Viola in the Spotlight

by Adriana Trigiani

  “I missed you, too.”

  “I love your hair,” she says, as she turns my shoulders to check out how long it has grown in the back.

  “Viola grew out her feisty bangs.” Andrew looks at me and smiles, as though he couldn’t wait to repeat that phrase, it delights him so.

  “The bangs took, like, nine months. But I’m not the only one.” I point to Andrew’s hair to get him back. I turn to Caitlin. “So tell me absolutely everything, and don’t leave out anything.”

  “There’s so much going on, I don’t even know where to start. I got a summer job.” Caitlin smooths her capris, embroidered with different diamond shapes in shades of blue.

  “A job?” I say it like it’s the worst news since they canceled The O.C.

  “I know. My mom is making me,” Caitlin says.

  Besides being the mother with the most rules, and by the way, she makes up new ones on the fly, now it turns out that Mrs. Pullapilly is also a real slave driver. She doesn’t let Caitlin do anything—she has to sign up in her own home to use the computer, whose screen faces Mrs. Pullapilly’s desk, so zero privacy. And Caitlin can’t IM or text until college. The cell phone she gave Caitlin is one of those cheesy for-emergency-only cell phones, which can dial 911 or Mrs. P’s personal cell phone only. It’s insane.

  “Mom wants me to do something all summer so my brain doesn’t turn to mush,” Caitlin says defensively.

  “So what’s the job?” I ask.

  “I’m going to do all the filing at our dentist’s office. He’s a good friend of our family. Dr. Balu.”

  “His partner, Dr. Desloges, did my braces,” Andrew says.

  I couldn’t wait to break out of boarding school to come home and hang with my friends. Now that I’m here, it turns out the Bozellis and the Pullapillys decided that it was best to keep Andrew and Caitlin so busy, they’d hardly have time for me. I forget that parents in general still make decisions for their teenage kids. My parents made me go to boarding school, and even though I didn’t have a choice in the matter, once I got there, I was on my own. I had an entire school year of making every decision for myself, so it’s pretty weird to come home and find that my friends hardly make any for themselves.

  I had big summer plans for the three of us. Meals included. I wanted to order in sesame noodles and eat them on the roof. We’d take the water taxi to the South Street Seaport, sail a couple of 360s around Manhattan on the Circle Line, and take bike rides in Prospect Park. Dad said he’d drive us to Far Rockaway beach during the week to avoid crowds, and to Coney Island on Saturdays. I was even going to ask my mom to drive us to Jersey to Great Adventure. But now all my plans just blew up like a bald tire on a hot road. Here’s the summer: Andrew decides to temporarily relocate to Maine while Caitlin disappears as an indentured servant at a dental office. And I’m alone.

  “I’ve still got a few weeks before camp starts,” Andrew reasons.

  “I don’t start working until a week from Monday,” Caitlin explains.

  “We’ll just have to cram a lot in,” I tell them. My mind begins to race with possibilities. I’ll have to put my plans on turbo, and fill the days before Andrew and Caitlin disappear into camp and work.

  “Whatever you want to do.” Caitlin shrugs.

  “I want to have dinner tonight on the roof. Cold sesame noodles and Stewart’s root beer and mini mint chip cheesecakes from Junior’s.”

  “Sorry to interrupt you guys,” Mom says, holding the front door open with her foot. “Well, look at this. The old stoop is back to normal.” My mom beams. “And I’m loving it.”

  Even after that long car ride, my mom looks beautiful, or maybe I just missed her so much that she seems lovelier than ever. She has her hair piled on her head with bobby pins. Her rhinestone-studded reading glasses dangle around her neck like crown jewels. Her brown hair is almost red now, fried from the Afghan sun. She is still no fashionista. Her boyfriend jeans are hiked up with a canvas belt that’s lost its grommets from wear. That’s my mom. No frills and she gets the last bit of use out of whatever she has, whether it’s a tube of toothpaste, a jar of peanut butter, or a canvas belt. “The long-awaited reunion.”

  “Yep,” Andrew says, flipping his bangs to the side and off his face.

  “I like that haircut, Andrew,” Mom says.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Chesterton.”

  “I thought we’d cook out tonight in the backyard,” Mom says.

  “Oh man, we were going to order in,” I complain.

  “You can order in anytime. This is a special night. Dad is firing up the old grill. You know what that means….”

  “Red hamburgers and black hot dogs?” I joke.

  “Your father is very proud of his grilling. And I try not to complain when he does the cooking. We don’t want to discourage your father doing chores—ever. Got it?” Mom says. She looks at Andrew and Caitlin. “And of course, you two are welcome to stay.”

  “Thanks,” Caitlin and Andrew say politely. How can they resist a lame cookout?

  “Grand is coming over, and she’s bringing George,” Mom says.

  “Oh, hallelujah. I love that guy. Wait till you meet him, Caitlin. He looks like Cary Grant.”

  Caitlin actually knows who Cary Grant is, not because she’s a film buff but because black-and-white movies are some of the only ones that her mother lets her watch. Mrs. P liked The Philadelphia Story and The Awful Truth. Turns out they actually enjoy Golden Age of Hollywood slapstick in India. Mrs. Pullapilly doesn’t know about the racy black-and-white movies made pre–Hayes Code in 1930s Hollywood, but if she did, I’m sure she’d ban them from Caitlin’s eyeballs.

  “Is George really as handsome as Cary Grant?” Caitlin asks.

  “Swear.” I turn to Andrew. “You remember George—he was in my movie project at Prefect.”

  “Good actor,” Andrew says.

  I look up at my mom, who watches the three of us with a look of total joy on her face. I may have missed her, but she sure missed me—and my friends. “Do you think Grand is going to marry him?”

  “I hope not. I’m too old to be in another wedding party. But you never know. Love is funny that way. It just sneaks up on you.”

  “And then it ruins your life,” Andrew says.

  Mom throws her head back and laughs. “Don’t be bitter, Andrew.”

  “Too late. I have the haircut to prove it,” Andrew says.

  This is one of the things I like best about Andrew. He has already healed from his breakup with Olivia Olson, even though he is the one who initiated the proceedings.

  He’ll never be one of those people who lets emotions pile up and then has to sort through them (like me). Andrew doesn’t hold grudges, nor does he look back and wish things were different. It’s good to have a sensible BFFAA.

  “I could use a couple of potato peelers in the kitchen,” Mom says as she goes.

  “Let’s give your mom a hand,” Caitlin says, always eager to please authority figures.

  I follow Andrew and Caitlin into the house. I can’t believe it, my first day back—and the summer I have imagined and so carefully planned, detail by detail, is not happening! All my dreams of endless summer afternoons on the roof, hanging out and talking and making movies with my friends, have just gone up in a puff of black smoke, as dark and opaque as the ones off my dad’s grill.

  Oh well. Time to regroup. I learned that working with actors on my movie. When you don’t get exactly what you want as the director, roll with it, because if you don’t, the joy goes right out of the process. Stay loose and cool will be my mantra this summer. I can do that. Happily. As long as I’m in Brooklyn, do I really have any problems?

  I may retire my Princess Snark tiara for good. The truth is, I’ve outgrown it. Marisol taught me that the glass half full can really quench your thirst if you let it. And when I analyze the situation and look around at my life, I got what I wanted most: I’m home.

  TWO

  CAITLIN HELPS ME DRAPE THE PRESSE
D RED-AND-WHITE-CHECKED tablecloth over the picnic table. Andrew, who is helping Dad, is trying not to hack too much as Dad sends smoke through the borough while fanning the grill.

  “There we go,” Dad announces. “The briquettes have caught fire.”

  “Adam, remember the ozone layer,” Mom says cheerfully to Dad through the hole in the screen door.

  “I’m more worried about my lungs,” Andrew jokes, trying to find a pocket of clean air to breathe by the olive tree.

  “Stay back then, buddy boy,” my father tells him. “Downwind is a killer.”

  “Hell-loo!” Grand says as she comes down the walkway from our street to the backyard. Her sunhat is so wide, I can barely see George behind her. She waits for him to reach around her to open the gate.

  Grand sashays into the backyard like it’s a theatrical set and she’s making her entrance playing Queen Victoria. She fluffs her full cotton ruffled skirt behind her like a train. “La famiglia!” She extends her arms.

  I rush over to Grand and throw my arms around her. Mom comes out of the kitchen carrying the biggest bowl of potato salad I’ve ever seen.

  “Your signature potato salad. Yum!” Grand says.

  “Thanks, Ma.” Mom kisses Grand on the cheek. “I fussed.” And it’s true. Mom decorated the potato salad with a sunburst made with slices of hard-boiled egg and rays of red paprika.

  Dad waves at them with his tongs through his fog of smoke.

  Grand gives me a box of cupcakes.

  “They’re from Sweetiepie in the Village. Far better bakers than I.”

  George greets my mom as a little dog (!), a King Charles spaniel, nips at his heels.

  Grand leans down and picks up the dog. “Say hello to your first cousin Cleo.”

  “You got a dog?” I can’t believe it. Grand is so not an animal person, and not because she doesn’t like dogs. We come from a family who never has pets because we’re always traveling: Gram with her plays and Mom and Dad with their work. Sure, we get wistful when we see kittens in a rescue crate on the street corner, or new puppies on a leash, but we know our limits. The artist’s life is no place for pets.

  “Mom, you’re forever full of surprises.” Mom reaches down to pet Cleo.

  “Cleo is a gift from my George,” Grand says, practically exploding with love.

  “I adore puppies,” Caitlin sighs. She pets Cleo but looks at George instead. It’s like it’s 1940 and she’s meeting the real Cary Grant.

  “She’s a sweetie,” George says.

  “Well, here’s how it went. The story of Cleo.” Grand removes her sunhat and hangs it on the hook on the grape arbor. “We were on the road. Youngstown, Ohio?”

  “Cincinnati,” George corrects her gently.

  “Right. Right. George said, ‘We need a dog.’ And I said, ‘George, a dog is not a need, a dog is a want.’ And he said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a little companion on the road?’ So, we went to the shelter there, because I saw that puppy mill episode on Oprah and it broke my heart. I will never, as long as I live, get those images out of my mind. I felt compelled to do something. Anyhow. There we are at the pound, and you should have seen the dogs. I wanted to adopt them all. But the lady running the place said, ‘I have the perfect dog for you, the owner died, that’s tragic, but she’s only three and very well behaved.’ Then she brought us to Cleo. And I fell in love and then George fell in love, and here she is.”

  Cleo’s brown eyes are so big and wet, she seems emotionally moved by Grand’s story, even though we know Grand has probably told this story a million times. Cleo had better get used to it. Actresses tell the same stories over and over again. (Occupational hazard from memorizing lines and repeating them, performance after performance, night after night, in city after city.)

  “She’s already brought us luck.” George smiles. His perfect teeth are so white, they are almost blue Hollywood dazzlers. “The best kind of luck.”

  “How so?” Dad brings a platter of his signature summer cookout black hot dogs and red hamburgers to the table. Mom hands George and Grand beer from the ice chest.

  “Oh, George, let me tell,” Grand implores him.

  “The floor is yours, Corrie.”

  Mom shoots me a look. George calls Grand Corrie instead of Coral. The last guy who did that, Grand married. Mom better not retire her teal matron/daughter-of-honor gown just yet. And I’d better start scouring the sales racks at Forever 21 for a discount prom dress that will serve as a granddaughter/junior bridesmaid dress. George and Grand’s love is as gorpy as my mom’s homemade chocolate nut sauce she’s going to pour on the sundaes after dinner.

  “Let’s propose a toast.” Grand holds up the bottle.

  “Mom, are you getting married again?” My mother cuts to the chase. (She told me that’s her new philosophy since she turned forty-five: Just ask.)

  George and Grand laugh.

  “No, no. I’ve found my soul mate. I don’t need a husband.”

  Mom exhales and swigs her beer. Crisis averted!

  “It’s news of work.” Grand looks up at George. “Together. Arsenic and Old Lace is going to Broadway!” Grand actually gets tears in her eyes as she makes the announcement.

  “And we’re keeping our roles. New director—but he loved what he saw in Cleveland, and here we go,” George says.

  “Wow, they’re bringing an old chestnut back to life,” Dad says.

  “Sometimes old chestnuts are the sweetest,” Grand snaps.

  She ought to know. Grand has been in every old play from Machinal to Bell, Book, and Candle. She could make a necklace out of old chestnuts.

  “Congratulations, Mom.” Mom gives Grand a big hug. My mother has spent a lot of her life worried about Grand and her crazy life in the American theater. The life of the actress can be horrible: long stretches of no work, and then long stretches of a lot of work for very little pay. But Grand loves acting, and Mom would rather see her be busy and happy than unemployed and bored, so she has learned to keep her fingers crossed during the in-between times when Grand can’t land a job.

  “Daryl Roth—she’s a great producer—flew out, dressed head to toe in Chanel bouclé, shoes too…,” Grand says.

  “Petite. Blond. Beautiful,” George agrees.

  “You would have noticed that, George,” Grand teases. “Anyhow, Daryl saw the show and said, ‘This is exactly what the doctor ordered. This is what people want to see: a glorious American classic with humor.’ That’s what she told us anyhow.” Grand sits. Cleo jumps up onto the picnic bench next to her. “I mean, how lucky can we be? The right play, the right producer, in the exact right moment.”

  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime confluence of luck,” Dad says.

  “You got that right, Adam,” Grand agrees.

  “They’re bringing in a director from England, Les Longfellow,” George says. “Les needs a summer rental. Let us know if you hear of anything.”

  “Our downstairs apartment is available,” Mom says.

  “What happened to the professor who was living here?” Grand asks.

  “His sabbatical is up. He went back to Wisconsin,” Dad says.

  “Les is in a hotel in midtown, but he doesn’t like it.” George looks at Grand.

  “He’d love it here. Just give him our number.” Mom looks at Dad.

  “Can do.” Grand feeds a bit of black hot dog to Cleo. “Now.” Grand turns to Andrew, Caitlin, and me. “Tell me your summer plans.”

  “I’m working at the dentist’s office,” Caitlin offers.

  “Teeth are important,” Grand says.

  “Like windows on a house. You can’t have a beautiful building with cracked windowpanes and rotting sashes. The same goes for teeth.”

  “I had my teeth sealed when I was eight,” Andrew says.

  “And what are your summer plans?”

  “I’m going to camp in Maine. I don’t like nature, but I think the fresh air might do me some good.” Andrew has black soot around his nostrils from
Dad’s grill.

  Grand turns to me. “How about you?”

  “I got nothin’.” And it hits me. I really do have nothing. Now my summer seems like a long stretch of unplanned days that my mother will fill up with chores like cleaning out closets, or logging footage on the Avid, or my dad with stuff like painting walls and planting the yard.

  “You must have a summer project.”

  Mom sits down next to me on the picnic bench. “Your grand is a great believer in the summer project. I learned knitting one summer, decoupage another. And then there was modern dance in the city and fly-fishing camp in the great north woods of Wisconsin.”

  “I was doing summer stock in Racine. It was convenient,” Grand says. “And look, it all paid off. How many film editors can say they know how to bait a hook?”

  “I’m nothing if not well rounded.” Mom laughs.

  “Exactly right. Summer is the time to master a new skill. Endless days roll out in front of you like a highway; you have to fill that road with scenery.”

  “What could I possibly master?” I think aloud.

  “It will come to you,” Grand reassures me. “Just think about what you want to say, and the form will follow the function.”

  “Viola is already the best filmmaker around,” Andrew says, always in my corner.

  “Thanks, Andrew. I’ll stay gone another nine months, and you can call me Lina Wertmüller.”

  I take a bite of one of my dad’s signature hot dogs, charred to black on the outside and yet still cold on the inside. Dad looks at me for my approval, and I say, “Delish” through the bite, even though this dog is far from tasty. Who cares about the cuisine anyhow? I wouldn’t care if Dad BBQ’d shoes on the grill and served them medium rare. I’m just happy to be home, surrounded by my good friends and nutty family—and then of course, George Dvorsky, who looks like he just might be around for the long haul.

  Mom carries the old Lasko fan into my bedroom. I’m texting Andrew, making plans for Mermaid Day, our favorite event at Coney Island. “I don’t need the fan, Mom. But thanks.”

  “It’s awfully hot in here.”

  “I can stand it. I survived boarding school, remember?”