“Who areyouto say what’s art and what’s not? You’re—what? The great art judge? The artarbiter?”
“Well, no,” he hedges. “But some things are basic knowledge. Agreed upon.”
“Bywho?”
He falters. He knows he’s right, but he doesn’t have the answer to prove it. “By—people.”
She shakes her head. “Thank you for the offer,” she says. “And for the coffee. But I don’t think I can do anything public right now.”
She gets up, and she walks out of the café, and Timothy doesn’t think it’s exaggerating to say that a little piece of his heart walks out with her. (How, he wonders, will Sam get home?) When Gertie is awake he’s going to have to tell her about Amelia, and they’ll need to make haste contacting casting in New York to see who they can find on no notice.
He sits there for several minutes, paralyzed by the task ahead. Then, as he’s rising from the table, pushing in his chair, Sam comes back in. There’s a slight sheen to her skin. Maybe she’s been searching her soul, or maybe she’s simply been sweating.
“Sam,” he begins. “I didn’t mean to make you think—”
“I’ll do it,” she says. “I’ll do the role.”
“You will?”
“I will.
“What changed?”
“I called my mom.”
“And—?”
Sam shrugs. “It’s a whole thing I don’t need to get into, about taking risks... and...” She looks like she has more to say but she lets her words trail off and says simply, “Moms.”
“Oh,Sam,” says Timothy. He feels a catch at the back of his throat. “I’m so happy. I’m just so—happy.”
Sam rolls her eyes. “Don’t freak out too hard, Uncle Timmy. It’s really not that big of a deal.”
“Of course not,” says Timothy, playing it so very, very cool. “It’s a small deal. What do you say we get on home and check on Gertie, tell her all about this development.”
“Uncle Timmy?” she says, on the way home, as they wind up Spring Street. “I know I said it already, but I really am sorry about the party.”
He clears his throat and says, “Okay. But let’s not have anything like that happen again.”
“Definitely not,” says Sam. After a beat she says, “You sounded like a dad when you said that. Stern and a little bit scary.”
He laughs. “I doubt that.” Then he adds, “I am not cut out to be a father, Sam.” Spring Street turns to Mohegan Trail, and the brush becomes thicker, the houses more obscured.
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t think I have the instincts. For one thing, this party situation. I can’t tell if I’m forgiving you too easily or not easily enough.”
Sam thinks about this. “I think you’re forgiving me just the right amount,” she says. She taps her fingers on the side of the jeep. “And I think you’d make a great father. But maybe uncle is the role you were really born to play.”
He pulls into Floyd’s driveway. He nods slowly and feels a squeezing sensation on his heart. “Maybe it is, Sammy. Maybe it just is.”
Sam
The production has moved from the barn on Corn Neck Road to the stage of the Empire Theatre, where they’ve begun rehearsing scenes as the technicians test the lights and the actors work with their blocking in the new space. Tuesday they’ll begin to run through the whole show, with the actors trying out little bits of their costumes—shoes, swords—that might give them trouble.
As such a late arrival, Sam is permitted to be on book as long as she needs to—her uncle told her this, and Jane, the stage manager, confirmed it—but she feels a strong compulsion to know as many of her lines as possible. So on the last Saturday of July she carries an iced latte (oat milk), her script, her phone, and a towel out onto the deck of the house on Mohegan Trail. It was nuts in town when she got the coffee from Joy Bombs (on days when her mother is not required to be on the island, Sam is allowed to drive the Wagoneer) and, like a proper local, she’s decided that on a weekend at the height of summer, staying at home is the right play.
She moves a lounger into the shade: the cast has been heavily warned against getting any sun in the days leading up to the show—nothing looks worse under stage makeup, says Jane, than a tan or a burn.
