She has the house to herself. She doesn’t know where her uncleand Gertie are. Timothy might have gone to the theater; Gertie might be off on her moped.
She’s looking through scene 4 of act 3, when Hero, in the company of Margaret and Beatrice, is dressing for her wedding. Sam has already memorized most of Hero’s longer lines in other scenes, and many of the lines in this scene belong to Beatrice and Margaret, with Hero offering only interjections here and there, but she knows that sometimes these are the easiest lines to trip over: the small ones, when an actor can get caught up watching the other actors in the scene and forget to speak. She wonders if Gertie might be back soon. Maybe they can run through the scene together so Sam can check this one off her list and move on.
She texts Gertie to see when she might be home and to ask her if she’s interested in running lines. No answer. Sam sighs and flips her phone facedown on her towel. The sun has shifted direction and no matter how she holds the script or adjusts the angle of her head or her sunglasses she can’t seem to escape it.
When a rivulet of sweat begins to make its way down the side of her body she declares to no one, “That’s it!” She stands and collects her things, opens the slider, shuffles her way into the living room—the shuffling is necessary because of the awkward way she’s got everything balanced against her body—and dumps towel, water bottle, et al. onto a kitchen stool.
Now what? She digs her phone out of the pile. No answer from Gertie. She opens the refrigerator. She’s not really hungry, she’s just bored, and it’s a good thing too, because nobody in the house has done a real grocery shop in quite some time. There’s a block of cheddar, and a bottle of white wine, and a pint of blueberries that look as though their heyday was so far in the past as to be no longer visible in the rearview. It’s drearier even than the kitchen at Xanadu used to get—and that could get dreary indeed—because at least in New York they could order delivery of virtually anything anytime, day or night.
“We need a mother in this house,” she says out loud and then, almost as if in answer, a peal of female laughter floats up the stairs from the bedroom level. Is Gertie home, and ignoring her text? Or is Uncle Timmy... not at the theater after all, butentertaining?She shudders at the thought. Before she has time to take any preventative action, such as vacating the living room, or hiding in the empty refrigerator, she hears one of the bedroom doors open, and the laugh travels up the stairs, followed by an unmistakable male tread.
“Oh!” says Sam. “Oh.” Suddenly understanding. Because the laugh belongs to Gertie, who’s walking up the stairs in a robe, which she is hastily tying, and the male tread belongs to Uncle Timmy, who is—thankGod—fully dressed, in shorts and a T-shirt, yet somehow still conveying an air of having recently been engaged in behavior that is, if not precisely illicit, then at the very least scandalous and surprising. “Oh,” says Sam again. “I didn’t know you were home. I didn’t see the jeep.”
“Had to lend it to Jane to pick up a few things with the props department,” says Timothy.
“Sam!” says Gertie. She arranges her face in an expression of innocence that, despite Gertie’s acting pedigree, Sam can see right through. “We were just...”
“Please don’t sayrunning lines,” says Sam, rolling her eyes. “I’m an adult. I know better.”
“Who wants a glass of lemonade?” Uncle Timmy asks, as if there’s nothing at all to explain.
“I’d love one!” says Gertie, too quickly. She sits down on the couch and tucks her legs up elegantly underneath her.
“I don’t think we have lemonade,” says Sam. “Just wine.”
“Well, then. I’ll go get us some. Mind if I take the Wagoneer?”
“Of course I don’t mind. Keys are in it.”
“BRB, as the kids say.”
“I don’t think the kids say that,” says Sam. But it’s too late; her uncle is gone, leaving Sam to turn her attention to Gertie. “Are you two back together?”
A faint blush creeps across Gertie’s ivory cheeks. “I’m sorry I missed your text. I’d love to run lines with you. And no, we’re not back together. We’re just... having a little bit of fun. You know.”
Sam feels her eyes go wide. “Having? As in present tense?”
Gertie clears her throat. “As opposed to future?”
“As opposed topast! Has this been going on for a while?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Gertie loosens her famous hair from her casual bun, and it cascades around her shoulders (the shorter layers) and down her back (the longer). “Since, maybe, early July?”
“Early July? It’s almost August! That’s practically a month.”
Gertie puts a hand on Sam’s forearm. “Does it bother you? I’m sorry, Sammy. We should have been more discreet. I thought wewerebeing discreet. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, send you running back to Narragansett.”
“I’m not uncomfortable. And I’mdefinitelynot running back to Narragansett. I’m just—it’s just—maybe youaregetting back together. That would be great.”
“Oh, Sam. Don’t look so hopeful, darling. This isn’tThe Parent Trap.This is just life.”
“But I wish you guys were still together.” She feels a tug of nostalgia for her time in L.A.
Gertie nods. “Sometimes I do too. But I can’t hold down someone who doesn’t want to be held down. That wasn’t healthy for either of us, when I tried it before.”
“I think he’s changed.”
Gertie seems to really consider this before she answers. “I spent a long time trying to make your uncle change, and, failing that, waiting to see if he might change on his own. But the truth is, Sam, people don’t change. We are who we are.”
