The Rehearsal Read online

  Her father hangs up the phone after talking to Lars Lyman and gives Beth the thumbs-up sign. Then he knocks on the wood table three times and picks up the phone again. It’s beginning to get dark.

  Mac will not go to sleep until he completely searches his room for spiders. This takes a long time because even though he has looked under the bed with a flashlight six or seven times, a spider might have crawled under the bed while he was looking elsewhere. There was one on the ceiling when he first came in, but his mother got it. He made her open the paper towel and show him the smushed carcass. There are no curtains in his bedroom, because that’s where he found a big black spider last year. Big, black, and hairy. Probably a tarantula. He has brought his own sheets and blankets from home. Spider eggs could be in the ones stored here. When he is as sure as he can be—which isn’t all that sure, but his mom is beginning to get that very tense tone in her voice—he says good night and closes his door, stuffing a towel into the crack at the bottom of the door, which will do no good, he knows, because there is a crack at the top of the door. He sleeps with his light on, his socks on (tucked over his pajama bottoms), and a long-sleeved turtleneck shirt. And a red stocking cap. He has to concentrate on sleeping with his mouth closed. Once he read that the average person swallows eighteen spiders in their sleep during their lifetime. The article had one of those blown-up pictures of some kind of hairy spider. When he closes his eyes, he sees that picture plain as day, so he tries to go to sleep with his eyes open. But he gets scared of what he might really see, and closes them.

  Myra stands in the hall outside Mac’s bedroom, waiting for Beth to get out of the bathroom. She stands between her children, awkward, not much like a mother at all—as if she has just faked it all along and might get caught, sent back to Go. Once she had hoped to have another child; the relief that she didn’t is undeniable. Will used to say he wanted a third child, but Myra thinks he meant it in an abstract way, as another credit to his name. Myra wanted a child in a very physical way—when Mac went off to kindergarten, Myra needed something to do. It was hard to get a job that she could leave each May to follow her husband to the country, and being a mother was a good job. Necessary. She believed in staying home with her children when they were young, even if she hadn’t done it as well as the first flush of motherhood had inspired her to do. She wanted to try it again, lose herself in the love of a baby, wear herself out keeping up with a toddler, be even a better mother than before, push her limits of love and patience. She did better with Mac than with Beth; she has allowed him to be more himself, whereas she has, had, expected of Beth, all she had expected of herself: love, kindness, good morals, hard work—all of which she herself has failed in to some degree, and she sees those failings multiplied in Beth. Are her children’s failings her own? She doesn’t know, but just a few years ago she had wanted to find out. But time makes a difference. Recently, each day has seemed a test, not just with Beth but of herself. She is uncomfortable in her own skin, and it’s not because of the wrinkles around her eyes, or even the lines around her wrists like the rings in tree trunks that mark time, but a need to be wiser and smarter along with the wrinkles. It’s as if her body has matured but she has lagged behind, dulled by motherhood, and being a wife, and cleaning the same damn countertop three or four times a day for days, and months, and years, until it is as faded and dull as she. Myra is tired of being wed to a brilliant man. She would like to be brilliant in some way herself. She would like to be proud of something more than of her husband and her children.

  Beth is the tough one, Myra thinks. It’s good to have a daughter with a strong will, isn’t it, in this day and age? Beth has never been a momma’s girl. A daddy’s girl, that she is. Sometimes it bothers Myra how Beth follows her father around like a puppy looking for affection, treating Will like he’s God’s gift to aspiring actors. Is that what Myra used to do, at the theatre? Is that why Will fell in love with her? Is that why he doesn’t love her the same way now, because she doesn’t fawn over him like everyone else? He told her once that it was hard to come home at night and be asked to take out the trash or change a lightbulb, when at work he tells everyone what to do and they admire him for it. He was drunk, and he denied it the next day, but she knows it’s true, as well as she knows it’s true that she’s not the great mother everyone thinks she is. Her own daughter treats her like shit sometimes, and Myra lets her get away with it because it’s easier to ignore it than deal with it. Or to decide who to blame.

  What kind of role model is she, anyway? What has she taught Beth besides how to tuck in the sheets, how to make a tuna casserole? No wonder Beth dotes on her father. Still, Myra is tired of getting walked all over by her daughter—and her own husband. Carefully, Myra opens the door to Mac’s room and peeks in. He’s sound asleep, his mouth open like a little O. He’s delicate and soft and her baby, for now. She closes the door quietly until it clicks shut. Beth is still in the bathroom. Myra bangs on the door. She’d better get out of that bathroom before Myra goes crazy just standing here.

  With her eyes closed, Beth wipes off the cold cream with a tissue to remove the last traces of mascara. The smell of cold cream brings back one of her earliest childhood memories. She must have been around six. She and her mom had gone into the men’s dressing room after a play. She doesn’t remember which play, only that from the audience it didn’t look like her dad had on makeup, but up close it was a different matter. There was this beige stuff all over his face (which she now knows is called base), and he even had on eyeliner, blush, and lipstick. He had to use tons of cold cream to get the stuff off. So did the other men in the dressing room, all digging their fingers into the dark blue glass jars and tossing tissue after tissue into the garbage. The smell of cold cream makes her feel like she is surrounded by those actors; it excites her, and calms her. She is almost there. She is on her way.

  When she was young, her dad would bring home his old makeup, the squeezed-up tubes of base, short stubby pencils, and oily crayons to use as lipstick, but her parents wouldn’t let her out of the house with makeup on until her sixteenth birthday. Now she wouldn’t walk down to the mailbox without wearing lipstick, blush, and mascara. But at least she is very careful about cleaning her face every night. Some of the actors have permanent blackheads and pockmarks from years of stage makeup. Beth is lucky. She’s got good skin, and she’s going to keep it that way.

  When she’s finished with her nightly routine, she opens the bathroom door and finds her mother just outside. It must have been her mom knocking before, when the water was running. Beth knows she was in the bathroom for a long time and is just about to say she’s sorry when her mom jumps all over her.

  “Jesus, Beth, didn’t you hear me? Other people live here, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Beth says, crossing her arms and not moving out of the way. “You want me to get zits?”

  “No, just be more considerate.”

  Beth shakes her head and starts to walk off, but her mother stops her. “Don’t slam any doors. Mac is sleeping. And don’t open his door.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Beth says.

  Mac is her mom’s favorite. It’s so obvious. Beth knows the story about her mother freezing on the stage. She heard her talking to her friend, Mrs. Luoma, about it. Her mom told Mrs. Luoma that she had frozen onstage because she had taken off so much time after having Beth that she had lost her courage. Then she said, “But this makes it all worth it.” Beth knew exactly what “this” was. Her mom was pregnant with Mac and rubbed her stomach all the time like it was some kind of stupid good luck charm. Beth was the reason Myra couldn’t act, but Mac was her salvation.

  Before she goes to bed, Beth sneaks over to her brother’s door and opens it just a little bit. A little bit ought to be enough.

  Friday

  When Mac wakes, he sees right away that his door is open, just a crack. Tears well up in his eyes. In slow motion, he lifts the covers. No spiders, but they could be anywhere by now.

 
; At breakfast his sister tells him that when she was going to bed, she saw the biggest spider of her whole life crawl into his bedroom. She says it was carrying a big, round, white egg sac. His mom says she is making up a big fat lie and makes Beth do all the breakfast dishes, then go to her room for an hour, but that’s not going to fix anything. After breakfast Mac searches his room again. He begs his mom to get him a new door, with no gaps, but she’s in a pretty bad mood and just tells him to grow up.

  By ten o’clock Friday morning, Will has reached everyone except Melinda, who will play Curley’s Wife, the only female character in Of Mice and Men. Melinda is the youngest and newest member of The Mill Street Theatre, and by far the prettiest. She’s also quite social. She has friends who aren’t even actors. No one knows where she is. She’s probably asleep in some guy’s bed, Will thinks, angry she’s not home, where she belongs, to get his phone call.

  Not knowing if she will come to the farm is driving him crazy. He feels unfinished, like he’s not wearing his shoes or hasn’t zipped his fly. His shoulders are so tense, he has to keep shrugging and rolling them in circles. He does this as he paces back and forth in the barn. Every ten minutes or so he goes into the house and calls Melinda’s number, lets the phone ring fifteen times, then goes back out to the barn. He knows he should be doing something, but he can’t figure out what to do. If Melinda would just answer her damn phone, he could get on with making plans.

  He could rake out the barn, but he might as well wait until Ben gets here. Ben’s a big guy, just like Lennie; his upper torso swells against his shirts, and Will knows he used to lift weights. His arms hold the shape of muscles, but Will doubts they have the strength they boast; still, he’ll be a big help getting things ready. No one else can make it today. Most of the cast will arrive over the weekend, and two of them won’t get here until Monday. They have other things to do first. Will rolls his eyes.

  On his way into the house, Will passes Mac, who stands by the open door of the station wagon looking at the backseat like he’s trying to figure something out.

  “Lose something in there, son?” Will asks, because things do turn up in that car that have been lost for a long time, like Beth’s favorite hairbrush, stuck like a hedgehog under her seat for years.

  “I think I’m going to sleep in here tonight,” Mac says. “Do me a favor, Dad. After I close the door, leave the windows rolled up, okay?”

  Will nods. “Sure.”

  By the time he gets to the phone, Will knows he told Mac he’d do something, but he can’t remember what it is. He hopes he didn’t promise to drive the kid into town for a damn comic book or something. Myra could do that. She has to go get supplies anyway. Last night, around one in the morning, Will wrote a two-page list of some staples he figures they ought to have for the weekend. He stuck it to the fridge. Myra hasn’t mentioned seeing it yet, but you can’t really miss it. Will figures that since Myra hasn’t said much of anything to him this morning, she’s seen the list.

  Melinda doesn’t answer the phone. Will feels a headache coming on.

  He thinks about having a drink, but his own rule is: no booze before or during work. Technically he’s on vacation, but he’s trying to get something together that deals with work, so he figures he’s working.

  Pacing in the barn again, Will thinks about alcohol. In the play, the field hands only go out drinking on weekend nights. The actors aren’t going to like being told they can’t drink. How can he stop them from going out to a bar at night? It’s beginning to be obvious that they can’t live the play every moment. Would a comedy have been a better choice? Has he acted impulsively, out of desperation rather than from true inspiration? He kicks at a barn post, and dust falls to the floor. This is a good idea, isn’t it? He tries to find the excitement he first felt when he drove over the hill and saw the barn, but it’s not quite there. It’s tinged with doubt, like a tarnished brass ring. He wants to wash off these second thoughts. He wants to be sure again, so he closes his eyes and imagines the actors here, in the barn, playing their parts, enthusiastic, asking Will for advice, climbing new heights, breaking new ground. He fills himself with the belief that he’s a great director. He opens his eyes. He’s a middle-aged man standing in an empty barn.

  Will’s legs feel weak, and he leans against the barn post. This exercise has always worked before. Close your eyes, imagine you’re a prince, or a mayor, or a salesman, then open your eyes, and you are. Something must be very wrong—he’s only trying to be himself, the sure, confident man he was just a day ago. If this is so hard, is it at all possible to find the brilliance of a few years ago, when he was at his peak, winning awards, interviewed by the Times? He’s embarrassed right now by the image of that interview framed above his desk at the theatre, fading, a vain boast of yesterday’s glory, waiting to be quoted at his funeral.

  Oh, hell, he’s getting way too dramatic about all this. He directed three plays last year to great reviews! He’s not dead yet, and neither is the theatre. If only Melinda would answer her phone, he could think straight. The quiet in this barn is driving him nuts. He heads to the house.

  Myra stands on the edge of last summer’s weed-covered garden. She looks at the brown lumps of earth that will need to be turned, but she keeps seeing the goddamn grocery list Will stuck on the fridge. Then she sees herself filling up two or three grocery carts with all that shit Will thinks they need, then unpacking it and putting it away in the cupboards. She sees herself giving Will the cold shoulder, and she sees him blatantly ignoring her, pretending everything is fine. She sees herself being nice to Ben Walton when he arrives—someone she genuinely likes—but can also see herself grinding her teeth behind his back. Finally, she sees herself going to bed alone, while Ben and Will stay up all night talking about Will’s stupid idea. Standing by the garden, Myra has already lived this day, and didn’t like it one bit.

  But what is she to do? There really isn’t anything to eat. She’d better go to the store. What choice does she have? Make Will go? Betty Friedan never lived with Will. And maybe that’s exactly her point.

  Beth is getting really excited. Not only are nine actors coming to stay at her farm, but one of them is going to be Greg Henry! He’s the guy who plays Curley, the Boss’s son, who wants to be a boxer. Greg Henry is twenty-six and looks like an older version of Kurt Russell, except that Greg Henry’s eyes are brown, not blue. But he does have that same square jaw and sexy smile, and he’s always been really nice to her. He even flirted with her at a party last summer. She was probably a little too young for him last summer, but she’s older this year.

  She has just got to tell Deb, her best friend back in Pittsburgh, about Greg Henry coming to the farm. She’ll be so jealous! No one’s around right now—her mom’s out staring at the garden like that might make it grow, and her dad’s pacing in the barn, muttering, and Mac’s setting up camp in the car like some moron—so it’s the perfect time to call Deb. But just as Beth reaches for the phone, she is scared out of her mind by her dad yelling “No you don’t!” at the top of his lungs, which makes her jump a foot in the air, and her ears ring.

  “What?” Beth can hardly hear the sound of her own voice.

  “Don’t touch the phone, Beth. I told you that.”

  “But, Dad, I just want to—”

  “No buts, Beth. I want that phone free in case Melinda calls.”

  “Dad, she’s not home. You just called her. I just want—”

  “Forget it. This is important. Leave the phone alone.”

  Beth can’t believe how stupid this is, that she can’t make one little phone call. It’s not like she’s going to ruin the whole rehearsal by making one phone call. Nothing’s even happening yet. “Jesus!” she says, and looks at her dad. He looks at her. Now they’re having a staring contest. She can feel her face get hot and her eyes all tight. She swears she won’t look away first, but she does, she can’t help it. She can’t stand him being mad at her. It’s enough to have her mom always mad at her. Her
dad’s the nice guy. Most of the time.

  “Don’t say Jesus, Beth, and don’t stand there sulking, and whatever you do, don’t touch the phone.” He says this all slow, like she’s stupid or something. Well, she’s not stupid.

  “What if Melinda doesn’t come? Are you going to get another actress? You’ll need someone.” Beth can’t ask for the role. She’s got to make it look like his idea. She stands up as straight as she can. She could look twenty-two, or whatever age Curley’s Wife is in the play.

  “She’ll come, Beth. It’s her role. She’ll call. Trust me, she’ll call.”

  Beth has a momentary vision of cutting the phone cord, but it would be no use. She’d get blamed without a glance Mac’s way. Maybe she could gnaw the wire to shreds, make it look like the mice got it. She rolls her eyes at her own stupid idea.

  “Isn’t there something you should be doing, Beth?” her dad asks, walking by her and picking up the receiver, then dialing the phone.

  “Like what?” Beth says. “Like memorizing lines I can’t use?” She can’t believe she said that, but it feels good, so she lets the words just hang there, see what they do.

  This gets his attention. He looks up from the phone. Beth can hear the hollow echo of the ring, nothing, ring. “One step at a time, Beth. One step at a time.”

  “I’m not a baby!”

  “I know you’re not. But you’re not ready to play the role of Curley’s Wife either.” He pauses, raising his eyebrows, so Beth understands he saw right through her. Oh, well, at least he has the idea now, and if Melinda doesn’t come …