5
I spent the late morning and early afternoon of July twelfth at the Grange Hall, running a final tech rehearsal. Mike Coslaw, who had settled as naturally into the role of producer as he had that of slapstick comedian, told me the Saturday-night show was a sellout and tonight’s was at ninety percent. “We’ll get enough walk-ups to fill the place, Mr. A. Count on it. I just hope me and Bobbi Jill don’t mess up the encore.”
“Bobbi Jill and I, Mike. And you won’t mess up.”
All of that was good. Less good was passing Ellen Dockerty’s car turning out of Bee Tree Lane just as I was turning in, and then finding Sadie sitting by the living room window with tears on her unmarked cheek and a handkerchief in one fisted hand.
“What?” I demanded. “What did she say to you?”
Sadie surprised me by mustering a grin. It was lopsided, but not without a certain gamine charm. “Nothing that wasn’t the truth. Please don’t worry. I’ll make you a sandwich and you can tell me how it went.”
So that was what I did. And I did worry, of course, but I kept my worries to myself. Also my comments on the subject of meddlesome high school principals. That evening at six, Sadie inspectedme, reknotted my tie, and then brushed some lint, real or imagined, from the shoulders of my sport coat. “I’d tell you to break a leg, but you might just go and do it.”
She was wearing her old jeans and a smock top that camouflaged—a little, anyway—her weight-loss. I found myself remembering the pretty dress she’d worn to the originalJodie Jamboree.Pretty dress that night with a pretty girl inside it. That was then. Tonight the girl—still pretty on one side—would be at home when the curtain went up, watching aRoute 66rerun.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Wishing you were going to be there, that’s all.”
I was sorry as soon as it was out, but it was almost okay. Her smile faded, then came back. The way the sun does when it passes behind a cloud that’s only small. “You’llbe there. Which means I will be.” She looked at me with grave timidity from the one eye her Veronica Lake flip left visible. “If you love me, that is.”
“I love you plenty.”
“Yes, I guess you do.” She kissed the corner of my mouth. “And I love you. So don’t break any legs and give everybody my thanks.”
“I will. You’re not afraid to stay here alone?”
“I’ll be okay.” It wasn’t actually an answer to my question, but it was the best she could do for the time being.
6
Mike was right about the walk-ups. We sold out the Friday night performance a full hour in advance of showtime. Donald Bellingham, our stage manager, lowered the houselights at 8:00P.M. on the dot. I expected to feel a letdown after the nearly sublime original with its pie-throwing finale (which we intended to repeat on Saturday night only, the consensus being that we wanted to clean up the Grange Hall stage—and the first couple of rows—just a single time), but this one was nearly as good. For me the comedy highlight was that goddamned dancing horse. At one point Dr.Ellerton’s front-half cohort, a wildly overenthusiastic Coach Borman, almost boogied Bertha right off the stage.
The audience believed those twenty or thirty seconds of weaving around the footlights was part of the show and heartily applauded the derring-do. I, who knew better, found myself caught in an emotional paradox that will probably never be repeated. I stood in the wings next to a nearly paralytic Donald Bellingham, laughing wildly while my terrified heart fluttered at the very top of my throat.
The night’s harmonic came during the encore. Mike and Bobbi Jill walked to center stage, hand in hand. Bobbi Jill faced the audience and said, “Miz Dunhill means an awful lot to me, because of her kindness and her Christian charity. She helped me when I needed help, and she made me want to learn how to do what we’re going to do for you now. We thank you all for coming out tonight and showingyourChristian charity. Don’t we, Mike?”
“Yeah,” he said. “You guys are the best.”
He looked stage left. I pointed to Donald, who was bent over his record player with the tone arm raised, ready to stick the groove. This time Donald’s father was going to know damned well that Donald had borrowed one of his big-band records, because the man was in the audience.
Glenn Miller, that long-gone bombardier, launched into “In the Mood,” and onstage, to rhythmic clapping from the audience, Mike Coslaw and Bobbi Jill Allnut flew into a jet-propelled Lindy far more fervent than any I had ever managed with either Sadie or Christy. It was all youth and joy and enthusiasm, and that made it gorgeous. When I saw Mike squeeze Bobbi Jill’s hand, telling her by touch to counterspin and shoot through his legs, I was suddenly back in Derry, watching Bevvie-from-the-levee and Richie-from-the-ditchie.
It’s all of a piece,I thought.It’s an echo so close to perfect you can’t tell which one is the living voice and which is the ghost-voice returning.
For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don’t we all secretly knowthis? It’s a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.
Mike and Bobbi Jill danced in their time, and their time was 1963, that era of crewcuts, console televisions, and homemade garage rock. They danced on a day when President Kennedy promised to sign a nuclear test ban treaty and told reporters he had “no intention of allowing our military forces to be mired in the arcane politics and ancient grudges of southeast Asia.” They danced as Bevvie and Richie had danced, as Sadie and I had danced, and they were beautiful, and I loved them not in spite of their fragility but because of it. I love them still.
They ended perfectly, hands upraised, breathing hard and facing the audience, which rose to its feet. Mike gave them a full forty seconds to pound their hands together (it’s amazing how fast the footlights can transform a humble left tackle into fully fledged pressed ham) and then called for quiet. Eventually, he got it.
“Our director, Mr. George Amberson, wants to say a few words. He put a lot of effort and creativity into this show, so I hope you’ll give him a big hand.”
I walked out to fresh applause. I shook Mike’s hand and gave Bobbi Jill a peck on the cheek. They scampered offstage. I raised my hands for quiet and launched into my carefully rehearsed speech, telling them Sadie couldn’t be here tonight but thanking them all on her behalf. Every public speaker worth his salt knows to concentrate on specific members of the audience, and I focused on a pair in the third row who looked remarkably like Ma and Pa inAmerican Gothic.This was Fred Miller and Jessica Caltrop, the schoolboard members who had denied us use of the school gym onthe grounds that Sadie being assaulted by her ex was in bad taste and should be ignored, insofar as possible.
Four sentences in, I was interrupted by gasps of surprise. This was followed by applause—isolated at first but quickly growing to a storm. The audience took to its feet again. I had no idea what they were applauding for until I felt a light, tentative hand grip my arm above the elbow. I turned to see Sadie standing beside me in her red dress. She had put her hair up and secured it with a glittery clip. Her face—both sides of it—was completely visible. I was shocked to discover that, once fully revealed, the residual damage wasn’t as awful as I had feared. There might be some sort of universal truth there, but I was too stunned to suss it out. Sure, that deep, ragged hollow and the fading hash marks of the stitches were hard to look at. So was the slack flesh and her unnaturally wide left eye, which no longer quite blinked in tandem with the right one.
But she was smiling that charming one-sided smile, and in my eyes, that made her Helen of Troy. I hugged her, and she hugged me back, laughing and crying. Beneath the dress, her whole body was thrumming like a high-tension wire. When we faced the audience again, everyone was up and cheering except for Miller and Caltrop. Who looked around, saw they were the only ones still on their fannies, and reluctantly joined the others.
