“Also, there’s a salary.”
“Yeah? Is it a good salary?” Greg rummages in the fridge and pulls out last night’s pizza. He points at it questioningly, and Amy nods to let him know he can eat it.
Amy names the number Timothy gave her.
Greg whistles. “I mean, that’s decent money.” He removes the plastic wrap from the pizza. “We could use it. Do youwantto do it?”
Amy studies him. There’s a space between his two front teeth, because when Greg was growing up his parents couldn’t afford braces. His stubble is coming in a little gray, but his eyes are the same vibrant blue they’ve always been, and his dark hair is still fingers-through-it thick. He still, on certain occasions, makes her heart go pitter-patter. Right now, though, her heart is clenched tight as a fist, and the air in the room feels chaotic. Timothy sometimes has that effect on her.
“Sort of,” she says at last. “It might be nice to work with real actors, on a real production. With financial backing, and an actual costume designer, and a dramaturg if we need one—”
“What the heck is a dramaturg?”
“It’s like an editor, basically. For a play. In the case of Shakespeare, they do historical research... that kind of thing.”
Greg nods enthusiastically, which she appreciates—she knows that he does not in fact care what a dramaturg does. But that’s Greg for you! A good egg. Good egg Greg. She tries to imagine herself showing interest, even feigned, in the intricacies of an environmentally friendly heating system for the Backman house.
“And while ofcourseI love working with teenagers, it might be nice to work with adults.” She loves her high schoolers. She does.But teenagers are so... well! High school students are walking, talking balls of hormones wrapped in contradictions, rolled in drama, and covered with a thin coating of turmoil. And she hasn’t had a hand in a real production, with real actors, since leaving New York all those years ago.
“Plus you love Gertie.”
“Darn it, Idolove Gertie. Despite my best efforts.” For a while, when Gertie was Sam’s de facto mother, Amy had tried not to like her. But she couldn’t help it. Gertie is impossibly likable. That’s one of the reasons she’s such a star.
“So you’ll do it?” Greg smiles. “I think it would be good for you, to have a project. Plus you’ll get to see more of Sam this way.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She opens the refrigerator herself now and stares at the contents. She’s not hungry. She’s—unsettled. “Greg? Do you think we should just do it?”
“Do what? Take the job?” Amy watches Greg take down one piece of pizza, then two. Is he going to go for three? It’s almost mesmerizing, waiting to find out. Yes. Yes, he is going for three. Now he’s gathering his keys and his cell phone, preparing to get back to the Backman house. Filling his water bottle.
“Should we google Sam, to find out what’s going on with her?”
“Nope. We have a deal, remember?”
Theydohave a deal; they made it the first day Sam was back under their roof. “I know,” she says. “We have a no-googling deal.”
“She’ll talk to us when she’s ready.”
“Or not,” says Amy.
“Or not! And that’s okay too.”
“Not really,” says Amy, but Greg is already gone, so she’s saying it to Kona.
The thing is, she meant what she said to Greg. This is not the first time Amy has lost her daughter to Timothy. Timothy is technically Amy’s half brother, though she never thinks about the fraction. They had the same mother, different fathers. Timothy’s dadhad disappeared when Timothy was only two; David and Rose met when Timothy was five; David adopted Timothy, and Amy, born four years later, never saw her father treat him like anything but a son. The four of them lived in the ranch house in the center of the island until Timothy left at age eighteen, returning, it seemed, only for funerals.
The first mistake—okay, notmistakeper se, but the firststep—was Amy’s, seven years ago. Amy sent Timothy a video of Sam, age eleven, performing in a middle school production ofAnne of Green Gables. Sam had brought the house down. She’d blown away all the other six, seventh, and eighth graders; watching her was like you’d imagine it would be to watch Venus and Serena on the Compton courts where they got their start. Incredible potential, not yet completely realized.
Later that same year, Timothy accepted the role of Atticus Finch inTo Kill a Mockingbirdon Broadway. By this point he was well established as a box office star, and he’d also directed both film and theater. He called Amy and gave her the name of the casting director.Sam, Timothy thought, would make a perfect Scout! Amy should bring her down for the audition.
“Absolutely not,” said Amy. She’d only sent theGreen Gablesvideo because she was proud and because she thought Timothy would enjoy it, not because she was looking for any next steps.
“Why not?”
“I really don’t want to start down this road.”
“What road?”
Of course he knew perfectly well what road! “Timothy. We’re happy here. Everything is good.”
