stage mother: Betty Slagle. Tayloe’s mom caused me so much grief with her many suggestions—of course all of them showing off her daughter to full advantage and forsaking the story—that I put her on the costume crew. She’s busy pressing pants now, so she stays off my back.

I signal the Foxes to open the house. The Foxes are our women’s auxiliary group named in honor of John Fox, Jr. (of course). They run the ticket sales, the concessions, and the rug-loom demonstration at the Fox Museum during intermission. They’re a clique of young ’n’ sexy divorcées and single girls. There’s a sorority feeling to their activities. And they keep the history alive, so their form-fitting T-shirts say.

I cue the band to begin the overture. Jack Mac winks at me; I wink back. Now we have a secret—I’ve seen him in his underwear—and it’s kind of fun. He nods to his boys, and they play. I’m always thrilled by the sound of those strings, mandolins so simple and clear. The soft melody sails over the outdoor theater and spills out into the dark. I take my place on the perch next to Bo’s follow spot on the back wall. No matter how many times I’ve watched the show, I still get nervous before Curtain. I look down as the audience filters in. Iva Lou Wade comes in with a nice-looking man I’ve never seen before. (Where does she find them?) She wears a flowy mint-green pant set that makes her look like a Greek goddess. The gold armband completes the effect. She grins at me and I wave.

Our final show comes off without a hitch. The foot-stomp-blood-spurt cure that Pearl came up with worked (thank God). The show was perfect until Li’l Bub pulled a closing-night prank. When Theodore was shot, he threw a rubber chicken onto the stage. The crowd went wild. Theodore was not amused. After three standing ovations, Bo shines a light on me and I am motioned to the stage by my cast. Two chorus boys help me up onto the stage. Tayloe whistles through her teeth in approval. How funny that looks, as she is dressed in her Kentucky-society finale gown. I embrace each of our four leads. Then I pull Pearl from backstage. I give her a big hug for her stroke of genius, and she beams. Then I give my usual “thank you for the best season yet” speech. Sweet Sue Tinsley, president of the Foxes, walks across the stage with a bottle of champagne and presents it to me.

Sweet Sue is my age, and she was the Tayloe Slagle of our day. She is still as pretty as a teenager, small and blond, with vivid blue eyes. She’s as popular now as she was in high school (accomplishment). She wasn’t born with that name, though. There were three Sues in our first-grade class. The teacher got confused, so she gave each of them nicknames, which stuck. There was Tall Sue, Li’l Bit Sue, and this one, our Sweet Sue.

“A-vuh Maria, this bubbly is from the Foxes with our compliments. You’re the best gosh-darned dye-rector anywhere ever on earth, and we appreciate your work so very much!” Loud applause for Sweet Sue fills the air, and enough wolf whistles cut through to conjure a Miss America pageant. For a moment I consider correcting Sweet Sue on the pronunciation of my name: It isn’t A-vuh Maria like Ava Gardner, it’s Ave like a prayer. Sweet Sue has been mispronouncing my name since first grade. Is she ever going to get it right? I decide to let it go when I look out over the crowd and see their warm and smiling faces. This isn’t the time to be petty. I realize the pause after Sweet Sue’s speech has gone on too long. Her eyes implore me to say something. And fast. She has that frozen smile and certain impatience that all pretty girls possess.
Your turn,
she seems to be saying with her eyes.

I blurt, “Thank you kindly, Sweet Sue. And thank you, Foxes.” Sweet Sue is relieved as I accept the champagne.

“Hey, boys, how ’bout a song for Sweet Sue, the prettiest gal in town?” shouts our drummer from the pit.

“Thank you, boys,” Sweet Sue says magnanimously. Then she leans into the pit and kisses Jack Mac long and hard. The crowd cheers. Then a chorus of “Ask her, Jack! Ask her, Jack!” The band pushes Jack Mac out of the pit, onto the stage. Wanda Brickey, who plays the mountain matriarch in the Drama, bangs the floor with her walking stick. “Jack Mac, if you don’t marry this girl, it don’t make a lick of sense.”

The crowd calms down and waits for Jack’s response. “Folks, y’all know I’m a private person—”

Before he can finish, Sweet Sue pipes up, “The answer is yes. Yes!” She kisses Jack Mac all over the face. She shouts, “I love this man!” Her sons, still in mountain-boy costume, run up to the stage. The crowd cheers. The cold bottle of champagne I hold seems as though it’s in the wrong hands all of a sudden. So I make a stage-right cross and hand it to Jack Mac.

“Congratulations!” I say happily. The crowd goes wild.

Jack Mac leans into my ear and says, “Thank you.”

I look at him. “Call your mother.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jack Mac kisses my cheek. Sweet Sue grabs him away.

“Hey, Ava, he’s mine. Find your own man!”

The crowd laughs; it’s one of those long, rolling laughs. Now, when you’re the town spinster, jokes of this sort aren’t one bit funny. Around here, being married makes you a prize. No one has claimed me, and although it shouldn’t hurt me, it does. I could cry. Instead, I bend forward and laugh louder than anyone in the house.

Theodore, as if on cue, comes up behind me and puts his hands around my waist. Then he announces, “She has a man, Sweet Sue.” I look up at Theodore, the most beautiful man I have ever seen. I lean against him.

“Well, I didn’t mean to . . .” Sweet Sue stutters. Jack Mac cues the band, gracefully saving his girlfriend’s face. He shrugs at me.

Theodore takes me in his arms to dance. The music fills the theater. Somebody’s singing the lyrics, but all I hear is Theodore’s voice saying, “She has a man! She has a man!” onstage, in public, and loudly for all to hear! He looks down at me and smiles. I feel wanted, claimed, and—I can’t believe it—alluring. Instead of looking off as we dance, I look into his eyes, and they are as blue as the sky on the backdrop.

And then we stop. Theodore kisses me. It’s not the usual friendly kiss I have become accustomed to all of these years. So at first I don’t lock in. I’m confused. Then his lips, wordless and soft, persist. My spine turns from rivets of bone into a velvet ribbon spinning off its wheel and pooling onto the floor. I hold on to him like Myrna Loy did Clark Gable when they jumped out of a two-seater plane in
Test Pilot
. My waist is on a swivel as he dips me. But the kiss doesn’t end. Moments later, when it does, my body feels like it is full of goose feathers. Theodore holds my face while everyone dances around us, offering looks of approval.

“You need lipstick,” he says, squinting at me.

“You don’t.” I dab the Really Red I left there off of his face. We laugh. It’s one of those shared moments that can only come between two people who know each other so well that it borders on irony. Theodore pulls me close. I rest my head on his shoulder. He smells fresh, a mix of peppermint and spice. I look across the dance floor. Iva Lou gives me a thumbs-up.

“Let’s get out of here,” Theodore says with an urgency I’ve never heard before. He takes my hand and yanks me off the stage, and I skip down the stairs behind him.

Nellie Goodloe, president of the Lonesome Pine Arts and Crafts Guild, stops us. “Mr. Tipton, I need to speak to you about candidate John Warner’s visit to the Gap.”