Sam’s ready to go, but her uncle is deep in conversation with Gertie now, and the stage manager is hovering, clearly waiting her turn to talk to him. Sam finds her mom and asks, “Can I get a ride back to the house?”
“Hmm...?” says Amy distractedly, looking up from Sam’s third-grade notebook. “Sorry, sweetie, I’m heading to the theater. I’ve got to stop in with a question for the set builders, and I may be a while. But I can get you that far? And you could walk the rest.”
“Walk?” Sam is aghast. “That’s like five miles, Mom. I’m wearing platforms.” She indicates her Havaianas.
“Oh, Sam. There’s no way it’s five miles. This whole island has a circumference of seven miles. It’s probably two at the most.”
Sam thinks about it. “It’s got to be closer to four.” She waits,but her mother has gone back to her writing. After a time she says, “I feel abandoned.”
Amy peers at Sam over her readers. “Sorry, honey. Tell your therapist about it one day.”
“Mom!You can’t poke fun at mental illness! You’ll get canceled.”
“I’m not saying you have to be mentally ill to see a therapist. Everyone could benefit from a therapist.”
“Now you’re definitely going to get canceled. You’re talking like it’s okay to need therapy as long as you’re not actually mentally ill.”
“Sam. I’m not saying that.” (She knows that of course her mother isn’t saying that, but she wants to keep her mother’s attention on her. She wants to say,See how easily things get twisted around? Don’t you see?) “Besides,” continues Amy, “I think I’m too old to get canceled.”
Sam chews on a fingernail. “News flash, Mom. You’re never too old to get canceled. Uncle Timmy could get canceled if he did the wrong thing, and he’s like a hundred.”
Amy is no longer even half listening. She’s already on to the next thing on her list, her readers now pushed up on top of her head. The two guys from Island Catering have returned, and just like that the table is gone. The stage manager has given up waiting for Timothy and is making adjustments to the tape on the floor. Timothy is saying something to Gertie that she’s scribbling in the margins of her script.
“You’ll have to wait for your uncle,” Amy says finally, glancing quickly at Sam. “I’ve got six hundred things on my list.”
“Okay,” Sam says. “I’ll wait in the jeep.” She sighs, feeling forsaken as she leaves the barn and slides into the jeep’s passenger seat.
Once when she was living in Xanadu she’d walked, by herself, the thirty blocks and two avenues to the theater whereMockingbirdhad played. There was something else playing, obviously, anew play by a playwright she didn’t know. It was just the time when the matinees were letting out, and there was a small hopeful clump of people by the stage door, waiting for it to open. She’d almost pushed herself right into the center of the clump and asked,Who are you waiting for? What did you love about them?
Tell me, she’d wanted to say to these people.Tell me—tell everything.
But her phone was buzzing, and Tink had called a house meeting she had to get back for, and there was content, content, content. She never found out who they were waiting for, or why.
Sam slips off her flip-flops and puts her feet on the jeep’s dash, examining a freckle on her left knee. If it’s not regret, what is she feeling after the read-through? Amelia Rees is going to make a fabulous Hero—better than Sam would have been. She doesn’t regret not reading for the part. She didn’t want the part! She pokes around at the sensation to see if she can identify it; she hadn’t quite been able to earlier. She watches the actors filter out of the barn, blinking into the sun. The last person to emerge is her uncle, who waves and smiles at her as he starts toward the driver’s seat, looking genuinely happy to see his niece.
She’s got it—yes. She’s identified the feeling. It’s a tug of nostalgia, like a tiny pain.
Amy
The Friday of the first week of rehearsals, Amy stands at the back of the rehearsal barn, watching the actors do their thing. They are rehearsing act 2, scene 2, where Don John and Borachio hatch their villainous plot. Timothy is sitting in a folding chair in front of the makeshift stage, reading glasses on, pen in hand, notebook on lap. Amy can tell from the particular angle of his chin that he’s concentrating very hard. She rarely (never) gets to see Timothy like this—immersed in his work, no pretense or preening or pride, no audience. He’s just a guy doing something he’s good at, sitting among a bunch of people who are also good at what they do, and they’re saying the words of a long-dead man that are somehow mostly still timeless and meaningful.
Next to Amy appears Marta, the once-a-week intern. Amy jumps. Marta is stealthy. She’s holding a stack of envelopes, and she fans them toward Amy. Amy is grateful for the little bit of breeze the envelopes provide; it’s hot in the barn; the giant fans are working as hard as they can but they simply can’t keep up. (Jane, the stage manager, was right: they could have done with one more. Amy isn’t going to come right out and admit it, not out loud, but she has an additional fan on order.)
“Paychecks,” says Marta. Marta is one of Amy’s former studentsat the high school, recently graduated, off to Trinity College in Hartford in the fall to study anthropology with a minor in theater.
“Ooooh. You got one in there for me?” Timothy had given Amy her first paycheck because rehearsals hadn’t yet started. Amy and Jane have been on payroll longer than the actors, since their jobs began in June.
“Let me look, Ms. Trevino.”
“You can call me Amy, Marta. You graduated! You’re not my student any longer.”
Marta looks at her severely. “I could never do that,” she says. “You’ll always be Ms. Trevino to me.” She flips through the envelopes, frowning, then flips through again. “Hmm,” she says. “I don’t see one for you. That’s funny. Do you want me to check with someone?”
“I’ll do it,” Amy says. “I’ll check with Timothy. Probably an oversight.”
“How’s Sam doing?” asks Marta. “I heard she’s back from New York, but I haven’t seen her.”
“Fine,” says Amy. “Good! She’s good.” She looks carefully at Marta. What does Marta know?
