“I know,” she says. “I know. I think I’m just going to hire someone and pay them on my own.”
“Who are you going to hire? We’re not in Manhattan anymore, Dorothy. We don’thavea production manager.”
Gertie waits. Save for the calls of a few gulls that have materialized, and the faraway roar of the ocean, it’s quiet.
“What?” he says, reading something in her gaze. “What?”
“It’s just that we actually do know someone. We know the perfect person for the job.”
“Who?”
She reaches over and punches him on the arm, playfully, mostly, but it sort of hurts. Gertie is stronger than she looks.“Amy.” Timothy regards her blankly; he feels almost as though he’s never heard the name before. “Your sister, Amy. Sam’s mom? She’s right across the water!”
“Oh, no. No. I can’t askAmy.” Not after the stuff with their mother; definitely not after telling Sam she could live here.
“Are you kidding? She’s perfect! She worked for that off-Broadway theater when she was an undergrad...”
“She did?”
“Timothy!Yes.She and I used to talk about theater all the time when you and I were together. That’s how we bonded at holidays.”
“That was thirty years ago!”
“We were together thirty years ago? When I was twelve?”
“No, I mean Amy’s undergrad theater experience was thirty years ago.”
“But some of that stuff is evergreen. And doesn’t she direct plays at the high school now? Didn’t she do some community theater stuff?”
“I think so.” He doesn’t want to admit that Gertie seems to know more about Amy’s background than he does.
“She’s plenty qualified. And she’s super organized. She’sveryhardworking. She has summers off!”
All of these things are true. “But we haven’t been on good terms... I don’t know.”
“Timothy,” she says. “Please?” He sighs. “Please?” she repeats. She fixes him with her famous green eyes. He never could resist Gertie, back in the day, and as it turns out he can’t resist her now either.
“Fine,” he says. “Okay, I’ll ask her. But if she says yes,I’mpaying her, not you. And we’renottelling her that. She’d see it as charity, and the last thing she wants from me is charity. As far as Amy is concerned, her salary comes from the same pot as everyone else’s. That Hugh Jackman thing... oh, she still carries that around with her.”
“What Hugh Jackman thing?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Thank you, Timothy.”
“Don’t thank me yet. She hasn’t said yes.”
“She will,” says Gertie. “She has to. I can’t have this show fail.” Gertie lifts her elbows off the railing and stretches her arms above her head. “You know how it goes in our business.Who’s Gertie Sanger, get me Gertie Sanger, get me a Gertie Sanger type, get me a young Gertie Sanger, who’s Gertie Sanger?”
“Oh, I know,” says Timothy. “Believe me, Iknow. I waswho’s Timothy Flemingabout forty years ago. But you’re twenty years younger than I am. You have so much time left!”
She shakes her head. “Not really. Right now I’m hovering betweenget me a Gertie Sanger typeandget me a young Gertie Sanger, and I want to get all my ducks in a row before we get towho’s Gertie Sanger?I’ve got the chops for Shakespeare, Timothy. I’ve got the pedigree. You know I do. I’ve just got to show the world.”
“First you need to show the island,” says Timothy.
