“Definitely not.”
“Okay, well, let me know. It’ll be here before we know it,” says Jane. She holds out her hand and says, “Tape?”
“Excuse me?” says Amy.
“Tape. For the floor.”
Amy rolls her eyes at Timothy,hard, but she has the tape in the bag next to her chair. Of course she does! She’s a teacher, and a mom, and a planner. She always has the tape.
“Before we tape up this floor,” says Jane, “I wonder if it could be a little cleaner?”
Timothy thinks,Uh-oh,and looks at Amy.
“That floor is as clean as it gets,” says Amy. “Trust me.”
“Trust her,” agrees Timothy. Things feel precarious; Amy must never, he reminds himself again,everfind out that Timothy is paying her salary.
“Okay,” says Jane. “We’ll work with what we’ve got. Honestly, I’ve seen a lot worse than this for rehearsal space. I think it’s going to be great! We’re, what, six weeks out from opening?”
“Yup,” says Amy. “Six weeks on the nose, but we’ve got the July Fourth holiday coming up so it’s going to be more like five weeks.”
Jane claps her hands together. “Great. I love a challenge like this, especially when the talent is there. And I know the talent is there.” She leans toward Amy and taps the side of her own face suggestively. “Dirt,” she says. “Right there.” Amy lifts her hand to her own face, alarmed, and mimics Jane’s motions. “A little to the left,” says Jane. “That’s it. You’ve got it.”
Amy shoots eye daggers at Timothy.
Once Jane has taped the floor, they wrap up the meeting, and Timothy offers to help Amy get the Shop-Vac into the Wagoneer.
“I’ve got it,” she says.
What, he wonders, has he done to make Amy so irritated with him?
July
Timothy
Gertie comes upstairs when Timothy is bent over his script, making notes for the table read the next day. She stands near him for a moment. He can feel her, and he can smell her—that subtle but distinctive perfume—but he’s determined not to look up. He’s concentrating. Gertie doesn’t move; her presence grows and take shape, and finally he lifts his eyes and says, “May I help you?” Then he says, “What are you wearing, Gerts?” She’s fully decked out in red, white, and blue. White shorts, pristine white sneakers, red sparkly tank top, and, on her head, a blue cowboy hat. “Are you going to a rodeo?”
She laughs. “No. Fourth of July parade. I came to invite you.”
“To a parade? No, thank you.”
“Come on, Timothy! Doesn’t it sound so old-fashioned and small town andAmerican?I love it. People in L.A. are too cool for parades. Sam’s coming too, if that helps.”
“It doesn’t. I need to work.”
“Timothy! Don’t be a party pooper. It’s a holiday.”
He puts down his script and his notes, takes off his reading glasses and regards Gertie. “Did you forget, maybe, that I grew up here? I’ve seen all the Fourth of July parades I need to see, thank you very much.”
“But there might be a fife and a drum!”
“I have no doubt there will be.”
“Or we can go to Ballard’s,” she says. “I heard Ballard’s is the place to be on the Fourth.”
He howls with laughter at that. “Ballard’s on the Fourth of July is like spring break in Daytona onsteroids, Gertie. Trust me, that’s not the scene for you. You would get mobbed. Literally.”
She sits next to him on the couch, a little too close. “Wait a second. I see what’s happening here. You’re nervous about the beginning of rehearsals!”
