“You’restill a teenager,” Timothy points out. “You’ve got thechops. And if I do say so myself, you’ve got the pedigree. You’re here! Why don’t you read for it? I know we talked about this, but I have to bring it up again. I just have to.”
“Absolutely not,” says Sam instantly. Her face reddens. “No way.” There are times when Sam doesn’t look a bit like her mother, and times when she looksexactlylike her mother. Genetics are so funny that way. When her face goes red she looks exactly like Amy, but Timothy senses this isn’t the right time to point that out.
“Sam—” he begins. Sam is such a talented actor! And here’s a perfect part for her! How can she not even consider reading for it? But he can tell by the change in her body language—shoulders tucked in, chin pointed slightly away from him—that he can’t push it. He can’t even push it very, very gently.
“Nope,” she says. “There’s no way I’m going onstage this summer. For me to go onstage hell would have to freeze over, andthenpigs would have to fly right through the frozen hell.”
“So... it’s a no?”
“It’s a rock-hard no,” says Sam. Now she looks even more like Amy. When Amy was, oh, seven or eight, and Timothy was a teenager, she had some world-famous fits of stubbornness, over something she wanted and couldn’t have, or had to do and didn’t want to. Their mom used to call her Un-Amiable Amy, which of course made Un-Amiable even angrier. Those were the times Timothy would pop her in the car and drive her past Painted Rock in the dark, sometimes turning off the headlights so she’d squeal with joy and terror.
Gertie snaps her fingers. “There’s one I haven’t looked at yet. I forgot all about it until now. My agent wanted me to take a look at it—it’s a client she just signed, and I thought she might be too young, but now that we’re talking like this I wonder if she’s worth a look.”
“How young?” asks Timothy.
“I have to check. I can’t remember.”
Sam is tapping on the screen of her phone. “Kate Beckinsale was a teenager when she was cast in the movie version. I can’t figure out if she was eighteen or nineteen...”
“Let me run and grab my laptop. We’ll at least take a look.” Gertie rises gracefully from the couch—it’s lower than Timothy’s at home, and he knows when it’s his turn to get up he’s going to be hard-pressed to rise without a grunt and a twinge—and disappears down the stairs that lead to the bedrooms. Timothy moves his computer out of the way, and when Gertie returns she sets hers up in the place where his had been. She retrieves the tape from her inbox and says, “This is Amelia Rees.” She checks the notes that came through with the tape. “She’s an infant. Seventeen.”
Sam says, “Still in high school?”
“She’s—let’s see. She graduated from high school a few weeks ago. She’s about to start her freshman year at Northwestern, for performing arts.”
“Underachiever,” says Sam, rolling her eyes.
“Let’s give her a look,” says Gertie.
They all sit back and watch Amelia Rees do her thing. When she concludes—“Of this matter is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made, that only wounds by heresay”—they let out a collective sigh.
“She’s perfect,” whispers Sam.
“Stunning,” says Timothy.
“She’s got the young-old thing going on,” adds Sam. “Fresh and invigorating, but her voice is mature enough to handle the Shakespeare.”
Gertie smiles and claps her hands. “You guys. We need to get Amelia Rees on the islandyesterday. I think we’ve found our Hero!”
Amy
On the ferry, Amy sees someone waving at her, trying to get her attention. Before she discerns who it is she waves back, then immediately wishes she could rescind the wave. It’s Charlene Daniels, mother of one of Henry’s former classmates. Long ago, during Amy’s all-too-brief maternity leave, they had been part of the same playgroup. Charlene is fine in bite-size doses, but she practices the sport of competitive mothering, and there are fifteen minutes left in the ferry ride, and Amy doesn’t want to make conversation with Charlene for more than two of them.
Amy looks quickly back down at her phone, but Charlene is already threading her way through the seats toward Amy, then she’s taking a seat next to her.
“Hey, stranger!” she says. “What are you doing going out to the Block?”
Amy says, “My brother’s in town.” She hopes that Charlene will take the hint.
Charlene foists upon Amy one of her knowing grins. “Oooohhh.Thebrother?”
“I only have one.”
“Maybe I’ll have to follow you off the ferry, wink wink!” When Amy doesn’t respond, Charlene says, “I heard that Henry iskillingit at Middlebury! He just got some big award? You and Greg must be so proud.”
“We are,” says Amy brightly. “Of course we are.” In fact Henry did just receive one of the philosophy department’s major grants. How does Charlene know this? This is the place where Amy is supposed to ask how Charlene’s son, Logan, is doing, but she finds herself muzzled by an uncharitable refusal to give Charlene what she wants.
No matter; Charlene is going to get to it anyway. “Logan is a year behind Henry, at Boston College. He took that gap year, remember? Did Habitat for Humanity?”
